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batarella · 4 years

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The Odyssey - (Professor!Jason x Professor!Reader)

I SWEAR I’M NOT A FELON. ALL THESE PUBLIC SEX CONTENT IS PURELY JUST FOR THE SAKE OF CONTENT. DON’T CALL THE POLICE.

ALSO, I’d like to thank @offendedfishnoises and @sarcasmismyfirstlove for this idea (those thirsty bitches wanted this a lot) and @idkmanicantenglish for providing me with such amazing suggestions! love you guys but ya’ll are an astronomical level of horny

WORDS: 2461 WARNINGS: ORAL SEX. FUCKING ON A DESK. JEEZ\

Masterlist

Fucking hell, you were so doing this on purpose.

And it didn’t help that you were late. Even if he weren’t at the podium standing in front of almost a hundred people, he could just feel how half his students’ attention had long left him and were almost drenching the floors of their drool. It sickened him. You, with your insanely fitting pencil skirt hugging your curves, a thin button shit that laid so delicately against your skin, high heels on your feet as red as the lipstick you were wearing, and a pencil you used to hold your hair up in a bun, you took the front seat, crossed your leg over the other and pulled out your notes.

Professor Jason Todd stopped with his lecture for the tiniest minute to breathe, and he told himself it was because you, his co-worker, were assigned to observe how he’d deal with such a number of students before sending the report over to human resources. His job was on the line. Of course, he’d be sweating off his pits.

Yeah, it was totally because of that.

“As I was saying,” he said. “The Iliad and the Odyssey are the oldest surviving works of Ancient Greek Literature…”

You started jotting down onto your notebook, not of his lecture, but on how he was speaking, standing, and interacting with the students, your eyes peeking up from your dark-framed glasses and looking directly into his own. Pursing your red lips together, you inched up your seat, and your skirt riding up your thighs caught Jason’s attention more times than he would ever say.

But he managed to continue speaking at a modulated volume as if he weren’t distracted at all.

“We have little reliable information about him other than that he was blind and may have been from island of Chios. He probably made money singing at festivals. Milman Perry in the 1920s speculated that Homer…”

Half an hour passed perhaps. He was doing fine. Great, in fact. You had stopped with your notes for the moment and were leaning back against the chair, the tip of your pencil between your teeth. Dark red lipstick looked so good on you…

“A-and,” he coughed. “About the Greek’s religion…”

Okay. You looked absolutely gorgeous. He never denied that. But the way you were looking at him now? In the middle of a lecture when you were supposed to make sure he doesn’t mess up? Jason wanted to dig himself a hole right in the middle of the concrete floor and die.

You smiled at him.

That’s when he audibly stuttered, cleared his throat, thought back for a few good seconds on what the hell he was saying, before he continued.

He had to stop looking at you.

Look at anyone else. That kid who looked like something was up his nose. A girl who was writing down every word he said without missing a syllable and still had her phone up to record him. A boy with dark eyes who’d fallen asleep on his desk. Another guy three seats away from you, looking over at your chest.

Three knocks on his podium to catch everyone’s attention. Everyone stopped with their whispers and naps and looked back at him again.

But it wasn’t without glancing down at your chest, too. Just to know what that other guy was gawking at. And as if you knew, you breathed in with your chest up and he could see how the buttons of your shirt barely did their job.

He had to look away before he’d be given any more chances at a peek at your dark-colored bra.

Homer. Odyssey. A journey that lasted decades and other shit he’s known since 5th grade. This was exhausting. Trying not to look at you was exhausting. Being ashamed of getting a hard on behind the podium in the middle of a fucking lecture was exhausting. And later tonight, he probably won’t have the energy left in him to go on patrol.

Alright. He can take this. He knew what to do.

“Please take out any paper you have with you and write down a piece of ancient Greek literature you want to do for this week’s paper. I’ll give you five minutes.”

Breathe. Fucking breathe. This was his chance to breathe. He probably hadn’t in the last hour, because it felt like not even the tiniest bit of oxygen was flowing up to his brain.

But the demons in him spoke against his ear. It was telling him to look up at you again. Just a glance.

You were swinging your leg, your back straight as a pole and your teeth around the pencil once again. You smiled at him, this time with your eyes so dark and deep that it sent his blood flow roaring around the vessels in his body. Jason didn’t smile back. Instead, he looked at you with his face all blank, up and down, before turning back to his class. “Pens down. Tomorrow we’ll talk about the Trojan C-“

Then, you had it in you to take the pencil out from your hair, letting it drop and flow down to your back. It was a curled, beautiful mess. And you didn’t straighten it out. Instead, you let it rest over your shoulders and looked straight at Jason with the most subtle smirk.

And your lips had that pout, from a habit he’d noticed when you’d instinctively lick over your teeth. Your lips were what he stared at the most.

As did practically the whole room. They weren’t even waiting for Jason to finish his sentence and pick his mouth back up from the fucking floor.

His stutter made you narrow your eyes, lean over your desk, and take note of his behavior.

-----

You tried to at least hold back your smirk when you heard the knocking on your office door. The same three knocks he used to silence his class.

“Come in.”

Jason stepped in, his laptop bag over his shoulder.

You stopped what you were doing and placed your pen into your holder.

“Mr. Todd-”

“Don’t give me that,” Jason said, rolling his eyes.

You let out a breathy chuckle, spinning in your chair as you leaned back. He looked mad. And insanely hot. Never mind being in a teacher’s suit that was all brown and boring. He looked good in anything. Jason set his bag down, pulled down the blinds of your windows, then walked over to the other side of your desk with a glare that sent you in painfully delicious shivers.

His hands on your desk, he leaned over to you. “That wasn’t funny.”

“That was hilarious.”

“I’ll get fired.”

“Relax. I gave you a perfect score,” you placed your elbows on the table and looked up at him, feeling his breathy growl so near to your lips.

His breath uneven, you reached out to hold his tie, twisting it around your fingers.

“The students are gonna know something’s going on between us. They all had fucking hard-ons in class.”

“And you didn’t?”

Your eyes darted over his lips, then at his crotch. You smiled.

“You are so dead when I observe you tomorrow.”

“Then it’s HR’s fault for letting two professors secretly sleeping with each other have a say on their job performance.”

“It is,” he smirked.

“What are you gonna do? Parade into my class with your shirt off?”

“No, but it’s never been that hard to make you soaking wet for me.”

You pulled on his tie and he hungrily devoured your lips like he’d been long wanting to do that the whole day. You stood up, pushing the chair behind you, then Jason violently cleared out your desk with a strong swipe of his arm, pulling on your waist to let you sit on the table.

“Did you-” you said between kisses. “-lock the door?”

“Mhm.” The table squeaked when he pulled you even closer, letting your legs swing over the edge of the table. His hands were all over your thighs, squeezing and kneading them to tease your pussy. You helped him take off his suit jacket, then you pulled on his dress shirt up from being tucked into his pants so your palms could snake up his abs. Jason tore your shirt open, letting the buttons pop and fall to the ground.

Gasping, Jason started kissing down your breasts and you let him ride your skirt up to your waist. He pulled you closer, and you spread your legs wide open for him to get comfortable between them. Teasing the tip of your heeled shoe against his back, you moaned when he grinded against you.

You weren’t wearing any panties. For fuck’s sake Jason looked like he wanted to murder you after fucking you so violently. “I can’t believe you.”

“Shh,” you gripped on his hair, so tightly it made him wince. Glaring at you, he took your hand off and started to pull his tie off from his neck.

“You don’t get to do anything.”

Gulping, he took a moment to watch your chest heave before taking both your hands, letting his rough finger graze across your wrists. Then you almost came right at that moment when he pulled your arms behind your back, turning you around, then tied your wrists together with his tie.

You could feel your wetness drench the table.

“Get on your knees.”

You did. And you kept looking up at him while he unbuckled his belt and let his awfully hard cock spring out of his pants. “Has that been wanting to see me for the last hour?” you said.

Without an answer, Jason held the side of your face, taking in the sight of you so flawlessly perfect in front of him. He grazed his thumb against your red lips and groaned. “I’ve been wanting these lips around my cock since you walked into the damn room.”

When he started gripping your hair, he pulled you to him and his cock sunk deep into your mouth, past towards your throat which instantly made you gag. It was hot, almost a blur, but Jason kept holding you still until he heard you whimper around his dick. “Hmm?”

Your eyes locked onto him, you let your tongue play with his load inside you, swirling and teasing with your drool trailing down your mouth. He shut his eyes and moaned way too loud. Pulling your head back and forth, you hallowed your mouth the best you can and stared up at him.

“Fuck…” he gasped. “You have no idea how hot you look right now.”

He didn’t give you a chance to answer and pulled his cock deep into your throat to watch you gag.

Pulling your head back just to breathe, he let go of your hair and let you suck him off at the pace you wanted. You couldn’t use your hands, so you did what you could with your lips, your tongue, your teeth so lightly grazing the tip, watching his reactions. His finger brushed against your cheek, and you pulled away to look up at him with your drool dripping down your chin.

You absolutely loved watching him squirm while you sucked his dick. The way he pulls on his own hair, trails his hand down his abs, he watched you with his mouth parted and let his dark hair flow down to his eyes. You licked his tip, sucked it like you would with a lollipop and let your tongue go crazy with the slit at the tip. He bit on his hand, still keeping his eyes on you, then you forced it down the back of your throat the best you can and choked yourself.

“That’s it,” he said. Smoothing your hair over with his hand. You pulled back to look at him, and he put his thumb into your mouth, pulling it off with a loud pop before letting you have it with his cock again. You could tell he held back his cum. He looked like he was just about to internally explode.

You stood back up, kissing him so he could taste himself from you. Jason didn’t wait another moment to forcibly turn you around, then he bent you over the desk to let the cold, breezing air hit your throbbing cunt.

With your hands still tied, you let him hold onto your waist, bruising them with his strong hands, then you hit the table’s surface with your forehead when he started fucking the living daylights out of you. “Oh!” you squealed, but you bit your lips before you could scream anything else. The thrill of getting caught, it was one of the reasons why your relationship with Jason was so hot.

You don’t think he’s ever been this hard before, like it was throbbing and hurting so much that any touch was possibly going to make him cum. Still, he had it in him to hold it back, but a pull on your hair made you wince at the pain, then he pounded into you so skillfully fast, you could only stare at the wall with your tears leaking out of your eyes. It was definitely a blur now. The buzz, the sensation, his moans, you came much too early despite all your forces doing everything to hold it back. But you couldn’t, and with him still pounding relentlessly, you were a twitching mess so sensitive to the core.

The pain was so beautifully mixed with the orgasm, which trailed on and on the more he fucked you. Fuck, the orgasm probably lasted longer than the build up. But with your mouth so wipe open, screaming whatever profanity you knew in your head, Jason kept going until another coil in your stomach built up, and you exploded.

Jason didn’t last any longer. Spilling his hot cum inside you, he hesitated to slow down, wincing at his own sensitivity. You were panting, sweating off your skin, and you laid bent down over the table even with him already zipping up his pants, taking his tie off from your hands.

You pulled yourself up and stretched your skirt back down to cover your cum-covered thighs, still in a daze. You turned around, wrapped your arms around him and kissed him gently, much softer than just a moment ago.

“That ended way too quickly,” he said, his hands on your waist.

“Why don’t you come over tonight and we’ll make it last for all the way until dawn-“

“We should probably go to a hotel,” he smirked. “Can’t risk getting caught in that fucking teacher’s dorm.”

“I’ll book us a night.”

Winking at you, he slapped your ass before pulling away and walking out the door.

Taglist: everyartistwas-firstanamateur @sarcasmismyfirstlove @damned-queen-of-gotham @idkmanicantenglish @wunderstell @birdy-bat-riya @get-loki@everyday-imfangirling @comic-nerd-dc @multifandoms916 @icequeen208@offendedfishnoises @egdolan @xemiefx @arkhamtoddler @elsenthal@mythicbitchx @supremehaunter @ burning-alive @lucy-roo roseangel013bf @ loxbbg reclusive-chicken-nuggethttp-cherries shadowsndaisiesriver9noble zphilophobiazannoylinglyaries

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd x reader au #professor jason todd #jason todd smut #jason todd x reader smut #batarella #batarella smut #batarella smut one shots

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years

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The Space Between Us

Alien au? Alien au! I have no self control! Please accept this one shot that quickly spiraled into 23 pages of Virgil being a disaster in space. (If you guys enjoy it, let me know because I’m considering making it a series.)

Summary: The cosmos is a Gigantic place and somehow Virgil’s past still catches up to him.

Words: 11400

TW: Human trafficking, Human experimentation, dehumanization, fighting rings,

Quick taglist: @chelsvans @dante-reblogs @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws @welovelogansanders

Read on Ao3 || General Writing Masterlist

“Tell me again why this is absolutely necessary?” Virgil asked, watching Logan’s hands dance across the console. On any other day the sight would be comforting. Every time his digits landed on a key, his nerves glowed with sparks of multicolored light through his transparent crystal skin, creating a beautiful firework show right in front of them all. Logan had told him once it was called Lightdancing, an evolutionary adaptation of the Tenkarie people: their bodies were near invisible in dim light, and they could control the pulses of light just enough to attract other cave dwelling creatures to them before striking the killing blow.

Now, though, the sight made Virgil’s stomach churn. Logan’s lights were a calculated system that he had trained to hone better than most of his race: he could make any part of his body glow at a brightness ranging from a flickering candle light to a flood light, he could make his whole body radiate or he could make just the tip of one of his sixteen fingers, he could even change the color of the light with just a thought. Virgil had always been glad that Logan was the only Tenkarie that dared venture from their caves on L0-G1C; Logan’s kind had perfected the use lights and dancing which made all other creatures become so nauseated they couldn’t fight back or become so mesmerized by the swirling motions that they didn’t see the attacks.

(Of course, because Virgil was rather distinctly human, it took longer for either of the effects of Logan’s fighting to work, which had saved both their lives more than once.)

However, in contrast to the usual focus of Logan’s fingertips on the control panel, lights were flickering all over his body, up and down each of his four arms and burning from the notches around his neck. The lack of control was enough to make Virgil’s stomach churn.

“Because its Remus,” Roman replied, although it didn’t help that he said his brother's name the same way he might have said puppy kicker.

“And we care about Remus because....?” Virgil prompted, running his fingers over his satchel again, checking the latches to make sure they were still there, still closed, still containing the supplies within. “If my memory serves me correctly, Remus was the one that set us up to be ambushed by those space pirates the other week. You know, the ones that nearly killed Patton?”

“We care because, in Erefrenian customs, blood bonds are the most sacred of bonds.” Logan supplied distractedly. “And Remus invoked the Oath of Brothers, which means that if Roman were to ignore his call for aid, Roman’s honor would be forever stained which would prevent him from crossing to the planes of heroes after his death according to the religion of his people.”

“Yeah that,” Roman says, even less excited than Logan at the idea. The bone spikes along his spine had been secreting that red poison that usually only happened when he got annoyed or anxious. Virgil had learned quickly to stay away from him when he was like that: touching it merely made Virgil’s limbs feel pins and needles, but the Orlun thief had screamed until unconsciousness.

It was one of the (very) few perks of being a Deathworlder, Virgil supposed. Most of the things that hurt the other species out here usually had a looser effect on humans because humans rarely made it this far. In fact, it was illegal for humans to get this far by at least sixty doctrines (all of which Logan had filed away in his room).

Humans were juggernauts-- the alien versions of the boogie man told to children to keep them from acting out. Virgil had seen some of the written documents about his kind, and the tales of bloodshed and terror invoked by merely existing were pretty horrifying. Graphic depictions of humans tearing aliens limb from limb, scientific studies on the amounts of chemicals that humans had absorbed and withstood against, an interview with a survivor of a human rampage who revealed the bite marks left by the so-called beast.

Almost every species out here was just as scared of him as he was of them.

The problem came from the ones that weren’t scared.

Which, of course, was how Virgil had ended up hundreds of literal light-years from Earth, on a ship with three aliens whom he was pretty certain he would end up dying for sometime very soon. Yurinks were crafty, shameless, bold, creatures, and they were notorious for visiting Earth and abducting humans for individual sale. Weslors ran fighting rings and humans were almost always the safest bets for some quick cash. Quitans were a fan of skinwearing, which was not something that Virgil ever wanted to see, based on the name alone. And Pol’turs loved learning how things worked and paid very handsome prices for human subjects on the space black market.

Virgil, himself, had sold for 300 griot. (Which was apparently a lot, based on the way that Patton’s eyes had quite literally bugged out. Virgil was still trying to figure out the conversation ratio of American dollars to griot and getting nowhere with it.)

“I hate him,” Roman said under his breath as he threaded through the spare armored uniforms in the storage, trying to find one to fit over the rigid bone plates along his back. His tail squirmed behind him as he searched, dragging the spikes through the air. “I hate him so much.” His bone claws cut through the fabric and he growled as he tossed the ruined clothes to the floor. “We’re gonna save him and then I’m going to toss him off into space, myself.”

Logan made an affirming noise, using his lower left arm to nudge his visor back up his nose. Virgil had only caught sight of Logan’s eyes once or twice, as most light strained his sensitive eyes. They had paid a pretty griot for a repair and a spare of his light blocking visor after the first time some space smugglers had surprised them and managed to break the lens. Logan’s pained scream was the worst thing that Virgil had ever heard and he had sworn he’d do anything to avoid ever having to hear it again.

(That had been the first time that Roman and him had truly worked together on something, Virgil noted absently. Between Virgil’s uncharacteristic bloodlust and Roman’s furious wrath they had taken out the smugglers in less than five minutes and they hadn't been very nice about it.)

Looking from the back, Roman resembled a stegosaurus to Virgil. If, like....stegosauruses ran around on two legs, flourished a sword, and were prone to acting like every minor occurrence was a slight against them personally. His red-ish skin had the appearance of leather but was twice as thick, his bone plates were slimmer rounded triangles than Virgil remembered from his kindergarten picture books but they ran from the based of his neck all the way down his back and to the tips of his tail which he liked to use as a spike-ball-and-chain attack along with his ridiculous sword. Virgil couldn’t count the number of times that Roman had nearly taken him out along with the enemy. His claws were only a few inches long but Roman whined like a baby when they broke-- which was ridiculous because his bone plates literally grew back overnight, and the ones on his forearms were made to be taken off and thrown. (Logan had indeed informed Virgil that Erefren grow new bones every moon cycle and proceeded to lose the old ones which Virgil had then mentioned that humans did that too sorta! With their baby teeth! And Roman and Logan had both looked unnerved by that information.)

“I’ve got it!” A voice sang from the ceiling, which was about all the warning Virgil got before a child sized figure vaulted down from the rafters of the teleportation deck right onto his shoulders.

“Jesus! Pat!” Virgil yelled as he stumbled swaying to accommodate the new weight that had stuck itself to Virgil’s back and then wrapped around to hug his chest. “Give a guy a warning, will you?”

Patton giggled, hooking his legs around Virgil’s waist so that he could sit comfortably, swinging the two other satchels he had been sent to fetch from his hands. Roman accepted one of them readily.

“What's a Jeeezus?” Patton asked, stressing the syllables as English terms never really fit right in his tongue. As far as Virgil was aware no species were equipped to speak human languages, although Roman’s Erefren dialect involved some rolling syllables. He probably could have picked up Spanish, if Virgil hadn’t barely passed Spanish III with a C minus.

To be fair though, that year had been bad. Janus had been in his class, and then he hadn’t. And it was hard to focus on conjugation of verbs when the golden student of the entire school who had sat next to him had been declared dead and Virgil had been the prime suspect of it.

That, and Virgil was pretty terrible at picking up new languages. He had only managed to figure out how to communicate with Logan by luck: hands raised with the fingers spread was a symbol of innocence and fear for the Tenkarie, while a sign of rage and fury for Yurink. This, of course, had also been in the middle of an illegal Weslor fighting ring which Logan had been dragged into and essentially sentenced to die in after being separated from Roman and Patton.

(Virgil tried not to think too much about those days. Alien blood was still blood and it was very not-good to feel dripping from his hands, even if it was him or them, even if it had been his life on the line, even if it wasn’t another human with heterochromic eyes and smug smirk. Virgil had fought nearly six times before Logan had been his opponent, and that was six times too many.)

Regardless, Virgil was lucky that when Roman and Patton had come for Logan, Logan had remembered his reluctance to fight and insisted that Virgil come with them in an escape. Roman and Patton had their hesitations but Logan wouldn’t take no for an answer.

(And Virgil who did not understand Common, had honestly thought that Logan had come back to kill him officially. Not a good first impression.)

Logan had made him flashcards to study from and taught him common in the sitting area of their ship. The endless hours of memorization, the drills, the sentences, all of which helped him more than he thought the others knew. They were something to do with his mind and Virgil had been in desperate need of something to do with his mind those first few months that wasn’t thinking about Earth or home or boys who were dead.

“We could go to Earth,” Logan had offered once during one of their sessions.

Virgil had blinked looking up to from the practice reading he had been studying with a bewildered look. “What?” It had taken a moment for him to realize that he had spoken in English rather than Common, but Logan must have picked up on the meaning of the foreign word anyway.

“You were… badly, ah, stolen,” Logan had said, pointing at the flashcards. “We could give you back.” He had used his lower two arms to mimic the motion of handing something off.

It had been so touching, the way that he had scaled down his speech to match Virgil’s progress, had offered despite Earth being the infamous Deathworld, had been looking at Virgil like he was living being and not just some animal. Virgil had cried.

He should have wanted to go back to Earth, should have wanted to go home, but instead he had begged in his broken, garbled Common for Logan to let him stay in space with them. And Logan had glowed nearly blindingly with purple light, a relief light, a content light, a happy light and promised that he wouldn’t have to go back if he didn’t want to.

Perhaps that had been the day the Virgil had realized he’d die for Logan.

And once Virgil had decided that for Logan it wasn’t hard to decide it for Patton too. The Reytin was just so nice. Even back in those first months when Virgil didn’t know how to talk to them and Patton had been so obviously terrified of him, the alien had made sure that Virgil was eating, that he was sleeping, that he had space when he needed it. Though, Virgil really suspected that their friendship had blossomed so quickly because of Patton's rare Reytin ability to see emotions with his frog-like eyes. Once he realized that Virgil was actually terrified of everything, and it wasn’t just ploy to kill them (or maybe despite that….Virgil hadn’t gotten a straight answer from him), Patton had done his best to befriend him back to good health.

And Virgil liked being on the ship. He liked his room, which was filled with stupid alien plants he had managed to collect and the weird shapes of the bed. He liked being right down the hall from the kitchen so he could smell when Patton was cooking something, and the way that he could always hear Roman singing in his room. He liked slipping out to the observation deck and just seeing Space the way no other human really had.

(Its stupid really, that sometimes he forgot it had been three years. Its stupid really, that sometimes he still turned to ask a question of someone who was never going to be there. Its stupid really that he could be so happy and still feel the gaping hole where someone used to be.)

“Oh this is so exciting!” Patton said happily, shaking his hands in the air to show his excitement. “Isn’t this exciting, guys?”

“Exciting isn’t the word I would use,” Virgil said hoisting the smaller creature from around his waist to settle him on the floor carefully.

“More like Vexing! Or perhaps burdensome! Irksome! Problematic!” Roman snarled, finally finding the armor that would fit around his plates and slipping it on. “You know what? Let’s forget it! Remus got himself into this mess and he can get himself out!”

“Now kiddo…” Patton warned, and wow, Virgil sometimes forgot that the alien who was half Virgil's height and twice as lively, was also older than all of them combined. Reytin lifespans were literally off the chart. Patton had been around way back when humans were first declared illegal on this side of the cosmos. “You know that we can’t do that! He invoked the Oath of Brothers so we have to!”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Roman griped. “Worse case, my soul just becomes eternally damned and I’m shamed by the rest of my race until I die a lonely, lonely death on some distant planet!”

“Must you be so dramatic?” Logan asked.

“You won't die alone!” Patton said, “We’ll be right there with you! Probably even die right next to you as well!”

“No offense Pat,” Roman said glumly, “But that makes me feel like I’m gonna be the cause of your death.”

“It’ll be fun!”

Thankfully before Roman could explain exactly there was nothing fun about making all his friends die, Logan cleared his throat and made his upper two palms glow with a soft blue light. Green and pink bulbs flashed up and down his neck. “I have mapped out the perceived trajectory of the enemy ship so we should be able to beam directly into the hold. However because of possible miscalculations I believe that I should be--”

“--The first to beam aboard as I am the only one who is not affected by the lack of gaseous properties and the extreme temperatures of the expanse of space.” Roman, Patton, and Virgil chorused together.

“Must you all?” Logan asked, with just enough fondness in his tone for Virgil to know that he wasn’t actually bothered.

“Change up your speech sometime, Teach,” Roman suggested, and then he sighed dropping his head. “You guys are really willing to do this for me? These are mercenaries, you know. If this doesn’t go well they’ll likely sell us for parts.”

Virgil really didn’t need the reminder. Just the thought of once again having his arms restrained, having his clothes striped away, being reduced from a person to a thing used for entertainment, was enough to have Virgil eyeing the door back to the rest of the ship. Even on the off chance that they didn’t try to take him apart to see how he ticked, they would still sell him for griot. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, survive being thrust back into the fighting rings. He’d shake himself apart before they managed to drag him into that dust riddled death trap.

Patton reached up and tugged the edge of Virgil’s under armor tunic, drawing his eyes away from the door and down to his friend. Patton, of course, was smiling, imitating the human action of bearing his teeth (something that Logan had explained was incredibly threatening to all other species and you may want to avoid participating in that activity with Roman in the vicinity, Virgil).

It was silly things like that that make Virgil hopelessly certain that he would do anything to protect his friends. He didn’t need to worry about being caught and sold off because the others wouldn’t let that happen again, and in turn, he wouldn’t allow them to be taken away either. They were a family, for better or worse.

(He wasn’t going to lose someone again. Not like before. Not without a fight, a trace-- not without Virgil doing every single thing he could to get them back first.)

“We’ll be fine!” Patton told Roman brightly.

“Yeah, cheer up, Princey,” Virgil added, hooking his satchel over his shoulder, “Worse case scenarios are my thing.” He offered out a folded fist, palm up and Roman dutifully knocked his own knuckles against it, as an upside down fistbump (a signal of friendship in Erefrenian).

Patton let out a chittering and jumped up to knock his own knuckles with them. And Logan’s left forearms flickered pastel pink from the wrist up to his neck and he begrudgingly added his own to the pile.

“Everyone remembers their part of the plan, correct?” Logan asked, letting his two lower arms finish typing a final sequence into the control panel.

Patton sprung in the air, jumping Virgil’s entire height, and shook his palms. “I’ve got the emergency pods and the armory, using Virgil’s thingies to shut down the access to the lower rooms and blocking off escapes as I make my way to the medic bay!”

“I’ve got the crew quarters to where I’ll use Virgil’s thingies--”

“Can we not call them thingies?” Virgil grumbled. “They’re just EMPs. Barely enough to take out the door locks. And it's likely they won’t do much of anything if this group has an emergency system reboot in case of an electrical surge. It’ll buy us five minutes, max.”

“--Virgil’s thingies,” Roman repeated with his tail rattling in that way that said he took pleasure in Virgil’s annoyance. “To lock as many of the doors as I can, before travelling to the cell blocks to get my brother and his crew and move them to the medic bay where Patton will have the necessary supplies ready incase of injuries.”

“I will take the Bridge,” Logan said, “and act as the major distraction, as Tenkarie are very rare and it is likely that they will have never encountered nor have preemptive measures against my Lightdancing. Once I have control of the bridge I will cut off the communications to other ships in the area and start inputting the redirection course. Once I have the new coordinates I will send them to Virgil for him to implement.”

“I’ve got the engineering deck,” Virgil said, finally, “To make sure they don’t try to blow us all up with the warp core and whatever. Then I’ll redirect the teleporting course and get us home while the rest of you take out the bad guys. Piece of cake.”

Logan’s neck notches glowed red, “There should be no stopping for cake--.”

“Idiom,” Virgil interrupted quickly, “Human saying. Means it should be easy.”

Logan hummed musically, which sent a vibration of multicolored lights off his shoulders and down under his clothes. “Ah, interesting. This should indeed then be a piece of cake.” He picked up one of the teleportation bracelets from their charging pads and fixed it on his upper right wrist. “I’ve already added in the coordinates to the watches, so merely wait for my signal and press the button.”

Virgil would be lying if he said he didn’t have a little bit of anxiety over their plan. It was pretty slapshot compared to the things that they had put together before, but Remus’s transmission had been shoddy, even after Roman and his combined efforts to clean it up. It was hard to remember that Remus was every bit a ship captain as Roman was with how he had appeared in the picture dressed in ripped and tattered clothes, oozing green poison from his forearm plates, and bleeding profusely from a wound on his forehead. He had been leaning heavily on the communication panel, gritting his teeth through the pain, but his tail had been dancing in the air behind him in the same motions that Roman’s did when he saw a new sword to add to his collection.

Remus had invoked the Oath of Brothers, spit up blood on the console, and then relayed as much information as he could about the attacking ship. They were lucky, in that way. Most of the Pol’tur ships followed the same base model, which meant that the Bridge was always going to be at the bottom, the engines would be at the top and the engine core center would be between them.

If it was possible Virgil was sure they all would have wanted more time to make a better plan, but they all knew that Pol’turs loved to work quickly. They had already lost three days chasing after the ship, and in that time, Pol’turs could cut apart fifty Reytins like Patton.

They were working mostly on the assumption that the Pol’turs would save Remus for near last, and they were going to be absolutely fucked if they had chosen to chop up the other Erefren first.

In addition, their plan had Virgil avoiding most of the fighting. well, as much as he could while being on an enemy ship. Virgil himself wasn’t sure how he would do in a lot of combat, but they had seen what happened when one of the others were in danger (when Logan’s glasses had broken, when the space pirates had almost shot Patton through both his hearts, when the spikes had been pulled from Roman’s spine by the Quitans before the new ones had grown in--). He could fight, and he could fight well, but the cost was a little bit of Virgil’s sanity and his ability to sleep through the night.

Patton plucked his own teleportation watch from the pad and hooked it on, before offering Virgil his. Well it wasn’t really his, the same way that the red one wasn’t Roman’s and Patton didn’t own the blue one. They were all Logan’s pet projects, but he had tailored them to their favorite colors. It felt a bit like coming home when Virgil clicked the locking mechanism into place and the screen lit up with the digital alien symbols.

“I shall see you all soon,” Logan said matter-of-factly, as if he couldn’t see all the ways that their plan could go wrong. Then with barely more than a breath he clicked the activation button and his form flickered out of existence.

Roman made a nervous noise with the back of his throat, which ended up sounding a bit like the first bars of a Disney song Virgil had forgotten. Virgil gently tapped his tail with the toe of his boot, avoiding the glisten poison spikes. Roman startled just enough to laugh.

“Its funny, you know?” He said, glancing towards Virgil. “A year ago Remus told me he had taken in a Deathworlder, and I thought he was crazy. A Deathworlder? But now that I know you guys I can’t believe I didn’t get my own sooner.”

“Remus has a human on his crew?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, I wonder if you know each other!” Patton added.

Virgil bit back his original comment, and let the weight settle in his stomach. If Remus had a human in his crew there was even more of a chance that Remus was dead, because the Pol’turs had chosen to save the mysterious human for last.

“Earth is a big place,” Virgil said instead. “Like really big. They’d probably be from like Russia or something.”

At the blank stares he got, Virgil tried rewording, “We probably never have met before. Or speak the same language.”

"There's more than one human language?"

Virgil breathed through his nose, warding off a memory of rolling Rs and failed pop quizzes. "Yeah," he said, "Humans can't agree on anything."

Roman thoughtfully crossed his arms, but Patton made a chittering again and bounced, “Oh well! Now you guys are gonna meet! All the way out in space! How cool is that?!”

Virgil hid a smile in his shoulder. Trust the Reytin to find the bright side to everything.

Roman looked like he had more questions (questions that Virgil wasn't exactly enthusiastic to answer; Earth was a sore topic for him) but mercifully each of their watches let out several musical bars from Patton’s favorite song. The alien shook his palms one last time, beaming at each of them.

“Oh this is gonna be so much fun, guys!” He said right before pressing the activation button and disappearing.

“I’m so going to kill Remus for this,” Roman grumbled, one hand on his sword hilt.

And, really, Virgil agreed with him on that. Tossing Remus into the airlock and ejecting him directly into the void sounded like an excellent plan for when they got back to their ship alive and whole and safe.

“Let’s do this,” Virgil said and jabbed his thumb into the activation button.

***

Predictably, their flimsy plan fell apart within seconds of them appearing on the ship. Starting with, exactly, Virgil did not appear in or near the engineering deck. Instead he had landed approximately two feet above a box in the Cargo hold of the Pol’turian ship, which likely meant he was somewhere left of where he needed to be.

It also meant that the Pol’turs in the Cargo Hold had a grand view of his body blitzing into existence, landing on a crate, and then tumbling off it with a lot of English cursing. It was a mere matter of luck that Virgil was able to roll his body to the side just before the first BZZZTTRRRT of their blasters went off.

(There was an actual name for the guns that most aliens used, and Virgil was pretty sure that it started with a hard K sound but he had never been able to remember it. He stuck to calling them blasters in his head, and hoped somewhere back on Earth George Lucas was proud of himself.)

The Polyfurnish of the crate hissed and sizzled as it took the brunt of the attack meant to vaporize Virgil, and the human hissed another curse as his hands dug through his satchel.

One of the Pol’turs-- the deep purple one although Virgil hadn’t truly been able to catch sight of how many there were-- shouted something in its language. Probably something along the lines of “Stop”, “Surrender”, or “Kill him”. Virgil wasn’t exactly a fan of any of those options.

He had heard them before-- too many times. The hundreds of variations of the terms spat and yelled and cheered down at him, and he scrambled away from the edge of a sword, as he tasted nothing by dust and dirt as he dodged another attempt on his life, as he desperately backed away from an opponent who couldn’t understand that Virgil didn’t want to fight, please, stop, please, I’m sorry, please I don’t want to hurt anyone--

Virgil curled up as another gold blast ricocheted off the top of the crate he was cowering behind. The air was cooler here, he told himself, the air was cooler and the floor was slicker, and he was surrounded by shelves of goods. He was not in a colosseum and he was not in a fighting ring and he was not alone.

He had the others to regroup with and no time to panic over the past here and now. Virgil gritted his teeth, remembering the feel of Roman’s knuckles bumping his, the sight of Logan’s excited lights, the sound of Patton’s laughter, and then his hand wrapped around the homemade smoke bombs in his satchel.

He yanked the pins from their sockets, wound back, and launched them over the crate into the mass of where all the shooting was coming from. Almost immediately the shoots veered off course, and the cavernous room echoed with high pitched screams. Virgil ripped his turtleneck up and over his nose and then he grabbed the edges of the nearest shelf and hoisted himself to a higher area, out of the range of the low hanging gas.

It was a pale red, near pink thing: a concoction formed by Logan out of Roman’s poison that had taken them literal years to perfect. Virgil was mostly immune to it, the same way he was mostly immune to most poisons that horrified the other species. Inhaling it made his head dizzy and his limbs a little numb, which was just unpleasant enough that he tried to avoid inhaling anything when he had the chance. Other species though...they weren’t so lucky. According to Logan, inhaling it allowed it directly into the bloodstream where it would swiftly ignite all the pain sensors in the body and could make one feel like they were being stabbed everywhere at once.

(He knew this, Logan admitted, because it had taken him many times to get it right. His scientific journals recorded experiments #1 through #357 as “unpleasant” and “ill-advised” and Virgil had nearly throttled him when he discovered that Logan had used himself as a test subject.)

Using the shelves he boosted himself another level until his head was parallel with a box of what he thought were floating Welsor hearts, before he scanned the ground under him. There were three Pol’turs on the ground writhing in pain, blasters discarded, and pale smoke floating ominous above them. Their usually languid tentacles flopped up and down on the floor like a bunch of fish out of water.

The glass container next to his hip exploded, missing him by mere millimeters. Virgil cursed as he scrambled up another level, eyes darting around to find where the hell that shot came from. His armor took much of the hit but it was sizzling with heat in a way that was decidedly not-comforting.

“Up there!” Something shouted.

Another blast missed his ear and a container of Sblorp fangs shattered and sent the teeth spilling to the floor. Virgil kicked his feet through the lower shelf pushing through a crate and a dozen jars of various indeterminable body parts and squeezed his body in the place of them. The crashes on the next isle were rather satisfying.

He ripped the pin from another smoke bomb with his teeth, and felt his tongue buzz slightly as the proximity to the toxin before he launched it out at the direction of the other shooter. There was another scream and Virgil took the time to roll into the next isle and leap back down to the floor.

The gas still hadn’t cleared around the original three Pol’turs, but they had gone unconscious from the pain, with a few seizing tentacles here and there. Virgil would feel bad about it, really he would, but the last time he had been in a room of Pol’turs they had been discussing how nicely his skull would look in the centerpieces of their tables and tried to buy him for 270 griot.

His skin tingled the same way he thought it might right before he would get struck by lightning back on Earth. Virgil ignored the feeling in honor of sliding across the polished flooring to the nearest fallen mercenary and hoisting it up as a shield, while he grabbed its blaster from the floor.

Two blaster shots sunk into his Pol’tur shield and it dissolved into ashes in his hand. Virgil cursed again, raising the blaster with his other arm and using his ash coated hand to slide the trigger, because this blaster-- like all other blasters-- were not made for human anatomy at all.

The last Pol’tur was a sickly orange color, like some type of invasive evil moss with long arms. Virgil grinned as the blast exploded forth in a dangerous golden ray of death. The heat singed the edge of his fingers, although the mild numbness prevented him from feeling much more than the slight pressure he assumed was warmth. The shot went wide, and the kickback sent Virgil to the floor, but it was enough.

The blast shattered though several items on the shelves and Pol’tur scrambled back to avoid the avalanche of perishables-- scrambled back right into the pink fog of Virgil's last smoke bomb. It was screaming before Virgil could even sit back up.

Virgil inhaled heavily, sucking as much oxygen into his lung as he could afford and breathing it out through his nose. He squeezed his hand around the handle of the blaster, and tried to pretend like his skin didn’t feel too small. His empty hand-- the one that had held the Pol’tur-- was trembling, shaking, burning.

“I just think you’d be better off spending time with someone else.”

“You’re not fooling anyone, Storm!”

“What was it like, Virgil? When you killed him?”

His hand was covered in soot, tingling from nerves and poison and the heat of the blast that had annihilated all evidence of the living, breathing alien.

“It wasn’t….” Virgil breathed heavily, “I didn’t….”

He sucked in another breath, two, three, seven breaths, until he could feel the masquerading gas in the air turn his face numb, and the voices in his head went back to threatening buzzing.

“Fuck,” he whispered softly, and pushed himself off the ground.

Virgil took the blaster with him, and made a private note to ask Logan to look into building communicators for times like this. There were an untold number of things that could have happened to get them mixed up: the Pol’tur ship could have barrel rolled at the time of, or before the final teleportation codes were in, it could have slowed or sped up, it could have marginally changed direction. All of which just proved that only stupid people like Virgil, Logan, Roman, and Patton would dare attempt a teleportation on a moving ship. Virgil tried not to think about what would have happened if his coordinates had been a little lower in space, a little closer to the box he had landed on, a little more personal and prompted whatever was inside of the crate merged with whatever was inside of Virgil.

It took him a moment to realize that the lights had started flashing an interspaced red and yellow series: a visual alarm to the crew.

“Fun,” Virgil mumbled, hugging the wall next to the exit, with one last breath, and then punching the exit lock. The hydraulics took a moment to work (probably due to excessive use of the doors and wear on the components), but it opened to reveal a brightly lit, completely empty hallway. Virgil raised his blaster, checking both the direction before he stepped out and punched the door closed behind him. Then he lined the blaster up with the door controls and fired.

You know, for safekeeping. The last thing they needed was the Pol’turs inside to wake up with a vengeance and come after them before they were off the ship.

(If he was still on the ship by the time that they woke up, Virgil was pretty sure he’d be dead. But hey! Surprising things happened all the time when one lived in fucking space.)

The floor was springy under his feet, some mixture of carpet and flooring that Virgil didn’t know the name of, just that it was weird and he didn’t want it in his Sims House. He could feel the fibers through his shoes as he hugged the wall and sprinted towards where he thought the Engine room would be located.

He could hear the sound of more blasters echoing from the depths of the ship, some yelling, some cursing: all lovely signs that Roman was doing his best to be the most annoying moving target anyone had ever seen. Virgil found his lips curling into a smile as he faintly at the noise.

“Oh come on!” Roman taunted, “I’m a big guy! Surely, you can’t be that bad of a shot!”

There was deafening BZZZTTRRRT, a clamorous crashing, and an ear splitting series of screams.

Virgil flung around the last corner but in time to see Roman stand up from a kneeling position over a clump of bodies that had probably been more alive a few seconds ago. There were blaster marks all along the walls, and several had blown through a wall revealing a cozy living quarters with giant sword slices in the beddings and floors.

“Oooh, so close!” Roman said with faux-empathy bordering on smugness which at this point should just be his default to the mass. “Maybe next time you’ll think more before attacking an Erefren!” He spun at the sight of Virgil coming around the corner, pointing his sword and then shaking his tail in a greeting.

“Roman,” Virgil sighed in relief. “You okay?”

“Virgil! It seems like I got a little off course! Checked the prisoner cells but they were all empty. And then a few new friends of mine had some fun things to say about Remus.” Roman looked feral as he bared his teeth. He jabbed his sword down into the corpses and something wheezed painfully. Virgil didn’t look at them, didn’t look at them, didn’t look.

“Do you know where he is?” Virgil asked.

Roman used the edge of his shirt to wipe the blue grey blood from the tip of his blade. “Not yet, but if you give me a few more minutes with these lovely fellows of mine I will!”

It did not take “a few more minutes”. Roman hoisted on still gasping Pol’tur up by its gangly neck and it had already started blubbering in a mix of languages. Virgil watched the halls while Roman took notes from their new best friend.

Half a minute later Roman dropped their captive to the ground with a fire in his eyes and turned to Virgil with his bone plates clinking, and dripping poison.

“He was on the Bridge.” He said, coldly, “He didn’t know if they had finished with Re or not, but he was up there”

“Okay,” Virgil said.

“The rest of his crew, Virgil,” Roman growled, squeezing the hilt of his sword. “His friends! His family!” He stared down at the shaking cowering alien life. “They..!”

The back of Virgil’s throat tasted like his stomach acids.

Remus had tried to have them killed, he had sold them out, he had been a thorn in their side since before Virgil had become part of the team. Between the harrowing escapes and the near deaths, it wasn’t hard for Virgil to absolutely despise him.

But his crew? His entire crew? In three days?

Just….gone?

Condensed into the memories with a snap, removed from the future in just a blink. The initial attack on them must have been bad and bloody for Remus to call them for help, a surprise ambush type of attack. And for all Virgil hated Remus, he couldn’t help but wonder if Remus had had plans with them-- had they been discussing visiting the bars on L3-012 or shopping on K5-369 or relaxing on C2-276? Had Remus made plans with the people he had been close with and now those plans were meaningless because the people he had made them with were dead and gone and never coming ba--

The Pol’tur on the ground giggled something hysterically, one last brave blubbering comment, and Roman took the toe of his boot right into the creature's soft flesh. Its tentacles flopped on the floor with a plu-plat.

“Virgil,” Roman hissed, without looking up.

Virgil blinked and swallowed hard, “Right, Engines,” He said, turning to go back to his task but Roman reached out and hooked his claws on Virgil’s shoulder, stopping him there.

“Change of plans,” The Erefren said, “You’re coming with me to the Bridge to get my idiot brother.”

Logan was on the Bridge too. Roman didn’t need to have Virgil come with him-- in fact, Virgil shouldn’t come with him. Too many people, too close to fighting, and Virgil couldn’t wipe away the feeling of grit on his hand.

His entire crew. In just three days.

Roman didn’t mention anything about how Virgil was shaking from head to toe, and Virgil didn’t point out the way that Roman’s voice wobbled with silent pleading. He just nodded at the alien and let him lead the way towards where they suspected the examination rooms would be.

Two heads are better than one, and all that.

It was less of a guessing game when the halls and doors were labeled and Roman was very fluent in Pol’turian. Roman was quick to move, quick to sort his way through the poorly designed areas, quick to move. Virgil kept the pace as well as he could, watching the halls behind them for stragglers attempting to get the drop on them and Roman cut down anything in his way.

Blue grey blood splattered across their shoes, filling the air with a sickly sour smell that made Virgil want to gag. He settled for squeezing the handle of the balster and counting out his breaths again as he avoided Roman’s tail striking forward at astonishing speeds and squeezing his eyes shut when he thought he saw a pair of mismatching eyes in the reflection of the lights.

There was no way for them to go quietly through the halls, not with Roman stomping hard enough to shake the entire ship and his poison attacks turning every enemy into a screaming, begging, crying puddle.

“Roman!” Virgil yelled as heat billowed around them, and the taller alien stumbled back, hit the wall and fell to his knees.

Virgil snarled at one of the mercenaries and fired three times at them. Between the near misses and the scattered yells of “Deathworlder!” they retreated into nearby rooms and locked the doors after them. Virgil tore one of his EMPs from Roman’s belt and sent it flying down the hall to keep them trapped there for a little bit, before he turned to check on Roman.

His shirt was smoldering, and one of his bone plates were cracked, but he just looked out of breath and angry, “I’m fine.” His claws scraped the floor as he stood up. “Armor took most of it.”

Virgil checked the hallway again. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, like a cancerous lump that he couldn’t get rid off no matter how much he swallowed or coughed. It pulsed to a beat that he wasn’t sure he could replicate: too fast and yet the space between each thud had felt like forever. It was so loud he almost was afraid of missing the sounds of another attack.

(An attack where Roman’s armor wouldn’t be enough, where he wouldn’t be able to wheeze off the pain, where he’d hit the wall then the floor and he wouldn’t be able to get back up and it would be all Virgil’s faul--)

Roman’s claws pricked his shoulder as he looked. With a slightly trembling hand he pointed in the direction they needed to go and Virgil did his best not to let his churning stomach get the better of him.

“Virgil! Roman!” They both spun at the voice; Roman in particular struck out with his tail, and just narrowly avoided impaling Logan’s crystalline chest on spikes.

Logan didn’t even flinch, not that he could really. His lower arms spread with palms out to signal innocence but his upper arms were busy holding up the profusely bleeding Erefren that was leaning mostly on him. Logan’s arms were flickering with so many colors Virgil couldn’t keep track of them. (Vaguely it reminded him of a disco ball, of party lights, of something so Earthly it would have made him laugh if he wasn’t so busy trying to hold back a panic attack.)

“Remus,” Roman breathed, reaching forward, impossibly gently.

“Ro’mn,” Remus slurred, shifting his head ever so slightly. His blood was pooling down the left half of his face, his eyes were partially glassy, but other than that he looked remarkably like Roman: they shared the same face with a strong jawline, the same dark dark hair curled the same way, and the same long tail with dozens of bone plates. The only real difference was the tinge of white in Remus’s hair, the oozing green poison leaking from his bone structures in place of Roman’s red, and the gaps where someone had torn out his bone plates before Remus had grown new ones in.

“Didn’t think…” Remus’s head lulled to the side, showing off the smile he was desperately forcing on his face, “didn’t think… you were comin’.”

“I’m throwing you out of the airlock,” Roman told him.

“‘ounds fun…” Remus murmured, dropping his head back to Logan’s back, and wincing like each inhale was a battle.

“They had him on the Bridge,” Logan explained, “When I arrived, they were attempting to retrieve information from him through barbaric methods. I may have gone overboard with my retaliation.” Logan shifted Remus’s weight slightly, drawing a groan from the other alien. “I am by no means a medical examiner, however, I suspect that he may have several rib fractures, and a few wounds that need to be looked at and well bandaged.”

Roman nodded, although Virgil didn’t think he actually heard anything. Virgil was an only child himself, but he could guess that even if Remus had been the biggest asshole in the entire cosmos seeing him reduced to this weakened, bloody, broken mess was terrifying. From the stories of their childhood, Virgil had always guessed that Remus was as lively as they came. But this version of him couldn’t even stand by himself.

Roman’s head shot up, “Patton. Where’s Pat? We’ve got Re, now its time to get out of here and get him help--”

“NO!” Remus shouted lunging forward suddenly. Logan stumbled at the change of weight, nearly dropping him to the floor, but it seemed that the movement had taken most of the rest of his power. “I can’t… They have…Jay… I prom’sed…”

Virgil checked the hall for enemies because that was easier than looking at the desperation in Remus’s eyes. His voice was scratched and grated like a glass under the assault of a diamond. He coughed so violently it dragged out a glob of purple blood from him.

“Remus, you can’t--” Roman said.

And despite Remus looking like a simple breeze could end his life, he grabbed at Roman’s outreached arm, above the danger of the forearm spikes.“Me and... my crew,” Remus coughed, weakly. “The oath…”

“I talked to one of those bastards,” Roman countered, forcibly soft, forcibly strained. “Re, your crew is--”

“Ro…” He pleaded, “Please.”

Roman made a noise like something in him was physically shredding him apart. Virgil suspected it was his hero complex, which usually manifested the urge to save every living being he saw. Lost wasn’t a good look on Erefrens, Virgil decided right then and there. Hopeless and terrified and sad-- all of them made Roman look wrong.

“What's wrong, Vee? You look like you want to say something.”

“....It’s nothing.”

“What? Not even a joke? Come on, I know you--”

“Let it go, Ekans.”

Virgil blinked away the unwanted memory. He sighed out of his nose and reached up to hook on the back of Roman’s armor collar. “Let’s go.”

“Virge…” Roman murmured.

“If we don’t do this now,” Virgil said, “We’ll regret it.”

He didn’t wait for the others to catch up with his train of thought, or maybe he wasn’t waiting for his own train of thought to catch up. He tugged Roman back a step and nodded at Logan. “We’ll double back and find any crew that’s left and get Pat. You take Remus to the engine room room and get the codes ready for us to get back.”

“For real?” Roman said.

“Understood, Virgil.” Logan nodded back. He glowed purple softly, around his neck notches as if he had expected this after all. “Don’t be late.”

“Time is a construct.”

Remus laughed like he was choking on a handful of rusted nails. Roman tensed at the sound, gritted his teeth, and then tightened his grip on his sword. Resolved hardened in his eyes, burning through the lost expression like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm.

“Right,” Roman said, “Let’s go.” Roman grabbed Virgil’s hand and took off in the direction they had come from. “Any guesses where the guy’s gonna be? Or where Pat is?”

Virgil felt his stomach churn. He closed his eyes and let Roman pull him along as he tried to remember the 3D diagram of a Pol’turian ship. “Well if I was in cargo, you landed near the prisoner blocks, while Logan was on the Bridge...that means that while Logan was doing the calculations the ship probably did a half roll on the longitudinal axis, which he couldn’t have accounted for. Since this ship appears to be the same as the other makes and models of Pol’turs that means that Patton probably ended up in the medical bay. And if I had to guess that’s where any last member of the crew would be as well. Take this left here.”

Roman nearly stumbled over his own feet. “How in the name of the Great God, Disney-- have you memorized all the maps?”

Virgil furrowed his brow at the alien, “Haven’t you?”

“Well yes, but--” Roman’s face flushed with a bit of his purple blood, “Nevermind, Deathworlder.”

The medical wing of the ship was easy to get to compared to the other places. It seemed that either the Pol’turs had wisened up for an ambush or they had fled when they had the chance. Either way they only came across two mercenaries and Roman made quick work of them.

He knew they had arrived by the buzzing of air, the tingle of his skin that made him feel too big and too small at the same time. The walls were bare and there were four rooms lining them, each with a number engraved in the door and the lock panels glowing red with what Virgil guessed was the Pol’turian symbol for “closed” or “locked” or “dangerous chemical inside do not release”. Virgil reached for another EMP, but his bag was empty. There were scents around them, faint scents: something metallic, something sour, something clean, something, something, something--

Something that smelled like blood. So many different kinds of blood.

Virgil swallowed hard. He hadn’t known a lot about Remus’s crew, but he knew that Remus had had a dozen different species with him. A dozen different species that hadn’t survived the encounter.

“Pat!” Roman yelled down the hall, brandishing his sword.

“Roman! In here! Help--” A voice that was most definitely Patton’s yelled out.

Roman didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward to the room the voice had come from, almost feverishly, desperately, and he didn’t bother with the password. With a swift violent motion he jabbed his sword into the locking panel and then pried open the door with his claws and his hands.

Virgil thought that it would have been one hell of a sight: if he had been strapped to a table, a knife jab from death’s door, begging, pleading, crying and knowing that all his friends had been taking to the room before him and had not come back out intact? If Virgil had been bleeding out and clinging to the slippery bit of hope that was a miracle, and then he saw his captain’s brother literally prying open the door with his bare claws to get to him---

Virgil thought it would have been pretty awesome.

Not something that should have warranted a knife being thrown at them.

Roman let out a curse in Erefren and it was one of those don’t-repeat-this-don’t-tell-Patton curses that Roman specialized in. He staggered back, clutching his shoulder where the knife had sunk in all the way to the hilt, Jesus! What the hell! Virgil kicked the rest of the door open, dropping low as scalpel skirted by where his body should have been, and then he sprung back up with his blaster set on that asshole.

Except.

“Virgil!”

The room was small, almost claustrophobically small. Just standing in the doorway made Virgil’s breath shorten (his cell back at the Welsor fighting rings had been bigger than this--). And it was lit with cold harsh white light, nearly blinding, if it weren’t for the greyed walls and the splashes-- the splashes of faded pink and blue and other colors that Virgil recognized all too well as blood. The table took up most of the room, leaving just enough space for a Pol’tur to sweep around and a small hand tray of twisted instruments.

In fact there was a Pol’tur on the ground right there. Limp and unmoving with an eye scoop so far in it’s skull there was no way it was coming back out.

But Virgil wasn’t staring at the body.

“Don’t you get tired of being everyone’s favorite person?”

It couldn’t--

“Just shut up and help me with these conjugations, will you?”

This wasn’t--

“What do you mean no one can find him?”

He hadn’t--

The detective had looked at him with such a pity that it had made Virgil’s entire body flinch. He squeezed the plastic cup in his hand, crushing it, letting the fragments cut into his skin. He couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything. The man was still talking to him, talking softly like anything louder would shatter the fragile reality around them, talking so quietly Virgil couldn’t hear a single thing he was saying at all over the sound of his own heartbeat.

“You’re wrong,” Virgil had croaked. “He’s not dead.”

But he had been.

He had been for nearly two years now.

And everyone had thought that Virgil had done something to him, had thought that Virgil was the last to see him, had thought that his dark clothes and his eye shadow and a few sneers in the hall had meant that Virgil was suddenly capable of killing Janus Ekans in cold blood.

Except.

Except that Virgil was staring at Janus --fucking-- Ekans right now.

It was unmistakable, the shape of his face, the curve of his lips, the slimness of his nose. The wispy brown hair that turned golden under the summer sun, the mischievous eyes danced with different colors, the flick of his tongue that moved so freely when he let it, the tattoo of two theater masks on his chest that no one was supposed to know about-- Virgil could have spent days naming things, committing them to memory, staring in disbelief at him. This was the same boy who had sat next to him in Spanish. The same Janus who had been convinced he was so completely untouchable up until Virgil had dragged him off his stupid, golden pedastal.

It was the same Janus who was currently wrapped around Patton like a boa constrictor cutting off the alien’s ability to move and had a knife perched ever so closely to one of Patton’s eyes.

“What the hell?” Virgil had said because-- because--

Because Virgil had asked Logan once if there was a race that could pick through minds, pull memories from heads, change the way someone thought. And Logan didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t lie to him. There were no alien types that could break into a mind and drag illusions into reality and there were no races that could bring ghosts back from oblivion.

“Virgil,” Janus said barely a whisper, barely enough to be heard, barely enough to mean anything. The knife was tilting in his hand, tipped like he wasn’t sure what he was saying, wasn’t sure what he was doing. “What-?”

Partially drugged, Virgil thought with absolutely no room to breathe in his chest. Partially drugged, holding a knife to Patton’s weakest point, and alive.

“Janus,” Virgil said, ”Put down the knife.”

He’s still partially strapped to the table, bound by his left ankle and sporting a lovely series of cuts on the side of his face as if someone had started carving scales into his cheek for funsies. If Virgil had to hazard a guess he would have assumed that Patton had dropped in literally as the Pol’tur was taking Janus-- Janus, alive, breathing, real-- apart one centimeter at a time, then proceeded to win a very cramped fight in the room. Virgil would even say that Patton had started taking the restraints off of Janus when he had gained enough consciousness to realize that he needed to defend himself.

(The fact that they found something capable of drugging a human, a Deathworlder, was concerning, so concerning, terrifying--)

“Virgil….You are not real,” Janus said, slowly, blood dripping down his neck. “You cannot be real. None of this is real.”

“I’m the one thats not real?” Virgil muttered. “You’re the one that was declared dead.”

He laughed. Virgil’s stomach swooped.

For a second, a brief fleeting second, he could have sworn that this was all a dream. A fever dream in which Virgil would blink himself awake from and find himself on the floor of Janus’s stupid, giant ass room surrounded by a dozen cans of off-brand energy drinks, a half eaten bucket of popcorn, and the credits for a horror movie scrolling on the screen. For a second it felt like he would roll over and bump elbows with Janus who had woken up an hour previously to study for that stupid Spanish test that wasn’t until Monday. For a second it was like he was seventeen again and his biggest worry was figuring out if it was too weird to ask to run his hands through Janus’s silky hair.

“Of course, I was declared fucking dead!” Janus said, like it was the obvious thing that would happen, “I am dead. I have to be, because there’s no other way that the kid who's afraid of going outside made it this far into space.”

“Janus, put down the knife.” Virgil took a step forward, a half a step, but Janus just squeezed the knife tighter.

“Why don’t you come and make me?” Janus smiled at him, smiled, smiled, smiled.

Smiled like he knew that this was a dream and nothing he did was going to matter. Smiled like they were back on that balcony of his room with their feet swinging between the bars and two Seagrams gone each and they were going to get in a shit ton of trouble for it. Smiled like he had never been dead and Virgil hadn’t had to bury the thought of him.

Patton made a noise, a small whimper, and Virgil felt it in his chest. The near silence of the room, the soft muted buzzing in his head, the fuzzy dream like quality of reality-- it all shattered at the sound. Shattered like glass, like a mirror, like the concept of “forever”. It shattered and Virgil was suddenly hyperaware of how small the room was, how cold he felt, how metallic the air smelt.

“Hm, just as I thought,” Janus said softly, smile dropping into something wistful and disappointed, “I really am just seeing thin--”

Virgil didn’t give him the satisfaction of finishing; he surged forward, throwing his blaster to the side, and using his left hand to catch Janus’s wrist millimeters from putting that knife in Patton. He twisted his hand, pining his fingers into the soft flesh of Janus’s nerves until his hand jerked open on reflex and the knife fell into the open air.

Janus froze, inhaling so sharply Virgil was certain that he took all the oxygen in the room away.

He was warm, Virgil realized absently. He was warm and had a pulse and for some reason both those things made Virgil’s chest hurt. His skin was soft and his breath was sweet and Virgil had gotten punch-drunk stupid on less.

Which probably explained why, how, when, Virgil’s lips ended up on his, pressing firmly, and tasting like something from a past Virgil had thought he had given up on. Virgil had always been stupid, but this was another level of stupid. This was incredibly dumb, unbelievable, ridiculous.

Janus’s mouth was on his, and Virgil’s hand was tipping his head back ever so slightly, and Patton had managed to scramble out of Janus’s absolutely shocked slacked hold.

“You’ve always been so annoying,” Virgil gasped between breaths, “Always thinking you know everything. Have you ever considered you might be wrong before?”

“You’re--” Janus whispered, “Real? For real?” Then, “Don’t you know what the fuck consent is?”

“Fuck you,” Virgil told him.

Janus grabbed him by his collar and yanked him forward again. “Since you asked so nicely.”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Don’t be coy.” Janus shot back because he was still the same asshole who needed to have the last word. He bit at Virgil’s lip, and then pulled back to show off a wolfish grin.

Virgil was stuck somewhere between wanting to smash his stupid smug face in and wanting to kiss him until he lost all sense of direction. Janus was like that, Virgil remembered suddenly, even when they were kids, when Janus was trapped on that pedestal everyone had put him on, when Virgil couldn’t have cared less about him and somehow had ended up unsure how to live without him.

“Not that this isn’t the fucking cutest shit I’ve ever seen--“ A voice behind them called and Virgil stiffened.

“Language!” Patton interrupted, as Roman grunted through the pain of still having a surgical knife in his shoulder.

“--But can the two of you save your weird-ass….human…. greeting custom…. for some other time?” The Erefren snarled with one hand clutching the hilt and then yanking it out with a wheeze that Virgil felt physically. His purple blood spouted out from the wound but Roman didn’t seem to care, beyond tossing the knife to the floor.

“That’s an Erefren,” Janus said because he’s just as good at stating the obvious as he is at kissing. “That is not Remus.”

Roman snapped out something in his native tongue, which by the stress on the syllables was probably not nice and definitely not Patton approved. The Reytin even puffed up, shaking his head in a way that normally prefaced an hour long lecture on manners and the reintroduction of a swear jar.

However, Janus just laughed that pretty stupid little laugh of his but when he opened his mouth the words were all forgein. It took Virgil a moment to catch up, a moment to realize that he hadn’t even fumbled, that Janus had actually spoken Erefrenian and it had been grammatically correct enough that stunned Roman for a whole half second.

“You speak Erefrenian?” Virgil asked.

Janus blinked up at him a smug looking expression on his face. “You don’t?”

Virgil had a good response, he did. It was a response that had been some-three years in the making and Virgil had been ready to wipe that prideful expression of his face. But before they could do anything the entire ship lurched to the side, taking gravity with it. Virgil let out a yelp and grabbed for Janus and clung for stability.

(Space had done wonders for Janus’s abs, Virgil thought distantly.)

Roman slammed into the door frame and stumbled out into the hall, with all the grace a drunken ballerina, and cursed again when Patton landed on top of him.

“That’s our cue to leave!” Roman growled.

“Ya think?” Virgil shot back. He lunged for the end of the table where Janus’s bare foot was still strapped to the table. He didn’t look at the rusted color on the buckle, at the stiffness of the leather strap, at the rawness of Janus’s skin where it was biting into his ankle. He didn’t, didn’t, didn’t--

His hands shook. Janus reached over and clasped his forearms, the fabric of his tunic, him.

“Virgil--” Janus said, softly, unsuredly, with no trace of that previous pompous expression on him. “I--”

There was blood on his face, trailing all the way down his neck in scarlet silvers from the cuts. His hair was sweat matted, pressed and tousled in a way that made Virgil feel a certain rage in his chest, like someone had been running fingers through his curls while they sliced him apart. His eyes were still slightly glassy from whatever they put in him. There was an unspoken question on his lips, in his eyes, through his fingers as he clung to Virgil.

“I’ve got you,” Virgil told him, practically scooping him up. Janus heaved a breath as his feet touched the ground again. “Us humans have to stick together, right?”

Janus Ekans was alive.

It sounded surreal even in the moment, because Virgil had been mourning him since they were seventeen and stupid. Everyone else had moved on, had buried his memory, had forgotten about him. But he was not dead, and Virgil had not killed him. Somehow he had ended up in space, ended up with Remus, ended up here on this ship in the several billions of lightyears from anything they had known previously.

There would be no more late-nights-turned-early-mornings study sessions, no more sneaking over the gated walls of the Ekans mansion, and no more scaling the lattice underneath Janus’s balcony. They were never going to go stargazing on the hills outside of town again, never going to ruthlessly text each other under the desk during History class, never going to skip prom together to go trespassing in the woods somewhere to find Mothman. He was never going to butcher Spanish past participles in the cozy corner of the school library after hours and he was never going to get to listen to Janus brag about obtaining his Seal of Biliteracy finally despite his proficiency in about three languages.

Janus had disappeared right before senior year. And Virgil, who had been the biggest thorn in his side, the biggest instigator of all their fights, the wild and unruly punk kid that lived in detention-- Virgil had stopped looking for him. Because everyone said he had died. Because everyone said that Virgil had killed him.

But Virgil could feel Janus’s pulse, could hear his heartbeat, could see the way his chest moved as they stumbled out of the room.

Part of him was afraid that if he let go now, later, ever, Janus would disappear again. Shimmer and fade like a mirage in the desert.

“Careful Virgil,” Janus said breathily. “I almost think you missed me.”

“I hate you so much,” Virgil said back, as Roman and Patton led the way toward the engine rooms by blade and alien jujutsu and well-placed pun.

“Somehow, I don’t think you mean that, at all.” Janus said, grinning.

And then he closed that last little bit of space between them again.

[Next installment: Stars Die (But We Don’t)]

#Sanders sides #Virgil Sanders #Janus Sanders #Patton Sanders #Roman Sanders #Remus Sanders #Logan Sanders #Alien Au #Sympathetic Deceit #Sympathetic Remus #23 pages of Virgil in space #humans are space orcs #blood #Anxceit #background intrulogical #Probably will end up as part of series if you guys want more

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betaxbe-were · 3 years

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DYLAN FRYE CHARACTER PROFILE

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

Character’s full name: Dylan Frye Reason for name and/or meaning of name: His parents had a list of other, more whacky names chosen out for him, but decided to name him Dylan on a whim when he was born Character’s nickname: Dyl, he’s trying to get his friends to call him ‘fleas’ endearingly because it makes him laugh Birth date: May 3rd

Physical appearance Faceclaim: Jordan Fisher Gender: Cis-male Height: 5′11 Build: Lean, but strong Eye color: Dark brown Glasses or contacts?: He’s supposed to wear reading glasses for his schoolwork, but he doesn’t wear them as often as he should Distinguishing marks/scars: Dylan has a scar above his left knee from falling as a kid that is vaguely in the shape of a pizza, which he thinks is really on brand for him Hair color: Black Type of hair: Curly Hairstyle: He usually has the sides and back shaved with the top longer Clothing style: Dylan can most often be found wearing t-shirts, jeans, and whatever comfortable shoe is closest to him. He tends to run pretty warm, so he usually forgets to grab a sweater or a jacket. He either wears neutral and muted colours, like dark greens and blues, or bright whacky patterns, there really is no in between Facial Hair: He usually has a little bit of scruff on his chin Make up: He loves to paint his nails

Personality Good personality traits: Observant, Eccentric, Loyal, Easy-Going Bad personality traits: Indecisive, Hot-Tempered (mostly around the full moon), Surly, Withdrawn Mood character is most often in: Dylan is typically pretty easy going, and when he feels comfortable enough around someone, he tends to be quite witty, liking to laugh at himself and the world around him Sense of humor: He has a very easy sense of humour, and would rather laugh at things than let himself get upset by them Articulation: Dylan usually talks slowly, taking the time to find his words. However, when he gets particularly excited, he will rush to get his words out in an absolute jumble, almost difficult to understand. He also is a big hand talker Character’s greatest joy in life: He loves being around his friends, but he also loves being in class, expanding his mind Character’s greatest fear: Hurting someone when he’s in wolf form during the full moon Character is most at ease when: He’s by himself resetting in the forest Most ill at ease when: He’s around people that he doesn’t feel comfortable around or doesn’t understand Enraged when: The full moon is close Depressed or sad when: The full moon is close. There’s also a tiny little voice in the back of his head that wonders why his parents would have a child if they knew they were going to pass on the werewolf gene, but he loves his parents fiercely and doesn’t want to delve too deeply into that kind of thinking Priorities: Dylan would do anything for his friends, but he also would do anything for his family and his pack Life philosophy: Life’s too short to sweat the small things Greatest strength: His confidence in himself Greatest vulnerability or weakness: His blind desire to follow his friends and family, sometimes forgetting that they’re only human (well, half human in his parents case)

Goals Drives and motivations: Dylan is really driven by his own curiosity, as it makes him seek the answers to the millions of questions he has about the world around him. He’s also really driven by his friendships and his loyalty to his friends Immediate goals: He wants to graduate with a B.Sc. with a reasonable average Long term goals: Dylan would love to do research into the werewolf gene and find out more about the science behind his werewolf body

Childhood Hometown: Bridgemead, Massachusetts Type of childhood: Dylan had a pretty happy childhood, his parents had an open door policy and always took the time to answer his hundreds of daily questions. When they told him about his werewolf gene, it only strengthened their bond more, and once he turned, they started to feel like an invincible family unit Pets: None, but Dylan is begging his parents to get a cat Most important childhood memory: When his parents sat him down, talked him through puberty and told him about his werewolf gene Dream job: A physiologist Religion: Nothing specific, but he does believe in a higher power

Present Current location: Bridgemead, Massachusetts Currently living with: His parents Sexuality: Pansexual Politics: Democrat Occupation/education: A physiology student at Bridgemead college Mode of transportation: Dylan walks a lot, and enjoys doing so, but he does borrow his parents car from time to time, and his parents will usually drop him off at classes, or he’ll take the bus

Family Parent one: Ava Frye Relationship with them: Very close, she is a strong female influence in his life and a big part of the reason that he identifies as a Feminist Parent two: Watson Frye Relationship with them: Very close but not quite as close as he his to his Mom Other important family members: He considers everyone in Bridgemead’s pack part of his family and they all had an impact on him in one way or another

Favorites Color: Bright sunshine yellow Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers Food: Burgers and fries Film: E.T Drink: A virgin Pina Colada Form of entertainment: Playing Sudoku or Crossword puzzles Most prized possession: A piece of volcanic rock from a family trip to Alaska

Habits Hobbies: He likes to read, go for runs, swim, and dance really uncoordinatedly. He also likes to take a lot of time to think about really unimportant but bizarre questions like “is cereal soup?” Plays a musical instrument? The kazoo Plays a sport? Dylan always wanted to play football, and will sometimes play around by himself in his yard How he would spend a rainy day: Probably still in the forest outside Spending habits: He will always spend his pocket money on snacks Smoking/drinking/drugs?: His parents always offered him sips of alcohol when he was growing up so it took the mystery out of it, and he really doesn’t like the taste. He hasn’t ever smoked or done drugs, and doesn’t really plan on it, but he isn’t against other people doing it Nervous tics: Dylan usually has a hard time standing still, and taps his fingers or pen on the table or desk when he’s thinking really hard Usual body posture: He usually has pretty decent posture

Traits Optimist or pessimist? Optimist Introvert or extrovert? Introvert Daredevil or cautious? Cautious Logical or emotional? Logical Leader or follower? Follower Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? A little bit of both Prefers working or relaxing? Working Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Confident Animal lover? Of course

Self-perception How do they feels about themselves?: Dylan is pretty confident in himself, he marches to the beat of his own drum and he doesn’t really mind being called an oddball One word the character would use to describe themselves: Pretty damn rad What does the character consider their best trait?: Being positive What does the character consider their worst trait?: Being hot-tempered What does the character consider their best physical characteristic?: Probably his hair or his smile What does the character consider their worst physical characteristic?: Probably nothing How does the character think others perceive them?: Dylan imagines that others think he is a little bit odd, and he thinks that they’re probably right What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: There’s definitely a small part in the back of his mind that thinks about what having kids with his werewolf gene could mean, but he has never wanted to not be a werewolf. He would definitely change the mood swings that come with it though, if he could

Relationships with others Opinion of other people in general: Dylan tends to see the best in people, even if he doesn’t relate or connect to them Opinion of the Scooby Gang: He loves his friends so dang much Does the character hide their true opinions and emotions from others? He tends to be pretty honest about what he’s thinking or feeling Most important person in character’s life: Probably his Mom, they have a really special bond Best friend/s: Dylan considers the entire Scooby Gang to be his best friends, but out of the gang he’s closest to AJ Darke, Arabella Bryne, and Kody Pierce Dating experience: He really doesn’t have much experience in the romance department, especially being a bit of a loner before meeting the gang Romancing: If Dylan likes someone, he gets really nervous and fumbling in front of them, always trying to play it cool, but usually having the façade backfire on him

Extra Physicality: He’s pretty fit, and the whole werewolf thing gives him a bit of a lift in the strength department Species: Werewolf How do they feel about it?: He’s definitely normalized the whole werewolf experience, because his parents are both werewolves. Though he hasn’t been making the monthly change for that long, he’s known about it for so long that he forgets that it isn’t exactly normal. Dylan is pretty much at peace with being a werewolf, but he always dreads the full moon and the pain and memory loss that comes with it How do they look in their supernatural form?: He is larger than a regular wolf, but considered average size compared to the other wolves in the pack, and his usually brown eyes glow a dark amber when he’s in his wolf form

#bridgemeadtask01 #the man; the wolf; the legend #//cheesy quote is cheesy its fine

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saintheartwing · 4 years

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Invader Zim: The Pigshit Troll, Part One

Dib didn't like Zim's creative writing stories, and he made that clear to everyone. Now everyone is sure he's the troll going around blasting other people's work and writing horrible, awful things. With his reputation cratered and people despising him...what's to be done?

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Creative writing! One of the best, easiest ways to express yourself in the school setting. It would be a nice and simple way to boost one's grade point average, too.

But it also told people a lot about the sort of person you were, and that was as clear as could be when it came to the "student" called Zim. Dib was very well aware of that. He scowled a bit as he looked through some of the stories Zim had written, all of them were made available on the school's website just like his was or Zita or Sara or his own sister Gaz's, and there were distinct personalities shining through. Dib had spent a long time reading them in his room, his black, scythe-like hair slicked back a little, adjusting his glasses, wearing his usual black jacket as he looked the stories over.

Gretchen had a lot in common with him. She too liked to write mysteries or science fiction tales. Stories of the fantastic. One particular story had a distinct "Carrie" esque influence, a rather homely-looking girl finding out she had psychic powers and was trying to learn "how to blow shit up with my MIND" as she kept saying to her friends and family around her. It actually ended up working, a Poop cola can shaking about on the table to a pineapple and a watermelon getting blown apart to, at long last, the principal's car going up in a glorious bang right before his eyes, thereby ensuring that she would never, ever again get sent to detention or his office for anything.

Sara's stories showed her strict Catholic upbringing, there was much emphasis on guilt, forgiveness, redemption and religion. She had, however, also shown a clear talent in action schlock, FUN action schlock. Dib was surprised to find himself enjoying her tales of the Saints that she'd adapted into stories for others to read, Saint Sebastian taking more arrows than Boromir in Lord of the Rings, Peter racing for his life to escape a hostile city that wanted to kill him, ducking down every grimy alley he could find, and, of course, her magnum opus was on Saint George, the famous "dragon slayer". Not only did she detail a fantastic fight, but George's refusal to renounce his faith, terrible torture sessions, being sliced and diced on a wheel of swords that STILL didn't kill him before finally being decapitated on a city wall. Sara had clear talent for gripping your attention.

Gaz however, loooooved to write horror stories. One particular story stood out. He was in it. Investigating a haunted house, Gaz had written that Dib had heard a grandfather clock chime when the house had been abandoned for over a hundred years, and the clock couldn't still be working. All of the parts were long since rusted and broken down. Then, he was chased by an axe wielding ghost, cracking through the floor, down into a big dungeon…where even more axe wielding ghosts laid in wait! The ending was a horrible twist one too. He woke up in his bed, all of it had clearly been a dream…until you saw the "OR HAD IT?" at the end, with a special illustration she'd made of Dib holding his own severed head up above his body.

But then it came time to Zim's stories. And were he not wearing that black fake hair and fake contacts, Dib knew the little alien invader would be grinning his zipper-toothed grin with a dark, smug light in his ruby/maroon eyes. That little green-skinned piece of crap.

Zim's stories had serious grammatical errors. Zim's stories had him winning all the time. Zim's stories had him doing disgusting, horrible things to humans and especially to Dib, and to his family. Zim seemed to relish in getting to write all of this down and he LOOOOVED seeing the look on Dib's face when Dib was looking at his smartphone, because he knew, he could tell when Dib was reading one of HIS tales. Dib had a unique mixture of disgust, anger, irritation and revulsion that blended together like a bad smoothie, and Zim was drinking it aaaaaaall in…and loving every second of it.

"This doesn't even begin to make sense!" Dib proclaimed, reading the latest story Zim had written. "Why would I ever, EVER help you…YOU…conquer the galaxy? I've spent my whole life trying to keep you from conquering Earth! Literally, years of my life! You expect me to just do a personality 180 and be like "Irken tyranny is fine"!?" He remarked aloud at Zim, giving him a dark glower. "Oh, and then there's this one, this one here…" He pointed at his smartphone screen. "This one just comes off like a torture porn. How did the teacher let you get away with it? It's just you torturing me for no good reason and rubbing your face in winning. And THIS one expects me to be HAPPY that you're conquering the universe using demonic artifacts so the Irken empire reigns supreme! And then you...kidnap my sister? And you murder people in front of her yet expect us to overlook all that awful stuff because you had a sad past? My childhood has sucked, I didn't grow up to be a megalomaniacal sociopath like you!"

"Bully for you." Gaz remarked with a grunt. "Dib, it's just some fanfics and stories, it ain't a big deal."

"Yeah well maybe not, but it's still gross to me, okay? And if he wants to write about it, I get to complain about it. That's my freedom of speech." He grunted back as Zim smirked and stuck his tongue out at Dib. He had a nice, easy way to get under the human's skin and there wasn't anything he could do.

Nobody had any idea how bad it was going to get.

The next day, their English teacher Nick called the students to pay attention at the front of his class as he walked in, his expression solemn, quiet and disturbed. "I found some…very insulting, horrible reviews put up on the school website, reviewing the stories. I would like whoever wrote them to come forward." He intoned, the rather hairy-armed and hairy-chested young man sighing as he folded his arms over his green t-shirt, Dib looking from him to Zim, then to the rest of the class as they immediately took out their phones to check.

Sure enough, the reviews were astoundingly cruel. They weren't even competently put together.

"THIS STORY IS PIG SHIT! THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"

"PIGSHIT FUCK YOUR PIGSHIT NARDS YOU DERPIN PAN!"

"THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"

"REVIEW MY STORIEZ! u/3211346 REVIEW MY STORIES OR I WILL FIND YOU IN REAL LIFE AND FORCE YOU!"

"Sheesh." Dib frowned. What the heck was all this? It was all in caps. And it had been left not only on stories done by his classmates, but on other classes too. It was odd…nothing linked them at all. After all, the classmates in the grade older than him were super focused on that silly show "Moon Sailor". And Gaz's class, except for her, had all written tales about "Nakuro the Ninja", they were reeeeaaally into anime and manga lately.

"I don't want to believe anyone in my class wrote these reviews but all of the English teachers are asking their students. So…whomever may be behind these? Step forward."

And that's when some of the kids looked right at Dib, murmuring and muttering amongst themselves as Dib glanced back.

"Why are you all looking at me?" He wanted to know, frowning.

"Your stories didn't get that many bad reviews." Sara remarked.

"I still got some, though!" Dib protested. "Besides, that's not a good enough reason to think I did it!"

"But you're always complaining about ZIM'S stories really furiously and being all pissy." Said Zita.

"Why would I leave an anonymous review complaining about his stories when I've always been open about the fact I hate him?" Dib inquired. "I'm gonna all of a sudden decide after years of complaining about him to hide my complaining behind a mask because…why?" He wanted to know. "Furthermore, all of the "pig shit" reviews are advertising someone ELSE'S stories, not mine! That's not my account he linked! And I'm not even interested at all in those ninja stories or those silly Moon Sailor tales, look at the ones I favorited or left signed reviews on, none of them are in those fandoms. I'm not interested in them, so why would I leave any kind of review, even a raging, hateful one on them? Wouldn't I leave one on something I actually care about enough to get angry or furious over?"

"Yeaaaah, but there's a LOT of hatred in these reviews, and you're the only one in class who gets THAT mad about Zim stories." Gretchen confessed. "It does look kinda bad."

"But whenever I complained about Zim's stories, it was because they were so mean and cruel and misanthropic and Zim was just getting away with being a jerk! I laid out all my points well. And I sure didn't just write in all caps and with bad grammar!" Dib added. "You can't just assume I did it!"

But the kids murmured and muttered amongst themselves as Dib frowned, turning away, Zim sniggering at his misfortune. "Yeah, real funny, Zim. Real funny."

The rumor spread through the school. Poor Dib kept getting really insulting messages left for him on all of his work. Even when none of it even MENTIONED Zim, he got the horrible reviews, accusing him of being a troll, of being "Pig Shit".

"Look at this!" He told the guidance counselor, Mr. Thildari….before he remembered the man with soft white hair and a soft yet dark voice was literally blind and couldn't see it. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt and white pants and sat next to Dib on bean bag chairs in the nice "safe space" he'd set up in his office.

"Could you read it aloud?" The man softly inquired.

"Yeah…sure." Dib sighed. "Heh-hem. "you bash stories all time about Zim, tbh and you bully authors here. you are just as bad as any villain you're bitching about so get the fuck over yoself you preachy hypocrite. if i see more writers quit their storys because you a sneaky, evil person karma will come for you. i hope you believe in Jesus because yo gnna need him and the good Lord to save your sorry ass from going to hell".

"My, my, how very rude of them."

"It gets worse. Some garbled nonsense here too. "nvkdfjsl:Derpin pig shittin h*** humpin nards suckin pan!" And THEN there's " You big fat white nasty smelling fat b*** why you took me off the m*** schedule with your trifling dirty white racist a** you big fat b*** oompa loompa body a** b*** I'm coming outside and I'm going to beat the f*** out of you b***". I mean really?! Oompa Loompa body?! Racist?! Where's all this coming from? And then this guy calls me the q word! What is WRONG with these people?!"

"There has to be some way to stop it." Mr. Thildari remarked softly.

"I don't know HOW. How am I supposed to convince them it isn't me?" Dib groaned, burying his face in his hands as Mr. Thildari gently stroked over his back, and quietly sighed. "What could possibly be good enough for them?"

"I wish I could tell you." The guidance counselor told him. "All I can do is promise you, I'll be here to talk to you. To be as a shoulder to cry on."

"I'm glad you're so good at it." Dib confessed softly as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, sniffling a bit, trying to fight back tears. "People don't realize how…how fuckin' SHITTY it is. It's this daily grind, waking up every day to see nothing but shit flung at you just for having an opinion they don't like, for trying to make the world a better place, for trying to hold people accountable for the awful things they say and do."

"Well Dib, remember, Zim has the right to write stories, even if you think they're awful or dark or cruel."

"Yeah…sure. Doesn't mean I don't get to complain about them!" Dib muttered. "Everyone forgets that. They just want to be free to post anything up with no critique. But this? This isn't critique I'm getting, this isn't like me pointing out character inconsistencies or how meanspirited a story feels, this is just bashing, this is just trolling, this is just swears and vulgar crap and yelling. That's not free speech, that's like…HATE speech. So what am I gonna do…" He murmured, burying his face in his hands. "…what am I gonna do…"

…what indeed.

Author's Note: Every single review you see from "Pig Shit" and quoted by Dib is literally word for word either what I've received, or what I've been accused of writing. And Dib's views are my own. And that's all I will say for now.

#fanfic #the pigshit troll #pigshit #review #Invader Zim #Zim #Dib #gaz

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the-werdna · 4 years

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Title : Robcina Week Day 5 - Three Houses

Description: This was supposed to be a fun vactation, just the three of them as a family. Then Morgan got bored and ran off to explore the Outrealms on her own, forcing her parents to chase after her. When they finally cornered her in a land called Fodlan… well… let’s just say neither Robin or Lucina were prepared for what came next.

Notes: Written for Day 5 of Robcina Week 2020. This is not to be taken as a canon event within continuity with my other stories. This is pure crack-fic.

"Nooooooo! You can’t! I had it all planned out! My pitfall revolution! It was perfect!”

Robin dug in his heels, trying to pry his daughter away from the doorway she was clinging to for dear life. Beads of sweat dripped down his brow, stinging his eyes, born from the struggle to extricate Morgan from the underground catacombs she’d taken residence in. He spared a sidelong glance to Lucina, seeing she was equally worn out. The fact their daughter had managed to resist their combined efforts was rather impressive, to be entirely honest.

“Morgan, please. Stop this nonsense, I beg of you,” Lucina urged. She peeled back Morgan’s fingers enough for her to release her grip and allow Robin to begin dragging her up the stairs that led out of the Abyss.

“But you don’t understand, mother! This was for the greater good! The greater good I say!” Morgan ranted, her arms flailing in front of her as she desperately sought some sort of purchase.

“Morgan, you weren’t even supposed to be here! What happened to our vacation to the Beachrealm?” Robin asked. Lucina gripped the underside of one of Morgan’s arms, allowing Robin to free up one of his hands to rub the sweat from his face. And to pinch the bridge of his nose as he tried to fathom the series of decisions that had led Morgan to steal the gold he’d brought along on the trip to pay for Anna to bring her to multiple worlds across the Outrealms.

What was supposed to be a fun family vacation had instead turned into the two of them chasing after their daughter as she trapsed from world to world, leaving chaos in her wake, before they’d finally caught her here. And from what that archbishop had told them, the antic.

“I got bored! There’s only so many times I can dig traps in the sand!” Morgan countered. “This was way funner! But that’s not the point! I uncovered a huge conspiracy! Like, the kind people wearing tinfoil on their head scream about! Except it's true!”

“Was uncovering this ‘conspiracy’ before or after you tried to extort the head of the church to give you a position as a professor?” Lucina asked.

“Before, duh! What do you think was my blackmail material?” Morgan shouted, managing to give an indignant sigh and roll her eyes even as she continued to struggle. They were almost to the top of the stairs now, daylight streaming down from the opening in the wall.

“It's that stupid Rhea’s fault too! Could have just given me the job and I would have left all her dirty little secrets be! But she had to deny me! ME!” Morgan screamed, her voice echoing down the passageway. She seized the edge of the wall, hooking her feet down on the last step. “I would have been the best teacher ever! Besides, they just gave a teaching gig to some random mercenary right before I showed up! I am way more qualified!”

In unison both Robin and Lucina heaved with all their might once, then again, and then again. On the third pull they managed to dislodge her, all three flying clear of the entrance and landing in a tangled heap in the grass. Several students making their way to class stopped dead in their tracks, staring at the scene unfolding, before hurrying along just as quickly.

Morgan managed to scramble to her feet first, making a break back for the entrance to the Abyss. However both of her parents were on her a second later, tackling her to the ground and pinning her there. She struggled for several moments, even resorting to biting Robin’s hand, but eventually she stilled, her struggle morphing into grumbling under her breath.

“Morgan, a part of me wants to ask you what this conspiracy is, but the more rational part of me knows this will just be some crazy story you concocted just like last time,” Robin told her, heaving her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. At once Morgan began to struggle again, pounding on his back with her fiists and flailing her legs. Ignoring the pain, Robin began hauling her to where Anna was waiting in the market, having struck up a conversation with her sister from this world last Robin had seen her.

“I didn’t make it up! Their whole religion is a lie! Their goddess is actually just some dragon!” Morgan told them, giving up her pounding to cross her arms indignantly.

“You mean like Naga?” Robin asked.

“Yes! I mean, no! This is different! Naga told us she doesn’t want people to worship her!” Morgan countered. “And the people running the church are secretly dragons too and have been controlling everything for hundreds of years! And don’t get me started on the mole people!”

Robin stopped, staring at her blankly. “Mole people?” he asked, utterly dumbfounded by the statement. Okay, that was certainly a new one, even for Morgan.

“Yeah! They live underground and have robots that shoot lasers!”

Robin blinked, it taking him several moments to process this. “Uh-huh…”

“It's true! I’m not lying!” Morgan told them, puffing out her cheeks with a huff.

“Is this not like when you tried to tell us that ridiculous story about how you uncovered that Grima was actually just some sort of creation an alchemist made by mixing his blood with a divine dragon’s?” Lucina asked.

“And that Risen are actually animated by some sort of magical insect hidden inside stone masks?” Robin added.

“All that is true too! I don’t know why you don’t believe me!” Morgan shouted even louder.

“What about the time you said Marth never wore pants before the gods ‘remade the timeline’? You must admit, that claim was quite outlandish, even by your standards.” Lucina offered in response

“Okay, that one was actually fake!” Morgan huffed. She tightened her crossed arms, pouting all the more fiercely.“But the rest of them were totally true. You never believe me about anything!”

“Morgan, are we also going to ignore when you tried to tell us Naga and the other Divine Dragons were from outer space? Or have you decided that one was actually true again?” Robin asked.

“That… okay, fine, that one wasn’t real either. Also the dragons are space aliens! Turns out it's just in this world, not ours!! I just didn’t know that at the time, so I was sort of right… kinda...ish.”

“Okay, now I know you’re making this whole thing up,” Robin said, rolling his eyes and eliciting a flurry of angry grumbles from his daughter. He sighed deeply, shaking his head for what was perhaps the dozenth time.

“Morgan, even if this supposed conspiracy was true, that does not excuse trying to turn that entire Abyss place into ‘the biggest pitfall trap ever conceived by mankind’,” Lucina quoted, using her daughter’s own words to describe her own plan.

“Hey, that stupid Rhea started it when she sent her church ninja-assassins after me. I think trying to trap the whole monastery in a pitfall trap was the perfectly rational thing to do,” Morgan argued.

“I…” Robin glanced over to his wife. “I am not sure what I’m even supposed to say to that.”

“Nor do I,” Lucina agreed. “But at the very least, I am now certain that Morgan concocted the whole thing.”

“Agreed, that much is plain to see,” Robin said, nodding.

“Hey! I’m still here! Don’t ignore me!” Morgan cut in, glaring at both her parents in turn.

“Yes, and I think it's safe to say you’re also grounded. No idea how long yet. Not quite sure what’s a fair length of time for trying to topple a religious establishment,” Robin told her.

“I’d say at least a month. Perhaps longer,” Lucina suggested.

“Certainly,” Robin agreed. “Maybe three or four would be good.”

“Awwwww, you’re both laaaaaaaaaaammmme!” Morgan whinmed, dragging her hands over her face. She grimaced, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘I’m so telling on Rhea to Naga.”

She is taking this quite seriously. I wonder if she really could… Robin mused, then shook his head at the thought before he’d even finished it. Of course it wasn’t. Given Morgan’s track record, there was no way she could even possibly be telling the truth.

#Robcina-Week #Day 5 #Three Houses #Robin x Lucina #Robin #Lucina #morgana #robcina #Fire Emblem Awakening #Fire Emblem Three Houses #fire emblem

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pertinax--loculos · 4 years

Text

‘Dash’

So, for funsies I went through @yourocsbackstory to try to get myself in the writing mood again. This is what happened. I stopped at ‘Skills’ cuz I’ve already spoiled enough if you read close enough haha.

Come meet Dash.

Introduction

My name is Dash.

Or, well, it’s not really. That’s what everyone calls me. It circumvents the pain that comes with my first name, the questions that come from my last.

The knowledge that comes from my second.

I thought my life was pretty much mapped out from here. There was the beginning, that I barely remember. The next chapter, that I wish I could forget. The third, the honeymoon. And then now; not the best, far from the worst, an existence I was fairly certain I’d be able to bear, at least until the drugs or the alcohol overwhelmed me and my body gave out and I’d be buried in an unmarked plot under a false name with maybe three people to mourn me. If I was lucky.

Then that idiot fundie wandered into my life.

The Church is a fucking blight on society, the worst thing that’s happened since organised religion first got a foothold within civilised communities. It’s like they took all of the parts that made people unwilling to admit they were Christian in intelligent company and emphasised their importance until they were the only things that mattered.

To say nothing of what they think of the brainbent.

But unfortunately, what the old movies and books used to say is accurate. Give people a common enemy and they’ll unite under almost any flag.

The brainbent weren’t an enemy. But you consider the prospect of the barista at your local coffee place potentially being able to tell the future, or to read fucking minds, and tell me you would’ve stood against the Church.

I’m sure you will.

You’re lying.

Which is why Raleigh was such a surprise.

The Partners focus on the commoners, on people who know what the Church is about but haven’t been indoctrinated since birth. Members are basically written off as a lost cause. Even if, somehow, that person would’ve been a supporter if they’d been born in the right place, it’s not worth trying to convince them after years and years of brainwashing. They learn to suppress any thoughts, any opinions, that don’t jive with the company line. Trying to tell them otherwise is useless.

Which is why I don’t.

And still he came back.

I mean, Alec is probably right. He normally is. Odds are I’m being an idiot by even considering that this guy may be open-minded enough to accept that people exist that don’t believe the same as he does.

(And that’s not even going into all the other fucked-up facets of my existence.)

But for some reason, I’m willing to take that chance.

Even if it kills me.

Family I

There was always the memory of the Others.

It wasn’t a clear comparison; it wasn’t like he could look at Now and realise that it was different to Then. It was more like some weird false memory from early childhood buried deep within someone; a recollection of a room full of glass when apparently it had been an open-air market. A jar filled with blue that no one else remembered.

A loving mother and father. A melody without words.

There were other hints, of course. They never raised a hand at the child they insisted was his brother. They refused to acknowledge his grasp of genetics and never gave an explanation for the colour of his eyes. When he woke screaming for a mother he knew he no longer had the false one pretended, but she never offered the glass of milk, never pulled him onto her lap and stroked his hair and sung that song until he drifted off into gentler dreams.

Things got worse and worse as he got older. The more he could articulate the problems he had with the narrative they fed him the worse the punishments got. The first time he’d mentioned having another, a different, father they’d been too taken aback to respond; the reaction the second time had ensured he’d never bought it up again.

Every achievement, every failure, always framed within what he wasn’t and what he’d lost, what he lacked and how he disappointed.

One day, teenaged and trying to squirm his way into their good graces, he’d heard his brother mentioning the girl in class. He’d piped up as well, after seeing their indulgent responses, letting them know that there was someone in his class too, a boy who’d caught his eye. He’d been banned from school for a week after that.

His father told him people would ask questions about the bruises.

Friends

He’d assumed that the confession that the intimacy bought him no pleasure would be enough to make her disappear. He’d lost acquaintances for less, many times before.

So when she turned up on his doorstep three days later he stopped, stunned, with the door open.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Letting in the cold?”

It was nearly a hundred degrees outside, and he was already sweating through the long-sleeved shirt he’d pulled on to open the door. He stepped back to let her in, still speechless, and followed her as she walked confidently through the rooms to his favourite.

He swallowed a few pills just for something to do. It was a stupid idea, his supply was already running low, but he hoped the kick would help him through whatever conversation was to follow.

She watched, her brows pulled together in disapproval, but didn’t break the silence.

“What do you want?” he said finally, his voice too rough, too apprehensive. He’d told her he couldn’t do it anymore, but he knew deep within himself that if she offered enough…

She shrugged, her face clearing. “I’m of the opinion that no one should be alone, today of all days.”

Dash just stared at her, utterly uncomprehending.

“Y’know,” she said, and then raised her eyebrows a little when his expression made it clear he didn’t, “Christmas?”

Oh, fuck, of course. He’d known the date was approaching but it meant less than nothing to him, except for the fact that most of the shops were closed. He really shouldn’t have had those pills, not if he was gonna have to last another two days before he could restock.

She kicked her legs out in front of her as she leaned back against the wall, eyes roving the spartan room. “So you got a tv or what?”

Which was how they ended up sprawled on his bed, fully clothed and above the covers, picking at the leftovers of a pizza he’d had in the fridge while a tiny voice in the back of his head insisted that this was what friends actually were.

Education

He accepted the envelope with a sinking feeling. He knew what the letter inside was going to say.

Miss Phillips gave him an encouraging smile all the same.

“I know you struggle in some classes,” she said kindly. “But you really do excel in others. And really, all you need is a little extra help in English and I think you’ll be doing fine. I’ve explained that to your parents in your report.”

Like that’s gonna fucking help, Dash thought, but all he did was smile and nod. It wasn’t her fault he was stupid. It was his. He’d been told that many times.

He walked to his locker and gathered his things slowly. He could already hear his brother crowing in his ear, with his perfect scores and better comments. If he didn’t know better he’d think that the teachers were aware of the identify of their father and tailored their comments to suit.

But if that was the case why did they still throw him under the bus?

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to learn. He did, and he loved the stories, loved listening to what happened and even analysing why the author might have put certain characters and phrases in certain parts and why. But expressing that through writing was beyond him. Understanding why or where a comma went or why through was spelled o-u-g-h but throw was spelled o-w sent his head into a spin and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing his teachers could do about it either, as they spent their time with those that were better, those who had a right to their last names instead of a tenuous and fluctuating claim.

Mr Carr, in the workshop, was astonished by him. Said he was among the best students he’d ever had, was amazed by his ability with electronics and the way he could take apart and put together components without ever glancing at the instructions. He said he was a natural, that if he wanted he could certainly go places, because there was always a need for someone to fix those things that were broken.

But his parents assured him that he was what was broken, and the grades sent him into the dark. They never even read Mr Carr’s report.

Family II

Family had always been a dirty word.

He was caught in a weird sort of limbo; there was that which he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to bring up, and then that which was current but which he was not really a part of. Intellectually, academically, he knew what a family was. Hell, even from observation he knew what a family was. If he took a step back, removed himself from the equation and simply watched Father and Mother and Brother interact, then he knew what a family was supposed to be.

But try to impose himself upon that and he was reprimanded, reminded that he was not a part of it, that the family he might’ve been a part of no longer existed, that he was Other, that he was Alien and unwanted and his duty was only to disappear and to cause no more problems than he already had.

So when he met his family he was overwhelmed.

They walked through the door and were suffocated in affection, enough that Dash had to get out of there; he found him later, hidden in the garden, his face concerned.

“We were wondering where you’d got to,” he said, quietly, gently, as he always did.

“They don’t need me there,” Dash replied.

His eyebrows tugged together in the beginning of a frown. “Maybe not, but we want you there.”

Dash’s laugh was bitter, a little too manic. “No you don’t.”

It took a while – way too long, he should’ve been back with his family – to coax Dash out of the greenery and into the bulk of the backyard. Waiting there was an elderly woman, older than anyone Dash had had reason to interact with.

“This him?” she’d said, but before either of them could react she’d grabbed Dash’s hand and yanked him forward.

Dash couldn’t help but flinch. It didn’t appear to affect her. Her eyes, bright and the same colour as his, searched his face.

“Ah, yes, very good,” she said. Dash glanced around wildly but he was just standing there, something that might’ve been embarrassment pinking his cheeks.

“Are you satisfied now?” he said.

The old woman grinned at him over Dash’s shoulder.

“Yes,” she said. Dash felt his fingers on his elbow; just before he towed Dash back into the anonymity of the rest of the garden they heard her speak again.

“I see what you say about his eyes.”

Rivals

Fuck.

Dash had managed to avoid this dick for nigh on two months. Why the hell he was encountering him now, just as the oxy started to kick and make him loose and easy and happy, was anyone’s guess.

Probably the Members would say it was god’s work. Dash was pretty sure it was a punishment.

The guy stalked up to him, characteristic scowl twisting his features. He had to be six inches taller than Dash, but he didn’t back down.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled.

Dash stared into his dark eyes, tossing up a number of responses. Sarcastic, sardonic, flippant, honest; none of them seemed quite right.

He went with combative, in the end.

“I heard you’d be here,” he said, conversational. “Figured I might take the chance to learn your name.”

The guy’s eyes narrowed. They were close enough that Dash could feel his breath on his face.

“What the hell would you need that for?” he said. “Seeing as you’re not supposed to be here, and all.”

Dash twitched his shoulders in a shrug. “Yeah, well. Sorry, but I’m not really good at taking orders.”

Something flickered behind the guy’s eyes, something that might have been amusement. “I get the feeling that you’re more likely to do the opposite of what the orders might suggest.”

Dash caught his eyes again and raised an eyebrow. “Wow. It’s almost like you know me.”

Pause. The guy’s breathing had evened out, but he hadn’t moved away.

“Are we having, like, a civil conversation right now?” he said.

Dash quirked his eyebrow again. “Certainly seems that way.”

Another couple of beats. “Is it just me, or does there seem to be an extraordinary amount of sexual tension involved?”

Dash couldn’t stop the grin from tugging at his lips, even as he leaned in closer.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “It’s not just you.”

First Love

Despite the mistake of telling Father about him, Dash kept watching him.

Over the week it took for the bruises to fade he thought about him. When he first returned to school, his was the first face he looked for.

He didn’t seriously think it would lead to anything. How could it, given what everyone believed? But Connor was new to the city, and he wasn’t involved with the Church. That much Dash had figured out through rumour and innuendo. And he was left alone, during recess and lunch, all of the Members turning their noses up at him, to the point where Dash wondered why on earth his parents had sent him to this private school. After all, there were schools for commoners. They weren’t as good, but that was the sacrifice people made.

Not Connor’s parents, apparently.

And he was the only one who didn’t conceal his staring at Dash’s fading bruises.

He’d been staring beforehand, of course. That was what had made Dash first mention him to Father, the mistake that had led to him realising that he wasn’t the same as his brother and never would be. But it was he alone that continued to stare even after Dash’s absence. The others seemed to have been told not to.

Not Connor.

Dash cornered him after school one day, halfway across the green in the front of the school. Connor looked surprised but not alarmed, moving easily backwards as Dash stalked towards him. His ease crackled against Dash’s already strained nerves and he had to viciously curb the instinct to lash out, his learned impulse to beat down anything that stood against what he was trying to do.

They stopped when Connor’s back hit the wall of the gym. Dash was mere inches from his face, trying his best to channel the disgust and rage he’d seen so often on Father’s face.

“Why do you keep staring at me?” he demanded.

Connor hadn’t flinched like Dash would’ve under the violence of the question.

“I’m worried,” was all he said.

That threw Dash for a loop. Why the fuck would anybody be worried about him?

“You’re lying,” he said, suspiciously.

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Why would I do that?”

Dash hesitated for a couple of seconds, made his voice even more strident to make up for it. “Because you’re trying to get me to admit it!”

“Admit what?”

Connor’s voice was still gentle, questioning without prying, and Dash found himself whirling away from him, knotting his fingers in his hair and pulling, focusing on the burn on his scalp and not on Connor’s placid, knowing words.

The touch on his elbow was foreign in its gentleness. “Whatever they’ve told you,” he murmured, barely audible over the shouts reverberating in Dash’s ears, “They’re wrong.”

When Dash’s fingers found his he felt like he was home for the first time he could remember.

#WIP:Hellbent #WIP: Hellbent #writing #original writing #original character #for funsies!#yourocsbackstory #cuz why not

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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“Convert, Marry Me, or Die”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, July 2019

by Raymond Ibrahim

Slaughter of Christians

Syria: Islamic jihadis gang-raped a 60-year-old Christian woman before stoning her to death. When no one in Yaqoubiya, a small Christian village in Idlib governorate, saw Susan Grigor (or “Gregory”) on July 9, the worried priest sent parishioners to search for her. They eventually found her mangled and bloodied corpse on the ground of a field adjacent to her home. The autopsy revealed that Susan had been repeatedly raped and tortured over the course of nine hours before finally being murdered by stoning. The men responsible are believed to be members of the al-Qaeda-linked jihadi group, al-Nusra. Described as a pious Christian, Susan had never married and lived her entire life as a virgin (suggesting that violent gang-rape was her first—and last—sexual experience). Although she never had any of her own, Susan reportedly loved children and, after retiring, volunteered much of her time helping educate the youth of her local church and developing their skills. Before that she was an Arabic language school teacher for over 30 years. According to one Arabic report, some of her murderers “are from the area. In other words, those who raped and stoned her are themselves from among her former students and neighbors, whom she taught Arabic in school over the course of 30 years…. Surely she never dreamt to see such depraved savagery in the eyes of her former students…. Nonetheless, they preyed on her like wild beasts—even though wild beasts do not rape their mothers.”

Burkina Faso: Lethal Islamic terrorist attacks targeting Christians in the West African nation that began in earnest in February, 2019, continued throughout July. In one instance, the slain were identified and killed for wearing crucifixes. According to the report,

unidentified armed individuals entered the village of Bani (about six miles from the town of Bourzanga), looking for Christians… [T]he militants told everyone to lie down and proceeded to look for Christians by asking for first names or looking for anyone wearing Christian insignia (like crosses). The deadly search yielded four men…. They were all wearing crosses…. [W]hen they saw crosses, the assailants singled them out. All four were taken aside and executed.

Before leaving the village, the terrorists torched a shop that belonged to one of their victims. They then moved on to another village, Pougrenoma, where “They also told Christians to convert or risk execution.” Between February and July 27 Christians have been killed under similar circumstances, including instances when “the armed terrorists challenged Christians to convert or die.”

Nigeria: The jihad on Christians, which has widely been described as a genocide, continued to claim more lives. A pregnant woman of two children was among those slain during a Muslim Fulani herdsmen raid on a Christian village in the early hours of July 15. They also torched 75 Christian homes and two churches. On the same day the jihadis raided another Christian village; among those slain were a father (46) and his young son (7). They were returning home from church; the father was beheaded. “We have been experiencing daily attacks by these Fulani herdsmen in our communities, most especially on Sundays during worship hours or Thursdays when church activities are held,” a local Christian said.

Attacks on Churches

Syria: On July 11, the Islamic State detonated a car bomb just outside the Virgin Mary Church in the city of Qamishli. More than ten people, including an 8-year-old child, were injured in the blast. A communication that was intercepted indicated that the terrorists were targeting a gathering of “belligerent Christians.” Photos and videos of the explosion and its aftermath show substantial damage, including from the fire caused, which spread throughout the street. Another terror attack on the same day in neighboring Afrin claimed thirteen lives.

Pakistan: A Muslim mob attacked Internal Salvation Church in Bhiki village, Punjab district, on July 23. The mob barged in the midst of prayer services and began beating members of the congregation. A local human rights organization described the incident: “There were over a hundred of individuals praying in the church when Muhammad Azam, Muhammad Ijaz, Muhammad Amjad and Muhammad Zafar, along with other armed Muslim men, intruded into the church. They forcefully seized the prayer service and reportedly thrashed both men and women.” During the beating, the Muslim men used abusive language, disparaged Christians and Christianity, and demanded that the church “stop this circus.” The church submitted a complaint to local police; it was rejected. The human rights group continues:

There has been a sharp rise in the number of incidents violating the religious freedom rights of Christians in Pakistan. Their churches are being attacked, properties are being grabbed, forced to stop their prayer services and other church activities, and are forced to convert to Islam. This is alarming for Christians in this country.

Indonesia: Following protests from Muslim locals, the Bantul regency government revoked and canceled the building permit of a Pentecostal Christian Church in Sedayu district on July 26. The congregation was subsequently banned from meeting and performing worship service in the building. Although authorities said the church had failed to meet building codes, “the administration seems to have created a made-up reason to stop the church operation,” said the commissioner of the National Commission on Human Rights.

In a separate case, Muslim protests caused a Protestant church to stop holding services, even though it had the required governmental permit. Protesters claimed that the church was in a predominantly Muslim region, and in close proximity to an Islamic boarding school and a mosque. Church administrators rejected the claim and said there was no mosque or school nearby. Pastor Halim said the same Muslim protesters—particularly the Islamic Defenders Front—had hounded them out of their last church building in West Jakarta: “We have moved here, and have met similar opposition…. I will fight and not give up because we have a legal permit and have fulfilled all requirements from the government.” Indonesian law states that, in order to build a place of worship, a religious community must have at least 90 congregation members, as well as the approval of at least 60 people from other religious communities (namely Muslims) living in the vicinity. Halim said he and his 150-strong congregation were eagerly looking forward to their first prayer meeting in the church on July 7, when Muslim threats began. “How ready is the government to go up against certain groups that try to impose their own will on others,” he asked.

Egypt: On July 17, a Christian community was again forced to hold its fourth funeral in the street since police shuttered its church off in December 2018. The funeral was rushed in part due to the extreme heat of the summer day (110 degrees Fahrenheit). Although the village has about 2,500 Christians, repeated requests to build a church have been turned down; when Christians began to use a home, Muslims rioted, prompting officials to shut down the unregistered building.

Attacks on Apostates

Iran: On July 1, “Eight converts to Christianity, including five members of one family, were arrested in the southwestern city of Bushehr,” according to a report:

The arresting officers introduced themselves as agents from the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). They stormed the Christians’ homes in a coordinated operation at around 9am, confiscating Bibles, Christian literature, wooden crosses and pictures carrying Christian symbols, along with laptops, phones, all forms of identity cards, bank cards and other personal belongings…. The officers are reported to have treated the Christians harshly, even though small children were present during the arrests.

Later that same day one of the arrested women “whose arrest came after six cars carrying security officials turned up outside her home, was released the same day due to her age.” The rest of the “Christians remain detained, with no access to lawyers, and are being held in solitary confinement…”

From the start of 2019 to July, the total number of Christians arrested in similar circumstances reached at least 34. “Reporting suggests that Christianity is on the rise in Iran, along with other non-Islamic religions,” a human rights organization, explained. “This is a threat to the Islamic republic, a regime based on a narrow and totalitarian view of Islam. As the regime faces more internal unrest, the more it’ll crack down on religious minorities it views as threatening its stranglehold on religion.” A month before this latest incident, Iran’s Intelligence Minister, Mahmoud Alavi, openly admitted to apprehending and questioning apostates because mass conversions to Christianity were “happening right before our eyes.”

Separately, on July 27, another Christian woman Mahrokh (Roksare) Kanbari (65) was sentenced by the Karaj Islamic Revolutionary Court to one year in prison, on the charge of “propaganda against the system.” Friends who were present at her sentencing said that the “judge was very rude and tried to humiliate” the apostate woman. She was initially arrested just before Christmas, 2018, when three agents raided her home and hauled her off for ten days of extensive interrogation, before releasing her on bail.

Finally, Fatemeh Azad, a 58-year-old Muslim woman who had converted to Christianity against her Muslim husband’s will and fled to Germany, was denied asylum and deported back to Iran. There she was immediately arrested by authorities waiting for her plane to land. She has since been released on bail and awaits her trial. According to the report, “When Fatemeh made her asylum appeal, her lawyers argued that apostasy (conversion away from Islam) is punishable by the death penalty in Iran.” This, however, was insufficient for Germany—which has taken in millions of Muslims who are not being persecuted in their homelands—to provide her with asylum.

Uganda: Muslims harassed, threatened, and displaced a former Muslim woman who embraced Christianity to return to Islam or face the consequences. Sharifa Nakamate began receiving threatening text messages after she had a Christian pastor bury her husband, 65, who died on June 15. “It is now clear to the clan that you and your deceased husband abandoned Islam, since Hajji was buried by Christians,” read one text. “We are giving you a few days to recant the Christian faith or face the wrath of being an apostate.” Her 29-year-old son was among those threatening her. Finally, on July 11 she fled her home. “I realized my life was now in danger, so I sought refuge at the church,” said Sharifa. Although she has since relocated to another undisclosed location, last reported she was preparing to flee again. “Two days ago a Muslim from my home village came and bought items from me,” she explained. “I am afraid that she will go back and spread news of my new place of residence. This new place is not safe for me…. I never expected such thing to happen to me. I have lost everything that I did in developing the homestead for more than 30 years of our married life, only to lose everything just like that because of following Jesus.” The church that helped her has since also been targeted; a member received an anonymous text message that read, “Please let Nakamate return to her religion to avoid any negative repercussion of your church.”

Another Muslim apostate in Uganda, a 20-year-old man, was beaten and disowned by his family after they learned he had embraced Christianity. Asuman Kaire’s stepfather, who called him a “disgrace to the family,” nearly beat him to death; when local Christians rushed to the youth’s cries for help, the stepfather and other Muslims fled, leaving him unconscious. “After recovering, I feared going back home because I knew they were going to kill me,” said Kaire, so he lived in the streets. When a church took him in, and local Muslims learned of it, they turned their attention to it; in mid-June, when Kaire was in the church building, a mob crying out “Allahu Akbar” and that the apostate must die tried to storm it. Kaire has since moved again, lives in hiding, and is unable to finish his last year in high school: “I fear my classmates who are Muslims, as they might plan something bad for my life,” he said.

Abduction, Rape, and Murder in Pakistan

On July 10, a Muslim man shot and killed a Christian woman because she refused to convert to Islam and marry him. Problems began a few months earlier when Muhammad Waseem began accosting Saima Sardar, 30, particularly on her way to and from a hospital in Faisalabad, where she worked as a nurse. The harassment got so bad that she asked her brother to walk her to work. According to another family member, “Saima was in [a] healthy and friendly relationship with Waseem. However, when he continuously insisted Saima convert [to Islam], she decided to keep distance from him and prove her loyalty to her Christian faith. Therefore, Saima very boldly refused his proposal even though she was threatened with consequences.” When Muhammad learned that she was set to marry a Christian man in November, he got more aggressive and threatened that “if you do not convert and marry me, you will die.” Finally, on July 10, the Muhammad managed to get into the hospital, even though Saima had warned guards about him, and shot her dead, before taking his own life. “Converting to another religion or marrying someone is a personal choice,” said a local human rights organization concerning this incident. “Unfortunately, in Pakistani society Muslim men who like minority girls think that the latter should obey them and that their offer cannot be refused.”

Separately, a Muslim parliamentarian, his wife, and two sons repeatedly beat and raped their domestic worker, a 15-year-old Christian girl. According to Riaz Masih, the girl’s father,

I am a poor person living in a rented house with my children whereas, my daughter Saima who is 14-15 years old, was working at the MPA’s house for the last six months. A couple of days ago, she told me that the MPA raped her twice and his sons have been harassing her while his wife beats her over petty issues besides making her work day and night. They had warned my daughter of beating her up more if she ever dared to tell me anything…. They pressurised me to not go to the police but I need justice because my underage daughter has been tortured and raped several times.

A medical facility “confirmed that she had been raped many times.” The First Information Report which was lodged against Mian Tahir Jamil, the parliamentarian, offers more insights:

Tahir Jamil had forcefully raped his daughter after threatening her to remain silent or risk losing her life. Samia also reported that Tahir’s sons also sexually abused her. In fact, a week before the incident, Tahir had made sexual advances at her but she locked herself in the restroom to protect herself. When the family was finally able to retrieve her, Tahir’s wife, Bano Bibi, beat her mercilessly and cut her hair as a punishment for hiding. Thankfully, Samia was able to run away from the family to her home this week. She recounted the story of her abuse to her father, highlighting that besides the rape incident on June 19, 2019, Tahir’s sons consistently molested her while his wife, Bano Bibi verbally abused her.

In a similar incident, a Muslim family accused their 14-year-old Christian domestic worker of robbing the household as a way to cover up the fact that she was raped there. According to the mother of the teenaged victim, “Razia, a Muslim woman, hired us for a week to clean her house and to take care of guests during the wedding ceremony of her daughter. Suneha [the daughter] stayed at the employer’s house for a night due to late-night parties and the load of work…. During the wedding week, on July 6, one of the men of the family sexually assaulted Suneha. When Suneha resisted and threatened to make a complain[t] to the elders of the family, she was locked up in a room and beaten frequently.” Her rapist subsequently accused the girl and her mother of stealing jewelry, gold, and other valuables to the Muslim household, who joined in the thrashing. “It was unbearable torture and a heartbreaking situation,” Suneha explained. “They abused us stating ‘you Christians – Chooras, you are thieves’. We resisted and assured that we have done nothing, however after four days of ‘in house’ investigation and torture, the Muslim family reported us to the police.” Responding to this incident a human rights activist said “Christian women face double vulnerability as of a woman and as a segment of the Christian community. They are the softest target for rape. The Christian domestic workers are often threatened to keep their mouth shut after rape attempts otherwise are alleged for steeling valuables or committing blasphemy against Islam.”

Finally, a 14-year-old Christian girl was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, forced to marry a Muslim man, and then taken before a Muslim judge to sign a statement saying she had acted on her own free will. According to the report,

The girl, Benish Imran, went missing from home on 2 July, after she was kidnapped by Waheed Ahmed, who then forced her to deny her Christian faith and marry him. The following day, Imran Masih, the father of the 14-year-old, went to the police station and filed a complaint against people unknown, unaware of what had happened to his daughter. A few days later, the police informed him that they had received Benish’s conversion and marriage certificates, and that the latter was going to go before the district magistrate in Lahore on 12 July to register her statement.

Her father got a lawyer involved, who pointed out to the judge that, whatever the case may be, the girl is, according to Pakistani law, under age, and therefore could not be legally married, even if she wanted to of her own free will. The judge refused to relent and had the girl’s statement recorded. According to the lawyer, the entire fiasco “is a normal practice,” as “girls often give such statements because they are already living with their kidnappers,” and “death threats are made towards their family, and therefore the victims have no choice but to say what their kidnapper wants them to say in court….. [W]e have seen in the past that many girls flee whenever they get a chance.”

General Abuse of and Hate for Christians

Turkey: A number of successive fires broke out in as many as eight Christian villages, nearly turning them to ash, near the nation’s southern border towards the end of July. “Local activists,” says one report, “claim that the fires were intentionally started to eliminate the Christian heritage in the region”:

This part of Turkey borders both Iraq and Syria. In these two countries, arson has become a recognized insurgent tactic which targets the agricultural resources of villages. In Turkey’s case, these fires also targeted agriculture, as an estimated 7-800 olive trees were damaged. It is these kinds of similarities between this situation and the fires in Iraq / Syria that have caused concern that these fires were also started by arson.

An investigation was said to be underway.

Separately, two Muslim men beat a Christian teenager in the street after they noticed he was wearing a crucifix around his neck. They initially stopped him and pulled on his cross necklace while asking him if he “knows what this means?” When the youth responded, “Yes, I know. I’m a Christian,” they beat him and fled. The Protestant Association of Churches said in response that “This attack is a result of the growing hatred against Christians in Turkey. We invite government officials to take action against hate speech.”

Sri Lanka: Before the Islamic suicide bombing of churches and hotels on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019, which claimed more than 250 lives, Sri Lanka, a Buddhist majority nation, with Muslim and Christian minorities (9.7 percent and 7.4 percent of the total population, respectively), was not seen as a nation where Muslims persecute Christians. Since the spotlight has been placed on it, more information is appearing. According to July 11 report, “Many Tamil Christians and Hindus in Sri Lanka are being ordered by Muslim extremists to convert to Islam or leave the villages where their families have lived for generations.”

Egypt: Sarah Atef, a Christian college student was kidnapped while standing near her church. “When her mother knew that her daughter was kidnapped,” a family neighbor said, “she got out to the balcony and screamed to [sic] loudly. She was hitting her face. All of the neighbors got out of their houses to monitor.” After the family contacted police, Islamic websites, including some with affiliations to the Islamic State, claimed that the girl had called her mother and informed her that she had willingly converted to Islam and married a Muslim man. The local Coptic bishop, who met with the family, confirmed that no such phone call ever transpired, nor has anyone from the Christian community heard from the girl. “This is a trap for Christian girls,” elaborated one of her teachers. “This girl is very religious and believes in Jesus. It is hard (for her) to convert to Islam.”

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pseudinymous · 5 years

Text

In Which Danny is Very Salty

Phic Phight / Team Ghost / 1,060 words

Prompt by GothMoth

A small cult starts up around worshiping Phantom, a member starts preaching outside of Casper high.

“I can’t take this anymore. It’s been three days!” said Danny, loudly, not even caring about being overheard now that everyone had just been evacuated. “Three days! Of saving this lunatic again and again and again! And yeah, it’s so funny that he thinks Wes Weston is Phantom, but now he’s been telling any ghost that’ll listen to him and they’re starting to attack Wes too!”

Danny stopped to breathe for a moment. He needed to catch back up to it in the middle of this tirade, but then he caught sight of the guy standing out in front of the school through the window again. “Look at him — he’s still standing there, holding up that stupid Phantom cult banner! What the heck did I do to deserve a religion?”

Sam blinked at him. “Uhh, you saved the town countless times in the plain visible public eye, declared your name was Danny Phantom, paraded yourself around enjoying the attention, and then pretended you didn’t like it?”

Danny twitched within his chair. “Okay, okay! I get it. So — so I soaked up the sun a little, it’s not wrong to want attention! Just not this attention!”

Sam’s brow was raised as she peered out the window. “Oh, look, he’s starting to do a handstand.”

Danny risked another look outside for less than a moment, scoffed, then returned to his scornful seat and crossed his scornful arms and continued to look utterly scornful. Sam obviously enjoyed this too much.

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed, you know that?”

“I’m a ghost!” he snapped. “I’m supposed to be terrifying!”

Fifty seven kilograms of pure goth style sat down next to him, and she put her arm around his shoulder. “People make religions about terrifying things too. Where do you think all of this gothic occult stuff comes from, anyway?”

Danny’s head hit the desk. “Not from me. I’m the town superhero and local god, apparently.”

With the school empty, they were alone in here to listen to the madman preach outside. His emphatic screaming even seemed to float in through the window panes — apparently if you burned pure red hair as a sacrifice such that the smoke would rise the sky, Wes Weston would receive this energy and ascend to even greater heights.

“At least it’s entertaining!” said Sam, with a grin.

Danny moped, his face still smushed into the table. “I’m actually gonna hurl.”

What a way to start a Friday morning. Ghost attack — not just any normal ghost attack, a Technus ghost attach, which meant the fight that ensued was six hundred percent more annoying than usual. He didn’t screech out his own weaknesses for the world to hear anymore, so that was just another layer of difficulty to the situation, and with Tucker home sick, Danny’s deus ex machina machine was currently lying in bed pretending to have the flu. So far the only thing Tucker had actually achieved was avoiding the English test in first period that Danny was already pretty sure he’d already flunked.

Of course one of Technus’s prime targets had been their favourite cult member, and of course Danny had been forced to quite reluctantly save him. The man had looked up into Danny’s eyes as he’d carried him through the sky, a face ful of rapture and joy as the sun shone down. When the cult member had thanked Danny as Wes Weston for his valiant services, Danny had almost dropped him out of spite.

Oh, and also of course — while he was out saving this total loon — the real Wes Weston had had his head smashed in with the extremely high voltage end of Technus’s staff. That had been when the school was evacuated — Danny had even spotted Dash making off with some of his things on the way out, but was slightly too preoccupied with trying not to get electrocuted to do anything about it. Lancer down below seemed to run faster than any of his students — at least that was normal. And then at the end of it all, when Technus was safely in a thermos and Danny was quite sure that Weston wasn’t dead (ha!), the ambulance had come and taken the poor red-haired conspiracy theorist away.

The cult member tried to stop them.

“He can heal!” the cult member screamed, while the paramedics battled to get him away from the stretcher. “He doesn’t need to go to hospital, he’s half ghost! He has a ghost half! Ghosts can heal!!”

… I could overshadow him and drown him in the lake, thought Danny, in one of his lighter moments.

And now he and Sam were both sitting there in the empty classroom, listening to the cult member preaching gospel about all of those Holy Things in the Ghost Zone that Didn’t Actually Exist. This guy was totally off his rocker — nothing he spoke about was right, he consistently misnamed even Amity Park’s most common ghosts in a way that reminded Danny of Jazz two years ago, and generally speaking was begging to be forcibly removed from school property.

“Danny,” said Sam, eventually. “We’ve gotta leave before anyone else comes back. What are they going to think if they see us still sitting here?”

“I dunno, probably that I’m Wes Weston.”

“Are you trying to get caught?”

Danny’s arms were crossed even as he peeled his face back up off the table. “I dunno Sam, maybe I am! Maybe I’m sick of not getting real credit from this town. Maybe I’m sick of not being able to act on the fact that there’s an entire damn cult giving Weston all the credit.”

“Ooooh, someone’s jealous.”

“Am not!”

Sam crossed her arms at the childish response. “What are you, two?”

“Yes!” Danny sputtered, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis. “I’m sick of this whole damn town! But fine, whatever, I’ll go home, going Jesus Christ—!”

He did not go ghost. He also did not go Jesus Christ. It was simple, really — they’d both had this paranoid urge to look out the window as Danny was about to transform, and subsequently spotted the deranged cult member propped up upon the wooden ledge with an ancient JVC “professional” home camcorder slipped into his hand. The grin ran all the way up to his eyes.

“That’s it, I quit,” said Danny, quietly.

#Phic Phight #fanfiction #danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction

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deathghost8 · 4 years

Quote

You often think: perhaps maybe a long long time ahead i shall reach the point where i wake up from manifestation, and overcome the world illusion, and discover that I am the supreme reality behind all this diversification - My friends there is no diversification! In other words, what you call diversification is your game in the same way as you chop the thing and then you say it is made of pieces. Or did you forget that you cut it? So when you see the world is complicated and that there are life problems and that you might one day succeed.... There are hundreds and hundreds of people are running like mad after something that they thought was success and they have no idea what it is. So in exactly the same way the Guru is keeping you running and running after spiritual attainment. You don't know what you want. That's where Krishnamurti is so clever because he says "If you ask me for enlightenment, how can you ask me for enlightenment? If you don't know what it is, how do you know you want it? Any concept you have of it will be simply a way of trying to perpetuate the situation you're already in. If you think you know what you're going out for, all you're doing is you're seeking the past, what you already know, what you've already experienced; therefore that's not it, is it? Because you say you're looking for something quite new, but what do you mean new? What's your conception of something new?" Well, I figure I can only think about it in terms of something old, something I once had, so he doesn't say anything; he doesn't indicate anything positive. Everybody says "why are you so negative? Why don't you give us something to hang on to?" Well the simple answer is it would be spurious; you don't need anything to hang on to; you're it; you don't need a religion. But then you say "well, what is all this religious stuff about then? Why don't we just forget it?" You can try. By all means, go away. Don't go to gurus, don't go to church, don't enter philosophical discussions, just forget it. But then you'll realize that by having consented to forget it, you're still seeking! What a trap! What can you do? You see, if you stay here and listen to me or to anyone else who comes around here, you're fooling yourself, but if you go away, you're fooling yourself too because you still think that's going to improve your situation, it won't, and therefore when you discover that it doesn't, you'll think "well maybe it was a mistake to go away" and you come back to the guru and he looks at you and says "you are very undisciplined, very very inferior student and you need to apply yourself." Well, as I explained, I expect what he's doing, but it comes down in a way to a sort of contest with a guru, you see, well will you call his bluff? You're afraid to because you might discover that if you do call his bluff, he's no better than you are and that's what you're supposed to find out, but without being cynical about it. He's as divine as you are, but you've got to call the bluff, there's going to be a showdown and it's it's a double-bind, the whole situation is a double-bind because it doesn't do any good to stay here and it doesn't do any good to go away; either to do something about it or to do nothing about it. Now then, there's something else: when you understand that and when you realize that there's nothing to realize and it's all here, then what are you gonna do? then what are you going to do? well, of course this is the sense of the Zen poem supernatural activity and marvelous power drawing water carrying fuel you know- do whatever one does as a human being but there's a little element of philistinism in that it's like when a child is pestering father or mother with all sorts of questions, they finally get down to the deepest metaphysical problems they say: oh shut up and eat your donut! and I wouldn't say that, you see. at this point- because life, as one looks at it you see, is in fact a celebration of itself when you look out at night at the stars and you really wonder, good god, what is all that about? well it's a firework display, and it's celebrating High Holy Day. It's whoopie. and the whole world is whoopie. it's a kind of exuberance now, for the proper function of religion is digging this. it's not seeking. it's not seeking anything, but is in a way Thanksgiving. that's why of course the Christians were right in following the mass, the Eucharist, the Thanksgiving. only they had such a complicated way of thinking about it that nobody can understand it. so in religion, or religious exercises, whether they are meditative or whether they are ritualistic, are Whoopie. they are not something you do in order to attain anything. they are like art forms, like dancing. they are expressive of attainment - of the attain-less attainment. so here's another hang-up for you: when you go to mr. Suzuki who runs the Zen Center, he's a good disciple of Dogen, who brought Zen, a certain school of Zen, to Japan in the 13th century. Dogen said: you can't sit and meditate unless you're already a Buddha - in which case, why meditate? well meditation is just the way a Buddha sits, and he called this sitting just to sit. not to attain enlightenment- the minute you do that, you see, you're not meditating. So you only become a good meditator if you're not looking for anything, and therefore, you realize what a great thing it is to be able to sit, and what a great thing it is not to dissect the world with your analytical intellect. to be able to look out with the water or the trees or the floor and the light on it in front of you, without calling it light or floor or trees, or thinking that it has parts, or thinking that it's complicated. it isn’t. so when you can sit without thinking- not with an empty mind, mind you- I'm going back to that point- not with an empty mind but just a non analytic mind. a non probing mind where you're not creating problems all the time by trying to control it. by trying to control your mind, by trying to control your experience, what you see and hear, you then just simply discover that there is no way of controlling what you're experiencing, because what you're experiencing is You. And to try and really fundamentally control that? that's just going around in a circle- so if I would say to you: now what you have to learn is to let it happen - that's wrong - there's No-one to let it happen. if I say to you: accept your experience, be calm and open to things - that, again perpetuates the illusion that you're something different from it. -so we go round and round. but if there are some people who want to get together, and, like we would get together to play poker or to have a walk, go fishing, or sail a boat. if there are some people who want to get together to meditate and have rituals and to chant, great! it's an art form, and you can only use it and make it a good art form if you're not using it to get something. and this is what really is the bane of temples all over the world. you go into Buddhist temples where they theoretically don't believe in any God but there are people praying and they are all doing it in order that we get a male child next time around or that the horse recover from a disease or that mama gets cured of the dropsy. and all these petitions are going on and on and on, people always coming to the temple to ask for something. lowbrow people for lowbrow things, Highbrow people for highbrow things. and there, all the vendors sit outside and sell souvenirs and magic and charms and all the people go in, and do this, and all these serious priests sitting there really having to keep up face, and say yes uhhh.. we can't provide these services. on the other hand if you go in to one of these temples along with all the faithful followers and have a ball, buy a bead, buy a candle, buy a this, buy a that, buy some incense, go in and dig this great thing going on. Salute the Buddha's or the crystal the altars, or the crucifixes or what you will, but don't take it seriously. and this is one of the great important transformations of today, in our consciousness, is that a great many people are finding out that religion is not supposed to be taken seriously. this is a shocking thing to many people. there used to be an old saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh across the altars- that's true in one sense, when the priests know that they've got a racket going they don't believe one word of it and they are laughing across the altar because of all these suckers around doing it. -then it's true the religion is dead. but when the priests laugh at the Altar because they're having such fun because this whole scene is so beautiful, well it’s the difference between some stuffy old Buddhist priest humming a Sutra and Allen Ginsberg chanting a Sutra. that's the thing to hear. Cuz these priests are going They're going na na na na , they're going off interminably, ru ru, it's a bore. they're sick of it, but they get paid for it. this is magical. but when Allen Ginsberg chants a sutra everybody gets in the circle and gets these little bells and they get going it's just like a it's like a jam session where everybody is absolutely delighted. well that's the way to do it and if you can't do it that way, forget it

Some of The most important closing minutes on any talk from Watts. Transcript is not found after my scouring, so I located part and hand made the final 8 minutes that follow it. Full talk is in the foundational / intro page of my zen show picks, on the subject of the folly it is to Want to create Explanations for everything which thereby enable Control of everything. When actually we control nothing, and there is no You. There's just This. https://youtu.be/iHcxkmwBOJY?t=3489

#alan watts #religion #zen #meditation #art #You #life #celebrate

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mininky · 5 years

Text

Soul Bound

Summary: You weren’t supposed to fall in love. It was a simple contract, you’ve done this millions of times before. But there’s something different about Yoongi, and sometimes the heart just wants what the heart wants. Besides, what good is it being Satan if you don’t get to break the rules?

Pairing: Satan! Reader (fem) x Idol! Yoongi

Word Count: 9K

Warnings: religious mentions, explicit sex scenes including unprotected sex, 69, spanking, cum play

You've gone by many names over the centuries. Lucy, Lillith, Satan, the devil. You've adopted the name (y/n) this century but in the next few hundred years, you'll probably change it all over again.

There's a lot that man was wrong about both you and hell. For one, you aren't some large male Demonoid creature with horns and red skin and goat legs. For two hell doesn't exactly exist. There isn't some large firey pit that tortured souls fall into. No, at death a reaper takes a soul to their appointed religion's place. Those who are agnostic go to the old gods of fallen religions. So you don't spend your days torturing dead, evil or unreligious souls. Although you do occasionally spend time torturing living souls. Hey, after eons of living you have to find entertainment somehow. To be fair, you don't go after innocent souls. Perhaps that's where the idea of torturing those tainted souls came from. Humans, they're so cute with their absurd ideas.

Hell doesn't exactly exist. There is a relm where the demons live, an in-between world some might say. A place between the seeable to humans and to the unseeable gods. But it exists more as it's own large city for demons of all kinds when they aren't walking the world. What with the new age of technology you've noticed that many demons spend most of their time in hell now. Sometimes, late at night after a long grueling day, you think back to the good old times. The times where demons and gods walked amongst the humans without concealing themselves. Those were some fun times. But then all the religious wars started and the old gods stopped being worshipped and it became rather unanimous that walking amongst the humans in plain sight would just cause chaos now.

Humans did get some things right though. You do, most certainly, enter into pacts with people. Soul binding contracts have become more and more popular over the years although you don't always do them. No, someone has to be dead set on it. You do indeed have the power to give a mere mortal their desires. And such simples ones they usually are. Riches, fame, love. Almost all of your soul binding contracts fall into those categories. There are a few here and there though that differ from the norm. For instance, you've noticed that recently in America there's been an increase in younger people selling their souls just to have their student loans paid off although you've started to do those for free. Clearly, the government isn't going to bail them out, and really you appreciate that this new generation is so grateful to you. Thanks, Satan might just be a meme but boy does it fill your nonexistent heart with joy.

Each contract has its own stipulations. Most of them try to barter in the end, try to hold on to every last moment. You don't require all of them to die. You've learned your lesson on that one. Most of them just get reincarnated and do the same shit all over again but they can't even remember that they're repeat customers. So you've started to change the rules a bit. Those that you like well enough you might convert into a demon when the contract is up. Those that you don't like you might have in their contract that they have to live the rest of their lives doing charity work so they can learn to be a decent human. You like to think that you're a rather fair fallen angel. You aren't the big bad evil others have cooked you up to be, although in past times...you certainly weren't as kind as you are now. After all, you were feared and hated by almost everyone, and you can only take so much shit before you start to throw it back. It took awhile, but eventually, you grew tired of an eye for an eye. And it was around that time that you started to make changes to how you did soul binding contracts.

You don't always make check ups on your contracts. Usually, you just let them go their course and when the contract is up one of your demons ensures that the proper payment is collected. There have been instances though when you've paid closer attention to some of the humans in your contracts. There's one recently that really intrigues you. Min Yoongi. He sold his soul to you years ago, and you gave him rather unusual stipulations. He was honestly talented. He wanted to be a rapper and a producer and he wanted to do it professionally. He didn't ask for fame, he just wanted to make a living off of his music. But you could see in the way he carried himself that he had been alone too long. He was too guarded, had a hard time being around others.

So you gave him a rather unusual choice. He could sell his soul and work in a group, and if at the end of ten years under the contract he still sees no value in relationships then you'll take his soul. He thought you were insane. You can still clearly remember the way he scoffed at your words. He had assumed you would take his soul period, but that's just so boring. Maybe it's your old age softening you, but over the many years, you find it more worthwhile to bring a little bit of good into the world. In fact, it's under strict rules that demons are not allowed to meddle in human affairs unless it's a particularly bad human.

You've quietly checked up on him since then, and your happy to report that he's clearly changed. Sure he's still quiet and guarded, and in some ways, the fame he never asked for that was given might have only exacerbated that part in him. But...he's also clearly close to his members. He works well with them, and with others. Today is the day that you'll complete the contract. His soul won't go to you, he'll be free once again although in a way that makes you feel a little...lonely.

It's not like you've actually talked to him since he's entered into the contract. At least, not to his knowledge. You've gone to some of the fan signs, interacted with them as interviewers, but always under disguise. Your very existence is one that's doomed to loneliness, one that's forced away from humans. And while at first, you were rather content with being nothing more than the villain things started to change. I mean, sure you still have ancient daddy issues but really you see humans in a different light now. You've met many of them, many of the worst of the worst that made you feel that humanity was a cesspool of filth. But then years ago you met a woman who changed everything for you. And then you started to meet other humans who continued to challenge all of your beliefs.

You're pretty sure that your fascination with Min Yoongi stems from the fact that he reminds you of you in many ways. He's brusque, quiet, sharp-tongued, but layered deep under everything he's fragile and broken and hurting. And slowly but surely he's been able to start mending his heart with the help of others, much in the same way that you did. And that might be why it gives you a bittersweet taste as you sit on the edge of his bed to end the contract. It's not that you can't exactly see him again after the contract ends, it's more that your place in his life is ending and it would seem pointless to continue checking up on him.

You take in his sleeping figure, wondering if it would be appropriate to allow him to sleep any longer. You've been watching him for the last couple of minutes. He looks so innocent, so fragile, so...human. Each passing second engrains deeper in you the invisible lines that must be drawn. You would love to tell him that you're proud of him, that among all your contracts he will most likely remain one of your favorites. That he could have easily have done it without you, that you just gave him a push in the right direction. But that isn't your role to play here. He's a human. You're Satan. It should be that simple, and you hate that somewhere along the countless times you've watched over him that it changed. For you. But not for him.

Finally, you take a deep breath and shake him awake gently with one hand over his mouth to stop him if he screams. (This isn't your first rodeo.) He stirs in agitation before finally moving rather frantically at the feeling of your hand on his face. He's jumped up, eyes wide until he takes in the moonlight cast on your face from his window. "(Y/N)?" His words come out muffled until you finally retract your hand partially out of shock. You can count on one hand the number of times a human has called you by your chosen name. Two of them now have belonged to the very man in front of you.

It takes a moment for you to gather up your own thoughts and push away the warmth that threatens to wash through you. "I'm here to inform you, Min Yoongi, that you have performed the end of your contract and unfortunately for me, and fortunately for you, your soul will remain with you."

"That's it? Are you really Satan, or have I just been dealing with some crazy ass dream for ten years?" Yoongi drawls his words out lazy, face pushing closer to you as he inspects your figure carefully as if you might suddenly transform into a beast in front of him.

"I am, indeed Satan. I could remind you of the boring details such as me appearing to you out of thin air at your request or you signing a contract in blood. Be wary of myths. Some stem from truth, others have been greatly muddled over time." You stand to leave, but your legs stop working as you push yourself off the bed. It's not from lack of trying though, it's because of the feeling of his hand on grabbing onto yours.

"Wait! I just, I just wanted to say thank you. Not just for giving me the ability to make my dreams a reality, but for allowing me to finally find a home. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for you. Not just monetarily but emotionally as well." You know from your previous interactions with him, that Yoongi is usually a man of few words and hearing this praise from him has joy blossoming up in your chest where you presume your heart would be if you had one.

"That's awfully kind of you Min Yoongi. I see I made the right choice in you. Well, I suppose I should get going now. People to see, places to be. I think I have a meeting to attend to with dear old dad about the apocalypse." You laugh at his bewildered expression. "Only kidding. I've long ago given up my dreams of world domination and have since become rather comfortable with doing odd jobs such as giving you your dreams." You don't know why you're telling him all this. Perhaps you should spend more time in hell with some of your friends, you think that perhaps you're starting to grow a bit...lonely.

"Will I see you again?"

"Probably not. The commute is hellacious." That's right, cover up your loneliness with bad puns. You twist to give one last fleeting smile at Yoongi. His dark eyes are looking at you so fondly, a look of true gratitude softening his normally sharp features. "It's a shame though, you really would have made a great demon." With a snap of your wrist your back in hell. Where you should be. Far away from the human who lights up little butterflies inside you.

"You were gone longer than usual, is everything okay?"

"Hmm, oh yes. Everything is fine. I take it that hell hasn't yet frozen over?"

"No, but Changkyun made pigs fly again while you were out. I keep telling you, you need to scold that brat every once in a while." You look over at your assistant Hyolyn, who's glaring off in the distance clearly recalling the incident vividly.

"He's good to keep the mood light around here. That's not such a bad thing my dear. Take a note from him, you work too hard." You laugh at the disgruntled look on her face before swiping the file out of her hands. "Is this all of the contracts for the day?"

"No, that's all of the contracts for the hour. There seems to be an epidemic of people trying to sell their souls yet again. I've prioritized all of them. Most of them are student loans, I think there's another rumor going around. We can dispatch Changkyun for those ones. There are a couple of marriage wishes in here, I'll toss those ones for you I know you'll refuse them anyway. Oh! Odin popped by to see you. Really I don't know why you're friends with him. He gives me the creeps."

"You say that about all the male gods. Although I won't disagree that Zeus is indeed a major creep. Well, if that's all then just hand the contracts over to the kid and I'm going to try to get my beauty sleep." Hyolyn gives a lazy nod at your words as you step out of your office only to make a few short steps down the hall to reach your bed.

That night you entered dreams of more savage times. Times filled with pain and heartache and revenge, only for it to end with your chosen name being called out quietly, gratefully. Not Satan. Not Lucy. Not Lucifer. Just (y/n). Perhaps the dream is a signal of times changing for you. Or perhaps, more likely, it is a signal of the changes you long for. To be free, to ease the burden of isolation. Sure, you have your demons. And you love many of them. But...hell is still lonely. To them, you are their boss, their leader, the one who started it all, the mother figure. To most humans, you are the representation of evil and hatred of all things wrong. You suppose it's only natural for you to eventually start to feel a smidge lonely.

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

Life goes on as normal for some time, but your thoughts often wander back to Yoongi as they have for the last decade. You've refused however to allow yourself to fall back into habit and watch him from the shadows. He has a life to live now. A human life, one now free from the demonic shadows. That is until you're bewildered to hear from Hyolyn that you have a repeat requester. While it's not that unusual, it's very rare to have it happen again in the same lifetime. Mostly because of the nature of the contracts, but that's beside the point. What shocks you, even more, is that it's for something very mundane but most shocking of all is that the very man wishing to sell his soul for a really good pair of headphones is none other than Min Yoongi. Who can most certainly purchase the headphones with his own money, of which he has plenty.

But it would be a lie to say that you didn't get a smidge giddy. What is it that humans say now? Acted like a high school girl? You've never been one, but you assume that you did indeed act like one. A dash of secret squealing, skipping, malfunctioning. My how times have changed. Luckily Hyolyn wasn't around for any of that. She would have never let you live it down.

With a snap of your wrists you find yourself back in Yoongi's bedroom. You must say, you approve of his decorating skills. Black on black on black. Feels so homey and comforting. "Min Yoongi, I received a very absurd request today from you and I feel that I must inform you that selling your soul for a pair of headphones might possibly be one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in my life. You aren't a dumb man, at least not by my calculations. So why oh why did you do this?"

Yoongi is giving a coy cat-like smirk. He was clearly waiting for you this time, there isn't an ounce of shock at your materialization in his room. "You know, you really should knock or something. Barging in is kind of rude."

"Do you have any idea of how many things I have to do in a day? I have things to do, places to be, souls to buy and torture, gods to drink with. Spending time on the mortal plane is strictly for business and I don't appreciate that you think you can use me as your errand girl, or insist that I knock." You do actually. In fact, you think it's absolutely hilarious. But you have a reputation to uphold damnit.

"Well, I didn't exactly get a phone number and besides I didn't think that hell would have service."

"Oh, but we do have service. It's virgin mobile though, so you still wouldn't be able to get a hold of me except for in one spot that's now infested with flying pigs thanks to an unruly demon/demigod." You're pleased to say that you actually manage a laugh out of him. Well, it's more of a short-lived snort but hey, it counts right?

"Who knew Satan could crack some jokes?"

"...Well, I wasn't entirely kidding. I really do have a growing flying pig problem that I should be taking care of. The last time Changkyun got this out of hand I had to send the platypus to Australia. Honestly, Australia is filled with most of his fuck ups. Which is exactly why gods shouldn't have children with demons. Really throws things out of whack." Surprisingly he's smiling, there isn't a trace of discomfort at your words. He really is an unusual human. "So, what did you need to contact me for?"

"Hmm, oh, ah. Well...I mean...I guess it is actually kind of dumb. But...I just wanted to talk. Honestly, I must say I'm impressed with how quickly you got here. Really if it means that I actually get to see you in person it's way better than a phone call." He's still sitting on his computer chair, but he's leaned in closer to you while nervously playing with the hem of his hoodie.

"You...just wanted to talk? With me? Why?" He shrugs at first and you take the moment to finally sit down on his bed, your knees just a few centimeters away from his and for some reason that brings a flurry of new butterflies to stir around your gut. Man, if this really is how school girls feel when they have crushes you can't help but feel they have it rough. It's really not a pleasant feeling.

Yoongi stops playing with his hoody to finally glance up at you and you swear for just a blink of an eye he gives you a shy smile before returning to his normal stoic appearance. "Why? Why not? I mean, I do have you to thank for everything in my life now. But also...I was curious. When you were talking to me I couldn't help but get the feeling that we've talked before. And I mean sometime between when the contract first started and ended."

Do you lie? Tell him that it was just wishful thinking? Or do you tell him the truth? What would be better in the long run? Sure, you'll gain temporary satisfaction from this possibly budding friendship but a human? I mean, of all the dumb things you could possibly do becoming friends with one of the most famous ones certainly seems like it would take the cake. At the same time though, you of all people are allowed to break the rules. "I was curious. I wanted to see how you were fairing under the terms of the contract and with all of the new pressures that come with being in your position. I must say, it's a shame how well you did. You would have done very well as a demon."

"As a demon? You wouldn't just...devour my soul?"

"First of all, where's the fun in that? Second of all, I don't eat souls. I repurpose them. Reduce, reuse, recycle amiright?" You don't earn a laugh this time, but his lip does twitch slightly so it's not a total loss. "No, no. If you hadn't held your end of the contract then I would have simply turned you into a demon and held you along with your soul for eternity as such."

"What's hell like?"

"Completely different from what you think it is. There are no tortured souls. Think of it as a demon city. Or like Monsters inc! Yeah, kind of like Monsters inc." He's staring at you dubiously now before finally starting to chuckle.

"You know, nothing at all could prepare me for this. You're really easy to talk to...and so...I dunno...human like?" Your eyes narrow slightly as you bristle at his words.

"I feel that you're trying to give me a compliment, so I'll say thank you. But I am not human. To forget so is to simply take away a piece of who and what I am." Your words clearly come out more harshly than you intended based off of the way his shoulders fall and you give him a playful nudge. "But like I said, I appreciate that you were trying to give me a compliment. I don't get too terribly many of those." You're interrupted by a knock on the door and someone tries rattling the handle that's been clearly locked. "Well, looks like our times up."

You're about to snap your way out of the situation before someone tries to pick the lock but his hand is quick to grab on. "Wait, am I allowed to contact you again?"

You ponder a moment, hoping that you aren't mirroring his own shade of cherry red cheeks before sighing. "I suppose worse things could happen." His hands are still attached to your wrist as you're graced with a true blue smile from him, something that you're sure is a rare occurrence. Gingerly you remove his hand and a moment later you're back in hell.

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

Over the next few months, you get random contracts for the most absurd things from Yoongi. They've gotten increasingly ridiculous. While at first, he continued with studio equipment he started to switch it up to random things. Your favorite by far though was the request to sell his soul for a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Hyolyn and Changkyun have been teasing you mercilessly for it until you threatened to throw them in a vat of hot wax, stick wicks up their asses and use them as candles. So you're pretty glad that they aren't around to see the boldest request you've received yet. Yoongi basically asked you out on a date. At least, you're pretty sure that's the only possible way you can look at this. He requested to sell his soul for a date with (Y/N). Now, he might know another (y/n), however, you have a feeling that he certainly wouldn't be referring to someone by your same name in this request.

You're unnervingly giddy as you set off to see him. Until you're actually in his room and standing face to face with him when your brain decides to start thinking about all the various reasons why this is a terrible idea. He's a human, you're...well you're not. This really isn't going to go anywhere good, and if he's harboring the same feelings for you as you have for him then it can't possibly end well. Right? But then your thoughts suddenly halt when you take in his appearance. He's dressed in all black with a snapback and leather jacket, and you must say you approve. But once you move past drinking in his fashion choices you finally notice the small potted cactus in his hand.

"I was thinking about getting you flowers, but somehow I felt a cactus fits your personality better. Resilient, prickly, a unique beauty..." He's speaking quickly, hands fidgeting with the plant before he finally holds it out for you.

"Thank you. I'm actually rather fond of desert plants, they're a good place to go to dump Changkyun's experiments." You take the pot in your hands before placing it back down on his desk. "So, that's a mighty bold request of you. Sell your soul for a date, are you that desperate? I mean, it's not like you of all people don't have a wide variety of options at your disposal."

"But they aren't you." It's said so simply, so matter of fact. You can see the resolution in his eyes, you can see a determination that tells you that he's clearly already seen that you might argue with him about this and he won't go down without a fight. "You know, at first I thought I wanted to get to know you because I was grateful, but it wasn't entirely that. No, there was much more to it. You see you're funny and easy to speak to, and you aren't judgemental at all. You know the burdens that I go through and you're mindful to them, but you also don't let anything slide like when I ask you to come over as a distraction instead of getting down to work. And you're also possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, I don't know if that's like a demon thing or what but I mean, you're just all around awesome. I've thought about asking you out for a while now actually. So what do you say, (y/n), you wanna go on a date with me?"

You should say no. You really should. Because you know where this is going to lead to. You've tried to ignore the simmering of lust you've felt in your veins, but you won't be able to ignore it if this becomes habit. And the last time you were with a human...well let's just say things got messy. Not to mention the fact that most gods don't bode well with souls that you've been around. Although, he was kind of already screwed the moment he entered that contract so..."Alright, I'll go on a date. Where do you want to go?"

"That...that was easier than I anticipated..." Yoongi is squinting at you, looking almost disappointed that he didn't have a chance to state his case longer before he's grinning. "Well, where do you like to go on your time off?"

"Time off? Oh no, no no. There's really no rest for the wicked, humans actually got something right with that one. But I'm curious as to where exactly you would take me out. And knowing you, you most certainly have a plan. So let's hear it." His eyes have a mischevious glint in them as he listens, and you know for certain that he does indeed have a plan.

"Okay, well I'm not going to ruin it but let's just say that you've asked me about it before." This could go many ways at this point, and while your curiosity isn't often piqued you have a feeling that with this man things will always be interesting.

About twenty minutes later you find yourself sitting in Yoongi's studio with some tteokbokki and drinks. "So...you finally have a day off, free to go out on a date and you choose the same place that you already spend most of your time?"

You half expected him to be defensive, maybe a little snippy as you've noticed that tends to be a rather normal state for him to be in but instead he just gives a chuckle before heading over to his computer and clicking through a few things. "You know that song that I was saying I couldn't finish? And I kept wasting time by talking to you instead until you chewed me out for slacking off? Well, I finally got the inspiration and finished it. I'm planning on putting it on my next mixtape and I wanted you to be the first one to hear it. Namjoon hasn't even listened to it yet."

Now you've spent enough time with Yoongi at this point to know that that's akin to Yoongi getting down on one knee and telling you he's in love with you. He's a very private man, and not only has he let you into his sanctum he's also showing you a piece of him that he hasn't even shown his best friend. This is serious. And while that should make you run back to your cozy bed in hell and continue living your reclusive life as intended instead you find your heart suddenly warming and growing as if you're the Grinch and not the devil. For possibly the millionth time since you've met Yoongi you can't help but think that time really has softened you, but for once you think that maybe that's not such a bad thing.

You expected something harder, something faster but instead, the beat is soft almost somber and his words only further that atmosphere. The song is about second chances and new beginnings, it's about change and it resonates so deeply with you that you almost wonder if somehow he read your very soul. When it comes to an end you try to say something, but words seem to fail. At your lack of silence, he starts to panic slightly.

"Oh god, I made this the worst date ever didn't I? I am so sorry, I should have taken Hobi's advice and taken you out to the movies and dinner. I didn't think-"

"That song is beautiful, and it was absolutely worth all the procrastination because I think that that's really going to be the best one. I mean, I haven't heard the rest, but that was amazing." You're not sure if it's a trick of the light but you swear you actually see him blush for a nanosecond. He's sitting motionless for what feels like eons before he's finally talking again.

"You know, the seal of approval from you just makes this song all that much better to me." His words are quiet, just above a whisper.

"Yes, well, you probably shouldn't go around telling people that it's hell approved. They might not take too fondly to it." You grab one of the rice cakes and chew for a moment in silence before looking up to see Yoongi staring at you.

"You know, I totally forgot to ask if you could even eat. I didn't really think about that..."

"Of course I can eat, although it's not necessary for me I'm still very fond of food. The seven deadly sins do exist for a reason and I am supposed to be the embodiment after all." At the quizzical look he gives you, you decide to elaborate a bit. "The seven deadly sins are pride, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, and wrath."

He gives a slow nod, mouth opening before shutting quickly. When you raise a brow at him he looks away for a moment before slowly speaking. "So...uh..."

"I have a feeling you're about to ask me about lust. Listen, life for humans is very short. Of all the sins I see zero reasons why one shouldn't enjoy and partake in lust and gluttony rather often. Of course, lust does come with the asterisk of consent. It's not lust if both parties don't want it."

"You know, I'm really glad you're not actually a weird red half goat dude. Because hearing that guy is the embodiment of sins is a lot more terrifying than hearing that you are."

"Ah, well that's just because you haven't seen my real form." Yoongi goes pale at your words, and you give a loud laugh at the sight of his terror. "I'm only kidding. Kind of. I mean, I really do have black wings but that's about it." Finally, he seems to snap out of it, and this time he seems keenly interested.

"Really, wings? Can you fly? Can I see them?"

"Well, there's zero point in flying when I can just instantly transport myself places and conserve energy..." You stand up and look around the small room. "There's not enough space in here for me to show you by the way." You don't miss the look of disappointment that clouds his features momentarily. "But...well...if you're interested in going to hell I can certainly show you there."

"I don't have to be dead to go to hell? Turning it into a tourist attraction now are you?"

"Look at you, the human's got jokes. No, but really, you don't need to be dead. There are rules about not taking live humans to hell but that has more to do with the fact that you guys aren't supposed to know about the afterlife and blah blah blah. But hey, I make the rules so I'm allowed to break them." He's up in an instant, nodding enthusiastically as he takes out your hand.

"Please keep your hands in feet inside the ride at all times. Possible nausea may occur, tickets are nonrefundable." He's giving you an exasperated side eye before you snap your fingers and find yourself back in your bedroom.

"Woah, that was really fast. I expected it to take longer but holy cow. That was so cool, we basically just blinked and got here." He's looking around your room in awe, his cool hand still firmly grasping onto yours and the feeling is so comforting you're hoping that it'll remain there for a while longer. "Nice digs by the way."

His eyes wander around the room before he looks back at you, hand slowly slipping out of yours as he perches himself onto the chaise in front of your bed. His eyes are glued on you, but there seems to be no rushing you to finally show him your wings. Slowly you slip off the sweater you were wearing before taking off your bra with your back still turned to him before you give a small snap of your fingers and they emerge.

His reaction is instant, the small gasp isn't unnoticed by you. You can hear him move slowly before he's standing behind you, his words just above a whisper as he asks, "can I touch them?"

"Go ahead." His fingers are soft, grazing lightly over the long black feathers before coming back to the soft skin between your back.

"They're so pretty. And so big, holy cow." His hands move back over the feathers once more before he finally steps back and you snap your fingers and once again they're gone. When you glance over your shoulder you see his pupils slightly dilated, breathing ruffled slightly off pattern, hands grasping at the hem of his shirt once again before he steps closer to you.

You can feel nerves start to light on fire, the all too familiar feelings of unbridled desire starting to bubble through you as you feel his warm breath on your neck. "You know, you're really beautiful."

You want to be snarky, you want to remind him that you're beautiful because that's what disarms people. Because it's a survival tool, but for some reason, the thought of putting that wall up as you've grown so used to seems so tiring. You don't want to be the devil or Lucy around him, you just want to be (y/n). You just want to sink into the flurry of emotions that he makes you feel. He makes you feel so alive again, every step you take with him is just so natural. So for once you leave the sassy remarks at the door, and when you feel his hands glide over your shoulders before gently turning you around you realize that this is exactly what you wanted. It's why you agreed to the date, it's why you brought him back here. You just want him, you just want to feel free again.

Humans can't understand the beauty in the short freedom they're granted. You are tethered for eternity to a sordid world, a job that you can't leave and you no longer love although you never really loved playing satan in the first place. But around Yoongi? That seems to slip away until all that remains is that tightly wound coil deep in your belly that feels like it's on the verge of snapping and consuming you whole. Everything urges you to move closer, to find euphoria even if it's for but a moment with him. You know you shouldn't. You know that your place is to stay far away, but by taking him here you've already crossed the line and you don't want to look back. You can't. So when you close the distance until noses are brushing there's no holding back any longer. Your gaze flicks up for just a moment before your hands tug him even closer and your lips are finally on his.

He tastes like he's been dipped in honey due to the balm that he wears to keep his lips sinfully soft, and it's utterly addictive. What starts as a soft kiss grows quickly, his hands finally circling your hips and kneading at the flesh above your pants before he's dragging you closer to the bed. Each swipe of his tongue gliding across your lips before dipping back in has tiny mewls of pleasure ringing out. You've never shyed away from hedonistic joys, but this...this is something different. It isn't just a momentary spark, it isn't simply something that the moment calls for. No, you've wondered for ages what he would feel like, sound like, be like.

It seems though that you weren't the only one who has been entertaining the idea of what could be. Yoongi seems just as lost and needy as you, hands quick to disrobe you and roam around your body in a frenzy as if he's trying to memorize your skin by touch. His hips swivel into yours, the friction of each touch bringing deep groans out from him. When your knees finally reach the edge of the bed is when you pull yourself out of this trance of submissive need, and back into a domain you're more comfortable in. You want to watch him fall apart under pleasure, you want to allow him to taste this sinful freedom with you.

In a flash you have him sitting under you on the bed, his dark eyes looking almost doe-like in shock before that perpetual smirk is back on his face. "What, you want to be in charge here princess?"

"Princess, oh no Yoongi. Remember, here I'm the Queen." His eyes narrow in on the way you lick your lips before you dip down to press a slow trail from his earlobe to his collarbone. You can feel his muscles tighten as your fingers dance lightly around the hem of his shirt before sitting back up to finally see his skin. You have to admit, he's more toned than you would have at first thought.

"Like what you see?" His head is cocked to the side as he watches you drinking in the sight before you, one hand cupping your ass in a firm grip and the other palming his now prominent bulge.

"I think I'd like to see more actually." He's quick to help you take off his pants and boxers before reaching over to strip you bare. You aren't sure if it's your own heart beating this loudly in your ears or if it's his too that you're hearing. You can't remember the last time you were this worked up, this needy. But you don't just want him. No, gods, you feel like you'll burst if you don't have him soon. You need to taste him, you need to take him.

You grip his twitching member softly, eyes closing at the feeling of the weight in your palm. So velvety soft, so thick, just the right length. If you didn't know better you'd swear he was a demigod. He's certainly one blessed human, that's for sure. Or perhaps cursed if he's here with you right now? Whatever the case, you know he's special. You move closer, mouth inching near to finally taste the precum that looks oh so inviting when the feeling of his hand tugging on your wrist has you looking back up at him. "I want to taste you too, I need to taste you too." It's so simple, so matter of fact but the way he looks at you as he says it, jaw clenched hard and eyes narrowing in on your arousal glistening onto your thighs has you moaning in anticipation.

You shuffle and reposition until your mouth is hovering over his cock and you can feel his warm breath nearing your clit. A squeak of surprise leaves you as his calloused hands grab your hips and lower you straight onto his mouth, his tongue swiping over your folds before reaching back up to that oh so wonderful bundle of nerves. A harsh smack on your left ass cheek has you almost buckling, a long loud moan escaping before you finally take the hint and grasp his dick once again. You want him to feel just as good, you want to hear him groaning around you. With that determination in mind, you quickly set to work, swiping a long trail from the base to his leaking tip before taking him in your mouth.

The angle makes it so each time you get to almost the base, nose pressing into his balls he reaches right at the back of your throat and almost choking you. You have to time your breathing just right to not gag and sputter each time, deep breath in and exhaling slowly until you need to move back up for more air. It isn't long before you can feel his groans vibrating around you, his legs tensing and jerking slightly each time you take him deeper. His hands are gripping your hips tight enough now to feel bruises forming.

You aren't sure if you should say luckily or unfortunately for you, Yoongi is clearly competitive. Each time you swallow around him, each time he groans his tongue moves faster against you. You've had countless lovers, lovers that range from gods to demons to all those in between, but none of them have ever had a tongue this talented. None of them have ever found all your buttons so fast. It's enough to drive you to the brink of insanity, to want to tumble off the cliff that he keeps bringing you to the edge of only to slow down just in time to have you do the same to him. It's clearly become a battle of who will cum first. You want it to be him, but you can feel that familiar burning sensation growing out of control. It's when you finally take him completely whole, dick reaching so far down your throat you could put it on your list of impressive accomplishments when his mouth comes off you completely. You're foolish enough to think you've won the battle until the harsh sting of his hand coming down right across your clit has you seeing stars as he barks out a gruff, "Cum."

Your moans come out a muffled mess, thighs squeezing around his chest, sobs turning into splutters and gags before you finally taste his own release on your tongue as you feel another stinging blow across your sweet spot. It's just enough pain to sink further into the pleasure as you swallow down every last drop of his release before finally pulling off his dick with a small pop.

You've always had a salacious appetite once you're in the mood, but now you're needier than ever before. You need him to taste himself, you need to taste yourself, and then you need to feel him. You move around quickly, mouth crashing over his with far too much teeth to be sexy but neither of you seems to care. It's an addictive flavor, tangy and floral and perfect. You almost want to fight to be more dominant, as was your original plan, when Yoongi rolls you over so he's on top but the sight of him looking down at you has you interested in his plans. Besides, he seems to know all your buttons so you'll let him take over. This time.

"You look so...so fucking perfect. I just want to sink my teeth in and never leave."

"Well, time is pretty warped here so I suppose you could but your body will keep a-aah!" Your response is cut off by a harsh bite to your nipple. Even with his hair covering his face you just know he's smirking, but you can't think about it too long as he starts rolling the bud back and forth between his teeth while one hand dips right to your still sensitive folds. His fingers ghost over teasingly, your hips jutting up in response and back bowing up to chase after his lips as he pulls back.

"May I?" He doesn't need to elaborate, you know exactly what he's asking for if his teasing fingers are anything to go by.

"Please, please. I want to feel you soon." This time there is no smirk, instead, he sends you a gummy grin. It almost puts you out of place for a moment, seeing him look so genuinely happy, so ready to please with his eyes crinkling up and pearly whites showing as his hair flops over one eye. It's so...domestic, and it for some reason makes you want him all the more. You don't fully understand these feelings, you don't get why you've never really had them before but all you know is that you don't want this feeling to go away.

He slowly works in two fingers, and each time he moves you unconsciously clench around them. It's so slow, so painfully slow. You need more, you need to feel the stretch. "Yoongi, please, I need more." He doesn't argue, he just slowly adds in a third before looking back over at you as his movements stop completely.

"I want to see you fuck yourself on my fingers." My oh my, how you've missed hearing such filth directed at you. You place your hand on his shoulder as you slowly begin rocking your hips before swiveling in small circles. Each movement leaves a small squelch echoing through the room, each time you rock deeper you let out a small whimper of pleasure. It's not enough to get you to cum, but it is enough to lead you to want more. You watch closely as his dick hardens once again, neck thrown back as you visualize what you hope is soon to come.

"Please, Yoongi, I need to feel you. I know you want to feel me too, please just fuck me already. He doesn't need any more convincing as he's quick to pull back his fingers leaving you pulsing around nothing.

"Who would've thought you'd be so good for me?" His words are quiet, almost more to himself as they're whispered in awe. Really you're pretty surprised yourself, you didn't see your first encounter with him going this way but you aren't complaining in the least. In fact, you're kind of enjoying not being in charge for once.

Your thoughts are cut off though at the feeling of him finally entering, a stretch that has both of you moaning in unison. There's no rush in him, and each slow movement leaves shivers running up your spine and toes curling. You can feel him everywhere when he finally bottoms out, your back curving and hips coming down as his hands wrap around your hips to pull you even closer. It's magic, it's fireworks, it's sin at it's finest.

At first you expect him to just keep with his slow, rhythmic movements, but the moment he realizes you've adjusted he moves at breakneck speed. His hips bruise into yours, hands gripping your hips to pull them up and put you at just the right angle to hit your g-spot. It isn't long before you're screaming, writhing, hands grasping at the sheets. It's so unfair, how quickly he can wind you up. How desperate he makes you feel. How he makes you feel insatiable. One has never been enough for you, but you know that no matter how many times he'll make you cum tonight it'll never be enough.

That low, gravely order is said once again, "Come for me, (y/n)." That's all it takes for the knot deep in your belly to finally unwind, the feeling of bliss washing over as everything else floats away for a moment. Everything feels fuzzy, as if you've astral projected into another dimension and no longer in your body until the feeling of Yoongi twisting you around brings you right back into the present. One hand remains on your hips, the other wrapping into your hair as he pulls you up and takes you from behind this time. Each movement is sharp, precise and the sensitivity of two orgasms puts you right back on the edge again.

His lips trail over your neck, and the feeling of the soft kisses with the sharp sting of your scalp has you groaning his name. He might be the most talented multitasker you've met, because even when his hand dips from your hips to move slow circles onto your clit he never breaks his rhythm. It's all too much, it's all so close. You can feel nirvana just around the horizon, and you can tell by the way his groans are growing louder that he is too. "Come with me Yoongi." Your voice is hoarse, sweat dripping down your temple as you finally feel your third and final orgasm of the night wash over you. This time it's fireworks and lightning, both of you panting in unison as one, two, three more thrusts and he pulls out to paint his seed messily over your back and ass.

You're not sure how long the two of you stay there. It could have been just mere moments or it could have been half and hour, the two of you slowly climbing back down from the rush of blissful hedonism. Yoongi fumbles around the room for a minute before you feel a cold, damp cloth as he cleans you up.

"Wow, that was...amazing. God, I sound like such a dork right now, huh?"

"Well, I guess I like dorks. You know, I can't remember the last time I ever let someone else take the reins and they actually did a good job. In fact, I can't remember the last time I've had such an attentive lover. You continue to surprise me Min Yoongi."

"What, you couldn't tell I was actually a sex god in disguise?" Both of you laugh before he lays down and pulls you next to him, the feeling of domesiticity sending that rush of butterflies back through you all over again. "You know, I really really like you (y/n). I know...I know that you know...you're like head demon in charge and I'm a human, but I don't care about all that crap. I just like you, and want you, and...I'm glad I found you."

You're not sure what to say to this. Part of you thought about running, but you can't bear to do that. No, you want him too much. You want to be with him as he continues his life journey, you want to experience mortality with him and while you know someday it will end and you'll continue living you still just can't give up. Love, is this what it's called? "I think...I think I'm in love with you Yoongi."

"Oh thank god, because I was terrified to be the first to say it. Does this mean that I can officially call you my girlfriend? And introduce you to the other guys? And hang out in hell with you? Because I love you, and I love spending time with you, and I want nothing more but to just be with you more."

"I'll agree to it if you'll stay here tonight. I'm too tired to take you back home. Besides, my beds bigger." You know you shouldn't, you know you should let him forget all about you. But as you curl up into his side and listen to him fall into a deep slumber you know that this is where your heaven is. This is where you want to be. Besides, what good is it being Satan if you don't break the rules for your own selfish gain every now and again?

The next morning you sit Yoongi down and have a serious talk with him, one where you explain how grateful you are that he first entered the contract. About how your existance isn't all glitz and glam, and you're ashamed to admit that it isn't until you tell him all this that the very reasons you were first drawn to him are the same reasons he was drawn to you. He started out having difficulties getting close to others, and now that you've finally given him a place in the group the popularity has forced him to live a careful life in the public eye. A scrutiny that you understand all too well. You would never have believed that the devil would go down to Seoul and find her lover in a world famous idol, but you wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, you've never exactly fit the mold so why should your relationship?

#btssmutclub #yoongi smut #yoongi fanfic #suga smut #suga fanfic #yoongi fanfiction #bts smut #bts fanfiction

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skyywalkerfen · 6 years

Note

If you are still taking kiss.meme prompts; 14 for obiqui?

~~~

He couldn’t think. For a long, long moment he couldn’t even breathe. “You’re going to what?“

“Take Anakin out of the Temple. He – ” Qui-Gon’s serenity was holding. Strained but holding. “The Temple… This is not the correct place for him.” Qui-Gon’s shoulders were set beneath rumpled beige tunics, his back straight as he stood in front of the window in Obi-Wan’s quarters, his face to Coruscant’s eternal traffic. “I was wrong, Obi-Wan. He should not be a part of this Order.”

The floor cracked beneath Obi-Wan’s feet.

[also here on AO3]

“You’re saying – ” Obi-Wan gulped, breathed,and released his utter shock into the Force. Or enough that he could think again, anyway. “You’re saying that after all this – after three years of battles with the Council to keep him here and you nearly dying to get him here in the first place – that you were wrong.” After pushing you and I to the breaking point – “That Anakin is not meant to be a Jedi.”

“Oh, he is meant to be a Jedi, that is no mistake. But not here.”

“ … here.”

Finally, Qui-Gon turned. “I’m not taking him out of the Jedi, just out of this Order. I’m taking him to Master Altis,” he said, as calmly as if he hadn’t just announced his plans to shatter Obi-Wan’s world.

All the air had gone out of the room. “Djinn Altis. The break-away.” The renegade. Hundred little gods of space, he needed to sit down. Now.

Obi-Wan yanked a chair to him with the Force and sank into it with little grace, and stared at the man who’d been his teacher. “You’re going to take your padawan out to Force only knows where, to be trained by the heretic.”

“We are not a religion, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said with a touch of asperity, “the term ‘heresy’ doesn’t apply. Altis believes – ”

“I know what Altis believes!” Obi-Wan snapped, something hot and dangerous firing under his skin. “He thinks a master can somehow handle more than one student at a time! He thinks adults can be trained! He believes attachments are good, Qui-Gon – if that’s not heresy then what else would you call it?!”

“Perhaps sanity?!” Qui-Gon snapped back, before he caught himself and breathed, his anger released in a heartbeat.

“Sanity.” This just got better and better. Obi-Wan’s childhood bad habit of grinding the heels of his hands against his eyes, long since rooted out, was making a viciously successful comeback. “Oh, Force.”

The low sounds of boots across the floor, Qui-Gon’s Force-Presence settling in front on him. “Obi-Wan.” Familiar voice. Beloved voice. Soft, even; familiar tones that asked for his attention.

His own anger released to the Force, what Obi-Wan had left was exhaustion. He let his hands fall into his lap and blinked at Qui-Gon, now crouched in front of him. Looked at the craggy, familiar face as though he’d never seen it before.

“What are you doing, Master? What is this?” Please tell me something, anything, that makes sense, some kind, any kind of sense, please don’t destroy – “This flies in the face of the Code, of everything we’re for, everything you ever taught me.”

“Does it?”

Oooh, no. “Don’t,” Obi-Wan said tartly. “We’re not playing that game now, Qui-Gon. Answers, please.”

A hint of a smile beneath the mustache. “Obi-Wan. Think. We were taught, you and I and every crècheling, about the dangers of attachment. How to serve the Force was our highest and only goal. We should love nothing but that, have nothing more than that; nothing close to us that we might serve, through love or fear, above the Force. Why? Because we are powerful, and dangerous with it. Divide loyalty with attachments and there is no peace – there is havoc and destruction. So we are raised and taught not to love but in the abstract, and so we believe, and it has apparently worked in the Order for a thousand years.”

Obi-Wan swallowed again, catching on specific words and phrasing. “'In.’ ‘We believe.’ Master, a thousand years would seem to imply some level of success.”

The skin around Qui-Gon’s eyes crinkled. “It would.”

“Then why…?”

“Why do I question it now? Because I’ve come to realize what it is that has felt wrong to me for many years. That in a way, a quite fundamental way, our rejection of attachments is a lie.”

“A lie –!”

“Sssh, no, wait.” Qui-Gon gripped Obi-Wan’s knees and squeezed, gently. “Wait. It’s a lie, Padawan, because we are attached, all of us. To here. To this. To the Order and what it has, all it holds. It is parent and sibling and teacher, with the Code as law and lifeblood. And it has worked because we are not truly giving up attachment, merely trading one form for another.”

Qui-Gon’s conviction was a solid pillar in the Force. All Obi-Wan could do was stare at him.

“We keep our emotional security, our connections, the things we tell ourselves we do not keep, right here. Here, with the only family most have ever known. And no matter where the Force guides us, we retain that – we know that our family is here. And that it will be here no matter what happens to us as individual Jedi.”

The big hands on his knees squeezed again. “This is our attachment, Obi-Wan. Our bedrock. And this is what Anakin does not have.”

Yes, staring was still all Obi-Wan could do.

“This is why he is different and why he is not thriving here. He had – has – family, foundation, support from which I – deafened by the Force and my own blindness – took him away and gave him nothing to replace it with.”

Obi-Wan blinked. Which was progress, he supposed, but his stomach was twisting in a most peculiar way. “But – he has the Order now too, he… ”

But Qui-Gon was shaking his head. “The Order – does not support him,” Qui-Gon said softly, “not truly. And you know this; I believe that you feel it as I do.”

And the Sith-hell of it was, Obi-Wan did feel it. Had become aware of it every time he was back in the Temple, and how it had shifted. Grown.

The – “holding away,” sensation, subtle and yet not, when Anakin’s name was mentioned. How rarely the boy was spoken of in terms of the great leaps and strides he’d made and the things he knew, but rather in the things he did not yet know – as though it was Anakin’s “fault” for not becoming instantly a proper Jedi child and crèche-raised padawan. As though his ease and blaze and instinctive confidence in the Force were unbecoming because it was not the Order which had fostered them.

Distrusted. Feared, almost.

The way Anakin was “disapproved of” in correct, properly serene Jedi fashion.

Oh, Obi-Wan knew that feeling, from the inside out.

Most peculiar was rapidly becoming utterly horrible.

“I must,” Qui-Gon said, “I must, find the way to give him that support before it’s too late. I cannot do it – alone, and I cannot do it here, where his needs contradict the very tenets we teach.”

Obi-Wan was back to staring, now with the interesting addition of a sick, sour stomach. “And you think – Djinn Altis can. You would take your padawan and give him up. After – ”

After you gave me up for him.

“Not give him up, no. We would both learn there, Anakin and I. I don’t know – when I would return.” And there was something there, something seeking, something pleading in the depthless indigo of Qui-Gon’s eyes and Obi-Wan just couldn’t look at it anymore.

He knew his master when he got like this. He knew. He’d seen it before, after all, time and again: the only words that hadn’t yet been uttered were “It’s the will of the Force.”

“Why are you telling me this, Qui-Gon?” he whispered, his own eyes closed, the words falling like stones in the space of his tiny common room. “You would have been better – to just leave.”

A small sound, a tiny shift of air like a reach, ruthlessly stifled. “Because… “

Silence. In words and in the Force.

And that brought Obi-Wan’s eyes back open, because Qui-Gon Jinn was never at a loss for words.

His old master was looking through him, deep-water eyes fixed to some point on Obi-Wan’s right shoulder, and unease tickled through Obi-Wan’s mind and Force-sense because Qui-Gon looked…

“Because I had a hope,” Qui-Gon said at last, slow and worn, “a foolish one perhaps, I see, that I – might not need to do this alone.”

“Alone?”

“I wanted… ” Resolution, firming in the Force, and Qui-Gon’s gaze rose to his. “I want you to come with me.”

Obi-Wan would be willing to swear later on, on those most revered Jedi texts frozen forever at the top of the Spire, that his heart – disobedient organ, irrepressible, eternally hopeful past any reasoning and all sanity – actually skipped a few beats before his training clamped down and wrestled it back into line. “… with you?”

This was unreal. Even for Obi-Wan’s “maverick Master,” this was far out and beyond Wild Space. That Qui-Gon would ask him to – “You want me to leave the Order, and come with you, to help you train your Chosen One as a heretic.”

“No.” Qui-Gon’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t protest the term again. “Not to train Anakin. I have been and always will be grateful for the help you’ve given me with him. Your support, your knowledge – your unfailing kindnesses with him – have been beyond price, and still more-so in the light of the needless pain I inflicted on you at the start.”

Obi-Wan took a careful breath, his heart giving another warning thump. They had worked that through long ago, he and Qui-Gon. He knew Qui-Gon’s regrets, but rarely had his old master stated them so plainly. “I have done only what is right, Qui-Gon. Anakin is blameless in all that; I’ve welcomed him as any Jedi would do.”

Qui-Gon’s mouth pulled up in his familiar, wry half-smile. “Were that true, Obi-Wan, we’d not be having this conversation at all,” he said, humor rumbling in his voice and warming in the Force and hundred little gods, would it be the last time Obi-Wan would feel this? Feel him?

Because Qui-Gon was utterly set on this course, that was plain – and in his reasons ran a thread of truth that Obi-Wan couldn’t deny. That felt true, as much as all his training wanted to recoil from it.

And Qui-Gon – wanted Obi-Wan with him, on this course, in this madness. To leave the Order and take up with the break-away Jedi Master who had himself left because he believed that no one should be denied Force-training because of age. Who believed that attachment was not always, automatically to be denied – that it was possible – that it could be good – for a Jedi to love. Not just as in the Force and compassion for all, but love in specific: for a parent, or a child or a family. A dear one.

For a desired one. For a –

For a lover.

“Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan blinked and found Qui-Gon closer, up on his knees and warm body pressing against Obi-Wan’s, concern on his face and those powerful, gentle hands gripping Obi-Wan’s forearms. Enormous hands, really – capable hands, whether wielding a lightsabre or a delicate teacup, or pressing tiny seeds into the gossamer-fine soil-medium he used to add yet another plant to the jungle of his quarters.

His teacher’s hands, now the hands of his /wished to be, oh!/ closest friend. His –

Obi-Wan stared into blue eyes. Serene, so loving: the same things that had been there for literally years whenever Qui-Gon had looked at him. “Why?”

It was Qui-Gon’s turn to blink. Well, he was past-due.

Something was lightening, cautiously, in Obi-Wan’s chest, fueled by that stubborn, ever-resurrecting hope. “Why me? There are other rebels in this Temple and they’re better suited to this; why are you asking me to come with you?”

“I have told you – ”

“You have not,” Obi-Wan cut him off, and Qui-Gon stilled. “You’ve told me why you’re going, and you’ve told me that your reason for asking me is not because of Anakin. And if that’s not the reason, then what is? Why me, Qui-Gon?”

Qui-Gon’s lips parted and closed again and something clicked deep in his throat, and this was surely some sort of record: twice speechless now, a man who was never, never at a loss for words. And in the Force…

The Force felt – tense. Anticipating. A kind of nervous trepidation Obi-Wan had in no way ever associated with this man. And beneath that, long obscured but growing stronger, something old and cherished but never sprouted was blooming now into a new growth, pushing up from beneath the snow.

Obi-Wan turned his hands and cupped his former master’s elbows, and leaned a little nearer. His fingers were trembling, he realized. He didn’t care. The air he breathed was full of Qui-Gon, and he pulled it in deep and held it. “Why me?”

This close, Qui-Gon’s eyes were like flame, so intensely blue they burned. Then they were too close, and the world blurred and went up in fire as Qui-Gon kissed him.

They were on the floor, kneeling together, locked tight body to body and Obi-Wan had no clue when that had happened and cared far, far less. The only reality was Qui-Gon Jinn, in his arms, kissing him. Drowning him in joy and love and lust in the Force and kissing him as if he, Obi-Wan Kenobi, were the most precious and desirable thing in the galaxy.

It felt like years, but the sun was little lower in the window when Qui-Gon pulled back. Not far; only enough to cup Obi-Wan’s face with those wonderful hands and lean their foreheads together, his breath warm and real across Obi-Wan’s skin. “That’s why,” Qui-Gon murmured; roughly, like something had been broken and was being remade. “That’s why.”

Obi-Wan’s smile felt like it would split his face. “You’ve always had a way with words, my Master.”

#skyy got an ask!#punsbulletsandpointythings #skyy writes things #quiobi #qui gon jinn #obi wan kenobi #kiss meme #with a bit 'o angst #but puns likes it so that's okay #posting now 'cause I forgot earlier #I blame the drugs

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morningstar-writes · 6 years

Text

Morningstar WIP

So, I figured I would show you all the second WIP for what I have with Morningstar. I’ve kind of picked it up and then let it fall again. But, I’m hping to work on it a bit more!!

When the world ends, no one expected Lucifer and his army to seize control. But then, they had been warned. Even so, the prophets had not predicted how long this would last. Seven years? Eighty? Almost a millinia had passed, and life was getting worse for the few Christians that survived. Angle s now lived and mated with humasn, and those who worked with the antichrist were bred from special genes, or through test tubes. Tori and a small band work together, waiting for Christ’s return. But with time running out, and the resistance becoming fewere and fewer, will they make it? And what secrets does Tori’s past hide?

Tori Morningstar's mind had been on meeting with her friends that day, instead of worrying over the final she'd just finished. She would have another tomorrow, one she'd studied for three nights prior. She'd gloss over the study guide, then would happily be done with college.

A four-year masters was in her hands in less than a week, and the dark haired college student couldn't wait!

So tonight was her night. She'd go to her club, finally see her friends, employees, and those who'd come to party. Tomorrow, she'd finish, come here, and go up to the pent house above the club. Simple, straight forward, and if she had time, shower and rest.

But the night life was just beginning, and the 27-year old could not wait any longer!

She'd stopped at the dorm room, of all places, and dressed in a rather nice black attire, meant more for battle combat than dancing. It was her favorite for that reason. The belt held holsters for guns and even two straps that went down, meant for knives and the like.

Of course, it often held more than the knives. Glow sticks were all the rage, and she'd attached them just so. It made her glow like an angel.

She hadn't paid attention much, and paused, scribbling down a message for her room mate, a furry and nuisance in Tori's mind. She just simply stated she could not 'walk the dog' and would be gone for the rest of the evening. She left her cell just in case, but felt she wouldn't bother if the call came anyway.

She was in no mood to follow someone around for the evening. Her club called.

The Harley-Davis motorcycle had been where it always sat. Right in between two of the student's big pick ups. Tori would most certainly grumble, but found it amusing. Both had been crushed by a tree from last night's storm, and her motorcycle was untouched. They formed a nice cushion to protect her baby.

With a roar, Tori peeled out from in between the wreckage and took off down the road, eyes peeling for anything that might catch her attention. Not that it did, but if anything was new, she'd notice and do an interview. Share it with the school newspaper, and even help it get business.

Of course, it came with a price. She wanted things, and doing business was the only way she would get them. It was how she got the club in the first place.

Pulling to the side in front of the club, Tori gave a grin, tossing her keys to the valet and then stepped inside, merely nodding her head at the 'Hey, boss!'

The music boomed, people danced and enjoyed themselves, the darkness seeming to only be contrasted by the bright neon lights that moved, the glowing neon blue orb in the middle giving them light for the dance floor.

Tori moved to the stairs, watching and looking for her friends. When she saw the arm wave, she walked down the stairs, enjoying the glow they gave with each step. She'd spared no expense to have the light up steps, which hid the actual thing until you stepped on it.

She moved over to the chairs in front of the bar, loving the glowing green against black and nodded her head at the bar tender to come get their order.

“I haven't seen you since Christmas!” Rin called out, “School has been busy, yeah?”

“Hell yeah!” Tori responded, “Finals have been a bitch!”

“Tell me about it,” Artemis laughed, “I had to stay up for a week to finish my stupid essay! Who the hell makes you write a fifty page essay anyway?! I sure as hell hope I'm not the only one who had to!”

“If your class is doing it, then yeah, you're not the only one.” Tori answered, “But it's common with Master degrees, isn't it, Mister 'I'm going to get a masters in graphic design rather than what I really love to do!'”

“Haha,” Artemis shook his head, “I fuckin love art, okay? And being a surgeon isn 't for me. I've enjoyed making things!”

“What about your masters in tech, Rin?” They turned their attention to the taller, black haired man.

“I finished,” He spoke, ordering his favorite drink in the process, “I finished before Christmas. I'm on campus, but that's because they wanted me to completely re-do the system. I got that all done, but there's a few bugs left. Bugs I left, of course! Don't want to leave before I have to, and I'm charging them a fortune to do it!”

“I heard about that,” Tori laughed, crossing her arms and letting her dark eyes look around the room.

So many students had come to celebrate the end of the year. It was two hundred a pop to get in, but Tori felt rather at ease at the prospect of having all these kids come in and shell out money that would only add to what she had.

She hadn't really bothered with taxes either, except to give them what she owed once a year. Other than that, money was all hers! And the employees....

“Man, I can't believe I'm booming tonight!” She grinned, turning her attention back to her friends, “I mean, really. I've been imagining this since day one!”

“Really?” Rin laughed, “I think you've been dreaming more about Raziel than you have about your club!”

“Shut up,” Tori mumbled. This was followed by a heavy sigh, already feeling the vibrations in her pocket.

She reached in, pulling out a small flat device, her fingers merely touching it in order to make it expand into a far more acceptable and readable screen.

On the screen flashed both the news and a call from her room mate, something Tori merely shrugged off. Sending it to voice mail, she turned her attention back to her friends, and in the few moments to follow, she found herself relaxing.

That was until an employee touched her shoulder, causing her to suddenly glance back. There stood Tobias, his face ashen.

“What's wrong?” Tori asked with a smile, masking a dislike for being disrupted.

“Some of the staff and about fifty percent of our customers are gone!” He spoke, eyes filled with fear.

“Bull! They're probably having some orgy in the bathrooms! Go get a security officer and clean it up.”

“No, ma'am!” He managed out as the music died, “We lost the DJ too!”

Tori's eyes now moved over the far more empty club, seeing the clothes laying on the ground. Rave clothes, tight leather outfits, underwear, socks, and shoes all lay on the glowing dance floor while people screamed, some still trying to come to terms with their loved ones and friends disappearance.

Tori stood, listen to the hysteria seem to grow as Rin murmured something under his breath. The Morningstar was merely watching, and Rin knew she'd be doing something soon enough. He hoped.

Finally, Tori strode toward the podium, shaking herself from the initial shock, getting herself mentally prepared for the announcement she had to make. Of course, she didn't much think of it as a big deal. Well, rather, she somewhat did. Loosing a lot of customers to unknown causes was sure to lose business. And her reputation would be tarnished. She wouldn't be able to do business until she dealt with the initial problem.

Stepping up the podium, she wrenched the microphone free from it's stand, and gave the thing a good tap, so that everyone could actually listen. The loud audio caused many to become silent, and the after boom to make everyone jump and look at her.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Tori began, “I know we're missing a lot of people, but I assure you, Club Dystopia will find out where your friends have gone. I ask that you hand your phone number to one of our staff members, and we will call you when we have any news. Do not worry, we will handle this!”

People watched, eyes wide, before someone called out, “How can you find them when they've disappeared?! This is fuckin Rapture shit, man!”

Others called out in agreement, and Tori shook her head. Always someone pointing to religion in order to find some answer. No, this couldn't be the rapture. Fire would have to be raining down in order to be true.

“Where is the fire and angels?” Tori questioned, “I mean, I don't see anything or feel anything. For all we know, however, this could be some terrorist plot and demands will be made! We'll deal with it! Now please, calm down and give your information to the staff!”

With that, she dropped the microphone and walked off stage, pausing only to answer questions, most asking if this was the end of times. She doubted it, but then, one couldn't be sure.

People didn't just leave their clothes and disappear. Not without someone noticing. Especially if it were something like a terrorist attack.

She walked back to Rin and Artemis, eyes glancing back at her phone. Her roommate had called three more times. She had no doubt now what it was about.

“Let's get out of here,” Tori spoke, waving for security to deal with the crowds and get everyone out safely. She'd pay them overtime, and had built trust up with her staff to know they'd make sure everything went as ordered.

When she stepped out, however, her eyes now saw a different light, and the fear embedded itself in her heart. She wouldn't ever forget what she saw and now... now she knew she had something bigger to find information on.

The cars, fire, death, and blood were what would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Swift Zion had been sitting in the corner of the club, hooked up to the free WI-fi. He'd ordered a few drinks, then gone to seek out the finer things in life. Mainly the porn websites that had been blocked by the school's internet.

He didn't find much, and decided then, to work on his own essay. Fifty pages and he'd not begun once. He'd mostly been running and preparing for the Parkour games, climbing up walls and buildings to better hone his skills. The games would be his chance to prove to the world he was better than them.

He let his fingers do a bit of walking, seeking information. The prompt had been 'What is Beauty?' And he'd failed to see the point of the topic. So many people had their own definition of beauty. Was he supposed to write about flowers? Or perhaps something a bit more hardcore? He'd been writing hardcore all year.

An English major, Swift had been going for his masters. He would be the first student in the world to get it, if he succeeded, and that was not something he'd pass up. Aside from Parkour. But, the training may be brutal, but so was the essay.

He always wrote his best the night before, and while it was due in a week, he'd decided to actually finish it early. He'd do the editing later. For now, he'd write and write until he could find some decent porn, or until he found a good video to watch.

He was also a news reporter for the college paper, often seeking out the more dark stories than many junior reporters sought. He was thirsty for those stories that would make people cringe, or love, or even cry. They made people laugh, some even question their safety. But the best articles were always the ones that had to be looked for. They weren't easy to find, shrouded with secrets.

The white haired man had just finished the first paragraph when the screaming had begun. That was new, even for this club. He knew people who would go to the most shadow of corners to make love. Why, that's what he does!However, they were mostly silent. This screaming was not one of passion, nor of lust. This was of terror.

He looked about the club, eyeing the dancers. They held clothes of their friends, and many clothes had been just simply dropped into a pile, as though the clothes themselves were always empty. Like ghosts.

But that's how he had earned his nickname 'Code-breaker.' It was one nickname he'd loved and even now, he knew a story was before him. Even if it had not been prior. Oh, he could taste the pay off Tori would give him, just to keep it out of the newspaper.

He shot off a few quick e-mails, waiting for the editor-in-chief to respond. Afterwards, he gave a quick check to the news, out of curiosity. He wanted to be the first to get this story out, not some outlet news paper or station. Especially not Fox news!

However, he noted that several news sites also reported people missing. People who had been there just moments before. They noted that staff had even disappeared, often questioning if this was the Rapture, or maybe aliens. Swift shook his head. He wasn't a believer, so why bother thinking of something so trivial on both parts? Most logical thing was a new weapons the terrorists used and they were going to ask for money.

What kind of weapon would there be? Especially if it made people vanish without their clothes? Would it mean there was something everyone should be frightened of? God forbid this was something as serious as that! The president and world nations would be in jeopardy if they found it out!

With the story in mind, he decided to go interview the club owner, following her outside the door.

#Morningstar #WIP #Tori Morningstar #my OCs #My Writing #Apocalypse #Rapture #Christian

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