#and even then human could get goo senses

[nelkcats]

Dad War

Danny Fenton became a father and he's not panicking at all (this is a lie)

Danny should have known that asking for an uneventful week was an exaggeration. He tempted fate by saying that "nothing bad could happen now that ghosts and humans lived in peace with each other"

Of course, it was right after saying that sentence that his daughter cousin appeared in front of him with her arm melted. Having gotten used to that particular scenario he steered her into his ecto-dejecto reserves, both of them panicked when this didn't solve anything.

With no more options, Danny took her to Far Frozen, surely the Yeti would have a better idea of what was happening to the girl.

Frostbite examined Ellie just like the first time but instead of scowling like Danny had expected he looked extremely pleased, almost satisfied.

"The time has finally come" Frostbite told him happily "you must let it happen, Great One"

"Do I have to let Ellie melt down!?" Danny yelled in concern, he never thought the Yeti had a sadistic streak in him. Ellie looked just as shaken by the information.

"Not like you're thinking" The Yeti noticed his mistake and decided to explain himself "she's not melting, she's stabilizing"

"If I'm stabilizing, why is my arm goo?" Ellie groaned, the sensation of melting never failed to be strange.

"That explanation is much simpler" Frostbite smiled "how old are you, little Phantom?"

"Uh" Ellie tried to assign herself an age, she aged much slower than the other halfas "16?"

"You didn't understand the question, I didn't mean how you look" Frostbite denied affectionately "how old do you consider yourself?"

“…5” Ellie muttered in embarrassment, even if her age was a bit older than that number, she felt much younger, like a child. She didn't count her early years, between Vlad and traveling the world she hadn't begun to think about it.

Even with all the knowledge stored in her head, she wanted to experience a childhood like other children, to make friends. Something that her adolescent appearance did not allow. As much as Ellie loved talking to Val, she was one of her only friends and unlike her, Val had a whole life to live.

"There is your explanation" The yeti pointed out "ghosts take the appearance of how they see themselves, your core takes into account your wishes and therefore you are reforming into a child"

Danny remembered when he first shifted into his ghost form and Frostbite explanation made sense, but his head reminded him of a very important detail.

"Wouldn't that be troublesome? A lot of people in Amity know you as my cousin” Danny pointed out worriedly. The secret of the halfas was still closely guarded.

"Well, there is a way to leave her appearance the same as it currently is, but that's up to her" Frostbite looked at the girl waiting for an answer.

"No" Ellie denied "I want it to happen, I also...I also want to have a childhood, like the others"

Ellie had always felt bitter about being the only halfa exploring the concept of death more than life; unlike Vlad and Danny who had lived fairly normal lives before their respective accidents, she had been robbed of the possibility.

She wanted to live too.

"It's settled then," Frostbite nodded "Now, this is just getting started and someone has to look after your core while you reform. Do you have any candidates in mind?"

"Danny, can you?" Ellie asked, taking the sleeve of his suit, she wouldn't have considered asking anyone else. Even if she didn't admit it, Ellie always saw him as her father.

"You don't even have to ask, I'll be here when you get back" Danny ruffled her hair with a smile.

"Thank you, dad" Ellie closed her eyes as she let herself be carried away by the sensation of her core. It was a little strange that what she thought would kill her was fulfilling her dreams.

Before the halfa could reply to the comment, Ellie melted, and the ectoplasm was quickly absorbed into her core.

Danny looked at the green stone in his hands with concern.

"How long do you think it will take her?" he asked the Yeti.

"A couple of hours" Frostbite sat down next to him "it's hard being a new parent isn't it? I still remember when my children were born"

Danny avoided mentioning that he had no idea about his children. He wondered if he had them in life or death.

"I- Ellie is my cousin," Danny tried to tell him, but his argument sounded weak.

"She doesn't seem to see you as such" The Yeti shrugged as he handed the boy a cup of tea, but the halfa refused to take it as long as he held the stone in his hands.

Frostbite snorted while setting the mug aside, a new parent, in fact.

"Uh, looks like it's time for me to leave my parents house, don't you think?" Danny tried to joke, even Jazz had her own house in another place.

He had temporarily tried it when he was balancing his college life with his spooky duties, living with Sam and Tucker was fun but in the end he came home.

"It seems so" The Yeti shrugged "congratulations, it's a girl"

Danny laughed as he held the stone closer to his chest. He had really become a father, hadn't he?

His core purred at the thought, while an invisible thread connected the two half-ghosts.

Being a parent didn't sound bad. Maybe it wasn't even as hard as people made it out to be.

───────────────

Danny regrets that last thought, he regrets it so much.

He just had to think that, didn't he?

As usual, he called Jazz to inform her of the day's events as he held the stone to his chest (Frostbite had told him it was safe to do so).

Jazz didn't seem too surprised by the news, on the contrary, she started recommending him books on parenting, so many books.

Danny tried to tell her that Ellie probably wouldn't be a difficult child, he got a 30-minute lecture on how she'd probably regress to the mental age of 5 or 6, and therefore he had to be prepared for it.

Deciding to listen to his older sister, Danny googled for advice.

Checking on wikihow how to take care of a child didn't work, Danny could attest to that.

The halfa sighed as he looked at the "I'll bring you some books tomorrow" message that Jazz had send him. Did he really have to read?

It couldn't be that hard, right? His parents took care of Jazz and she ended well!

Danny was ignoring Sam's voice in his head saying that "Jazz is the spiders georg of children and should not be counted"

Of course, Danny was also avoiding to look at the fact that his parents also took care of him and he kinda died. Ellie was already half dead so he couldn't fucked up that part.

He put his phone aside as he stared at the stone on his chest. It had been hours, was Ellie okay? Perhaps something had gone wrong?

He frowned wondering if he should call Frostbite when he noticed the glowing core. Before he knew it he had a 5-year-old girl crushing his stomach.

"Ouch," Danny groaned in pain "fatherhood hurts"

"Daddy! Daddy!" Ellie jumped on his stomach, she didn't seem to notice the change in title "Look! Look! Do you like my new look?"

Realizing that Jazz was right, Danny pretended to think for a few minutes, Ellie looked bummed out at his lack of response.

"Of course I love it!" Danny scooped her up into his arms as she giggled "you look perfect!"

Ellie chuckled as she ran off to Danny's room where she had kept his phone before the whole mess.

"I'll be back soon! I have to tell Val!" The girl ran off, probably forgetting that she could go through the ceiling and get to the room faster.

Danny gave her a thumbs up, as soon as Ellie disappeared down the stairs he lay back on the couch rubbing his stomach. His daughter had strength.

"We're definitely moving" he muttered, closing his eyes. Not in a million years would a girl with that much energy go unnoticed.

Danny checked his phone again and saw messages from Sam and Tucker. The halfa pouted, Jazz was a gossip.

───────────────

"Are you sure you have everything?" Tucker asked, checking a list on his PDA. No matter how many years passed, he still loved his technology and refused to throw it away.

"Definitely sure" Danny yawned as he loaded the boxes onto the GAV. Ellie was asleep in the passenger seat.

"Papers?" Tucker checked the list.

"Legal and illegal" Danny held up a folder "Thanks for that, by the way"

"You're welcome man" Tucker shrugged. He had created Ellie's papers a while back, but they had never been needed. Adapting the age was a surprise.

"Food? Money? Clothes?" Tucker recited the list, to Danny's nod he continued, "materials to put together the new portal?"

"Ready" Danny pointed to the box that said "danger", there were also the ectoplasm samples.

"I still think that's a stupid idea" Sam rolled her eyes "that thing killed you"

"Yes, but we need ectoplasm on a regular basis and well, building one was the easiest way to get it" the halfa shrugged. It still made him shudder to think about the accident but the portal was necessary "Besides, portals don't measure distance in the Realms, I can build one that's only a few feet from home"

Also, having Far Frozen close to them was always an advantage and the ghosts had promised not to invade the new town without his permission. He still couldn't believe he was moving to New Jersey.

"That's the only reason I'm letting you get away with it," Jazz snorted as she bent down to kiss her brother's forehead "Remember, we're just a phone call away"

"I know, I know, you don't need to move out as well" Danny shook his head amused, he felt that if he didn't stop them they would really try to " I never thought I would have to move"

"It's been so long since the accident" Sam remembered as she placed a hand on her hip "even though it seems like yesterday"

"It feels like it happened yesterday" Danny admitted while touching the scar on his hand. The memories of the electrocution were still fresh in his mind.

"By the way dude, are you sure to leave Vlad as her biological father?" Tucker winced at the document, he could see the reason but he didn't like it.

"Of course, that idiot must pay me child support" Danny smiled "eat the rich and all that"

Having an excuse to spend Vlad's money was always fun. And if his stupid biological sex could help that, he would use it. Danny was honestly relieved that his legal documents had been changed. He wondered if Vlad knew the real reason why he was never able to create a male clone.

"You could just ask us for money" Sam patted his shoulder "Tucker and I could support your poor ass"

Both had been very successful in their respective fields. Sam had graduated in law and was getting another degree as an Environment Protection Technician, she had changed a lot in a short time. On the other side, Tucker had created his own Technology & Security company, he was currently negotiating a deal with Wayne Enterprises.

Danny had a feeling that his friend wanted to use him to close a deal and had suggested the city as an option for that reason. Bludhaven wasn't far from Gotham after all.

"Just because I'm unemployed doesn't mean I'm poor" Danny pouted "I'll get a job in the new town before you know it"

"I hope so, your savings aren't going to stretch that long" Jazz sighed. Her brother's lack of planning never ceased to be worrisome "Oh, and don't forget to take off your blinder, you need to breathe"

Danny frowned at the comment but nodded. His ghost form was more comfortable because it suited his chosen gender, he wondered if he could change the human as well.

"Okay, I guess that's it" Tucker put the PDA away  "remember not to drive like either of your parents, we don't want you to get a ticket so quickly"

"Nor that the weather news announces when you're going out" Sam smirked, she remembered when Lance Thunder started announcing when Jazz and Danny were learning to drive.

"That's impossible, you know I'm an excellent driver and therefore I'm not going to get a ticker" Danny stuck out his tongue at his best friend.

"Whatever you say Danny" Sam snorted "call us when you get there, and have a safe trip!"

His friends and sister said goodbye to him as he got on the GAV. He started driving away from home. It wasn't long before he passed the "Welcome to Amity Park" sign. The little ghost drawings around it made him smile.

Still, Danny was offended by the skepticism of his friends, he was sure that he was not going to get a ticket anytime soon.

───────────────

An officer was giving him a ticket.

Danny banged his head against the steering wheel of the vehicle as the police officer asked him the routine questions.

"Does this vehicle have a license?" The officer raised an eyebrow. Danny sighed as he handed over the GAV papers, he had licensed all of his parents' inventions long ago "Okay- wait, is this a SUV?"

"No, it's a GAV" Danny growled without further explanation, he was still annoyed by the situation. Clockwork was laughing at him from his damned tower, he was sure "Do you need anything else, officer...Grayson?"

Officer Grayson looked at the vehicle with doubt, the damn thing had more modifications than the Batmobile, he really hoped the boy wasn't some future villain.

He had so many questions to ask.

Before Dick could question him further or Danny risked murder on his first day in town, Ellie woke up from her nap.

"Daddy?" Ellie yawned looking at the driver's seat curiously "Are we there yet?"

All the halfa's anger melted away and his attitude took a complete turn.

"No honey, we got pulled over for speeding but we're in town now" Danny leaned down to brush her hair out of her face "you can go back to sleep"

"You're a bad driver" his daughter smirked, she wondered if driving skills were hereditary.

"Are you new in town?" Dick leaned in curiously, the girl reminded him of his own daughter.

Danny was about to tell him it was none of his business but Ellie answered first.

"¡Yes! We're moving" Ellie smiled "That's why we brought all the boxes, I'm going to enroll in a new school and dad is going to get a job"

"That sounds wonderful" Dick smiled softly as he handed Danny the ticket along with the GAV's papers "You should be more careful on the streets, I don't think there is anywhere that accepts 120 km/hr as a normal speed"

The halfa frowned, didn't the officer have a heart!? At least he could forgive a new neighbor for a silly mistake!

"Yeah, yeah, thanks" he murmured as he put the ticket in the glove compartment.

"Well, all seems to be in order" Dick straightened up "you can follow your way, enjoy Bludhaven!"

Danny hoped that he would never see him again.

When he arrived at his new house, the halfa carried Ellie to the couch and let her sleep, after which he began to unload the things from the GAV.

He wondered if he should start unpacking everything or just sleep. He felt tired at the thought of opening all those boxes and fell asleep on the couch with his daughter.

When he woke up it was night, Danny peeked out of the window as he heard a motorcycle park next door. Perhaps he could see his neighbors?

He gaped at the sight of fucking Officer Grayson reaching down to grab a little girl and carry her into his arms.

Wasn't it enough to be physically perfect and heartless, but he also had to be a good father? Damn everything!

It had to be a fucking joke

X

#dpxdc #dp x dc fic #long fic #death defying #dad danny fenton #de aged Dani #This is like a comedy show #dc x dp #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #Dick is divorced #Dick is a police officer #They will become rivals eventually #mar'i grayson #danielle phantom #How to be a good father without knowing how to become a father at all #they are competitive #Danny thinks Dick is perfect #he is so gay #even though he says it's annoying

[darylsfavoritegirl]

Can you do a Daryl fic where you fuck and then he says he’s not into labels :( and it makes u sad and comfort

I love this idea !!! lesss goo

A/N: Sorry if these are taking longer than you thought!! im putting myself all in between the breaks i manage to get from school lol. I liked this personally, not sure if i managed to put out a good "comfort" though but there you go anon!

Your eyes flickered at Daryl's scars covering his entire back alongside of his tattoos that looked very much like to having been done by an amateur. You had been wondering their story for a long time now, yet never had the courage to question him vulgarly.

You moved your legs restlessly under the thin sheets, feeling his seeds sticking to your thighs and dripping onto the bed.

He was never at ease with such things. From the very beginning of your "relationship" that is, just warming eachother's bed on these aggravating days of the apocalpyse, where former human beings becoming foes to the geniune humanity. Hence, you always had to wait for him to leave first. There'd be nights so lewd, so scarlet that he'd feel adequate enough to let his guard down now and then. He'd fall next to you on the bed. He'd try to maintain his heaving chest as he'd cover up his downer body with sheets and would just lie down, your bodies so close to eachother, so warm that you'd feel sheltered against his bare skin. And then, he'd bend down to grab his denim jeans and take out the pack of cigarattes you'd looted from a walker's jackets earlier.

At times, there'd be enough to last you a week but at other times there'd be so little amount that you would share one. He would pass a cigaratte to you that he had taken a long drag of. You'd draw the cigaratte to your lips, savoring the tip of the cigaratte he'd moistened with his lips.

But on this specific night, both of you were high on joints. These thoughts entangled your mind as your attention shifted on the flexing muscles on his back while he put on a t-shirt.

You spoke your mind, without giving it a second thought nor being aware of his upcoming run with Glenn and Rick tomorrow early in the morning.

"Why don't you sleep here?" You uttered low, tracing your knuckles across the downy sheet incase he'd turn to face you, you couldn't dare.

"Why, are ya need in company?" He grunted in a headlessness manner as if to drop a joke. You despised how he practically didn't pay any attention to it.

You felt blood rushing to your face. The humid already made it unendurable to stay under the sheet and now this. You took deep, instable breaths.

"No." Your voice was unexpectedly trembling slightly. You shook your head as you scoffed. Now, he was facing you.

"It's just..." You were already in remorse, wishing you hadn't even started this conversation in the first place. You bit the inside of your cheek as you cracked your knuckles out of apprehension.

You felt his piercing gaze sticking upon your forehead, yet you rejected to meet with his gaze until you found something to say that didn't make you look, perhaps, desperate.

"It just gets lonely in this side of the prison." You uttered, finally lifting your head to see him buckling his jeans. You had expressed this countless times in conversations with a different context. Rick had decided to put you in a cellblock away from the others when you first joined them and he didn't change his decision ever since.

"Gon' ask me ta snuggle, too?" He quipped, a subtle sly smirk played on the corner of his lips. He tapped on his pockets as he scanned the small cell for his belongings that he might've dropped.

A sense of indignity overwhelmed you, leaving you feeling overstimulated. You couldn't grumble. He wasn't a boyfriend that owed you courtesy after screwing your brains out. He wasn't someone like that after all. Nonetheless, you loathed at the thought of a huge difference between men and women. How insensitive they could be, how insensitive he could be.

You were very well aware of your relationship, you'd both made it clear to not turn this into anything it wasn't. However, you couldn't resist the longing yearning in your heart.

"Jerk." You simply said as you turned your back to him. You placed your hands under the pillow, resting your head on it. All those thoughts, yet "jerk" was the only thing you made it through your lips. You locked your eyes on the shabby wall, slowly breathing as all you were hearing was his movements behind you. He was so dazed that he couldn't comprehend you nor your course of actions.

"Got'a get sum' shit done in the mornin'." He spoke to himself as he was wearing his leather boots.

"Ya know, with Glenn n' Rick." He added followed by his grunts as he leaned forward to tie his bootlaces.

"The sun shines on this side of the prison, too. You know?" You uttered quietly. Your tone must've caugh his attention as he stopped tying his laces and leaned back on the chair bit by bit. He sighed as he rested his hands on his knees.

"What the hell 's dis all 'bout?" He spoke low with an irritated tone. He scowled at not getting an answer from you.

You wrapped your hands around you, staring at him with softly quaking brows. He stood there with a clenched jaw, eyeing you with squinted eyes.

"Now ya dun' talk?" He spat, chewing his bottom lip as he grabbed his jacket on the bedside table.

"Ya damn well kno' how ta kill a good night." He scoffed derisively, hearing a exasperated sigh from you.

He turned his head to you, giving you a spine-chilling glare.

"Don't ya?" His voice grew taller as you observed the vein throbbing on his neck.

"Keep it down." You exclaimed, shifting your position on the bed in a rush. The bed sank under the weight of your knees as you incompetently tried to cover yourself with the sheets.

His eyes flicked through your bare body for a brief moment as he forced himself to look you in the eyes. You felt subjected to his deviant gaze, a sense of shame flooding your every cell.

"Nah." He firmly uttered.

"Rick threw ya in dis cellblock for a reason." His tone above a whisper.

" 'Cuz ya stir up sum' drama."

"All the damn time."

"Dun' miss a chance, like clockwork."

He locked his eyes on yours. Dark shadows roaming his face. Your face got hot as you had to wait to process his words, what they could've meant.

"Those joints have caused you a mental block." You hissed, not understanding even a bit why he would've say something like that.

"Fuck off." You shrugged your shoulders as you threw your body on the bed, leering at the ceiling.

"It ain't tha'." He uttered, you could sense him leaning against the wall.

"Then what? All this because I asked you to sleep with me?" Your hands met over your chest, crossed. You could hear his shallow breaths, contemplating the best thing to say. You knew he'd fail. A moment passed as neither of you spoke. He took a deep breath

" 'S cuz ya wanna go for childish fantasies." He grunted.

"Like 's sum' kinda game." He spoke, one could sense the palpable thickness of weariness in his voice. It was like he had questioned it a thousand time before you even brought it up. His heavy words lingered in the air, unraveling all the things he never even told you. You could sense it.

"It isn't." You abruptly begged. You needed him to know that you understood his way of seeings things, his way of seeing you. You knew you shouldn't corner him. You didn't.

"Forget it." He huffed with exhaustion as he left the cell.

"Night." You mumbled, knowing he didn't even hear you. You didn't even bother to get up and grab your clothes lying on the floor as you were nothing but flabbergasted. Your eyes were glued to the ceiling, hearing the cicadas singing outside of the prison.

A tear rolled down to your temple and your hand shifted to the side of your face reflexively. You sniffed your nose and shook your head in apace. You got up slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed fully naked. You sticked your eyes to the wall infront of you, fearsome of even uttering a word to yourself in this godforsaken cellblock.

You reached your hand to the panties he threw to the floor as all you could hear was muffled conversations from people on watch. You exhaled, the futile argument which broke out of nonsense didn't support your brain to not grow more lethargic thanks to the joints.

The world around you started to spin, leaving you out of kilter as you had to screw your eyes shut. You wore your bra and as you were done with clasping it, you drank what felt like a gallon of water.

You topped it with a dirty t-shirt and left your body uncovered to the humid of the south on your bed.

What did he think? That you were gonna be just fine with just fucking. How long before you started to feel things, that you wanted more.

You blamed yourself, too soon you thought. Maybe it wasn't. There was no way to know.

You woke up to the sun breaking through your eyelids. You fell asleep to overthinking hence the penetrating headache. You swallowed dryily as you tossed your body to the water bottle next to you and gulped it down agressively to a point where it dripped down your neck to the floor.

You spent your day within the fences of the prison casually, helping people run errands and talking about the run three of the solid men in your group went.

You were in the hall where you kept your food in, cleaning your pistol and weapons so that they're more handy. You furrowed due to your focus on the weapons when you heard a few sighs out of relief drawing near to the hall.

You lifted your head, awating to see who it was with your growing curiousity. Your face loosened at the sight of Daryl and lowered it to your weapons once again, exhaling subtly.

He put his crossbow and poncho on the table, fixating his eyes at you. You wrinkled your forehead, trying to ignore his existence but you were only growing to be distracted even more, with him standing there and observing you.

You suddenly lifted your gaze, exhaling exasperatedly with your hands sagging between your knees. Dirty rags and utensils accumulating a thick layer of dirt on your hands.

You squeezed your eyes shut for a second, sighing dramatically.

"...What?" You huffed, wishing nothing but to be left alone.

" 'M sorry." He muttered under his breath, making it impossible to be heard.

"You're what?" You let out a frustrated growl with his fancy words.

" 'Bout last night." He shrugged his shoulders indifferently, concealing every bit of an emotion peeking on the way.

"What about it?" You forced a downward smirk, trying to seem cool.

"C'mon." He simply said, looking rather bewildered with you. He looked as if he didn't know where to put his hands or what to do with his body.

"Your fine." You huffed, focusing on the weapons.

"I's bein' a dick 's all." He begged, taking a step towards you.

"Yeah you were." You scoffed tauntingly, not looking at his direction. You observed his boots and exhausted steps drawing towards you as you maintained your focus on the dirty rag in your hand.

"Ya kno' I'ma set things right." He was so near you that you had to raise your head to look at him. You were sitting on the frontstep of smaller cellar in the hall, he looked down at you. Your eyes filled with a flamey look as he stayed put.

"Per usual." You forced a sham smile, wishing he'd sense the sarcasm in your tone.

Seeing that he wasn't getting out of the way, you instantly got up as you rolled your eyes. You leered at him.

"Will you please get out of my way?" You hissed, maintaining a stern eye contact like a rock.

He remained silent without blinking.

"Dun' do dis." He mumbled.

You felt heat rising to your head, slowly gritting your teeth.

"So now it's my fault?" You barked between your heaving chest. You digged your nails into your palm, your face getting redder each second.

He remained silent once again as he placed his burly left hand to your waist, burying his forehead on your shoulder. As you were at the brink of pushing his body, hands softly grabbing him by the shoulders.

"A herd nearly took us out today." He breathed against your skin.

Your hand fell loose down his body as your eyes widened and you let out a soft sigh. His hair tickled under your chin as you felt him breathing shallowly against your skin. Your eyes fixated on the entrance gate as you didn't know what to say or do.

You felt your eyes twitching along with your bottom lip as his hot breaths send shivers down your spine, your body flooding with goosebumps.

"Almost got Rick." He added after a few second that felt like a decade.

"I'm sorry. I- I-" You made it out through a shaky voice as he lifted his head, his hand still gripping your waist.

"Ain't yer fault." He slowly ambled toward the table where he left his crossbow on.

"Jus' made me get mah head al' together." He spoke as if there was no one in the hall. He slunged his crossbow on his body and rubbed his face as he let out a frustrated sigh.

"There ain't no reason ta be a damn douchebag." He added, eyeballing you as he placed his hands on his hips.

You were left with thousands of feelings, thoughts lining in your head leaving you stay put like a statue with no form of life whatsoever. Your brows were raised, lip bottom still trembling yet you managed a hold on it. He threw his poncho on his shoulder as he got close to the hall gate.

"Come to my cell tonight." You insisted with soulful, intense eyes right before he left.

You saw him nodding his head discreetly as he chewed on his bottom lip.

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon one shot #daryl fanfiction #the walking dead #the walking dead daryl #the walking dead fanfiction #twd daryl #twd imagine #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon walking dead #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon the walking dead #daryl dixon angst #daryl dixon drabbles #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon headcanon #daryl dixon blurb #daryl dixon gif #the walking dead fandom #the walking dead fic

[wyldeking]

I've rewatched the Owl House dozens of times now and my favorite scene (excluding season 3 because that shit is magical, pun intended,) is Hunter and Amity's fight at Eclipse Lake.

Earlier in the episode, Amity and Hunter have a chat where Hunter proclaims that they both have a lot at stake, unlike Eda and King. She attempts to argue but is interrupted by the sound of her Tamagotchi-Text thing, as Luz sends a text that Amity misinterprets as Luz threatening her with leaving if she doesn't return with the Titan Blood. Hunter almost directly after takes off and gets a massive head start to Eclipse Lake.

While Eda deals with the scouts and Kikimora, Amity chases after Hunter with King by her side. She enters the room to have this exchange with Hunter.

"Don't worry. I won't pick a fight. There's no Titan Blood."

"Then why are you digging?"

"Oh, it's simple really. Belos needs Titan Blood to make a new portal key. Can't get to the human realm without it."

"There's blood in the key?"

*Amity tightens her grip around the portal key.*

"Since I failed my last mission, I thought, 'Hey, a chance to make up for it.' But I can't go back empty-handed. Not again."

Hunter is noticeably hysterical, laughing between almost every sentence he speaks.

"Long story short, this is my grave. Want me to make you one too?"

"This is really bumming me out." King says simply.

"That's just life, rat. Everyone has a use, and if you don't pbtpbt bye-bye! Your friend gets it."

With the help of King, Amity finally learns how to interpret the text. Luz had never even thought of leaving her awesome girlfriend. Almost immediately after realizing, she becomes almost as bright and sunny as Luz is. With a burst of inspiration, she decides to give Hunter the best message she could think of.

"I grew up thinking that everything was an opportunity to justify existing, but there are people out there make you feel worthless. You just have to let yourself meet them."

She offers her hand, but unfortunately, Hunter notices the key sticking out of her coat, and a battle ensues. Hunter is sweating and incredibly anxious, which shows with the way he fights. Hunter keeps dashing around, making magical sparks fly everywhere. Meanwhile Amity is holding a poker face as she almost effortlessly dodges and blocks every one of his attacks. Every attack that she throws out has a very obviously calculated plan attached.

Hunter eventually tears the key away from Amity and they end up cornering each other. Despite that, Amity still very clearly has the upper hand, with a blade pointed at the neck of the battered Hunter that is caked in abomination goo. Hunter desperately thinking of a way out to give the blood to his uncle, tells Amity, quote;

"Listen, you're strong, and I'm tired. if this continues, you'll probably escape, but here's the thing: We know where to find you and your human. So just hand over the key."

Hunter's threat to kill Amity is completely empty, as they just displayed, Amity clearly has the upper hand. But Luz? The last time she saw her she was sick out of her mind and incredibly delirious. So Amity finally slips, the key cracks as her grip tightens, spilling half the blood. Hunter wins and slips away with the key.

This scene is so damn great because the emotions of the characters make perfect sense and intertwine with everything, we've known about them up until this point. Not to mention the music in this scene absolutely slaps ass and the animation is top-notch.

#the owl house #toh #hunter toh #amity blight #amity toh #lumity #lumity toh #writing #luz noceda #toh luz #I love this damn show

[therenlover]

Always For A Second (Usually At The Start) - A Helmut Zemo x Reader fic

"And when I imagine life when it's mine / I can try to picture faceless folk to love a thousand times / But always for a second, and usually at the start / You're in the image posing with a cradled beating heart" - Katie Gregson MacLeod, i'm worried it will always be you

Synopsis: Leaving Helmut for good had been the biggest, most final choice you'd ever had to make. Two years later, he's in your living room again. This time, though, things are different.

Tags: Explicit Smut (+18), Exes, Getting Back Together, Enemies to Lovers to Exes to Lovers, Enthusiastic Consent, Switch!Zemo, Oral (Fem Receiving), Service Top!Zemo, Aftercare, Bucky is Mentioned Too Much

Rating: E (+18) Minors DNI

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 8,600~

-------------

“I didn’t expect you to come crawling back so soon, schatz,”

The restaurant was crowded enough that nobody heard Helmut’s words, curt and cloying and so fucking familiar. Still, my face heated. It always would for him, no matter how much my common sense protested by body’s reactions. How dare he be so damn effective at getting under my skin? 

Some over-expensive brown liquor sloshed against the rim of the glass in my hand as I lifted it less than gracefully from the table, dribbling down the edge of my mouth as I guided it to my lips and drank deeply. “For one, two years isn’t soon,” I started, swallowing. “Two, you’re the asshole who showed up in my apartment like a robber, which makes you the one who came crawling back. I was just nice enough to let you take me for a free meal to get you the hell out. Three,” I set the glass down sharply, “don’t call me that. We’re not friends. We’re not anything. I still haven’t forgiven you,” 

“Apologies,” 

He didn’t mean it. 

“Still, it’s too soon to expect any sort of kindness from you,” he continued, “If I recall correctly, you said you’d rather die than suffer through another night with me for the rest of eternity. I believe an eternity has yet to pass… and yet, here we are,”

His matter of fact tone left little up for debate, unless I wanted to reach for my fork and maim his smug face. Instead, I bit my tongue and swallowed another mouthful of whatever I was drinking.

For once I was glad to be surrounded by the kind of noisy, faceless jumble of humanity that usually made my skin crawl. F. Scott Fitzgerald was on to something with his theories on large crowds and intimacy; there was no better place for two war criminals to meet than the corner booth of a hazy restaurant, lounging and drinking, covered by the blanket of sweet anonymity. Anyone who glanced our way would see two normal human beings sharing a meal in peaceable silence, sharing sparse conversation between bites of this and that. 

They would see lovers.

The thought left a lump in my throat. 

Maybe I looked uncomfortable enough that they would presume, correctly, that we were ex-lovers. I wasn’t hopeful about it, though. 

Helmut noticed, of course, but I knew he would. He had always had an almost supernatural sense for these things, like he could tune into my emotional radio on a frequency I didn’t even fully know myself. Enemy or ally or… otherwise, it was a constant to be seen through and picked apart like carrion. An appetizer for the fights to come. Thankfully, though, he chose to have mercy on me this time in a rare show of respect. Instead of wrapping his lips around another snide comment- even though I could tell it was burning a bitter hole into the tip of his tongue behind his clenched teeth- he chose to pick up a ring of calamari from the plate between us. He held it up to examine the crust in the dim lamplight before placing it delicately against his lips, pulling it from the fork in one bite. Still, he couldn’t be too gracious. Helmut held eye contact as he went.

I could only managed a disgusted sigh but found myself mirrored as his teeth sunk into the squid and his brow furrowed. 

“Bad?” I asked.

He chewed for a good while before managing to swallow the offending clump down, gagging all the way. “Despite my recent diet, that might be the worst thing I’ve eaten in a long while,”

A laugh escaped me before I even knew it was there. “You managed to pick a restaurant where our appetizer is worse than prison food? Serves you right for ordering seafood in the midwest,” 

“I suppose it does.” He nudged the plate towards me with a growing smirk, “See for yourself. I’d hate to see it wasted, and as you said, it is ours. I can’t be expected to finish it alone,” 

As if under the spell of his charisma all over again, I followed his instructions without a second thought. It was just as bad as I anticipated. 

Things were off to a bad start from the moment the tines of my fork hit the batter. The breading seemed to squelch under the pressure, sagging and giving way into meat that was somehow both rubbery and gelatinous, if that was even possible, and if the texture seemed bad outside of my mouth it was even worse inside. Somewhere between its fishy tang and the overly salted batter, there was a bitter, almost sour note that seemed to permeate further with every chew. I spit the macerated glob into my napkin before even attempting to swallow down the remaining spit. 

Across the table, Zemo grinned at my misfortune. “Let’s hope our entrees are less offensive to our palettes,” 

“Fuck off,” I muttered, lips turning up at the edges. 

“You can curse all you want at my poor choice of venue, but I can tell you’re glad you’re the one who ordered the pasta instead of the steak,” 

I went for my glass again, letting the liquor with a name I couldn’t pronounce burn all the way down my throat and into my chest. “I hate that you’re always right, Helmut. Can’t you be wrong, just once? Leave some correctness for the rest of us,” 

Maybe it was the lighting, soft and amber against the dark wood of the table to mask the bloody steaks that would sit below, or maybe it was the music, something old and swinging that I couldn’t quite put my finger on but knew from the radio in my grandmother’s car as a child, or maybe, just maybe, it was the crows feet that popped up around Helmut’s eyes when he smiled that hadn’t been quite so prominent the last time I’d seen him, but no matter the cause, the solid iron wall I had put up around my heart when I walked out of the Baron’s life those two year sago seemed to soften. Weakened, somehow. It was like someone took a blowtorch right to the center of my defenses. Something in me screamed that they had never been all that strong to begin with. 

I only noticed I’d been staring when he looked away, clearing his throat and wiping his thin mouth with the napkin from his lap. 

There went my hand. Helmut, 1. Me, 0… Well, 1, if leaving him those years ago counted for anything, and I refused to believe that it hadn’t. That the blow to his ego hadn’t given me at least a slight upper hand compared to the naive girl I had been in comparison when I first met him. There had been so much good in the world then. 

The silence dragged on as if the structural flaws of my guarded heart could patch themselves up with the defenses created from just a few silent moments between us. That’s all it would take for me to remember all the reasons this would never work: all the pain, the sleepless nights, the snide comments that turned into biting replies that grew into massive, earth-shattering fights that exploded into days or weeks or months living alone in a house with him. One by one, the memories flooded back, reminding me exactly why it had taken me almost two years to find enough peace within myself that I wouldn’t decide to shoot the man in front of me on sight. My heart hardened by the second.

“I saw your concert,” 

I was simultaneously thawed and frozen all over again. “How did you-“ 

“James mentioned it,” 

“You still talk to Bucky?” 

“Here and there,” 

The conversation lapsed into silence. 

He had… been there? I didn’t even bother to think about the talk I’d have to have with Bucky about my privacy, too focused on the more important matter at hand. 

The venue was grungy, a basement bar with a small stage serving the communities aspiring comedians and desperate punk-rock garage dwellers just waiting for their big break. I had barely had the guts to pay the booking fee, though. It was just me, a piano, and my guitar for an hour and a half set of mostly cover songs that had gone better than I’d expected, but hadn’t been anything crazy. The crowd was appreciative and respectful. Several people had left tips, even more giving me a congratulatory clap on the back as I left the building that night, promising to “stream my EP” whenever I released it, despite the fact that I had no plans to do any such thing. Still, I couldn’t imagine that I hadn’t seen his face in the crowd. I couldn’t name what I was feeling as I imagined it; visualized his face on the other side of the smoky room, leaned against the bar with his dark eyes catching hold of mine…

“You came and you didn’t say anything? Not even a hello?” 

Helmut laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “And risk my life over a free concert? No.” He paused, “Despite my tendency to sometimes be… less than kind, I knew it would rattle you to see me. I didn’t want to throw you off before your performance.” 

I didn’t have much of anything to say in response. Instead, I picked at the paper straw wrapper in my lap and tried to look anywhere but in his direction, shoving down whatever was welling up in my chest. He wouldn’t let things go, though. He never could. That was half of why we’d never work. Every time I tried to drop an uncomfortable subject he’d be there to pick it up with a snide comment or two. It was an easy rhythm. Too easy. I had never wanted to fall back into it and yet, here I was, almost excited to snipe his next words down. 

“Cain misses you,” He continued. 

I folded the straw wrapper in my hands, pulling at the crease as I thought about the doberman puppy I had left behind. He would be so big now, as big as the one I’d taken with me was now. My heart ached at the thought. 

“I doubt he remembers me after all this time,” 

“Of course he does,” Helmut’s voice was low. It was almost hypnotic, the way he carried himself. He could fool anyone. I realized, with a sinking feeling in my stomach that couldn’t have been the calamari, he could still fool me. “He’s quite the troublemaker. More times than I can count he’s evaded me in the house, only to be found asleep in your old closet. I think he remembers your scent,” 

“Thats…” I sat quiet for a moment, pursing through choices of words in my mind, mulling over the sharp accented way he pronounced the t in scent, “Sad. Really sad. Makes me wish I could’ve taken them both,” 

“And what of Brutus?”

“He’s good,” A smile crossed my face. “Big, as you saw tonight. I remember when we got them, they told us they’d be 60 pounds at most, but I swear Brutus must’ve snuck in with the rest of those puppies, because he’s massive. Headbutts me every time I walk through the door wondering where I was. He’s a good boy, though. Keeps watch while I sleep, just in case.”

“Just in case I decided to let myself in through the window one night?”

I let myself laugh without judgement this time, reaching for my water. “Looks like it was all for nothing, then. Who knew he’d just let intruders come waltzing in off of the fire escape?” 

“Am I truly considered an intruder in your home?” He asked it as if the answer wasn’t obvious. As if there were any other answer I could possibly give. As if I could’ve wanted him there. His earnestness almost hurt as much as his taunting did, maybe more, because even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself, there was a soft ring of truth to his words. 

I took the cowards way out. “I don’t know, what do you think?” 

It was a vulnerability to not give a straight answer, the kind of weak spot that Helmut would catch wind of in an instant before using it to unravel someone piece by piece. Not a no, but certainly not a yes, and the fact that it hadn’t been a resounding yes was enough to glean that maybe, deep down, I wasn’t hating this dinner. He would see through me. Rip me to shreds for the subtle admittance that I hadn’t hated seeing him waiting for me on the couch when I walked through my door, even if I hadn’t expected or wanted him there in the first place. 

I found it was better to lie by omission than to fully lie and let him see through me to the more important truth; For as much as I despised everything about him, I had missed Helmut Zemo. I had missed his stupid expensive taste and the tilt of his stupid head and his stupid shiny white smile. I had missed seeing his coat hung up beside the door and knowing what waited for me inside. It was sick how I had loved him. How I had loved every minute of him picking me apart by the seams and putting me back together. Who could possibly crave their own destruction? Who could live knowing that to be loved was to be deconstructed down to the bone and laid bare as something lesser, something so small compared to the great destroyer I devoted myself to. 

How could he let me live like that if he truly saw through me? 

And that was why I had to leave. 

Loving Helmut Zemo was no way to live. I knew that. I had known that the day I picked up my dog and walked out of our home with nothing but my wallet, car keys, phone, and a polaroid picture of his silhouette. Somehow, I knew that he knew that too. Why else would I move on so suddenly, so sharply, removing every piece of the life we’d built to start myself fresh? A new me, I had said. A new chapter. Yet here I was across from him, shredded bits of paper littering my lap as he puppeteered my heart right back into his arms. 

No. I couldn’t let it happen. 

Not again. 

“Listen, baron,” I didn’t let him answer my rhetorical question. It wouldn’t be wise to let him gain the upper hand again. It wouldn’t be smart to let myself stay weak. “I appreciate dinner. It’s been surprisingly lovely to catch up with you. I’m glad to know you’re not dead, and its great to know Cain is doing well, but I know you weren’t here to tell me that over a plate of mediocre pasta,” 

Helmut smiled, his head in its signature tilt, and swished his own glass a bit. The ice was all but melted giving the liquor an almost clear quality as it diluted. Not a sip had been taken. “Ask the question, schatz,” 

“Why are you here? Why did you stalk me here and break into my apartment when I made it clear that you weren’t welcome in my life?” My words came out so matter of fact even I almost recoiled at them. Not unemotional but detached. 

“Um, who had the chicken alfredo?”

I could feel the blood drain from my face as I looked up at the poor waiter, hot plates in hand, as he took in our table at just the wrong time. Five minutes earlier he would have walked in on polite conversation about the dogs or the shitty appetizers. Now, though, he stood between a man who was known to kill for the things he wanted and me, the one thing he could never have again. 

Surprisingly, though, Helmut waved a hand towards me as I froze. There were none of the usual dramatics, just polite chatter with the waiter as he set my plate in front of me and left Helmut with his, taking the offending calamari plate away with him as he scurried away, surely to tell his coworkers about the crazy exes at the corner table. Helmut didn't even carry on with his answer. He just started tucking in to his steak and potatoes, not sparing me a single glance. If I didn’t know better, if I hadn’t memorized the way his eyes looked in the low light of a restaurant across from me, I would think he’d been replaced by a skrull.

Where was the tearing? The shredding? The utter evisceration of my waiting throat as he drank deeply of my darkest, most shameful thoughts only to spit them out for the world to see. Where was that shame? In the before times, in the times that the two of us had been a we, he never would have paused to mind a waiter. The world would have revolved around him as he laid me bare, no matter who watched or waited in the wings. What changed? 

How had I not noticed his docility until now?

The pasta was decent. It was better than anything I would’ve made at home, at least. I barely thought about it, though, letting my body go through the motions of eating mechanically while my mind went over a million things I could say. What could I say? There was nothing left to. We had gone over every possibility before I had left, at least I thought we had. Whatever we were was dead. That was certain. But what we could be…

I swallowed hard before I could choke on a relatively large piece of broccoli I neglected to chew in my trance. 

Helmut seemed to be in a painfully similar situation. One look at his plate showed a steak cut into tiny pieces. Almost none of it looked eaten, just diced into a pile and shuffled around a bit on the plate to mix with the potatoes, smashed down from their neat ice cream scoop globe and spread with the back of a fork. 

With a sigh, I set down my fork, pasta already forgotten. 

“Lost your appetite?” 

He paused his fiddling with his fork and knife, mirroring me and letting the utensils rest on the table beside his plate. It was odd to see him rattled. Strange to watch his eyes roll up to the ceiling and pause there, as if he was searching for the right words to say. He always knew just what to say to cut the deepest. Maybe it was foreign for him to not want to cut; To find a soft word, instead of a sharpened one. His mouth opened one… two…three times. Open and shut, open and shut. I couldn’t help but hurt for him. The man of many words was finally struck dumb. 

Finally, it came. 

“I’m sorry,” 

I had anticipated a selfish reply, a demand for me to come back and put the past two years behind us, but time had changed him. It had changed us both. He was no longer the man he had been when he was first freed from behind bars, vengeful and biting and so deeply afraid of being alone again, but I was no longer the lost girl I had been either. I did not need to be destroyed to breathe. I could feel tears pricking up in my eyes as he reached a hand across the table to search for my own. It was such a familiar sight in a time of uncertainty. I kept my hands firmly in my lap, though. I would not give him the satisfaction. 

More, I would not give him hope.

“Come home, schatz,”  

There it was. 

I couldn’t hold in the bitter, wet laugh that bubbled up through me, more at my own foolishness than at anything else. He had changed, yes, but some things never would. 

“Helmut,” The word hurt to say. It was altogether both familiar and unfamiliar, covered in a thick layer of dust from time, but nothing could erase the fact that it had once been used over and over, like a prayer, as easy as breathing or saying my own name. “You know I can’t,” 

He let his hand slink back to his side. “I had to try, you know,”

“I know,” The words were a whisper. 

So this was closure? 

The table was quiet. There was no desperation from Helmut’s side, no attempts to sway me or sudden outbursts of resentment. It was almost peaceful. His voice was sad but there was no manipulation in it. We laid our cards of the table as the game we’d played for years finally came to an end. 

“You were right about us, when you left,” he laughed, “I was, as you so aptly put it, a massive ass. I was still so deeply disillusioned about this world and the horrors of it. It was as if everyone around me was just another cog in it all, even you. I thought if I could puppet it all, make things go my way, everything could just be quiet. The horrors would finally stop. The memories would finally stop. I took it too far, though. I took it out on you. For that, I will never be sorry enough,” 

I put up a hand. “Helmut, you don’t have to do this-“

“I want to,”

His voice was delicate but didn’t waver. For the first time I wondered if this was more about what he needed to say than about what I needed to hear. I nodded him on. Without me even thinking about what I was doing, my hand caught his across the table.

“I wanted to run after you the same day you left. I nearly did, too, before I thought better of it. Then I really thought of what you said. What I did. It was then that I decided I had to change for the better, not for you but for myself. Only then would I allow myself to try again. So I did. I spent my time deconstructing the things I had seen and done and finally facing my own demons. I’m not perfect- believe me -but there are many things I have… worked on, for lack of a better word. James was surprisingly helpful throughout it all,” 

“Is that why you’ve been talking?” My thumb stroked over his knuckles, pausing on a scar. 

“More or less. I needed advice on how to overcome my atrocities, and I owed him an apology either way. He told me about your concert because he thought I would be ready to make amends, and yet I found myself unable to speak to you because I knew that if I did, I would have to beg you for forgiveness, and that is not something I will allow myself to do from anyone. Not now, nor ever,”

I let myself pull away. This was not a movie. There was no happy ending for the two of us at the end of this conversation. It was a chance to clear the air and let go of our grievances before going our separate ways. Treating it any other way would only hurt us both. “Why break in, then, and drag this all out over dinner? Why not just knock on my door, apologize, and leave?”

“I couldn’t have you slamming the door in my face and leaving me to apologize to the wall, now could I?” 

We shared a sad smile, a knowing one. “I guess that’s true.” 

“I needed to know you would hear what I had to say until the end,” he paused, “And one last confession. I must admit, I could not walk away without sharing dinner with you one last time. It’s selfish, as I am selfish, but I could not see you again without truly seeing you, more than just as you shouted at me and threw me to the curb,” 

“You think so little of me?” I asked. There was no bite in it. 

“No, I think so little of myself,” he finally took a sip from his glass, “Any anger on your part is warranted,” 

We did not speak again for a long while. Helmut methodically went through the bite-sized pieces of steak on his plate as I finished the alfredo, which had grown cold in the time it took to sort things out. There was no quiet conversation, no jokes or shared stories in the glow of the lamps overhead. Instead we sat in peaceable silence and breathed in the finality of it all. I was almost grateful for it. I never would have imagined sharing a meal like this with him in all of the years I had known him and loved him. If it was to be the last, and it was, we would savor every moment of each others company. Every moment not spent on my meal was devoted to memorizing the line of his jaw and the shape of his eyes as he did the same for me. 

By the time the waiter came to ask about dessert, I could have written sonnets about his face alone, and by the time he returned with the check, paid discreetly with a 40% tip for his troubles on Helmut’s card, I had committed the sound of his breathing to my mind. I could only hope the memory would last this time.

Realistically, I knew it wouldn’t. 

I wondered if he was thinking the same thing as we approached the front of the restaurant together, pausing awkwardly outside the door as we exited out onto the street. 

“So, this is it,” My hands found the pockets of my coat as I rocked onto the balls of my feet. 

Helmut smiled softly in the lamplight. “Let me walk you home,” 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” 

“Says who? I have to follow you either way, my car is parked down the block,” He offered me his arm. 

I took it far quicker than I should have, relishing in the scent of his cologne. Even after all these years he had never switched to another brand, and I refused to admit to anyone else but myself that I was grateful for it. Instead I leaned into his warmth. “Well, it’s only a few blocks anyways. I guess it couldn’t hurt,” and with that, we were off. 

The night was cool. Summer had given in to the pull of a lush fall, the temperatures dropping to a comfortable but windy chill when the sun fell below the horizon. The leaves were not yet falling but they’d begun their slow transformation from green into a mosaic of reds and yellows and greens, forming a rustling canopy above the sidewalk that allowed a flash of stars and moon through the foliage every few steps. 

We were not the only pair walking through the streets that night, but if you had asked me about it later I would have said we were the only two people in the whole city, matching each other step for step under the flickering streetlights. Helmut’s crows feet were in full force as he laughed at my terrible jokes, and I couldn’t help but feel warmth rush through my neck and cheeks as he recounted the moment we first met. 

It had been fall then, too. A brief, chance encounter in the streets of Paris was all it was, a night spend with a stranger, until I had seen him again in Sibera, and again in Germany, and again on the Raft, and again, and again, and again, and again…

He had been younger then, much younger, and still raw with grief, but I had loved him even then.

I was so lost in my own memories that I almost missed the stairs up to my apartment, but Helmut paused there, keeping me rooted with him even though the look in his eyes told me he almost kept walking past, hoping to gain one more turn around the block before he had to let me go. He didn't, though. This was the end of the line. 

My arm slipped easily from its place against his own, hand catching briefly on the crook of his elbow. “Walk me to my door?”

His laugh felt almost nervous, a paid mockery of my own earlier reticence. “I don’t think that’s wise,” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be a gentleman, baron?” 

“I have never claimed that,” For a moment, when he paused, I thought that would be that. I would turn my back, ascend the stairs, and turn around to find he’d shifted back into the shadows from whence he came, but then the moonlight caught on his soft, wet eyes. “But for you, schatz, I try to be,” 

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find the words I wanted to say as we walked up the front steps and into the building. 

It had been so angry last time. I had vomited up every hateful, raging, repressed thought that I had shoved down into my chest over the course of our turbulent time together all at once and left without a second glance. This time, though, it felt wrong to end things without giving him credit for all of the other things, the things I had forgotten in the midst of all the chaos that surrounded us. How could I thank him? How could I tell him every wonderful thing about himself only to close the door in his face a moment later? I spent the whole trip up to my apartment trying to find a way to express even an ounce of what I felt, and then it was far too late. 

We stood there on my novelty doormat, boots settled over the dirty cartoon chickens, hands in our pockets, and breathed in the stale hallway air. 

“Thank you for dinner,” I said. If I shut off my heart and my mind and every other little betraying ache in my bones it was like it had been all those years ago. We were just meeting. This was the end of our very first date. There was a future instead of a past in the time that lay beyond us. 

Helmut averted his eyes from mine. I could tell he was pretending too. “Of course,” 

“I’ll see you again,” I lied, “I mean, it’s inevitable. We’ll end up at Bucky’s place at the same time,” 

“Or run into each other at a busy cafe,” he offered. 

“Exactly! Or our cells will end up next to each other in maximum security prison,” I laughed, but it caught, pathetic, in the back of my throat.  

He took a step back, boots leaving my doorstep. “I look forward to it, whenever it may be,” 

My shaking hands found my keys, an autopilot motion I had done a million times, and the door to my apartment swung open. I could hear Brutus in his kennel, beginning to whine the moment he heard me come home, but I paused there for a moment, one foot in and one foot out. 

“Goodbye, Helmut,” 

“Sleep well, schatz,” 

I stepped inside and locked the door without turning around for a last look. 

My tears came quicker than expected as I took in the room around me. It was the antithesis of my home with Helmut, all whites and beiges and grays from the sparse walls to the lonely couch against the wall. There was one great shock of black, though; a solid footprint on the windowsill. One last souvenir to remember him by. 

I had done the right thing. 

I had to have done the right thing. 

Life with Helmut was hell. It was exciting and lush and romantic and alluring but it was destructive and painful too. It would mean being seen and unseen for the rest of my life, living with the ghosts of those lost in Novi Grad. He would never stop being the man his grief had created. He was just too broken… wasn’t he? 

All at once I knew I had to see him again. This wasn’t going to be the end. There were still so many chances to make it right. 

Before I knew my own feelings, I was undoing the latch and throwing my door open, only to find him there, feet planted solidly on that stupid welcome mat and fist raised to lift the knocker. Our eyes locked. 

We didn’t need words then. 

No, all I needed was his lips on mine and my hands in his hair. It was a need easily rectified. 

He didn’t pull away as I grabbed the edges of his ridiculous fur coat and dragged him in for a kiss, letting the remains of that day’s lipstick smear against his chapped lips as the parted and made way for me. It was like a piece of my puzzle fell back into place, like the thing that had been lying dormant in my empty chest for the past two years had jumped to life and jumped into my throat. The tears weren’t coming anymore, though Helmut’s cheeks felt wet when I guided one of my hands to rest against it, dragging him closer. I needed him urgently. I needed all of it. Every moment I had missed. 

At least one time in my entire tiny, useless life I needed to know him as he had always known me. I had to see him through eyes that would know every atom of him by heart. 

It could have lasted second or hours. I was lost in it; lost in every heartbeat and the messy clack of teeth on teeth as we remembered exactly how our mouths locked into each other. There was no need to breathe. I would happily drown in him if he would let me. Through the passion I distinctly remembered this fervor, the endless need for him. It wasn’t frightening anymore, though. I knew how to walk away. We both did. 

This time I didn’t want to. 

Helmut was the first to pull away. His mouth was wet and red as he panted there, just a breath away from diving in for more, but he pulled away when I advanced again, instead choosing to speak between placing kisses on my cheeks and down my jaw. “I couldn’t let you walk away from me. Not again,” his voice shook as he kissed me, “Does that make me a bad man? Does that mean you can’t love me?” 

I could only breathe a laugh as I pressed my chest to him. No measure of closeness was enough. I needed him to cover every inch of me. “I don’t think I could stop loving you if I tried, and I’ve tried,” 

“Please, stop trying,”

With that, he caught me in another kiss. 

“We should probably go inside,” I panted, gesturing towards the apartment with my head and Helmut nodded, maneuvering us over the threshold and into the barren entryway of the home  I’d made without him. It didn’t matter, though. That wasn’t what I was focused on. Instead, my hands were more focused on pulling his coat from his shoulders and discarding it loosely in the direction of the coat rack between fevered kisses. 

The old Helmut would’ve pulled away and make some snarky remark about keeping the place clean. This Helmut, though- my Helmut, as I had selfishly started to refer to him mentally in the past few moments -just dragged me in closer after his arms were freed, letting his hand drift to the small of my back but not even an inch lower.

Suddenly, though, things seemed to cool. The kisses grew shorter, softer. His arms still held me but seemed to loosen their grip. 

“Tell me you want this,” He whispered softly against the shell of my ear, “That you want me,” 

Ah. So that’s what this is. 

“Helmut, of course I do-“ 

“That’s not enough,” his voice was laced with a rare seriousness as he pulled away to look at me properly. His brown eyes glowed a million honeyed colors under the shitty, flickering overhead lighting I should have replaced months ago. They flitted from my swollen mouth to my cheeks to my watery eyes as his hand came up to cup my cheeks again. “Tell me this isn’t a mistake or a bad decision you’ll regret the second we finish,” 

The rest went unsaid. 

(Tell me you’ll stay. Tell me this means something to you, even if it doesn’t mean as much as it does to me. Tell me I won’t wake up alone tomorrow morning. Tell me anything and everything except the cruel reality that neither of us really knows what the future looks like once this is over)

I simply nodded my head, coming in for one closed mouth kiss. “I want this. I want you. Whatever I choose to do next, you’ll be a part of the decision. No more running away,” 

Like a shot, we were off to the races again. 

It was hard to detach our bodies long enough to give Brutus a treat to quiet him down, harder still to lead him to the bedroom and drop his hand long enough to turn on a nearby lamp, but somehow I managed. For all of the small things I’d forgotten about Helmut in the two years we’d spent apart, his bitten nails and the silhouette of his nose and the sound of his labored breathing as he took in my body with something akin to animalistic hunger, it was easy to fall back into the rhythm we’d always found ourselves in intimately. 

His shirt came off first, exposing the soft curve of his stomach. I kissed down from his neck to his chest, letting myself pause on each and every pinkish scar that graced his flesh. I made a mental note to ask him about a few new ones, including a wicked one across his collarbone that still puckered into an inch long divot in his flesh. My fingers followed my mouth, mapping every inch of his flesh. They caught on every soft yielding place he offered, a worship on the altar of his body, dragging his flesh ever so slightly but never enough to leave a scratch or bruise. 

I would not mark him any more than the world already had. It was not my purpose to remold him into my image. Instead I would venerate what he was, what he had become. 

Helmut had put so much effort into changing himself, rebreaking the things that had never healed correctly and setting them right again. I refused to let him break down to splinters again. Not on my watch. 

He shuddered at my attentions. 

“Let me see you?” It was a question, not a demand, and how could I deny him when he asked so nicely? 

I stood up again, relishing in the feeling of his fingers against the hem of my t-shirt, the gentle scratch of nails on skin as he lifted it over my head. When he looked at me, it was like he was looking at the most precious thing in the world. Usually he was so hungry for it that there was never a pause once my shirt was discarded. My bra would be thrown off with it, then my pants, then my underwear, all in such quick succession that I barely distinguished one article from the next in the order of things. This time, though, he paused, hands just inches from my bare flesh. 

“My sweet girl,” he whispered to me like a prayer, a confession, “I don’t think I can hold back much longer,” 

Slowly, deliberately, I stepped forward and pressed my body into his awaiting hands. He squeezed my hips once, gentle, and twice. Then they were roaming up to the clasp on my bra with that usual hunger again, freeing my breasts for his attentions. I don’t exactly recall how he manhandled me on to the bed, I was too busy feeling the hard press of his bulge through his crisp dress slacks. The first thing I was fully cognizant of was his hot breath on my sternum as he hovered over me, still standing but bent at the waist, boxing me in with his knees. 

“So fucking sweet,” he whispered before taking one of my nipples between his lips and laving his tongue over the hardening tip. 

I felt like a live wire. Heat was building everywhere. Dazzling electricity shot through my head and fingers and toes and cunt and gods especially my breasts. They were always my weak spot, and how he knew it, how he knew me. I wanted to thrash against him, to buck and gain his attention where I really needed it, but his body above mine held me fast, keeping me right where he wanted me, vulnerable to him and his specific brand of torture. With a particularly sharp pinch and a well timed suck he had me keening against him, curling into his every move. 

How had I lived without him? It was hard to imagine a night not spend here with Helmut, wherever here was, not that that mattered. I was embarrassingly wet. The slickness had gathered enough that I could feel it on my thighs despite my jeans. When I tried to relieve myself, though, the baron caught my hand, tutting softly. 

I expected to have to ask permission. Soft begs escaped my mouth. I needed him. I had no patience for games. Instead, though, he lifted up off of my chest and smiled, pulling my hand to his lips. “Let me help you, love,” 

There are no words in the human language that could adequately represent the sound that escaped my mouth. I could not even begin to try. It continued even as I lifted my hips to shimmy free from my jeans and underwear in one fluid motion, only ceasing when Helmut was on his knees with his face buried in my cunt. I was making different noises then. Loud. Guttural. If I had any mind left at all I would worry what my neighbors thought, to see me out on my doorstep desperately pawing at a man only to hear the noises we were making in tandem now. Thankfully, any sensible thought I had left seemed to fly out the window with Helmut’s first lick to my cunt. 

It was clear that he hadn’t forgotten me, and if he had, the muscle memory was coming back quick. His tongue was deft as it worked its way over my aching nub in a pseudo-figure eight; circling once, twice, and three times before dipping back through my folds. I held him in place this time, though, rocking into his mouth. At some point my hands found their way into his hair. It was so soft between my fingers, so pliable as I pulled against him, desperate for more of him, anything he would good. 

Every time he relented to me. Each sharp jolt was rewarded with a kiss against my thigh or a muttered curse in Sokovian, hot breath teasing my glistening mound. 

He was so giving, so attentive to my every need. He had always been a generous lover, never leaving me wanting for anything, but this felt… different. The way he sucked bruises into my thighs, relenting to each and every sobbing please that escaped my soft lips, was a new and devastating experience. There were no power games left to play, no lording his sexual prowess over me as he brought me slowly closer and closer to the ever distant goalpost, just his mouth on me over and over and over again as he wrung the first orgasm of the night out of me, then the second in short measure, barely ceasing from one to the next.

By the time he decided I’d had my fill, my legs were a trembling mess against his shoulders and my cunt was a sopping mess. 

He grinned a crooked grin at his masterpiece.

“How was that, my love,” 

I could barely catch my breath enough to speak. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, thrumming a frantic drumbeat even as the room quieted. “So good- really really good, Helmut,” 

Slowly, he rose up from his knees, undoing his belt. “Please say my name again, schatz,” 

“Helmut,” My voice was hushed. Reverent. 

He undid the button at his fly, pulling at the band of his boxers. “Again,” 

It fell from my lips like a prayer. “Helmut,”

His cock bounced free, bobbing as he took a sharp, steadying breath. He placed his hand at the base and squeezed slightly. 

“Again,” 

“Helmut,” 

“Fuck, that’s good,” The trance broke momentarily as I gazed up at him, watching the sweat roll down his forehead in shining rivulets despite the chill in the air. He wiped at them with the back of his free hand and smiled sheepishly. “Scoot back and get comfortable, please. I don’t think I’ll last long,” 

I did as he asked, settling against my pillows on the still-made sheets. “Neither will I,” 

“Where are your condoms?” 

“Bedside drawer, way in the back. I’m on the pill too, so no worries,” 

He moved quickly, grabbing a foil package from the small pile I’d accrued, just in case. 

It felt odd to have him be the one using them. 

There had been a few other men who had been invited here, fewer still that made it to the point that Helmut and I were at now. Every time, though, I hadn’t been able to go through with it, because every time they had finally settled themselves above me, I would close my eyes and, just for a moment, see Helmut in their place. It was unsettling the first time, enough so that I sent the guy home right away. The next time, though, it was more thought provoking than anything. I chalked it up to him being my longest lasting sexual partner and left it at that, but now, watching him roll the condom onto his length and crawl into his position over me, I knew. 

I would never get over him, even if I tried for years. My heart had a space carved out in the shape of his own. No matter how long I stayed away, I would never find something quite like what we had. He was it. This was what people dreamed about. And to think, I had almost let it slip away…

He slid one hand into mine, lacing our fingers together in the gentle lamplight. “Are you ready for me?” 

“More than ready,” My thighs spread as I canted my hips up.

Physically and mentally and every other possible way I needed him. I was prepared. 

So Helmut pumped himself once with his free hand before guiding himself into my wet heat. 

It was impossible to last long once we were finally complete. 

Feeling him inside me was like knowing the truth of the universe. It was comfortable, and thrilling, and so deliciously enough. He filled me well, finding his rhythm as he swore and released my hand to prop himself up more comfortably. We were linked together like the final pieces of a puzzle. I closed my eyes at let myself relish in it. 

There was nothing left to worry over while Helmut was inside of me. All thoughts that weren’t of him were banished. It was something to be cherished, every thrust paired with a whispered confession of love from one of us, a fleeting kiss, a curse, a plea… We laid ourselves bare. I let my legs wrap around his warm, soft hips as he rutted into me, bringing a hand between us to circle my clit once more. Even after everything he refused to leave me behind while he chased his own pleasure. It didn’t take much to send me tumbling over the edge into oblivion. 

As always, Helmut followed me down. 

His thrusts quickened, then stilled as he came to rest upon me, panting and heaving and begging for breath. I didn’t care much. He smelled of cologne and sweat as I buried my face in his shoulder and closed my eyes. I could feel him soften inside of me but I was far too spent to urge him to move.

We only shifted apart when he slipped free of me.

Helmut quickly kissed my forehead and gathered himself up, shuffling to the trash can to discard the used condom and grab a tissue to wipe himself up. I didn’t let myself move an inch. If I moved, would the bliss run away? Would I realize what I’d done? I let myself lay instead, eyes closed, panting in the autumn chill as my lover approached and wiped up our beautiful mess as gently as he could manage. With one last kiss to my thigh, he discarded the rag, opened the window, and crawled back into bed with me. 

The process was indelicate, a lot of awkward shuffling of sticky limbs, but we were settled beneath the blankets soon enough. Helmut stroked his fingers down my arm languidly while kissing the back of my neck. 

I broke the peace between us. 

“I don’t… I don’t know what this means for us,” 

He sighed gently. His breath was soothing and familiar against my shoulder. “That’s not something we have to decide at this very moment,” 

“But I just don’t want you to think this means something… or at least something more than it does? If that makes sense? I don’t know,”

“Schatz, please,” 

“I want to keep my own place, at least for now. I don’t know what that means for when I’ll see you or if we’ll keep doing this,” I gestured vaguely to my nude body beneath the sheets, “or if we’re even a thing anymore, bu-“ 

Helmut reached his arm around us, placing a quieting finger over my lips and another soft kiss against my shoulder. 

“I swear, your mind sounds even louder than mine,” 

“Sorry,” 

“No reason to be,” His hand left my lips, running down to my stomach and pulling me back towards the softness of his chest. “As for your questions, I shall respect your wishes about distance and housing and labels, whatever they may be. That being said, as long as you’re still up for… this, as you put it, I will never deny you, no matter the distance. I would cross oceans for you,” 

A cum-drunk, half-asleep giggle escaped me as he nuzzled in, kissing my ear. 

“Thank you,” 

“No, thank you,” he matched my laughter with his own, “I believe this is what James would call post nut clarity,” 

“Now you ruined it!” I huffed. The faux anger only lasted a moment, though, before I was rolling to face him, cheek pressed to the soft, downy hair of his chest. “I love you, Helmut.” 

“I love you too, sweet girl. Now sleep. I’ll get up and deal with the dog once you’re resting,” 

For the first time in two years, I breathed in the scent of Helmut’s cologne before lapsing into a peaceful sleep.

---------

A/N: Thank you for reading! This is my first foray into smut in literal years, and it was literally all written within a 12 hour period, so I hope any mistakes weren't enough to take away from your enjoyment. Comments are always appreciated, but never expected. See you on the next authors note!

#zemo #helmut zemo #baron zemo #zemo x reader #daniel brühl #fanfic #marvel fanfiction #x reader #helmut zemo x reader #baron helmut zemo x reader #daniel bruhl x reader #zemo smut #marvel smut

[sguidwards-bestfriend]

New Dimension, Who’s This?

Dp x dc thoughts and stuff

I did not expect people to like this stuff, but I’m glad you're here

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Danny POV

Danny was NOT having a good time. Dimension hopping should have been fun, but it was shit. All the ecto he'd found had been corrupted and even the human food tasted weird. That 8$ pb&j was a curse on both his tastes buds and his now empty wallet.

For almost a month Danny had been chasing down the most feint ecto trace, but it was the only one he could feel.

Living between Amity and the ghost zone meant he had a surpluses of that feeling, to the point that it became background noise. It being gone felt like loosing a sense.

He grumbled to himself as he floated to an abandoned mansion on a mostly empty road. He was so hungry it made him dizzy to walk so he floated most places. Which absolutely didn’t help him get any human food, since everyone who saw him ran.

He expected the small ecto signature to be a liminal being, like Cujo in his puppy form or one of box ghosts boxes. He hadn’t expect a guy who bolted the second he saw him.

He was definitely liminal, Danny could feel it, but this guy was crazy. A black car sped through the road, the man and the kid he was with jumped in and they left.

Just like that his food source was gone. Danny paused a second and decided he wouldn’t call the guy a "food source" next time they saw each other.

Which thankfully for Danny was only about 10 minutes later.

His actions really shouldn’t be a judgment of character, he was sleep deprived and starving.

...

Insulting this dudes dimension and his ecto signature was definitely not a great start.

At least he looked more human now, his kingly power automatically trying to make his subject more comfortable. Maybe he could convince them to get him a sandwich, or just ham, whatever really, anything at all.

A man in a butler outfit cleared his throat, "I'll get him a meal, don't destroy the furniture." Did Danny say that out loud... maybe the butler had magic.

After eating a decent, but ecto free meal Danny was introduced to Jason (food), Damian (might be food?), Tim (not food), and Alfred (not food).

He hadn't bothered saying a word until he'd finished his plate. Once he had he told them about the ghost zone and the earth he was from, which they very quickly realised was not the same one. He hadn't mentioned being king of said dimension, nor the sole hero of the latter.

They in turn told him about the many different heros that inhabited this earth and the various planets that some of them came from. Danny could tell they weren't telling him everything, but his kingly power did prove to him that they hadn't lied to him, at least Jason and Damian hadn't.

Explanations were cut short when Jason stood up and Danny bolted to his side. Just being near the dude helped, he definitely had a leak or something going on.

"Look man, I'm starving and you are spilling out ecto at an insane rate." Danny said with a hand on the man's shoulder.

Jason looked at him like he'd grown a second head, which he hoped he hadn't because that took more energy than he was willing to expend. "You gunna explain what the fuck you just said?"

Danny had been king long enough to have studied up on the few halfas that had existed. Most of them hadn't survived very long after forming, either becoming a full ghost or their ghost core shriveled away and left them human... with some minor side-effects. "You must have come back from the dead with an unformed ghost core, contaminated with bad ectoplasm. The bad ecto isn't letting the core close up, it's like you have a leak."

"The Lazarus pit goo!" Tim shot up from his seat and ran off.

Danny remembered the forth ecto puddle he had visited, "I heard that name, some fruitloop in a cape was yelling about one of the ones I emptied."

"You emptied them?" Jason said with a perplexed look on his face.

"I was hungry." Danny, ever the gremlin, let them stay confused as he continued. "Anyway, you weren't dead long enough to form a solid core, then the pit goo, as you called it, seeped into the cracks and kept you too alive for it to finish, but too dead for it to fade."

"So I'm stuck like this?" Jason's core started oozing out waves of fear, stress and uncertainty.

"No, no." Danny focused on feelings of ease and calm as best he could while trying to desperately feed off of him. "Probably not, your core wasn't tainted until later so it wasn't flash formed like mine, and you're alive. I'm mostly guessing, but I have two theories." Danny extended his hand to a nearby couch (how many couches did these people have?), they both sat and Danny continued. "Once the contaminated ecto goo is gone you'll fade back to being 100% human since you can't make your own ecto, or..."

"or?"

"Or your core can't keep you alive and you... die fully." Danny didn't look at his eyes as he finished. "I can't guarantee your core will survive that either. It'll have to starve from lack of ecto before we know if your heart and brain are alive enough to keep you going, and with a core so weak we dont really know how well that'll go."

Although Jason was good at hiding his emotions from prying eyes, even as a far off, mangled version of a liminal being he was still part of the ghost king's ruling. Danny didn't mention it, he seemed like he was going through a lot and mind (emotion?) reading tended to make those not used to it uncomfortable.

Jason breathed in deep, "Alright, what's the first step to finding out if my body works without ecto?"

Danny tried not to smile at his future meal as he said. "We get rid of the ecto faster than the bad ecto is coming."

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Tags:

@bjurnberg, @skulld3mort-1fan, @akikkobara @undead-bi-dinosaur, @amyheart19, @phoenixdemonqueen, @not-your-average-url, @seraphinedemort, @theywontletmeusetheoneiwant (I wasn’t sure if you saying “I’d read more” meant you wanted to be tagged, if not pls tell me and I’ll remove you),  @satisfactionbroughtmeback, @kyrianclawraith, @i-always-say-yea,

#eldritch danny #dp x dc #dp x dc au #Dp x dc thoughts and stuff #dp x dc crossover #Danny Phantom #Jason Todd

[cat-mentality]

Back on with my silly qsmp headcanons with zero evidences in canon!!!

The English version:

Foolish has never once in his life tried to pretend to be human, yet people just genuinely think he is like that(tm) and don't question anything he does

As he has shark dna Foolish doesn't need to blink as often as a human, he is therefore great at staring contests (it freaks the fuck out of everyone)

Foolish and Bad keep an score of how many times they have killed each other just to have bragging rights

They have never give an straight answer when someone asks if they have fucked in the past

Bad sings in the shower

Fit is just a regular human but no one believes him when he says it, they all just think he is hiding his true self and he has received MANY talks about "embracing yourself"

Jaiden trauma dumps by accident. She will be having a perfectly normal conversation and then mention something horrible from her past without even meaning to.

Slime can't read a room to save his life, if embarrassement could kill that would be his main cause of death

He once lost control of his human form and left slime goo all over Wilbur right before a concert

Wilbur cannot handle spice.

Neither can Philza actually.

Niki in other hand has bitten peppers before and snacked on them.

Mouse is very open about the fact that she is a demon and she is very pleased that everyone on the Island just takes it in stride, since usually it freaks people out

Mouse is not saying she has partaken in eating human flesh before, but she is also not denying it.

Lenay has a criminal record. No one knows why and she has never answered either.

Tubbo talks with his machines and it freaked him the fuck out when they started to answer him (It's Arin and he is loving this new kid)

Quackity and Mouse once entered a competition on who could hold their breath for longer (The both passed out)

Philza thinks every sickness can be fixed with avocado toast and he will recomend it as legitimate medical treatment

Jaiden talks with parrots and they keep her on loop of all the gossip on the Island

It took Tina literally invoking the powers of hell to people realize she is a demon and not a rabbit hybrid and Mouse was incredibly excited to have a demon bestie

Foolish is in fact jealous

Niki is such a good baker that she has made people cry by how good her food is

Fit spends a lot of his time running around Tubbo and stopping him from poking where he shouldn't, Philza is just glad he has someone to share the babysitting duty

Slime is a light weight, one glass of wine and the man is gone

Niki is an lynx hybrid and she has hissed at people before. She also can sort of understand cats and they follow her around a lot.

Fit is in fact allergic to cats but every cat on the Island seems to really love him

Slime needs his glasses less than his bitch wife so he will sometimes take them off, but it causes a lot of confusion because people fail to recognize him without them

Lenay has a terrible sense of direction, she is just better at following people and hoping for the best

Philza's crows really like both Fit and Tubbo and will sometimes follow them around but get sometimes annoyed that they wouldn't understand them

Bad and Philza were coworkers for a time

Jaiden can't dance but she sure as hell likes to try

Lenay on the other hand is a good dancer but she doesn't usually do it

Tubbo is actually a duck hybrid but literally no ones believes him when he tells them that because all the ducks on the Island hate him

He falls asleep on the most random spots ever because it's less sleeping and more crashing, he doesn't even know where his bed is

Fit will sometimes thrown his mechanical arm at people. No reason but that he felt like doing it.

Bad uses his tail to hit people when they are being annoying.

Foolish once bite his tail in retaliation.

#okay this is the last for now #maybe i can do one for the eggs later idk #qsmp #qsmp headcanons #qsmp foolish #qsmp badboyhalo #qsmp tina #qsmp niki #qsmp tubbo #qsmp fitmc #qsmp philza #qsmp slimecicle #qsmp wilbur #qsmp jaiden #qsmp ironmouse #qsmp lenay #so many people so many hcs left behind

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (III)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and whatever prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

PART ONE is here PART TWO is here and this is Part Three 💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts

Where we last left off... Boy had a break down, stole a medical cot, took a nap. Bone Appetite. Oh yeah and maybe he made a friend. Maybe

Trigger warnings for: body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) | my awful attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚 

Sleeping in a puddle of your own fluids gets really gross after a while.

Danny grumbles quietly. Ew. It’s all…blood and plasma and goo and ectoplasm and various other nasty body liquids he doesn’t actually want to identify.

Gross. He’s soaked the mattress some too.

And he wants food. He can feel the empty cavern where his stomach ought to be rumble with wantwantwantwant. It makes his core whine—when his body is too damaged to be human, sometimes it treats itself as if being human is his obsession. He wants, because having human food and water and safety will make him more human again.

…Maybe he can snatch another one of those NastyRibs today. They’ve got meat. Protein.

Danny’s tail lashes as he considers going to the cafeteria again. But what if he gets lost? And loses his cot? It’s a nice cot. Much better than dirt and far superior to the container.

Maybe it is just smarter to go to sleep again? The more he explores, the more likely it is for someone to see him. To find him. To put him back in the container.

Danny presses closer to the cot mattress, his fluids squelching up around him. And what if the one thing finds him?! The thing he couldn’t bite?? That’s not safe! He can’t get picked up by it again! He can’t fight back! What if it crushes his core??

His curtain pulls back with a sharp skkkhsk of metal rings on metal bars. Danny bares his teeth and hisses, and—

—Oh. It’s the buzzing human again. Danny slowly lets his damaged muscles relax. It purrs in a language Danny can’t hear (did he lose his tiny ear bones??) very quickly and very pleased as it chats about something. Whatever. It’s not a threat and it’s a good distraction. Danny rolls onto his side so he can watch.

It makes a sad noise. Danny perks up. Why is it sad? Why would it—? BAGEL! Actually it doesn’t matter why the human is sad because it gives him a bagel. With cream cheese. Untoasted!!

Carbs go down sooooo smoothly. He doesn’t even get any crumbs stuck between his mostly-present teeth. It’s good. So good.

The buzzing human buzzes away, leaving Danny in a cloud of agitated air and a vague sense of concern. Concern? Did something happen?

The immature human voices come back. Danny perks up. They sound familiar, but they lack the vibrational quality of the buzzy human. It will be harder to tell what they want and where they are.

A face pokes past the curtain. Danny’s sight is too poor. He can’t recognize it. He hisses.

The buzzing child slides back in with a hvmmmmvm to put itself between Danny and the new face. Good. Bad, if the human gets hurt, but good that it doesn’t want Danny to get hurt either.

The new face doesn’t attack them either. It makes a long, drawn-out noise that Danny is mostly sure is a complaint or three, but the buzzing kid hops around, free and light, and zips off and zips back.

Danny peeks from under his arm.

Oooh. The new human has clean blankets. He does want those. Maybe they’ll sop up the fluids he’s sitting in. Now…will they offer them? Will Danny have to fight them for it?

His tail flickers. If they’re more like ghosts, he’ll have to fight. Danny doesn’t want to. They’re young humans. He might injure them without realizing. But he really wants those sheets. Maybe he could steal them very quickly…?

Danny doesn’t have much time to wonder though because he is snatched off the mattress??

He almost bites the buzzing human before he recognizes the buzzingbuzzingbuzzing under the skin of the human holding him in its grip. Why is he being held?! Is this a threat??

Is he going back to the container??

There are more young humans here suddenly, taking his bed and—hey! Taking his cot! They pull off the mattress, drag it off somewhere, and Danny won’t bite but he will phase through the arms of the small human and leave.

So he does.

It’s not comfortable to find another empty conference room and to hide there. But young humans are impatient.

They’ll leave Danny alone.

…eventually.

For now, though he’ll just hide his core under the table. It’s scratchy carpeting and hard wood on his sensitive core and he’s cranky and tired and he misses his cot.

If that red and blue thing tries to pick him up again, he’s going to bite him.

*

The hand that wakes him up is not the blue and red human this time.

Danny thinks it is, at first, and bites it as soon as he reforms. But this human yells and drops him, so it is not! Fantastic. Danny slides through the wall—

—And the human tugs him back into the conference room by his tail. Hello?! What?? Ow??????

Danny barely has time to bare his teeth before the whole world is spinning and moving fastfastfast and—

He plops onto his cot. Or. Danny is plopped onto his cot. He’s. On his cot?

The hell?

It’s. Danny sniffs. Pokes the mattress. There are new sheets on it. One layer underneath feels bouncy and tense, like it’s rubberized. But it’s his cot. Undoubtedly. It still sort of smells like all his juices rotting.

The buzzing human zips into the curtain that hides Danny’s cot. It and the new adult human start arguing. And then the adult starts buzzing.

Danny’s back is all tense and he doesn’t understand. Weird. Weird. Weird. Weeeird.

The adult goes away. Then Danny’s left with the younger buzzing human, and three strangers.

They’re so blurry. At least the humans that vibrate endlessly are red. The rest are a random mystery to him—splotches of warm reds and yellows on black, which is just dark enough to screw with his recently lacking depth perception. Fantastic.

Danny presses his face into the pillow.

His more-familiar-human buzzes off and is back in a flash—this time with a half-dozen different fancy breads.

They smell nice.

They look nice. Probably. Danny inches closer. There’s some spots of red, of blue. There’s probably fruits in them. Sugars, carbs—if there’s a lot of oils in them, that’s good for fats as well. Danny really needs the extra calories at the moment.

He almost goes for them. He does. But he doesn’t want to encourage that stupid picking-him-up behavior, so he leaves them be and pretends they’re not there, in the hopes that the young humans go away before he starts showing off his teeth about it.

The red human inches closer, and makes cunning little Don’t You Want It? noises. Danny’s neither a baby nor an idiot. He keeps a narrowed, half-formed eye out.

The buzzy human buzzes closer.

Danny stretches out his claws. A little twitch of pain and they solidify nice and sharp in the yellow light.

The buzzing human wisely takes a step back. And leaves the breads on the end of the cot.

Smart.

Danny doesn’t touch them until all four humans are long gone, their voices lost to the base. After that, though? Each pastry is gone in one bite.

Danny makes himself invisible, wishes for darkness, and he rests.

*

There’s more food on the end of his cot when Danny wakes up the next morning.

Granola bars. Dried fruits.

…Oatmeal.

It takes forever and makes his back and tail ache like crazy, but Danny swaps his cot with one of the other little cots in this large, medical wing. His aura flares in the hopes that he’ll cut out cameras, but who knows if it will actually works.

Of course, it would work on another ghost, hopefully, and warn them to Stay Away! I’m mean! if they wandered into his territory. But otherwise, who knows? Maybe Danny’s too sick to actually be scary.

Danny sleeps behind a new curtain that night.

He doesn’t like that things that remind him of the container are chasing him.

*

The red human buzzzzes back into his old cot space the next day. When it sees that Danny is gone, it cries.

Danny carefully makes himself invisible. Just in case.

The human buzzzzzes away and doesn’t come back for a moment, until it does, bringing back one of the darker human-shaped blobs. One talks, and then the other, their voices as chattery and annoying as when birds get upset with other birds.

More whining. More noise.

Danny rolls over, puts the pillow over his head, and pretends he doesn’t exist.

He doesn’t hear any footsteps. He doesn’t see the curtain jiggle. Danny thinks he sees feet poking out from behind his curtain, just the once, but he doesn’t—

Something touches his invisible form. Danny flinches back into visibility, and—shit. Shit. Shit. They’re touching him. They’re touching him on purpose.

He tries to go intangible. The hands slip through him, but it’s not enough; they know he’s hiding here now, and now something is going to come get him.

A hand brushes his core. Danny whines.

The hand. Stops. Pulls back. Something— it’s flesh-colored and soft and is held out for Danny to investigate.

Brown-black tears plop out of Danny’s sockets without warning.

…Oh. It’s a band-aid.

It’s. It’s so simple in its familiarity. It’s soft. It’s rubbery between his fingers. The little paper peel. The—its—

…It’s probably fine. If. If they’re bringing him a band-aid.

  Everything still hurts, but the background ache is easiest to bear when he sleeps it off, hour after hour of praying his body knits itself back together. He tries not to think about the things he’s lost. The physical, tangible flesh he’s lost. The brain matter. The organs. The…hopefully he hasn’t lost a limb, but he has a feeling chancing a transformation to look isn’t going to go well for his overall health and wellbeing.

Danny’s core keens. He wants Frostbite. He wants Mom and Dad. He wants Jazz. He wants someone to put him into a safe bed with ice packs and to bring him soft foods and to lay beside his core and purr and he wants someone to take care of him.

He wants someone to take care of him.

Danny needs someone to take care of him so badly.

…Danny drops his intangibility. Some of his body becomes borderline corporeal, even. He has no idea what he looks like or how bad the damage is exactly, but he hears a muffled gasp and an acute intensification in the buzzing, sharp and high and scared.

That’s not a proud, smug response. That’s not a mean, gleeful response.

Okay.

Maybe…Maybe Danny is actually safe here. Maybe this won’t hurt too.

Danny doesn’t remember everything, but he does end his session slathered in clear cream, wrapped in cloth bandages as well as two young humans can manage, and with a band-aid stuck against some cavernous hole in his forehead.

He’s even awarded a blueberry muffin for his bravery.

(Good for him.)

#Bart: AAAAAAAAAAAH HE'S LEAKING AAAAAAA #Bart: ROB. KON. HOW DO YOU BABY PROOF SHEETS??? #Tim: What? Why would you need to— #Tim: Oh shit. Uh. I think your friend's decomposing #Bart: I— THAT'S BAD. RIGHT?? THAT'S BAD?? #Tim + Kon: *shrug* #Wally: Hey. Bart. Would you like to explain this. *holds up extraterrestrial lifeform by the scruff* #Bart: NO THANK YOU :) THANK YOU FOR FINDING HIM *speeds off* #health and hybrids #dpxpdc #dcxdc #dp x dc #faer fic #dcu #dcu crossover #danny phantom #(almost forgot that one) #tw body horror #tw gore #tw medical #cryptid!AU #spooky lad

[chocoshrooms]

:: EYELESS JACK GENERAL HEADCANONS ::

• i do not own the image above •

_____________________

:; very, very strong demon. around 6 1/2 -7 feet tall and built. he has huge muscle mass but you can’t really tell unless he wears tight fitting clothes (which is rare)

:; sharp teeth that’ll tear through your flesh, which is a given considering his curse of being a cannibal. but, when he goes completely feral, his teeth get longer and spread apart from each other to make room for more (food🫀) much like this GIF of IT lol

:; his tongues do shift too in order for him to take in more food. i don’t really have an amount on how many tongues he has, but i’d probably go with three. since he has a facial structure of a human, his other two tongues have a special spot in his mouth where they sit (kinda like a little pouch) & really only come out in his feral mode/heats. when all three are out they do get crammed in his mouth so expect them to be out when he’s feral, he’ll drool a lot too!

:; beautiful, beautiful man… got the face of a goddess but he doesn’t think so. his mask stays on 99% of the time and we all know what it looks like. it’s always off when he showers (and it’s not like anyone would be in the bathroom with him to see), and he takes it off for bed. jack doesn’t sleep a whole lot though so it is rare to see him without it

:; the black goo leaks from his eyes continuously. it’s warm to the touch and a little acidic but not too much to burn holes through skin, just leaves a bit of irritation if it gets on anyone else. since jack normally keeps his mask on, it leaks into the mask holes and has degraded the mask just a little (jack re-carves his mask & does take good care of it trying to keep it from degrading since he wears it constantly)

:; jack’s senses are much higher than a human.

he can hear a rabbit hopping through the first a mile away

he can smell the granola bar toby has kept in his jean pockets the past week

he can (surprisingly) see a far distance away

when he touches things, he can feel deeper into them. he tried to be gentle when touching, too, since he is more powerful and can easily break someone in half if he wanted to

with taste, it kinda goes in with smell. like if you smell something you can almost taste it? kinda like that but jack can literally taste it lol.

:; jack can smell poisons and other harmful things too which helps keep him out of danger

:; with these heightened sense though, jack does get overwhelmed. if too much is happening at once, he gets anxiety and has to leave the room. he gets a sensory overload and needs to calm himself for a while. he tries to avoid this from happening because it does affect the functionality of his abilities, but with how many creeps go in and out of the manor, it’s kinda hard

:; i could see jack having his own little cabin out in the woods for when he needs time alone. it’s mainly used for what’s stated above and his heats! though jack does enjoy alone time, he does enjoy being around the other creeps but only to watch them. he likes to study them when they don’t even know it. id say he keeps little logs of each creep just cause he can. he finds it interesting to see them living their own lives

:; jack does wear his black hoodie, but he has multiple! he has regular t-shirts, sweat pants, jeans, all that, too. he doesn’t wear the same thing every day even though it may look like it

:; since i mentioned heats earlier, i’ll go into it a just little bit! jack can feel when his heat is coming, he’ll start getting a bit irritated, extremely hot, he’ll actually get cramps from his body growing just a bit more, his tongues come out of their pouches so he has excessive drooling, his nails are kinda like a cat. they retract but tend to stay out during heats, and so much more! (i’ll have to make a hc on his heats) but, when he feels all of this happening, he’s off to his cabin for a couple weeks! his heat usually lasts a whole week but he will leave a week in advance and stay a week after to be sure he’s in the clear. the heats come twice a year though so for about two months out of the year, jack is gone!

:; this isn’t really a jack headcanon but when jack is gone during this, someone else like Nurse Ann or Dr. Smiley takes over his duties at the mansion.

:; jack is very quiet and reserved unless spoken to. he’s a really good conversationalist, he just doesn’t put himself out there to speak to anyone unless he knows them very well

_____________________

HELLO! realistic headcanons for jack and heat headcanons for him will probably be out soon, too. these are all the general i can think of for now but will most likely come up with more later! thanks for reading & hearting❤️ it gives me so much motivation! -🍫🍄

#cp headcanons #creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #eyeless jack #eyeless #jack #headcanons #general headcanons #demon #cp #eyeless jack x reader #creepypasta x reader

[katrinasis]

anyway the final stage of belos’ character is probably going to be the complete collapse of every lie he’s ever convinced himself of. 

we saw beginnings of this in clouds on the horizon, where they make a point of showing belos’ nervousness and how badly he reacts to the thought that the human realm has changed, and then again towards the beginning of king’s tide when luz straight up tells him that no one hunts witches anymore and his drip is trash. it’s pretty clear that, to belos, the idea that the human realm has at all deviated from his idolized fantasy version of it is a Bad and Unacceptable thought that he’d rather just ignore. he doesn’t want to think anything’s changed and he refuses to think he’s changed, either. the man is literally a goo monster playing pretend with human skin and he still believes that he is a regular human. he gets violent towards luz and the collector when they tell him he’s changed because he cannot bring himself to consider the perfectly reasonable idea that they’re right.

and then we have the scenes in which gus pulls up his worst memories and belos calls hunter “caleb”, which are like a minute total combined and also i think the most important scenes Of All Time for belos’ character. 

his rationalizations for the murder of his own brother are so flimsy that literally just thinking about the event itself is enough to make him flip his shit. he knows what he did was unforgiveable and he knows there was no real reason for it and he knows the grimwalkers are not caleb, will never be caleb, he’s been playing god with his brother’s body for centuries when he KNOWS that caleb is gone and he will never get him back. and then, right off the heels of belos finally being forced to confront what he’s done, we see him calling hunter “caleb”. he looks at hunter, the grimwalker that looks the most like caleb, the one now holding caleb’s palisman, and suddenly he doesn’t see hunter anymore. he’s watching caleb “betray” him again, and he doesn’t want to see because it’s forcing him to think about why caleb did it. he was never corrupted or lost or in need of a merciful death, he just wanted something different than philip and that was unacceptable. 

and finally: the collector! belos thought he could use the collector and then throw them away when they weren’t useful to him anymore, just like he has for literally every single person he came across for the past 400 years. the man has been acting essentially consequence-free ever since he murdered caleb, and then the collector is freed and immediately shows him that the manipulation is not going to work anymore. for once in his life he is facing the consequences of his actions, both in the past and in the now. 

what happens now that belos is a small pile of slime on a completely different earth? what happens now that he can’t deny that luz was right, that he isn’t even human anymore? that his home is a place unrecognizable to him? that the childish goals he’s built his life around are considered a joke? is he going to double down or is he finally going to have to realize that he is a joke? that everything he’s done was for literally nothing? that caleb died for nothing? that maybe, just maybe, he could have led a happy life had he not been so obsessed with his own warped sense of righteousness and revenge? 

the walls in belos’ mind are going down and brother, they are going to go down hard. 

tl;dr: the show is making a point of showing that belos’ worst fears and memories are actively being brought to the surface in ways he can’t rationalize. he finally has to face what he did to his brother and the fact that he’s in a form that can’t even pretend to be human anymore. this man is going to try desperately to hold on to anything he can before the walls come crumbling down and we get the third-act breakdown we’ve been waiting for. 

#the owl house #toh #toh spoilers #emperor belos #philip wittebane #caleb wittebane #hunter toh #the collector #toh analysis #yes i HAVE been watching the caleb scene over and over again. how could you tell #anyway im pretty sure belos' obvious anime inspiration is going to be envy from fma #so if i had to guess his death will probably be some final soul-crushing realization followed by him ending his own life #long post

[bellewintersroe]

Joe Liebgott x Reader.

two times Joe doesn’t want to come to you, and the one time he does… tw - swearing, talks of war and wounds, ptsd, 1940s terms, some descriptions of war and death but nothing too intense. I keep deleting and rewriting parts but I’m just not so happy with the ending, idk :/

The Crossroads, October 1944. “Joe… go see Nurse Y/l/n once you’ve done this.” Winters told him. “Yes, sir.” Yeah right. The last person who he’d be taking a visit to was Y/n, especially like this- all wound up and wounded. He’d report to nurse Smith instead, the other nurse for 2nd battalion to who he didn’t have such an… attachment towards. You see, it wasn’t that Joe disliked her. It wasn’t that at all. In fact it was more the complete opposite- his bond with Y/n was something he’d never experienced before. To get to the point, he was in love with her. But Joe refusing to be seen as anything other than the alpha male meant he sacrificed one vital human emotion when he was around her. Vulnerability. So instead of doing at Winters ordered, he simply stood a couple meters away from the aid station (it was a brick house they’d taken over) and just stared in contemplation. Joe had seen all the nasty side effects wound infections could cause, plus, he didn’t want to be taken off the line- but dammit he was fine. Just as he made the decision to turn back around, a voice called out. Joe stood, his shoulders tense as he stared up at the ‘aid station’. It was just a stolen brick, house which people once lived in. Now, the wounded took over, bleeding to death inside the walls. He felt himself shudder once at the thought and dammit- he was fine he didn’t need to bother you whilst you were hard at work with some scratch. Joe began to turn around, ready to head back in the other direction when he heard your voice calling out. Perfect timing.

“Joe!” She’d spotted him from a mile off, first from out the window, and secondly when she came to the door to retrieve the lost looking boy. “Joe, what’re you doing?” Her voice was gentle, yet somewhat laced with worry. He internally sighed at his inside melting into goo at the sight of her. He watched the way her brows knotted as she reached up, running her fingers over the bandage and grazing the warmth of his skin.

“What happened?” God she was angelic, Liebgott could’ve easily fallen into her arms if it wasn’t for- “oh my god, what did you do?!” Her concern peaked, pulling on his arm to take a better look.

“M’ fine, it’s nothin’. Winters sent me to Nurse Smith.” He muttered, it was a lie, one he felt horrible about as well. As soon as her brows perked and he watched the breath get caught in her throat, he knew he’d been caught out. “Oh. Nurse Smi- Alice left like an hour ago. Winters orders- so I don’t think… I don’t think he’d send you to her.” For the first time she felt jealousy towards her friend. A lingering pang of pain and sadness, one that she didn’t conceal very well and Liebgott could immediately sense he’d hurt her feelings.

“Um… but I’ll go get one of the guys for you, Spina was free last I checked.” Great. In all his stubbornness, he’d somehow wound up and turned this into backfiring on her. “Y/n/n-”

“No. It’s fine, Liebgott. I’m busy anyway…”

December 1944, Bastogne.

Blowing on her hands, Y/n cupped them together, eyes scanning around the town as she pulled her shoulders up, body rigid with the baltic temperatures of Bastogne. Her boots crunched under the snow with each step, and she was careful to walk around the piles of bodies that lingered the side of the streets. She was a mix between on the lines with second battalion and back in the town, taking care of the hundreds of wounded or mentally disturbed soldiers, haunted by the traumas of the battle. Even leaving the make-do infirmary couldn’t get her away from the horrors of war. Somehow, Y/n preferred being on the lines, at least then she was with familiar faces, ones she trusted and knew. She slowed to a halt when a familiar face stood not too far ahead of her. Her breath became caught before she let out a slight laugh, relieved for the first time in days to see somebody she cared so deeply for.

“Joe.” The relief on her voice was evident, his name was light and airy and lingered in the cold air that surrounded them. Joe’s head turned, heart stolen by the voice. The finger that had been batting against his thigh momentarily stopped, the last person he wanted to see here was her- surrounded by death, bombings. He didn’t even register the warmth he felt at the sight of her. The colour of her eyes were a stark contrast to the white of the snow below, yet they were rimmed with dark circles, red and puffy. You see, Liebgott recognised straight away how far she’d wandered, completely alone, standing no taller than an adolescent. If a Kraut caught her out here- well… Liebgott didn’t even want to think of what potentially may happen.

“What’re you doing out here?” He squinted, shaking his head in utter confusion. He felt angry, pissed off that such a fragile thing could be caught in the crossfire out here. He was already riled up, being moved to CP runner which had still yet to ease his stress. Her smile faded, and she momentarily just watched back up to him, feeling as though her relief wasn’t mutual. Liebgott looked tired, pale, just a shell of his previous self. “Well I’m stationed in the town today.” Y/n’s voice quietened noticing the strange way Joe looked at her. Usually she’d be met with smiles, hugs, relieved greetings on his behalf. He’d grin and call her sweetheart or doll- something she selfishly wanted to hear in that moment. “In the town, so what the hell are ya’ doin’ out here?” Usually Joe wouldn’t be this… harsh. Not with anybody, especially not to Y/n. “I just came for a walk.” She recognised how stupid that sounded as soon as she spoke. You don’t just go for a walk in the middle of war. But she wasn’t being silly, she didn’t even realise how far she’d trekked out.

“Well, why’re you out here?” She quickly chimed, preventing Liebgott from inevitably telling her off. He’d been extremely on edge recently, more so than the other men out here.

“Go back to town, Y/n.” Joe sighed, blowing out smoke from his cigarette. She winced at the harshness of his words, looking at the red band on his arm. CP runner. “Winters sent you back here?” She tried again. He finally looked at her, chewing on the inside of his lips.

“Yeah.” He finally responded, glancing around for any danger. “I gotta get this back to battalion.” He half-arsed lifted up a letter. Her eyes followed it, before falling back down to the snow below her. She gasped slightly, feeling something beneath her shoe, quickly recognising it to just be nothing more than a rock. Liebgott watched in concern, hearing a snapping sound from the right of him. It was instantaneous, he grabbed hold of her coat, keeping her behind him with gun held up in the other.

“Relax.” Out walked a guy from D-company. He’d obviously just been taking a shit or something in the woods- but he’d almost wound up shot.

“Dammit.” Liebgott dropped his gun, teeth clenched as the man disappeared back around the corner, towards the time. He could handle the idea of himself being hurt, but not her. It was too risky out here- he was angry at her for even being out here in the first place.

“Go back to the town would ya?” He snapped, voice raised as she stared back to him wide eyes. “Joe-” “No! Just get outta here! What’re you stupid for walking here in the first place?” Her mouth fell agape, breaking all eye contact and feeling her head begin to shake in complete disbelief. “No? Yes? Just leave!” Joe was completely unrecognisable, deep down she knew he was somewhat telling the truth- but he was so mean, the tears pricked way too fast in her eyes.

“We lost 10 guys in the last hour.” As soon as her voice wobbled she gulped the sensation away. “So forgive me for being happy to see you.” His blood ran cold, the minute she turned around Joe held his head in his hands, groaning. What a weird way to tell a girl you love her? Right…

May 1945, Austria.

Joe minded his business as he strolled through the streets of Austria. He’d just finished a gruelling course in preparation to be shipped out to the pacific. Despite the calmness that was here, most men were still on edge about the continuation of the war. Like most things, Joe just grumbled about it a couple times and got on with it. If they wanted him to fight the Japanese, he’d be just as brutal as them, there’s no way Easy would go through all that shit in Europe just to be sent out to the shitty- “Woah!” Joe dramatically spoke, stumbling over something as he completely didn’t watch where he was going. He heard somebody gasp from below him, a light voice, one belonging to a woman.

“Ow.” No other than Y/n sat there, perched on a rock as she looked out to the serene views ahead of her. She grasped at her ankle, wincing at the pain of where the soldier had practically stood on here. When Joe spun around, he felt his breath get caught in his throat seeing who it was.

“Y/n!” He panted out, recognising the tear stains down your cheeks. Oh fuck, he was just a klutz! Now he’d made you cry- potentially not for the first time either. “Shit, I’m sorry sweetheart, did I hurt you bad? Fuck, I’m sorry.” Crouching down, he placed a hand on her shoulder, constantly glancing between her face and ankle. What Joe didn’t realise at first was that her tear stains were old. Her eyes were slightly puffy from crying and he’d interrupted something. “No. It’s okay, you just scared me.” She pulled her leg back with a wince. “No, don’t be silly, here let me see.” Joe let out a sad kinda laugh, she smiled only a little, allowing him to outstretch her leg again. It had been months since the two were close, they’d grown apart in the war, Joe’s lack of ability to show vulnerability had pushed her further and further away until they were no more than old acquaintances. “I’ll be fine, Joe.” She let out a chuckle, amused by her own ability to get caught up in something unlucky. She figured she’d be alone out here, now here Liebgott was trying to massage her ankle.

“Are you sure? You- you don’t look it…” his voice lowered, watching through his eyelashes. She forced another half smile before her head dropped, “it’s okay, Joe.” He sensed she was doing the exact same thing he did to her all those months ago. “Hey, no. C’mere.” Moving around, he perched besides her on the rock, unable to help himself from wrapping an arm around her in comfort.

“You good? Did I hurt your ankle that bad, kid, or have I just interrupted somethin’?” She let out a sad laugh again at his words, wiping under her eyes. “I’m just… I’m just scared for the pacific.” Her chest felt lighter when she spoke those words. With the twig she had in her hand, she continued poking at the mud below, averting Liebgott’s gaze which cascaded over her face. For a moment he was stumped, his heart was beating at a furious speed and oh god- he was fuckin’ nervous. Not the time to be nervous when she was crying in his arms. He opened his mouth to speak, but swallowed them away before letting out a sigh, looking across the beautiful lake ahead of them.

“I don’t wanna do it anymore, y’know. And they’re… brutal over there.” She spoke up once more, fingers writhing together as she finally glanced up to him. When he did look back he felt his heart shatter to meet her glassy eyes.

“I know.” Was all he could manage at first, watching over her face as she waited for his response. “If anything’s good practice it’s being on the front lines though, right?” He attempted as she felt a breath of laughter leave her throat at his comment. Joe’s face turned slightly, visibly cringing at his response.

“Ah, shit Y/n/n, but seriously, we’re all gonna be there together, y’know. You’ve gotta whole company willingly to die before they let anything happen to ya’.” He squeezed her reassuringly to which she sadly laughed again, assuming he was being lighthearted.

“No, I’m serious. Look, kid, I know if it’s between me and you- I’m jumpin’ in front of ya.” He admitted without even thinking, this time it was her gaze on him. “I’d do the same for you.” Joe froze, not expecting the mutual terms of their speech. Something had softened inside of him, that fluttering in his stomach had returned in full force- it never really left, just dulled from the years of war and pushing her away. She felt her breath become heavy, blinking over his handsome face.

“Well, that’s if you’d actually want me around you.” She pathetically attempted to joke, wiping under her eyes to prevent her mascara from running any further. “What?” Joe’s head snapped up, meeting her gaze. “Hey, I always want ya’ around me, don’t be silly.” He spoke again, hand cautiously landing on her knee. “No but… I thought you didn’t like me.” The words caused something inside Joe’s chest to pang and twinge sharply. “Course I like ya.” The words fell more serious than be intended. “I wanna be around you all the time.” Y/n swooned at his words, still painfully head over heels for him all these years later. Her hand slipped into his, feeling his larger fingers squeeze a little around hers. “You didn’t seem like that before…”

“Ah, I was just being a dick.” He shrugged. “Sorry.” He glanced down to his lap momentarily. “I don’t hold it against you. I just- I just thought you never felt the same.” Her jaw tensed, head feeling hot at her sudden admission of feelings. Joe felt the corners of his lips tug teasingly.

“You wanna hang out with me later? Like just us two.” Finally, he saw a smile reach up to her eyes. It was a genuine kind, one that he didn’t think he’d actually seen in a real long time.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Turning down, she wiped under her eyes once more, past worries seemingly forgotten about. She let out a giggle as he watched her with nothing short than pure delight. “I can’t believe I cried.” “I’ve seen a whole lot worse doll, don’t worry about it…. Haven’t you got enough points to leave anyway?”

“No. It doesn’t work like that for us nurses.”

“Ah crap… suppose you’re stuck with me for another three years then.” “Lucky me.” She teased, sarcastically digging her arm into his side as he nudged her back with a knowing smile. “Lucky me more like.”

“Yeah after finally making a move 3 years later.”

“Maybe I oughta’ have run straight past you, now you’re just getting bold.” He joked. “Or maybe you could’ve done that anyway, without breaking my ankle.”

#joe liebgott x reader #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers x reader #joe liebgott imagines #Liebgott x reader

[dragonwritersblog]

Five Times Jax and Pomni Share Dreams of Their Past Lives (And One Time Where They Remember)

Read on AO3

1/2/3/4/5/6

We're back with another chapter! I'm really glad you guys are enjoying this so far, I'm trying to aim for updating it every Monday but due to my personal life with college and work I might not be able to post on the dot but I'll do what you can, I hope ya'll can understand. Also, this chapter goes into Jax/Jack's and Pomni/Penny's childhood so I'm going to leave a trigger warning for child abuse, alcoholism, bullying and near death experiences. It's all only mentioned and it doesn't go fully into detail about it, but I wanted to let you guys know in case any of you are triggered by it. I'll let you know what it comes up by doing this; Jax's back story is going to be labeled (1) for when it starts and (2) when it finishes, while Pomni's will start at (3) and end at (4), I hope that's clear enough. Feel free to skip this if it isn't for you. Anyways, please enjoy!!!

2. Back To December

Normally, Caine blabbering non-stop about what shenanigans they would get up to usually left everyone with a mild headache and the urge to just move on with the day. However, this was the first time that Pomni and Jax were grateful for the ringmaster’s excessive chatter. Knowing that he was distracted by the sound of his own voice gave them more time to think about their dreams, or rather, trying hard not to think about them.

For Pomni, it had left her confused. After her incident with the exit doors and the void, she was beginning to surrender to the idea that she was truly stuck here. No past, no memories, no escape. She was nothing but a body of pixels, not able to do the things that would’ve made her human prior to everything. But now, after being told she wasn’t physically capable of doing it, she had her first dream since arriving. Everyone had told her that she didn’t require that basic human needs to survive anymore, wouldn’t that include dreaming? She just wanted to make sense of this nonsense world and find out its rules, and now it was being thrown out the window!

Then there was this ‘Penny’ girl, out of everything that confused her the most, it was her envy of the dream girl. It wasn���t like she was real, and that this ‘Penny’ actually had a life, had her own aspirations, even a sister who would protect no matter what. It wasn’t real, she wasn’t real, so there was no reason to be jealous. Though, she wondered if her life before the circus was similar to Penny’s, what were Pomni’s goals? What was her family like? What was her life like?

She briefly made eye contact with Jax during her internal rambling, realising and whipped her head back round once his gaze met hers. The fact that he reminded her so much of the ‘Jack’ person in her dream wasn’t helping. Granted, there were minor differences, but the way his voice sounded and the relaxed posture she always found himself in, it wasn’t hard for her mind to put the two side by side. Ugh why can’t my brain just be normal for one second!

Jax on the other hand was starting to get frustrated with all this. It was usually easy for him to not think about things he didn’t want to, like deciding whether or not he was in the mood to prank someone. So why can’t he get that stupid dream out of his head! He had already made his peace that he was never getting out of this multi-coloured hellhole, he was fine with it, nothing could be done about it. And then suddenly he just so happened to actually have a dream, something that according to Caine, couldn’t be done here.

But what frustrated him the most was that he couldn’t get Penny out of his head. This sweet yet anxious girl, with an adorable smile that somehow turned his insides to goo, as though he had witnessed that beautiful smile many times before. And her nervous rambling, how she stumbled over her words yet still managed to be so endearing, he wanted to berate Jack for scaring this poor girl, you know, if he actually existed. Which he doesn’t so just leave it alone!

He had noticed Pomni glancing at him before turning her head away so fast that he was surprised she didn’t get whiplash. He thought about her first day here, how terrified she looked, constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure nothing was out to get her, he also remembered how she would flinch at anyone coming near her. He wouldn’t admit this to anyone ever, but he felt bad for the jester, and maybe he was a little ashamed of himself for leaving her with Kaufmo, after all she seemed like the type to be afraid of her own shadow, kind of like Penny—

“And that concludes our adventure for today!”

Jax blinked as he looked up at Caine, the AI floating above everyone else, his eyes filled with manic and excitement. Was he seriously thinking about Penny for the whole day?! He really needed to get a grip on himself. Perhaps it was his tired state, but he was looking over at Pomni again, the jester still seemed to be afraid of Caine. After all, he did nothing but drag her all over the circus grounds when she first arrived – to the point where she threw up -, lied to her about an exit and did nothing to ease her into her new home. He knew Caine was a bit much at times, but it didn’t mean he had to like how the ringmaster treated the new arrival.

Although now he could take the time to get a proper look at her. She was small, but to be fair, he towered over everyone here, her eyes were big and wide, it was kind of cute how they widened at every new thing she saw, her hair was short, but he wondered what it would look like without her hat, maybe it would shine like Penny’s?

Hold on, when did he start thinking about Pomni like this?! And he was comparing her to Penny again?! “Ugh,” he put his face into his hands.

“Why Jax, dear boy!” Caine floated over to him, giving him a harsh pat on the back, “There’s no need to be so down about this adventure being over, after all, we’re having another one tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after-”

“Keep the repetition to yourself dentures,” Jax shoved him away, “I’m just tired, well, not that I can be tired here. I just wanna be alone right now.”

With that, he walked away, he could overhear Caine bidding everyone a goodnight before everyone else trekked back into their rooms. He felt someone bump into him from behind, he turned to see Pomni, nervously clutching her hands together as she backed up from him a bit. “Twice in a row today, huh pop-pom?” he smirked, “I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.”

“No, no!” she cried, “That’s not the case, it was an accident I swear!”

It was pretty cute seeing her riled up, he was far too tired to even deny that part, he just wanted to go to his room. “Sure,” he replied, walking away.

Pomni watched him walk away. She wasn’t sure what was up with him today, ever since breakfast she was caught in her own little world that she failed to notice that Jax was also spacing out as well. Was that normal for him? After all, everyone else always said how he would find a way, whether big or small, to throw a prank. However, this didn’t seem like the rabbit that everyone was talking about. “Jax?”

He turned back to face her.

“Um,” she wrung her hands together, peering down at her feet before looking back up at him again, “Are you okay?”

Something shifted in his face before he shrugged, “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, “I know I just got here, but if this is my new home now I wanna make sure everyone’s okay, including you.”

Jax shifted a little, the way she was looking at him, so sincere and not a hint of malice, those wide red and blue eyes searching him as though all his secrets were on display. He coughed, looking away before smirking again, “No need to be so soft on me toots, but I’m fine. I’m gonna go get some rest.” He then walked up to her, making the jester freeze as he towered over her, “You should too, after all you need to get some sleep if you wanna remain sane here. It wouldn’t be any fun if you abstracted so soon.” He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, chills running up her spine and her making her cheeks blush hard.

He grinned once he got his desired reaction and with a final wink he strutted back to his room. He ignored the fluttery feeling in his heart, he was just teasing her, that’s all, its what he does best. It wasn’t like he did it because he was curious about what her blush would like, he definitely didn’t think that it also matched Penny’s.

Once Jax had shut the door of his room, Pomni raised her hand to where he touched her. She couldn’t believe that he did that?! Was it part of a prank that she wouldn’t find out until later? And that wink! Oh how that caught her off guard! That moment wouldn’t be leaving her head anytime soon. But the way he winked, why did it remind her of Jack…nope, she wasn’t going down that road any time soon.

As the two retired for the night in their respective rooms – after changing into sleepwear that Caine had specialised for everyone – Pomni and Jax tried their best to push any thought they had at the back of their minds. All they had to do was go to bed and everything would return to normal. Right?

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Jack huffed, steam rolling out of his mouth as he trekked to the coffee shop down the street, yup, November winter weather was certainly making its way. His normal bus had been cancelled, which meant he had to take a different one in a different area of town if he wanted to make it on time to college. Although, he was lucky enough to make it on time to the bus stop, and it just so happened to be near a local coffee shop. So with a shrug, he decided than rather staying outside in the cold with zero energy, he would at least try and warm himself up indoors with some caffeine to help wake him up.

When he walked in, he noticed that the shop was fairly empty with only one other person at the counter walking for their order. That was fine, he could wait, besides it smelt nice it here, with an aroma of cinnamon and vanilla filling the air, probably new drinks that were made for the festive season coming along.

He decided to go on his phone, texting a classmate of his to say he might be late when an angry squawk from the woman in front of him made him wince. It was far too early for this.

“How dare you!” the woman screeched, “It says here that I can get a free muffin if I buy a beverage and that’s exactly what I’m doing to do! I’m in my right don’t you deny me!”

“Ma’am please,” another voice whimpered, “That discount is expired, I’m really sorry but I’m afraid you’re going to have to buy both separately, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I’m not paying for this garbage! And you will give my discount, I deserve it! You are either going to give me what I want, or I will report you to your manager!” the woman slammed a hand down on the counter.

The noise made Jack finally look up, wondering what on earth was happening and then, there she was, it was Penny! He couldn’t believe, ever since Halloween he had trying to find a way to contact her. At first, he wanted to ask Winter if she had her number, but he didn’t want to come across as creepy by getting someone’s number without asking. He tried to look on social media for her, but again, that also came off as creepy. So instead, he decided to wait and let the moment come to him. But here was some random woman to ruin said moment, screaming in Penny’s face, the poor girl looking as though she was trying to hold back tears. He had heard many horror stories with untitled people mistreating those they thought were beneath them, he just didn’t think he would see it happen in front of him, especially to someone he knew. Penny was a sweet girl; she didn’t deserve this.

“Ma’am please, these are the rules I was told to follow, I’m just trying to do my job,” Penny whispered.

“Well you’re not being good at it, are you?!” the woman screamed, “I have connections you know! One call from me and I can get the manager of this dump to fire you!”

It was a meaningless threat, clearly a bluff, but it didn’t stop Penny from turning as pale as a sheet, attempting to take deep breaths to try and keep herself calm.

Alright, enough was enough. Jack already had enough of this woman, particularly after threatening Penny. He noticed that the woman was still holding her thermos of coffee, but just so happened to have the lid off. This is gonna be fun he thought with a mischievous grin, waiting until the woman was standing in the perfect position and bumped into her, spilling the entire beverage all over her cream jacket.

The woman gawked, turning slowly towards him with an enraged glare, “You have some nerve! Do you have any idea how much this jacket cost?!”

“Well judging how you also had to pay for that terrible haircut,” he pointed to her bob, or rather, the poorly cut mess that ended by her ears, “I’m guessing not that much.”

The woman spluttered, holding a hand to her head. It was then that Penny finally noticed him, her mouth agape as he sent her a smirk.

“You are going to pay for this!” the woman angrily stomped her foot, almost mistaking her for a toddler throwing a tantrum, “One call from me and I can make you grovel.”

“Well madam, my friend just so happens to know someone from the FBI, so one call from me and she’ll know not only how you threatened me, but how you also verbally abused her partner’s sister,” his brows furrowed, no hint of any type of humour, letting the woman know just how serious he was, “Yeah, I know the person who has been nothing but kind while serving you, I’ve met her sister and trust me, she won’t be happy about the things I overheard you say. I’m sure that’s something you don’t want on your hands now, is it?” It wasn’t a lie, Winter did know someone from the FBI...because she was that someone. It was how she and Riley met, with the two always being paired for cases and eventually caught feelings for each other.

The woman gulped; all confidence gone when she realised that she lost all control of this situation she believed she could easily weasel her way out of. She shook her head.

“Good,” Jack grinned, “Now here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re going to apologise to this nice lady here, pay for your drink, leave her a good tip and carry on with your day.”

The woman grimaced, knowing better than to try anything else. She took her purse out, getting out the cash that she needed to pay her drink, and a $10 bill to put in the tip jar. “I’m…sorry,” she said through gritted teeth to Penny.

The girl was still in shock over what happened, remaining in a trance as she watched everything go down. She blinked and faced the woman again, “O-oh it’s okay, have a nice day.”

The woman huffed as she stomped past Jack, grinning as he watched her leave with defeat. He turned to Penny, “Well, not how I’d think we’d meet again but it’s good to see you again Penny.”

“Y-yeah, good to see you too,” she still seemed spaced out, slapping her hands against her cheeks to try and get herself out of her daydream, “Sorry, sorry. It just took me by surprise seeing you again while dealing with that customer, then you came in and…oh my god, you actually did that?!”

“Well I couldn’t just leave her yelling at you,” he said, “It still bugs me how people can talk to workers like that.”

“I’m used to it by now, its not the first time I had to deal with an angry customer before,” she shrugged, “Besides, I could handle it, you didn’t need to do that for me.”

Jack walked up to the counter, “But you shouldn’t have to deal with that. Seriously, are you okay?”

At his question, her lips lifted into a small yet grateful smile, it was telling how customers like that affected her when she was having this type of response by someone showing genuine decency, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Jack nodded to her answer, “So, this is my first time here, is there anything you recommend?”

“Are you sure?” she asked, “The menu’s right behind me if there’s something in particular you want.”

“Nah, its fine,” he rested his arms on the counter, “I don’t have any allergies or dairy intolerance. Surprise me.”

“Uh, yeah…yeah okay!” she grinned, already grabbing a red thermos cup – decorated with little Christmas tree for the season – “We have our holiday special, sweet but with a dash of spice. You’re actually the first customer to have it this year. Also, what size of cup would you like?”

“Large please, and I’m honoured,” he placed a hand to his chest dramatically, “Of course the ‘special’ drink is going to me, I am quite charming after all.”

Penny snorted as she started up the coffee machine, “Easy there, it just came out today and many people have had it years before you.”

“Ah, but you didn’t deny the charming part,” Jack leaned in a little bit closer, “Do you think I’m charming Pen?”

Oh god, where did the nicknames come from? Pull yourself together Penny, he probably has nicknames for everyone! The machine beeped; Penny pulled the cup away as she began to add the rest of the ingredient. “So, um, where you headed after this?”

Jack pulled back, he liked to tease but he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, “Oh, I’m just heading to college. Buses got mixed up so I’m just grabbing something to keep me warm before I leave.”

“Oh really?” Penny perked up, interest filling her brown eyes, “What do you study?”

“Game design,” he answered, “It’s been something I’ve been interested in since I was a kid.”

Penny’s smile widened, leaving Jack a bit breathless. He would never get over how beautiful her smile was. “That’s so cool!” Penny marvelled, grabbing whipped cream and red and white sprinkles, “You must have so much fun doing that! Well, I don’t wanna assume but that sounds amazing! I mean, you probably have this whole world figured out in your head and figure out how to make it fun while fitting the story that’s been written and you have to capture every single detail to make it come to life, I mean, that’s gotta be a lot of work! At least I think it is, I don’t know about the whole video game world, oh god, I’m word vomiting again. Shit! I mean, shoot! I’m sorry, don’t tell my boss!”

The whole time, Jack couldn’t help but be in awe of her excitement. I mean, Winter and her family had always shown enthusiasm over his work and always found ways to support him. But why was it different with Penny? He didn’t know her other than what Winter told him about her, but it always left him intrigued of what Riley’s ‘mystery sister’ was like. In the short time he did know her, he found out that she was the sweet yet nervous girl that he wanted to know more about – he still felt bad about her fainting. The way she easily got ecstatic about what he did, it only made him want to know her more. When he noticed that she caught him staring, he coughed awkwardly, making her giggle a bit at his reaction, “No, its okay, I like hearing your quote on quote ‘word vomit’. And don’t worry, I won’t tell your boss.”

Penny looked up, hearing the sincerity in his voice. While it was true that she found him attractive when they met in the funhouse, it was this moment that reminded her why she hoped they would meet again. Despite his wit and cheek, this was a funny yet charming guy that she believed that she could find a friend in. She may or may not also have a small crush on him. She smiled at him, putting the last of the sprinkles on top of the whipped cream and closed up the beverage with the lid. “Here it is, one holiday special,” she beamed, handing him the thermos, “I hope you like it.”

She carefully deposited the warm drink into his hands, their fingers touching briefly before she quickly pulled away, supressing a blush. Jack lifted the drink to his lips, taking a sip, a gentle wave of cinnamon and sugar smoothed over all his senses, with a hint of cardamon and the sweetness of the whipped cream tying the whole coffee together. He hummed at the taste, it was just what he needed, “This really is Christmas in a cup.”

“I’m glad you like it!” she moved to the register, “That will be $3, are you paying with cash or card?”

“Card, thanks,” he pulled it out from his wallet, tapping the little machine and put it away once he heard the beep, “So, what are the rest of your plans for today?”

“Well, I finish my shift by lunch so after that I’ll be heading to my class,” she replied, “And you?”

 “I’ve got a longer day so its I probably won’t be home till late,” he sighed.

“Aw, poor thing,” she giggled. Jack wanted to savour that sound forever.

This is it, Jack! You’ve been waiting for a moment like this, ask her now! “Hey, uh, Penny?”

She looked up as she gathered his receipt, “Yeah?”

“So, I was wondering, if you ever wanted to catch up, like maybe go out for a coffee sometime?”

“Um, I work in a coffee shop,” she stifled a laugh.

“Right! Right, I mean like somewhere else that doesn’t have to be coffee specifically,” he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, “Do you think I could have your number so I could contact you?”

She wasn’t able to hide her blush this time, she could feel it rushing from head to toe. “YES!” she slapped her hands against her mouth, “I mean, yes!” Why can’t I just react like a normal person?

“Great!” Jack was sure he lit up like the lights of a Christmas tree.

“Um, oh, here!” Penny pulled a pen from her pocket, writing down her number on the top of the receipt before handing Jack the little slip of paper, “Just put it into your phone and send me a text, but no cursed memes, got it?”

“Can’t make any promises little lady,” he smirked, pushing down the rushing swell of excitement when he saw the hastily written number in blue ink.

“Excuse me, little?” she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well yeah, look at you, you’re basically pint sized!” he snickered.

“I am a normal height!” she scoffed, “It’s you who’s basically a giant!”

“Well I hate to break it to you little lady,” he was having way too much fun with this, “But you basically came up to my chin when we were in the funhouse, I think I’m already getting a neck ache looking down at you already.”

“Ugh, I regret giving you, my number,” She buried her face into her hands again.

“Too late now little lady!” he chuckled, pocketing the paper and walking out the door, “Oh and Penny, thanks for the coffee. I think I have a new favourite drink.” And person. He pulled out a $20 bill from his wallet, “Here, for your earlier troubles.”

He put the bill into her tip jar. Penny placed a hand on her hip, “Are you just trying to show up that last customer?”

“Of course not,” he denied, his grin said otherwise, “Only a petty person would do that.”

“Sure,” she snorted, “Now go, I don’t want you to be late for your class.”

“Don’t worry, my bus won’t be here till-” he looked behind him, panic filling his face as he noticed the bus begin to close its doors down the street, “-shit! Gotta go!”

He rushed out the shop, Penny clutching her sides as she laughed. If this is what the rest of their friendship was going to be like, she couldn’t wait for the ride.

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One Month Later

“Are you texting Penny again?” Winter appeared by Jack’s door, almost making him drop his phone against his computer desk, his headphones around his next while working on the last assignment before the holidays.

“Jesus Winter!” he exclaimed, “Where did you come from?!”

“Riley is visiting her sister for the weekend, so I’d thought to come visit and annoy you,” she grinned. Right, Penny had mentioned a while back that Riley would usually visit home when the holidays arrived. Even after moving in with Winter, the two were always welcome at Riley’s mom’s place when they had their annual leave. “My mom let me come up to see you, but you didn’t answer my question, were you texting Penny again?”

“I might’ve been,” he sent Winter a mock glare, “Didn’t realise you liked to snoop.”

“Oh please, as if you haven’t stuck into my room and messed with my shit, I still remember the centipede invasion,” she shuddered as she walked over to his bed, popping herself down, “You two are getting along pretty well huh?”

He noticed her soften at that last part, “Yeah, we’ve become pretty close.”

“To the point that you’ve been texting her ever since you got her number?” she raised a brow.

“Did your mom tell you that too?” he leant further back into his chair.

“Nope, just a lucky guess. And judging by the flustered look on your face I guessed right,” she laughed as Jack felt his already reddened cheeks.

“Wow, you’re just the worst,” he drawled sarcastically, but he was unable to hide a grin.

“But seriously though,” Winter sobered up, “I’m glad that you guys are getting along. Everyone else and I worry about you a lot since…you know…and I saw that you’ve been getting better with college, therapy and a job, but seeing stuff like this, I don’t know, it just reassures me a bit more. You’re basically like my brother, so I worry about you a lot. But you are doing okay, right?”

“Aww Winter, you do care!” he said, exaggerating his words. But he saw how Winter’s shoulders slumped, as much as the two teased each other, it was clear how much their emotional wellbeing meant to one another, “I’m doing better each day. I’ve actually talked to my therapist about Penny.”

Winter straightened back up right away, “Really, what did Andrea say?”

“I was basically telling her how we met and that we’ve been talking for the past month,” he chuckled a bit, “She was pretty shocked when I told her that I made Penny faint the first time I saw her. But other than that, I told her that while I’m glad I’ve met her, there’s something that’s been gnawing at the back of my head. Its just…Penny doesn’t know what I went through and there’s just this fear that she’ll feel like she needs to take on my problems once I tell her. I’m just scared that she’ll feel like she needs to ‘fix me’, I’ve met people like that and its always terrifying when they break themselves to help someone that doesn’t want to be helped.”

“But you do want to be helped,” Winter interjected quickly.

Jack nodded, “That’s what Andrea said. That and this; there’s a difference between supporting people through their hardships and putting the weight of the world on their shoulders. If Penny sees me, if she truly sees me, she’ll know that as well. But there’s also a part of me that’s afraid that she’s gonna run when I tell her what I went through, I mean I get it, but after this past month she’s someone I don’t want to lose.”

“Well it kinda goes back to what you said before, or rather what Andrea said before. If Penny truly sees you, then she’ll inevitably see the baggage as well,” Winter pointed out. “I mean, my family did. Did we run?”

Jack smiled, nothing smug, nothing playful, just a warm smile. “No, you all definitely didn’t put up with my bullshit, but you never ran…I don’t think I could ever repay what you and your family have done for me.”   

“Trust me when I say that Penny will do the same,” she affirmed, “She won’t quote on quote ‘fix you’, but she won’t run, not after knowing her and Riley through all these years.”

“Yeah,” he nodded before groaning, “God, why is being human so fucking complicated?”

“I have no idea! I’m still wondering how I’ve made it this far!” Winter exclaimed.

Jack shook his head, laughing. Winter gasped, making him stop, her face lighting up as though a lightbulb went off in her head, “Me and Riley were gonna go to the Christmas fair tomorrow, you should invite Penny! It could be a double date!”

“What?!” he nearly fell over in his chair, “Winter, I barely worked up the courage to get her number before seeing her in the coffee shop, what makes you think I’m able to ask her on a date?!”

“Well you don’t have to use word ‘date’,” she shrugged, “Just say that I invited you to come with Riley and I, so you were wondering if she’d like to go with you.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously!” Winter grinned, “Come on, mom’s been telling me that when you’re not at college or work, you’re glued to your phone texting Penny. I never knew how much of a simp you were.”

Jack put up his index finger, “Number one, your mom’s a snitch,” he put that one down and then switched to his middle finger and pointed it to Winter, “Number two, fuck you for the simp comment,” he finished with his ring finger, “And three, even if its not a said ‘date’, I still don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him, though her smile looked as though she was hiding something, “I’ll help you with what to say. Besides, I kinda need you to go to. I have…something I need to pick up for Riley and I want to get your verdict.”

“What is it?” he asked.

Winter bit her lip before pulling out her phone, scrolling for a moment before showing him a ring that she found on a jewellery store website. But it wasn’t just any ring, “You’re gonna propose to Riley!”

“Shhh!” she put a finger to her lips, “Not so loud, you dumbass! And yes, I plan on proposing on Christmas day. The place where I’m getting it from is near the fair, so I plan on picking it up then. So not only to I need your opinion, but I also need you, so Riley doesn’t figure anything out.”

“So I’m just the distraction then?” he placed a hand to his chest in a faux manner, “I’m hurt Winter.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Poor you and that,” she waved a hand dismissively, “But seriously, the fair is gonna be a good chance to get the ring sorted and for you and Penny to spend some time together without texting.”

Jack sighed. All in all this did sound like a good opportunity for everyone, but it still didn’t stop him from sweating buckets. However, he thought about Penny. How would her face look in the Christmas lights? What would be her favourite booths there? Would she get excited at the first fall of snow? So many questions ran through his mind, and he desperately wanted the answers to all of them. “Winter,” he grabbed his phone, “Help me ask Penny to the fair.”

“Yes!” Winter pumped her fist in the air and sat on the edge of the bed closest to Jack, “Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do…”

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“Come on Penny, let me win!”

“Its not my fault you’re bad at this game!”

Penny and Riley were bundled up in blankets in the former’s bed, dressed in ugly Christmas sweaters as the two punched each button and control on Penny’s Switch controller, the graphics and music of Mario Kart blasting from Penny’s TV in front of them, and Riley was losing badly.

“I bet you’re cheating!” Riley bit her lip in concentration, grunting as she watched her sister overtake her in the race.

“Nope!” Penny popped the ‘p’, “You’re just terrible!”

After a while of struggling and laughing, Penny eventually won the race, leaving Riley to curl up on herself in defeat. “No!” she cried.

“And that’s another win for Penny!” the younger sister cheered, “I’d ask if you wanna play again, but after losing ten times to me, its probably best I pass on that.”

“One day I’m gonna beat you at this game, I swear!” Riley huffed.

“Keep dreaming Riles,” Penny snickered, her sister doing the same as the hype died down.

“So,” Riley started, “Winter told me that you’ve been texting Jack for the past month?”

“Yeah,” Penny smiled, thinking back to that day, “He had to get a different bus to college, and we met at the coffee shop that I work at.” She stopped when she noticed Riley’s frown, as though she were deep in thought, “Don’t tell me you’re still mad at him about the funhouse?”

“I can’t help it,” Riley admitted, “Sure I’m not as mad as before, but when it comes to you and hearing about someone scared you so much to the point of fainting, some kind of kill instinct goes off in my brain.”

“Riley!” Penny chided.

“Not literally!” Riley interrupted, “Pen, you’re my baby sister, and both mom and I have seen what you went through. I know it’s not an excuse, but I can’t help but freak out if something happened to you. But I’ll admit it, I might have exaggerated a ­little bit towards Jack.”

Penny huffed, “A little?”

“Okay, maybe a lot,” Riley rolled her eyes.

“Well you don’t need to worry,” Penny took her sister’s hand in hers, “He actually defended me from a rude customer that day. Some lady was going off at me because I wouldn’t accept her expired coupon, and he stood up for me.”

“Huh,” Riley lent into the pillows, crossing her arms, “Now that I didn’t know.”

“See,” Penny repeated the action, leaning her head on Riley’s shoulder, “I know you’re worried, trust me I get it. There’s still a part of me that’s gonna be wary of everyone that isn’t you, Winter or mom. Hell it took me a while to warm up to Winter and realise that she wasn’t like…them…but I’m getting less afraid each day, its not easy, but I think Jack is a genuinely good person. Besides, I kinda of, well…like him.”

Riley inhaled, her eyes widening a bit, Penny snickering at the reaction before continuing, “Don’t give me that look. Listen, all I want from you is to support me with this, if he’s Winter’s best friend, then he can’t be this ‘big bad Jack’ you’ve made up in your head.”

Riley groaned as her sister laughed at the memory of Winter teasing her on the way back from the Halloween festival. “Well either way,” Riley continued, “I guess that was…nice of him for doing that. But it still doesn’t change the fact that if he hurts you, I will tear his eyes out, shove them down his throat, make him watch as I tear out his heart and bury him alive at the bottom of the ocean!”

“Riley, I love you and all, but if you ever get arrested, I’m not bailing you out of jail,” Penny admitted, her face and voice deadpanned.

“Fair enough,” the older of the two shrugged. Their lips keep trying and failing to not crack a smile, the sisters burst out laughing, howling until their sides hurt and they leant on each other for support.

Once all was quiet, Penny heard her phone ping from her beside table. She grabbed it, noticing the text was from Jack. She gasped.

“What?” Riley stiffened up, her stance sharp and ready to defend, “What happened?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Penny reassured her, leaning closer to her sister to comfort her, “Its Jack, he’s asking me if I wanna join him, you and Winter for the Christmas fair!”

“As if I wasn’t gonna be asking you anyway,” Riley mentioned, earning her a look from her sister, “Alright, sorry, I didn’t mean to be snippy. You really like this guy, don’t you?”

Penny nodded, if she weren’t sitting in her bed, she would be bouncing on her toes. “Yeah, I do. I haven’t felt this sure about liking someone in a while. It just feels right, and I wanna see where this is gonna go. I’m saying yes. But please, for the love of God, when we meet up with him and Winter, be nice.”

“I’ll try,” Riley gritted out, “For you, I know it seems that I’m being overbearing, but I do trust you with this. Besides, I’ll be able to keep my eye on him this way. But if he hurts you-!”

“I know, you’ll bury him alive or whatever,” Penny chortled, “How the hell are we related?”

Riley’s nose crinkled with a cheeky smile, “Beats me.”

“No, I don’t want you contacting me or the girls!”

The two turned to Penny’s door, it has creaked open earlier but the two were so wrapped up in their game to realise. Their mother Amber was standing out in the hallway, a woman in her early 50’s, tall and lithe with red hair like Riley and green eyes. There were small wrinkles by the corners of her lips and forehead, but her overall aura radiated her youth. Right now, she was on the phone, pacing up and down the hall in her pyjamas with a frustrated look on her face.

“How could you say that?!” she questioned the other person on the phone, “I’ve tried to get you help but you never offered to take it!” There was a muffled sentence from the other person, but it was enough for Amber to shake with anger. “David, listen to me when I tell you this, if you ever try to contact the girls, I will fucking end you! No, you don’t have any right! Not after what you did to Penny!”

She looked over to the door, her eyes widening with guilt when she saw Penny and Riley. She was about to say something else before the voice spoke up again, making her turn away. “No! I know you’ve been turning up at Riley’s place…I’m not gonna tell her that! If she doesn’t want to see you, she doesn’t want to see you!”

Penny buried herself into the blankets, emotions that she hadn’t felt since she was younger picking at the back of her head, threatening to invade. What did he have to call now? What else could he want? Why couldn’t he just leave them alone?

Riley noticed her sister’s internal panic, getting up from the bed and closing the door over, settling back into the bed and starting up Mario Kart again. “Come on, give me one more game,” she smiled at Penny, bumping her shoulder, “I bet I can beat you this time.”

It was a series of movements that her older sister had repeated ever since they were kids, habits that still affected them even when they entered adulthood. Nevertheless, Penny returned the smile and the two continued the game. Cheering and making fun of one another, soon, the phone call was forgotten.

.

.

.

“Nervous?” Winter asked as they two parked the car outside of Penny’s home, waiting for the sisters to come out.

“No, of course not, I’m as chill as the ice we’ve been getting,” Jack retorted, his words smoothing over the obvious dread he was feeling.

Winter hummed, “Sure, and I’m guessing that your hands are shaking from the cold…despite the air conditioning in the car.”

“Exactly,” he smirked.

“Hey, its gonna be fine,” Winter placed a hand on his arm, “All we’re gonna do is have a fun day out and see what we get up to. Besides, you don’t think I’m not nervous either?! I’m buying an engagement ring for Riley!”

Jack chuckled, “How are you feeling about that?”

“Both excited and about to shit myself,” Winter replied honestly, “Imagine what its gonna be like when I actually propose.”

“Good luck with that,” Jack snickered, even harder when Winter hit his arm.

The door to Penny’s home opened and the two girls exited the door with another woman who Jack guessed was their mother. “Hey!” Penny grinned as she climbed into the car with Riley, “Sorry if we took too long.”

“Nah, you’re fine,” Winter smiled, reaching over to take Riley’s hand and placing a kiss on it, “Its not as long as Jack’s two-hour baths so you’re fine.”

“Hey!” Jack gaped, Penny giggling at his response.

The older woman knocked on the window, hugging the cardigan she was wearing closer to her as Winter rolled her window down. “Hey, I’m Amber,” she waved to him, “I’m Penny’s mom, I just wanted to officially say hi before you guys left.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you had the chance to meet Jack yet, have you?” Winter pondered.

“That’s on me,” he said, “I’m sometimes a bit funny with other people, but I think I’ve seen you sometimes when you or Riley visit. Sorry if I’ve never introduced myself, its usually because I’m busy or-”

“-Or being a social recluse,” Winter finished for him.

“Winter, I swear to God!” he started, but stopped when he heard Penny’s laugh. How did it sound so lovely each time he heard it?

“Well its nice to meet you too,” Amber grinned, sharing a look with her youngest daughter before turning back to Jack, “You’re all Penny would talk about. So it’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Mom!” Penny cried.

“What?” Amber asked rhetorically, “I just wanted to get to know the guy that stole your heart. And he’s handsome too, good job baby.”

Penny brought her knees to her chest, mumbling into them, “Please just kill me now.”

“I’d like this conversation to end as well,” Riley butted in, glaring at her mother, “And I’d like my mom to stop scheming over my little sister please.”

Amber put her hands up in surrender, backing away from the car, “Okay, okay. Jack, make sure you bring Penny home safe, otherwise I won’t be able to control what Riley’s gonna do to you.”

Jack gulped when he heard the older sister crack her knuckles from the seat behind him, “Got it ma’am.”

“Winter,” She turned to the girl in the driver’s seat, “You take care of my other baby as well, alright?”

“You got it Ms Reed!” Winter gave the woman a thumbs up before placing her hands back in the steering wheel, “We’ll see you later!”

Amber waved as Winter started the car, waiting until it drove off before heading back inside, but before she went through the door, she faced back to where the car was sitting before. “Whoever’s out there, please give Penny a chance to be happy.”

.

.

.

“Wow!” Penny gasped, being the first to step out the car as soon as it was parked, “Look at this place!”

What was ahead could only be described as a winter wonderland. Many of the stalls there were decorated like Christmas trees or gingerbread houses, flashing lights of red, white and yellow were hung from each to toe of each building, the sweet smell of hot chocolate and other sweets roamed the air, there were minigames and the Ferris wheel was bright with multicoloured lights, and by the end of it all, the parade would begin along with fireworks.

Penny chittered, but there so no source of cold to make her react that way, there was nothing pure excitement fuelling her body. “Isn’t this incredible!” she called out to the others as they got out of the car.

“I’ve gotta say, they really went all out this year,” Jack walked up to her, marvelling the sight. Well, that and the way Penny shone just like each of the lights there.

“Okay, here’s what I think we should do,” Winter spoke up, “We’ll look at a few stalls and games, then we’ll break off into two, Jack will go with me, and Penny and Riley can go together-”

“Wait, why do you want to split up?” Riley asked.

“Oh, um, you know cause-” Winter stuttered.

“Because there’s this place that I’ve been pestering Winter to see,” Jack interjected, “I just think it would be pretty special to her so that’s why I wanted to take her myself.” He looked over to Winter, who was sighing with relief.

“Oh, yeah that’s fine,” Riley went over to her girlfriend, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“Yeah, right so anyways,” Winter continued, “After that we should all meet up and check out the food, maybe a few more games, then we can stop and warm up with some hot chocolate at the café before the parade and fireworks.”

Penny grinned, “I think that’s sounds great.”

“I’m cool with that,” Jack nodded.

“It sounds great hon,” Riley placed a gentle kiss on Winter’s lips, the latter blushing before pressing her forehead against Riley’s.

“Okay,” Winter beamed, “Let’s go.”

They spent the next few hours doing just that. Jack quickly learned that while Halloween wasn’t Penny’s thing, Christmas definitely was. The way she bounced from stall to stall, admiring every little ornament and item they had for sale. She bought at least three bobbles, one bolt of new fabric – she squealed when she saw festive selection – and a new snow globe. Jack didn’t find himself minding one bit, just seeing her smile and as went into detail with every little thing warmed him so much that he couldn’t register the cold.

Riley and Winter were also having their own fun. Winter had dragged Riley into a photo session with statues of elves and reindeer, Winter had decided to place elf ears and fake antlers on Riley when she wasn’t looking before the photos, chortling at her bewildered reaction when Riley finally realised what she did.

There were many games to chose from as well, from balloon darts to ring tosses to even rides such as tilt-a-whirls, spinning teacups and bumper cars. Jack and Penny had settled on a high striker for their first game, with Jack determined to win and buy a stuffed bear for Penny. While he did get a good swing, it didn’t manage to reach the top. When Penny had her go, she swung the hammer as hard as she could, closing her eyes and bracing for impact as she hit the bottom, cheering when she heard the ring of the bell, and the prized bear was handed to her. What made it all worth it was the bewildered look on Jack’s face, both impressed and terrified of her strength.

The group had fun, taking photos, laughing and all around having a good time, but Riley didn’t let Jack and Penny out of her sight for a second. Perhaps she was being overprotective, and she knew Jack was a good guy before he and Penny met but did that stop her from wanting to keep her sister as safe as possible, absolutely not. She was pretty sure she was more protective over Penny than her mother, and she had seen how seriously Amber took her girls safety. After all, hell hath no fury like a mama bear.

Soon, when the time came, Jack and Winter split up from Penny and Riley, promising to be back as quick as they could while the two sisters decided to go on the Ferris wheel. Soon, the ring was picked up and boxed, secure in Winter’s bag as she and Jack made it back to the sisters, with Riley none the wiser of what her girlfriend had planned.

A while later, after two more stalls, four games and deliciously made crepes, the four made it over to the café and picked out a booth near the back. Winter placed her jacket on the plush seat, letting the warmth soak over her. “Well I think its time for a break,” she eyed Jack and Penny, smirking as a planned formed in her head, “Why don’t you two catch up, after all we’ve been a group since we came here, you two probably wanna talk a little bit. Riley, mind helping me with the hot chocolate.”

Riley’s protective senses came flooding back at the thought of Jack and Penny together, “Actually I-”

“-You’re helping,” Winter pulled her girlfriend out of her seat, with Riley sending a warning glare at Jack before walking away.

Now that the two were alone, they could finally have a moment without Winter and Riley hovering (especially Riley). “So, are you enjoying yourself so far?” Jack asked.

“Um, hell yeah!” Penny exclaimed, “I’m pretty sure that Christmas has been part of my DNA since I was a kid.”

Jack chuckled, “That far back huh?”

“Yeah,” Penny smiled.

Jack shuffled in his seat a bit, he had planned on telling Penny more about himself tonight, more in depth than any other conversation they’ve ever had, but it didn’t stop him from the fear running through his veins. But he had to tell her, he wanted to tell her. “Hey, Pen?”

“Yeah?” The girl looked up at him.

“Do you remember when you asked me how I first met Winter?” he gripped his jeans, bundling the fabric in his hands.

“Oh, yes I remember that” she remembered the nervous flicker, there definitely more there but she didn’t want to pry, since they had only met that day on Halloween, “Why?”

“I, um, there’s a bit more to it than I said,” he gulped, “And I wanted to tell you once we got to know each other a bit more, but since we’ve known each other a bit more this past month, I wanted to tell you the full thing.”

“Of course,” Penny straightened, ready to hear everything he said, good or bad, “Just, if you feel like you can’t tell me everything don’t feel like you need to keep going.”

“Right, right. Sorry I just…”

“Take your time,” Penny spoke softly, “You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.”

(1)

“I do, it’s just, really hard,” He took a deep breath, there was no turning back, “While Winter and I did meet in high school, before any of that I didn’t really have a great upbringing. My folks died when I was 2 and I don’t really remember them that well. Anyways, I was in the system for a few years being tossed around from family to family, some of them were good and some of them were terrible, until I was adopted by this family, real ‘moral’ citizen kind of people,” he scoffed, “They were anything but that. The dad was a narcissist, he never believed he did anything wrong and if you’d get in his way, he'd…well, we was a smoker so if I ever did anything he didn’t like, he’d burn me with his cigarette.” Penny gasped; he wondered if he should stop but the look in her eyes told him to continue. “Anyways, the mom just ignored it, after all we had to be the ‘picture perfect family who took in a poor orphan boy’, anytime I’d ask for help she’d say that I did something wrong and turn away.

But then there was their kid, Luke. He was a few years older than me, but he made sure me made my life hell. He’d beat me, spit on me, say things that still won’t leave me head till this day. One time he was choking me so hard that I thought I was gonna die, luckily his mom pulled him off me, but she put make-up on my neck to hide the evidence and went about her day. No matter what I did, Luke was always there, grinning, plotting on what he could do to me next. Then I met Winter in high school, one day I wasn’t able to hide my bruises and she saw. Her mom was a teacher there and she told her straight away. The next thing I knew I was eating lunch in her classroom. I remembered just how kind they both were, how they didn’t judge me…believed me. I think that was the first time I let people see me cry.

Anyway, Winter’s family tried to get me out of that place, tried to report it, but no one did anything about it, and Luke made sure that I paid for it getting out. Winter stuck to me like glue ever since, she kept an eye on me even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I got bad and told her to fuck off, she told me straight up that she wasn’t gonna take my bullshit, she humbled a quite a bit then. But even though she didn’t put up with me being a dick, thank God, she never gave up on me. I knew then that even if it was hard, I couldn’t become like the people who hurt me, no matter how many voices there were, I didn’t want to lose anyone like Winter and be what I hated.

As soon as I was old enough to be emancipated, I moved out of that house and in with Winter’s family. The transition was so jarring, and I affected me a lot, I was abrasive, loud and rude. I just wasn’t able to handle the fact that there were people who actually cared about me, so I lashed out. Eventually I was sat down, and if I thought Winter could humble me, the rest of her family did it tenfold. I was so prepared for them to kick me out, to never want to see me again, but they didn’t. Instead, they comforted me, told me that I was safe and the next thing I knew, they were helping me set up therapy appointments to help me out. It took a while, but I tried getting on my feet again, I applied and got into college and even got a job as a scare actor. I’m still living with her family, but I’ve never felt freer in my life! I don’t think I could ever repay them or Winter for all they’ve done for me, sure there’s days that are harder than the rest, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

(2)

He took a breath as he finished and looked at Penny, her eyes were wide yet focused, taking in everything that he had said. It like a giant weight had been lifted off his shoulder. “I’m sorry if that was a bit much but-”

“Don’t be sorry!” Penny interjected, “I’m glad you told me, I just can’t believe that happened to you.”

“Some people are amazing, some people aren’t,” he sighed, “I want to be like the people who see the world with the potential it had…someone like you. I’ve wanted to tell you for some time, but I just didn’t want you to feel burdened by it, like you had to carry my weight as well.”

“I get it, honestly I do,” she replied, “I understand that this is a complex situation to talk about, but I’m glad that you did talk about it. Are you still in therapy?”

“Yeah,” Jack nodded, “The therapist is great, I don’t think I would be able to be like this if it wasn’t for her.”

“Well, if were gonna be talking about shitty childhoods, I guess…” Penny clenched her hands into fists.

“Pen,” Jack said quickly, “Don’t feel like you’ve gotta say anything because I did.”

(3)

“I want to,” Penny murmured, “Trust me, I want to tell you.” She took a moment to prepare herself. “Before I was born, my mom and dad were extremely in love, like, they were high school sweethearts who gushed over each other and got married in college. I also know that he and Riley were pretty close as well. But then, my mom found out she was pregnant with me. They wanted a second kid, but they never expected it so soon. My mom was happy but my David, my dad, while he said he was happy, looking back on it now I think he was only just saying that. I was born premature, and I was really sick, so I had to spend more time at the hospital. I think I was there for a few months, and my parents had to work extra hard to pay the medical bills. It was then that it was found out that David had been embezzling funds from the company he worked at, and it was my birth and medical bills that messed everything up for him. So one thing led to another, and he got fired. My mom wasn’t happy but eventually it was paid off.

I think that was a catalyst was a lot of things that happened in my life. Ever since then David was a completely different person. He stopped spending time with Riley, he didn’t help my mom whenever I needed fed or changed, and he wasn’t able to hold a job for long. It was also then I realised something that’s pretty fucked up for a kid, I don’t think anyone is supposed to think at 5 years old ‘why does my dad not like me?’ If I was ever alone in a room with him, he would just say such awful things to me, he called me worthless, pathetic, that I better be something great when I’m older otherwise I’m just a waste. That was just the tip of the iceberg. I would always be terrified to show too much of any emotion, whether it was happy, sad, scared, he would just scream at me to the point where I would just stop talking, I was just too scared to do anything at all. When I started middle school, I just became this shell of a person, I wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t move, always flinch. The thing is, when you act in a way that’s ‘different’ to others, it makes you a target. Soon, it became a norm for people to call me names, trip me, kick me. I still got sick a lot due being ill at birth, so it caused me to lose a lot of weight, and everyone made sure that they noticed. It got to the point where it was so bad that I was afraid to go to the bathroom in case there was anyone there. I hated everything about myself. I was too quiet. I was too scared. I hated my body. I just really fucking hated myself.

My parents’ marriage began to become more strained; they fought a lot and Riley realised how much David really sucked as a person. Whenever their fights got too loud, she would close the door and distract me with something like a game or a movie. My mom had to work overtime since David wasn’t working anymore so Riley had to make sure I was okay since he wouldn’t go an inch near me. I still think about how Riley was forced to grow up, because of me. She couldn’t go to parties or have fun because she was busy taking care of me. She said that she didn’t mind, but no one should be forced to give up their childhood, I ruined that for her.

One day, neither my mom nor Riley could get me from school, so David had to get me. He was acting like he usually did but there was something off about how he acted. He was complaining while driving us home, how he shouldn’t be doing this that he had better things to do that pick up his own daughter from school. He was driving so fast, he kept swerving from side to side, I though I was gonna be sick. But then, before I had time to react, we crashed. I remember just being in so much pain, I kept thinking that the last time I saw my mom and Riley would really be the last time. I woke up in the hospital later, Riley and my mom were by side, crying and saying how scared they were. Later we found out that David had been drinking and driving, in fact he had been drinking for a while. He just got worse at hiding it. The minute my mom found out she immediately filed for a divorce, ever since then she felt guilty about not doing sooner, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. There were times after that when David tried to reconnect with Riley and I, but we were just done with him.

After hearing about the crash and the divorce, I became a bigger target at school. The name calling and the beating got worse, if people pointed out about my weight before then they also pointed the scars that I got from the crash. It just really hit me how cruel people wanted to be. Eventually it got so bad that I just shut down, emotionally and physically. I just numbed myself to the point that I neglected my basic needs, I didn’t eat, I struggled to sleep, it just got really bad. My mom and Riley noticed, and they both tried to help, but I just couldn’t find any point to try. But then it all caught up to me, I was taking a bath and I just…passed out, there and then. I was lucky that I left the door unlocked, Riley managed to find me and screamed at my mom to phone an ambulance. When I came to it was from my mom performing CPR, she held me and cried that my heart stopped for two minutes. I think about that day a lot, how bad it got, I still hate how scared Riley and my mom were. I never wanted to make them feel that way again.

So I decided to get help, I went to a support group for a while and tried taking care of myself again, with Riley and mom’s support. I was also pulled out of school and finished the rest of the year online before being homeschooled, honestly for my sanity, it was for the best. I really struggled getting into a good routine and wanting to take care of myself, but I know that I’d rather try to be happy and see what life can offer me than hit another low like that again, because I know that all I did was make things worse for everyone. As for David, he’s been in and out of rehab a few times, but he’s never made any real effort to stay sober.”

(4)

She huffed as she finished that last sentence, she lifted her head to face Jack, gasping when she noticed tears spilling down his cheeks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you!”

“No, no!” He hastily wiped them away, “You don’t need to be sorry for anything! I can’t believe that happened to you!”

Penny sniffed, “Pot calling the kettle black don’t you think? Besides, I’m doing better now. College is good, I’m surrounded by good people. I know you say that you wanna see the world I do, but I kind of have to. If we can’t see the world for what it offered us, how can we be human?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he wiped away another tear, “Just, all this shit we’ve been through, sometimes you forget how hard it hits.”

“Its like what you and I said about costume and game design,” Penny said, “We used what we loved to help us with it all.”

“Even if its still hard sometimes,” Jack finished.

“Yeah,” Penny nodded, “Even then.”

“Penny, I’m sorry that all that happened to you,” Jack whispered, gently taking her hand under the table, “This is gonna sound really corny, but for what its worth, I see you.”

Penny’s breath hitched, Jack’s thumb stroked her hand, providing comfort after all they had laid out. She won’t lie, there was still a part of her that was scared now that there was nothing hiding the bad stuff anymore, and she was sure he felt the same. But there was also something else, courage. Courage to see this through, courage to remind her that there are people who will care and love her, Jack was one of them. “Jack, I see you too.”

He let out a shudder, tension releasing from his muscles. This girl was truly something else, and after hearing what she went through, he was going to follow his own advice. He understood why Riley was so protective over her, he would be the same if it was Winter in that situation. There was still that still wanted to hide, but he couldn’t, not from her. It was then he realised how deep and far he had fallen for Penny.

Two mugs were slammed onto the table, provided by an exasperated looking Riley, “Well that took longer than it should’ve.”

“It’s a busy fair this year, I’m not surprised the que was that long,” Winter interjected, placing down two other mugs of steaming hot chocolate, “So, did you guys have anything to talk about?”

Jack and Penny shared a look, just one but it shared much more than just a ‘talk’. “Yeah,” Jack nodded, “We did”.

The group made sure to savour the hot chocolate that they were given, the sweet taste warming them as they kept an eye on the time. Once they were down, the gathered their jackets and headed back outside again, anticipating the parade that was about to begin.

The moment the first float came out, the crowd erupted into cheers. Each of them had a different them yet kept it related to the holiday season, but the crowd favourite and what got everyone to cheer was the last one carrying an actor of Santa with real reindeer with their reigns held by professionals where the ‘Santa’ waved from his sleigh.

As soon as the parade ended, the fireworks began, lighting the sky with red, green and yellow. It Jack didn’t think Penny looked pretty before, seeing the fireworks reflect in her eyes made her look beautiful. He was sure that a core memory had been created right then and there, locked away in the back of his head, but he didn’t mind one bit. And certainly didn’t mind when Penny held his hand as they watched the fireworks, both of them ignoring the sudden racing of their hearts.

The night was over. The stalls began to close, and each light went off one by one as everyone walked back to their cars.

During the drive home, the group would talk about all they saw that night, commenting on what was their favourite out of the whole fair. Riley had set next to Winter this time while Jack and Penny shared the back, enjoying one another’s company.

Soon, Winter rolled the car up by Amber’s house, letting the girls out. Winter and Jack got out as well, wanting to walk them to the door before they left. Riley and Winter shared one last kiss, the former was going to stay another night at her sister’s place before going back home with Winter tomorrow, but with they way the couple was acting was almost straight out of a soap opera, as if it would be eternity before seeing the other again.

As Winter went to hug Penny, Riley looked over to Jack. “Look here smart guy,” she growled, “Penny is really important to me, so if I find out you’ve been messing with her, I will tear you limb from limb. So consider this you’re last and only warning.”

Jack nodded, shivering not just from the cold, but mostly from the icy stare down that Riley was giving him. “I understand, really,” he reassured her, “You’re a good sister Riley.”

The stare melted a bit, not a lot but just a bit, Riley’s features softening slightly, “I know I am.”

Winter and Penny pulled away, “I’ll see you tomorrow Riley, Jack are you coming?”

“Just a sec Winter,” Jack went to face Penny, “I just wanna say bye to Penny first.”

Winter grinned, “Oh of course, I’m just gonna head to the car.”

“And I’ll just wait out here,” Riley crossed her arms just as the front door opened, revealing Amber.

“Oh hey guys you’re back,” Amber smiled, “Did you have fun?”

“We did mom,” said Penny, “I was just saying bye to Jack.”

“Oh well in that case, Riley could you come in here for a bit I need your help with something?” Amber asked, her smile was all-knowing as she looked at Jack and Penny.

“As a matter of fact-” Riley interjected.

“-She doesn’t mind at all,” Winter shoved her inside.

“GODDAMMIT-!” Riley shouted before Amber slammed the door.

“Like I said, I’ll be in the car,” Winter skipped away, leaving the two by the door.

“Do you have any idea what that was about?” Penny questioned.

Jack shook his head, “Not a clue.”

Penny put her hands behind her back, staring at her feet shyly before peering back up at him, “I had a lot of fun, thanks for inviting me.”

“I think you being there made it a lot more fun,” Jack admitted, watching the way pink dotted Penny’s cheeks, “Are you still okay after all that?”

Penny nodded, “Yeah, you?”  

“Mmhmm,” Jack hummed affirmatively, “Just text me wanna hang out again.”

“I will,” Penny agreed, “Probably after Christmas, but I think Riley, mom and I are coming to your house for Christmas dinner.”

“Really?” Jack lit up, noticing how he sounded before sobering himself up again, “I mean yeah that’s great; I can’t wait to see you then.”

Penny giggled, “Smooth. Well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight Penny,” Jack whispered one more time, turning away.

Penny was about to go inside when she decided to do one more thing while she still had the courage, after all, the night was still young. “Jack, wait!”

He lifted his head at the call of his name, “What? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, its just, um, you f-forgot something,” Penny stammered, working herself up as much as she could, “You forgot this.”

She planted a kiss on his cheek, pulling away quickly. Jack’s mouth was agape, a small gasp escaping, but he didn’t know how else to express the adrenaline he felt internally. The night couldn’t have ended more perfect, with the lamp on the sidewalk illuminating the two as the falling snow powdered round them. He blinked the surprise away, smirking down at Penny as the girl blushed at her actions, “Thanks little lady.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and oh how her face turned even redder than a Christmas light.  

“I-I,” she stuttered, every part of her was rushing, cheering, yet all she could say was, “I’M NOT LITTLE GOODNIGHT!” Before running back into the house.

Jack chuckled, walking back to the car and sitting in the passenger seat. He could feel Winter’s teasing eyes on him, “Shut up.” His voice had no malice and the lovestruck grin was still plastered on his face.

Winter chuckled, driving away into the night. Jack smiled, he fell hard, and he loved every bit of it.

.

.

.

Jax bolted up in bed, grumbling. Here he thought he wouldn’t have another dream, yet fate had other plans. He placed his hands on his cheeks, feeling a wetness on his fur. Was he seriously crying in his dream? “Why does this keep getting weirder?” he mumbled to himself.

He raised a hand to his cheek again, to the same place Penny kissed Jack. One reason why he hated these dreams feeling so real was because he wanted that. He wanted someone just to like him, not even romantically but to just like him. Someone who could take a chance to actually want to know him, like how Penny wanted to know Jack. But he knew why though, he kept pushing everyone away who actually tried. The only thing he remembered from his first day here was nothing but fear, and the feeling of his past-self fleeting away, slipping from his fingers and before he knew it, he was reduced to nothing but a cowardly rabbit, finding it easier to just bite at whoever came near him than feel that fear again. Caine didn’t seem to care, as long as it made for a fun adventure.

He hated Jack, he hated that he seemed happier, he hated that he was brave enough to admit that he was scared, he hated how he had a family, a friend, that he felt the freedom of falling in love and wanting to maintain it. “Shut up Jax!” he growled to himself, “It’s a dream, just a dream, its not real!” But oh how he wanted it to be real.

He tried to ignore it for the rest of the day, focusing on how he could mess with the others, maybe he could steal one of Kinger’s pillows from his fortress. It all came to a halt when he heard the sound of two familiar voices.

“I’ve given you multiple chances to do this adventure!” Caine boomed throughout the tent, “Yet each time you don’t play it right! You are a jester, play your part!”

It wasn’t the first time Jax heard how angry Caine could be, the AI could be flat out terrifying went he wanted to be. He was curious about what him so angry. He peered round the corner and that’s when he saw it, Pomni cowering beneath Caine as he yelled at her.   

“I’m sorry, I’m trying I promise I’m trying!” she sniffled, “But you didn’t give me a chance to prepare when you threw those knifes at me! I didn’t even know it was going to be an adventure, I’m not even sure if I was a jester in my past life-”

“-This is your new life!” Caine thundered, making everyone else come in to see what was going on, but backing up when sensing Caine’s mood. This place was risky, but nothing worried them more than seeing Caine reach his limit. “If I ever hear you speak about an exit again so help me Pomni!”

“But I didn’t-”

“You are Pomni! You are a jester! This is your life!” Caine screamed, “If it takes throwing knifes at you to make you realise then so be it!”

Pomni curled in on herself, looking smaller than she ever did. It was then something triggered in Jax, a sense to run, a sense to defend her, a sense to rid her of the fear that Caine was installing in her.

I would always be terrified to show too much of any emotion, whether it was happy, sad, scared, he would just scream at me to the point where I would just stop talking, I was just too scared to do anything at all.

He had no self-control over what happened next. One moment he was at the side like everyone else, watching the whole thing go down. Next, he was in front of Pomni, starting at Caine as the AI tilted his head at Jax’s new and sudden behaviour.

The rest of the crew was shocked as well, Jax would’ve never have done this for anyone, yet Pomni was here for barely three months, and he was glaring at Caine without the slightest ounce of fear, and if he did feel it, he didn’t dare show it. Even Pomni was taken aback, uncurling herself to look at the rabbit in front of her.

“Jax,” Caine spoke quietly and softly, but it was dreadfully eerie, “What is the meaning of this?”

Jax knew he had to say something, Caine was smarter than he let on, so he had to play his cards right and stay in character, “Oh you know, I was gonna keep it to myself but Bubble currently loose in the carnival outside, I think he said something about being glad he was free reign of kitchen supplies?”

There was a beat, but it felt like forever with how Caine was staring at him, calculating each word Jax said within his digital consciousness. Jax tried to keep calm, trying not to lose focus when Caine gasped dramatically, the encounter already forgotten. “Not the carnival!” he screeched with panic before floating out the tent, “Bubble! You parasite! Don’t you dare touch that rollercoaster!”  

Jax nearly sighed with relief, the way Pomni looked so afraid, it reminded him too much of Penny and how she described her dad. Maybe what he did would come back to bite him later, but right now, he just couldn’t bare to see Pomni so scared. Because its only fun to mess with myself that’s why Jax defended internally, you just pitied her that’s what!

“Um,” Pomni’s small voice broke him out of his daze, he turned to see the jester clutching her hands together, “Thanks, for that.”

“Well the carnival is mildly entertaining, so I didn’t want to let Bubble destroy it,” he replied, trying to ignore the sting in his chest at the way Pomni’s face fell. He sighed, “You’re welcome little lady.”

Pomni’s head shot up fast, did he just say? No, that was your imagination, there’s no way he said that!

Pomni’s dreams had also returned the other night, leaving her waking up with tear-stained cheeks and flustered screeching. She remembered how Jack pressed his lips to Penny’s forehead, how she could somehow feel the imprint on her own head when she woke up. But that wasn’t possible, it wasn’t real, they weren’t real! Nothing but her mind playing tricks on her again and she thought she could forget about it, but Caine had magicked her on a wheel and began throwing knifes at her. She had freaked out and tried to get away, not realising that it was one of his ‘adventures’ before he started screaming at her. Then Jax swooped in, why did he do that, what could he hope to gain?

And then there was the ‘little lady’ comment and the déjà vu swelled up in her brain again. Why did her heart start racing when Jax said it? She shouldn’t be reacting this way, before after how he tucked her hair behind her ear the other night, and now this, she wasn’t sure if she could fight off being flustered anymore.

“Um, yeah, cool, we’re cool right?” she cringed at herself for that one, Jax even looked a bit confused at that, “I’m just gonna-” she bolted down the hall and back to her room to save herself from anymore embarrassment.

Jax shook his head and chuckled, Pomni was just too cute sometimes, he wouldn’t deny it, you can’t deny something that’s true right?

“Um Jax?” Gangle walked up to him, making him grunt as he faced her, “Bubble hasn’t been outside all day.”

Damn it, caught! “Jax,” Ragatha raised a brow at him, “What’s going on?”

“What?” he tried to save face as much as he could, “I can’t mess with dentures from time to time?”

“Oh please,” Zooble grumbled, “As if you were thinking about messing with Caine. We’re not blind you idiot; everyone can see that you did this for Pomni.”

 “Seriously, you really think I’m going soft for the newbie,” that was a boldfaced lie, and everyone knew it, “Kinger, Hoo haa, back me up on this buddy.”

The chess piece only stared at the group, silent for a while before saying, “Is this about an insect collection?”

“…See, just wanted to mess with Caine,” it wasn’t much but it was the best that he could save himself, “Now if you don’t mind, I don’t want to see the rest of you for the day, goodbye!”

He shoved himself past them all, ignoring the knowing looks on his back. He didn’t feel anything for Pomni, there was no way. After all that would be ridiculous, like having sudden dreams in this dimension type of ridiculous. After all it wasn’t as if he was curious about what her laugh sounded like, or how beautifully unique her eyes looked, or if he spent last night falling asleep while thinking about her…

…oh no.

#jax: i don't have a crush on pomni #everyone else: bet #the amazing digital circus #tadc #pomni #jax #caine #ragatha #kinger #gangle #zooble #female oc #pomnijax #funnybunny #pomni x jax #dragon rambles #my writing #fanfiction #fanfic #ao3

[howlingday]

Jaune's Shampoo

Mawraider

"DAMMIT, NORA!" Jaune opened his shower door. As he exited, he noticed his body had drastically changed. Using a mixture of his shampoo and experimental goo found at the fiendish Dr. Merlot's laboratory, Nora had unwittingly created a mutagen just to prank her team leader.

Jaune pushed his way through the shower door, a loud crash echoing through the steamy room. He fell to the floor, catching himself on the slick tiles for a moment before his body scraped underneath him, and his chin smashed into the hard ceramic beneath. He gave a groan as he felt the aching and stinging in his mouth. He ran his tongue across to find where his teeth may be missing from, if there were at all.

"Huh." None were missing. "Guess I got lucky."

This luck was short-lived as he pushed himself to his arms, but his legs felt stuck. Actually, stuck wasn't the right word. Stuck implies individual movement hindered by another. This felt like he was moving both legs as one.. if that made sense, which it didn't for him.

"What the heck?" Jaune looked down, eyes nearly bulging as he saw large protrusions from his forearms. Were those... fins?! Not only that, but these fins had scales, too! He looked further down his torso and discovered his, er, other body parts were gone! Everything below his belly button was replaced by a long, solid white tail with fringes of yellow at his sides! "What the hell is going on?!"

"Would you keep it down in there?!" Jaune snapped his head to the door, where a melodious screeching voice muffled through. "Whatever 'teenage boy' problems you have can be resolved yourself! Quietly!"

Oh, this was not good. In fact, it was well beyond not good. He'd completely forgotten the study session Nora set up with him and Weiss! Wait, did Nora plan this whole thing together? Oh, she was the absolute worst!

"Uh, Weiss?" Jaune called. "Is there anyone out there with you?"

"No, it's just you and me." Even through the door, he could still hear her say 'Unfortunately' under her breath. "Everyone else is busy with some other study session." Another 'Unfortunately' could be heard, a bit louder this time. "Why? You didn't hurt yourself in there, did you?"

"Uh..." Jaune looked down at his body. "Maybe?"

"Unbelievable." Weiss sneered. "Not only are you late to our study session, but you're also injured." There was a drawn-out sigh for extra drama, as Weiss is wont to do. "Are you at least decent?"

Again, Jaune looked at himself. "Kind of?"

"Can you open the door?"

Dragging himself to said door, he looked up to the knob, realizing how close and yet so far away it was. "I'm here, but I can't reach the lock."

"Do you have your scroll in there, or do I need to get Ruby to emergency unlock it?"

"Uh, no and no! My scroll should be by my bed at the end of the room." Quiet thumps of footsteps grew softer, before returning to their normal timbre. "Um, before you open the door, I need you to promise me something!"

"And that would be?"

"Don't freak out?" He couldn't see, but she was rolling her eyes.

"I assure you," the door came open, "I have seen far worAAAAAIE!" Weiss ran to the dorm room door, slamming it shut behind her as Jaune tried crawling after her. Sadly, her bipedal and still very much human form beat out whatever abomination Jaune had going on.

"Yeah, I'd freak out, too." He said with a sigh.

Jaune crawled his way out of the bathroom, his body dragging across the carpeted floor. He didn't want rug-burn, so he tried his best to keep whatever human skin he still had stayed off the floor. Once he reached the desk, he struggled his way into the chair. Nora and Pyrrha shared a mirror up here for personal use. Looking in, he finally got a good look at himself.

His hair remained it's moppy, blond self, though the skin underneath had become coarser than it used to. Following the trail of yellow scales down, he passed his mouth full of serrated teeth, and caught a glimpse of a dorsal fin jutting from his back. Looking down from the mirror to his body, his pale belly shifted to pearl white down his new tail, which ended in a strange near crescent shape. If Jaune didn't think he was a monster, then this was one heck of a costume.

"What the hell happened?" Jaune asked. "No wonder Weiss ran away."

Weiss freaked out earlier, but how was everyone else going to react? Would Ruby still want to be his friend, or Yang, or Pyrrha, or Ren- Well, Ren was a pretty cool guy, so he'd still be his friend. Nora, too, though he'd be angry with her at first. Blake... Well, him and Blake were more friends of friends already.

Still, his mind raced to all the ridicule and disgust his change would bring upon him. He'd be kicked out of Beacon, ruining his dream. His family would disown him, leaving him out on the streets. He'd have to get a job as a traveling circus freak, or worse, be abducted for science experiments and-

"Here." Jaune looked to his side where a tissue limply hung from the delicate fingers of one Weiss Schnee. "Don't get any shark snot on me."

"Th-Thanks, Weiss." Jaune took the tissue into his clawed fingers, accidentally shredding them, and blew into the clumps of rags. "Ugh."

"My thoughts exactly." Weiss said, setting the box next to him. Taking the box, he grabbed more clumps of tissues. After a long silence without blowing, Weiss spoke. "How did this happen?"

"My best guess..." Jaune gave a sniffle. "Nora."

"I hardly think she's capable of genetically altering a human's body to this degree." Weiss said with a scoff.

"You don't know how bad her pranks can get."

"And when would she have time to change you into... this?"

"She must have put something in my shampoo."

"Hmph. I would have used honey."

"She did, last time." Jaune said, remembering his training session ending with him being attacked by Rapier Wasps that snuck into Beacon, mysteriously by a jar borrowed from Cardin. The former bully swore he had no idea why she needed his jar, but she did threaten to break his legs. "This time, she put it in my shampoo."

"...At least it doesn't smell bad."

"Did you just sniff me?" Jaune asked, looking to his crush. She turned away with a blush.

"I thought it might be a clue of how you changed into this!" She nearly screamed. "It's not my fault coconut and lemon would turn you into this!"

"Coconut and lemon?" Jaune asked. "I think that was my shampoo."

"Maybe." She said. "Do you remember the ingredients?"

"Uh... no?" He sheepishly chuckled. Sharkishly? Whatever. "All the ad said was that it was 'spicy fruit' that would 'make me smell like a big fish in a big pond'."

"Of course it did. It's Advertising 101: The Truth Doesn't Sell."

"Do you... Do you think there's a cure?"

Weiss was quiet for a long time. She walked over to the window and tapped into her scroll. She gave a huff and continued to do so. Having enough of looking at himself, Jaune fell from his chair as he attempted to climb down. He crawled over to his bed, his claws digging into the blankets and sheets he made that morning. He tried to lay on his back, only to feel uncomfortable as his dorsal fin almost bent, and chose to lay on his stomach instead. He watched her work tirelessly.

In the afternoon light, she looked like an angel. He fell asleep with those thoughts.

An hour passed when the rest of Team JNPR returned to their dorm. Weiss was asleep next to Jaune, her hand in his hair as they quietly dozed. Nora beamed at her partner. He simply sighed.

"I told you it would work~."

A special thank you to @rwby-encrusted-blog for the inspiration of this work. I hope it's up to your standards.

#rwby #Jaune's shampoo #jaune arc #weiss schnee #white knight #rwby au #nora valkyrie #lie ren

[cellarspider]

21/?? Tales from the Crypt

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to that movie that the crabs shall dance for when it is done, Prometheus.

This time, the movie decided it needed a zombie mutant in it for some reason. Content warning for half-hearted body horror and gore.

I’m sure maybe half of a person out there was wondering “Hey, what happened to Fifield the geologist?” Well, the crew certainly wasn’t wondering that. They’re quite surprised when his suit camera feed shows up right outside the ship. Janek says it “just popped up” but why the hell would it. Fifield didn’t turn it back on, that much is obvious. Did the plot flip the switch or something?

In any case, Fifield has taken up a new career since we last saw him. He is now a contortionist.

This confuses the nameless crew guy. This is a very weird way to announce your new hobby to your coworkers.

Seriously, like. This is just an extreme backbend. It was probably done with prosthetics since they needed a body for this guy later anyway, but there are people who can just do this. Look, here’s a woman named Anna McNulty, doing this exact pose. It’s way weirder-looking when the person’s in motion! Again: not scary, just weird!

Contortionists are a thing in horror movies and shows. The explanation given always boils down to “they look uncanny and inhuman when they pretzel themselves, thus they are scary.” That isn’t really the case.

It still takes acting ability to make contortionism scary. Combine that with unsettling effects and you can get something memorably spooky, even when the rest of the movie isn’t that great. Javier Botet’s performance in Mama (2013), for example, was enhanced by his own acting decisions, the costuming, CG, and also practical puppetry of his body so that he could be supported in positions that felt unnaturally weightless.

Even if you’re lacking good direction or acting skills, makeup can still put in a lot of work to get you something freaky. And this makeup is… not their best.

Not in terms of quality of workmanship, but in terms of the concept itself. The creature department made a whole bunch of draft sculpts that looked way more xeno-y. Those were rejected. Instead, he’s got a big lumpy head. He looks like he wandered out of The Hills Have Eyes: Part II.

[Video description: A trailer for The Hills Have Eyes: Part II (1984). It’s complete schlock, and it’s got a big guy with a big prosthetic forehead in it, and he smashes people. There’s an off-brand Darth Vader breathing noise for some reason.]

Really, this design is straight out of a few sub-genres of horror I could mention: The Hills Have Eyes comes from cannibal and/or hillbilly horror (also called hixploitation), which often features deformed or mutated antagonists. Nuclear, infection, and chemical-scarred mutants are common lumpy monsters in horror, from 50s B-movies to Troma splatter films to modern “torture porn”. Video games tend to follow Resident Evil’s lead and make the lumpiest creatures zombies, while also making them WMD mutants and/or backwoods types, hello Marguerite and Jack Baker.

Obviously, Fifield’s been mutated by the black goo, adding to the list of things it’s capable of that the movie failed to set up before now. I will attempt to follow the ideas this may be attempting to throw at us, but I want it noted, this takes work.

This man has been exposed to a biochemical weapon, created by the Engineers. They were stockpiling that weapon here with the intent to use it on Earth. God decided rainbows aren’t a covenant anymore, time for Noah Part 2: Even Drownier.

But the Engineers are not gods in the christian sense, they aren’t all-powerful, and they are not beings that anyone would assert are omnibenevolent. They are another intelligent, social humanoid species with their own culture and morality. What moral standards do they have that produce a situation where an Engineer will look unsettled by a display of inter-human violence, but also intend to kill every human? Humans are in some ways their descendants. What would be the right thing to do if your children became murderers? 

The movie doesn’t have to answer that, because there is no objectively right answer, but it also doesn’t present the issue very competently when it's having a mutant geologist pull wrestling moves.

[Video description: A short compilation of Macho Man Randy Savage doing the double axe handle.]

The questions that FIfield’s current state actually brought to me were more like this:

What horror sub-genre are we in? Is this a pastiche? Is it being done on purpose?

The answers, as far as I can tell, are “all of them,” “yes,” and “I have no idea.” I still don’t know. This is too bizarre a series of decisions to feel unintentional, and yet it’s pulled off with so little grace that it also feels like it can’t be intentional. It is Schrodinger’s Script, suspended in a state of both “hack job” and “competent hack job” until someone observes the movie and forms an opinion.

Speaking of being observed: these crew members. Boy. They sure are here, aren’t they.

There’s seventeen crew on the Prometheus, and a movie with strong characterization will make it so you can remember that many people, even if their roles are small and unnamed. Fellowship of the Ring (2001) manages to outdo that, for example. Before I started writing this, I could remember less than half the people onboard Prometheus.

So, obviously these guys exist to get destroyed before the miniboss fight is over.

It isn’t even that much of a scene. Mutated Fifield jumps around and wails on guys, the guys freak out and accidentally kill at least one other guy, and then FIfield gets run over by the transport. When this was originally filmed, it was going to be placed slightly later and Shaw would be the one driving it, but that wouldn’t have improved this any, to be honest.

So, great. We have killed a few more cast members for some reason. It fails as horror, and it fails as bloodsport. Good job everyone.

Next time, the horror anthology continues with our host, the Crypt Keeper.

Oh, sorry, that’s not what happens–I meant to say: “Next time, Peter Weyland wakes up”.

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

Citations for alt-text rambles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOlpoG-rZXI

#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012) #I did not think I'd be making a Hills Have Eyes 2 reference as part of the Prometheus milieu #but the movie proved me wrong once again

[novasintheroom]

126. Enjoy

♡ Pairing - Vash x Reader

♡ Word count - 1k

♡ Warnings - none

Part of the 150 Bullets drabble series on AO3

Part 1 ---- Part 2 ---- Part 3 ---- Part 4 (you are here!)

It’s market day, and Gerard’s Way is the central location for several towns to meet up. Toma pull heavy carts, men and women put up stalls in the town square, and kids run around with small kites and new blunted metal toy men in their grimy hands.

Clat…clat…clat…clat. Your crutch taps the dirt as you walk through town. You’d insisted; being cooped up in the small hospital for the past month was fraying your nerves. Vash, as ever, was by your side, a hand placed in the crook of your elbow both to keep close and pull you out of the way of any large group of market goers trampling through.

“How you doing?” He asks after a cart rolled by. His free hand comes up and waves the dust away. “Need a break yet?”

Doc Ren would say ‘yes,’ but she isn’t here right now. And you’re too excited to see things to care about the stitch in your side. “Nah, I’m good. Look! They’re selling hot buns!”

Vash’s head snaps toward the smell. Even over the din, you can hear his stomach. He’d been better about eating the past couple weeks – mostly to keep up appearances of being human – but you’d hoped to get him to eat a bit more now that you were on the up and up. Not waiting for his go-ahead, you clat-clatted over to the stall. A middle-aged woman with streaks of gray in her black hair nodded a greeting, taking out more hot cross buns from the portable oven in the back of her stall. “Raspberry, pistachio, chocolate, and red bean,” she said. Her hand waved at the display. “Two double-dollars each.”

You lick your lips and pat at Vash’s side pocket. “We’ll take a chocolate and…what do you want?”

Vash smiles and swats your hand away, pulling out the tattered wallet from his coat. “I’ll try a pistachio, sure.”

A sense of victory washes over you. He’s going to eat! When the buns are in Vash’s hands, he leads you toward a bench sitting in front of the barber’s shop. You sit bodily, wincing. The stitch in your side is getting worse. Maybe you should have cooled it ten minutes ago. And Vash, ever observant, gives you a look. “We should probably head back to the med building after this. You’ve been going for almost an hour.”

You wave a hand and take your chocolate bun from him. “Just need to rest, don’t worry. All part of healing.”

He purses his lips. “Mayfly, Doc Ren said we have to be careful how much you move for a while.”

You only hum, deigning to ignore his worry. “I want to be out of that room for as long as possible.”

Vash finally says, “We’re going back in ten minutes.”

“Fifteen.”

“Twelve.”

“Thirteen and a half.” You stick out your hand and wait for him to shake it.

Vash sighs but takes your hand with a smirk. “Thirteen and a half.” He finally sits by you. His smile comes back as he watches the masses cross the roads and walkways of the town. He loves to people watch. He laughs when a couple of teenagers run past, one chasing the other. Another smile appears as an old couple shuffles by. The man tips his hat at the two of you while the wife smiles beatifically.

“Think that’ll be us one day?” You ask, biting into your roll. A tube of chocolate goo comes out of the side slowly.

Vash hums and bites into his own roll. His mouth salivates with the taste, and soon he’s too focused on food to answer. It’s alright. You prefer him to eat than to answer your silly question anyway. You laugh when his own tube of green pistachio cream leaves its side and brushes against his cheek. He hurries to eat it, humming again at the taste. “This…is...really good,” he says between a mouthful.

“Lemme try a bite,” you say. He hands you the bun, taking your own to try his own bite of chocolate goodness. The pistachio cream with the bun is delightfully delicious, creamy and sweet and nutty at the same time. Vash could say the same about the chocolate, licking his fingers of the cream.

“We should get some more,” Vash says, looking longingly at the bun stall. “For the trip back!”

You grin. That’s what you like to see – him eating instead of moping. “We can try the other flavors too.” Looking down at your half-eaten food, you say quietly, “Thanks for letting me get out, birdie. I know you were worried about it.”

Vash laughs bashfully, looking down at his feet. “Well, can’t keep you cooped up all the time, right? You would have found a way to sneak out eventually anyway. You like markets too much.”

It’s true. Markets are fun to walk around. “Still, thanks for letting me. And thanks for being with me.”

He leans down and kisses you on the cheek. “Anything for you, Mayfly.” He pauses, then snorts and wipes off your cheek of green pistachio. “Sorry.”

You grin and kiss his cheek, leaving bits of chocolate on it. “I’m not.”

And you aren’t. Not for the chocolate kiss, not the situation you’re in, not for staying with him through it all. You want to tell him this. You will, one day. He needs to hear it. But doing it in the middle of a market day seems droll and unimportant. So you enjoy the rest of your thirteen and a half minutes, both of you pointing out odd-looking or interesting people and their activities, or watching street performers dance down the road, looking for c-cents thrown their way for the act. And maybe you exchange some pistachio-chocolate kisses too. Just for the enjoyment as well.

#150 bullets #trigun #vash the stampede #trigun stampede #tristamp #writing #self insert #reader insert #vash x reader #vash the stampede x reader #nova writes #trigun x reader

[shuriflurry]

It's not even that I want to dislike The Owl House (even though I do love me some media roasts). But the setting and plots of Season 1 are just soooo... normal? Boring? Dull? Milquetoast? Like I'm sorry but for a show set in a 'fantasy monster world' you'd think that the show would have wanted to push the boundaries of their setting but nope.

Besides the interior of Eda's house (which still isn't that great), the settings are INCREDIBLY reminiscent of the 'human' world. The school is... just a school. The convention center is... just a convention center. The library is... just a library. The color scheme of most of the buildings is giving beige obsessed influencer. Where are the patterns, the vibrant colors, the neon/glowing effects? My front yard is more visually interesting than this 'magic world'.

And don't even get me started on the small details. I don't even have the energy to get fully into this so I'll just say: The Boiling Isles freak out over coat hangers, but then use mechanical pencils. Stupid.

And I can't help but compare it to Gravity Falls. The setting of Gravity Falls despite being in the human world was vibrant, fun, lively, exciting. The fact that the setting was so human allowed the writers to play off that, and the juxtaposition of the supernatural elements in the middle of nowhere Pacific Northwest is charming and fun. There is so much adventure in Gravity Falls that makes it memorable. And meanwhile, in The Owl House we get to watch our protagonist go to a book fair. Riveting. Besides some 'interesting' (read: ugly) character designs and occasional lukewarm magic shenanigans Luz may as well be in the human world because the 'magic' is blah. Give us nothing girl yasssssssss.

Also, this world makes no sense. There is little to no world building and the amount of logic leaps one needs to make watching this show is absurd. The Abominations at first seem to be goo puppets but then we see one at King's book event and it's emoting and having what looks like a conversation. Eda is a wanted criminal and yet is constantly out in broad daylight with a STORE FRONT. CHILDREN KNOW WHERE SHE LIVES. She lives on the fringes of society and yet is constantly in and interacting with society. We've seen sentient Unicorn characters and then also seen unicorns as plain animals. And don't even get me started on the Advanced Courses at Hexside that only require the knowledge of 2 spells to get in. Even though when Amity sees Luz do the light orb spell she says that's so easy a child could do it. Which implies children do magic. Which implies that by the time their old enough to go to high school they have probably done 2 spells. Which implies that the advanced course really isn't that advanced. Which takes away the feeling of impressiveness towards Amity being the top student.

Final thoughts: excited for Belos to show up because even though I've heard he's a mess and a half he also brings plot which this show desperately is in need of.

#justiceforamity #shedeservedbetter

#personal #analysis #the owl house #again i don't want to dislike this show but when you're setting me up for a magical adventure world then give me a magical adventure world #especially since this setting has been done TO DEATH you'd think they'd try and push the setting so it stands out #instead it just comes across as lazy #also i hate luz #the disregard she has for this foreign world she's entered is astounding and feels like borderline fetishizing

[cat-mentality]

Silly qsmp headcannons with zero evidences in canon, let's fucking go

The Brazilian version:

Cellbit is a vampire.

How did he get turned? Who the fuck knows. No really, Cellbit himself doesn't even know he is a vampire, man just genuinely believe his past explains everything.

The cannibalism thing was just him not understanding that his body wanted blood

He managed now, by pure accident, to exchange the need for blood for coffee

Felps has accidentaly started cults that see him as a deity many times

What is he? He's Felps. No one has ever tried to dig deeper than that.

Felps doesn't need to sleep. When he does it, for pleasure, he sleeps with his eyes open.

The real reason Forever broke up with Cellbit was because the ghosts haunting their home kept knocking his plants and messing with the painting in their wall with their messages in blood

Forever is an elf and as such he has a very strong connection to nature, it has not occured to him that not everyone names and talks to plants like he does

Also flowers tend to blossom around him when he is really happy

Mike is in fact a wanted criminal in multiple countries in charges related to protests against the government (terrorism), thief was just the one thing they caught him for

Pac drinks his coffee black

Mike has some slime dna in his family but it was never fully acknowledged by anyone? It's just some random fact that it got throw around when he as a kid like "oh remember how grandpa josé used to turn into a gree goo sometimes?" so he just never brings it up in a meaningful way either

Pac is part bat and he is genuinely obsessed with eating moths, Mike build him a spawner so he could snack on them as much as he wants

He also can see in the dark without the potions and it freaks the fuck out of Mike when he wakes up in the middle of the night everything pitch black and Pac is just walking back to bed with a glass of water like normal

Pac however doesn't have the wings so no one realizes he is a hybrid until it gets brought up in conversation

The FavelaSix has been prohibited from playing Monopoly because the last time they did they ended up destroying a good chunk of the Island and Cellbit and Bagi spend three weeks not talking

They once also started an bawl because of Uno

Bagi will try to befriend every single animal she meets, she has literally an army of pets at her side

Bagi is also the only human among them and it shows as she is also the only one with the power of common sense

She has also a incredible sense of direction, girl has never gotten herself lost in her life

Forever once gave vuvuzelas to the Islanders and Cellbit cried himself to sleep

In retaliation Cellbit made sure that all food during Christmas had raisins in it

Pac obsessed for weeks on how to make brigadeiro on the Island and all the Brazilians cried when he succeded

#meu povo brasileiro #those are so fun to write #qsmp #qsmp headcanons #qsmp cellbit #qsmp forever #qsmp pac #qsmp mike #qsmp bagi #gabi come back i need to know more of bagi to build my hcs #qsmp felps