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mounts89 · 1 year

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card sharks, playing games

Part 2: Fear is the nightmare I had you were with someone else you forgot about me

Pairing: Mason Mount x fem!reader

Word count: 3.4 k

Part 2: Fear is the nightmare I had you were with someone else you forgot about me

Summary: Mason x reader play a dangerous game of cat and mouse, each trying to outmaneuver the other. Moving with the grace of dancers, your steps are calculated and precise as you circle around each other, playing mind games and testing your limits. Getting lost in the game, unable to resist the pull of each other.

Note: Back with part 2... If you're interested in this story, ily.

Part 1 can be found here

This series will contain fluff, angst, and potentially smut (depending on how I feel about writing it for the first time).

Part 2: Fear is the nightmare I had you were with someone else you forgot about me

You could lie to yourself. You could disguise your narcissism as some kind of altruism. You could tell yourself that the apparent indifference you wanted to lead on with Mason was as much to protect yourself as it was to protect him.

But you know this wasn’t the case.

The impending, and inevitable, doom of your trip back home reminding you that you’re in no position to entertain his advances.

When you arrive home at 4 am, Mabel and you exchange a wordless agreement to head straight to bed without discussing your respective nights, for now at least. You knew that once she saw you sober, however, her relentless interrogation would commence.

Mabel was by nature a curious and inquisitive person, especially when it came to her friends’ love lives. So, you’re surprised when she doesn’t pester you with questions about your endeavours with Mason, knowing she won’t see you for a while.

As you had later found out, however, she had simply forgotten that you were leaving the city the very next morning.

However, you’re grateful that she had overlooked that detail in the midst of late-night fatigue. You’re grateful that the conversation can be delayed until you come back to London.

Enough time to gather your thoughts and plan out your next move.

You head straight to bed, not bothering to take off your makeup and changing into the oversized tee you can find.

Before closing your eyes, you open your instagram to see if you had a follow request or DM from Mason.

But you didn’t.

Sure, you had never given him your last name or expected him to follow you, but that wasn’t an excuse for his lack of effort. He could have easily found you through Ben’s following list, for instance.

Who, unlike him, had bothered to ask for your socials at one point during the night that you had managed to escape Mason’s tight grip on you.

You couldn’t help but think that if he truly wanted to kiss you, as much as he had led on, he would have found you. Planned out his next move.

◌ ◌ ◌

‧₊ *:･ﾟ彡 ◌ ☽︎ ◌

◌ ✩彡･ﾟ *:

◌ ◌

After just over a week later, you find yourself back in London.

The Christmas break, though disappointingly short, had provided a welcome respite that allowed you to spend quality time with family and friends back home. Although you lived a short train ride away from your hometown, you didn’t go back as often as you’d liked. You had tried for the first few years of uni to visit every other week, at least. However, the demands of academia, along with your part time job at your local bar, were draining, sometimes grueling, and often downright exhausting.

This constant juggling act took a toll on you, and it was a reason you broke up with your ex, Luka. Who, against your better judgment, you had seen often during your visit.

Sure, it was immature to return to him, but it was also safe. Being with him was bittersweet, nostalgic, and familiar. Being with him and revisiting old memories was easy.

In contrast, ‘things’ with Mason (if you could even call it that) were anything but easy. Surely, it was only the alcohol speaking that night, and he hadn’t meant any of the things he had said to you.

Even when you had tried to distract yourself with Luka’s, when his skin was under yours, Mason had occupied the better half of your thoughts. And that’s putting it conservatively. You spent the whole week racking your brain, trying to figure out why he hadn’t as much as tried to contact you. You wondered if, when he’s on his third glass of whiskey, it sounded like desire telling him you missed him.

According to a few texts you got from Mabel that week, he had asked about you the times they had seen each other at Ben’s. You weren’t sure if she had said that because she knew, without you even telling her, how much of an imprint he had made on you, or if it was actually true. Yet if it was true, he had never bothered to reach out to you directly. You found this cowardly, to be frank. He could have easily asked her for your number, but he didn’t.

You hadn’t yet disclosed the details of your night with Mason or your brief reunion with Luka to her, though you suspected that she knew about the latter from what you had posted on your close friends’ stories.

It’s past 6:40 pm when you hear Mabel and Ben walk through the door of your shared flat while you’re scrolling through Netflix.

As soon as she catches sight of you sitting on the couch, she squeals with excitement and rushes over to embrace you in a warm hug.

“I’ve missed you soo much!” she exclaims.

“I’ve missed you too, what have you been up to?”

“Same old, same old,” she replies with a shrug, gesturing towards Ben. “Just hanging out wit him, going to work.”

He flashes a friendly smile at the two of you before returning his attention to his phone.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about a certain talk we need to have,” she whispers in your ear.

“I have to go, but I’ll swing by and pick you both up around 10?” Ben announces, leaning in to kiss Mabel’s cheek before giving you a friendly wave and walking out.

“What does he mean by that?” you ask.

“We’re going out with him and some of his friends for New Year’s,” she explains, “it’ll be fun, so don’t try to fight it. And yes he’ll be there, so dress slutty.”

She turns on her speaker before putting on her “Getting ready” playlist and pours two glasses of wine,before she finally speaks up again.

“So spill it,” she says passing you a glass. “What happened between the two of you?”

She wasn’t dumb, she left the question ambiguous on purpose.

“Mason or Luka?” you ask quietly, your voice low with embarrassment as you finally admit that you’ve seen your ex.

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s start with Mason. But we’ll talk about the other one later,” she adds, knowing all too welo how this usually goes.

At this point, she didn’t bother giving you lectures when you left London. She knew that it always lead to him in your hometown.

You sigh. “With Mase… Honestly, not much,” you admit. “We just talked all night. He told me about his family, told me some of his dreams for the future.”

She raises an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Yeah pretty much,” you confirm.

But you don’t tell her about the way his words made you feel. You don’t tell her about the way his words flowed like honey, and how carefully chosen and crafted they felt. You don’t tell her about the way he made you feel like the only person in the room, or about the fact that he told you that he had “never met someone as beautiful or fun as you.” You don’t tell her about the way that you had almost believed him.

You don’t tell her about the way you had teased him all night, purposefully batting your eyelashes at him and making suggestive comments everytime he took a sip of his drink. You don’t tell her about the way he’s hanging on to every syllable you say. You don’t tell her about the way your defenses almost melted away. Almost.

You also don’t tell her that for every sweet lie he told you, you told him three.

“I mean,” you add, feeling like you need to defend yourself, “we didn’t even kiss. So I don’t even think he’s interested.”

You weren’t lying, maybe omitting part of the story, but not blatantly lying.

She just nods, unconvincingly.

◌ ◌ ◌

‧₊ *:･ﾟ彡 ◌ ☽︎ ◌

◌ ✩彡･ﾟ *:

◌ ◌

As you’re finishing getting ready in your room, Mabel bursts in, telling you that Ben had finally arrived. You sneak a peak at yourself in the mirror, liking the way the black dress you’ve chosen clings onto your every curve, applying a bold red lipstick, one you never felt confident enough to wear. Something about thinking of the game you’re about to play with Mason, giving you that boost of confidence.

It’s like playing chess. You enjoy the thrill of carefully planning each move and anticipating his next one. A battle of wits and strategy, where you try and stay one step ahead of him, and analyze his potential move.

Before leaving, you reach for his sunglasses. The ones he had left you with the last time you were together.

◌ ◌ ◌

‧₊ *:･ﾟ彡 ◌ ☽︎ ◌

◌ ✩彡･ﾟ *:

◌ ◌

When you finally get to the club, you walk into the VIP area and see some of the familiar faces from last time.

You exchange brief greetings with everyone, but can’t help feeling disappointed when Mason barely acknowledges you with a nod. Your heart sinks. You have even planned out a whole thing where you’d give him his sunglasses back - in exchange for a secret. But he’s not interested in you that night.

Unlike his tough exterior, you’re a mess when you see him. You immediately smile at him, admiring how incredibly good he looks in his black jeans and white shirt. Yet he barely even looks at you. Seemingly more interested in the girl talking to him to his right.

You’re dumbfounded. You had played out countless scenarios of how seeing him again would play out, and none of them included him acting like a stranger. You had planned out your moves, anticipating what his would be tonight. But this one caught you off guard. All the strategies you had in mind for the night suddenly seem useless, and a wave of fear washes over you as you think about your nightmare scenario playing out in front of you.

The one in which he was with someone else he had forgotten about you

You try not to let it get to you. You want to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s just busy catching up with friends, it’s fine, you try to tell yourself.

However, your fear is intensified when you see him dancing, dangerously close, with yet another girl. It seemed that he was interested in anyone and everyone but you. All while you sat and stared, sitting in the booth all alone. Mabel had offered to stay with you, but you had urged her to have fun. You wouldn’t let your mood ruin her night, too.

You’re pulled from your thoughts as someone sits beside. You must look miserable right now, so you’re surprised when you hear an distinctly American voice say, “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Christian.” You take a look at him. He’s cute, tall, and has nice eyes. But he’s not your type.

Still, you decide that you won’t let this night go to waste, and you might as well entertain his company.

He seems like a nice guy, and you don’t want to be rude. You introduce yourself and engage in meaningless small talk. You only have surface levels things in common, but his company is nice nonetheless. You even find yourself laughing at some of his jokes. Even if just for a while, you have someone to take your mind off whatever sick game Mason was playing.

“Do you want to dance,” Christian asks you after he had gotten you a drink.

You hesitate for a moment, but you decide to go for it anyway. You follow him to the dance floor, letting yourself get lost in the moment.

You don’t notice that you were standing directly beside Mason and whoever, a different girl from the one you had seen him with minutes ago, was.

As much as you try to forget about Mason’s cold attitude towards you, being this close to him, was obviously not helping. You dare to glance up at him for the first time since you’d walked into the club, and you notice he’s already staring at you, shooting daggers with his eyes.

It’s as if he’s silently challenging you, daring you to continue dancing with Christian. You decide to play along and engage in an intense staring battle with him. The same way you felt the same heat between the two of you that you felt when you were sitting on his lap over a week ago. Except this time, he didn’t even need to physically hold you.

So you move closer to Christian, your gaze never leaving Mason’s. He responds the same way, stepping closer to the girl he’s with and maintaining his unwavering stare.

He’s enjoying this as much as you are. The song comes to an abrupt stop, as the DJ announces that there’s 10 minutes left until midnight, and you finally break eye contact. You smirk at each other, knowing that the battle is far from over.

“You mind grabbing me another drink and meeting me at the booth?” you ask Christian.

He happily nods before excusing himself.

You walk back to the booth, engaging in pleasant small talk. Seemingly, everyone had made their way back in time for the countdown. Everyone except Mason.

You sit beside a gorgeous girl, who immediately introduces herself.

“Hey, I’m Sophia. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Hi, I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. So you were at Ben’s party right? I saw you getting cozy with Mason.”

“Oh, um, yeah. We were just getting to know each other, I guess.”

“And tonight, you’re with Christian…” you nod before she continues, “so are you seeing both of them or are you just having fun.”

Her tone is curious and friendly, not judgemental or accusatory.

“Oh no,” you laugh, “there’s nothing between me and Christian. Super nice guy, but just not my type.”

“I figured as much,” she interjects.

“As for Mason, not really sure where we stand. We had a good time at Ben’s, but he hasn’t really shown much interested since then. I guess I’m just trying to have a good time tonight and not think too much about it.” You explain to her.

She nods, understandingly, “I’ve known him for a few years, I’ve never seen him be as publicly into a girl as he was with you.”

You laugh, unsure about how to feel about the whole situation.

“Seems plenty interested in those other girls tonight. Probably the drinks got to him, I suppose,” you say with uncertainty.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that yet. Anyway, I’m always down for more friends in London, though. So, if you even want to chat, put your number in,” she says as she hands you her phone before sending you a text with her name and a smiley face.

Finally, Christian walks back to you and hands you the drink. He leans in to whisper in your ear, “So, my mates told me about you and Mase. I had a feeling anyway we weren’t that interested, but I for sure won’t try anything now.”

You give him an appreciative smile before he continues, “but if you’re trying to make him jealous. And I’m not judging you if you are, I’ve done the same before. He came up to me and said and-I-quote ‘what do you think you’re doing,’ so I think it’s working.”

“You know what would really sell it?” you tell him.

“Mhm?”

“If we go out onto the balcony for the countdown,” you answer, a mischievous smile playing on your smiles, looking up at him.

He chuckles but agrees nonetheless, hand in yours as he leads you there.

You try not to look back, but you’re almost certain Mason is watching you.

Checkmate.

As the countdown ends, you and Christian toast to the new year and he pulls you into a warm embrace. You feel happy in his arm, and you’re glad you don’t feel the guilt of leading him on you previously felt.

After a few minutes of silence, as you’re looking out onto the city, Christian speaks up.

“So… what are you two playing at? You clearly like each other” he asks, referring to your relationship with Mason.

You take a deep breath and confess, “Honestly, I’m not sure if we do. Maybe we like the case. But I’m still kind of seeing my ex anyway, so it’s probably for the best if... I don’t know, don’t start anything serious, I guess.”

“Sounds dangerous, but I hope you two know what you’re doing.”

After spending the past twenty minutes getting to know Christian, you decide you’re going to call it a night. If you were honest with yourself, you had only agreed to come because you heard that Mason was going to be there. And you had grown bored at the lack of attention he was giving you. You shoot a text to Mabel quickly before saying a quick goodbye to everyone that was still in the booth.

"Leaving so early?" you hear Mason call behind you with a laugh.

You hadn’t even noticed he had followed you out.

"Yeah, have a headache and I have to work in the afternoon tomorrow. Figured I should get some rest," you say him nonchalantly without looking back at him.

"Come on, I have a game tomorrow. I didn't drink, I'll drive you."

"No it's fine, I already ordered the uber."

"Don't be silly," he insists, "I'll take you."

You reluctantly accept, knowing you weren’t in the mood to put up a fight.

He hands you his phone with the Maps app open and you quickly type your address.

"So, what have you been up to?" he asks as you enter his car.

Hoping I'd see you again.

"Not much, enjoying my time off from uni. Spent Christmas back home with my family, you?"

"Spending time with my friends and family too. It's been nice." he flashes you a smile for the first time that night.

I know. I saw your Instagram.

A few minutes passed, only the light sound of his music playing in the silence.

“You looked cozy with those girls on the dancefloor, did you make any of them your New Years kiss?” you finally broke the silence.

“Not jealous are we, Y/N?”

You don’t look back at him, but you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Nope, just curious…” you say as he pulls up to your flat.

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

Of course he’d say that.

“Plus, you looked like you were in great company too.”

“Not jealous are we, Mount?”

“I have no reason to be, now do I?”

Because you and I are not anything? Or because you know Christian is not actually a threat? You almost voice aloud.

“Nope.”

Being this close to him, you forget about the night you spent ignoring each other. The electricity you felt the first time being ever-so-present in his car. You can’t help but feel the desire that’s been plaguing you for the past week.

As you finally pull up to your building and his car comes to a halt.

“Have a good night, lover girl.” he places a kiss on your cheek. One that lasts longer than a friendly kiss should.

So before you walk out, something in you urges you to take the lead and do the thing you’ve both been wanting to do. Every drink you had had that night, sounding like desire, telling you that he had missed you. So before you can overthink, or before you overanalyze your next move for too long, you do it. You move your face towards his and close the gap between the two of you. His soft lips against yours overwhelming your senses, getting lost in the way his lips moved against yours. The rhythm of the kiss isn’t rushed, but it’s definitely needy.

You finally break apart, and he looks into your eyes, “By the way, your no-kissing theory. Total bullshit. That was totally better than whatever it was we did last time,” he tells you.

“Happy New Year, Mason,” you disappear.

If passion was a passing thing, and if lust was a short-lived fire, then you know you want to capitalize on this moment.

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blackopals-world · 1 year

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Shark in the Water part 1

Part 2 Part 3

OnsenOwner!femYuu x Azul Ashengrotto

Part 2 of the Onsen!Yuu series (part 1)

Azul isn't a fan of competition, especially when they steal away his best girls to work for them. He'll have to learn to share if he wants the benefits of having a business partner.

It was a good day for business so far and the girls were drawing in a crowd. Not that Yuu was slacking or anything. Entertaining guests was something of an art and training up proper hostesses took time.

Honestly, these boys may not know much about women but even they know empty flattery and fake compliments. The Pomefiore trainees are too used to being praised rather than praising others. Some guys are into that but most aren't. The Octavinelle girls so far have exceeded expectations and their customer service skills are properly honed.

"Goldien fix your posture, " Yuu reprimanded "and Volx keep those ears turned up. If a customer sees those droopy fox ears then they might lose interest."

The firey fox strained to keep her ears perked as she continued her training.

Yuu sighed, tea serving was an art but it was lost on the trainees.

"Why does all this matter. If we are doing our job why do we have to be so stiff?" Volx asked indignantly.

Yuu narrowed her eyes at the impedance.

The fox's mind suddenly caught up with her mouth as she bowed lowly with her forehead to the floor.

"Sorry, Mistress! I didn't mean to insult you." She said meekly.

Yuu didn't give her permission to raise.

"I suppose that is a fair question. Do you think this Onsen runs on hopes and dreams? It runs on profit. The springs alone don't make enough to pay your salaries. We make money on our services and that requires labor. If you girls perform half-heartedly who would return? You need to charm them into coming back again and again. You need more than just looks. You need charm and you were chosen those unique charms. " Yuu explained but had to cut it short when one of the hostesses notified her of a guest.

As Yuu made her way to her waiting guest she greeted customers. Each of the hostesses bowed their heads and acknowledged their Mistress.

Yuu asked one to bring her a bottle of umeshu.

Waiting in Yuu's office was none other than the Octavinelle Warden himself who was no doubt going through her things but pretending to be gazing at the decor.

"What a surprise I wasn't expecting a guest, let alone one that pretends to come alone." Yuu was no fool, Leech twins were here somewhere.

Azul shrugged, pretending to know nothing.

"Who knows, they were quite intrigued with your Onsen and wished to try it." He said taking a seat.

"Azul, you are not amusing. If you intend to intimate me its not working. If you are trying to shake down my girls I want you and your men out of my spa. If one of their hairs is out of place you have my word that this ends badly." Yuu didn't play with Azul of all people, not when the situation was dangerous.

"You have my word that they mean no harm." He said with little sincerity.

"Your word means little to me," Yuu said coldly.

There was a crash from down the hall. and girl's cry.

Yuu immediately bolted to see poor Tilly sprawled out on the floor, a bottle of umeshu shattered and Floyd standing over her.

This looked bad.

"Out! Out! All of you, out! You are banned from stepping foot on my property again!" Yuu screamed as she help the mouse girl up.

The tweels felt a cold chill crawl up their spines after the long quiet walk back to their dorm. Azul was silent the entire time.

"So," the warden began as the doors to the lounge closed "What part of just look around don't you get? We needed information and you got the bright idea of just tripping a girl?!"

Floyd threw his hands up in surrender

"I swear she tripped on her own! It's not my fault she's clumsy." Floyd whined, for once he was innocent.

"Might I add, their boss seemed pretty upset already. Azul might have already ticked her off." Jade said

Azul sighed, either way, they could no longer investigate the hot spring themselves and the girls they sent there were tight-lipped. Leave it to Octavinelle students to look out for their best interests first.

The next day an apology letter fell on Azul's desk. The misunderstanding was cleared up and while Yuu was willing to have another meeting it would have to be somewhere on neutral ground. Like a nice Italian restaurant in town, tonight at 8.

#onsen!yuu #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland yuu #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader

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starkstruck27 · 11 months

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One last little mermay fic because it's the last day and I thought it would be cute (also I may be posting on June 1st technically, but I wrote the bulk of it yesterday so...).

Steve hadn't been working at the aquarium for long, but he loved every second of it. He'd moved out to California a while ago and he'd been down on his luck when Dustin came out one time to visit, all jazzed up about marine life, since it was his latest obsession, and he'd suckered him into a trip to the place before he left again for Hawkins. Steve had never had much interest in undersea life before, but as Dustin dragged him through the exhibits, he found himself in awe of all the beautiful creatures. At the end of their tour, he was buying Dustin a souvenir in the gift shop, when a large "Help Wanted!" sign caught his eye.

"That, uh, that sign," he asked the girl who was scanning the barcode on Dustin's stuffed seahorse and new San Diego Aquarium cap, "Is that just for the gift shop or is it the aquarium in general?"

"No, it's for the whole place. We are looking for a few people to be cashiers in here and the food court, but we're also looking for tour guides and trainers. The trainers have to have some kind of prior experience working with animals though, so just keep that in mind. Would you like an application?" She asked, her smile bright as she handed the younger boy the bag.

"Yes, please," Steve smiled back, and the girl handed him a small packet of papers fill out before smiling and greeting the next customer.

By the time they left, Steve had already returned the packet, completely filled out, to the right box, and two days later, he got a call to come in for an interview. He went, and an hour later, walked out with a job as a tour guide and a date to come in for his first day of training.

By now, nearly two months later, he knew the ins and outs of the entire place, and he could spit facts about sharks or jellyfish or anemone or sea cucumbers like he was listing the days of the week. He was one of the favorites among the tour groups, since he often made stupid dad jokes and gave out aquatic themed stickers to the kids. It was a hands-on aquarium, and a lot of the parents liked the gentle encouragements he would give their kids if they were scared to touch a certain animal, and the kind ways he would explain how to do it properly so as not to hurt the animals so that everything went smoothly. He was often handed tips from appreciative parents, and even though he always tried to refuse them, they always insisted he take them for helping their young kids to have such a positive experience. His fridge in his apartment was running out of room on the front of it from the amount of drawings kids would do for him, and he had made a note to get himself a little scrapbook or binder or something to keep them in so that he didn't have to throw them away to make room for new ones.

So yeah, Steve absolutely loved his job.

And when his boss pulled him aside one day and said that he wanted him to be the one to help launch the newest attraction on May 1st, he was more than happy to do it. He was just supposed to lead the families into the amphitheater that faced the biggest tank in the aquarium and get them pumped up to see some kind of show involving mermaids. He had no idea what it was or how it was going to work, but he was excited to do it, so he did.

Finally, May 1st rolled around and Steve was about to do his first presentation for a packed theater. He scrounged up some of the old confidence he'd had in high school and put on a huge smile as he walked out in front of the tank with his notes, quieting the families and greeting them before asking if they were ready to see some mermaids.

That's what the whole thing was about. It was supposed to be like that one attraction in Weeki Wachee, Florida, where they had the actresses that dressed up like mermaids and entertained families in while swimming under water. It was pretty much the same as that, but while the actors and actresses were swimming around, Steve was supposed to give a presentation on some fun facts about mermaids and then, at the very end, the families would get to pose for pictures with the actors while they were still in the tank. They were going to be going down with air nozzles from oxygen tanks in their hands, so that they could make cool bubble effects, but also so they could still breathe as they were underwater. It was actually really cool, in Steve's opinion, and he was excited to be giving the presentation.

"Okay, so as long as you're ready to meet our merpeople, we have to try and call to them so that they'll come out to see us. Merpeople are king of shy, so we have to be really loud when we call their names, okay? We have a lot of merpeople here at our aquarium, but the ones you're going to see today are named Pearl and Nero, so on the count of three, we're all going to say really loudly 'Hi, Pearl and Nero!', okay?" Steve said as he continued his opening, smiling wide along with a lot of the kids. They all nodded as he counted to three, and they shouted out for the two actors, and they swam over from where they'd dropped into the tank, somewhere off to the side where the audience wouldn't see them going in.

The first 'mermaid', a girl with curly dark hair and tan skin, swam over, wearing a bright red shell bra and a shimmering red tail that caught the light beautifully. She pretended to be shy as she swam over, but she smiled as a manta ray came up to her, and she pet it gently as the kids all oohed and aahed.

"Everybody, this is Pearl," Steve said, gesturing at the tank, and the actress waved back at the audience, flicking her tail as she swam all around and did little tricks. She could hold her breath for an incredible amount of time, only having to use the breathing tube thing once or twice in the past couple of minutes.

"Now, Pearl is a little bit more brave than our other merman, so we have to call out for him again to get him to come out, okay?" Steve said, and the kids all called out for the guy again. The actress in the water even gestured over to someone with her hand as she swam around and played with the fish and other creatures in the tank with her. Finally, the kids all cheered as another actor swam over, looking more timid as he did.

"Everybody, this is Nero," Steve said, and he gestured at the tank, almost forgetting his next bit in the script when he saw the man. He had blonde hair that flowed around his face in ringlets. He had a tiny hint of a mustache on his top lip and the most striking blue eyes Steve had ever seen. His tail was also blue, probably to match his eyes, and as he waved to the audience and smiled, Steve nearly fainted. He was muscular, but not overly so, and his arms looked strong and sturdy, much like the rest of him. And his smile was bright enough to light up the entire ocean if he wanted to.

Steve made himself refocus on his presentation as the actors played under the water, swimming around and playing with both each other and the creatures in the tank with them. They interacted with the crowd as Steve gave his presentation, doing certain motions to go along with the fun facts Steve was spouting, and just seeming to have fun with it. Steve was too, once he got over the initial shock of that gorgeous man swimming around behind him, and when the presentation was over, he both happy and sad about it. The next show was going to be done by another one of his coworkers, and two other actors would be playing the merpeople, so Steve decided to head back to where he knew the actors would be taking their breaks to see if he could get a chance to talk to the guy.

He found him and the other girl laughing backstage as they ate lunch and gossiped, and he was almost afraid to go in and talk to them. They both had towels wrapped around their heads to keep their long, wet hair out of the way as they ate, and they both still had their tails on, since they had one more show to do before they got to leave for the day.

"Oh, speak of the devil," the girl said to the guy, and she gestured to the door that Steve was standing at, smiling widely. "You're our presenter, right? We were just talking about you. You did a great job hyping up the kids for us. Although, your jokes were absolutely terrible. I'm Heather."

"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm Steve," the man said, walking further into the room with them and tucking some hair behind his ears nervously. "Sorry to interrupt, I just figured that I should probably introduce myself to you guys at some point since we'll be doing a lot of shows together. And I wanted to compliment you on your performance, it was really, really cool. I don't know how you can hold your breath for that long and keep your eyes open underwater and still to all those tricks and stuff. It was just really amazing."

"Thanks," Heather replied, taking another bite of her sandwich, "And to tell you the truth, it's really nothing special. Just lots and lots of practice."

"And the oxygen tanks help a lot," the man said, the first time he'd spoken since Steve first entered the room. He didn't seem like he'd be a quiet person, but Steve figured that maybe he just didn't really like new people. He could understand that. Still, he'd hoped that maybe he'd have more to say than just that. Heather seemed to notice this, because she looked between them for a second, rolled her eyes at the man, and then reached down to unzip a part of her tail and stick her feet out so that she could shuffle off into another part of the room, saying something about needing to use the bathroom and leaving the two alone.

"I meant what I said," Steve said, stepping closer to the other man, "Your performance was really good. I've never seen so many happy kids in one room before. And you didn't even seem like an actor half the time there. You actually seemed like you lived in the water for real. And I'll tell you, you got a set of balls on you, too. I'd never have the courage to swim straight up to a hammerhead and just start petting it like you did."

"Thank you," the man finally cracked a smile as a cute little blush rose to his cheeks. "Yeah, I've always loved the ocean and anything having to do with it. And normally, I wouldn't have the balls to swim right up to a shark, but we keep them pretty well fed here, so I had nothing to worry about. But still, thanks for the compliments." The man paused again, setting down his sandwich, wiping his hands on a napkin, and training those striking blue eyes on Steve while he stuck out his hand and said, "I'm Billy."

Steve shook his hand, and he could feel his own face lighting up with a smile.

"Nice to meet you," he said, his heart fluttering when the other man's face finally broke into a full grin.

"Likewise," he said, and they began to slip into a more casual conversation as Heather returned and she and Billy finished their lunches and got ready for the next performance. Steve would have to leave soon to get his microphone and his notes sheet again, but he stayed for as long as he could, quickly becoming friends with the two actors and making a few plans to make their next show an even bigger hit than the last one was. Finally, it was just a few minutes before Steve would have to start welcoming families back into the theater, and Billy went off somewhere to do one last thing before the show.

"Oh, and hey Steve, I have a quick question for you," Heather said, just before he left.

"Yeah?" Steve asked, stopping just short of the doorway.

"Can I get your number?" She asked, thrusting a napkin and pen into his hands. "It's not for me, though, it's for Billy. Y'know, just in case you were wondering. He nearly choked in the tank earlier when he first saw you through the glass, however blurry. And he said you had a nice voice. But he's too much of a wimp to ask you himself, so write a corny little note and leave him your number so that I don't have to hear about how out of his league you are for the next fifty years, because he will complain for that long."

Steve was taken aback at first, but he was flattered, and he liked the other guy, too, so he decided, why the heck not? He scribbled down a note and his phone number quickly, then high-tailed it out of the room to be in the theater for his cue, just as Billy came back over.

"Steve asked me to give this to you," Heather grinned like a shark, handing him the note. Billy took it, puzzled, and almost missed his own cue to get in the water as he read and reread it to make sure it sunk in.

Steve left him his number. And a terrible dad joke, but mostly his number, and said he wanted to go out with him sometime. He'd said he wanted to be 'part of his world', and as much as the pun made Billy roll his eyes, he couldn't help but find it cute. He could definitely arrange that. But first, he had to get back in the water, and hopefully nobody would notice as he stared at Steve's ass through the glass.

And if they did, he could just pass it off as a merman curious about how the humans walked around on their two large fins.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #stranger things #steve harrington #billy hargrove x steve harrington #mermay #ficlet #meet cute #merman!billy

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a-tiny-frog-girl · 1 year

Text

To Help or To Hunt ch. 2

Warnings: Intentional fearplay, intense dehumanization (calling a person an it, controlling them, etc), blood/injury mention, implied vore mention (doesn't happen), fearplay with mal intent, hurt no comfort (yet)

Words: 1012

Summary: Wilbur takes his prize back to his room to see how far he can push the tiny.

"Welcome back, sir. Dinner is being served in the lounge. It's gold plated steak and caviar tonight." The doorman greeted Wilbur's employer with a hat tip.

Wilbur walked into the ship after him, unsurprised when the doorman pretended he was invisible. He followed his employer up to the lounge where a plate of tough and generally unwanted steak bits was shoved into his hands and then he was shooed away.

He walked to the worker's quarters, trying to ignore the shifting in his pocket. At least the tiny had enough sense to not alert anyone else by swearing so the other humans could hear. Wilbur just hoped the tiny wasn't soaking his favorite pair of jeans with blood.

The door was the only well made thing in Wilbur's quarters. It shut and locked with a satisfying click. Wilbur put his plate down on the three-legged table while he tried not to hit his head on the low ceiling. He threw his coat in the general direction of his bed and stared down at his angrily wiggling pocket. He poked the tiny form, only pissing it off more.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU GIANT FUCKING BITCH!" The tiny yelled. Wilbur raised an eyebrow in amusement. He really didn't give up, did he?

Wilbur hooked his fingers around the tiny's waist and pulled him out of the pocket and set him on the table next to the steak. He probably would have put the tiny on another surface if any of them weren't covered in stuff, but it would also be kinda funny to see his reaction.

So far, though, the tiny seemed too focused on cussing him out to notice his surroundings. Good thing the lower decks of the ship were far too noisy for anyone to notice.

Besides, how could Wilbur resist a little more fun at the expense of this tiny?

Wilbur sat at the table and slammed his hands down on the table on either side of the boy. It worked exactly as planned, making the stream of curse words bubble to a halt. For a second, the surprise on the tiny's face cracked the facade and he could see right into its soul. It didn't last long, but it made Wilbur realize it was possible. A smirk made its way onto his face.

"I s-said–" The tiny started to stutter, but Wilbur talked over it, uninterested.

"Well, hello there, little rat. Looks like I've got myself an interesting opportunity! You know, I could probably get a few bucks if I turned you in. I've heard there's a taxidermist that'll pay top dollar on this trip even for a pathetic rodent like you." Wilbur tapped his chin, playing up deciding the tiny's fate. "I could probably make even more back home, too. What do you think? Want to spend a little more quality time with yours truly? It'll be entertaining, at least for me." He kept his eyes trained on the tiny below him with amusement in his eyes. It opened and closed its mouth like a goldfish a few times, looking like it was trying to decide if Wilbur actually wanted its opinion.

"Cat got your tongue, little rat?" Wilbur teased. He leaned over the tiny, easily casting it in shadow as he picked up a good sized piece of steak with his hands and tossed it into his mouth like a shark being given a treat. He saw the tiny's eyes look from him, looming above him, to the steak sitting not too far away, and back. He could see the gears turning, practically able to read the thoughts going through its head. Wilbur aided the process by chewing noisily, waiting for the realization of the other option he was silently putting on the table.

The tiny suddenly stumbled back, away from Wilbur. There's the realization, Wilbur thought as he let out a low chuckle.

"Good to see your brain still works after losing all that blood." Wilbur said casually, letting the tiny stumble a little farther away as he grabbed another bite of steak. It's not like there was anywhere it could go and he could pull it back any time he wanted.

"You want to fucking eat me?" The tiny finally said, disgust clear in its voice. "No. No way. Fuck off. In fact, while you're fucking off, why don't you leave me alone, big man?" It crossed its arms defiantly. Brave move, Wilbur noted.

"You're right about one thing, little rat." Wilbur let all the playfulness fall out of his voice, clear to the world, or at least the tiny on the table, that he was dead serious. "I am a big man. A far bigger man than you will ever be. You don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of defying me. So I'd suggest you sit down and shut. up." Wilbur stood to his full height, enunciating so that every word could not be denied. "Do you see where we are? This is my room. You're on my table. I own everything in this room including you. Your cut on your leg could look like a paper cut when I'm done with you. Do not fuck with me." Wilbur snarls with all of his pent up anger. It feels good to let it all out, to see the fear in this tiny's– his tiny's– eyes.

He waited for a response. Something bold to turn on it, a whimper to mock, anything. But it's frozen. Wilbur raises an eyebrow and readies a sarcastic comment, but before he can release it, there's a tiny thump as the tiny collapses to the table, unconscious. Wilbur huffed, frustrated that the tiny had cut his playtime short yet again. He supposed he should have worried more about the blood loss, but he just got caught up in the moment. He sighed as he realized he should probably fix the injury if he wanted the tiny to ever wake up. He was having fun, still, anyway. No use in throwing out a toy before it was used up.

#g/t #giant/tiny #froggy writes #thoth #thothau #to help or to hunt #tiny!tommy #giant!wilbur #g/t whump #g/t fearplay

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evita-shelby · 1 month

Text

They didn't know we were seeds

Chapter 3

Cw: violence, murder, death,

@justrainandcoffee @call-sign-shark @emotionalcadaver @peakyswritings

Tigris is the only person allowed with her in the stockyard where she is to prepare for her last moments on this earth.

The arenas are specially done in advance for the games, the entire thing is usually attributed to the Head Gamemaker and only used for this momentous occasion. Afterwards it is a tourist attraction that pays for itself because to the Capitol this is entertainment.

Eva's Launch Room is not like her room back at the tower nor even the cabin on the train. It is a dressing room where she will go to her televised death at the 61st Hunger Games. Eva hopes it’s not Dustin nor Laurie who kills her. Nor Lacey from 8, nor Daisy from 11, nor any tribute she made sort of friends with this week.

The tracker had been injected into her forearm. Breakfast was eaten by her almost entirely because Tigris only eats raw meat like a real tiger. Tigris who never felt human and became a tiger despite her family’s protests.

Eva has little family to speak of.

Her cousins married and moved away, and Eva’s aunt would follow after now that her husband is dead from cancer and the last mouth to feed is here in the capitol awaiting to be slaughtered. Olivia is a strong woman; she won’t be like her only sister who couldn’t cope with losing her children.

Some say Eva resembles her more than her dead mother even if she doesn’t have Olivia’s auburn hair. But both were tall, deemed beautiful by all those who know them and shared the sharp brown eyes everyone in their family inherited from Eva’s grandmother.

No one stood in Olivia Souza’s way not even death. This last part Caesar had liked, said she should aspire to be more like her aunt.

And if she is to be like her aunt in that regard, Eva asks Tigris what other strategy the mystery girl from twelve used to survive.

“She ran away from the bloodbath just like your mentor did. Her sponsors kept her fed and she used all her tricks to stay alive. She only killed one person. The rest was just a disease in the arena.” The tigress whispers as if it were illegal for them to speak of a previous game.

When Eva is raised onto the arena, she laughs while a voice countsdown the seconds and she takes a look around to plan her escape while Dustin plans to take the hunting knife put amongst the temptations of the cornucopia.

Maybe Dustin wasn’t wrong in thinking he could win them, Caesar in his bubblegum pink hair had said she was selling herself short and he was right.

They are in a desert, just like the one her district shares with part 2 and 5.

Just like home.

Eva doesn’t stick around once she’s secured the meager offerings nearest to her before running as far as she can from this.

Dustin made a mad run to the weapons and paid the price for it when the careers overpowered him, she doesn’t know who killed him and doesn’t want to know. And yet she’s foolishly hoping it wasn’t Laurie as she hides in the overgrown grasses having tripped over something on her way to the thicket of trees that she knows only grow like that near water, even if you must dig to find it. There isn’t much place to hide, most trees do not grow tall in the desert and the tributes are picked off like flies by careers and other tributes alike.

There had been one who ran in her direction only for her to lose her footing and bash her own head on the many rocks hidden under the grass, the arena is as inhospitable as a real desert meaning it will have all those critters that don’t need man to be lethal.

Eva crawls on her hands and knees careful to avoid the ants, the scorpions and the snake hole she tripped on until she reaches the first of the trees. A scraggly mesquite bleeding sap and enough pods to see her through the night until she can find the source of its water.

There is an oasis where the careers will take over with their supplies as they always have, but her backpack ---which she kicked the boy from eight in the balls for--- has a metal canteen for water, a spigot and iodine. It has a good enough sleeping bag that might be useful for the cold desert night, some food she could make last a while with her foraging and only matches for a fire.

She needs a weapon, but she can make do with what she has while the killing dies down and whoever sponsors her sends her a gift. For now, she stuffs herself with the sap and the pods as the canons go off.

With not much here to give them cover, the toll is rather high and the display on the false heavens feels unending. Twelve have died just today.

Tomorrow morning there will be more canons, not from murder or even the animals in the desert, but from hypothermia. Eva will be lucky if she sees morning.

But she does and is rewarded with a tiny little runnel that is enough for her to fill her canteen and nourish the wildflowers, some prickly pear cacti or two and the trees she uses for shelter. The girl fills her backpack with what she has foraged before making a suitable walking stick from the tree she slept against.

She could stay here, hidden and safe until the Gamemakers corral them to get the games going, Eva thinks as she finds a pinyon pine with enough leaves and branches for her to hide in for tonight. Desert trees don’t grow very tall but this one is old enough to cover her and have some pine nuts despite it being late mid July.

Eva sets her first trap, on a cactus that she knows not to tap water out of she leaves the spigot knowing someone is bound to drink from it.

Three more during the night and its barely dawn when she hears the laughter from the career pack led by Laurie and his golden sword. They are hunting down tributes going by their talks. The girl from One laughs at her own jokes about the boy from 5 begging for her to spare him.

Only nine tributes left. Both tributes from 1, 2 and 11 who hailed from the southern part of her district, the boy from 4 who stayed behind to defend the oasis, the boy from 9, and Eva.

Eva would be casualty number 16.

“I told you Evie would survive, 10's part desert, remember.” Laurie acts as if he isn’t here to kill her.

The boy gives her that same charming smile he gave her when they first met at the training center and extends his hand to her. “Hi, gorgeous, how would you like to join us?”

He is counting on her losing.

Despite the growing animosity between them, Tigris is the last person alive who truly knows the man before her.

Coriolanus is so confident that Laurentius will take after his brother and win that he never considers Eva could kill the entire career pack with the poisons she can make with the flora of the arena.

Her grandmother was an apothecary, her mother as well and now she put her lifelong knowledge of living in a place like that with her healing training to the test. Even the trainers were impressed with her skill.

Now as the girl who snagged herself an alliance with the leader of the pack yesterday, she is safe from the others. Especially from the tributes who look down on her for being from a poor district and know her hold on Laurie Nelson spells death to them.

The spigot she left had tricked the boy from 9 and the girl from 11 because all the water from the runnel had dried up the day Eva left her trees. These two deaths happened while Eva lacked for nothing in the safety of Laurentius’ arms. The boy gave her the long hunting knife Dustin tried to fight him for and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

She will make the games interesting, interesting enough for her to rack up sponsors and bets.

“Nelson may be able to keep her safe from other tributes, but can he save her from the Gamemakers?” There is a bit of blood from his sore on the drink and some on his lips that curve into a snake like smirk. It disgusts her along with the smell of the roses.

Grandma’am’s never smelled like these artificial yet real creations that fail to hide the rot in Coriolanus’ soul.

“We shall see, Coriolanus. It is only the fourth day, and these games can last up to twenty days.” The feline woman hides her distaste for the smell of his roses well enough to get him to think her ploy to turn Eva into the ghost of Lucy Gray was just a way to secure sponsors for her new ‘pet.’

Eva lives to see Laurie kill the girl from his district when they try to drown Eva and the career pack officially dissolves at the sixth day. Eva Smith somehow convinces Laurie to destroy the stockpile of supplies ---after stealing what they will need--- and leave his former teammates to starve or risk meeting them at the Feast that will surely come.

On the Seventh Day, the snakes come out exactly like the ones Coryo Snow once tampered with to save Lucy Gray Baird just as the Feast is laid out in the arena.

#evacore #jack nelson x oc #hunger games au #peaky blinders fanfic #tigris snow

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robthegoodfellow · 2 years

Text

August 16, 2018

It was Robin who’d gotten them the tickets, a gift for their tenth anniversary—and it was so typically Robin to force them to listen to something she liked, in the guise of a present, no less, rather than, say, pick an artist either of them liked.

To be clear, it wasn’t that they didn’t like Brandi Carlile—it was that they’d never even heard of Brandi Carlile, and typically Billy preferred having some level of familiarity with a musician before sitting through a live show. He’d meant to look up her stuff, but things had been busy at the house training a hapless probie, and busy at the bungalow with the new addition, and so he’d forgotten until Harrington had tapped the tickets clipped to the fridge, asked whether he’d double-checked he was off—SDFD had them rotate days every couple months, and he’d long given up trying to master when his husband was on call.

Harrington didn’t need to check his schedule, the bastard, because he’d had summers free for ages, ever since getting that spiffy degree in Elementary Ed. Not that Billy could really complain—the 3/4 life suited him just fine.

Buck had sworn it’d be a pretty kid-friendly crowd—why else would she have bought them four and not two?—and so they’d decided to make a day of it. The last month ahead of school starting up was half over already, and this would be their last chance for a big family hang before it all got hectic again.

After a late breakfast, they’d packed up the van and headed to La Jolla Shores for a few hours—Lils had hoped to see some leopard sharks, like they had last year, but no dice—then trundled on down to Shelter Island for dinner before the show. Nothing fancy, just Fathom Bistro for burgers and hot dogs; Teddy had gorged himself on edamame. They’d even had time to wander over to the playground for a bit, though the kids had honestly been more entertained by the Tunaman’s Memorial—three guys with comically long rods sprouting from their crotches, hauling in a massive floundering fish from the ground.

By quarter of, they'd made it to their seats at Humphrey's by the Bay—toward the front of Section B, the last four in the row, because Robin was the kind of genius to factor in frequent bathroom trips for small bladders. Scanning the crowd, he saw a few other families with kids, a smattering of straight couples, a fair number of gay dudes, some people who were operating outside of the limited identity boxes he’d grown up with… but mostly it was just—lesbians, young and old. Lesbians everywhere.

Thanks to extreme exposure therapy, Billy’s youthful fear of WLWs was a thing of the distant past, but this was the highest concentration he’d witnessed since they’d visited Buck at Bryn Mawr in the late 80s… thirty fucking years ago—how was that even possible.

He snorted, shaking his head, and met Harrington’s gaze over the pipsqueaks swinging their feet between them.

“Pennsylvania?” Harrington guessed, and Billy nodded. “Don’t worry, honey.” A patronizing pat, his arm stretched along the back of the seats. “I’ll protect you from any mean lesbians.”

“Lesbians aren’t mean!” protested Lils, way too loud, and Billy choked on a laugh as Harrington flushed, ducking his head to glance around, and a lock of brown shot through with grey fell across his face.

God, that face. They sure had changed since that ridiculous trip out east—more lines, more moles from all that California sun damage, the subtle, ruddy moreness of breadth and angles that distinguished young adulthood from middle age—but that face still caught him the way it had when they were teens. Likewise with the legendary hair; Billy frankly adored the salt and pepper look, especially since Harrington had let it grow shoulder-length in thick, shaggy waves. And when he tied it back, fuck…

The eyes were the same—same deep dark that shone with light—the only difference the crow’s feet that sparked from the corners.

Content they hadn’t earned the ire of nearby sapphics, Harrington turned, clocked Billy staring like a besotted fool, and winked, the cheeky shit.

“Pop,” said Teddy, pointing to the thicket of masts moored in the harbor, off to the left of the empty stage. “Will the boats listen to the concert?”

“Maybe,” Billy answered. “They won’t be able to see anything, but anyone out there could probably listen in.”

“Boats can’t listen,” argued Lils. “They don’t have ears.”

“Birds don’t have ears,” Ted declared, with the flat certainty of a soon-to-be kindergartener one month into an intense avian phase. “And they can hear.”

Lils whirled to Harrington, silently demanding backup, and Billy smirked, left them to it. All in all, their girl had adjusted to having a sibling pretty well, when the second adoption had gone through, but she still struggled with little brother types refuting her sovereign authority.

Earless boats aside, the venue was downright gorgeous—an intimate array of seats all on an expanse of mown grass, with a modest performance space ringed by palm trees and blue sky. He could easily picture more low-key acts being right at home here: folksy bluesy stuff, maybe some more classic country, some confessional pop, introspective rock. Definitely not a space he would’ve stepped foot in thirty years back.

A little before seven, Teddy smushed his chin into Billy’s arm, mumbled that he had to pee, so they’d trekked to the bathrooms by the bar. At the kid’s worried frown, Billy’d patiently planted himself outside the stall—Ted had a weird phobia of someone bursting in on him when he was on the can, and it sometimes took a while for stream to hit porcelain.

Outside, he heard muffled raucous cheers met by a twangy, aw-shucks voice over the loudspeakers.

When Billy finally lifted Ted up to reach the sink, they made silly faces at each other in the mirror. “You win,” he conceded, after Ted sucked in his cheeks to make his lips pucker like a fish.

Carlile was mid-opener by the time they’d resettled in their seats—or rather Billy did; Ted instead clambered into his lap, his narrow back against Billy’s chest, legs dangling. Billy secured him there with his hands linked over the kid’s stomach, the way they often watched movies in the den, and soon enough small fingers were tracing the lines of his tattoos.

Under the set lights, Carlile and two identical bald men were crooning a tune to acoustic guitar, just the vibe Billy had predicted: sweetly sad, slow with a gradual build—alt country with all three layering their vocals, woven in a way he always found mesmerizing. It was a song about forgiveness, about gratitude after heartbreak.

If they’d kept on in this vein, Ted woulda been asleep in T minus ten—but they both sat up straighter when, a few songs in, the trio launched into a rollicking rock number that had Harrington laughing, its lyrics laced with irony—demanding liberation from individuality so as to blend into the masses. Owned and controlled, a twisted social victory.

That subversion of expectations was a pattern in the songs so far, he’d noticed, and something that would earn her major favors with Harrington, who had never landed on a favorite genre, per se, so much as a general preference for tracks that surprised him—for clever turns of phrase and just… narrative songwriting. The guy liked a story, or, failing that, a sense of humor. If you could do both, you were gold in his book.

It didn’t take long for Billy to understand Robin’s confidence that they’d both dig this chick: Carlile could do it all—had the kind of raspy, husky tone that Buck knew Billy had a soft spot for, a voice that meandered through the musing folksy stuff so well, but could turn on a dime and belt, or trill falsetto, or just rock the fuck out. She switched instruments constantly, sometimes mid-verse—acoustic to electric guitar, piano. She jammed so hard she snapped a strap, to the crowd’s delight.

Lils had been swaying or bouncing in her seat, in accordance with the pace of the band, and singing whatever bits of the chorus she’d mastered by the end of every number, nudging Harrington to join her—not that he needed much encouragement.

Carlile had been indulging in the usual brief banter between songs, joking around with the twins, the other musicians, eliciting chuckles or cheers from her very receptive audience. She was a charmer, but without a bit of ostentation—had dressed simply in black slacks and a dark cowboy button-up with a contrasting panel down the front and on each shoulder. Her brown hair fell loose and tousled just below her chin. It was a whole different variety of I woke up like this.

The sun was setting over the water when she paused to introduce her symmetrical guitarists, who’d been grooving beside her right along, providing backup vocals as needed. They were Phil and Tim—fan favorites, if the whistles and hollers were anything to go by.

youtube

“We’ve been in the band together comin’ up on seventeen, eighteen years,” Carlile shared, and waited for the cheers to die down. “Traveling together for such a long time. We met in Seattle, Washington, where we’re from—” A smattering of whoops, and she smiled, flashed the cute gap between her front teeth. “—and the thing that—brought us together in that city was… our love of three-part harmony and the fact that nobody else was really doing it in the late 90s. And uh, we’re gonna sing you guys a song in our native tongue. Feel free to sing along, huh? You’ve probably heard us do it a couple times before.” The crowd affirmed, and over the excited shouts—clearly most of them knew what was coming—she finished: “It’s called ‘The Eye.’”

It was the kind of stripped down where Billy knew from the first note that he was really in for it. The three stood, each at their own mic, empty-handed but for the twin gently plucking an acoustic, Carlile in the middle.

It was… delicate. At first.

Then they sang, and it was as she promised—a three-part harmony so generous and resonant that every word reverberated in the gut, the chest, the mind, wherever the soul resided. They coulda been singing nonsense, or some language he didn’t know, and it still would’ve hit him pretty hard. He couldn’t explain it, but ever since he… returned, all those years ago, something about humans coming together this way, intertwining themselves with sound, kinda… tore him apart and stitched him up at the same time.

You know when something’s just—so beautiful it hurts?

It really breaks my heart to see a dear old friend Go down to the worn-out place again

And fuck he sorta wished it were gibberish, because that was all it took, and what was swirling to the forefront wasn’t something he liked to process in public, no matter how old, no matter the peace he’d found.

He closed his eyes, breathed deep, braced himself.

That manic giggle, before everything went to shit, his dark mop hunched over the Warlock. Years down the line, sallow skin, dark eyes vacant—so far out of reach.

Do you know the sound Of a closing door Have you heard that sound before Do you wonder if she knows you anymore

Ma shutting him up in his bedroom so he couldn’t hear what Neil was doing to her. Later shutting herself up, claiming she needed a nap, really needing to sleep off one too many. That dawning horror when he knew he was trapped, would never go live with her, thought maybe, in his lowest moments, that she hadn’t… wanted him enough.

Music sure did have a way of making things fresh, blowing the dust off, bright and searing.

I wrapped your love around me like a chain But I never was afraid that it would die You can dance in a hurricane But only if you're standing in the eye

He swallowed a desperate, relieved chuckle, lungs working a bit easier as his thoughts shifted to better things—his best thing. Harrington, so young and free with his affection, leaning up against Billy outside of The Hideout on their first date, comparing him to that Scorpions song… bashfully pleased when Billy had called him the eye of the storm—the stable center.

A familiar grip cupped the nape of his neck, and he adjusted his hold on Ted to reach back, lay a hand over Harrington’s.

Where did you learn to walk Where did you learn to run Away from everything you loved

Billy tapped his ring on that skin, felt a responding tap, or an attempt—more a rub, stroking against the grain of the hair shorn so close to the scalp.

He couldn’t help but marvel, because here he was, just past fifty, ten years into a fucking marriage with the love of his life—ten out of thirty-four together, give or take those months where he was kinda dead, and he’d never run from it, despite having learned well how to, when to, why to…

And he hadn’t. Thank fucking God.

Did you think the bottle Would ever ease your pain Did you think that love's a foolish game Did you find someone else to take the blame

Obviously, it hadn’t been perfect all the time—or… ever, because perfection was for chumps—but he’d been selective in which set of his mother’s footsteps he’d followed, hyper vigilant in never touching a toe on the path Neil had laid out for him. Been too scared of fucking it up that he stopped drinking entirely, those first years with the kids, had barely gone back to drinking even socially—and left all discipline to Harrington, early on, which wasn’t fair, and they were still working on that. They were.

But he was doing good, he thought, letting go of Harrington to hug Ted to his chest with both arms—felt as much as he heard him sigh, utterly relaxed, and knew he was.

I wrapped your love around me like a chain But I never was afraid that it would die You can dance in a hurricane But only if you're standing in the eye

Harrington was still gripping his neck, a bit compulsively now, and he wondered whether he missed the curls. Billy had cut it short when the longer hair had only emphasized how badly he was thinning up top—might ultimately shave it completely. Seemed to work for Wonder Twins onstage, so why not him?

He was a bit heavier set, though—so maybe it’d be more of a Bruce Willis vibe. Years of busting his ass for the fire department had built him into a brick shithouse. And it worked for him—sure as fuck worked for Harrington—'cause he liked rolling through life with that thickness, an overall solidity that lent weight to his every motion and word.

Back before he clipped his mane, they’d seen a lion lumbering around at the San Diego Zoo, its limbs tawny trunks, shoulders shifting lazily as it moved, and Harrington had split his sides laughing—oh my God, it’s YOU—and Billy had bided his time until they reached the sea otters, then exacted his revenge: What was it that twink at the beach called you, babe?

Yeah—the day Harrington stopped manscaping had been the start of its own wonderful adventure. And he meant that sincerely—no snark.

You can dance in a hurricane But only if you're standing in the eye

Billy exhaled, immersed in simple, happy moments, and when Harrington squeezed, he glanced over finally, hoping to reassure, nod the okay—and his stomach dropped.

Harrington was barely keeping it together: shining eyes locked on the performers, unblinking so as not to send tears cascading, lips sucked in, clamped in his teeth. He was controlling his breathing so carefully, so slow through the nose, that he seemed not to breathe at all.

Fuck, Billy was the worst—so far up his ass, lost in his shit, that he’d never stopped to consider how Harrington might be having his own difficulties for entirely different reasons—that Harrington might not have been reaching to comfort him, but had been silently asking to be comforted.

I am a sturdy soul And there ain't no shame In lying down in the bed you made Can you fight the urge to run for another day You might make it further if you learn to stay

“Oh, babe,” he murmured. Holding Ted steady, Billy scooted them onto the empty neighboring seat, close enough to keep one arm around their kid and loop the other around Harrington’s shoulders, clutch at his head, tilt their foreheads together, a confused Lils squished between them. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Harrington gasped, shuddering, a wet sound, and nodded, kept stroking the prickly scalp like if he stopped, Billy would disappear.

…Because he had, that once, seemingly for keeps.

And supernatural bullshit aside, it was, after all, a minor miracle that they’d made it out of the 80s with their immune systems intact. That he made it out of Neil’s. That he’d always made it home from the firehouse.

The combined weight of those miracles was a real strain, when they stopped to think about it too much.

I wrapped your love around me like a chain But I never was afraid that it would die You can dance in a hurricane But only if you're standing in the eye

The kids watched, rapt, as the tears trailed down Harrington’s cheeks, even as he smiled at the kisses Billy pressed there.

“Why is Daddy sad?” asked Teddy, peering from one parent to the other.

“Just big feelings,” said Billy, rubbing his son's side.

“A big wave?” Lils wondered, curious, deploying the shorthand they’d taught her. She’d never witnessed either of her dads swamped this way—how she sometimes got so overwhelmed with clamorous emotion that she cried.

“Yep,” confirmed Harrington, clearing his throat, treading toward composure. “Big wave.”

“How big?” Teddy again—skeptical.

“Dunno,” said Harrington, calmer, taking deep lungfuls. “Seven footer, at least.”

Billy huffed, tightened his fingers in the long hair streaked with grey.

You can dance in a hurricane But only if you're standing in the eye

It wasn’t just Harrington, he realized. Wasn’t just Harrington who was the eye. He—Billy—was Harrington’s eye, wasn’t he? Had grown in fits and starts into the role, maybe, even if he’d never thought of himself that way. Would probably be better if he made it a conscious designation.

He leaned in, kissed the lips he’d loved for so long, part apology, part promise.

They spent the rest of the concert like that—Ted cuddled on Billy’s lap, Lils cradled between them, their fathers’ arms keeping the whole corral as one.

Buck had to have known—right? She must’ve, though Billy couldn’t ever remember telling her about—everything. She knew bits and pieces. Apparently, just enough.

When the show wound to a close, Carlile had a couple new life-long fans, and Billy a new insight on his husbandly duties.

Lils took pride in staying awake as late as the adults. She was a big kid, you know. But Teddy had passed out during this lullaby ode, mother to daughter, which had been a reckoning in and of itself, so he carried him back to the van when it was all over, managed to buckle him into the booster seat without disturbing him. Lils insisted on grappling with the seatbelt on her own, and they let her.

He held Harrington’s hand the whole way home.

#please indulge me #while i test this #*enhanced* formatting #of a sappy kid fic #song fic #never woulda guessed #that i'd finally start writing again #and it's all fucking #SONG FICS #wtf #harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #P.S.#there's a reason he still calls him harrington #i have a headcanon for it #i swear

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kiribakuficrecs · 3 years

Note

hello!!! im going on a very long trip at the end of april and I'm looking for some very long fics to download to keep me entertained! i dont care what they're about as long as there's no major character death or mentions of non-con. ur blog is a godsend ilysm and you do such a good job thank you so much 🙏

hi there!! i definitely have a lot of good lengthy fics i can recommend to you!

quote love unquote by newamsterdam

Sero nods. “It’s the chance of a lifetime, really,” he says. “We want you to date Bakugou, for the sake of his reputation with the press. Some public appearances, a few ‘candid’ photos. For at least a couple of months.”

“Bakugou sent you to ask me to date him?” Kirishima asks, baffled.

“Of course not. We, his people, are asking you to date him. He’s going to have to get on board, if he wants his career to survive. And in the bargain, Riot will get all sorts of publicity, because their lyricist will be dating one of the industry’s hottest stars. A win for everyone.”

When Kirishima Eijirou's band hits the big time, he's not prepared for his newfound fame. He's even less prepared to meet the actor he's been crushing on for years, or to start dating him as a publicity stunt. The closer Kirishima gets to Bakugou Katsuki, the more he realizes he's in over his head. But it's hard to stop, once his heart is in it.

acceptance and denial by poteto

It all goes okay when Kirishima decides to come out to his friends and it all goes wrong when decides that Bakugou is the best fake boyfriend material.

cause the darks not taking prisoners tonight by imatrisarahtops

“Are those soba noodles?” Kirishima asked.

Again Bakugou’s only reply was a grunt. He offered no further explanation—not that Kirishima honestly expected one—as though making soba noodles from scratch at half past four in the morning wasn’t at all a bizarre occurrence and made complete and total sense. For a fleeting moment, Kirishima even wondered if maybe he was the odd one here. Besides, he’d already decided it was generally not in his best interest to question these types of things with Bakugou, especially when it was something essentially harmless.

When Kirishima has a nightmare and is unable to fall back asleep, he accepts defeat and decides to study in the common area of the dorms. What he doesn't expect to find is Bakugou, also very much awake, and Kirishima can't help but think that maybe they're both having the same problems with sleeping. If he's worried, it's just because they're friends. (Right?)

the weight of your hand by kamin

That night, to the citizens, the explosions were a jolt of fear at every blast, but to the heroes and the students of UA, they were punches and swings, fierce fighting and loud strength. The explosions were the pulse of the battle, and the power of a boy that would never back down.

One after another, explosions set a chorus through the shuddering city.

And then, suddenly—the explosions stopped.

(In which Bakugou’s kidnapping goes a little differently, and just a few seconds could change so much.)

so take my hand (your life will be brighter) by multiclassmaps

When a stranger shows up at the ice rink during Bakugou's usually private training sessions, Bakugou expects to hate him. He doesn't expect to develop feelings that become increasingly difficult to deny, or for them to help each other sort through their emotional baggage. - Bakugou really didn't like Kirishima's smile. There was something about it that made his stomach hurt, something about it that made it difficult to focus. He definitely hadn't thought about that smile on his way to the ice rink that day. He definitely hadn't.

distance makes the heart grow fonder (false) by dragontrappedinhumanskin

When Bakugo and Kirishima get hit by a quirk that forces them to literally stick together or face the less then desirable consequences, how the fuck is Bakugo supposed to keep his crush hidden?! Well, turns out he never needed to.

-- “Well, this fucking sucks, how are we supposed to train?!” "Really closely?"

perihelion by tauontauoff

Bakugou was a comet, blazing out of reach. Kirishima knew he was stupidly lucky that his furious trajectory went by close enough that his fingertips got to graze the cowl of fire. It was enough.

During Christmas Class 1A and 1B spend a laid-back week learning about extreme environment hero work in the Alps. Kirishima was used to keeping part of his feelings for Bakugou hidden, and had every intention of keeping it that way, but things don't always go according to plan.

fight me by mr_todoroki

Bright red, spiky hair. Annoyingly bright smile. Clothes that radiate ‘look at me’ vibes. Neon yellow tank top with black shorts. And those were definitely crocs on his fucking feet.

Yeah, Katsuki hated this guy.

Bakugou gets a new roommate.

quietly by chezka

“We’ve been taking the same way to and from school for weeks,” Kirishima grinned, and then when Bakugou frowned at him he put on an affected pout, tilted his head so that he was looking at him through his thick, long lashes, “you never noticed? Am I that easy to miss?”

He could barely finish the sentence before a laugh escaped his lips, and Bakugou rolled his eyes, hit him with a shoulder a little more violently than necessary.

“You stick out like a sore thumb, broom-head,” he grumbled, promptly ignoring Kirishima's whining about his hairstyle when it started coming, “I didn’t notice ‘cause I didn’t care.”

“And now you do?”

everyone knows that cats are independent by purplepersnickety

Eijirou enjoys his job, working the graveyard shift at a 24/7 coffee shop. His daemon Riot is always there to keep him company, and he likes meeting the early-morning patrons and giving them the best possible kick-start to their day. It's been his routine for about a year now.

Then one day, a grouchy guy with a daemon in the form of a lion walks into the shop in the dead of night, and Eijirou decides to strike up a conversation with him.

punks not dead by wrunic

“So you want to use me to piss off your mom?” Kirishima summarized, raising one pierced eyebrow at Katsuki.

“Look, if you want to be all fucking judgy about it, I take cash,” Katsuki said, dropping his hand palm up on the table.

“Hey now,” Kirishima said, raising his hands in surrender, “I didn’t say I wasn’t doing it. I’m always down for a little chaos.” He flashed a grin, showing off his ridiculous shark teeth.

“Good,” Katsuki said. “We start tomorrow."

sent, delivered, read, loved by kiribakuhappiness

Kirishima E. [6.49pm]: ur okay for such an angry dude bakugou! :)

Bakugou K. [7.12pm]: FUCK YOU!

Kirishima E. [7.14pm]: haha! :D ttyl!

Bakugou K. [7.48pm]: FUCKING WHAT DO THOSE DUMB LETTERS MEAN???

Bakugou K. [7.52pm]: I JUST LOOKED IT UP DONT FUCKING TALK TO ME LATER!

Bakugou K. [7.52pm]: STOP TXTING ME!!!

- OR -

Bakugou's and Kirishima's relationship develops from classmates to friends to more, as told through their text conversations.

flicker by mr_todoroki

He was starting to feel depressed. Life was so uninteresting. It was so mundane and forgettable. He had no one to hang out with besides Kota, his family didn’t even live in the city.

He grew his hair out as some sort of rebellion, some sort of stand to make his life the slightest bit more interesting. But he could already feel himself giving in to the pressure of cutting it. He needed to work to live. Without a job, he’d truly have nothing.

Kirishima never applied to UA, therefore never became a hero.

let’s get down to business by kjelfalconer

Katsuki Bakugou, one of the brightest rising stars on wall street, is in need of a new personal assistant. Again. Could Eijirou Kirishima finally be the one to last more than two months?

Katsuki's long suffering HR department sure hope so.

something about us by bigstupidjellyfish

nothing like being in highschool and having no idea how to deal with emotions

fireproof by inkbender

Four years after a classmate nobody seems to remember is kidnapped by the League of Villains, Kirishima drags an amnesiac hobo he found washed up on the beach into his apartment, attempts to teach him how to adult (with varying degrees of success), and discovers along the way that the line between heroism and villainy is quite fine indeed. Plot-divergent after episode 45, the Forest Training Camp arc.

blood riot by magicallee (alternatively)

Kirishima from a universe with no quirks is mind-swapped with an alternate universe version of himself where there are superpowers.

And in that universe he’s a super villain.

And Bakugou is the superhero who caught Evil-Kirishima and put him in prison.

blindside by drowclericpelor

“You’re the first guy friend I’ve had that I can just like, be friends with. You’re either the most unthirstiest boy ever...” Camie shrugged and made another wobbly illusion appear between her hands. It looked like a sparkly rainbow with the word ‘friendship’ beneath it, accompanied by what Bakugou assumed was supposed to be a twinkling sound effect, but it had a tinny quality to it and sounded far away. “...or I just ain’t got the kinda straw you like to ssssip.”

Carefully, Bakugou considered the strange turn this conversation had taken.

He had never been asked, point blank, if he was gay before. And he honestly had never thought about how he would respond. Lying about himself didn’t sit right with him. But he’d always wanted to wait until he was the number one hero - when he stood above everyone else - before coming out. Though he’d had times when he’d thought about doing it before then and had almost gone through with it once. But being the number one hero came first. It wouldn’t matter what people would say about it then as long as he’d risen to the top.

Bakugou knew his lack of a response would give Camie all the answers she needed.

flour power by wingsonghalo

“I’m telling you now, Shitty Hair,” the blonde growled, “I am not gonna play house with you. We will cart this stupid flour around for a week like the assignment says. But some of our idiot classmates are naming the thing and setting up ‘playdates’ and dressing it and I am not doing anything that stupid. Got it?”

Kirishima and Bakugou are paired up to take care of a flour sack for a week. It would be so simple, except nothing with Bakugou is ever simple. Also Kirishima might be kinda sorta completely head over heels for him.

sunchaser by chonideno

that feeling when you suddenly want to jump off a cliff for no reason but instead of a cliff it’s your best friend and instead of jumping it’s growing feelings out of nowhere

or how Bakugou has to try really hard not to throw everything to the wind, and Kirishima doesn't help

i also have a tag specifically for fics that reach somewhere between 30k-70k words long if you wanted to check that out as well! i hope you enjoy the fics here and that i was able to help, ily enjoy your trip!!! :D

#kiribaku fic rec #kiribaku #answered

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lloydskywalkers · 4 years

Text

the idiots’ guide to not despising your cousin

Determined to make the best out of the worst hand, Lloyd drags his newly-living pseudo-cousin on the road trip from hell in a desperate attempt to bond. Or get rid of each other for good, they’re not sure yet.

(This requires...a tiny bit of background, part one being that a while back i received a request for “more lloyd and sharks”. Except i misread it as “morro lloyd and sharks” which was like, odd, but i went with it and somehow ended up with 12K words of...this fic, that’s definitely 90% crack. Which brings me to part two, which is that this takes place in an entirely hypothetical au where Morro made it through the rift in s7, or somehow he’s alive the details aren’t important shh)

In his defense, Morro never would have been caught dead in this situation if he hadn’t traumatized his sort-of-cousin by possessing him two years earlier.

…alright, that’s not really a defense, but it’s the only explanation he has.

“I’m just saying,” Lloyd is…saying, as he jabs his pointer finger at him. “I could’ve been a whole foot taller if you hadn’t starved me. You stunted my growth, listening to me for five minutes is the least you can do.”

“I did not stunt your growth, you were already going to be a shrimp anyways,” Morro counters, rubbing his right eye as he tries to focus on his book instead.

Lloyd’s eyes narrow. “A whole week. And all you let me eat was half a slice of bread and vodka shots.”

“Would you — shh, it was not vodka!” Morro hisses, his eyes darting wildly around for Wu. His shoulders slump in relief as he confirms that he and Lloyd are still the only ones in the room, and he turns back, glaring at Lloyd. “I told you, it was juice.”

Lloyd glares right back. “I could still taste, you know. I’m not that naïve.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Morro quips.

Lloyd’s green eyes flash a little too much on the neon side, and Morro backs down. “Alright, alright!” He shakes his head. “I’ll listen to whatever kiddie drama you want.”

“It’s not drama,” Lloyd huffs, flopping down on the couch across from him. “It’s a proposal.”

Morro sneers. “Oh, a fancy word.”

Again, Lloyd sneers right back. “Yeah, do you need a dictionary for it?"

In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing Morro possessed Lloyd at that particular point in his life. If he’d had to deal with this Lloyd, and all his newly-found confidence and sass, he’d have dropped him off a cliff much sooner.

“Listen here, you little punk—”

“Oh, now you want me to listen to you,” Lloyd interrupts. “Spoken like a true raging hypocrite.”

“FSM, what do you want?” Morro finally cracks, tossing his book on the couch beside him. It’s clear he’s not going to be getting anymore reading done until Lloyd leaves.

Lloyd beams, looking infuriatingly pleased with himself. “Again, I have a proposal,” he says. “For you.”

Morro already hates this. “No.”

Lloyd continues as if Morro hadn’t spoken. “You should go with me to the coast this weekend.”

“No.”

“The southern coast, so the one like eight hours away.”

“No, what the—” Morro stares at him incredulously. “Why in the world would I ever want to do that?”

Lloyd simply shrugs, as if he hasn’t just suggested the idea from hell. “Because.”

Morro’s going to kill him, tentatively-redeemed status be damned.

“Why, Lloyd.”

Lloyd gets a look in his eyes, the kind that makes Morro shift. “Consider,” he says. “A tornado.”

Morro, unfortunately, does consider that. “There is...merit, to the idea,” he admits, even if doing so pains him.

“Okay, okay,” Lloyd continues, like an enthusiastic salesman with a quota to meet. “Now, consider this: sharks. In the tornado.”

Morro loses any and all faith he’s ever had in Lloyd, which is impressive considering there was nothing there to begin with. “What.”

“Sharks, in the tornado. Like a sharknado.”

Something flickers in the back of Morro’s brain, snatches of a conversation he’d heard from the living room one evening, along with a lot of screeching laughter and pained groans.

“Are you trying to reenact an entirely fictional and entirely garbage movie,” Morro says flatly, mentally crediting Cole for that particular phrasing.

Lloyd’s lip juts out. “No.”

“That’s exactly what it is, isn’t it,” Morro rolls his eyes. “No. Find someone else to be stupid with you. Kai should be down, he always is.”

Lloyd narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t take the bait. “Will you just — at least hear my final point,” he pleads.

Morro stares into the vast abyss of the ceiling panels, and already regrets answering. “What.”

“The look on the others’ faces.”

Morro pauses again, desperately trying to stop himself — but it’s too late. The looks have been imagined.

Lloyd grins, sharp teeth poking out at the edge of his lip. “Now — the look on Uncle Wu’a face.”

Oh, curse everything. Morro’s coming dangerously close to being made a fool by an idiot shrimp who calls himself his cousin. He quickly backtracks.

“Noted, but that doesn’t explain why you’re asking me.”

“Because you’ve got the wind power for the tornado, duh.” Lloyd makes a face. “Also because the others will probably say something like it’s too dangerous, or a high risk, or some other nonsense like that.”

Morro highly doubts that Jay, or even Kai, of all people, would turn down the opportunity for such potent idiocy, but he does believe they’d tie Lloyd to a pole to keep him from rushing a shark.

“So you’re asking me, out of everyone else in this realm, to drive eight hours — eight — with you to some coast in the middle of nowhere — which includes water, by the way, so that’s already a strike — just so you can recreate some awful B-movie scene?”

“Yup,” Lloyd says. “And maybe drop the whole thing on my dad’s head, if we can find him.”

“Right,” Morro sighs. “Just being clear.”

He drops his head back, staring at the ceiling again. It’s the idea from hell, for certain. Morro would hate himself every minute of it, if he were to agree.

But the idea of hitting the road — of escaping the monastery — does sound tempting.

It has, admittedly, been rather boring at the monastery. Morro’s interactions with the ninja, while not as aggressive as they’d been originally, tend to be strained at best. On the better days, Morro finds the most entertainment in listening to the increasingly creative ways Kai threatens to end his existence with, should he either step out of line, or within a set boundary around Lloyd. Both of which Morro threatens to break by going along with Lloyd’s plan.

Actually, Morro muses, that’s more of a reason to go than to not. Kai’s head might potentially explode if he were to wake up and discover Morro had taken off across country with Lloyd, and Morro would get the added bonus of seeing him chew Lloyd out for being the one to suggest it. So there are definitely pros.

None of them, of course, override the fact that he’d be spending eight hours, in a car, with Lloyd and Lloyd alone. Both ways.

“Eight hours is a long time,” Morro finally says.

Lloyd’s expression drops, before his eyebrows crease stubbornly. “It’s eight hours you wouldn’t spend being hounded by Uncle Wu to train with us.”

Morro cringes. Lloyd has clearly prepared his arguments for this one with devastating accuracy. But still, eight hours. With Lloyd—

“If you do this, I’ll stop tying all your shirtsleeves together when they’re in the laundry,” Lloyd adds.

“That was you?!” Morro exclaims, indignantly. “Nya told me the dryer did that on its own!”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Lloyd shrugs. “You probably…shouldn’t take Nya’s word on a whole lot of stuff any time soon.”

“Now you tell me,” Morro mutters, sinking further into the couch and bemoaning the universe on the whole.

Lloyd scoots forward on his own couch, his eyes wide and pleading. “Please?” he says. “It’s just this once. Then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

Morro meets his eyes shrewdly, chewing on his cheek. He’ll regret it, for certain. Probably hate himself and the universe on the whole the entire weekend. But…he does, rather drastically, owe Lloyd. And he is trying to — ugh — make things right with him.

(As if that’s something that can be done.)

And at least there’s the promise of Lloyd leaving him alone.

Morro lets out a long, weary groan, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Fine,” he grumbles. “But you’re paying for gas.”

Lloyd gives a whoop of victory, before desperately trying to stifle his excitement. “You pay for stuff?” he cackles instead. “Lamest villain ever.”

“Get out,” Morro snarls, hurling his book at him. Lloyd dodges with ease. “Before I change my mind and murder you.”

***********

Lloyd secures a vehicle with a speed and easiness that almost makes Morro doubt which one of them is the reformed criminal. Then he remembers that, technically, they’re both reformed criminals, even if Morro’s ‘reformed’ status is still under hot debate (by himself included).

As it also turns out, Lloyd happens to have a not-so-reformed criminal friend as well, who Morro unfortunately recognizes when he hands the keys over to them.

Ronin abruptly cuts off in his lecture to Lloyd about engine safety as he spots him, his face paling. Morro pauses mid-step, mentally wishing he’d just made Lloyd carry the six packages of Oreos out to the car himself. Lloyd simply smiles, like the oblivious airhead Morro wishes he truly was.

He’s not, though, because the look in his eyes says he’s having the time of his life with this.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention,” Lloyd tells Ronin easily. “Morro’s the other person I was talking about.”

Ronin stares between the two of them, and looks as if he’s lost about five years of his life. “How hard do they hit your head in practice, kid.”

“Not hard enough, apparently,” Morro mutters. Ronin pins him with a glare, and despite his better judgement, Morro shuts up.

“It’s all good,” Lloyd assures him. “I know what I’m doing.”

“For some reason, I got trouble believin’ you, kid.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Lloyd huffs, snatching the keys from him. “I’m the Green Ninja. Also, if you tell the others about this I’ll start busting your Thursday night runs.”

Ronin’s expression sours. “Alright, alright, if you wanna go on a suicide road trip, go on a suicide road trip. Just keep me outta it.”

“Gladly,” Morro grouses, shouldering his way between them so he can dump the cursed cookies in the van already.

Ronin watches him through narrowed eyes, and makes a threatening gesture. “If you even try and come back alone…”

“He won’t,” Lloyd says, before Morro can reply. “Promise. I have it all under control.”

“That’s what you all say every time,” Ronin grumbles.

Ronin finally leaves them in peace, muttering something about ‘leaving his Thursday nights alone' before taking off. This leaves Lloyd and Morro and the incredibly hideous minivan, alone. They look at each other. There’s a moment of silence, before they both scramble wildly for the driver’s seat. Morro beats Lloyd out by a half-second, grabbing the steering wheel and shoving him back with a smug smirk. Lloyd glares at him.

“I’m driving,” he demands.

“As if you’re old enough to have your license,” Morro scoffs.

Lloyd narrows his eyes into slits. “At least I was born when cars actually existed.”

“Ooh, I’m old, how will I ever recover,” Morro mocks. “I got here first, I’m driving. Suck it up.”

Lloyd’s face screws up, and for a half-second Morro gleefully thinks he’s about to pout like a child.

To his disappointment, Lloyd blows his breath out, stands up straighter, and plays dirty.

“You take control of the car, you take control of my body, ” he shakes his head, crossing his arms. “I guess that’s just how it is with you, huh."

Morro’s hands grind where he clutches the steering wheel, and he resists the urge to smash his head against it. “Have you ever heard of abusing your power.”

“Have you ever heard of abusing me.”

“Oh for FSM’s — you can drive, fine!”

***********

They’re roughly an hour out from the monastery, when something strikes Morro as odd.

“By the way,” he says. “How did you convince the idiot quartet to let you go?”

“Don’t call them that,” Lloyd says sternly, glaring at him. “And, uh, I didn’t.”

Morro blinks. Then Lloyd’s meaning sinks in, and he lets out a long, pained exhale. “You do realize,” he says. “That they’re going to have multiple heart attacks, then hunt me down and murder me as prime suspect, right.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Lloyd assures him, cheerfully. “I left them a note.”

***********

Kai stares at the slightly-crumpled scrap of paper in his hands and wishes, not for the first time, that Garmadon or Wu or Misako had put in just a little more time in raising Lloyd, so he could blame them for this and not his own example.

Alas, Kai is only able to bury himself in so much denial.

“What’s that?” Cole asks, striding into the kitchen behind him. Kai hands him the note, wordlessly. Cole frowns as he takes it, trying in vain to flatten the edges.

“‘Hey guys, heading out with Morro for a couple days, going to’— something something…sharks?” Cole blinks at the note. “Geez, might need to look into Lloyd’s writing education agai— wait, he’s heading out with who for a couple what.”

“Read the rest,” Kai says, his eyes glazing over as he stares across the kitchen.

“Okay, uh… ‘—taking the van’— we have a van? — ‘shouldn’t go too far, don’t worry.’” Cole’s eyebrows shoot up as he reads on. “‘Also my phone’s dead and I forgot the charger. Sorry.’ He wrote this while he was still here, he could’ve grabbed it!” he exclaims.

“I’m going to slaughter him,” Kai states.

“Uh…which one?”

“Whichever one doesn’t run fast enough.”

***********

As it turns out, Lloyd’s plan consists of a little more than just driving six hours to some random beach in the middle of nowhere. This is unsurprising, as Morro’s been expecting Lloyd to spring nonsense on him at any given moment.

Having lived in his head for a brief stint, Morro also finds it unsurprising that Lloyd’s plan isn’t actually a plan.

“So the tornado thing is easy, obviously, unless your powers suck,” he’s saying. Morro shoots him a look he hopes conveys the depths of his annoyance from where he’s at the wheel. Lloyd switched with him back at the last gas station, having grown fed up with Morro’s lack of skill in reading maps.

It’s not Morro’s fault his reading comprehension rests around that of a nine year-old’s. Like Lloyd’s any better.

“Gonna take that as a ‘maybe’,” Lloyd mutters to himself, squinting back at the map under the above-head car light. “It’s the shark part that’s going to be a little more tricky.”

“I hear they like blood,” Morro says. “I can always skewer you a little, then toss you in. That should do it.”

“Har har,” Lloyd replies, drenched in sarcasm. “That’s obviously not the route we’re taking. Besides, it’d be mean to lure the sharks out and not actually have anything they can eat. I’d probably end up poisoning them or something, with my mutant Oni blood.”

Morro stares at him long enough to nearly run them off the road. He jerks the car back on track just in time, shaking his head and despairing.

“I was thinking, since there’s already an elemental master of nature, maybe there’s like, an elemental master of animals?” Lloyd continues. “Then we could ask them to help us out.”

“Oh, I’m sure some random master would love to help us out,” Morro drawls. “An undead criminal who tried to unleash hell on the country and the son of Lord Garmadon.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lloyd huffs. “People actually like me.”

“Shocker.”

Lloyd ignores him. “Plus, you’re not even undead anymore,” he mutters under his breath. “You’re just regular boring alive, now.”

Morro opens his mouth, because he’s got a lot to say about that, then realizes he doesn’t quite have the words for it, aside from hanging his mouth open like an indignant fish. He shuts it, and Lloyd plows on.

“Do you think we should look for the master of like, fish or something, instead?” he questions, frowning. “I mean, I don’t even know if there is a master of animals, but if there is, sharks are technically fish, and fish are…well, I guess they’re animals too, but what if there’s like, a distinction, and all the hypothetical master of animals can summon are mammals, and we drive out of the way for nothing?”

“I will pay you,” Morro says, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly. “I will pay you so much to shut up.”

“It’s too much of a risk,” Lloyd decides, ignoring him. “Plan B it is, then.”

Morro doesn’t want to ask. That would be inviting Lloyd to run his mouth again, and Morro doesn’t hate himself that much.

But he does, regretfully, want to know how he’ll be meeting his fate.

“What’s plan B?”

“So there’s this park,” Lloyd says. “For performing animals.”

***********

Morro and Lloyd are still arguing by the time they pull into the motel parking lot for the night. That had been a different argument altogether, but as they’d had to sneak out around midnight to get on the road successfully, neither had really wanted to keep driving through the early morning hours.

“—no, no, I cannot make this clearer, no,” Morro growls. “I am not breaking into some — some stupid amusement park, just to steal their dancing sharks or whatever.”

“Oh come on, it’s stealing! That’s like, your favorite pastime,” Lloyd shoots back. “A shark is nothing compared to body-snatching.”

“That’s not going to work on me again,” Morro seethes.

“Oh yeah?” Lloyd taunts. “Why not? Did your morality meter run out?”

“My what—”

“I can never dye my hair black because of you,” Lloyd continues, eyes narrowed. “I will never know the teenage joys of horrifying your family by dyeing your entire head jet black, because of you.”

“It didn’t look that bad,” Morro defends.

“I’m talking about the trauma!” Lloyd snaps.

Morro pauses. “Your trauma, or theirs?”

Lloyd opens his mouth, then frowns. “Min—their— both, both traumas!”

While Morro wants to scoff back that having to endure the sight of Kai’s hair is equally traumatic for him, he also recognizes that Lloyd has a point. Which is inconvenient, because Lloyd’s beginning to use that point against him a little too well lately, but considering Lloyd also still wakes up screaming in the night because Morro’s given him chronic nightmares, he decides not to push back against that point.

Because he’s a nice person, like that.

He does, however, attempt to push for sense.

“Stealing a shark from a theme park is still theft,” he argues under his breath, as they make their way toward the motel check-in. “Isn’t that something you’re against?”

“Theft, yes,” Lloyd replies. “Freeing wrongfully imprisoned sharks from slavery, less so.”

“Oh, so stealing is an act of philanthropy when it’s you.”

“Wow, look at you, breaking out the big words.” Lloyd’s teeth grind together.

“Yeah, you need a dictionary?” Morro sneers back his words from earlier.

Lloyd looks as if he’d like to throttle him, but fortunately for Morro — or unfortunately, as he’d like to see him try — the receptionist at the check-in desk is staring at them with wide eyes now.

To be fair, Morro imagines they make quite a contrasting pair: Lloyd with his light hair in his green hoodie and green high top sneakers, and Morro with his black hair in his black shirt and black jacket and black jeans and black high top sneakers.

At least Lloyd’s basketball shorts are like, a grey color. For contrast, not that Morro cares.

He does care that they’re both wearing high top sneakers, but that’s only because it’s annoying.

Lloyd finally straightens, transforming instantaneously into a bright, innocent-eyed ray of infuriating sunshine. “Hi!” he greets. “Can we get a room for two, please?”

“Oh,” the lady blinks, clearly blinded by the intensity of Lloyd’s beaming smile. “Of course, sweetheart, one moment.”

Morro fights back the urge to inform the receptionist that Lloyd is actually a half-demon monster who could and would drag her on an eight-hour road trip from hell, with the sole purpose of stealing sharks.

He resists, though. Since he’s a nice person, like that.

The receptionist hands them the keys with ease, but it’s only as Lloyd struggles to get the room door open that the reality of their situation hits Morro.

Lloyd finally swings the door open, and Morro stares in horror at the small room. “Wait, we’re sharing a room?”

“Uh, yeah?” Lloyd shrugs. “Unless you’ve got the money for two, ‘cause I definitely don’t.”

Morro’s jaw creaks. Lloyd knows full well he has about three cents to his name. “Tell me there’s two beds.”

Lloyd scoffs loudly. “Please. I’m not completely insane.”

Morro would beg to differ, because he’s got them sharing a room, but he’s true to his word, at least. While the room is about the size of a glorified closet, there are two single beds, neatly arranged side by side. In silent agreement, the first thing Lloyd and Morro do, after tossing their bags down, is shove the beds as far as they can from each other against the opposite wall. The bedside table relocates nicely as a barrier in the no-man’s zone between the two. Morro would prefer, say, a five-feet thick vengestone wall between the two of them, but sure, the bedside table thing works.

They make camp on their respective beds after that, Morro skimming idly through his book while Lloyd flips through the little leaflet on the bedside table. He frowns, swinging his legs at the edge of his bed.

“D’you think we should just order dinner in?” he says.

Morro ignores him, continuing to thumb through his book. He hasn’t been particularly hungry since they finished an entire package of Oreos somewhere around the second hour in.

Not one to be discouraged, Lloyd continues anyways, mumbling to himself. “It’s a little late, but it looks like there are some pizza places that’ll deliver here…”

Morro frowns. “Pizza’s that cheese bread stuff, right?”

Lloyd goes silent. He stares at Morro, his expression frozen. “What.”

Morro shifts, uncomfortable at the stare Lloyd has on him. “What?”

“You’ve…never had pizza?” Lloyd finally gets out, as if the very idea is horrifying.

“No?” Morro offers. “You know I don’t eat dinner with you all. I certainly don’t eat your disgusting greasy junk food, either.”

“Disgusting — you’ve never had pizza,” Lloyd repeats, scandalized. “That’s what’s disgusting here. We’ve gotta fix this. Not even you deserve to go your life without pizza.”

“I’m touched,” Morro drones.

“Shut up, and pick out a topping.” Morro yelps as Lloyd suddenly materializes on the bed next to him, shoving the leaflet in his face. “So the standard go-to is cheese, ‘cause you can’t go wrong with that, but pepperoni’s pretty across the board, too. Kai and Nya like little peppers on theirs, so if you like spicy stuff that’s the way to go, but Cole swears by bacon bits, and Jay likes both. Zane likes the vegetable kind, but that’s just ‘cause he’s weird, so there’s that and pineapple, if you’re a mutant—”

“I’ll take the pineapple,” Morro blurts, in a desperate attempt to cut Lloyd’s babbling off.

Lloyd wrinkles his nose. “You’re not gonna like it,” he threatens. “But I’ll get us one of those split pizzas, so we can do like, two slices of pineapple, then the rest can be cheese and pepperoni, I guess, if that sounds good?”

“I literally could not care less.”

“Taking that as a yes!” Lloyd says, cheerfully. “You’re gonna love it.”

“Wonderful,” Morro grimaces. “Now get—” he shoves Lloyd, sending him sprawling to the floor with a yelp. “Back over on your side.”

It takes an unfortunately quick time for the pizza to be delivered, so Morro doesn’t have the chance to pretend he’s fallen asleep before Lloyd’s invading his space again, shoving the pizza in his face.

“Try it,” he demands. “One piece, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“That better be a promise,” Morro grouses, but he takes the slice he’s being offered, holding it gingerly between two fingers. He makes a face. “This is what you’ve been going on about? I can see the grease dripping off it.”

Lloyd rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “Just try it, geez. What are you, chicken?”

“What are you, five?” Morro retorts. He relents though, ever-so-carefully taking the tiniest of bites.

He pauses. Lloyd watches him expectantly. “And?”

Morro knows exactly what Lloyd wants to hear, and he’d eat rocks before he’d let him have it. Unfortunately, his tastebuds are arguing a different case.

Morro doesn’t reply, but he takes another bite, this one considerably larger. FSM be cursed, it’s good.

“Haha!” Lloyd crows, rocking back where he sits cross-legged on the floor. “You love it! I knew it.”

“I do not,” Morro argues. The mouthful of pizza he has doesn’t exactly sell his point.

“Do too,” Lloyd grins, taking his own slice.

Morro hesitates, then goes for another slice, giving in. “The pineapple stuff is pretty good,” he admits, reaching for the fruit-laden pizza. Lloyd chokes, his triumphant smile evaporating as his eyes go wide in horror.

“No. No, you can’t. I know you’re deranged, but you can’t be that far gone—”

“It’s good,” Morro shrugs, taking another bite.

Lloyd gags, looking as if he’d like to cry. He settles for a sigh of despair instead, reaching for one of the slices of cheese. The edges of the crust are a bit blackened, but Lloyd doesn’t seem to mind.

“When I was a kid,” he says, as he catches a trailing string of cheese with his fingers. “Burnt pizza was my favorite thing ever. It was super easy to get, if you hung out behind the restaurants. They’d always throw them out in boxes and stuff, so it wasn’t as gross to swipe outta the trash.”

Lloyd’s eyebrows furrow, and his expression drops. “Uh, I mean, sorry. The guys get weird when I talk about that stuff, ‘cause it’s…weird, I guess.”

Morro eyes him. Far be it from him to reassure Lloyd, but — “I don’t think it’s that weird,” he says. “I’d snag stuff from the trash all the time when I was on the streets.”

“Really?” Lloyd’s expression brightens. “That was how I always ate when I was hanging in cities! Smaller towns not so much, since you could swipe stuff from food stands easier there.”

Morro nods in agreement. “The bigger cities are a lot better for scavenging, but smaller villages are where it’s at for stealing. People let you get away easier there.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Lloyd exclaims. He shakes his head, muttering to himself. “I knew it wasn’t that weird. The guys just like to overreact all the time.”

“Tell me about it,” Morro snorts. “Wu’d always act like I’d kicked him in the shins when I brought that sort of stuff up.”

“Sounds like him,” Lloyd giggles, before lapsing back into silence as they both finish the pizza.

If Morro didn’t know any better, he’d call it comfortable.

***********

Sleeping, however, is not comfortable.

Morro stares up at the ceiling, his eyes wide open. Across the room, Lloyd does the same from his own bed.

“Go to sleep,” Morro finally says. “You’re creeping me out.”

“You go to sleep first,” Lloyd responds, after a minute.

Morro grits his teeth. “No, you.”

“What, so you can murder me?” Lloyd hisses.

“I’m more worried about you murdering me!” Morro hisses back.

“You’re the ex-criminal. Maybe I don’t wanna wake up to the Preeminent at my throat.”

“Well maybe I don’t want to wake up with the Serpentine at my neck.”

“Oh, shut up, you hypocritical jerk—”

“You’re the one with a blabber mouth, you stuck-up wannabe-martyr—”

***********

In the end, neither of them wake up with slit throats. Neither of them wake up with marker all over their face, or tied up in their own sheets, or halfway out the window, either. It is, quite possibly, a miracle.

***********

“Well, Lloyd charged a pizza to my credit card, so we know they’re alive, at least,” Cole sighs.

“He took your credit card?” Nya frowns. “I thought Morro was the one who— you know what, never mind, Lloyd makes perfect sense.”

“He redacted the location, too,” Cole taps wearily at his phone. “Wow, we really did raise a child criminal.”

Kai moans into his hands where he’s slumped over at the table, hunkering in the pits of anxiety-induced despair.

“Y’know, it’s not too late to chase them down,” Jay remarks. “Could be fun, we could all join in on whatever awful road trip they’re having.”

“Sensei Wu said we need to let them go,” Cole mutters. “So they can ‘work things out’. That, or he wants to collect on their life insurance early.”

Jay makes a face. “And we’re listening to him…why?”

“Lloyd disabled location services on his phone,” Zane says, dully. “And since the van was procured from Ronin—”

“We have no idea where they are,” Nya growls. “I’m going to slaughter him.”

“Morro, Lloyd, or Ronin?” Jay asks.

Nya exchanges looks with Kai. “Whichever one doesn’t hide well enough.”

***********

“So if we’re looking at this logically, I think our best bet is to just sneak in the park as tourists, so we blend in with everyone. It’s a pretty busy time of the year, so we should go unnoticed—”

“Next exit.”

“—and then we’ll be able to — huh?”

“Next exit. On the left.”

“The left? I thought it was the right. Are you sure you aren’t reading the map upside down again?”

The vein near Morro’s forehead throbs. “I’m not, now get in the — get in the left lane, Lloyd, or we’ll miss it!”

“I swear, if you make me U-turn in the middle of the highway again…” Lloyd grits out, but he sends them careening across the freeway, darting into the left lane just in time to make their turn. Morro clutches the armrest with white knuckles, desperately trying not to cover his eyes with his hands like he has every other time Lloyd’s driven.

“You drive like a maniac,” Morro finally gets out, as Lloyd pushes the car well over the local speed limit. “Whoever let you have a license should be jailed.”

“Wimp,” Lloyd mocks. “I don’t wanna hear it, with how you and your whack-job ghost pals would drive around.”

“That was different,” Morro grinds his teeth. “We had reliable vehicles and I was too dead to care. This is a bucket of bolts, and I’m unfortunately alive enough to not want to die in a fiery inferno because you crashed us head-on into a semi truck.”

“Seriously?” Lloyd rolls his eyes. “You sound like Uncle Wu.”

Morro turns to stare at him so fast his neck practically cracks. He continues to stare at Lloyd, his mouth half-open, too viscerally horrified to form a response.

He finally manages a croaked, “Take that back.”

“Nope.” Lloyd is grinning.

“Take it back, I sound nothing like him—”

Lloyd says nothing, still grinning. Dying in a fiery inferno is sounding better by the minute, if it means dragging Lloyd down with him.

“So anyways, as I was saying,” Lloyd continues, as they pull into view of the park. “I think we should slip in the park dressed like tourists—”

“Mm-hm.”

“—with tickets that I can buy on Cole’s credit card—”

“Classy.”

“—which’ll give our location away, ‘cause there’s no hiding that, but we should be clear out of here by the time he checks anyways—”

“Nobody cares.”

“—alright, alright, so we’re in as tourists, then we just…grab a shark and, uh, borrow one of their big moving trucks, I guess.”

Morro stares at him. “Borrow. The park’s semi truck they use to move sharks.”

Lloyd winces. “Well, we can’t fit the shark in here.”

They both give the minivan a once-over, and cringe in unison.

“So let me get this straight,” Morro rubs his temple as Lloyd pulls them into the parking lot, pocketing their tickets with the slightest expression of guilt and a whispered ‘Forgive me Cole’. “Your plan is to just…walk into the park, pretending we’re totally normal people, then somehow stuff a shark in a truck and — and what? Bust through the front gates?”

“I was more thinking we could swipe park uniforms while we’re in there, and sneak out like Star Wars,” Lloyd says, gesturing enthusiastically with his hands.

Morro buries his face in his hands. “I despise everything you are.”

“It’s a solid plan!” Lloyd defends, kicking the car door open. “It’s better than anything you have.”

“Planning for something this stupid would burn my brain cells to a crisp,” Morro grumbles, sliding out of the van. He eyes the vehicle, something occurring to him. “By the way. If we’re busting out of here in a park truck, what does that mean for this thing?”

Lloyd pauses, as if that thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Uh…” he sweats. “I’m, uh. I’m sure Ronin’s done something bad enough that he deserves us leaving it here.”

“We’re going to come out of this with so many people after our heads,” Morro exhales.

***********

Morro lets Lloyd snag them clothes from a nearby gift shop, which is probably the worst mistake he’s made in his life. Whether Lloyd is still aiming for a bit of revenge or his fashion sense really is just that appalling, the outfits he picks out for them almost succeed at burning Morro’s eyes out on the spot.

“What is this,” is all he manages to get out, staring blankly at the bright yellow, button-up shirt he’s holding in his hands. It wouldn’t be so bad, if it didn’t have ugly orange flowers and pineapples printed all over it as well.

“It’s what you get for liking pineapple on your pizza,” Lloyd quips, as he pulls a garishly orange t-shirt over his head. His shirt has “I Went to Oceanworld and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” printed on it in bright pink script, which is at least better than the ugly flowers Morro gets. On the other hand, Lloyd’s stuck with a pair of truly hideous, neon blue running shorts, while Morro at least gets navy cargo ones, so there’s that tiny victory.

“Also, these were the best options they had,” Lloyd winces, having caught a glimpse of himself in a shop window as they head toward the park entrance, a crowd of people already starting to form around them. “Here, put these on.”

Morro stares at the purple sunglasses Lloyd’s handed him. “Absolutely not.”

“This too,” Lloyd ignores him, shoving a neon green baseball cap on him. “See, I’m letting you have the green one, ‘cause—”

“If you even finish that sentence, I’ll drown you in the first fish tank we see,” Morro grits out, shoving the sunglasses on. Lloyd just gives him a sunny smile, tugging a vivid pink baseball cap over his hair. He, at least, looks like he fits in here, with his idiot smile and the way he almost starts bouncing as they mingle in the crowds. Morro, on the other hand, feels much as if he sticks out like a sore, sweaty thumb.

“You know, I might actually take you up on that drowning thing,” Lloyd mutters as they drift further into the park, tugging at the collar of his t-shirt. “If only so I end up in the water. It’s so hot.”

“Makes me miss your grandfather’s tomb,” Morro mutters beneath his breath. Lloyd spears him with a glare out of the corners of his eyes. “What?” Morro defends. “It was at least cold there.”

“I remember. I almost died ‘cause of it,” Lloyd growls, his eyes flashing in warning.

“Pretty sure you were more likely to die of starvation by that point,” Morro remarks easily. “But you were already a twig to begin with, so—”

He cuts off with a strangled shout of pain as Lloyd shoves him face-first into a sign, his nose crunching against the metal. Morro pulls away angrily, only to come face to face with a truly hellish, grinning shark on the sign, pointing its deformed fin to the right. Just below the awful shark is a small, printed square that points ahead, reading Park Maintenance: Transportation.

“Just so you know, I’m going to roundhouse-kick your teeth out for that later,” Morro tells Lloyd calmly. “But I think I’ve found our stop.”

Lloyd’s expression switches from Oni hell spawn of doom to enthusiastic devil child in a heartbeat. “Oh, seriously? That was fast.”

“Aw,” Morro sneers. “Did you want to stop by the kiddie park before we left?”

Lloyd’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t spare Morro a second glance. “Nah, but I wanted a picture of you in that shirt to immortalize. Kai’ll get a kick out of it.”

Morro pales rapidly. “No. No, Kai does not hear a word of this. This stays between you and me forever and then we die. Kai. Never. Knows.”

“I’ll keep it quiet if you give me your credit card.”

“Ha! You know this entire family’s broke.”

Breaking into park maintenance is laughably easy — or it would have been, if they weren’t dressed in the ugliest, most obvious colors possible. They make it through three different doors on the excuse that they’re “poor, lost cousins whose uncle left them to die”, but after that they have to start knocking people out. Morro debates arguing for murder, because witnesses and all, but covering their stolen uniforms in blood before they even have the chance to wear them is probably a bad move.

At least the uniforms are a decent combo of white and sky blue, instead of a criminal offense on the eyes.

“Just like Star Wars!” Lloyd exclaims happily, as they sprint for the truck.

It takes every bit of Morro’s willpower not to lock him in the nearby fish tank. He doesn’t, though, because Lloyd somehow manages to locate the one shark actually scheduled for transport, which means all they have to do is subtly distract a few more employees and steal the truck before the furious horde of security guards on their tail catch up and send them both to the Departed Realm in style.

“I said subtly distract them!” Lloyd cries, as Morro neatly finishes chopping his hand into the last employee’s neck, sending him into blissful unconsciousness. “Not that!”

“Do not take the moral high ground with me now,” Morro snaps at him. “I saw what you did to the other security guard, you absolute menace.”

“That was different, can we just— oh, good, the shark’s in the tank and everything,” Lloyd pants, flicking through the little camera view screen on the truck dashboard. “And there’s the exit gate, and there’s — oh, there’s security coming to kill us.”

“What?” Morro yelps, craning his head over. “They shouldn’t have gotten through the door that soon, we haven’t even found the keys yet!”

“Don’t need keys.” Lloyd slides down, prying the compartment beneath the steering wheel open, exposing a mass of complicated wires. “Strap the shark in and lock the back doors,” he orders, as he starts pulling at them. “I’m gonna hot wire it.”

Morro has about a thousand and two questions for why, exactly, Lloyd knows how to hot wire a car, but he immediately decides he doesn’t want to know. Well, he kind of does, because it’s possibly the only cool thing Lloyd has revealed about himself, but running for their lives from angry, underpaid park employees doesn’t seem to be the best of times.

Morro sprints around the truck, yanking the doors open fully and hoisting himself into the trailer. The shark appears to be whacked out of its mind on what Morro’s guessing is a tranquilizer, floating happily in its little tank, and Morro desperately hopes that’s not about to change with the chaotic horror that is Lloyd’s driving.

“Hang tight, fish,” Morro mutters, as he tightens the box straps. Satisfied it won’t come loose, he stumbles out of the trailer, his hands shaking with adrenaline as he slams the truck doors closed, before skidding around the asphalt for the passenger seat.

“Any day now, Lloyd,” he urges, watching the first of the guards come into view in the car mirror.

“Almost got it,” Lloyd hisses, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth as he yanks at the wires beneath the steering wheel. “Drat, these things are so much more complicated than smaller cars—”

“Lloyd, believe it or not, I really don’t want to kill anyone today.”

“Got it!” Lloyd exclaims triumphantly, slamming the panel closed as the car hums to life. He slides back up into the driver’s seat, throwing the gearshift forward. “Buckle up, this is gonna be fun!”

“You and I have—” Morro swallows a shriek as Lloyd guns the truck forward, his head smacking back against the passenger seat. “Entirely different definitions of fun.”

“You just don’t know what fun is,” Lloyd accuses as he presses harder on the gas, angered shouts from the security guards echoing behind them.

“I know it’s not what you’re doing,” Morro shoots back, as Lloyd smashes them through several plastic barriers.

“What? How is this not fun?” Lloyd gestures with one hand, the other veering the steering wheel to the right and sending the truck careening through the park exit, narrowly missing the transport shuttle.

“Fun is me having control of this thing,” Morro grits out. “Or having control in general. You know, like how I controlled you.”

Lloyd’s head turns to him, his eyes narrowing. “You are not bringing this back up now.”

“What, it’s fun— eyes on the road, eyes on the road!”

***********

By the time they make it on the interstate, well out of the city traffic, Morro’s lost any doubts he’s ever had that Lloyd is the actual blood descendant of the First Spinjitzu Master. There’s just no other way to explain how they manage to evade the entire park’s security staff as well as the local police without trouble, other than divine intervention.

As all things do, though, even divine intervention runs out. Unfortunately, it’s at the same time that Lloyd and Morro’s adrenaline high runs out as well, leaving them both exhausted and heavy-eyed. And also considerably short-tempered, so when Lloyd fails to spot the pothole in the dark and punctures their front tire, Morro’s already dangerously close to his breaking point.

It’s never a good place to be, when he’s around Lloyd.

“I swear, it’s in here somewhere,” Lloyd says, his eyebrows furrowing as he roots through the glove compartment again. “This is an official park vehicle, they can’t not have a manual.”

Morro doesn’t comment, too busy trying to slide the tire jack in place. It’s his fifth attempt so far, and the failures aren’t exactly helping his rising temper. It wouldn’t be quite as difficult if the road they were on wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, perched at the edge of a steep ravine. But it is, and the tire jack clanks out of place as Morro misses yet again.

“Aha! Got it. It doesn’t look too difficult, actually.”

Morro grits his teeth. How no one has murdered Lloyd for his unfailing optimism yet is beyond him. Utterly beyond him. Especially when it’s his fault in the first place.

“All we really need is to get the spare out from underneath,” Lloyd muses, skimming through the manual. “Then we should be good.”

“Stop saying we,” Morro finally snaps. “We did not destroy the tire. You did.”

Lloyd blinks, then frowns. “You didn’t exactly help,” he murmurs beneath his breath, bending down near the flat tire.

Morro’s fingers clench around the tire jack, his knuckles white. He is not going to lose his temper. He’s not. He is stuck in the middle of nowhere, with a stolen truck and a flat tire, with no help in sight, with Lloyd Garmadon of all people, but he is not going to lose his temper. It’s a waste of energy.

“Look, just — no, you’re doing it wrong,” Lloyd sighs.

Never mind. Morro’s got energy to spare.

“Would it kill you to shut up? For five seconds?” he snaps, whirling on Lloyd. Lloyd flinches back in alarm, and Morro snarls. “This is your fault, would it kill you to stop making things worse for once?”

Lloyd’s face pales. “I just—”

“We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you,” Morro steamrolls over him, not even giving him the chance to speak. He’s done, he’s so done with this. He’s held it together pretty well this whole time, gone along with Lloyd’s stupid trip for a reason he doesn’t even know, but this is it. Being alive is not worth the effort, at all.

“You dragged me on this, you and your stupid, selfish obsession with pretending everything’ll work out fine, like you’re some little kid,” Morro stabs his finger viciously at Lloyd. “Well guess what? Nothing is fine, and neither of us are kids! We never got to be kids, and we’ll never get to be kids, because your horrible family screwed up and you came along and made things so much worse!”

Hurt flickers across Lloyd’s face, and his eyes look oddly shiny. Morro’s too far into his rant to care.

“It’s typical,” Morro spits. “Absolutely perfect. This is all your fault, I mean it. Everything’s your fault, every single stupid thing that’s gone wrong in my life, if it wasn’t for you—”

Lloyd punches him square in the mouth.

It’s not even the hardest hit he’s ever received, but it’s hard enough to send him staggering back a couple steps. Morro reels, so flabbergasted that he’s unable to form words for a good half-minute. He blinks back tears of pain, staring at Lloyd in indignation. “You — you hit me!”

“And I’m not sorry about it at all!” Lloyd yells, fists clenched tightly by his sides, as if gearing up for another hit. “You deserved it!”

He punctuates this by hurling the tire block at him. Morro dodges easily, his own anger flaring back to life.

“You call that a hit?” he scoffs. “Pathetic. This is why you were so easy to possess, you know—”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Lloyd cuts over him, kicking a rock at him this time. “FSM, what’s your problem? I don’t even know why I try with you!”

“My problem?” Morro snaps, true and properly angry now. “My problem is that some pint-sized brat stole my whole life from me, and now he’s out here—” Morro grunts as he throws the tire jack at Lloyd. “Trying to pretend we’re cousins!”

“Oh, your whole life,” Lloyd echoes, derisively. “What is it about the green gi that makes you so entitled? You’re like — you’re uglier than some stupid runner-up in a beauty pageant about it!”

Morro’s teeth clack together like a steel trap. “A beauty pageant?!”

“Yeah!” Lloyd shouts. “You’re like a screaming toddler! Who runs onstage and attacks the winner because they didn’t get first place in a contest for a stupid outfit!”

“It’s not! Just! An outfit!” Morro roars.

“I know that!” Lloyd snaps.

“Then why didn’t you give it to me!”

“Because you don’t deserve it! You’re a jerk!”

“You don’t even want it!” Morro yells. “You get the green gi and you don’t even appreciate it! This is why we’ll never be cousins!”

“Good! I don’t want you as a cousin! I hate you!” Lloyd screeches, throwing the car manual at him. “I hate you, I hate you so much!”

“I hate you too!” Morro howls, throwing the tire wrench. It spirals wildly off-aim. “Gods, you’re the worst—”

“Drop dead, Morro!” Lloyd screams.

“Make me!” Morro screams back. “Bet you don’t have it in you, you sniveling little—”

Lloyd, clearly determined to prove that he does have it in him, neatly cuts Morro off by tackling him around the waist, sending them both flying over the edge of the hill and rolling wildly into the ravine.

The screaming that follows is a lot less angry this time, and a lot more like the terrified screeching of two year-olds on a roller coaster.

***********

“D’you think...hospitals will take..the green gi as insurance?”

“S’worth...a try. Not sure, think…my head might’ve cracked.”

“I think I heard my spine snap.”

“Pretty sure that was my knee detaching.”

Morro winces, closing his eyes briefly before opening them, staring up at the starry night sky. There’s a shifting noise near his head, before Lloyd curses, moaning in pain as it stops abruptly.

As it turns out, the ravine went a bit deeper than either of them had been prepared for. The end result is Lloyd and Morro both sprawled at the bottom of the ravine, staring into the void of space as they rethink their particular life choices up to this point. There had been a brief moment where they both attempted to shove themselves back up to continue their fight, but that dream had rapidly died as they both collapsed back into the grass, groaning in pain.

It did kill his temper rather effectively, Morro will admit. It’s difficult to keep screaming when your ribs feel like they’ve been used as a drum by a baseball bat. So they continue to lie there in silence, before Lloyd finally stirs.

“So that, uh,” Lloyd finally breathes. “That was. A lot.”

Morro winces. “Yeah. That was — I haven’t yelled like that in a while.”

“Aw, man,” Lloyd laughs humorlessly, still staring at the sky. “I don’t think I’ve yelled like that since I was like, eight.”

The crickets around them buzz loudly as they lapse into silence. At least the sky’s stopped spinning, Morro thinks.

“I think. Um. I think I probably crossed a line.”

Lloyd’s voice is so quiet, Morro almost misses it. He doesn’t miss the apologetic tone, though.

Morro’s lips press together as something in his chest twists that better not be guilt. “I..might have, as well.”

Lloyd hums. “I probably shouldn’t have compared everything you went through to a toddler.”

“Well,” Morro pauses, thinking back on it. “I mean. That crack about the beauty pageant was kinda funny.”

Lloyd gives a breathless little laugh. “Wanna know something awful?”

Morro cranes his head slightly. “Hm?”

“I actually stole that from Nya. And she was, uh, talking about Kai.”

Morro’s eyebrows shoot up. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did,” Lloyd giggles. “It was after the whole thing with Chen — you saw that, right, in my head?”

“Uh...kind of. Sorry?”

“Nah, I don’t care as much about that one. Anyways, he was a mopey mess after it. Nya was kind of bitter. I might have been…a little bit, too. In secret.”

Morro smirks despite himself. “The Green Ninja, secretly bitter.”

“I’ll never be as bitter as you,” Lloyd retorts.

Morro’s smirk fades. “That’s fair, I guess.” He looks back at the sky, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. “Sorry I brought up possessing you again,” he mutters. “That was…probably uncalled for.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd says. “Pretty uncool that you keep doing that.”

“Yeah, well.” Morro sighs. “I’m a work in progress. But still. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it, I think. Not the bringing up the possession part, but the work in progress part.”

“Oh.” Morro chews on the edge of his lip. “Then, uh, I’m also — I’m also sorry I said everything’s your fault.” He closes his eyes tightly. Curse it, the feeling twisting his chest up is most certainly guilt. “That was definitely uncalled for.”

“No,” Lloyd says, quietly. “That’s…that’s fair, too.”

Morro’s eyes blink open, and he cranes his head back to stare at him. “What? No, it’s not. Blame your grandfather, or your dad, or even Wu. Or that, um, giant snake thing, that kept popping up—”

“The Great Devourer?”

“Yeah, blame that.” Morro briefly squeezes his eyes shut again. Oh, this hurts to say out loud. “You’re…you’re still a kid. You’ve been a kid, even if life sucks enough to make it feel like you’re not. S’not fair to blame it all on you.”

Lloyd is silent for a moment, and Morro hopes he’s heard the apology in his words. That’s a new hope for him to have, but it’s genuine.

“Same goes for you, then.” Lloyd’s voice is still quiet, but it’s got that painful sincerity — the kind Morro’s heard before, but never directed at him. “I mean, possessing me wasn’t good, but… everyone deserves a chance to make things right. You’re a kid, too.”

“Lloyd, you know I’m technically like, forty.”

“Yeah, in ghost years. Being dead doesn’t count.”

“Like you’d know.” Morro breaths a humorless laugh. “Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that I went after a kid for getting slapped with the green gi.”

Lloyd inhales sharply. “Could you maybe go at least five minutes without bringing that up? Just this once?”

Morro blinks at the sudden frustration in Lloyd’s voice. “W-what?”

The grass rustles as Lloyd shakes his head, but he blows his breath out, the anger seeping from him. “I just — I’m sick of it. I get that you hate me, but you could at least have the decency to hate me for me,” he says, wearily. “Hate me for like, my obnoxious habit of repeating stuff, or my annoying voice.”

Morro is quiet for a moment. “Your voice isn’t that bad anymore,” he admits.

Lloyd snorts. “You don’t have to lie.”

“No, I’m serious. It doesn’t do that squeaky-toy cracking thing anymore.”

“Well that makes me feel so much better,” Lloyd huffs.

“You’re welcome,” Morro grins. They lapse into silence again, and the grin slides slowly off of Morro’s face. Oh, curse everything, why is his chest still twisting up in knots.

He finally puffs out a weary breath of defeat. “And I don’t…entirely hate you.”

Lloyd is quiet, digesting that. “Huh. Really?”

“Yeah. Hate your stupid gi, though.”

“Oh, same. You have no idea.”

“Starting to get that, I think.”

“Heh. I guess I don’t…entirely hate you, either.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.”

“Disgusting.”

***********

The tire is surprisingly easy to change, when they’re not trying to bite each other’s heads off. There’s no damage to the actual truck or trailer either, so they’re back on the road before daybreak. Lloyd fretfully checks on the shark a minimum of twenty times, but it’s fine as well, peacefully floating in its little tank. He lets Morro drive, in what may or may not be a peace offering, so Morro lets Lloyd choose the music, which is definitely a peace offering. It’s the only way he’d ever willingly listen to the amount of acoustic music Lloyd plays them.

Well…that he’d admit willingly listening to.

They don’t talk much, but it’s a surprisingly comfortable silence, and by the time they pull up to Lloyd’s beach, half finished with the horrendously cheap coffee they snagged from the gas station, Morro doesn’t feel quite as annoyed with the world on the whole.

In fact, he feels dangerously close to being at peace with it, which is obviously unacceptable, so he makes sure to stub his toe at least three times as they maneuver the now-awake and incredibly annoyed shark into the waves.

“Hey, hey, c’mon buddy,” Lloyd soothes, waist-deep in the water as he coaxes the shark toward him. “It’s okay, we’re setting you free. Don’t eat us when there’s much more tasty seafood in the ocean.”

“Maybe Oni is a delicacy for sharks,” Morro suggests, his feet firmly planted on the shore. He’s been assisting with his wind, floating the shark down gently, and that’s already more than enough. “I bet seafood pales in comparison to demon flesh.”

“You’re disgusting,” Lloyd says, but his lips quirk up. “In that case, maybe I should just drop him on my dad.”

Morro snorts, watching as Lloyd finally gets the shark to deeper water, where it swishes its tail happily, clearly overjoyed to be free from its tiny tank.

“There we go,” Lloyd smiles as it swims around him. “Much better, huh?”

Morro watches the shark swim a moment longer, wrinkling his nose as sand digs between his toes. He stifles a yawn, but the coastal winds are picking up around him, gently tugging through his hair and leaving him less tired as his element ghosts over his skin, as if whispering his name.

He’s missed wind like this. The gentler kind.

He finally turns his attention back to Lloyd, and his eyebrows furrow.

“You know this is just one shark, right?”

“Mm-hm,” Lloyd hums happily, letting the shark nose against his hand.

“That doesn’t bode well for your shark tornado plan,” Morro reminds him.

“Eh,” Lloyd shrugs. “I guess freeing a shark is as good as that. I can always get my dad back later.”

“You could dye your hair, that might do the trick.”

Lloyd gives a wry smile. “It wasn’t really about that, anyways,” he murmurs, so quietly Morro almost misses it.

Morro doesn’t know if he wants to try and guess what that’s supposed to mean, so he averts his gaze instead, looking across the quiet, empty beach. It’s removed from the busier parts of the coast, almost abandoned. Certainly not the kind of place Morro would’ve seen Lloyd picking out for a weekend trip.

“So why this beach, in particular?” he finally asks. “Seems pretty out of the way, just for this.”

Lloyd is quiet for a moment, his hands creating tiny eddies in the water around him. His face falls a fraction as he watches the shark swim off, deeper into the ocean, and he dips lower into the water.

“I came here with my dad, once,” he says, quietly. “After he was… back to normal. Without the venom, and all.”

“Oh.” Morro blinks. There’s a lot of meaning behind those words. For some reason, he’s almost frightened to try and decipher it.

Lloyd saves him from it, straightening up where he stands in the water. “So, are you gonna get in, or what?”

Morro blinks, then violently shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not. Water and I are not compatible. You know that.”

“You weren’t before,” Lloyd insists. “You are now.”

“What was that you were saying earlier?” Morro reminds him, snidely. “About traumas, and stuff?”

Lloyd’s brow furrows, in what could almost be concern. “You don’t have to,” he says, slowly. “But this is a nice place to start.”

Morro stares at the sand before him, a mere three feet from where the waves stop washing up on shore. He makes a face. It’s not like he’s scared of water. He takes showers, and he’s not afraid to sprint out in the rain if he’s left a book or something outside. But those are just — water in small doses. This sparkling blue hellhole of toxicity is different. It’s saltwater. Saltwater brings back…less than pleasant memories.

Granted, this particular body of toxic seawater doesn’t seem to be quite as deadly at the moment. Lloyd’s skin hasn’t slid off his bones yet, and he’s floating up to his neck in the stuff.

“I’ll pass,” Morro finally says, stiffly. “It’s, uh, a little too rough for me out there.”

Lloyd looks pointedly at where the gentle waves barely lap the shore. Morro grits his teeth. Drat. That makes it rather difficult not to admit that he does, probably, look like a coward. Lloyd tilts his head to the side, studying him with the eerie red eyes he gets sometimes. Morro doesn’t like the look that forms on his face.

“Why,” he says, with a gleam in his eyes. “Are you scared?”

Even though Morro’s seen that coming a mile away, he still reddens. “No.”

Lloyd raises an eyebrow. “Kinda looks like you’re scared.”

“I am not.”

Lloyd squints at him. Then, without warning, he splashes the smallest bit of seawater up toward him. Morro jumps back, with what he’ll die before he admits is a high-pitched shriek, skittering away from the tiny droplets.

Lloyd bursts into giggles, and Morro feels his cheeks blazing. “That was low, you little insect—”

“Chicken, chicken, Morro’s a chicken,” Lloyd taunts over him.

“I’ll kill you,” Morro threatens.

“Oh yeah?” Lloyd flashes his teeth at him. “How’re you gonna do that when I’m in the water?”

Morro’s hands clench into fists as he seethes. “I am not scared of the water.”

“Yes, you are.”

Morro takes a threatening step toward him, brandishing his fist. “I am not a chicken!”

“Yes you a-are,” Lloyd repeats gleefully. “Chicken, chicken—”

“Shut up—”

“Bawk, bawk—”

“I’ll break your spine—”

“Not with your chicken arms you won’t—”

“Enough with the chicken!” Morro roars, shaking Lloyd by the collar of his soaking t-shirt. “I am not scared!”

Lloyd presses his lips together, barely holding back what’s either laughter or another one of those infuriating smiles. “Okay, geez. You proved me wrong.”

Morro blinks. Lloyd looks down, and Morro follows his gaze. He blinks again.

He’s standing waist-deep in the saltwater with Lloyd, waves swirling gently around him. His flesh is not melting off. He is not dying an excruciating death. It doesn’t feel like corrosive acid. It feels like…regular water. Kind of cold, regular water, that smells a little like fish.

Morro stares at the water, letting Lloyd’s shirt go as his arms hang limply by his sides. He didn’t even notice putting a foot in.

“Hey, look,” Lloyd says, brightly. “You’re not dead."

Morro should strangle him for this. Lloyd’s tricked him into the toxic death water by annoying him, and Morro didn’t even notice. He should celebrate this new accomplishment by holding Lloyd’s head under the water until he drowns.

Oddly enough, all he can find it in himself to do is stare at the water with the tiniest of smiles. “I’m not dead,” he echoes, quietly.

Lloyd beams at him, and he doesn’t even want to strangle him for it. Morro stands waist-deep in the water, completely at ease, and feels something odd bubble up in his throat. It’s light and easy, like his chest is filling up with a balloon, and for a brief second, he meets Lloyd’s beaming smile with one of his own.

Naturally, that’s when the beach blows up.

***********

On second thought, the ocean can die.

Morro immediately changes his mind about seawater as he’s knocked beneath a large wave, swallowing a mouthful of disgusting salt liquid. Panic twists around his heart as he flails briefly, before a hand locks firmly around his arm and yanks, pulling him to the surface and dragging him forward.

“—can’t believe this, again?!” Lloyd’s yelling in his ear as Morro splutters out saltwater. “What is it now, someone whose got aunt we got fired?”

“Don’t be ridiculousss, you know your own worth,” a hissing voice laughs across the water, and Morro struggles to find his footing as Lloyd drags them both onto the beach. “Imagine my delight when I realized the Green Ninja was lounging on the beach!”

Morro finally manages to push his sopping hair from his face, and he blinks saltwater from his eyes as his vision clears. Several paces down the sand from them stands a scarlet Hypnobrai, an admittedly intimidating weapon held in its scaly hands.

“Oh, of course!” Lloyd spits. “Stupid green power, would it kill you to let me get five minutes of—”

He cuts off in a yelp as the Serpentine fires at them again, dragging Morro to the sand with him as the grenade blast streaks over their heads, exploding somewhere further down the beach.

“It’s okay,” Lloyd pants, as they scramble to their feet. “This is — it’s all good, it’s just one Serpentine. We can handle this, easy.”

Morro whips his head across the beach. “You do see the other four, right?”

“The other—” Lloyd swears. “How did they all get grenade launchers?”

“That’s what you’re worried about right now?” Morro shouts, as they narrowly avoid another three blasts. The lead Hypnobrai cackles wildly at them, waving his weapon like a war flag.

“How did you even find me?” Lloyd yells, as he and Morro sprint around the jetty for cover, stumbling over the protruding rocks. “This is the middle of nowhere!”

The Hypnobrai grins, sharp teeth flashing. “Oh, we wouldn’t have! But I recognized the name on the credit card used at the gas station. To be honest, I was actually expecting the earth ninja.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Lloyd cries. “What kind of karma—”

Morro grasps him firmly by the shoulders and yanks him down, just before another streaking blast of flame can take his head off. Morro cringes as the ensuing explosion rocks the ground beneath them, his ears ringing.

Lloyd crouches lower beside him, muttering frantically. “I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry,” he’s saying in the vague direction of the sky. “I’ll never steal anyone’s credit card again, I promise, I’m sorry—”

“Are you — apologizing to your grandfather right now?” Morro gapes at him.

Lloyd throws his hands in the air. “This has gotta be someone's fau—alt, move!”

He yanks them to the side as another blast narrowly misses them, almost knocking them clear off their feet. Morro grits his teeth, frustration spiking.

“This would be a great time for a plan, oh ninja leader,” he snaps.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” Lloyd’s hands flash green. “Just follow my—”

He gasps, his eyes going wide at something beyond Morro’s shoulder. Morro has a split second of confusion before Lloyd shoves him to the ground, bright green energy blazing to life in a makeshift shield—

Just in time for the next blast to hit him dead on, sending him flying back into the jetty.

Lloyd gives a single, sharp cry before his head strikes the edge of a rock, abruptly going silent as he tumbles to the edge of the jetty, inches from being swept away by the water. He doesn’t move after that.

Morro’s stomach bottoms out, his blood running cold as he’s hit with a sudden rush of terror so strong he almost loses his balance.

Then the rage hits.

Morro turns on the Hypnobrai who fired the blast, his eyes flaming. The snake swallows, suddenly looking pale as he clutches at his weapon.

“Um—”

Morro roars, and the wind turns sharp and vicious, swirling around him in a vortex of fury. The Serpentine shriek in terror as they’re swept up in the gale, Morro’s wind howling as it tears the weapons from their hands. Morro barely hears them, his mind still stuck on the single scream before Lloyd had fallen silent. Anger blazes hot in his chest, and the wind grows bitterly cold, flinging water from the ocean higher and higher. Saltwater splashes against his cheeks, but Morro hardly feels it. He lets the water power his wind instead, sweeping into a furious storm.

He could easily kill them right now — happily, even. But Morro’s been an entire mess of conflicting emotions this weekend, and he’s got more pressing things to worry about, so he sends their weapons flying far out into the ocean instead. He narrows his eyes on them in fury, before hissing out, “Get. Lost.”

They don’t need any help fleeing after that, but Morro still launches them a good thirty feet away. For good measure.

He lets the wind die bit by bit, water splashing back into the ocean. Morro suddenly becomes aware of how his hands are trembling, shaking in the aftermath of adrenaline. There’s a moment of crushing silence in the absence of his howling wind, and his stomach drops.

He whips around, his eyes searching the empty beach desperately. He wasn’t — he hadn’t been thinking of Lloyd when he’d kicked the storm up, but what if—

“Lloyd,” Morro rasps, his throat closing over in fear. “Lloyd, where are you, please—”

“M’here.”

Lloyd stumbles from behind the jetty, coughing up a mouthful of saltwater as he sways dizzily, rubbing his head. “Ow, ow, ow. I’m gonna feel that for—”

Lloyd cuts off in a yelp as Morro grabs him forcefully, pulling him in and wrapping his arms around him. Lloyd goes painfully rigid, his breathing uneven for a beat before he gingerly reaches back, awkwardly patting Morro’s shoulder with his one free hand.

“Uh, M-Morro?”

He clutches him tighter. “Shut up.”

“Mo’o, yer crush’n me.”

“Shut up. You’re terrible. You’re horrible. I get why Kai’s so grumpy all the time. How does Kai not have grey hair. How.”

Lloyd makes a muffled sound of indignation as Morro refuses to let go. He probably looks ridiculous, but he can’t find it in himself to care. A host of realizations are hitting him at once, and it’s making him slightly nauseous.

For a second, Lloyd had been quiet. He’d been still and unmoving, and he could’ve been dead. Which would have been bad, apparently, for Morro, because Lloyd can’t die. Because if Lloyd dies, then Morro won’t have a pint-sized blond cousin to yell all the angsty stuff out with, and if Lloyd dies then who’s gonna drag him out of his self-induced isolating depression and make him try gross food and break the law and actually interact in the world? Morro can’t lose that. Lloyd’s the only person who’s genuinely made Morro feel like a person, he can’t go die before Morro makes at least some attempt to apologize for being horrible in general to him.

It clicks, finally, like getting hit in the face with the blunt end of a shovel. Morro is, without a doubt, terrified of the idea of losing Lloyd. Oh no. Oh, this is awful. Because if Morro’s scared of losing Lloyd, that must mean—

“Aw, you do care,” Lloyd croaks, his voice watery.

Morro, soaking wet and holding the one person he’s wanted to see dead most like an over-sized teddy bear in need of love, wants to die.

***********

“You tricked me.”

“Huh?”

Morro shakes his head, pulling the edge of his blanket up around his shoulders, shifting on the uncomfortable sidewalk that lines the parking lot. They’re both bundled up in emergency blankets they swiped from the truck, shivering in their wet clothes even as the sun climbs higher in the sky above them.

“You tricked me,” Morro repeats. “You tricked me into tolerating you long enough that I somehow got duped into liking you as a person. You irritated your way into my life.”

Lloyd breathes a laugh, before wincing and pressing his hand to his forehead again. “You should talk to Kai, I did the same thing to him.”

“You dragged him on a road trip from hell, too?” Morro wonders if he’s been too hard on Kai.

“Not exactly,” Lloyd says. “I did get him stuck in a volcano though.”

“Typical,” Morro mutters. “I don’t even have trouble believing that. You’re a menace."

“Aw, c’mon,” Lloyd grins. “Didn’t I hear you saying that you liked me as person?”

Morro bristles. “No,” he says, firmly. “That’s your concussion talking.”

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “I don’t have concuss— ow, Morro, stop!”

“Huh. Your head isn’t gushing blood, so that’s good,” Morro remarks, pulling his hand away from the back of Lloyd’s head. “That’s still gonna be a bump, though.”

“My hair hides it though, right?” Lloyd’s expression is slightly panicked. “You can’t see it, right?”

“The bump? No.” Morro gestures to Lloyd’s face. “The black eye? Yes.”

“Oh, no.” Lloyd buries his face in his hands. “That’s it, then. I’m toast.”

“Oh, you’re toast,” Morro scoffs. “Kai’s gonna wring my neck.”

Lloyd lifts his face from his hands, shaking his head. “No. I’ll tell him you saved me. That’ll buy you points.”

“Kai’s gonna love that,” Morro snorts.

“Yeah, well.” Lloyd sighs, pulling his blanket around his shoulders. “What’cha gonna do.”

Morro scoffs, pulling his own blanket tighter over his shoulders. The ocean breezes are still a bit chilly with their damp clothes, but the wind is as peaceful as it was earlier, lulling them both into a sleepy kind of haziness. Morro feels disgustingly at peace with the world again, soaking wet and sitting on a sidewalk in the middle of a half-destroyed beach with Lloyd, but he can’t muster up the energy to make himself feel otherwise. Being at peace for five minutes won’t hurt, he reasons.

“By the way, remind me to check the truck before we return it,” Lloyd suddenly says, yawning. “I think I left Kai’s apology present in there.”

Morro frowns. “His what now?”

“Apology present,” Lloyd sighs, scrubbing at his eye. “For putting him through hell.”

“Him?” Morro gapes at Lloyd. “What about me? Where’s my apology gift for getting dragged through hell?”

“Your apology gift is me not hating your guts,” Lloyd huffs, pulling his blanket fully over his hair, like an incredibly ugly veil. “And like, forgiveness and stuff.”

Morro opens his mouth, then abruptly snaps it shut as Lloyd’s words register. He stares at him, feeling a bit dizzy all of the sudden.

“You — what — forgive—?”

“You heard me,” Lloyd yawns again. He perks up, blinking. “Oh, hey, speak of the devil. There they are.”

Morro just catches the familiar hum of Bounty’s engine before the anchor crashes into the parking lot before them, splintering long cracks in the concrete. Lloyd and Morro stare up at the figures on the deck. Morro swallows.

“You’ve, uh, you’ve written up your will, right?” Lloyd gulps.

Morro shakes his head, wordlessly.

Lloyd gives a nervous laugh. “Okay, good. I haven’t either.” He watches in trepidation as a red figure begins sliding down the anchor chain toward them. “Maybe should’ve done that sooner,” he whispers to himself.

***********

Kai doesn’t murder them, but it’s a near thing. In the end, Nya comes nearer to committing homicide, followed closely by Cole.

“Why mine?” he wails, shaking Lloyd by the edges of his blanket the minute Kai hauls them both onto the Bounty. “Why couldn’t you have snatched Jay’s credit card? He’d at least deserve it!”

“I’m sorry,” Lloyd wails back. “I learned my lesson, I promise, I’ll never do it again—”

“For crying out loud,” Nya mutters, watching them both before turning narrowed eyes on Morro. “Well, I was going to murder you, but somehow Lloyd’s still alive.”

Morro’s too tired to even fight back. “He’s like a barnacle,” he says, hazily. “Like — like those parasite things. You let them get to close and you’re stuck for life, those things, you know?”

Nya presses her lips together tightly, but her eyes sparkle in amusement.

“He got you too, huh?” Jay remarks, studying one of the grenade launchers he fished out of the water. “Join the club. Ooh, nice, this has got some real firepower…”

Morro buries his face in his hands. “Just put me out of my misery.”

“Happily,” Kai snaps, his eyes slightly manic from what’s either sleep deprivation or extreme stress. Zane catches him gently, tugging him away from Morro.

“Welcome to the team, I suppose,” Zane tells him, with an easy smile.

Morro groans. He wants to—

Well. He doesn’t exactly want to die. It’s close, but he doesn’t. Not really.

It’s an odd feeling, whatever leaves him off-kilter as he steps below the deck with Lloyd. Maybe that’s just his own sleep deprivation, but still. He snags Lloyd by the elbow before he disappears into his room, and Lloyd pauses, staring curiously at him.

“What you said,” Morro begins, hesitantly. “In the parking lot, about— forgi—that thing.”

Lloyd’s eyes dart to the floor, but he sets his jaw. “That thing. I, uh, yeah. No take backs, right?”

Morro blinks wildly, his tired brain barely able to digest that. “You know you could’ve gotten rid of me out there,” he tries, desperately reaching for sense. “You missed your chance.”

Lloyd meets his eyes again, shaking his head. “Oh, Morro,” he sighs. “Don’t you know the best way to defeat your enemy is to make them your friend?”

Morro stares at him. Lloyd gives him a sharp-teethed grin. “Besides,” he continues. “What’s the point in holding a grudge, when getting you to care about me is much better revenge?”

Morro stiffens. “I don’t care about you,” he protests.

“Nuh-uh, too late now,” Lloyd’s grin widens. “Before you know it, you’ll be calling me cousin. Eating dinner with us. Calling Kai buddy.”

“I would never,” Morro hisses.

Lloyd’s grin is positively sinister. “Oh, you will,” he says. “Because you care now.”

Morro is horrified, truly horrified, to find that saying no to Lloyd’s claim would be a lie. “You’re a monster,” he whispers.

Lloyd smiles brightly. “I’ll see you in practice tomorrow!” he calls cheerfully, before slamming the door in his face.

Morro stares after him blankly, the ugly Oceanworld blanket still hanging limply from his shoulders.

“I hate him,” he finally tells the door, wearily.

Oh, curse everything. Morro can’t even convince himself the door believes him.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #lloyd garmadon #morro #this is so long i'm so sorry #i should probably start just linking these to ao3/ffn #instead of relying on the read more button #but i just!! lots of words!!#can't even write short about morro T-T #my fic

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transmascdeanwinchester · 3 years

Note

You got any trans man dean headcanons? 👀

I don’t know when u sent this so sorry if I’m answering late!!!

Also I just have the basic bitch set of trans dean headcanons tbh but they make me go feral so I will repeat them!!

- lazurus rising when cas brought dean back he put him in the body he’s always deserved (the mirror scene lives in my head rent free baby!)

- teenage dean stealing testosterone from hospitals and pharmacies when he had the chance bc they moved around too much for him to have a stable prescription pickup plan

- John being pissed for awhile that dean’s not his “perfect little girl” like he thought but getting over it bc dean is so determined to emulate him to prove his masculinity that it just makes him a better more fierce hunter and protector so John gets over it in like a year (Dean’s always been Like That anyway,,, in the grand scheme of things it’s less Distracting to have this small ongoing conflict that John just calls him Dean and does the passive aggressive “you wanna be a man? Act like it.” bullshit you know how it goes)

- Dean knowing he’s not a girl from a young age (like probably about 6) and teaches Sam to call him Dean and that he’s his brother from the time sammy can talk (Sam doesn’t learn Dean’s name is legally Deanna until he’s starting middle school)

- Dean binding in his teens by wearing those tank tops that are like skin tight but also stretchy material? With the built in bra part? he wears two of those under all the Normal Winchester layers and it gives him the flat chest (what isn’t flattened completely gets lost under his dad’s leather jacket he wears to school every day)

- it goes without saying but Dean, age 7, cut his hair for the first time in a shitty hotel bathroom mirror by trying to copy a dude in a shaving ad in a magazine (John didn’t even notice for three days)

- Dean gets top surgery after sam goes to Stanford when he’s supposed to be on a solo hunt (he tells John he’s hunting something but really he’s recovering at Bobby’s)

- Bobby, we are not surprised, is a good father figure and shut that shit down when dean explains that he’s just gonna hole up in a motel once he gets his surgery (“Boy, do you know how fucking dirty motel linens are? I am NOT letting you die from an infection and most certainly not leaving you Alone for months defenseless”)

- Dean using makeup to make his jawline a little sharper and more square even tho the iffy food situation growing up made sure he barely has any roundness to his face to begin with

- on the flip side dean playing up his fem features to use as a distraction when he hustles pool

- dean training his voice by trying to copy the sound of his favorite singers voices (and John since he hears his voice most consistently)

- dean knocking the shit out of transphobes (the comments don’t even have to be directed at him, he hears them and it’s ON SIGHT no question)

- dean acting like a womanizer bc that’s what Men Do and it’s all just literally part of his carefully constructed hyper masculine image bc it’s so so difficult to pick up anyone when what’s under theclothes don’t match what can be seen on the surface (Cassie is the first person he sleeps with and he’s so terrified but she doesn’t care holy shit she doesn’t care?)

- Dean chooses to keep his name close to his birth name bc that’s the name his mother gave him and he doesn’t want to disrespect her by completely changing it

- On the topic of dean’s hyper masculine image he constructs it from a mix of John and from the action movies he studies religiously when he has the chance (this is what boys like this is what every man dreams of being I have to like this too-) even tho he has enough action and violence in his actual life thanks,

- Dean not being big on faith because he can’t imagine some higher power choosing to make him be born in the wrong body and make him work so hard to fix it himself like life wasn’t hard Enough

- Dean being so immensely pleased when word gets around the monster worlds about the Winchester Brothers,,, the validity of your reputation being cemented in the way you’ve carefully crafted it to be

- Dean rationalizing that it’s okay for him to spend time and energy on making sure he’s presenting masc and getting the body language and mannerisms down because it helps him be better at his jobs as protector of his family and as a hunter (men are thought of as stronger/scarier, men are taken more seriously when interviewing locals/victim’s families, more authority is afforded to men)

- dean almost shooting a man in a bar bathroom when he’s fourteen and just needed to deal with shark week stuff real quickly but this drunk decided a “teenage girlie only has one use in a men’s bathroom” but dean just knocks him out and sprints back to the motel (dean doesn’t use public bathrooms after that if he can help it)

- dean not knowing the word transgender until he finds it in a library book while he’s supposed to be researching but really he’d heard the slur and needed to be clear on why it made him feel so icky so he was looking it up in the dictionary and he’s like Oh that’s Me

- Bobby doesn’t actually meet Sam and Dean until after Dean’s cut his hair for the first time and Sammy can only say half words (most Dee, which is good enough for Dean) so one of Dean’s first impressions of Bobby is him asking John “didn’t you have a daughter?” and John just giving a tired sigh because he’s too busy with the hunt he’s here for to try and get into it but Dean butts in with “No, he’s always had two boys, I’m Dean and this is Sammy” and Bobby doesn’t comment on this little high pitched voice or question it much because he’s babysitting this kid for the next two weeks and he doesn’t want it to be a hostile two weeks (and it never becomes a problem because by the end of week one Bobby never even entertains the idea that Dean isn’t a little boy)

- After Dean gets back from Hell literally the only thing that trips Sam and Bobby up (aside from that he just resurrected lmao) is that his shoulders are more squared and he’s just built more like he should be (see previous point about cas rebuilding him as he should’ve been!)

- Dean never having much money but he still donates to queer charities when he can (makes a point of it in June especially)

- Dean hangs a trans flag in his room at the bunker (and one in the dean cave too)

- The insane validation Dean feels at being called The Rifhteous Man (also the fact that Heaven Knew he was a man all along but didn’t lift a finger to make that any easier to show the rest of the world adds to dean’s general hatred towards them tho)

That’s all I can think of right now but just!! Trans Dean!!!!

Thank u for asking friend!!!

(@bowie-boy I am tagging u bc idk if u will see this post so hope that’s okay!!!)

#shut up sammy

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sharkneto · 2 years

Note

What did you think of five’s arc this season?

Mixed feelings.

First, I loved his individual scenes, loved all his interactions with the siblings. Loved Drunk!Five. Aidan always brings it, he's such a delight to watch and he's so goddamn consistent in how he acts and understands Five.

The sticking point for me, though, is the goddamn Founder arc, which everything hinges on for him. Five, as I understand him as a character from the first two seasons and obsessively thinking about him every day for two years, wouldn't found the Commission. He's been working to change the timeline to save his family from the moment we've met him. He's had nothing but a terrible time with the Commission (see my multiple rants about how the Commission has changed in it's portrayal since S1), and now we're supposed to believe he's the one who made the whole thing? It feels more like a Gotcha! Twist! moment than necessarily a well-thought out plot point.

Along with that, his motivations for the entire second half of the season stem from his conversation with his future self: "Do Not Save The World". Objectively, an interesting thing to play with, when this character's entire thing for the past two seasons has been to save the world, but it does go against who Five is. He's ridiculously optimistic and tenacious, as seen that he survived the goddamn apocalypse for four decades on the off chance he could figure out how to get out and save his family. And now he's just going to give up and stop doing that because his future self he hates told him that?

Five, generally, doesn't listen. He has a course of action he thinks is correct and that's what he does, whether or not he has support in doing it. Ironically, the one person he actually should be listening to (from a character stand-point) is Reggie, because Reggie has always been right in regards to Five and Five had a good conversation and got good advice from him in the 60s, which made his immediate "fuck Reggie" attitude in S3 a bit of a surprise, to me, at least. Anyway, what I was originally getting at is that at that last dire moment, when they're facing certain death and the end of the universe and there was a sliver of a chance to avoid that by going with Reggie's plan and entering the HOb (the original vote to do so), Five, as I understand the character, should have voted Yes. He's not the kind of guy to accept the end of everything when he's still up and can do something, especially when it means the end of his family and that all his efforts for the past 45 years were all, more or less, for nothing. And Five only votes No because his future self told him to, which seals his family's fate to end with the rest of the universe.

Idk. I do get where they were coming from, if you just accept the whole founder arc. Following Founder Five's advice is an attempt to stop him from ending up in that spot, but it doesn't seem to have a real impact on actually changing anything because they end up in the HOb anyway, Five still loses an arm. There's no way to know exactly what would have happened in Founder Five's original time through, but context says it's not all that different than what happened anyway until Allison stepped in. I'd rather have seen Five continue fighting to the last option to keep his family alive than throw in the towel because his future self said so - he's been all about rebelling against How The Future Should Go up to this point and he's arrogant enough to think he can do better than that other version of himself.

So, I guess where that puts us, is that I loved Five this season, how Aidan acted and reacted in every scene made perfect sense for where the character was at and he's so fun to watch and I still love Five as a character, but the overall plotline he was following didn't make sense to me as I understood the character beforehand. I don't think that's all that unique of a take. Definitely interesting points to make and explore with what he went through, but I think we could have gotten there without that wrench of Founder Five forcing his character to do something I don't think he'd do otherwise.

#much to think about with s3 #but this is where I'm at currently #probably going to evolve a bit with more rewatching and thinking time but i don't think it will leave this general vicinity #again - lots of meta and interesting things to think about inside and around his arc #but i think the point it hinges on isn't a solid foundation for who five is as a character before this point #tua #shark's tua thoughts #entertain shark on his train trip #thanks for the ask!#number 5

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angelic-kisses13 · 4 years

Text

Code Purple

Author’s Note: I finally finished this! I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do.

Warnings: Death, angst lots of angst, kidnapping, swearing, mentions of torture and beatings, sad ending. I think that’s everything though.

________________________________________________

Usually, you knew better than to enter your apartment when the front door was unlocked, especially when you knew you had locked the door this morning. You always locked the door and windows when you left and when you were home. It was something August had ingrained into your head from the time the two of you started living together. He had become anal about it when he had waltzed into the apartment without any trouble, one too many times.

“Are you trying to get kidnapped?” He would ask as he put his gun and holster away. You never were of course, but growing up in a small town, everyone knew everyone, so there was no need to lock your doors or windows. That type of fear was unknown to you.

Your heart thundered in your chest, as you slowly opened the door, the inside of your apartment was pitch black and you were kicking yourself for not leaving a light on when you ran out the door this morning. Taking a steadying breath, you pushed the door fully open and held your keys between each finger. It wasn’t much but with enough strength and good aim you could cause some damage.

Treading lightly on the floor, you avoided the creaky floorboard by the stairs and continued your way down the hallway. Towards the back of the apartment were the kitchen and family room. The kitchen was clear and you quickly scanned the countertop, looking for the knife block, one of the knives was missing. You inhaled and exhaled shakily, trying to gather your thoughts. August always kept at least one handgun in each room, hopefully, whoever was in your apartment didn’t know August as well as you do.

Moving towards the entertainment center, you grabbed the remote and pressed a quick button and the back of the remote unlatched and two thumbprint scanners popped out, they were the shape and size of normal USB drivers but slim like a battery. They were a contraption that had fascinated you when you had first seen them. You had actually laughed at August, never thinking that this would become necessary. You quickly placed your thumb on the first scanner and watched as it lit up blue in confirmation, your shoulders relaxed some, August would get the signal and hopefully dispatch help before anything bad happened.

A footstep above you made your blood run cold, you needed to leave now, the last thing you wanted was to be caught in the middle of something that had nothing to do with you. Grabbing the second scanner you scanned your thumb and watched as a drawer popped out with a gun and ammo. Moving quickly but quietly you loaded the gun and grabbed your phone.

Pressing the power button you glanced at the lock screen to see a picture of you and August together in front of the London Eye, it had been a birthday present from him to you. A trip all around Europe. It had been the best time of your life, just you and August taking pictures, eating in hidden-away restaurants and finding old bookstores that had hidden places for guests to sit and read. Pressing in your code you quickly pulled up August’s number and hit call.

You weren’t supposed to contact him while he was on missions unless it was an emergency and now qualified as one in your mind. The line rang a few times and just when you had given up hope the call connected.

“Darlin’ I thought you knew better than to contact me. What's going on?” You could hear the frustration and concern in his tone.

“Someone is in the apartment, I don’t know who they are. But they must have gotten a key.”

“Where are you?” You refrained from rolling your eyes as you smoothly moved down the hallway, your shoulder rubbing up against the wall.

“I’m walking down the hallway towards the front do-” Your words were cut off when you realized that the front door was now closed.

“Shit.” You breathed as you whipped around and faced the stairs, a silhouette was standing there watching you quietly. The man was huge and fear crept up your spine. You could hear August trying to get your attention. His words muffled as you dropped the phone.

“Who are you? What do you want?” You asked, your hands were shaking as you raised the gun up to the stranger. There was a dark chuckle and you were momentarily distracted as another figure came out from the kitchen, his footsteps fast. Your face paled, where had this one come from? Your heart raced and sweat was building up in the palm of your hands.

You knew you weren’t getting out of here, not without having a gun pressed to your back or a knife to your throat. Flickering your eyes from your gun to the intruders and back you knew what needed to be done.

A quick smirk graced your features before you aimed at the one coming down the hallway. You had fired guns before, knew how to stand and how to time your breathing in order to better maximize your shot. But tonight, all your training faded from your mind. The gun fired and your arms recoiled back, sending you into the wall. August would have your head for the mistake, but that was for another time. Now you needed to get out of there. You had just turned to the front door when you were hit with full force. Your body fell to the floor, the gun sliding away from you.

Your head smacked against the tile, black dots blurred your vision.

“I wouldn’t do that if you want to see Walker again.” You glanced up, trying to figure out who this man was.

“How do you know August?” You asked as you struggled up onto your knees. Your head is spinning as you focus on the man. He grinned, teeth and gums appearing causing him to resemble a shark. Your breath hitches and you stood to your feet, your back straightening at the sight. There was no way you were getting out of here unless he wanted you out.

Walker and I had a deal and he backed out. I can’t allow this, of course, so I figured I would bring in some collateral. Make him see who is really in charge. Before you could utter another word your arms were seized in a vice like grip and you were blindfolded and gagged. Your legs kicked out as you were picked up and you fought against your captors. Your head jutting back trying to come in contact with a body part.

Your captors, however, were able to detain you easily. With a swift knock against your head you were knocked unconscious.

___________________________________________________

You woke up to find yourself in a helicopter and you startled as you realized just how high up you were. Your chest constricted as you looked forward to come face to face with three guns trained on you.

“Ah, sleeping beauty has awoken. Just in time might I add, I didn’t want to give you the bad news but it seems like Walker didn’t make it darling. Means I get to keep you for myself, maybe sell you off for a couple million.” Your face paled at his words. August didn’t make it? How? What happened?

“What happened to him? What did you do, you son of a bitch?” You cried out as you tried to lunge forward. Your head was quickly hit by the butt of a gun and your neck cracked to the side. Your mouth filled with a coppery taste and you spat out the blood.

“Me? Why I did nothing dear, turns out his team doesn’t take too kindly to traitors. Who would have thought?” You could hear the amused sneer as you closed your eyes, willing the tears to go away. You would not give this man the satisfaction of seeing you cry.

“Where are we going?”

“We have some loose ends to take care of. I also thought you might want to see him one last time. You know before the government cremates him and he becomes forgotten.” Your mouth tasted like ashes as you processed his words. You couldn’t imagine forgetting a man like your beloved August. He was everything to you, your heartbeat, your world, and now he had been snatched from you. You hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

“Did he suffer?”

“Not nearly as bad as he would have if I had gotten a hold of him deary.” That thought didn’t make you feel any better. You always knew that he may not come back from a mission. But you always, selfishly, hoped it would have been a quick death for him. You felt your mind and body shut down, what good was it to fight if you had nothing left to live for?

Your one piece of happiness was gone and you were with a maniac who had every intention of breaking you. You swallowed and drew into yourself. This was it, you weren’t going to live long anyway, hopefully you can meet August on the other side. Finally, tell him just how much you loved and adored him. He would probably be so angry that you didn’t try to fight. You knew that it wouldn’t do you any good though, his man was the worst of the worst. Nothing was going to stop him or your situation. You were done for.

____________________________________________________

A few days later and you had finally broken, after hours of countless beatings and then August’s funeral, it was a wonder you had lasted as long as you had.

Now here you were being strapped into a vest, wires and a timer covered the vest and you could only blink in mild surprise. Honestly, this was the tamest of the punishments that you had been forced to undergo. If you died this way, at least you would go out fast, maybe you wouldn’t even feel it? You were ushered onto another helicopter and you were lifted into the sky. You watched as the ground below you went from a rocky mountain terrain to a camp in the middle of a meadow. You were confused as you were grabbed by the arm and dragged out of the helicopter, your feet tripping over the steps. You cried out as your knees hit the asphalt, old injuries and bruises twinging in pain. Lane, tsked in irritation, his hands jerking you up, his gun aimed at the side of your head. You kept your gaze down, having learned that it kept you from further beatings. Your heart skipped a beat when you heard a familiar growl. Your head snapped up, not believing the sight in front of you.

“Don’t fucking touch her.” Cold metal was pressed to the back of your head. A gleeful laugh echoing across the wind.

“I have your girl Walker and either way she dies and you get to watch.” The man - Lane - was a manipulative bastard. He had managed to convince August to commit treason and he had managed to get you to believe that August was dead. But, god, was it good to see your man alive and well. He had a few new cuts and burns to his skin but he was okay. His blue eyes were trained on you and Lane and felt finally at peace. He was okay.

It had all been a ploy and now that you were in this situation, you couldn't believe you fell for it. Here you were 36 hours later, standing in a small camp, you and Lane on one side. August and several others stood facing you on the opposite side. All with raised guns pointed at you.

You’re breathing was ragged, vision swimming with black dots. You knew you were going to die, if August managed to shoot Lane, his finger would fall off the detonator which allowed the bomb, strapped to your chest, to go off. If August were to surrender, you both would be killed. Lane had a team hidden within the camp, ready to handle any situation.

“Auggie!” You screamed. His attention was moving towards you, but his gun was still trained on Lane.

“Code Purple!” August’s eyes widened as he processed your words. It was your command that he had to follow, no matter the situation or outcome. It had been your idea to come up with it. If either one of you had been taken hostage and used against the other without a way out, you were to use code purple. You had always hoped it wouldn't come to this. But you also knew he would be able to overcome it. A blinding smile fell across your features, your eyes glimmering in peace and forgiveness.

You watched as your husband’s shoulders straightened and his eyes darken with understanding and regret. His finger pulled back on the trigger and the crack of the gun resonated around you.

“I love you, my darling Auggie.” You breathed just before the bullet ripped through you. The last view of the world is your husband falling to his knees at the same time your body did.

__________________________________________________

A memorial service was held in your honor. Lane had been apprehended and August had been recruited into the MI team. Everyone had trickled from the burial site, leaving August alone. Breathing in deeply he bent down and dug a small hole through the freshly packed earth. Placing two pieces of jewelry in the hole he covered them and kissed his fingers, patting them lightly on your headstone.

“I love you too, my darling.” He turned and walked away, knowing he was never coming back. But he has entrusted you with an important task.

“Keep our rings safe until I can hold you again.” He whispered and like a loving caress the wind kissed his cheeks in promise and farewell.

Tag List: @agniavateira @cavillanche @cavillunraveled @dancingwendigo @dreamwritesimagines @ficsandcatsandficsandcats @hlkwrites @hnryycvll @honeychicanawrites @johnmotherfuckingshelby @ladyreapermc @laketaj24 @ly--canthrope @mrsaugustwalker @ohvalleyofplentyyy @sciapod @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @supersweetstache @thethirstyarchive @the-winter-witcher @viking-raider @white-wolf-of-rivia @witcherwritings

#angst #kidnapping #torture #august walker #henry cavill #swearing #sad ending

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border-spam · 4 years

Text

Leech Lord AU: Background cast examples/ Holy City HC’s

( Amazing art linked in source)

Troy:

Troy maintains relatively common appearances at some of the "higher" end bars and clubs dotted around the Holy City.

If he's gracing one with his presence, you can tell easily from the crowds clambering outside. There will be a swarm of rabid fans pleading and bribing the bouncers for access, anything for the opportunity to SEE a God in the flesh. He'll be lounging in the plush decadence of the raised and guarded VIP lounge as he takes lazy drags from a hookah. Head back, eyes closed, exhaling pluming clouds of blue tinged smoke in a drug fueled haze of pleasure as the club's lights flash to the bass beat of the pulsing rave music.

He's never alone, the hands of followers blessed with being selected for his evening's entertainment are always caressing the lithe planes of Troy Calypso's torso while their owner's beg for attention at his ear in these dives, but if you look closely, you'll note he's rarely listening. His eyes are often trained on the same corner of the heaving den.

Ol' Desmond by the e-etch dart boards, up a whole 8 fingers and down one dodgy eye, but an AMAZING shot, to the point of being a shark when it comes to bets in these dens of sin. Troy himself has very poor thrown accuracy. Physical issues, really. Between the lack of balance in his shoulders and his reliance on close knife combat as he grew up, he struggles to aim a strong throw now. He often likes to sit, absorb the attention of desperate, pathetic acolytes, and soak in the pleasurable smog of the night's choice of chemical high pumping through his system as he listens to this oily little shit swindle money out of people who assume he's going to flunk the shot.

Des knows the gold flake laden cocktails that arrive in the manicured grip of scantily clad barstaff a little too eager to caress your fingers as they pass the glass are slightly out of the price range of most of the cartel scum hanging around him in these gambling corners, and sends the looming presence of Calypso's VIP platform the odd wink, talking just a bit louder next time about how to flex your elbow and tense in your lats just right, how to bullseye from sight, how to control your breathing on the release..

If he catches the glint of the God King's golden fanged smirk out of the corner out of his eye, he's sayin' nothing.

Seifa:

There's a woman in one of the food markets along the outskirts of the lower city, just where the cracked pavement makes way to the hard dirt of the grimy slums, who has a tiny noodle stall built into the base wall of one of the towering, junked together living complexes.

Seifa found it years ago on a bender with Ven who'd insisted he knew just the right spot to slake their lust for oily filth. To trust him. He was never wrong... right? It had hit the mark, even if he'd passed out face down on the counter and needed to be thrown across her back and carried back to the Cathedral. Or.. she thinks he did? That night is honestly a bit of a blur.

She's been visiting religiously ever since. Sei tried to learn her name a few times, but embarrassingly kept mispronouncing it much to her disappointment. The older woman would laugh, cheeky eyes twinkling behind a lifetime of laughter lines, and tell Sei just to call her "Auntie”.

If she knows Sei is a Saint, it's not something she’s ever mentioned, regardless of what entourage is with her when she makes her pilgrimage to auntie's stall once a month. The food is a greasy mess of noodles, whatever veg she's found available that week, and meat Sei tends to steer clear of, though she'd never be obvious about it, of course. She's not sure what it is exactly, and isn’t keen on ingesting it even if she'd rather not hurt the other woman's feelings.

If the food is half of the draw to make the trip, the other is auntie's ear. She always has time, always nods and hmm's and gasps along to whatever you're telling her as she stirs and flips the giant woks of ingredients in the steaming night air of the city. Is she actually listening? Doesn't really matter to Sei, she's there. She can spill her guts as she fills them with junkfood. Aunty doesn't judge, doesn't particularly care, but every now and then?

Every now and then she gives advice.. and if you don't pay attention to what a woman like this tells you?

You’re a fucking fool.

Tyreen:

She doesn't know the man's name but she can sense him a mile off. There's a strange awkwardness in the air when he's around, it clearly turns others away, considering how often she's found him alone, but there is a draw in it for her. He's a kindred spirit, maybe. Or someone who genuinely doesn't care about what she is, who she is, she's not too sure, but it's unique. He's special, that's for sure.

The first time they'd met had been 5 years ago, the Grand Cathedral's last bricks had been laid and she had taken to wandering the massive halls late at night when there was nothing to hear bar the click of her boots echoing through the great stone and hallowed glass wall-faces, and her thoughts.

She'd been lost in them, no longer fully paying attention to her direction. Subconscious focused on placing one foot in front of the other as she thought of Nektrotafeyo, how the cool of the Cathedral's night air was so close to the soft breeze that whispered between the arcing, twisted trees that surrounded the entrance to their home, when she was interrupted by his gravelly:

"You. Moofv"

and the irritated thwack of his broom against her foot.

She'd snapped out her reverie and straight into a rage, turning to grab at who so INSOLENTLY spoke to God Queen Calypso, and stopped short as she came face to face with him. His lopsided, angry face meeting her eye to eye, messy mop of aging grey hair curling around his ears and over his janitor overall's collar.

She'd paused, and his broom had slammed into her foot again.

"I SED, MOOFV."

And she did. Jumped back like a scolded child, apologised, and shrunk under his irritated glare as he shuffled past and began to sweep again, humming a guttural broken tune to himself as he cleaned.

She watched for a while longer as he polished, dusted, straightened the pews and scraped blood off the tiles.

Every few weeks she wanders down to the chambers of worship and waits till she feels that strangeness in the air, says hello as he shuffles by. His grunted greeting is more genuine than any of the conversations she's meant to enjoy in her day to day life, and he either doesn't know who she is, or does not *give a shit* that he's being dismissive of a God.

Sometimes she tries to help, hands him things from the floor, takes a cloth and wipes surfaces down to his disapprovement, he hits her hands with a dusting brush and tells her:

"Do it 'gain, terrible. Uggh. Like child lerning to swim in shark water. Stupīd"

She does it again. Sometimes he smiles after. It's nice.

Asks are Open!

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypos #calypso twins #seifa #leech lord #my writing #my hcs

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redxriiot · 3 years

Text

Little hc dump about Ei’s dad/parents:

Takehiro Kirishima && Esperanza de la Torre; their Quirks are Geokinesis & Silky Shark respectively.

Current ages ( with Ei being 16 ) are 46 & 36 respectively.

Takehiro works in construction, though he had wanted to be a Pro hero growing up. He even trained up his Quirk to try out for several hero schools, though he’d ended up having to give up on it in order to focus on providing for his family. He still trained up his Quirk even after getting married, because it was a comfort for him. That and he wanted to be able to protect them and others if needed. He’d recently applied for a Quirk work license to better do his job, though it’s a bit of a moot point now considering the current times.

Esperanza took up work as a waitress after having gone to Japan to study Quirk science, though her family had wanted her to go into entertainment ( acting, singing and modelling ) like her mother. She kept it up during her pregnancy, quitting for a couple years, then going right back to it years later when Eijirou was able to take care of himself, before being promoted manager. She’s currently looking into getting back into her studies and what to specialize in particular.

They met when Esperanza was 18/Takehiro 28. She had been with a few friends and coming back from a shopping trip. Takehiro had been heading for drinks with his work buddies. A villain attack gave them their chance meeting, with Takehiro having used his Quirk to save Esperanza from rubble.

She’d been smitten on first sight, especially when he’d gotten so concerned over her and smiled when she’d stammered out she was alright. She ended up thinking about him days after, so she figured it had to be love.

So clearly the normal thing to do here was pursue the guy, right? And she did so whole-heartedly, especially after being encouraged by some uni friends. She brought him food, drinks, took him out for coffee on the odd occasion they both had a free day ( since she’d taken the time to figure out his daily schedule ), and made every effort to worm her way into his heart all while successfully juggling her class schedule and other friendships.

Takehiro hadn’t realized at first, he’d thought she just wanted to thank him for saving her. Then he kept humoring her because he didn’t want to refuse her kindness ( in terms of her gifts ), and because he thought it was a lot nicer to spend some time with someone who wasn’t a coworker ( especially since it got him out of going to mixers and even relaxed him lots. That, and he’d initially assumed she was older than she was, so he hadn’t thought to establish boundaries ). When he belatedly realized it was a full-blown crush, he had it in mind to keep things between them as a friendship. Because while he genuinely liked her company, he had definitely been a bit put off by the age difference between them when he learned of it.

That lasted about a couple months. Because she’d been so disheartened by his rejection and withdrew from him a little then altogether, having not known how to actually handle it. In turn, he ended up missing having her around when she did. And really did not like her being upset, with him or for whatever reason. So he looked for her and asked her out with a grand gesture, hoping it would make her happy and would help things get back to normal for them.

It worked.

Neither had much relationship experience before ( Takehiro had, though he’d also been too much of a workaholic to successfully keep it and Esperanza grew up pretty sheltered ), so it hadn’t been until months later that they actually started to act like a couple. And that had been because friends had to prompt them to actually do so. They had only stuck to doing everything they had before, even with a few more–and actually calling them–dates. It just felt that natural to keep to it. They hadn’t even considered kissing and hugging at the start, sharing their first actual embrace on her nineteenth birthday, and the first kiss on Christmas. They consummated the relationship on Valentine’s Day because they’d had an argument weeks earlier and they figured maybe that would help solve things.

It hadn’t. Not entirely.

On the plus they got a kid out of it. Which gave them incentive to stay together, even when Esperanza had offered to break things off and take care of the kid herself so as to not ‘inconvenience’ him.

Takehiro took up more work hours to prepare for the kid, plus buying a bigger house for them all to live in. Esperanza had money saved up her waitressing job to help with, and ended up dropping out of uni after his birth. It took them a month after Eijirou’s birth to realize they should probably get married. When they could, they were wed on Christmas.

Esperanza’s family had not been happy she genuinely wanted to get married to a Japanese man ( more so, one ten years her senior ), so she ended up cutting herself off from the family before they could do it first. Luckily for her, Takehiro’s mother had quite taken to her and was very happy to hear of their union and support them.

Things were okay for the most part, with both being quite happy with their baby boy.

Except for the postpartum depression.

Because of Takehiro’s increase in work, Esperanza ended up dealing with it without him and occasionally helped by the neighbor’s wife ( Ei’s childhood friend Tomo’s mother ). Which of course wound up making her feel envious that even with the other’s husband’s work, her husband still spent plenty of time with her. Which did not help her marriage at all, because from that point on, she kept comparing how different they were and why that was, if maybe they were doing something wrong or she was the problem, etc.

Not to mention both Esperanza and Takehiro were wholly unprepared to handle a child. Takehiro straight up lost ten-month-old Eijirou when he’d watched him during a free day, eventually finding him happily crawling halfway down the neighborhood. Esperanza could never handle his crying and fussing, yelling him to quiet down if not otherwise accidentally making him cry more in her attempts to soothe him and resulting frustration.

They got more practice had handling him up until his Quirk manifesting happened. Then it became a struggle of trying to stop him from touching anything and anyone to minimize damage. Which prompted Eijirou to be quite conscious of his Quirk, particularly when he’d almost cut the person who would his best and only friend growing up, and then a boy he’d accidentally hurt because some other kids in kindergarten got too touchy with him during a game even when he insisted they stop and he’d swung his hands to stave them off. Which became part of why he didn’t have many friends growing up.

Who got to deal with it all? Esperanza. Who was admittedly not the most patient person, even if she tried her best to make the boy happy and understand him. Takehiro knew that part of her well, which was partly why he was happy to take up more hours away from the house. Especially since they began to bicker more and more as Eijirou grew up.

It always varied–Takehiro not being home enough and accused of purposefully avoiding them, why Eijirou choosing to spend more time at his friend’s house over his own home, if he was too independent or not enough, Esperanza’s lack of emotional openness, how stifling and obstinate she could be, the fact that Takehiro was spending too much money for some reason aside sending money to his mother, why he wouldn’t let Esperanza work, etc.

The latter eased up when Eijirou took up cooking, eventually being put in charge of making his parents lunches. Which he did so gladly in addition to the house chores because he really liked making his parents happy and helping them. Esperanza was able to work again with him taking that off her shoulders.

Ei especially adored doing everything for his mother, since she was around him more and as such she became the parent he was most attached to. Even if there were times things got tense between them too, especially when their temperaments clashed. Even still, he always sought her approval every chance he could and any way he could learn something to impress her or take care of so she didn’t have to worry. Especially since doing so usually left her in a better mood enough to shower him with affection. Because she tended to leave him to his own devices, especially the older he got, he would get increasingly creative in ways to get her attention, whether that meant deliberately pissing her off in order to make her look at him or asking about something that made her happy to take time to talk to/teach him. How each worked out always depended on the kind of work day she’d had, so he could never pinpoint what worked best.

He scarcely spoke to his father even when the man wasn’t at work, since he was usually asleep or out with friends, or chose to spend time with his wife when he could ( which Ei himself even prompted bc he saw how happy it made her, plus thinking how energetic he could be was really bothersome for his tired father, judging by the couple times he got the guy to play with him ). Even if Eijirou really wanted to spend time with his father and make the guy proud of him, too. Maybe more so than his mother sometimes, considering Takehiro’s praises and affections came to him a lot less than Esperanza’s did. It was a rare time when Ei would actually get one-on-one time with the man, and even then, it was typically napping or eating together in awkward silence. As such, Ei only ever saw the best of him or hardly anything at all, whereas he had more chances to see his mother’s flaws and the good combined.

Regardless of the differences, the kid did everything he could to make both his parents as happy as possible as much as he could. And it helped ease things some.

It didn’t mean the fighting stopped. Especially when Eijirou was elsewhere, like his friend’s house or off exploring with him, and couldn’t hear it all happen.

A particularly nasty fight between them when Eiji was 10 ended up with Takehiro having an affair. Esperanza found out some time later, though, in spite of the hurt she’d felt, said nothing, thinking that she would just have to bear with it for Eijirou’s sake. The boy needed a father, right? If she turned a blind eye, everything would be okay.

She did eventually break it to Takehiro that she knew during another fight later on, but they hadn’t chosen to divorce even still because they thought they could work through it for the sake of Eijirou. They thought with that, the air had been cleared and could patch things up. Through that time things did improve some between them and it seemed everything would turn out alright.

Only for them to divorce a year later when Eiji was 13. It was a culmination of Takehiro’s mother dying, Esperanza’s grudge and accidental insensitivity, and Takehiro revealing that he’d had a child with the other woman ( not to mention had rather spitefully compared her and Esperanza ) during the resulting fight that really ended it.

Because Esperanza had been scared of losing Eijirou too, thinking he would prefer staying with his father ( she’d been so sure he would, considering they bickered a lot too, that she was so sure he hated her, but really, he still would have chosen her in a heartbeat ), she’d convinced Takehiro to leave him to her, even when he’d wanted to take the boy with him and make up for the lost time together ( read: now that the more difficult times in managing him were over or at least he thought so ).

Esperanza made sure to hit Takehiro right where it’d hurt, citing that he’d have to reveal the affair to Eijirou and the kid would NEVER forgive that. That Eijirou would NEVER feel happy with the man who scarcely bothered to stick around for him over someone who actually KNEW him, much less replaced with some strange woman who definitely didn’t. Did Takehiro even remember what he was allergic to? Bet he didn’t know it was penicillin. Did he even know his own son’s favorite foods or the best way to make him smile after a shitty day? He lamentably didn’t. He couldn’t even remember the day Eijirou manifested his Quirk or did his first errand. He sure as hell didn’t know his son was afraid of thunder and large dogs, that cats and strangers made him so nervous.

In the end, Takehiro couldn’t help but agree to it, moreover to leave the house to them and keep direct contact only if Eijirou did. Which he didn’t because Esperanza deliberately cut the means to, by giving Eijirou the incorrect phone number and thus making sure he could never contact his father. Which, in addition to outright never telling him she divorced his father ( as a result of her fears of Ei leaving her kept prompting her to ), ended up making for a point of contention between the mother and son.

Takehiro did attempt to send money to help support Eijirou and the house payments a couple times, but Esperanza always rejected it, saying she didn’t need anything from him save the house he left them with. She even took up working more hours so she wouldn’t need his help ( eventually Eijirou himself took up a job to help her too ).

Esperanza did reconcile with her family once Takehiro was out of the picture, though she was too prideful to ask them for help even still. Though they choose to give her some aid in the form of properly paying off the house for her.

Takehiro in the meantime focused on his work and the new family, learning from prior experience to properly balance work and his new wife and daughter. Even with the agreement he’d made with Esperanza, he did try to keep tabs on his son. He couldn’t do so initially, but since the boy had chosen to go to UA and subsequently gotten more into the public eye ( having noticing his son’s name as one of the people involved in the USJ incident ), the man did manage to keep up with his son’s achievements. He watched the Sports Festival and even got to see Eijirou’s debut live.

He was rather proud to learn that his son ended up going for the hero career ( compared to Esperanza who constantly worried about if Eijirou would be okay, that it was too dangerous ). Takehiro ended up gushing about him often to his daughter. While never explicitly stating it was because Red Riot was his son ( he didn’t know how she would take it after all, and thinking her too young to know just yet ), more because his Quirk resembled his daughter’s in defensive capabilities and he wanted her to have a role model like him.

His new wife Mihiro had no problems with it, nor did she hold any ill will towards Takehiro’s first family. If anything she felt guilty about the situation they gone through.

Takehiro is always tempted to reach out to Eijirou, making it seem like an accident so Esperanza wouldn’t be able to complain. The problem was how he would explain everything or if the kid would even WANT to see him. He hadn’t the slightest idea how to do that. And so he never did end up doing so.

#hc #//Follow up for the previous drabble a bit. Lots to unpack; hope I wrote it okay. Might edit later or smth #;mun has spoken #//The feelings they had for each other were in reality strictly platonic. But bc they hadn't realized it; them trying to keep up romantic #ones really took a toll on them. They never managed to communicate it bc they didn't know how and both jumped to conclusions #//That's the main reason behind their fights. Both assumed the other turned against/resented them/etc and acted 'accordingly'#//They never realized relationship was always at its best when they only acted as friends would; esp after fighting or spending time togeth #//They both still held some fondness for each other but the nature of the split made it extremely awkward to keep in contact #//They both still considered calling the other up and making sure they're okay; bc they just missed each other so much even after that #//Esperanza eventually did (post-war arc) to let Takehiro know about the UA evac; to prepare him for having to meet with Ei again #//And that she couldn't be there for him bc the whole Ei being a hero was taking a toll on her. She couldn't handle it anymore #//They start to patch up their friendship from there; even with Anza's grudge. Bc she still wants to know how her son is doing even an ocea #away. And Takehiro saw it as a chance to try and reconnect with the both of them. She was resistant; but they fell back into old patterns #//It's Eiji that's most resistant to Takehiro; especially after he learns of everything. Bc he can't forgive the guy for hurting his mama #//Especially not up and REPLACING them; as he sees it #long post for ts #//His mother really did try to keep up the idea that Takehiro was only constantly working out of prefecture #//At first bc she didn't want Ei to know about the divorce and potentially follow after his dad; esp when things got harder between them #//And also so it wouldn't hurt him as much (ended up being worse bc Ei thought HE was the reason his dad left in the end)#//Then it became more because she was trying to convince herself that she hadn't lost her best friend; that he really WAS gonna come back #//Which of course made things worse for her; and in turn severely affected her relationship with Ei for the worse too #//Bc she kept her feelings and pain shut tight and inadvertently took things out on him when it became too much to handle #//Which he responded to in kind; hurting her right back. But even still; he'd never thought of leaving bc she NEEDED him #//She convinced him of it; telling him outright and moments of stupor when he'd see how much she needed someone to be there for her #//Ei and Anza both have no clue how to communicate shit; so they end up in a argue; pretend it never happened; talk; laugh; argue pattern #//V oversimplified tbh; but I'm running out of tags. I still need to detail their relationship out but word choice is a bitch #//It doesn't excuse what she did; but Ei could never TRULY hate her over it when he finds out the truth even if he wanted to. Even hating #being lied to more than anything. Bc he knows he'd damn well do the same exact thing if he were in her shoes.Not that he'd forgive it easy #//Wouldn't easeup on resenting his dad much tho'; even if he were to really explain himself. It's too little too late; in Ei's mind #//There's so much more to this but the tag limit will not allow me to elaborate further jfdkf. But this definitely ain't the whole picture

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