#ill probably never psychically recover

[sheltershock]

Being sick is the worst. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for a psychic…or can I? 

Sasha already has a canon aversion to germs. I wouldn’t say he’s a hypochondriac, but he’d probably consider getting sick one of the worst things that can happen to him. The most dreadful part is the removal of his bodily autonomy. He's fine with smoking cigarettes, and is aware that they’re bad, but that’s a choice he’s making about his body. He did not choose for someone to come into his shared space sick, spread their germs around, and now he has the suffer the painful consequences of their actions. Absolutely not. Since he can’t really police sick people though he’s really conscious about germs and sanitation. He probably casually has boxes of disposable face masks just in case he has to encounter a sick person, and his aesthetic lets him get away with it for the most part without anyone suspecting anything offensive. But when he does get sick it’s him drifting in and out of consciousness trying to work from home, failing, and then succumbing to exhaustion. Lots of loss of productivity guilt.  

Sasha never thought he’d have to take care of anyone while they’re sick, after all that’s what hospitals are for, and he chose to not work in a hospital. But then at some point after they moved in together, Milla eventually got sick. Honestly his first thought was to leave and stay in a hotel until she got better. She said she’d be fine and that she can take care of herself anyway. But they’re together, and seeing Milla upset/unwell makes him…uncomfortable. Plus, he’s probably already been exposed anyway so…he chose to stay. He moved into the living space  for the foreseeable future, keeping everything as disinfected as possible and left the bedroom to serve as a quarantine. Milla was initially surprised to wake up to see Sasha still there, knowing what he’s like, but was ultimately happy by it. 

As a caretaker, Milla is used to germs. She’s pretty much ready to be a nurse to whoever for however long it takes for them to recover from their sickness. She keeps track of medicine and administration times, food and drinks, cleanliness, even just being nearby and available for emotional needs. She’s got everything under control, so there’s nothing to worry about. She applies the same philosophy as herself being sick: you just need to slow down and rest up, darling.

Milla, however, was not expecting that she wouldn’t really receive the same level of care from Sasha she gives to everyone else when they’re sick. He’d almost never be in the room with her, no matter how many times she’d try to convince him. He’d happily talk to her through telepathy but it wasn’t really the same to her. She had the romantic idea of her feverishly speaking her mind as her lover grasped her hand from her bedside, like in romantic comedies. And even if they both ended up catching the same illness at least they could stay with each other in painful solidarity. Sasha did not find this fantasy funny nor romantic. Whenever he was in the room with her, he always had a medical mask and disposable gloves on. But that was a rare sight after she kept trying to grasp his wrist to convince him to stay with her. She completely understands why he wouldn’t, but it still hurt. 

Instead of bringing out food or drinks, Milla would wake up to bowls on the bedside table and glasses of water. It initially took her a few hours and several micro naps to realize the glass hadn’t actually become empty despite how much she’d drink. Medicine would be laid out nicely with handwritten notes with instructions and timecards which listed out the previous times she’d woken up to take them. The washcloths on her forehead, around her neck and wrapped around her wrists hadn’t dried out yet.

Milla considers getting sick as a sign from the universe or just her body that she needs to slow down and take care of herself. Her body is looking for her! And since she’s pretty active and generally healthy, Milla doesn’t get sick very often, which only serves to prove her own mindset. She doesn’t have any problems with taking those sick days off, sleeping most of the day, watching TV, having soup and warm drinks…she just wishes she felt like doing any of those things. The aches and pains just make her really clingy to anyone willing to give her the time of day, willing to talk their ear off. She doesn't enjoy being alone for long periods of time when she’s well, and she especially doesn't like it when she’s sick. And in the delirium that comes with a fever, her control over her own mind slips.

Fever dreams mock her pain as the Nightmares twist and tangle her past and present emotions into a living hell. While technically someone could go in there and defeat all her Nightmares, they’d just reform quicker than it’s worth to get rid of them. Her fatigue from the illness has her subconscious mostly taking the reins rather than her waking mind. And as a result,  the regeneration time is insane as her memories fire off in jumbled slideshows some people would refer to as dreams. As much as she’d like to spend all her time sick staying up with the hypnotic static of a TV screen, the stable pages of a book or the allure of a new conversation, she has to return to that world eventually. There are few things that can alleviate her Nightmares on good days, and even less on her worst ones. But sometimes, despite her illness, Sasha will climb in with Milla and hold her while she sleeps. 

She’d stir amongst feverish dreams where party guests shrink and don the distorted screaming faces of people long lost. Beside frigid, hissing flames she’d feel sheets and blankets she’s under shift, and hear mumbles about how sticky the linen is with lukewarm sweat. And as she opens her eyes she’d see her upper body and head be moved so a pair of arms securely wrap themselves around her shoulders and waist. Another shiver would slide down her spine. Boiling parts of her body that were locked away under the blankets would be exposed to the cruel air conditioned exterior. 

But she’d feel the warmth wrapped around her upper body from the new embrace and yawn. Tears would well in her eyes from the pulsating rhythm down her neck, and her lover would shudder, being all too knowledgeable about the germs being released as she opened her mouth. A shaky hand would find its way to the side of her head. She coughed, quickly grasping onto the much cleaner fabric of her lover’s clothes. But as she eased her breathing she’d feel a slow, soothing stroking sensation ever so lightly on the surface of her scalp, through her hair, and to the bare skin of her neck. 

Her eyelids would grow heavy again. But unwilling to return the fiery hellscape currently commandeering her own party, she’d forcibly grasp them open again. She’d yawn again, and feel the hand combing through her hair twitch– just for a second. But Sasha is here. She allows her vision to fall to black, and just focuses on feeling the rise and fall of his chest and the slightly faster heart rate. Like the lull of a moving train, she’d drift off and her dreams would be a little less worse. Faces become transparent. Frostbitten, charred wallpaper is more vibrant. The vocals of the music fall to murmurs. The real world still calls. Still hearing the hum of the air conditioner, feeling the rise and fall akin to warm ocean waves and the scent of something she can’t quite put her finger on through her stuffy nose, but she knows smells good. 

She hums lightly, about to say something, but the vibrations only make the soreness worse. She opens her mouth, before closing it and burying her face farther into his chest. She swallows and her throat burns. A weight from the back of her head tilts towards her face and everything starts to feel more distant. She clutches the fabric harder. It twists in her grimy fingers. 

The arm around her waist shifts as a hand reaches up to cusp the side of her jawline. With one arm around her back and the other resting over her breast, she sighs into another yawn. Exhaling softly, her grip loosens as her fingers relax and rests into the mild heat of a warm body. And her mind does too. 

For a brief moment she looks through her eyes again. The blankets bear different patterns. Her arms are wrapped around a pillow, but it’s just as soft. Light pours into the hallway from a widening door frame. The mirror inside the hallway bathroom is completely fogged up. An arm stretches into view as the light disappears with a click. Milla’s eyes close and she can hear the kettle hiss as she drifts off again. 

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #milla vodello #sasha nein #oops it’s all sashamilla! #sashamilla #headcanons #sickfic? #can i tag that? #this all started because I wanted to do a writing warm up #and I like hurt comfort so I just made some #but then it turned out kinda flowery and I didn’t hate it? #so here have some sashamilla hurt comfort stuff I guess #I was supposed to draw tonight but I ended up spending the two hours editing this to be presentable for human eyes #oh well there’s always tomorrow #good night

[doctorwhoisadhd]

Was scrolling through the Thomas England tag, happened across one of your posts, Sixpack’s original PGR was Flossing? I only joined post Discipline, I didn’t know their original PGR was even recovered, since pictures I’ve seen from before the Waveback don’t show one. Neat!

yeah i know right?? i was around when the waveback event happened (the first thing i really said in maincord was probably an hour or two before thomas england got incinerated) but i honestly dont even know if i looked at sixpack's actual player page at the time. it's at least somewhat likely, since i participated in the initial loring, but i honestly do not know!

honestly the only reason i even KNOW that about original sixpack is because not too long ago i was actually looking to see if i could find it anywhere, since i remembered the player page of the pre-waveback sixpack, who was an actual replacement player, was never truly rebuilt when the devs changed the name on thomas england's player page. i believe i found it on before.sibr.dev — and by the way, because of the server rollback, there's several days you can't get to by typing in the numbers for season and day (season 4 days 81-87. unless you know, my wifi's acting up again, which is... a possibility 😔😔😔). you can only get to them by a) using the arrows, b) going to before those days and letting time pass (though before's data isn't granular enough, so things like incinerations and feedbacks take a few minutes to register in team pages and such), or c) using the link to thomas england's incineration in before's chapter selection page.

(similar curiosities: the blaseballplayers.netlify fk viewer has two sixpack dogwalkers on it, so you can still view the original's apple stats. hloroscopes also has two different sixpack dogwalkers listed if you search, and the link icon next to them lead to different player pages (one of which i can verify would lead to the original sixpack's page, if it existed, which it does not), but clicking on either one leads to the current sixpack (the one who started off as thomas england, as hloroscopes will show you). similarly, blaseball-reference has two sixpacks leading to the same stats page, which is of course also thomas england's stats page (for about the first season and a half, anyway). also, reblase doesn't have days 81-87 of season 4 either.)

FOR THE RECORD: pre-waveback sixpack's player page ID: bc4187fa-459a-4c06-bbf2-4e0e013d27ce

huh, also: in the process of lookin around for the original sixpack on before, i have discovered something a little weird: her player page changed from my saved screenshot? here's my screenshot:

[ID: player page for the original pre-waveback Sixpack Dogwalker (the one erased by the rollback). her team is listed as Hawaii [sic] Fridays, her Current Vibe is Far Less Than Ideal, & she has 3 Batting stars, 0.5 Pitching, 1.5 Baserunning, & 1.5 Defense. she has neither an item nor armor (the retired item system). her Evolution is Base, Pregame Ritual is Flossing, Coffee Style is Cream & Sugar, Blood Type is Psychic, & Fate is 9. her soulscream is 5 lines long. /end ID]

but if you try to actually GO to THIS sixpack's player page on before, on day 86 or 87 of season 4, the page you get taken to looks... kinda different? she's Null Team instead of fridays, her current vibe is neutral, her coffee style is black, her blood type is A instead of psychic, and she doesn't even HAVE a pregame ritual listed. even her soulscream's different. same number of characters, but not the same characters. which is... huh. WEIRD. i'm gonna go ask in sibrcord, cause this is really odd — i wonder if they found some new data or something? ill update on it once i get an answer... in the meantime, now i have this version of og sixpack's player page saved here as well i guess!

#sixpack dogwalker #blaseball #thomas england #for the record that first thing i really said in maincord #was positing that just-feedbacked new friday baldwin breadwinner should wear loafers. god bless #askbox #ari opinion hour #anyway this is SUPER ODD i wonder what happened #original sixpack dogwalker

[through-your-playground-eyes]

Man I was singing the Fiona Apply lyric "how can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone" and my mom looked at me and said "Does that hit a little close to home?"

Sick burn mom

#ill probably never psychically recover #thanks mom #fiona apple #sick burn

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

can't stop thinking of this op danny/guardian spirit/young justice crossover that I can't write because I don't have the DC universe background knowledge for it so I'm gonna just dump the concept here

be prepared for a lot of rambling

so the JL consider Amity Park a Safe Zone in case of dire emergencies

but nobody is told why, only the top members of the Justice League know anything about the place, Robin probably breaks into Batsy's computer and finds something about some hero there named Phantom but he can't find any other info about him or the town other than that he's trustworthy

and maybe the Young Justice crew get fucked up and the JL are indisposed or being distracted or something and the safe houses are compromised so Robin has to be like 'alright team I know this One Place that's supposed to be like a last resort safe space' so they all end up in Amity Park, and their pursuers are right on their tail until they hit the edge of town and then some fucking force of nature comes down on the bad guys following them out of nowhere and fucks them up

they would just be like 'holy shit who is this guy how come we never heard of him??'

and Robin is like 'oh hey so you're Phantom? Batman said this was a safe place to go when we're in trouble'

and he's expecting Danny to know some shit or have a plan or a safehouse to take them to

but Danny's just all 'uhhh this place gets attacked by inter-dimensional monsters every other day why would he send you here for safety? also Batman knows who I am???'

Robin is just confused as all hell because apparently Batman has this town listed as the Ultimate Safehouse and its hero is listed as Trusted but he's never even spoken to the guy?

real sus

but Danny takes them in and finds some abandoned house for them to stay in, and promises that whoever is chasing them will not set foot in this town, like they might have to deal with some ghosts popping up but human threats are no problem

and they're in this empty house that's, okay well it isn't dilapidated or anything but it has no power or water or even security, Phantom just tells them he's got their backs while they recover and don't worry about it

but Robin wants answers so he's quizzing Danny on who he is and why Batman trusts him

but Danny's got no idea, he's surprised the JL even know who he is because nobody has ever come to see him, nobody has ever given him any indication that they even know he's here, which he was kinda peeved about because he had to tackle every ghost attack by himself

but the Justice League not only knew he was here but apparently volunteered him to look after them?

he's a little bit pissy about that, Robin cannot entirely blame him, Robin thinks this whole thing is weird, like there has to be a reason, the JL don't just ignore kids fighting crime on their own, they would have invited him into their team, offered him help and training, not left him to figure it all out alone

although the kid was pretty powerful, he took out a whole crew of bad guys in one breath, literally

true to Danny's word, nobody finds them, the guys who had been hunting them down and chasing them everywhere can't seem to track them here, either that or Phantom just keeps getting in their way when they try, they feel so safe here, safer than they've ever felt before

Megan picks up that there's something unusual about the place, it's like the town itself is telling them that they're safe here, the air is full of love and warmth and comfort, somebody here wants them to feel at ease, somebody here wants them to feel safe

Robin still thinks it's sus

he starts to wonder if Batman was coerced by this psychic force to mark the town as a safe space, but he's pretty sure Batman's too savvy for that, besides, Megan was certain that there was no coercion or ill intent plaguing their minds, it's just a general atmosphere of safety

and she's pretty sure it's coming from Phantom

they witness a ghost fight or two and are amazed that the JL have been ignoring these pretty significant threats and just let some kid handle it alone, sure he has the same powerset as the enemies plus some, but he's still a kid and he's alone

none of them would ever have been allowed this much freedom or this little assistance

super super sus

after the JL finally get out of whatever issue they've been stuck with, they come pick up the kids and Danny is there like 'oh hey I think I need an explanation because what the fuck guys'

and Batman in all his blunt glory just tells him 'we were advised not to interfere unless absolutely necessary'

Danny obviously Does Not Like this answer and wants to know who this guy is that's ordering Batman around, then low and behold, Constantine shows up, immediately balling out Batman because 'why the fuck are you in Amity Park rn I made it VERY CLEAR that this place is a delicate fucking ecosystem if Superman gets god damn overshadowed we are all gonna have problems'

aaaaaand suddenly it all makes sense

Danny realises that any hero who's powerful enough to take on a ghost literally cannot risk that power in the hands of creatures that can just take over their bodies at any time, especially when this is a standard ability in all of Danny's enemies

but he's still shitty because like 'y'all could still have called me or something it would be nice to know I wasn't totally alone out here ya know'

and Constantine is all 'kiddo I literally had the god of time show up in my bedroom at 3am to tell me to make sure none of these fucks tried to adopt you as a side kick, one of them has a track record with this kinda thing it's a legit problem, I couldn't give these fuckers an inch, this town was off limits. so WHY ARE YOU ALL HERE RN'

aaaand Batman has to explain them a thing, basically Phantom is considered so fucking OP and has such an omniscient connection to the town itself that it makes for the perfect hiding place and defence for anyone in dire straights, and it really is only supposed to be a last resort, the side kicks had absolutely nowhere else to go with all of their safe houses compromised

aaaand that's how Danny learns that he is kind of more powerful than most of the god damn Justice League

hope you enjoyed this because I am never gonna be able to actually write it, have a nice day ✨

#lula's aus #danny phantom #overpowered danny #op danny dc edition #guardian spirit au #young justice #justice league #dc

[scullydubois]

Only the Light ch. 5

read on Ao3 here. read the earlier parts here. 

Description: Mulder & Scully head to Aubrey, Missouri, but not without a few bumps in the road...

WC: 3,527 words

tagging @today-in-fic​

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

Five days. She was five days late. She had never been five days late for anything in her life. Why did it have to be this? Always the perfectionist, she double, then triple checks her math. For once, she hates being right. Five days off, no matter how many times she counts it.

She looks at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. It shudders back at her. This is not possible, she thinks. Her cycle is always on time, and she hasn’t done anything lately near the type of activity that would get her pregnant. But by now, she knows better. Anything is possible, including the unthinkable. Especially the unthinkable. No amount of disbelieving can stop the force of the universe. No amount of believing can either, no matter how devout. These are truths she wishes she never learned.

It occurs to her that she sounds like her sister, which makes her chuckle to herself despite the dreary circumstances. That’s what a few weeks of living with someone can do to you. Then again, maybe it isn’t Missy who’s changing her. The voice in her head sounds more and more like Mulder these days. It scares her sometimes...how succinctly he can present his point of view, how she’d spent almost three decades skeptical and comfortable in this belief and now--less than two years later--she could almost believe him. Wants to believe him, no less.

Mostly though, she wants the truth. Which is what he wants too, but he has a preconceived notion of what he wants that truth to be, and won’t ever be satisfied, she thinks, until he is proven right. The thought that he might never have satisfaction makes her stomach ache. Or maybe that’s a symptom of her other problem...regardless, Scully finds that the notion of never getting answers to their quest makes her want to dissolve into thin air. The desire to disappear was new to her. How odd, to care so much it makes you wish you had never cared at all. This was new to her too.

But as always, she has to keep going, keep moving, keep working, keep her sanity. She puts in her earrings, swipes on her lipstick, and switches off the bathroom light. In her bedroom, she puts on her favorite pair of heels (the most comfortable ones) and zips the pockets on her suitcase. She rolls it into the kitchen, where Missy sips coffee with so much cream it might as well be milk.

“You’re here late,” Melissa remarks.

Scully nods. “I have a flight to Missouri.”

“Oh.” Missy sets the mug down. “Will you be home tonight?”

“I don’t know...maybe...hopefully.”

“Yet you packed a whole suitcase?”

Scully casts a stray glance at the luggage. “I like to be prepared.”

Missy frowns. “Don’t you think you should take a leave of absence?”

As if she didn’t hear, Scully asks, “What?”

“All this traveling and the long hours, while you’re recovering from trauma, no less. It’s not good for you.”

Scully purses her lips. “I’d rather be traveling and working than sitting around here all day.”

“You mean you’d rather be ignoring your feelings.”

Scully recoils, as wounded by this as anything. Being seen as you are never gets easier. It hurts just as much as when they were teenagers and Missy told her she was too nerdy to ever be cool (“and why would you want to be?” is the part she always forgets about), or when they were kids and Missy wouldn’t share her dolls because Scully was “not a good mommy.” If psychics were real, Missy would be one.

Not that Scully would admit that.  

“I’ll have plenty of time to process my feelings on the plane,” Scully half-jokes.

“But you won’t!” Missy retorts in good humor as Scully heads for the door.

And then, because they’re sisters and no amount of ill will could change that, Missy yells across the place, “Love you! Be careful! Bye!”

Scully laughs as she unlocks the door. “Bye, Missy! Don’t throw any parties while I’m gone.”

“Uh-huh.”

And so the natural balance of things is restored.

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

She meets Mulder in the terminal at Dulles and they go through their usual morning flight routine: coffee & breakfast (a breakfast sandwich for him, a bagel for her), a stop at the kiosk for Mulder to buy sunflower seeds (he buys her a trashy gossip magazine for fun every time), and a brisk jog to their gate because why “waste time,” as Mulder puts it, by showing up early. There’s usually a remark from Scully about how she’s wearing heels so he needs to slow down, followed by him quipping that she needs to get her head in the game, at which point she reminds him that his legs are at least twice as long as hers.

“It’s not the heels that are the problem,” she teases. “And while we’re on the subject, you wouldn’t be able to pass a sobriety test stone-cold sober in these.”

“You get one cup of coffee in this woman, and suddenly the trash talk comes out,” Mulder says to the air.

“You better watch out or we’ll switch shoes and see how you like it.”

“You underestimate me, Dana Scully.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“I’d prove it, but it would only make you look even more vertically challenged than you already are,” he taunts.

“Not when the heels snap and you turn them into flats.”

“Touché.”

They have some form of this conversation before nearly every flight. It’s one of their rituals, a comforting familiarity in an often uncomfortable line of work. No matter what has happened, they can return to this harmless banter and find solace in it. Scully’s dad died, but they were here. Deep Throat got shot, but they were here. Scully was kidnapped, but they are here again. Scully wonders if the rest of her life will continue this way. She’s not sure if that would be a good or bad thing. She does not say any of this out loud.

They board their flight without any problem. Mulder lifts their suitcases into the overhead compartment as Scully scoots into the window seat. That’s a benefit to traveling with Mulder; he needs the space, so he always takes the aisle seat, leaving Scully with whatever gorgeous view the flight graces them with.

Of course, she usually isn’t looking. Unsurprisingly, Scully’s flight activity of choice is catching up on her reading. The case files, the morning newspaper, sometimes even the gossip magazine Mulder bought her if the case doesn’t keep her busy. She makes a mental note to give this copy to Missy when she gets back. Cheesy stuff like that always makes her smile.

Mulder’s preferred activity, on the other hand, is sleeping. He doesn’t do much of that and has come to realize that a plane is actually one of the easiest, most comfortable places for him to fall asleep. His in-flight power naps are treasured by both him and Scully, who gets through her reading uninterrupted and--every once in a while--uses the occasion to observe the way her partner’s mouth hangs slightly open and his chest rises and falls with his breath. She doesn’t get to notice these things when he falls asleep in their rental car, though that doesn’t happen very often. She’s the one who’s prone to dozing off during a late night drive past cornfields, or deserts, or plains. Perhaps it has something to do with comfort, or the lack of it. She could never sleep on the plane with all these strangers around. The car is much cozier.

The flight to Missouri passes uneventfully. Mulder snores, quiet enough that Scully is almost certain she’s the only one who can hear it. This makes her smile. She wonders, as she frequently does during moments like this, if he is dreaming and what he dreams about. Consorting with aliens, probably. Does he dream about her, or would she be a stranger in his land of dreams? He is no stranger in hers, that’s for sure.

Soon enough the wheels hit the tarmac, and Mulder wakes up almost instantly. Is it any wonder that he’s so at home in the sky? He’s been looking that way for most of his life. It’s the ground that’s alien to him.

Mulder pulls the carry-ons from the overhead bin and they exit the plane in the same way they spent the flight, silent but content. They agreed early on that they wouldn’t talk much on flights. It’s like talking in a library. They get the witty banter out of the way in the airport and leave the more interesting stuff for the rental car. Luckily, they never run out of things to discuss.

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

They move through the airport and sign for a rental car. Mulder takes the keys and they hop in, Mulder in the driver’s seat, Scully on the passenger’s side. Mulder cranks the engine. It grumbles in response.They are alone for the first time all morning.

Scully unfolds a pastel paper map they bought in the shop. “So you’re going to get on I-29 and head north,” she instructs. “Stay on that for a while, it looks like we’re fairly far away from Aubrey.”

“The Bureau couldn’t have picked a closer airport for us to fly into, huh?”

“I guess it’s more cost effective if we finish the last leg of the trip ourselves.”

“It won’t be when I use the Bureau credit card to fill up this piece of junk.” He flashes a smile toward the passenger seat, shifting his gaze off the road a moment to see if she’s smiling too.

She is, but she keeps her lips together, unwilling to give herself away so easily. There’s a telltale sparkle in her eyes though.

Mulder pulls out of the parking lot. “I’ve been meaning to ask you what Melissa was doing at your place the other night. You didn’t mention anything about her being in town.”

Scully purses her lips, keeps her eyes on the map. She’s been hoping that he would not bring this up.

“She’s staying with me for a bit,” she says as casually as possible. “She got a hostess job downtown.”

“So she’s living in DC now?”

“Essentially.” She glances at the map. “Go right.” Mulder listens.

“Where was she living before?”

“The West Coast. An assortment of places. She’s a bit of a wanderer.” She focuses on the map, hoping this will quell the conversation. Mulder doesn’t pick up this signal. He’s watching the road.

“She didn’t come around for your father’s funeral, did she? I don’t remember you talking about her.”

Scully frowns at the map. “No, she didn’t.”

Missy and their father’s relationship had been strained for a number of years. While he didn’t necessarily criticize his eldest daughter for her life choices like their mother sometimes did, he couldn’t understand them, and that was somehow worse. Once he realized that Melissa wasn’t going to fulfill the dreams he had for her, he essentially stopped checking in with her. Not wanting to disappoint him any further, Melissa let them fall out of contact.

This is different from their mother, who makes her opinion about Melissa’s decisions very clear. She’s under the impression that by being straightforward with her daughter, she can have some influence over her life. This has created an odd relationship between them: strained, but in frequent contact. Scully can relate.

“She wanted to be there, but we couldn’t reach her in time. It really upset her, she didn’t talk to my mom until my...incident.”

Mulder casts a sympathetic glance Scully’s way. “Ah.”

They merge onto I-29, their car joining the dozens of others already speeding toward some unknown destination. Mulder is reminded of a thought he often has while driving, and seeing as he’s made Scully share more than she wanted to, he decides to lighten the mood by saying it out loud.

“Driving has always reminded me of a dance,” he says, making brief eye contact with his passenger.

Scully raises her eyebrows, amused by this sudden change of topic. “How so?”

“It’s just a bunch of strangers trying to match each other’s rhythm and not step on any feet.”

“You make it sound so romantic,” Scully replies, unconvinced.

“I mean, it kind of is, isn’t it?...There’s so many songs about it.”

Scully laughs. “I take it back. If there’s so many songs about it, it must be true.”

Mulder smiles. “That’s what I’m saying.”

Speaking of music, Scully switches the radio on. A local country station blasts through the speakers, some song about drinking whiskey and pulling off a gravel road to watch stars from a truck bed.

“See?” Mulder jokes. “Height of romance.”

Scully turns it down, but doesn’t bother to change the station. Mulder now has the courage to ask the question he’s been holding onto.

“So why is Melissa staying with you? Why not get her own place?”

The edges of Scully’s lips tilt down. This again?

“We get along well, so we thought it would be nice. Like being teenagers again.”

Mulder braces himself for an unpleasant reaction from his partner. “So it has nothing to do with your abduction?”

Scully bites her lip.

“Jesus, Mulder.”

“What? You don’t offer information unless I ask. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He glances at her. She’s looking out the window.

“I’m okay,” she confirms.

“You know, if you just elaborated a little bit, I wouldn’t have to ask such prying questions.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “You sound like Melissa.”

“Good. She knows exactly how to handle you.”

“Handle me?” Scully straightens up in her seat. He waited until she was trapped to confront her. What a shitty move.  

“How to talk to you, I mean. You’re good at evading the point.”

“And you’re using your interrogation training against me,” she responds, clearly irritated.

“What do you mean?”

“You lightened the mood so I would trust you, then hit back with the toughest question yet. The one you really wanted an answer to.”

Mulder frowns. He had done this instinctively, not realizing that he was treating her like a suspect.

“I’m sorry,” he responds without hesitation. “That wasn’t my intention.”

Scully crosses her arms. “Of course not,” she says curtly.

The drive continues in silence, Scully only speaking up to give him directions off the map. The country station is the only one with anything to say, the singers drawling about booze, babes, and of course, driving. This frays Scully’s nerves. After one song too many about a pick-up truck, Scully switches the radio off.

Mulder wants to make a joke, but now is really not the time. Instead, he focuses on what he’ll say to her when they get to the motel. She needs to be pushed to talk, he knows this and deep down, she does too. He pushed her too hard though, in a manipulative way, and it’s up to him to straighten this out. He knows Scully well enough to know that if there’s no trust, there’ll be no openness. But that trust has to be genuine, not coerced or manufactured. He’ll have to work on building that up again if he wants to know what truly ails her.

The rest of the drive takes about 45 minutes. They don’t even discuss the case. Scully gives directions, Mulder follows them, and they end up in tiny Aubrey, Missouri. It’s just after noon when Mulder cuts the engine in their motel parking lot.

“You hungry?” he asks.

Scully clicks off her seatbelt, reaches for the passenger door. “I’m fine.”

Mulder watches her get out. He pops the trunk so she can grab the suitcases, then meets her at the back of the car. She lugs her suitcase out of the trunk and sets it down beside her. She’s mad at him, but she’s waiting for him. Mulder takes this as a good sign. He grabs his carry-on and shuts the trunk. It thuds closed, shaking the car.

Scully looks up at him. He expects her to say something, then takes the chance when she doesn’t--

“Hey, I know I overstepped my boundaries earlier, and I’m sorry. I just...I was supposed to protect you, and I failed. I’m trying to make up for that by looking out for you now.”

The expression on Scully’s face is as neutral as ever. She extends the handle on her suitcase and turns toward the motel.

She speaks to Mulder from over her shoulder. She’s not mad now, just insistent. “You didn’t fail.” She starts toward the entrance, rolling her suitcase along with her. Mulder jogs for a few strides to catch up with her. He wasn’t expecting her to take off like that.

“You became an X-file on my watch. That’s failure,” he responds.

“It’s my fault. Don’t guilt trip yourself.”

“Are you kidding me?” He freezes in the middle of the parking lot. Scully turns around and walks back to him, not wanting to have this argument here, or ever really.

“Mulder…”

He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Did Skinner ever tell you that I handed him a resignation letter while you were lying unconscious in the hospital? When I was pretty sure you were gonna die because of what I got you involved in?”

His eyes are dark, dark brown right now. Almost black, Scully notices. They’re not like this often. She sighs, then shakes her head. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“If you had--” he leaves a space for the word ”--that would have been it for me. With the X-files, the FBI, all of it. I couldn’t save my sister, and if I had lost you, the chase just wouldn’t be worth it anymore.”

And so they’ve found themselves sharing a very sincere moment in the middle of a motel parking lot.

“That’s not true, Mulder,” Scully tells him, her voice grating. “You would have been more determined to find the truth.”

He shakes his head. “I would have imploded. Collapsed in on myself. You’re the only thing keeping me in check, and the fact is, we wouldn’t have made it this far in our search if it weren’t for you.”

Scully isn’t sure how to respond. She’s adamant that he would have continued on without her, that he would go far and wide to find answers, and that he would get justice for Samantha and her if they had both fallen victim to the conspiracy. She’s also aware that this is not what he wants to hear at the moment, and seeing as he’s being so complimentary, it would be smarter just to let it go.

“Okay, Mulder. I believe you.” How often did he get to hear that, out of her mouth no less?

“Thank you,” he says, as if she’d just agreed that he would become king of the world, not that he would inevitably fall apart without her. This time, he leads the march toward the motel entrance. Scully follows in-step with him.

They’re heading up the entrance ramp when Mulder stops short yet again. Scully’s forehead bangs against his back.

“Ow!” he jests, letting out a laugh as she turns to her. “You okay?”

Scully’s face has turned as red as her hair, but other than that, she’s fine. She nods.

“I was going to ask if you ever heard what happened to Duane Barry.”

At the sound of that name, the color flushes itself right out of Scully’s face.

“Just that he died in custody.” Her voice is clipped.

“Oh.” Mulder scratches his chin, wishing that he hadn’t brought this up. Of course, this is Scully we’re talking about, and she’s not going to let him off easy.

“Why?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

An elderly couple scrambles up the ramp and walks around them, a bell ringing when they open the door. Mulder waits for it to shut before continuing.

“Well, um, he did die in custody. He stopped breathing shortly after I...uh, I squeezed his windpipe.”

Scully’s mouth drops open. “Mulder, you killed him?!” she hisses.

He moves closer, pulls her farther from the doorway. “That’s a good example of what I mean by collapsing in on myself,” he whispers calmly.

This is so frank that Scully almost laughs. She stares up at him in (relieved) disbelief. “How did you--”

“I don’t know, and I’m not gonna question it.”

Scully nods. “That’s probably for the best.” Their eyes meet, a shared acknowledgement of what they have been through together, because of each other, and for each other. The reality of it is at once tragic and downright comical. Mulder laughs, and then Scully does too.

“You may have gotten more than you bargained for when you walked into that basement office,” Mulder quips.

“Oh yes,” Scully confirms, her voice light and fluttery. “Oh yes.”

They make their way into the motel at last, ready for whatever the case has to offer. They may solve it, or not. Regardless, it is their line of work, and they will do it together.

~~thank you for reading!!

#as i'll prob say every time #this got longer than i intended #missy & scully fic #only the light fic #the x-files #the x files #fan fiction #fan fic #x files #txf #msr #fox mulder #dana scully #mine

[honourablejester]

Ideas for Sorcerers (D&D)

I do love a bit of innate, chaotic magic, the forces of the world writing themselves onto people. Whether said people wanted them to or not. Heh. I will admit I’m a bit more attached to the ‘touched by cosmic forces’ angle for the sorcerer, it’s really great for backstories, but the bloodlines are also fascinating for the ‘family lore’ and ‘really adventurous ancestors’ ideas. So!

I’m mostly focused on the classic sorcerers and then the horror-adjacent sorcerers, because I’m me, and we know what I like. Apologies to fans of the Divine, Storm or new Clockwork sorcerers!

Draconic

Because dragons (and dragon ancestors) are the best. There’s a lot of fun and aesthetic with choosing your dragon ancestor too. The little scales you get with draconic resilience just make for some really cool-looking characters.

I love the idea of mixing ancestries with a draconic sorcerer. Compare and contrast. For example, a tiefling draconic sorcerer with gold dragon ancestry! Combining a ‘tainted’ bloodline with a respected one. Maybe the clan lean heavily into the lawful reputation of gold dragons, as well as a sort of internalised racism against their own darker ancestry as well. They view the fact that they were once favoured by a divine dragon as proof that their bloodline can redeem themselves of their demonic pact/ancestry, and they lean towards lawful occupations, city watch, soldiers, clergy, etc. So your sorcerer has a bit of internal conflict going on. (Also, a red tiefling with gold scales is an awesome look – tiefling skin colours with dragon scale colours is a really fun combination)

Other cool-sounding ancestry combinations: high elf & white/silver ancestry, for that ethereal immortal feeling (also fun to add stereotypical dragon traits with the white dragons, in that you’re an ethereal immortal who really holds a grudge and does not do ‘forgive and forget’), half-elf & green ancestry, for a strongly outcast, political bent, halfling/gnome & copper ancestry, because if you’re going to go for a tiny trickster you might as well go all out …

Or we have my old favourite, a tortle sorcerer with (somehow) a dragon turtle ancestor, because great-grandpa Uhok never met an older and (significantly) larger lady he didn’t want to pursue, and great-grandma Korthalok was honestly rather flattered. (Yes, I am aware that dragon turtles are not high dragons, but they are intelligent, and they’re probably innately magical/elemental enough to put a bit of magic in the bloodline)

Shadow Magic

The sorcerer’s gothic option! I do love it. Your magic comes from a strange, grim shadow realm, either because you were touched by said realm, or one of your ancestors was an entity from said realm. You get a demonic shadow hound, teleportation from shadow to shadow, and later an actual shadow form. Lots to work with there.

I feel like there’s a lot of Lovecraftian, Dreamlands, William Hope Hodgson sort of feeling here. The dark touch of a strange realm. Emphasis on isolation, desolation, alienation. Loneliness. This is also the subclass where I really, really like a later-life coming into your powers, a traumatic event causing a normal person to suddenly develop horrifying magic.

So. Any of your gothic/cosmic horror backstories. You were kidnapped and subjected to a horrific ritual. You were created in a horrific ritual (hi Warforged!). You suffered a severe, inexplicable illness as a child, and remained pale, half-dead, and possessed of strange powers for the rest of your life (I love the shadow sorcerer quirks list). An insane ancestor entered the Negative Plane and your line was almost annihilated by the resulting Nightwalker, but you somehow survived. Your parent was an extremely powerful magic user studying the Shadowfell, and you only realised much later on in your life that your childhood ‘imaginary friends’ were actually Sorrowsworn (Lost and Lonely?) that haunted your ancestral home and that your parent was somehow keeping from killing you. You tried to steal from a powerful, vindictive wizard, who flung you into the Shadowfell for your temerity, and you don’t fully remember how you survived. You slept in a barrow as a dare when you were younger, and an allip whispered secrets to you that lead you to dream of a dark realm, dreams that seemed to gradually change you as you ‘recovered’ …

This entire subclass is just very much ‘go nuts on the horror tropes and have fun’. I love it dearly.

Aberrant Mind

A new one from Tasha’s, but the other Lovecraftian/horror themed sorcerer subclass now. Which is perfectly fine, because I can always roll with more Lovecraftian horror! If shadow magic was themed strongly towards undead, Aberrant Mind seems strongly themed towards aberrations. Body horror and psychic powers! Boo yeah!

I do like the suggested origins. Particularly the parasitic twin and the imaginary friend ones. I think there’s a lot of fun to be had with those. Aberrant mind does feel more … on the science fiction end of horror, more than the fantasy? There’s a different flavour compared to shadow magic. We’re talking alien abduction and Carrie-esque childhood trauma here. Particularly when you get to the higher level actual physical transformation elements. Bit of Akira in there, bit of Innsmouth. So.

I’m liking characters who are a bit ‘aberrant’ on their own merits, even before their powers kick in as well. The outcasts from the get-go. The albino half-orc abandoned by the tribe as a child and befriended/kept safe by their possibly-imaginary flumph friend. The fallen aasimar whose blessings allowed them to survive where their stillborn twin did not, but who still feels the touch of a ghostly hand in theirs (I’m not sure how well it fully gels, but I feel like an Atropal is a very interesting concept to lay alongside this – stillborn gods and blessed, aberrant champions – celestial guides and the whisperings of parasitic twins … not sure how well it fits, but there’s a lot of crunchy concepts there)

Also, there’s your chance to have some fun with the Underdark races. Duergar, Deep Gnomes and Drow. Or sea races, when we have fun with Aboleths. Or non-sea races who still had a bit of fun with Aboleths, if we want to fully embrace the Innsmouth vibes and have normal land-based elves/humans/halflings who come over all Deep-One in the end. You come from a quaint little village on the coast, where the coming-of-age ceremony involved something of an opening of the mind. Nothing to worry about, everyone does it where you come from. Yes indeed! Heh.

And then, to bring us back to the less-horrifying end of sorcerers, and to revisit my childhood in a big way, we have:

Wild Magic

Schmendrick the Magician! Sorry, I grew up on The Last Unicorn, you’ll have to forgive me this. (Is Schmendrick actually part of the inspiration here, I’m wondering?)

But honestly, wild magic really lends itself to down-on-their-luck characters, running ahead of their own chaos, or striving to learn to control their powers. Or, on the flipside, incredibly laissez-faire types who decided to just roll with and eventually enjoy or perpetuate a little chaos. So. Tricksters, shysters and earnest young things trying to do their best.

So. You could do a straight Schmendrick. A down-on-their-luck kid who really, really wants to be a real wizard, a great magician, but their magic just will not cooperate. It has a mind of its own, and their struggle is learning to either minimise or lean into the chaos and power of it. (I like a background as a tailor/seamstress for this, partly because of animated Schmendrick’s memorable patchwork robes, but also as a little practical detail in that, if you can’t trust your magical mending not to do a ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ on it every damn time, you probably would learn to darn your socks the old fashioned way)

For a variation, you could do a bit of a snake-oil salesperson sort of deal. A down-on-their-luck sorcerer turned shyster/criminal to make ends meet. Wild magic works very well as a sort of bloodline curse, bad luck and chaos following a family. A woman of the Witchbottle clan pissed off an archfey way back when, and so every girl born to the line since has struggled with wild magic. So the clan tends to move around a lot, both individually and as a whole, and individual members of it tend to work around their inevitable getting run out of town for magical mishaps in their own ways. The clan has a lot of travelling entertainers, salespeople, criminals, etc, and tend to be very loyal to each other, even if they don’t see each other all that often (concentrations of wild magic in a single area tend to be bad for said area, so family gatherings are discouraged near civilisation).

And then there are your straight trickster characters. Ones with a more philosophical approach to chaos, a belief that you should be able to deal with the unexpected, and that maybe other people should be helped along in experiencing and dealing with it too. I like bards for tricksters, but wild magic sorcerers work very well too. Heh.

I know Wild Magic might not be the most functional of the subclasses, but it’s got a direct line to my childhood, and I feel like it’s still a really fun idea.

In summary? I like the squishy spindly magic people. They’re fun.

#d&d #dnd #sorcerers #character concepts #long post #fantasy #dark fantasy #horror #lovecraftian #i do love d&d's more horror-leaning elements

[coeursetcolores]

What I Would Add To/Change About: Psychonauts

Howdy! Today is April 19th, and if you don’t know what game came out today, then why don’t you try and read my mind to find out? Go ahead!

So what’s your answer? 

...

Why yes, it was Psychonauts! Way to go, you just earned a merit badge, cadet!

...What do you mean you just read the title?!

Anyway, for those of you who know, Psychonauts is a beloved cult classic that unfortunately received not that much mainstream attention, which is such a shame because I loved playing this game! I’ll admit there’s some problems, but I had such a psi-blast playing it, I didn’t really mind! That being said...

I’m still gonna talk about the problems.

This is all just my own personal opinion and if you disagree with me, that’s perfectly okay! If you’d like to talk about a point I made, please let me know, but please try to respect my opinion as I respect yours.

Well, without further ado, let’s open that Psycho-portal!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

As usual, first let’s get out all the things I absolutely ADORED about this game!

The. Voice. Acting. I cannot say enough how much detail went into dialogue and performances, you just have to listen to it. I was talking to/inspecting as many people/things as I could and seeing what dialogues were available when I switched things out. I probably spent more time doing that than actually playing the game! Definitely Richard Horvitz’s best work in my opinion!

The environments. This game is a mixed-up feast for the eyes and the level design is the main course. Things can go from the nice and simple Whispering Pines to the breathtaking and colorful Black Velvetopia to the utter lunacy and ominousness of the Milkman Conspiracy. It’s a masterpiece in artistic expression.

The Milkman Conspiracy. My gosh, this level deserves all the hype it gets. I really wish it hadn’t been spoiled for me, but even then it’s just such a trip that I can’t mind it that much. Also, Steve Blum!

The character design may not be the most aesthetically pleasing, but it fits the messed up and wacky world of the game to a T.

JUMPING!!!!!!

The puzzles can get frustrating (especially at a certain final level whose name shall not be said in respect of those still recovering from it) but they’re really fun to experiment with and find ways to move ahead in.

I really enjoyed Raz as a protagonist. He wasn’t too moody or obnoxious and he was necessarily sassy when he needed to be. He was also really relatable, being a kid who felt ostracized at home and didn’t understand why his father wouldn’t let him do what he wanted. And he was just so nice in spite of how upset he was at his family situation while still being determined to accomplish his dreams and help people. And even when he reached the asylum, it never felt like he was going into anyone’s mind as a means to an end, he genuinely wanted to help these people along with the campers. Also, he’s a total fanboy geek and that’s awesome!

As fast as it happened, the romance between Raz and Lili was really sweet and cute and I’m glad it didn’t lessen their characters or take away too much from the story. It was definitely two kids going through their first puppy love.

I also really liked Raz being nice to Dogen. Their scenes together were just sweet!

All the different abilities were so cool to use and the different types of enemies encourages you to switch things up on the fly which keeps gameplay from getting stale as you progress.

Underneath all of the trippy sequences in the levels there’s a solid moral that not everyone can deal with their mental issues by themselves and sometimes you need someone else to step in and help, and I appreciate that kind of message. Even with all of their eccentricities, the mentally ill are people too and even if you can’t fix their problems like Raz can they still deserve basic compassion and understanding.

With all that being said, I feel like the game could have used a few more things.

ADD:

I really wish Raz got a new look for every mental world like he did in Black Velvetopia.

The game should have been stretched out over more than just one day. It would have given more time to expand upon certain plot elements and develop the characters more, as well as make Raz’s psychic growth a little more believable. I know that the plot kind of relied on Raz only having a day to do everything, but it just made him seem like of a Mary Sue learning all that in one day.

I feel like the game should have explained some things more. I get that video games shouldn’t hold your hand too much and they should be a challenge, but some things took FOREVER to learn the right button for.

A tracker for emotional baggage? I couldn’t find it all.

Maybe make the other counselors seem suspicious so it’s not so easy to single out Coach Oleander as the villain? 

Add some side quests around camp to help the other campers: Stand up to Bobby, talk Crystal and Clem out of suicide, show Mikhail he’s being used and knock some sense into Maloof, get a show for Phoebe and Quentin’s band going, and help Dogen control his powers, etc. I feel like they really could have expanded Part 1 at camp more.

Maybe add some flashbacks of Raz’s family life before he ran away to help the audience see through his eyes and understand his thought process better.

More fights with the Nightmares would have been cool. The scrapped plot about them escaping from Milla’s mind and abducting kids while they didn’t have their brains would have been a cool subplot. Or they could have come from the kids themselves or Oleander. I just think they had more potential.

Dr. Loboto boss fight (I did not play Rhombus of Ruin, I don’t do VR!)!

I’d kind of want to see Raz’s dad arrive at camp and how he got to where all the action was. Maybe some scenes of him getting there too to really make the player feel just how little time they have.

A scene of Ford Cruller getting up to go help out and save everyone?

Alright, now it’s time to get to the ugly!

CHANGE:

Oh my gosh, ARREST COACH OLEANDER! I know he was genuinely remorseful and the Psitanium might have had a hand in it and he was unfairly rejected from every branch of the United States army for his height, but that doesn’t change the fact that he lobotomized an entire camp full of children, attempted to murder one, built psychic death tanks, mutated and brainwashed a peaceful fish, brainwashed an asylum patient into covering his tracks through arson without regards to the residents of the asylum, kidnapped and lobotomized two colleagues whom he then tried to kill, hired DR. LOBOTO and tried to take over the world. At least have the guy monitored and put under probation, geez!

Change the rules of the race in Milla’s Dance Party so you DON’T have to win! I don’t care if I lose, I just want to move on already! This is not a racing game!

LESS. FIGMENTS.

I honestly don’t know what to say about the **** ****** except HAVE OLLIE STAY PUT AT THE TOP SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT KEEPING HIS BUNNY-LOVING HIDE ALIVE!!!!!

Maybe the Two-Headed Dad Monster could have been more challenging at the end? As I’ve said, I am not a gameplay expert, but that final boss fight was really easy, and not in a satisfying way. Then again, you did just have to play through the **** ******...

And, that’s about it, I really don’t have much to complain about. Psychonauts is a super fun game and I highly recommend it. It’s colorful and explores heavy themes with respect and humor while going hand in hand with interesting gameplay and plenty of likable characters. There are no dull moments, I genuinely enjoyed this game greatly. I wish more people had given it a chance when it first came out and we could have gotten the sequel sooner, because I am honestly super nervous about it living up to the first. This is nothing on Tim Schafer and Double Fine, I just don’t have high expectations for a sequel made and released after ten years of radio silence as a rule. But, who knows? 

Maybe they’ll go in and change my mind.

#What I Would Add to/Change About... #Psychonauts #Criticism #Praise #My Silly Personal Opinion

[monaluxstrashblog]

#3 - Dearest Wish

This relates to my first prompt as it’s the same characters. Check out @raltiamod for more about the Elksni breifly mentioned - he’s a guardian too!

A man Wishes for the return of his dead niece

Duncan was certain the Ahamkara were, in fact, faeries. All the evidence was there. They were beautiful but terrible to behold in their true form. They fed on desire, twisting it to their own whims until their target was but a shell. If they did grant your wish, they took something from you - your luck, your grace, your happiness, or if you were very unlucky, your life. They loved riddles and word games, and were most often playful in their malignance. 

There were some differences. He’d never gotten one to count salt, they didn’t care about iron, and the little bastards could lie, and did so with abandon, which felt like some cosmic bullshit to him. They fey couldn’t lie because if they could lie then they could just do whatever they wanted, and no clever hero could out-smart them. But he was sure that long ago the wish dragons had visited Earth, and these were the fair folk the old tales talked about.

Not that many remembered the old tales anymore. Such was the way of time, he supposed. The Awoken were sort of fey-ish too, he supposed. Those born after the distributary, those born here, those born who had never seen the Exodus Green; they didn’t consider themselves human. They were their own people, isolationist and xenophobic as hell. Which seemed very human to Duncan but, well, he wasn’t the one making the rules. They were incredibly long lived, and many had some minor psychic or psionic power. Duncan had a way with animals. 

His niece had loved the Ahamkara. She hand-raised a hatchling once, after finding it deep in the forests. She fed it scraps of meat and little desires, harmless things, and would stub her toe for a week afterwards and say it was worth it. It grew up to be mild in temperament, preferring to bask in the sun and catch birds than trick people off the cliff. 

She’d been livid when it was slain. Sounded like the Prince for a week or two, the way she carried on about the Risen. He didn’t exactly disagree with them, for slaying all the beasts. They were, objectively, dangerous as hell. They were also unlike the Fey in that there was really no safe way too deal with them. No wording or contract that could spare you from their trickery. The Little Beast she’d raised had said something once that stuck in his mind like a thorn - “All reality is like the sea, and a warm wind where it shouldn’t be, summons ill for sailors.” It saddened him somewhat though, that they were all gone now. Like the cosmos were less for it.

She was gone too now. And to add insult to injury they’d laid her to rest where she fell in the Tangled Shore, fighting the Scorn, where he couldn’t get to her. That’s what he told himself anyways - he couldn’t leave his duties in the Dreaming City. Once, he’d gone to see the prince, and curse him for dragging his family into this mess. She’d always been fond of him, and he’d told her it was foolish to be fond of a Sov. Both twins were selfish and cruel, and he trusted neither. The Prince had joked that was what made him such a good Crow. 

It was on the worst cycle of the second repeat that he went to see the brothers. The Dreaming City was now caught, forever repeating itself, thanks to Riven, and honestly Duncan almost didn’t blame her given that she’d been locked away for who knows how long. Maybe the Awoken did deserve her fate. It weighed on him though, to be caught in the repetition. Like a maddening nightmare. 

Huginn and Muninn had been laid to rest in the Harbinger’s seclude, all that was recovered of them being their skulls. He remembered when they would bask here, in the spray of the waterfall, and tell stories to whoever passed by. They’d been fond of Sjur, and had been found not far from her when she’d been recovered. Cheeky bastards calling themselves after Odin’s ravens. These days if you were still, and listened with your mind, you could still hear Huginn’s storytelling, if he was in the mood. Or probably would be able to hear him if the entire Seclude wasn’t crawling with Taken.

Duncan swore and dove behind a rock as bolts from a Taken Vandal’s line rifle embedded themselves in the wall where he had been. He notched an arrow to his bow, Beast’s Talon -- because the little bastard was amused to now be his weapon -- and fired into the eye of the Vandal, dispersing it into mist. He wished he could do the trick where the Risen summoned grenades out of thin air, but instead planted one of his own limited supply in a cluster of Psions. Another hail of arrows followed, as he dove from one point of cover to another. 

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about the Knight. Fire bloomed around his feet and he swore again, diving backwards. Too busy to use both hands he sent a throwing knife into the eye of a phalanx and bolted across the platform, swerving into Muninn’s niche. The skull was completely surrounded by a blight, and Duncan furiously slashed into it until he could see one of the tusks. The Knight was getting closer, reinforcements blooming out of the blight. He gripped the tusk, “Alright ye squirrely bastard - if this is how it’s gonna be, do your worst. I just want her to live, I dunnae have to see it.” He felt a chuckle deep at the base of his skull.

He drew his sword, refusing to die cowering with the dragon’s head, and rolled out of the way of another solar barrage. Cutting down three Psions in a single swing, he turned to dual with the knight. Just in time to watch a solar orb, the size of a basketball, appear at the things feet. It shrieked, stumbling away as it burned up. A hail of gunfire was coming from the corridor, where the portal was. Two Guardians and an Elkisni. “S’not what I asked for Munnin,” He grumbled, drawing his bow and taking down another sniper before they could get a shot off. 

The Guardian’s made quick work of the Taken, embarrassingly efficient, but he supposed they could wholesale pull explosives out of their ass. The one who was in less armor and more of a robe could throw a fireball twenty paces. 

“Are you ok sir,” The robed one bounded over to him, sweeping her hands and one of her feet to summon a glowing pool of light, that soothed the burns on his legs. Not that he noticed much, because he knew that voice. She popped her helmet off when he didn’t respond, and he felt his bow fall numbly from his hand. “Sir?”

His little girl. Alive. Reborn. She didn’t remember him. 

Munnin chuckled in his mind again, as he tried to wrap his brain around what, exactly, he was supposed to do now. 

#destiny #destiny 2 #my writing #destcember2020 #ahamkara #awoken #awoken oc #guardian oc

[wiseabsol]

Knowing nothing about your new stories, imagine the protagonists from each were to suddenly appear together, what would happen?

So this depends on a few factors: which of the characters from these stories count as the protagonists (since two of them have ensemble casts), which world would they appear in, and how much would they know about each other when they appeared together?

For this particular combination, I'll pick Mal from Precipice, Ulyssa from Shattered, and Sabrine from Haunted, and I'll toss them into the Precipice world, with them having knowledge of each other's backstories.

Sabrine, I think, would be torn about being in Precipice's world. It lacks some of the amenities she's used to (indoor plumbing being a big one) and is full of magical monsters, some of which do very similar things as her abusive father (who can mind control people). On the flip side, it's an entirely different world than the one he's in, and her not being effected by magic could make her valuable to any adventuring team, once she's picked a profession that takes advantage of her medical/potion-making skills.

As for how she feels about Mal and Ulyssa, she would find Mal repulsive, since Mal has chosen to leave her child with other members of her family to pursue justice for a bunch of dead people. She would see that as child abandonment, which is a touchy subject for Sabrine, given what she believes about her own birth family. Ulyssa she would be torn over. On the one hand, Ulyssa's pity for her would be extremely abrasive, since Sabrine hates being pitied. On the other hand, Ulyssa has had her memories manipulated by magic, and Sabrine knows perfectly well how damaging that can be, and so would feel bad for her. Ulyssa is also fighting to protect living people, so Sabrine would be much more inclined to see her as heroic and thus worthy of some admiration.

Ulyssa would probably be panicked by being in the Precipice world, though not because of the monsters and the lack of indoor plumbing. She would figure that's not so different than what she'd experience in one of her world's own side dimensions. The problem, for her, is that she's on a timer back in her own world, and if she doesn't get back soon, at least one person is definitely going to be murdered horribly and a child will be enslaved. So she would desperately be trying to find a way back to her home dimension, which might incur some ire from the authorities, because plane hopping has a way of making openings for dangerous monsters to come through. She and Sabrine would also be baffled by gods being real in Precipice, since there really aren't gods in their own worlds.

Ulyssa would, I think, be more understanding of Mal's decisions, since she is old enough and experienced enough to understand how trauma and mental illness effect people, since she struggles with these things herself. Sometimes even the most loving parents aren't in a place where they can be there fully for their kids, and Mal at least made sure that her son was in a home where he would be safe and loved. She would also relate to Mal's desire for justice for the dead, since Ulyssa is striving to achieve the same, while also keeping the living safe. Ulyssa would probably ask if Mal has considered going to therapy, and then would be very annoyed with Precipice's world when Mal responds with, "You mean like talking to a priest?"

As for Sabrine, Ulyssa would probably project a...hmm, identity of victimization onto her? She would understand that Sabrine has been abused and has built up a lot of armor to deal with it, but might not really grasp how much agency Sabrine has as an adult? She would also be reminded of the woman she's trying to help in her own world, so there would be a lot of pity and a desire to protect Sabrine, which Sabrine would not know what to do with. If Ulyssa had been there when she was a child, that would have been great, but now Sabrine is an adult, so what good does that protectiveness and indignation over what Sabrine went through do?

Mal, in this case, is in her own world, so she wouldn't be responding to that, so much as to the concepts of these other worlds. She's known side dimensions exist, but the technological advancements in Ulyssa's world would be staggering to think about (but also, could she reinvent these things from Ulyssa's descriptions and make her own world better?). Mal would also mistake Sabrine's world as being much more peaceful and safe than it actually is, since from her perspective, ONLY having to deal with cannibalistic ghosts and some psychics seems quaint, compared to the monsters in her world. She wouldn't make the connection that most of the people in Sabrine's world don't have the tools to combat these things, and often the danger of them is invisible until far too late.

Mal would definitely feel a lot of pity for Sabrine, since she's a mother and would see Sabrine as a mistreated child. She would probably try to give Sabrine some of the comforts she would give her own son, and Sabrine's rejection of those gifts would sting. It would remind her of how she is failing to be there for her own child, because she does feel guilty about that and thinks she's an awful person for it (she has extremely bad depression). She would also doubt Sabrine's belief that she was cast into the wilderness as a child, because what kind of parent would do that? Plus, since Sabrine's father figure can manipulate memories and compel people to do things they don't want to do, so what if he is the reason that Sabrine was separated from her family? Sabrine would reject this idea, only for Mal to be proven right later on.

As for Ulyssa, Mal would admire her. Here is a person who is pursing justice for the dead and fighting for the living, and doing so even after the world has tried to beat her down. Mal would see Ulyssa as the hero she could never be, because she doesn't have the strength. This would ignore the fact that Mal has lost much more than Ulyssa has--Ulyssa lost her job and some memories, not her home and most of her support network. So while Ulyssa needs to discover the truth and do the right thing, she has firmer ground to stand on. Ulyssa would probably tell Mal that she's being too hard on herself, that in her world there are resources that could help her recover from her loss. "But those aren't here," Mal would say.

Mal would try her best to get both of them home, if they wanted to go back. Sabrine might choose to stay, because there are more opportunities for her in Precipice, and no one looks twice at her scars or red eyes (why would they, when there are so many "monstrous" races that look much weirder than her?). She most likely wouldn't stay with Mal, but would accept an apprenticeship Mal lined up for her, since Mal does have contacts in a city where alchemy is common. Ulyssa would definitely strive to go home, given the timer, though if that passed, she might consider staying to help Mal out. If the existential horrors of Precipice did some to the forefront, though, Sabrine might want to bail, whereas Ulyssa would go, "Ooooh, yeah, we have a version of this in my world, too. Do you have ways of fighting these things, or are you also shit out of luck?" Because yeah, each of these worlds has their own existential horrors in the background, with the ones in Mal's probably being the loudest.

#My writing #The girls aren't all right

[arcane-merlin]

I Don’t Want To Say Goodbye || Originalshipping (Part 1)

Fandom: Pokemon

Ship: Red x Green/Blue

Contains spoilers for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky/Time/Darkness!

Synopsis: Red is transformed into a Pikachu and is sent to the Pokemon world a few months after becoming Pokemon Champion. Washed up on a beach, he meets Blue, an Eevee who bears a striking resemblance to his best friend and rival in the human world. On their last journey together they must use everything they've learned as explorers to defeat Primal Dialga and prevent the planet's paralysis. And come to terms with their feelings for each other. That too.

(might be a two part or three part who knows lol? Also cross-posted on Fanfic.net, AO3, and Wattpad!)

"We did it Red. We're almost at the top of Temporal Tower. I can feel it." The Eevee turned around to meet the Pikachu's eyes. Composed and determined. Ready for the inevitable.

'Let's save the world from the planet's paralysis, Blue.'  Red thinks. 'Together.'

Blue became silent, understanding his partner as if he were a psychic type Pokémon. Blue reaches a paw at the blue water drop necklace he's wearing. He's always kept this rare necklace with him ever since he got it as a baby. His name derives from said necklace. We will definitely win! And... and once we do... I'm gonna evolve into a Vaporeon!

Nodding at each other, the two partners, who put their whole trust in one another, swearing to save the world, and prepared for this very moment, continued forward.

They enter the next room, spotting a grey stone staircase. Guarding the stairs is a sleeping Porygon-Z. Red signals Blue to stay at the front of the damp hallway. As quiet as a Rattata, Red approaches the sleeping enemy. Stopping nearby the front of the vulnerable Pokémon, he waves at Blue.

A pincer attack, Red? Good thinking!

Blue is careful in his steps. All of the Pokémon they've encountered so far are tough, and they want to save as much energy as they can in the event that they are forced to fight... Dialga. Even thinking about Dialga is sending shivers down my spine...

All the more reason to hurry...!

Blue shakes his head, sending the thought of facing the fierce legendary Pokémon to the back of his mind. Red puts three small fingers up. One by one, the fingers go down. Once the last finger went down, Red and Blue simultaneously attacked. The Porygon-Z screeches in agony, and retaliates with discharge, paralyzing Blue. The status effected Eevee trembles, unable to resist and that angers Red. Red attacks using thunderbolt. Turning it's attention to the Pikachu, Porygon-Z discharges once again. Red is having none of that though and dodges. Going for a Quick Attack this time, Red manages to knock Porygon-Z to the solid floor.

Blue's paralysis fades soon after and he sighs, relieved. Man... when will we get a break?

"Red." Blue flashes Red with a tender grin, "Thank you."

'...?'

"If I hadn't found you at the beach... I wouldn't have come close to achieving my dream of joining Wiggilytuff's Guild. We would've never saved Azurill from Drowzee, see the beauty of Fog Bound Lake, uncover the mystery of my Relic, escaped the future... Without you, how could I grow into the Blue everyone's come to know? Before... I was just known as Eevee, grandson of a famous Pokémon Explorer. Achieving something for myself... that was out of the question. Always being number two. Always being compared. I guess you were the missing puzzle piece, huh. I can't... I can't imagine a world without a human-turned-Pikachu named Red. I can't imagine my world without you...

'Blue...'

"If we're together, there isn't anything in the world that stands a chance against us! Let's save our friends, our world, our everything! Then, when it's all over... we have to watch the Krabby on the beach together, known as the heroes who saved the whole world."

'...!'

Red lovingly pats Blue's head, smiling. Blue affectionately stares at the gesture.

'I love you, Blue.'

Red tilts his signature red cap down, suddenly overrun with embarrassment. Many memories were made wearing this hat when he lived in the human world. He got his first Pokémon, a Pikachu. It was fate that he transformed into one himself. Red, wearing the hat, defeated the gym leaders, Team Rocket, the Elite Four....

...and the Champion, his long time best friend and rival, Blue Oak. An Eevee was also Blue's first Pokemon and here Red is, talking to an Eevee sharing the same name. Another coincidence in this mysterious world where Pokemon could talk.

When Blue (the Eevee) found Red collapsed on the beach, he was firmly clutching the soaked hat. This hat being his only memory of the human world. Home.

Today is no different. He would make a new memory alongside his dependable partner, Blue. Stopping the planet's paralysis. It's true that Red has already created countless memories wearing the hat in the Pokemon world, but this one is more important than the rest.

And would be his last.

|||

Temporal Pinnacle

The hard ground beneath them had cracks. Four stone columns surround them, forming a square shape. Facing diagonally, the tops of two columns had broken off, another sign that Temporal Tower was going to collapse at any given moment. Red and Blue observe the area, hearts rapidly pounding. Roaring winds blew against their fur. Red wraps his arms around himself, trying to keep warm. Shaking his fur, Blue takes a few deep breaths.

"Is this... Is this the top of Temporal Tower...?" A rhetorical question. Blue was in disbelief. Yet, deep down both Pokemon knew that they had reached their destination.

An intense beam of light accompanied by a loud sound startles Blue out of his disbelief. Red goes on four legs, cautiously awaiting for an enemy. Sparks emit from his red cheeks.

"Waah!" Blue rushes to Red's side, "Lightning!"

Reluctantly raising his head to the sky, Blue's beady eyes widened. Wha-

"Look at the sky, Red!" Blue points up.

Like a whirlpool, red clouds swirl in the sky. In the center is a black hole, where lightning bolts rapidly shot out. The enormous clouds covered the entire sky. Neither Pokemon could see out of it.

"It's incredible!" Blue shouts, awed. "Red clouds are swirling!"

Deafening sounds of more sparks of lightning caused Red and Blue to cover their ears. The ground trembled underneath. A ticking clock then resounded, a reminder of their restricted time limit.

"Waah! It happened again!"

The tremors never lasted for long, but it would probably become much worse later on. Blue finds himself touching his necklace again. Regaining some confidence back, he squeezes it before letting go. Red rises from his defensive stance and glances at Blue.

Blue acknowledges the impending fate of Temporal Tower, "This tower feels like it's going to shake apart any moment! Let's hustle, Red!"

Red nods.

Red and Blue continue forward and it isn't long until they near a small set of stairs. Is that... an altar?

"Look! Over there!"

Something similar to veins glowed on a navy blue edifice. The structure was made up of five dividers that were cupsidated at the tip. In the middle, a stone with a luminous pattern and five indentations situated on a divider larger than the others. Serrated points emerged from the bigger divider.

"...What could this be? It has a strange, mystical feel..." Green tilts his head.

'...................................'

'There's a big circular pattern... Inside are indentations that look like they've been gouged out...' Red contemplates, squinting his eyes. 'What is this...?'

Red connects the dots. '...! Wait a second! The gouged-out indentations... There are five in all. Five slots... That means...!'

Red then lightly taps Blue and promptly shares the conclusion he arrived at.

"What?" Blue questions, "Five slots?"

The meaning of the question became obvious.

"Th-that's it! If I set the five Time Gears into these slots... We might prevent time from stopping!" Strong-willed feelings wash over Blue. Red and I are definitely... gonna save our world! Nothing can stop us now!

"Ok!" Blue gazes Red. An unanswered question lingers in the air. Red's eyes told Blue the answer. "I'll do it!"

But before either of them could approach the edifice, a powerful lightning bolt knocks them backwards. Landing on the hard floor knocked the wind out of them. As they shortly recover from that surprise attack, they notice that the sky above became dark and with it came a ill-boding presence. Red covered Blue's mouth to quiet his scream.

"GRRRRRRRRR..." A roaring gruff growl resounded, "SO! IT'S YOU! YOU SEEK THE DESTRUCTION OF TEMPORAL TOWER!"

The voice's declaration alarmed both Red and Blue.

"What?! You're wrong!" Blue desperately shouts, attempting to convince whoever the voice belonged to. "We're here to prevent time from stopping!"

Blue's words seemed to aggravate the voice even more. Their voice bellowed, "TIME...STOPPING...TIME... GRRR-OOOOOO!"

Primal Dialga appeared out of thin air, its massive dragon like body towered over Red and Blue. Steel enveloped some parts of its navy blue body. Designs covering its body were colored orange. The diamond in its chest altered from blue to a fiery red, representing the Pokemon's anger and loss of self-control. At the sight of Primal Dialga, Red is back in defensive mode. He goes on all fours, hackles raised.

"D-Dialga!" Blue yelps. Dialga's response was a fierce cry.

"YOU!" boomed Dialga. "YOU DARE BRING RUIN TO THE TOWER!"

"No! That's wrong!" Blue attempts to reason with Dialga. "We want to prevent the tower from collapsing..."

Unconvinced, Dialga growls, "SILENCE!"

'Trying to talk with Dialga is impossible...! He won't listen to reason!' Red thinks.

"FOR ALL THOSE WHO THREATEN TEMPORAL TOWER... I WILL SHOW NO MERCY!" threatens the enormous dragon, letting out another menacing roar.

Blue seemed to get the message and turns to face Red, "It's no use, Red! He's not listening to us at all!"

'Dialga is losing control because time is breaking down! But... This isn't like Primal Dialga in the future... He's not yet fully consumed by the power of darkness! There's still a chance that Dialga can be brought back to reason! There's still hope!'

"H-here he comes, Red!" Blue warns as the Legendary Pokemon obstreperously roars once more.

Harnessing all the remaining strength within him, Red uses discharge. Blue follows up by throwing a Gravelerock, but Dialga dodges. Red proceeds to attack with Thunderbolt and somehow misses. Blue bites down on Dialga's leg. However, Dialga doesn't flinch from the attack and unleashes Roar of Time. Red saw that move coming from a mile away and covered his ears. His partner on the other hand, took massive damage and fell to the ground.

Red scours the exploration bag for a Reviver Seed and a Violent Seed. He places the reviver seed in Blue's mouth and uses his tiny hand to make Blue chew on it. Stumbling to his feet, Blue regains consciousness. Red consumes the Violent Seed to strengthen himself and Blue goes on the offensive by using Bite once more. Dialga is unable to attack for the next few moments after using Roar of Time, so Blue consumes a Violent Seed himself while Red attacks with Thunderbolt.

Blue proceeds to continue using Bite and Red Thunderwaves to paralyze Dialga. However, Dialga shortly recovers from the paralysis and attacks Red using Metal Claw. Before Dialga is able to finish Red off, Blue hurls his Oran Berry at Red. Munching on the berry, Red moves away from the impending attack. The draft formed from Dialga's missed swipe knocks his hat to the ground.

Going for another Roar of Time, both Red and Blue took major damage. It wasn't enough to make either of them faint, however, they only had two more Reviver seeds and six Oran Berries left. If they didn't finish this battle soon... the three of them and everyone else would perish as the tower collapses and the world fell into ruin. Both Red and Blue ate an Oran Berry before using the same attacks as before. Able to attack again, Dialga hurls an AncientPower at Red. He's able to withstand the move and risks the rest of his energy by attacking with Discharge.

The corrupted Legendary Pokemon bends down on one knee, glaring at the two Pokemon who bested him. He still wants to fight... but has forgotten the reason why. A painful roar, a roar full of want, is the last action Dialga takes before thudding to the ground. Red and Blue pause, afraid that Dialga would suddenly attack again when they least expect it. A few seconds pass, but Dialga did not make a move.

"We... did it..." Blue lets out a breath he didn't realize he's been holding. "Ok, Red! It's time! While Dialga is still down, I'll go put in the Time Gears."

As Blue takes a couple steps forward, another tremor shakes the floor, stronger then the previous ones. Lightning is swiftly spewing from the red clouds.

"Th-this... This tremor is the worst it's been!"

' T-Temporal Tower is... Temporal Tower must be nearing total collapse...' Red wonders if they've already run out of time. 'If... If that were to happen... The destruction will accelerate... until the planet is fully paralyzed!'

Strong bolts of lightning strike at the stone ground, creating bigger cracks. Red picks up his hat from the ground and has a vice-grip on it, as the wind was getting difficult to withstand. Moving past Dialga's body, they fight against the shaking floor and high speed winds to climb the stairs.

"Urk! The floor's heaving..." Red struggles to hear Blue's voice. "It's hard to put the Time Gears into place!"

One by one, Blue and Red insert the Time Gears into the slots. They have difficulty placing the last two on the top, but manage to do it after Red uses Blue as a stepping stool. Red and Blue lock tired eyes.

Hope is evident in Blue's voice. "Done! They're all set!"

The gears emit a white light... and disappeared along with the indentations leaving a sky blue light on the grey stone. The color of the squiggly designs on the blue altar changed to a bright greenish color. Unable to bear the shaking any longer, Blue falls and rolls down the stairs. Red lands on his back. He stumbles to his feet and rushes toward Blue.

"Wh-why?! I put the Time Gears where they're supposed to go!" the hope in Blue's voice begins to fade with each word, "Why won't these tremors stop?!"

'Blue...'

Blue has a horrified expression on his face and tears form at the corners of his eyes. "It can't be... Was I too late...? Will Temporal Tower continue to collapse...?" Blue wipes the falling fresh tears, confused and afraid. "Is it too late... to stop the planet's paralysis..?"

Blue shamefully faces Red, a shadow of his former self. What can he say? Sorry for failing you? Sorry for failing the entire Pokemon world? Red's heart breaks at the sight of Blue's tearful expression. He desires to tell him that they would be fine and go home to Treasure Town, forever known as heros. In this situation, with the tremors and lightning becoming powerful enough to tear down the tower, Red would be lying. Still, he'd give anything to see Blue smiling again, even lying to himself. His Mom, Professor Oak, and Blue... Do they miss him? It must've been at least a few months since his disappearance. They're all probably worried sick.

'I regret taking his Champion title. I should have told him that I love him... but my words just won't come out! I continue to hurt him... What is wrong with me...? He was always there for me. Was I ever there for him? Why did our friendship end the way it did?

Is it because... of me?'

Powerful thunder impacts the top, destroying more of the floor and the other two columns. Both Pokémon drop to the ground. Using the last of his energy, Blue turns to face Red, knowing it would be the last time he'd get the chance to. A droopy grin appeared on his features, his manner of accepting the fate they journeyed so far to avert. Too many emotions begin to overwhelm Red. Despite the inner turmoil, he returns Blue's accepting smile. They did all they could. Yet, it wasn't enough.

Red's vision fades to black. His last thought was about the boy who he somehow fell in love with, Blue Oak.

|||

"Hello...? Can you hear me?" someone called.

It's blurry. The only thing that Red can make out is a boy with caramel hair and emerald eyes. Red blinks multiple times. His eyes slowly adjust to the brightness of the sun. The entrance of a town and three buildings. Two of which were houses, the other was a lab. Underneath, the hard stone of Temporal Tower was no more. Instead, Red's hands met with the touch of wet grass as he lifted himself up.

'Pallet Town...?'

A painful headache seizes him, causing his body to convulse. He can't seem to recall what happened. At that moment, it dawned on him. He must've died, but his memories are jumbled up. How else would he be standing in front of Blue Oak? Collecting himself, Red nodded in response to Blue's question.

Blue sighed in relief, playfully punching Red in the arm. "I can't believe you were hiding here, Red. I've been trying to find you! My sister and I have a surprise for you!"

Blue extends a hand to Red. Red doesn't think twice before grabbing onto him. He's realized that he missed this, begin away from the human world for Arceus knows how long. And now he's been gifted a second chance. Memories of adolescence are resurfacing.

They enter the Oak house, everything in place as Red remembered last time he visited. Much to Red's chagrin, Blue let go of his hand. A box wrapped in Pikachu printed wrapping paper sat on top of the table. Immediately, Red rushed over, casting an asking glance back at Blue. Blue pat Red's dark hair and chuckled.

Fresh tears gather in Red's eyes. He already knew what Blue's gift was. His signature red hat. Only in this reiteration, the hat was not yet tattered by the memories Red would make as a trainer and an actual Pokémon.

'Oh...' Red warmly stares at the thoughtful gift. 'I guess I must have fallen in love with him at this exact moment. Besides my mom, no one else really gave me anything. Of course, I didn't mind. As I child, I didn't talk much. I did what I was told and never expected something in return. Blue and I only knew each other for a year, since Mom and I moved to Pallet Town after my father's death. All the gifts that Mom gave me... And yet, the hat that Blue got for me became my most valued possession.'

"Well? Do you like it?" Blue questions, a faint blush on his cheeks. Red briskly nods, beaming. He puts it on.

"Red." Blue's voice suddenly quiets to a serious tone. "How long are you gonna keep him waiting?"

'Huh?'

"It's not over yet." he sadly smiles, retaking Red's hand into his. "Wake up. The other Blue... he needs you right now."

'No...!' Red lifts his head. Rivulets of tears fall. 'I don't want to... not like this! Not when I can see you again!'

Blue seems to have read Red's thoughts. Bumping their foreheads together, he whispers, "No, Red. This... is a dream. I'm not the real Blue Oak... but you and him will certainly cross paths once this is all over. Don't keep me waiting, okay?"

'...'

'Okay. I promise.'

|||

'...Ugh...' Red feels like his head is splitting. 'Urk... Th-this is...'

His body is unusually heavy as he pushes himself off the floor. Destruction due to the tremors and thunder surround him and he wonders how the Tower hasn't collapsed by now. Large cracks cut into the ground. Gone were the tops of the four columns, two of which were lying on the ground. His eyes come across his collapsed partner.

The Eevee groaned as Red stumbled toward him. He lightly nuzzled Blue's warm fur. Without warning, Blue's eyes opened and he was on his legs. Red breathed out, appeased that Blue appeared to be fine.

"Hey... Red..." Blue's gaze wandered around, searching. Confusion appears on his face. "Wh-where...?"

Out of nowhere, someone spoke. "THIS IS... TEMPORAL TOWER."

The voice belonged to Dialga, now back to his original form. Various light blue stripes instead of orange on blue skin. His chestplate holds a diamond in the middle. Three spines shone on the back of his neck, as well as a metallic head piece that seemed like a crown. A fin-like structure rests near his tail. Cautiously, Red and Blue make their way towards the gigantic Legendary Pokemon.

"Dialga!" Blue's voice shook. They couldn't possibly battle again. Red and Blue barely won the last fight.

Dialga heard the panic in Blue's voice. "YOU HAVE NO CAUSE FOR ALARM. I HAVE REGAINED MY REASON."

"What?" taken aback, Blue tilts his head.

Dialga calmly explains the situation, "TEMPORAL TOWER HAS TAKEN HEAVY DAMAGE... BUT IT HAS SURVIVED." he turns from the two, "NOW, OBSERVE."

The diamond shimmered. Soon after, a moving image played in both Red and Blue's mind. From the forest floor, bushes and grass dance in gentle winds. Above, the sky is blue with several white clouds. Red supposes that Dialga is using telepathy to show them. Another scene played. Damp leaves on the branch of a tree. Drops of water trickled from the leaves.

All of this was happening at a familiar place, Treeshroud Forest. Yet, when Red and Blue were there, time had stopped. There was no sign of movement, of life. Now it seems as if... time has been restored. Life can now continue. Not only in Treeshroud Forest, but in all the places where time has stopped.

Treasure Town came into frame. Bidoof was in front of Duskull Bank, two treasure boxes full of Pokemon currency as always. Teddiursa and Ursaring are together, chatting as always. Corphish stood on the stones in the center of the dirt path. Swellow and Wurmple were also prattling on and on nearby Electivire. Xatu peacefully stood in front of his shop, waiting for a Pokemon to bring him a treasure chest so he could open it. Kangaskhan's storage was open. Politoed, Ledyba, and Togepi seemed to be buying something from the Kecleon brothers. By the looks of it, everyone is doing well. It's like any other beautiful day in Treasure Town.

Rocks float in the filled with yellow clouds. Light shines from above. The Hidden Land. At the highest point, a damaged and not far from collapsing tower rests.

"TEMPORAL TOWER SURVIVED THE CRISIS. TIME HAS RETURNED TO NORMAL HERE..." Dialga clarifies, "THUS, TIME HAS RESUMED IN PLACES WHERE IT HAD STOPPED. BECAUSE YOU STOPPED THE RUIN OF TEMPORAL TOWER... THE PLANET'S PARALYSIS HAS BEEN PREVENTED. THE WORLD'S PEACE... HAS BEEN RESTORED."

Blue can hardly believe he's hearing this, "R-really?! We did it, Red! We finally did it! We brought peace to the world!" he celebrates. Blue's expression was that of content.

"ALLOW ME TO THANK YOU." Dialga spoke. "I THANK YOU FOR REACHING THE HIDDEN LAND... YOU HAD THE COURAGE TO STAND UP TO ME, EVEN AS I RAGED OUT OF CONTROL... AND YOU PREVENTED THE RUIN OF TEMPORAL TOWER IN THE NICK OF TIME. THANK YOU. ALL THIS, I OWE TO YOU."

Delighted surprise is evident in Blue's voice, "D-Dialga..."

Dialga continues, "BUT ALL IS NOT YET AS IT SHOULD BE... IT WILL TAKE TIME. I MUST SEE TO THE REPAIR OF TEMPORAL TOWER." his gaze moves towards outside the tower, lost in thought. "THE HIDDEN LAND, TOO, HAS BEEN RAVAGED... BUT THE RAINBOW STONESHIP SHOULD STILL BE OPERABLE... AND LAPRAS SHOULD BE AWAITING YOUR RETURN."

Blue nods. "Ok!" he forgot for a while there that he and Red had to journey home, but that was fine. He couldn't wait to see everyone again and continue their lives at the guild. "Let's go home, Red! Back to Treasure Town!"

Leading the way, Blue runs to the entrance of the roof. Red begins to follow, but then realizes that he's missing his hat. Rescuing it from the floor, he dusts it off before descending the stairs.

Sorrow slowly eats at him as they make their way down Temporal Tower and towards the Rainbow Stoneship.

This is it. His final memory in this world alongside Blue.

|||

Blue proudly strides in front of Red on the floating stone path, eager to reach home. Power is in each of the tiny steps he takes. Oppositely, Red finds it becoming more and more difficult to move his body. His breathing is becoming ragged. Perhaps he should tell Blue...

Now noticing something off about Red, Blue speaks up. "What's the matter, Red? Let's hurry." Blue cringed at his tone. He sounded annoyed, even though he really wasn't.

Red feebly nods, though Blue doesn't seem to notice. They continue their slow pace with Red weakening as seconds pass.

'My body... feels heavy... What's wrong... Why am I struggling to move...? It's like... my legs are weighed down...' Red clutches his head, thoughts swimming in his mind, trying to think of a reason. 'Maybe... now that we've changed the future... My own disappearance... is drawing near...'

A small tremor and Blue's yell jolts Red from his thoughts back to reality.

"It's settled down..." Blue sighs, shaking his head to focus. "I guess things are still settling back to normal... Let's go, Red."

Blue strode onward. Suddenly, incandescent light encompasses Red, prompting him to stop in his tracks.

'This... This light...' Red frowns, already knowing what was happening to him. 'The time has finally arrived... My time with Blue... ends now.'

"Hey, Red!"

Once Blue shortly realized that Red wasn't behind him, he came rushing back. Red's body being surrounded by light was an uneasy sight. Worry overcomes him and he stops in front of Red.

"What's wrong with you?!" fear rises in Blue's voice.

"...Sorry, Blue." Blue's eyes widen hearing Red's quiet voice. His mouth is agape. "I kept this to myself for a long time..."

Red rarely talks! T-this must be serious... Is he hurt..? Why would he-

"It looks like... I have to say goodbye..."

Blue froze. He couldn't believe it! Red... saying goodbye? Leaving him? That's our of the question. After everything they've been though... how could he?

"Huh?! Goodbye?!" he comes closer to Red, right in front of his yellow face. Blue tries to wrap his head around this. It's making him become emotional. "What are you saying?!"

As if everything was perfectly normal, Red   was composed as he explained. "Dusknoir told me. If we changed the future... all the Pokémon from the future would disappear. There would be no reason for a human to be here either. That's why... I'm destined to disappear too. I'm... going back to the human world."

"Huh?" Blue was growing frustrated. He blinked away the angry tears beginning to form. "What? Wh-why? I don't understand!"

Red had been preparing for this moment and speaks the words he wanted to say to Blue Temporal Tower. "Thank you for everything. I'm going to disappear from here now... But, Blue... I'll never forget you."

Blue wishes that time would stop again. There's too many things he needs to say to Red, but he doesn't have enough time to. "W-wait a second... I managed to make it all this way because you were with me, Red." he's unable to keep his voice from breaking and the tears from blurring his vision, "Don't you understand...? You made me strong, Red... If you go, Red... I don't know... what I would..."

Red sets his hat on Blue's head. The Eevee's ears droop and the notion is too much to handle. A broken sob escapes his mouth.

"No, Blue. You have to be strong on your own. You have to live!" Red embraces his crying partner. "You have to go home... Tell everyone about what happened here. So that... nothing like this happens ever again."

"Red..." Blue sniffles. Red puts their foreheads together as he light becomes brighter. Blue's little heart is breaking. "Don't, Red! Don't... Don't go..."

Red pulls his head away from Blue. "Thank you for everything, Blue. I'm glad we got to train together at the guild... I'm glad we got to go on adventures together..." Red smiles sadly. "I'm glad... I got to know you, Blue."

"Wait... Red..."

"I'm sorry." Apologizes aren't enough to stop this, but Blue deserves it after Red kept this huge secret from him. "I'm so lucky that you were my friend..."

Blue cries, "I feel the same, Red! To me, Red, you're..." trying to control his breathing, he takes a deep breath. "More important than anything..."

"Yes... I feel the same way." Red closes his eyes, "Blue... Even after I disappear from here... I will never forget you..."

Before Blue is able to say anything else, he watches helplessly as his partner disappears with the light.

"...Red... Red!" Blue's voice cries out in vain. His partner, his one true friend... gone. Never to return. "...Red!!"

Collapsing to the ground, Blue heavily sobbed. He couldn't hold his heartbreak any longer and poured out his grief in a flood of uncontrollable tears.

|||

His cheeks streaked with dry tear tracks and he mumbled incoherent words as he pressed on despite the deep hole in his heart. Each step he took was slow and heavy. The thought of making it home was now lost in his emotions.

"...I have to live... I have to get home alive..." Blue lets out a shaky breath. "...Get home... and tell everyone about what happened. Because it's... Red's... It's Red's... last wish..."

Even at such a slow pace, it isn't long before Blue arrives at the Rainbow Stoneship, the pattern etched onto the stone is phosphorescent. Blue's chin quivered. Chewing on his lower lip, his eyes once again welled up with tears.

"Th-there's..." A tear tickles his cheek. "There's the Rainbow Stoneship..."

He has to force himself to move. So close, yet so far. Before he's able to get on, Blue trips and lies on his face for a couple of moments. With the tiny amount of strength he has left, he picks himself off the ground. It's as if time has stopped again as he trudges onto the stone. He faces the direction of Temporal Tower, in all it's glory.

Finally, the Rainbow Stoneship departs.

And he's slowly distancing himself from the tower. Distancing himself from Red.

Forever.

"Temporal Tower is...getting farther and farther away..."

Silence. Painful silence. Lonely silence.

"And Red..." Blue swiped at his eyes but fresh tears came anyway. "I'm getting farther away from Red..."

Oh, Red... I never got to say that I love you.

#pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon #pokemon fanfiction #gay #pokemon red #pokemon green #red x green #red x blue #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon fandom

[jofiel]

The man on your left is Percy Fawcett - archaeologist and world famous explorer, known best for his adventurous lifestyle and his mysterious disappearance in 1925. His life and disappearance served as an inspiration for many characters, books and film. Indiana Jones was modeled after him. 

The man on your right is Dr. John Hemming who says Fawcett can go fuck himself. 

Percy Fawcett was a British geographer and explorer best known for his disappearance in 1925 while searching for an ancient lost city he commonly referred to as 'Z'.

Fawcett was a former lieutenant and captain of an artillery, joined the Royal Geographical Society to study surveying and mapmaking, and worked for the British Secret Service in North Africa. He served for the War Office as a Major. He was also friends with writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who you may know as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Fawcett served as an inspiration for Doyle's book, "The Lost World".

The timeline for his disappearance: 

1925: Fawcett sets out for his last known expedition to find the lost city of Z. He left specific instructions stating that if the expedition (that consisted of himself, his son, and his son’s friend) did not return, NO rescue expedition should be sent.  (This request was later ignored as various rescue/recover expeditions were conducted for years to come; the first in 1927 and the most recent in 2003)

On April 20th, 1925 - His final expedition departed from Cuiabá, Brazil. It's a geographical centre of South America. His group was joined by 2 Brazilian laborers, 2 horses, 8 mules, and a pair of dogs.

On May 29th, 1925 - He sends out his last communication from the expedition in the form of a letter to his wife. He wrote that he was ready to go into unexplored territory with only Jack (his son) and Raleigh (his son's friend). He sent this letter out from a major camp he created called Dead Horse Camp. Here's one problem: He sent out two letters from this camp - and in both letters he wrote different coordinates as to where his location was. To his wife, he gave the coordinates: (11°43′S 54°35′W) and to The North American Newspaper Alliance he gave the coordinates (13°43′S 54°35′W). Here’s a satellite image of what that would look like. 

Nobody knows what happened to him and his crew after that.

The Theories:

Naturally, tons of theories were created after his disappearance. 

His fellow explorer buddy (and then later, war hero) Henry Costin - who had joined Fawcett on expeditions before - theorized that he succumbed to starvation or exhaustion. He claimed he had good relations with the natives and seriously doubts they killed him.

The Villas-Bôas / Kalapalos Tribe Murder Theories -

Orlando Villas-Bôas, a Brazilian pioneer for indigenous activism (who I’d also recommend reading about), received skeletal bones that were alleged to have been Fawcett and had them analysed scientifically. Apparently, the 'murderer' of Fawcett explained to him that the trio lost the gifts they were to bring to the native tribes in the river. Continuing without gifts was a serious breach of protocol, they did so anyways, and the two younger men were thrown into the river during an encounter with the Kalapalo tribe while Fawcett (being older) was given a proper burial.

 A Kalapalo chief called Comatzi told his people how the unwelcome strangers were killed.

 Comatzi's predecessor, Kalapalos Chief Izarari, had told them he had killed Fawcett and his son Jack, by shooting them with arrows after Fawcett attacked him and his people when they refused to give him guides and porters to take him to their Chavante enemies. Raleigh had died from fever before they trio had reached the Kalapalos.

 A slightly different variation was told by Villas-Bôas, stating that Chief Izarari told him that he had killed all three white men with his club the morning after Jack allegedly consorted with one of his wives. He also claimed that Percy Fawcett had slapped him in the face after the chief refused his demand for canoes and porters to continue his journey.

The Kalapalo also have an oral story of the arrival of three explorers: The three went east, and after five days the Kalapalo noticed that the group no longer made camp fires. They were killed by a violent neighboring tribe.

Later, scientific analysis determined the bones given to Villas-Bôas weren't Fawcett. A Kalapalo elder in an interview in the 1990s also denied that the bones were Fawcett's and that the tribe had nothing to do with his disappearance. Who the bones belong to, and where the remains of Fawcett and his crew are, remain a mystery to this day.

Some of the other theories: 

One theory, based on Fawcett's private letters, suggested that Fawcett never intended to return to Britain. Instead, he meant to found a commune in the jungle based on theosophical principles and the worship of his son, Jack.

Another theory, closely related to the previous one, was that Fawcett was targeted by an erotic siren who draws white men into the jungle.

Now would be a good time to mention that his older brother was an occultist and friend of Helena Blavatsky, co founder of the Theosophical Society. In fact, he helped her while she was creating The Secret Doctrine.  Here is a link to the PDF version of The Secret Doctrine and here are two links to buy a physical copy of volume one and volume two. 

Fawcett’s wife also believed that the men were still alive, and claimed to have received a psychic message from her husband in 1934. She remained believing that they were alive and would come home until the day she died. 

* Psychic Geraldine Cummins also reported receiving a telepathic message from Fawcett in 1936, and received four more communications until 1948, when he told her that he was dead. “Cummins said, the Englishman had found the relics of Atlantis in the jungle but was now ill and semiconscious.”

The other conclusions draw about what happened include:

He was eaten by jaguars

He was still alive and was living off the land

He was still alive, found the lost city, and spent the rest of his days there

He was alive but a prisoner of a tribe

He became the chief of a cannibalistic tribe

He became a victim of amnesia, malaria, parasitic infections, you name it

He found the lost city and it was full of beautiful red headed aliens. 

Him and his son were worshiped as gods in Roncador.

He was killed and had his head shrunken. ** Here are two different photos of the head that’s alleged to belong to Fawcett. Due to its disturbing nature it will be up to you to decide if you want to see these photos. 

For the general public - Fawcett served as an exciting symbol of adventure and mystery. He's seen as this iconic explorer, an inspiration for many novels and characters - including Indiana Jones. At one point, a fictionalized version of Fawcett actually aids Indiana Jones in the 3rd book of the original series. His life was admirable and his disappearance was called, "one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century".

For experts....his reputation and life's work is much different.

Dr. John Hemming is a well established, highly experienced historian, explorer, and expert on Incas and indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. His record is honestly too long to get into but just know that our knowledge of indigenous peoples from South America probably wouldn't be as extensive as it is without him. His books are still used as references, his work is praised by Brazilians and Europeans, and if you want to learn anything about the different tribes in South America - he's your guy.

His take on Fawcett? Well almost a century after Fawcett’s disappearance and presumed death Dr. Hemming was like 

"Greatest explorer? Fawcett? He was a surveyor who never discovered anything, a nutter, a racist, and so incompetent that the only expedition he organised was a five-week disaster. Calling him one of our greatest explorers is like calling Eddie the Eagle one of our greatest sportsmen. It is an insult to the huge roster of true explorers. Had the advertisement been about a soap powder, it would fall foul of the Trade Descriptions Act."  That’s a god damn direct quote from the VERY first paragraph of an article John Hemmings wrote about Fawcett in 2017.

In fact the tagline for the article was:  "A new Hollywood film hypes Percy Fawcett as a great explorer. In fact, he was a racist incompetent who achieved very little." 

Before his disappearance, Faucett was known for making....odd claims.

  "While on the expedition in 1907, Fawcett claimed to have seen and shot a 62-foot (19 m) long giant anaconda, a claim for which he was ridiculed by scientists. He reported other mysterious animals unknown to zoology, such as a small cat-like dog about the size of a foxhound, which he claimed to have seen twice, and the giant Apazauca spider [a mythical GIANT spider that turns its victims black as it poisons them]."

Some other incredible quotes from the article (that I highly encourage reading) include:

"He [Fawcett] emerges from it as a typical Edwardian colonial officer — friendly with South Americans but looking down on them, appalled by the cruelty at some rubber stations, full of gossip about life on this remote but boom-rich backwater, and uninterested in nature apart from banalities about dangerous snakes and irritating insects."

"The Maxubi were friendly and hospitable, but continuing on a forest trail Fawcett met another tribe (probably Sakurabiat) to whom he took a violent dislike. When one aimed a drawn bow at him, Fawcett shot the man with a Mauser revolver — absolutely forbidden by Brazil’s Indian Service. He described them as he imagined Neanderthals or Piltdown Man to have looked: ‘large hairy men, with exceptionally long arms, and foreheads sloping back from pronounced eye ridges… villainous savages, hideous ape men with pig-like eyes.’ No Amazonian Indian has body hair or looks remotely like this — I know, because I have spent time with over 40 different peoples. “

“These two groups, and the two on the Heath, were the only tribal people seen by Fawcett. He liked two of them. So it was strange that he wrote racist gibberish that ‘there are three kinds of Indians. The first are docile and miserable people, easily tamed; the second, dangerous, repulsive cannibals very rarely seen; the third, a robust and fair people, who must have a civilised origin.’ "

"He now took two inexperienced ex-public schoolboys, his son Jack and Jack’s friend Raleigh Rimmel."

"All expeditions in the past four decades had brought plenty of presents such as machetes, knives and beads. Fawcett had none. He committed other blunders that antagonised their hosts [the natives]. So it was only a matter of days before they were all dead."

"Such was the sad tale of this incompetent, whose only skill was in surveying."

"Then it was forgotten until 2009 when David Grann, a talented writer, published The Lost City of Z. Unfortunately, Grann hyped the story out of all proportion and wrongly depicted Fawcett as a great explorer. As he cheerfully admitted, Grann had no experience of rainforests. But he let his imagination run riot, with pages about ferocious piranhas, huge anacondas, electric eels (actually a fish that has never killed a man), frogs ‘with enough toxins to kill 100 people’, ‘predator’ pig-like peccary, ‘sauba ants that could reduce the men’s clothes to threads in a single night, ticks that attached like leeches (another scourge) and the red hairy chiggers that consumed human tissue. The cyanide-squirting millipedes. The parasitic worms that caused blindness…’ and so on. Everyone who know tropical forests, including me, knows that almost every word of this is nonsense."

"Grann wrote that, as an author, he would have been lost without my three-volume, 2,100-page history of Brazilian Indians and five centuries of exploration. He quotes quite often from my books. So he had no excuse for describing Fawcett’s brief visits to three indigenous villages as the ‘discovery of so many previously unknown Indians’, from whom ‘he learned to speak myriad indigenous languages’, and adopted ‘herbal medicines and native methods of hunting [so that he] was better able to survive off the land’.

Dr. Hemmings also refers to the colonizers who enslaved the natives in the area as 'thugs' 

 and fucking ended the article with " Hollywood believed everything Grann wrote, and then hyped it up more. ... But I could recommend scores of writings by real explorers."

#long post #history #historical #archaeology #mysteries #unsolved mysteries #education #TIL #Percy Fawcett #Dr. John Hemming #Indigenous History #this is a long post but it's so worth it! I spent all day yesterday researching about it #the ENERGY

[mldrgrl]

What it Feels Like For a Girl

by: mldrgrl Rating: NC-17 Summary: I had several Anons, and one non-Anon, requesting a body swapping story where instead of Morris Fletcher and Mulder swapping bodies in Dreamland, it’s Mulder and Scully.  So, here’s the result.  Mulder and Scully swap bodies at a very inopportune time.  (Or very opportune, depending on how you look at it). Note: I’m going to be honest here and say, I don’t think this is a concept that works well on paper.  A visual medium serves this thing a lot better.  Oh, well.  A big thank you to @kateyes224 for being the first to get through it :D 

As the blinding light in the sky hovers closer, Mulder takes hold of my wrist and squeezes.  I can’t see past the light, now shining directly into my eyes so strongly that I have to put my hand in front of my face because squinting doesn’t cut it.

There’s a flash and a moment of equally blinding darkness where it takes a moment for my sight to recover itself.  Morris Fletcher still stands grimly before us, flanked by military personnel who look a little too trigger happy for my taste.

“Come on, Mulder,” I say, but the strange thing is, I don’t hear my voice, I hear his.  When I look to my right, he’s not there.  When I look down, he’s still gripping my wrist, except I feel like I’m the one doing the holding.  And then I’m looking into my own startled eyes.

“What the fu-?” she says, right about the time I’m blurting out “oh my God.”

“Mulder?” I whisper.

“Scully?”

We’re both interrupted by an impatient Fletcher, barking at us that we are trespassing on government property.  She...he looks annoyed, clearly about to make an ill-advised retort and I shake my head at him.

“Come on,” I say, tugging on the sleeve of my own jacket.  “Let’s just go.”

There’s an awkward moment of confusion as we move to the car, heading to our usual sides. Mulder stumbles over his feet and then tip-toes towards the driver’s door with miniscule, shuffling steps.  

“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss at him.

“I can’t walk in these shoes!” he hisses back.

I don’t fit into the passenger side.  I’ve never not fit into any space ever.  But, here I am, knees folded up and knocking into the glove compartment.  He’s not faring much better, unable to reach the pedals and clearly distressed about it.

“Maybe we should switch?” I suggest.

“Not until we get out of here and find out what the hell is going on.  How do you...Jesus, I can’t reach anything!”

This is surreal.  Whatever’s happening feels like a nightmare or a bad acid trip.  I keep pinching the skin on my wrist trying to snap out of whatever this is, but it’s not working.  Out of curiosity, I reach up and touch my face, feel my fingers scrape across the five o’clock shadow dusting my cheeks.  This can’t be happening.  This can’t possibly be happening.

*****

We don’t talk much on the way to our motel.  I can’t speak for Mulder...well, actually, I am speaking for Mulder, currently, but I think it’s just too damn weird to try to talk to each other and hear someone else speaking.  It’s jarring.  We do agree on one thing though, and that’s the fact that we need to get back to DC as soon as possible.

Actually, we agree on two things.  We get back to DC as soon a possible, and we don’t tell anyone about this until we know for sure what’s going on.  To that end, I book a red eye out of Santa Fe and Mulder hastily packs up our motel rooms.  

“Don’t you have any flats?” he whines, digging through my duffel bag.

“At home.”

“I feel like I’m going to break an ankle.”  He takes tentative steps across the motel room, trips twice, and nearly takes a header into the wall, but I happen to catch him.

“You hurt me, I’ll kill you.”

He stands there wobbling like a baby giraffe.  I’m afraid if I laugh at him he’ll think I’m enjoying this situation.  Trust me, I’m not.  Of all the messes he’s gotten us into, this one surely takes the cake.  So, I just stand there, with my arms crossed, watching Mulder hobble back and forth until he can assure us both he isn’t going to fall on his ass in a pair of two-inch heels.

The flight home is the most uncomfortable flight I have ever been on.  I prefer a window seat when I fly normally, but my whole body feels too long to fit anywhere but the aisle.  Mulder, on the other hand, looks almost pleased with himself and leans back in the seat and stretches.

“This is great,” he says.  “I’ve never had so much room before.”

As soon as I get my own body back, I’m going to kill him.  Slowly.  Using lots of torture.

Maybe it’s crankiness from the unbearable cross-country journey, or the awkwardness of being in someone else’s body, but as soon as the flight lands, I have the compulsory need to be as far away from him as possible.  It’s so hard to look at him and see myself, but to know it isn’t me.

“I think we need to stick together,” he says to me as we head to the taxi line.  “Just stay by each other’s sides until we come up with a way of fixing this.”

There’s a moment where he starts to put his hand on the small of my back out of habit, but his usual aim is thrown off by our change in height and instead lands directly on my ass.  I jump.

“Mulder!”

“Wha-oh!  Sorry.”

“Be careful.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Well how would you like it if I smacked your a...nevermind.  Have you come up with any solutions?”

“No.  You?”

“None.  I do think we need to behave as normal though.  Go about our days like nothing unusual has happened.”

“Days?”

“We don’t know how long this is going to last, Mulder.  Hours, days, weeks-”

“Don’t say months.”

“Years.”

“Years,” he barks.

“Keep your voice down,” I whisper, bending so our heads are closer together.  I don’t think I’ve ever had to bend down to speak to anyone in my life.  Why do I have to be so short and why does he have to be so tall?  It’s a wonder neither of us has suffered a neck sprain in the past six years.

“How can you be so calm about this?”

“I am far from calm, but I’m not going to freak out in a taxi line.”

“Well, then what do you want to do?”

“It’s Saturday.  We go home.  We think on it.  We come in on Monday, go over our ideas, and hopefully, one of us will have thought of something brilliant.”

“You want to split up?”

“I want to think.  Which means, I don’t want to be distracted and I don’t want to get dragged into any other of your crazy schemes until I’ve had the chance to process this.”  There’s a taxi approaching and we’re next in line, so I do the gentlemanly thing and open the door for Mulder.  He reluctantly slides into the back seat and I hand over my duffel bag to him.

“Oh, and Mulder,” I say, just before I close to door.  “Do not, under any circumstances, get me into any trouble.  Just remember, I already shot you once.”

“Scully, I really think-”

I slam the door to cut him off.  I just want to get home and come up with a solution.

*****

I am well and truly exhausted by the time I get to Mulder’s apartment, my home sweet home for the next...however long it takes to fix this mess.  I want nothing more than to lay down, take a nap, and hope I’ve dreamed up something truly amazing by the time I wake up.  What I didn’t count on was the fact that Mulder really and truly didn’t have a bed.

All these years, I really thought he’d been joking when he said he never got around to buying a bed since he preferred his couch anyway.  He referred to his bedroom as the storage closet, and though I have glanced into it a time or two, all I saw were boxes.  Surely there must be a bed hidden under there somewhere, so I thought.  Well, I was wrong.

I almost called Mulder to berate him right then and there, first for getting us into this mess, second for not living like a proper adult, but what would that really solve?  I’d still be without a bed for the foreseeable future.  So, I did what a normal human being would do and I looked up the nearest mattress store in the Yellow Pages and drove down.  I probably spent an hour trying them all out, found one I liked, and with the swipe of Mulder’s credit card conveniently located in the wallet in my back pocket, bought him a mattress and bedframe that would be delivered bright and early tomorrow morning.  One night on the couch probably wouldn’t kill me.

With that done, I went to the mall and bought some sheets and pillows for the new bed and then on to the grocery store for food.  I’ve seen the science experiments growing in Mulder’s fridge and, though I’m pro-science experiment, I’m anti-eating them.  It also occured to me, once I got back and fixed myself a nice salad, I had better clear out all that junk in the storage closet so the bed would have a place to go.

In the midst of packing boxes and cleaning, I used the time to think.  I don’t know though, something about being in Mulder’s body must have affected my brain, because the only ideas I could come up with were ones that he would’ve thrown at me.  We could see a psychic.  We could hold a seance.  We could try time travel.

By the time I’m finished turning the bedroom into an actual bedroom, it’s past dinner time, and I do the most Mulder thing I can do.  I order a pizza and sprawl out on the couch in front of a movie.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m boring you with all this stupid, mundane crap when you must be thinking oh my God, you’re in an entirely different body, why haven’t you inspected it from head to toe and tried out all the...new body features.  Well, look, I am curious beyond belief about what it’s really like to be a man, but I’m going to have to look Mulder in the eye again and I don’t know if I can satisfy a curiosity and still maintain a professional relationship after that.  There are boundaries.

But, fine, I may have changed into a nice pair of jeans and a sweater within the full length view of a mirror, not that I was looking, but I think the few glimpses I caught will allow me to keep my integrity intact.  I mean, and I did have to shower, so that was interesting.  I didn’t attempt to shave, but I will compliment Mulder on the body wash he uses.  It was very nice and I might try to find some with a more feminine smell when things are back to normal.

The only real challenge I run into is how to use the bathroom.  It’s one thing to check out Mulder’s body, but another thing to touch certain parts that need to be touched, I assume, when one uses the bathroom.  I mean, I didn’t know what would happen.  Do I just stay still and hope it aims itself, or what if once I start it’s like an out of control fire hose situation?  I know it’s not very manly, but I opt to sit down to pee.  Mulder doesn’t have to know.

*****

It’s late I think, at least past 10pm, and I’m dozing on the couch when my cell phone rings.  “Scully,” I mumble out of habit.  “Um, I mean Mul-”

“Scully, it’s me.”  There’s an edge to his (my?) voice that doesn’t sound good.

“Mulder?”

“You don’t...you don’t happen to feel like you’re dying, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh God,” he moans.  “Scully...something’s wrong.”

“Mulder?”

“Something is really, really wrong.”

“Mulder, I’ll be right there.  Don’t move.”

I’m off the couch in an instant, thankful for my suddenly longer legs that get me out of the apartment and down the block to Mulder’s car in what feels like two minutes flat.  I’m also grateful that I gave him a key a few years back and I use it to enter my apartment about fifteen minutes later.  All the lights are off.  I call out to him and he answers from the bedroom.

I find him curled up on the bed, still wearing the same pantsuit I threw on before accompanying him on that wild goose chase to New Mexico.  There’s just enough light filtering in from the street lamps outside to highlight the anguish on his face.  Let me tell you, it’s a little disconcerting to see yourself in pain.  I crawl onto the bed and put my hand on his forehead, but he’s cool as a cucumber.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“You don’t feel it?” he answers, lifting his eyes up to me.

“Feel what, Mulder?”

He bursts into tears and rolls away from me.  “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Tell you what?”

“I thought it must be an effect of whatever this thing is that’s going on, but if it’s just me and it’s not you, then it can’t be and it hurts so much.  Scully, why didn’t you tell me the cancer was back?”

“What?”  If I wasn’t panicked before, I certainly am now.  “What the hell are you talking about, Mulder?”

“Your body is dying, I can feel it.  I’m dying.”

“What hurts?”

“Everything!  Everything, God, my head is...and there’s this pain in my back - I think it’s the kidneys.  Scully, I think your kidneys are going to explode.  And then the light was too bright and I feel sick and then like right here…”  He presses a hand to his hip, a little lower and off center from his abdomen.  “It’s like...I don’t even know.  Something is happening right there, something bad.”

It dawns on my almost immediately and I do some quick math and think about the date.  If it wasn’t so tragic, I’d laugh.

“Mulder, you’re not dying.”

“Do you think it’s appendicitis?”

“It’s not appendicitis either.  You’re PMSing.”

“I’m what?”

“You’ll be starting your period tomorrow.”

There’s a monumental silence that follows as he stares at me, silent tears trickling down his cheeks.  And then he gasps loudly and starts weeping.

“Why am I crying!” he chokes out.

“Hormones.”

“What am I going to do?”

I try not to roll my eyes.  “You’re going to do what every woman since the dawn of time has done, you’re just going to deal with it.”

“But, I have no idea what to do with...the things and the...you know…”

Yes, I do know.  And a few moments ago I’ll admit I was feeling a little smug about Mulder having to getting to experience what it’s really like to be a woman, but he’s got to experience that in my body, which means…hoo boy.  And of course he’s not going to know how to handle the finer details of a menstrual cycle, which means it’s going to be up to me to show him.  What other alternative is there?

I’m never going to New Mexico with him again.  In fact, I’m never going anywhere with him again.  This is all his fault.  If not for his stupid, wild goose chase, Mulder wouldn’t have cramps and I wouldn’t be on the verge of showing him how to use a tampon.  Jesus, but there’s another even more embarrassing conversation we’re going to have to have in a minute and it’s going to make the rest of it seem like a picnic.

“Alright, Mulder, I have medication I’m going to get for you,” I tell him.  “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”  He wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands and I slip off the bed.

I grab the prescription bottle from the medicine cabinet and fill the water glass on my sink.  I consider for a moment just leaving it as this - giving him the pills and walking away - but, I can see him behind me in the mirror, doubled up on the bed, probably praying for swift and sweet relief and I know all too well what it’s like and how it feels to just want someone, anyone to come take care of me when it’s as bad as this.  So, I have to bite the bullet and get him through this the best that I can because in a way, I’m doing this for myself.

“Take these,” I say, handing him two pills and the glass of water when I return to the bedroom.  He sits up, just enough to swallow them down and grimaces as he tries to lay down again onto his back.  I put the bill bottle and the glass on the nightstand and stare at the top drawer for a few moments before I sit beside him.

“Thank you,” he whispers, shutting his eyes.  That’s good.  It might be easier to talk to him if he’s not looking at me.

“Mulder…”

He sort of grunts-slash-whimpers in response.  I reach over to gently untuck his shirt from his slacks.  “Why haven’t you changed?” I ask.  “I’ve-you’ve been in this suit for two days.”

“I didn’t feel right about it.”

I unbutton the top button on the slacks and rest my hand low on the bare skin of his abdomen.  I press down, slowly increasing the pressure.

“Oh,” he breathes with a sigh.  “Your hand is warm.  Oh, that’s nice.”

“I know.”

He puts his hand on my wrist like he’s afraid I’ll move away.

“You need to get undressed,” I whisper to him, making a gentle circular motion with my hand.  “You need to get more comfortable.”

He doesn’t move, although he gives a tiny shake of his head and his brow furrows slightly.  He grips my wrist a little harder.  “I’m good here.”

“Come on,” I tease.  “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“It isn’t right.”

“You have my permission, Mulder, if that’s what you need so we can deal with this.”

It’s an interesting thing to watch Mulder’s expressions of struggle play out on my face.  I can see him even if I’m looking into my own eyes.  It’s bizarre.  But, then again, I’ve always said I could read his face as easily as I read my own.  I just never imagined for it to be so literal.

“How about this?” I say.  “You’re the only one that can take care of my body right now and I need you to do what I ask of you because you’ll get sick if you don’t.  I trust you.”

That seems to do the trick.  He nods a little, but still clutches my wrist.

“I was wrong when I said we should go about our days like everything is fine.  You were right, we need to stick together on this, so I’m not going anywhere.  I’ll get you through this, I promise.”

“Okay.”

“What’s going to happen right now is, I’m going to go into the other room.  You’re going to get undressed.  You’re going to open the top drawer of my nightstand and you’re going to take out the blue velvet drawstring bag.”  I pause.  “Um, I’m sure you’ll figure it out from there.  And when you’re doing, take a nice hot bath and go to bed.  As for tomorrow...we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Mulder stutters, taking a vice-grip on my arm.  “Are you asking...no.  No, no, no.”

“It’s okay.  You just need to do this and...it helps.  I promise.”

“No way.  For one thing I’m not...and for another it’s...no, Scully, I can’t.”

“Listen, the medication alone isn’t going to solve everything.  I’ve learned over the course of dealing with this for the last 20 years, so you’re going to have to true me.”

“I do trust you, Scully, but I’m not...I’m not you.”

“You do know how to bring a woman to or-”

“Yes!  Yes, but that’s different.  And it’s...it’s what you said before, this is your body.”

“Which you’re currently occupying.  If you think I’m not dying a little of mortification right now that I have to explain all of this to you right now, you’d be wrong.  But, I’m telling you, from personal experience, that an orgasm increases the blood flow to the uterus and contracts the muscles, which will ease the cramps you’re having now.  It also releases dopamine and endorphins, which are going to make the migraine you’ve got building up to go away and will let you sleep.  So, there’s a really nice, really expensive, very trustworthy vibrator in that drawer and if you just...tonight is going to be a lot easier for you to handle if you do what I tell you to.”

“No.”

“Mulder!”  God, but his stubbornness is exasperating.

“You do it.”

“I can’t do it.  You’re me and I’m you.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly, so-”

“You know what to do.  You do the thing with the...thing.  That way you’re the one taking care of things.”

Oh my God.  “Well, that’s not really…”

“See.  You can’t tell me it’s okay for me, but not for you, if your argument is you’re me and I’m you.”

“I mean, that is the argument, but then if I’m involved, it would really be you that’s involved because I’m you and you’re me.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, it’s the exact same argument for why you should versus why you shouldn’t.”

“Well, I’m sorry, this is the first time I’ve been in someone else’s body and I don’t really know what’s okay and what isn’t!”

“Scully, I can definitely tell you it’s not okay to ask me to masterbate in your stead because I don’t even think it would technically count as masturbation since I’m not you.  So, if you want this body to get off, you’re going to have to be the one to get it off because it’s your body, not mine.”

I realize this argument has gotten a little out of hand and though we’re not quite shouting, it’s louder than it probably should be.  I take it back down to a decent level.  “Alright,” I say.  “I see your point.”

“Good.  So, I’ll go ahead and take that hot bath if you get a swimsuit for me and as for-”

“I mean, alright, Mulder.”  I know this is insane, but I really do see his point.  I also know that if he’s up all night in pain, if he doesn’t get any sleep, if he can’t shake that headache or the cramps, it’s only going to get worse from here.  He’s leaving me no choice.

“You mean...wait, I don’t know if…”

“We both agree.  It’s my body, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”  First thing’s first, we need to get him undressed.  Maybe what I need to do is stop thinking about him as Mulder, but as me.  We need to get me undressed.  “Sit up,” I say.

He does as I ask with quite a bit of hesitation and doesn’t look at me.  But then, he lifts his eyes and I sit back as the air leaves my lungs.  He’s reclined slightly, hands pressed back behind his hips, a little flushed, hair mussed, smudges of mascara under his eyes, and I have this moment of complete awe.  He looks...I look beautiful.  It tightens my chest and sends a flutter to my gut.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

Christ, Mulder, I think.  I want you to stop looking at me like that.  There’s fear there, but also trust, and expectation, like I have all the answers to all the questions in the world.  It’s making me feel flustered and incompetent.  Is this why Mulder always stutters when we argue?

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper, and I feel the heat rise to my cheeks in embarrassment.  

“You are, you know.  I mean, you say that like you have no idea.”

“Okay, maybe this really wasn’t-”

“Scully.”  He puts his hand on my cheek and it feels soft and delicate, but it feels like Mulder.

“Take your shirt off.”

His hand slides away slowly and then he pulls at his shirt from the back of the neck, typical man.  I stop him before he can stretch it out and break any threads in the collar.  I happen to really like that shirt.  I take it up from the bottom and he lifts his arms to help draw it off.  He blinks a few times.  I have to lean into him to reach around and unhook his bra.  Surprisingly, I fumble slightly, unaccustomed to the length of my own fingers.

“You smell like me,” he says, and I can feel his breath against my neck.  It raises the hairs on my arms and stirs my groin.  Oh God.

“I had a shower,” I answer, pulling back.

“Oh yeah?  How did that go?”

“Nothing to say about it.”

“Did you look?”

“Look at what?”

“It’s okay if you did.”

“Mulder, I’m a doctor.”

“Hm.”  He studies my face for a moment and then lays back and closes his eyes.

I lay down as well, on my side, propped up on an elbow, and put my hand on his chest, palm between his breasts and fingers splayed.  My chest, I remember.  My breasts.  I start with a soft caress, knowing how sensitive and achy my chest would be right now.

“I should tell you,” he says, cracking one eye open a little and shifting his gaze down to my waist.  “Sometimes...he’s got a mind of his own.  I don’t know if anything will happen, but right now my hand is on a beautiful woman’s breast, so you might want to start thinking of Santa Claus.”

“Santa Claus?”

“I don’t know why, but it helps.

“Okay, thanks for the warning.”

He closes his eyes again and takes a deep breath.  My hand rises and falls with his chest and I pick up where I left off, this time slowly sliding the back of my hand around the curve of his right breast.  His mouth opens a little and he takes another deep breath.  I take my thumb and circle over and around the nipple, gentle enough so that it’s hardly a touch at all.  He bites into his bottom lip and scratches at the bedclothes.  

It feels like there’s electricity in the room, humming between our bodies.  I’ll blame it on the charge and say that it’s what compels me to lean over and kiss his neck.  I know the spot to hit, just below the ear and at the edge of the hairline.  For whatever reason, it’s always made me light up like a Christmas tree.  He whimpers, and one knee bends up ever so slightly and then slides back down, but his brow furrows like he’s in pain.

“Mulder?”

“Yeah?” he squeaks, and then clears his throat.  “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

It takes a few seconds to answer and he shifts his hips.  “Um, I think so.”

“Open your eyes for me.”

He blinks rapidly and then holds his eyes open to mine.  They’re wide and dark, but when I sweep the back of my hand down along his side, they droop almost sleepily.  It’s encouraging and I move on, bending my neck to place my lips against the top swell of his breast, with gentle suction, just how I like it.  His knee slides up again, higher this time, and bumps the side of my hip.  Without thinking, I catch his leg, hand wrapped around the inner thigh, and hold it there, slightly open, as I work my mouth down and across his chest.

He breathes my name and his fingers suddenly slide into my hair, first one hand and then the other.  Damn, but it feels good.  I’ve always loved the soothing act of having my hair washed at a salon, but it’s incomparable to having nails scratching at your scalp and thumbs skimming your nape.  It’s like I can feel it in the roots of my hair down to my toes.

Before I know it, I’m looming over him like it’s a natural move to make.  I know at this stage when I’m with a man, I’d be pulling him into that perfect cradle between my thighs where they fit so nicely, but the compulsion for me right now is to slide into that space myself.  As I sink down, I’m conscious of what the weight of a man is like, pressing you down, making you feel more delicate than you are at times.  And I’m conscious of just how much larger I feel.  The body under mine, my body, feels vulnerable, and I have the urge to protect it, to treat it carefully, and by extension, to protect Mulder, treat him carefully as well.

“Is this alright?” I ask.

“Mmhm,” he says, shifting beneath me.  His bent legs are pressed to my hips and his hands move to my shoulders and then I begin to waver.

I’ll be completely honest here, I have no idea what I’m doing.  I don’t engage in any foreplay when I’m by myself, mostly because I don’t need to, but even if I know the ins and outs of my body, I don’t know what it feels like for Mulder right now.  I know what I’m feeling like in his body, and all the images of a fat, bearded man in a red suit that I’m trying to conjure up are no match for what’s happening to me.

It’s insane, I know, but this has got to be the single most erotic thing that’s ever happened in my life.  And I also I know that the brain is a powerful organ, but it’s a mind-bending concept to be able to touch yourself with someone else’s hands and not recognize your own body.  As it happened, I had to wonder, has my breast always felt this soft and heavy, or is that just how it feels in Mulder’s hand?  Has my abdomen always felt so smooth?  Has my hip always curved so invitingly?

And I’ll be damned if the ache of arousal is any different now than when I’m in my own body.  The pressure is the same, if not a little lower in the pelvis.  The heavy, swollen feeling between my legs is the same, but with a different consequence.  And yet, I’m still overwhelmed with the urge to grind my hips into the bed, just as I would if I was myself.

I make a move to back up just a little lower, and oh my god, the friction and the pressure is both delicious and unbearable.  I reflexively groan a little and Mulder opens his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Fine,” I breathe, recognizing the hoarseness in my voice as the same one I’d encountered on occasion from knocking on our connecting motel doors and being told ‘just a minute.’

I move up and off of Mulder to sit back on my heels.  His eyes travel down to my lap and back up again when I unzip his pants.  The pressure against my jeans is tipping past the border of pleasurable to painful.  ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…

I grit my teeth, wiggling his pants off his hips and drawing them down his legs.  I notice with a little bit of relief that even if he couldn’t manage to get undressed, he did at least remove my socks and shoes.  All that he’s wearing now is navy blue panties, not the sexiest pair I own, but it could be worse.

Faced with this moment though, this turning point, I have to pause.  He’s aroused, I can see it and I can smell it.  I’m aroused, which is becoming more and more painfully obvious with each passing second.  So, what do we do about it?  Should we keep running from what I’m fairly certain we’ve both wanted for quite some time, or do we give in and experience something no one else on this planet has likely experienced before?  Jump or turn back?

“Mulder, I...I asked you to take care of my body for me and I never...I should’ve asked if you want me to do the same.”

“You looked, didn’t you?”

“Of course I looked.”

“Did you like what you saw?”

“I want this.  I want this if you want this, but I need your help.”

“You need a hand?”  He smirks and reaches for the fly of my jeans.

“I want you to show me what you like and I want you to tell me how it feels for you.”

“Well, the first part’s easy.  I like everything.”  He sits up and pushes my open jeans off my hips, a little rougher than I would have, and takes the boxers down with it.  Without any hesitance, he wraps a hand around my shaft, making a tight fist, and tugs up once, leading with the thumb to circle the head lightly.

“Holy mother of fuck,” I groan.  His grip remains firm and his rhythm is steady.  He twists his wrist just a little with every upwards  jerk of his hand.  It’s not the slow climb towards ecstasy I’m used to.  There’s an immediate gratification that comes with it, but also no satisfaction.  I want more, but it’s also too much.  “Sss...stop…” I pant.

He releases me and I swear all the air leaves my lungs with a whoosh.  I already want the feeling back.  Instead, I lean over and kiss him.  It’s not what I expect it to be and I’ll admit, I’m a little letdown, but I suppose that’s only because I’ve fantasized about being able to run my tongue over that pouty lower lip of his.  We both pull away with as though the disappointment is mutual.

I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of bashfulness and as I look down and sit back, suddenly remember that I’m still fully clothed.  Nervously, I take off my shirt and then I have to lay down to kick my shoes and pants off.  And then I just lie there, fully naked, staring at the shadows on the ceiling.

“Hey,” Mulder says, laying down beside me putting his chin on my shoulder.  “We don’t have to do this.”

“I know we don’t.  I want to though, it’s just…”

He takes my hand, twines our fingers together and then brings them to his chest.  I can feel the swift thump of his heart which matches the beat of my own, quick and strong.  I roll towards him so we’re face to face, nose to nose.  He leans his forehead against mine.

“I wouldn’t do this with anyone but you,” I say.

“Me either.”  He let’s go of my hand and reaches down to slide the panties off.  “Is it weird that I keep thinking how much I want you inside me right now?”

I shake my head.  “Not unless it’s weird that I keep thinking about how much I want to be inside you.”

“I want to know what it’s like to feel what you feel.”

“I do too.”

“How do you want to do this?”

“How about just like this?”

“Okay.”

But, neither of us really know how to start.  We make some abbreviated movements towards bringing our bodies together, but fall short.  Finally, I take his leg and pull it over my hip.  I don’t know if I want to watch his face for this moment, or if I want to watch us.  Ultimately, I settle on us and leave it up to Mulder to guide me inside.  

We don’t magically come together like I’d imagined.  There’s fumbling and just as I feel myself start to ease into his warm, wet folds, he let’s go and I slip away.  He grips my shoulders, breathing hard, and I reach up to push away the hair that’s fallen in front of his face.

“You okay?” I ask.

“It’s different.  Stings a little.  I don’t want...I don’t want to hurt you somehow.”

“It’s just for a moment, I promise.  You won’t hurt me.  But, if it’s too much, or too soon, we can slow down.”

“What if I’m not ready?  How would I know?”

At first I think he means emotionally, but it’s the follow up question that changes things.  And since he has no first-hand experience, that’s true, how would he know?  I reach down between his legs and dip my middle finger inside.  He tenses and I can feel the resistance of his body.

“Relax,” I whisper to him.

“I’m trying.”

I understand his nervousness.  I think back over my first few times during sex, when it felt like an invasion of my body, no matter how much I wanted it.  I adjust my hand, pull my finger out slowly just a little, and then slide back in, curling it as I do.  I must admit, having longer fingers makes hitting my target a lot easier.  His mouth drops open with a sharp gasp and his hips push forward into mine.

“Good?” I ask.

“Uh huh.”

I do a bit of lazy exploration with my thumb, skimming indirectly over the sensitive little bud that’s going to ultimately make Mulder’s toes curl, before I bring it out of hiding.  He moans and pulls my hip closer with his thigh.

“You have to tell me,” I say.

“It’s so fleeting.  I don’t know.”

I slow down and make exaggerated circles with my thumb, increasing the pressure and tightness of the motion little by little.  I know when I’ve got it just right when his hips roll forward, but then he jerks back and my hand slips free.

“Oh, that was…” his breath hitches.

“It’s okay.  Move with it, not away from it.”

We start over from the beginning, but quickly find our way back to before.  My hand cramps a lot quicker than usual, but quitting isn’t an option.  Fortunately, he’s learned quickly how to match the rhythm of my hand with his hips.  There’s just one more thing I think he needs for me to get him there.

“I want you to try to squeeze my finger,” I say.

“What?” he breathes.

“Think about those muscles down there, and try to squeeze.”

His inner thighs tighten against my hand.

“Not the legs.  Inside.  You can do it, you just have to concentrate on it.”

A determined look comes over his face and I slow just enough to make him want it that much more.  “Oh, don’t stop,” he says, just as I feel the slightest bit of pressure against my finger.

“I’m not.”

“Don’t stop, don’t stop.  Oh, Scully, that’s...oh…”

He tenses and rocks forward.  His nails dig into my shoulder and it sends a jolt of desire straight down my own body.  The heavy ache I felt earlier is becoming tight and painful again.  I slip my hand out of Mulder and wrap it around my shaft, just as he’d done earlier.  There is a need in my gut like being thirsty with a glass of water just out of reach.

“I need you,” I murmur.  “Mulder, please.”

“I need you too.”

With less fumbling this time around, I manage to push guide myself inside.  And oh my god, to be enveloped by the heat and the wetness and the tight grip of his body is just...oh my god.  But, Mulder is whimpering, making a short little gasps in the back of his throat and I stop halfway in and hold onto him.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he breathes.  “Nothing, this is just...it feels so...it’s so different.”

“You feel amazing.”

“More.  I want more.”

“Are you sure?”

“All of it. I want to feel all of you.  Please.”

I push deeper, until our hips meet, and then I stop and relish the moment.  Our bellies press together, our thighs are twined, our chests expand together with every breath and I actually don’t know where I start and end any longer.  When I move, he moves.  When I put my arm around him, he puts his arm around me.

The pleasure sensation is different, more acute, more like tingling pressure.  It drives my hips forward.  The rapid beat of my heart matches the quick pulse between my legs.  Blood rushes through my veins, heats my chest, swells in my groin.  I have the urge to move faster, but this position has me restrained.

I stop, only long enough to roll Mulder onto his back and press up on my knees.  The new position forces Mulder’s legs wide apart and I take his right leg and drape it over my shoulder.  He grips my ass impatiently and I slam my hips back into his, grinding down a little with my public bone this time.

“Oh my god,” he cries out.  At least, that’s what I think he says.  It’s one long exhale and a groan, but that’s what it sounds like.

I have to agree though.  Oh my god.  Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.  Everything below my pelvis starts to tighten.  This must be it.  I can feel the release is imminent.  And Mulder’s got that pinched-brow expression of deep concentration again.  I can feel him.  I can feel him pulling me deeper, squeezing me tighter, and my eyes start to roll back in my head.

“Oh god, oh god.”  I’m not sure who yells it, but I know I feel like a bottle of champagne that’s just been uncorked.  All the pressure that’s been rising up explodes into stars behind my eyes.  The force of it is so strong that I can’t breathe.  I can only groan and quiver.  Beneath me, Mulder is also moaning softly.  The heel of his left foot digs softly into my ass.

I’m on the verge of collapse and muster up enough strength to pull his leg from my shoulder and turn onto my side.  I want to weep when I feel our bodies disconnect.  I reach for him just as he reaches for me and we twine together again, a lot stickier and sweatier than before.

“Wow,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t move.”

“Me neither.”

“You were right about the orgasm thing though.  It’s like the cramps never happened.”

I chuckle a little.  “That’s good.”

“And, like, Scully...twice?  In a row?  It’s not even like a wham, bam, thank you, ma’am kind of way either, those are just...wow.”

“It’s not always like that.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Huh.”  He stares up at the ceiling and considers this.  “Does that mean I should be flattered, or should you?”

I laugh and shrug a little.  Mulder presses his cheek to my arm and sighs.  Laying here like this doesn’t feel that strange at all.

“Do I still need that hot bath?” he asks.

“You should.  Even if it’s just to clean up.”

“You want to join me?”

“Yeah.  Sure.  I might need a minute.”

“Should’ve warned you.  Sex makes me sleepy.”

“Not me.”  I yawn.

“I’ll go get the bath ready.”

“Okay.”

“Scully, about tomorrow.”

“Heating pad, Advil, and you’ll get to learn how to use a tampon.  Wait, there was a short in the wire of my heating pad.  I had to throw it out.  We’ll think of something.”

“Yes, I can’t wait, it’s going to be great.”

I chuckle again, this time with my face pressed to the mattress and my eyes closed.

“But,” he says.  “What I mean is, what happens tomorrow?  Where do we go from here?”

“First we figure out how to get things back to normal.  And then...and then we’ll see.”

“Okay, I’ll go run the bath.”

“Okay.”

*****

I wake up with the sun on my cheek, a soreness in my thighs, and a twinge in my abdomen.  I pick my head up and turn it to the other side.  The bed is empty.

“Mulder?”  I sit up and look at my hands.  My hands.  I’m wearing a pair of flannel pajamas I don’t remember putting on.

I get out of bed and walk through my empty apartment.  Something feels off.  I feel like I’m in a dream or I’ve just woken from one.  And where is Mulder?  But, wait, why would Mulder be here?

I return to the bedroom and stare at my bed.  I can feel flashes of my dream or a memory bubbling up to the forefront of my mind, but they’re also not quite clear.  I’m making love with Mulder, but my body isn’t my own.  I am Mulder.  My cheeks flush.  How strange.

My thighs though.  They’re sore and ache in only the way my thighs will ache after a night of passion.  Why would I wake up with Mulder’s name on my lips?  I pick up the pillow next to mine.  It smells like him.  It smells like us.

I find my cell phone in my duffle bag by the front door.  I remember packing a bag to go to New Mexico with Mulder, but almost nothing after that.  I call his cell, pacing in front of my table as it rings.

“Mulder,” he answers.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

“Hey, Scully.”

“Mulder, were you…?”

“Was I what?”

How do I ask him if he was here last night?  How do I ask him if this blurry image of the two of us in my head is real?  And if it is, well why did he leave?  It can’t be real.  I’m just being ridiculous.

“Nevermind,” I say.  “I think I had a weird dream or something.”

“Hang on, Scully, someone’s at the door.”  I hear him open his door on the other end of the phone and a distant conversation.  “A bed?  I didn’t order a bed.”

I gasp and hang up.  I ordered the bed.  I remember.  Oh my god.

*****

An hour later, Mulder shows up at my door and I open it, but I don’t move back to let him in.  He sighs and leans his head against the jamb and then holds a gift bag out to me.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“It’s a heating pad.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Can I come in?”

I back up and let him through.  He’s wearing what I wore yesterday, what he must have picked up off my bedroom floor this morning before he walked out.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“I want to know why you left.”

He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair.  “When I woke up this morning, I was a little disoriented.  I didn’t know where I was or what happened.  I thought at first that I might have been drugged - that we may have been drugged.”

“And then?”

“And then things started coming back to me in pieces.  It was like deja vu at first, but then I remembered the lights in the sky and you being me and...the rest of it.  And I remembered you telling me that you didn’t know what would happen after things were back to normal, and I was afraid that you would wake up and be embarrassed or regret what...or that you would shut me out and we’d never acknowledge it or speak of it again.”

“I’m sorry you felt that way.”

“I don’t remember everything.  There’s parts that are clear and parts that aren’t.  I do know that, for me, it was pretty incredible.”

“It was for me too.”

“Well, yeah.”  He grins.  “The only time I crash hard like that is when the sex is really good.  I mean, like really really good.  So…”

I feel my cheeks get hot and I look down at the gift bag in my hands.  Some men bring women flowers.  Mulder brings me a heating pad.

“You bought me a bed, huh?” he says.

I huff at my feet and nod slightly.  He shuffles closer, takes the bag out of my hands and puts it on the table.  I pluck at the blanket hanging off the back of the couch.

“Guess I was past due,” he says.  “There is one thing I think we need to settle though.”

“What’s that?”

He cups my face and leans down.  This time, I get to taste that bottom lip of his that I’ve always wanted.  It’s even better than I dreamed.

The End

#xf fanfic #msr #i wrote this #humor #dreamland #there be sex here

[fanders-sanctuary-au]

Dream's Orders

So this is my tiny for this Fanderside Au! I’m pleased to meet him, and if you wish to play with him, please feel free to ask me about doing a rp or co-story!

I hope you enjoy!!

Warnings- Mentions of abuse towards tiny’s, mentions of suffocation, mentions of starvation, mentions of plans to murder someone. Indication of past psychical and emotional abuse.

I believe that is everything, please tell me if I missed anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You understand what you’re to do?” The man speaks gruffly. He’s dressed in fine clothing, and looking down at a tiny standing before him. The tiny has silver grey hair that reaches his shoulders and pale blue eyes. He’s dressed in ill fitting doll clothing, standing a mere 4 inches high, bruises and scars of all kinds, both old and new, cover his body. He makes no indication that they hurt, he couldn’t afford to show that weakness.

“Yes sir” the tiny says, his voice is faint, hardly a whisper in the air but the man hears it all the same. The man nods and motions for the tiny to get in a box that’s sitting on it’s side near him. He does, limping as he climbs into the box. It’s sealed and dumped in the outgoing mail. Hopefully he’d arrive before he got too bad with lack of food and water, but if he failed there were more that could be sent in his place, they were raised for these kinds of jobs after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The package arrived in the regular mail, one side had been slightly crushed and the plain box was addressed to “Sanders Sanctuary” Thomas hummed as he gathered the box with the other mail, and headed inside.

“Bill, bill, invite to an interview..” He paused looking at who was invite him and wrinkled his nose. Nope, those people had a very bad reputation for spinning anything someone said into some sort of slander. That got ripped in half and tossed in the trash.

“Lets see.. magazine, and this?” He mused looking at the plain box. No return address, and just addressed to the sanctuary? Puzzled Thomas got out a letter opener and sliced open the tape holding the box shut. He opened it and very nearly dropped the box in shock when he saw what was inside.

“Larry!!” He yelped as he bolted for the medical wing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“…though the mail…” the words floated though his head. It was too much effort to actually open his eyes, and the voice wasn’t familiar. It wasn’t his sir speaking, or any of the trainers he knew. He felt weaker the normal and his head was spinning.

“cruel… could have died!” He really wished the voices would be quiet, but they didn’t seem to want to stop. Finally he managed to pry one eye open. The room that greeted him, made both his eyes snap open. He was NOT where he was supposed to be! This was not Sir’s cage! He then remembered what happened, he’d been given orders, and put in a box. Then mailed.. .it had taken.. what a week and a half? Two weeks? He wasn’t sure.. but the heat of the summer in the enclosed box had been almost unbearable, it had been suffocating. Of course it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been suffocated, no being smothered by a pillow and trapped in a plastic bag held tightly around his body was probably worse then the stale, sweltering air inside of the box. He had no idea when he’d finally blacked out from lack of water, food and the heat.

“Woah.. it’s alright..  ” a gentle voice spoke to him. Slowly the pale blue eyes turned and looked at the blurry figure.

“I’m glad you woke up, but don’t try to push yourself. You were pretty dehydrated, and you’re pretty malnourished.” The blurry person said. He nodded, nothing new on those fronts. Being underfed kept him quiet and not with enough energy to try and escape Sir, or fight back.. or well anything. The rest, well he had spent quite a long time taped inside a box in the mail with no food or water.

He was still trying to sort out what was going on though, he hadn’t expected to wake up.. in a hospital? And weirdly enough everything seemed to be his size. Had he been sent to the wrong address? Chapped lips parted as he shifted slightly

“.. where?” his voice was a rasp, worse then when he spoke to Sir, but the person, still blurry darn it, attending him spoke.

“Sanders Sanctuary, you were.. well…” they trailed off as if unsure if they should say how he arrived.

“Mailed.. to us.. ” he said. Again there was a nod, he knew this, he’d gotten his orders and climbed into the box obediently, thank goodness he was in the right place. Still he was very confused, Sir had never mentioned they had a hospital here.

“I’m sure your throat is dry as sand, lets get you something to drink!” Suddenly the blurry figure left his sight and came back, a cool hand lifted his head slightly and something was pressed to his lips. Then the fist brush of liquid graced his chapped lips and he drank willingly. The one supporting him told him to drink slowly and he did so. The liquid felt like heaven and the pounding headache was already starting to lessen a bit. But he was feeling exhausted, not unusual, he was always tired.. sore, hurt, nothing new. But it was odd to have someone gently lay him down and smooth soft covers over him. He noted absently he was no longer in the painful doll clothes, but something softer that fit far better then anything he’d ever had on in his life.

“You get some rest, we’ll talk more later alright?” the blurry person said. He nodded once more and his eyes shut, how strange to be allowed to rest so much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was the routine for at least four days. Finally though he was sitting up on his own, and able to talk normally. He found out he had on a pair of soft pants, and a t-shirt that opened in the center. He’d had a heart monitor on him, along with an IV, both things were tiny sized, and he was more puzzled then ever. He watched the others his size come and go, and sometimes saw humans come in, and move a part of the roof to gently set tiny people in, or to put supplies into the room. They never stayed long, he honestly was more confused then ever.

“Alright, I have been told you’re clear to leave the hospital!” a nurse tiny said. He nodded his head and would get up off of the bed.

“Now you go see Patton, He will guide you to your new room and help you get settled alright?” He nodded his head in agreement, and though he was still limping, he headed out of the hospital. It didn’t take long for him to locate Paton, or more accurately for Patton to locate him.

“Kiddo! They were able to let you out today!” he said cheerfully  having been heading to to the hospital to check and see if he’d been cleared. He nodded his head again.

“Yes, You must be Patton?” he asked. His voice was still whisper quiet, but Patton nodded beaming at him.

“Yep! nobody has told me yet, so what’s your name kiddo?” He asked curiously.

“Dream” He said simply in response.

“Dream huh? Well that’s a great name! Why don’t we get you settled in alright? Virgil will want to get some measurements on you, right now we just guessed at the clothing size you needed, and he’ll want to know what kind of style you like.. ” Patton rambled on as he led Dream down the walks and halls that were all borrower sized.

None of this made sense to Dream. This Sanctuary was supposedly tied to the Shadow man, and Sir wanted the owner and the Shadow Man dead. Dream had been told to expect torture or experimentation, but to get the job done. And it wasn’t like that would be any different then just going though his daily training. Torture, pain, suffering, conditioning, all of it done to him all the time so he was the perfect little assassin. He could hold up to torture and not crack, he could pretend he had no pain, and he didn’t really care about killing a human or tiny alike. His hands were not clean in the least in that sense. He’d gotten numb to the guilt that it caused him.

Outside of Sir, nobody believed a tiny could do something as complicated as being an assassin.  Still though, this place… was nothing like he had expected. They had been weirdly kind to him, and weirdly accepting of his refusal to speak about, well much of anything, and just… weird.. in general.

“Oh that’s Thomas!! Thomas!!” Patton called out, bringing Dream back from his thoughts.

“Here’s the one who.. this is Dream! He’s finally been released from the hospital! I’m taking him to his room now!” Patton said. Dream looked at the human. He didn’t seem… he simply looked overworked, tired, and perhaps a bit stressed, but the warm smile he sent Dream’s way confused him more.

“I’m so glad you’re recovering so fast Dream. If you need anything don’t hesitate to ask alright?” he said. Dream nodded very slowly at the human. And again his expectations were being twisted, this man didn’t seem cruel, or like a mob boss, or any underground owner he’d ever met. Dream’s head was starting to spin from the confusion.

“Good, why not go get some rest. We’ll have dinner in a few hours if you’re up to meeting everyone.” Thomas added and headed down the hall. Dream’s pale blue eyes watched him. This was one of the people he was supposed to kill? That was supposedly someone in league with the Shadow Man? He didn’t look like he could hurt a mosquito. Dream looked back to Patton and frowned. Everything seemed.. complicated. But he wasn’t allowed to survive if he failed. He had been given orders from Sir. Kill them both, or die trying. Dream sighed a little bit, feeling some odd weight settling heavy in his chest.

“Everything alright kiddo?” Patton asked. Dream simply nodded a little, though Patton was sure that there was something turning behind those pale eyes.

“Alright, so here is your room, why don’t you get settled in for a bit, and I’ll see you later alright?” he offered. Dream nodded and then stepped in the room. He could use some down time, and some peace and quiet to shove these weird conflicting emotions to the side. He had a job to do, and he wouldn’t fail Sir.

Thomas Sanders, and the Shadow Man were to die. That was all there was too it. So why did he have an odd tight feeling in his chest at the thought?

Dream sat down on the edge of the bed in the room and looked at the floor.

“.. i .. have to .. right?” he muttered out loud to the empty room.

T: AAAAAAAh, So you have me HOOKED on this idea! What a cool idea, a borrower sent to infiltrate the sanctuary! And oof, I just wanna give poor Dream a hug. But I am so here for him getting his walls slowly chipped away and him finally realizing that everyone here is really good, and him wrestling between that and what he’s been ordered to do...super cool, thank you for writing this!

#your ocs #dream #fic #fanders sanctuary au #g/t #g/t sides #infinitesimal!sides #tw torture mention #tw abuse #submission

[sculptorofbeginningslibrary]

Black Eyes & Bloodlust - Chapter 15

My Masterlist

Black Eyes & Bloodlust Masterlist

Summary: Dean has never met his Omega, never even thought there could be one waiting for him–but she’s out there, and they’re connected in ways they could never have imagined.

Characters: DeanxReader, Sam, Cass, a few OC’s

Warnings: Eventual smut so typical A/B/O warnings,Slow burn (and I mean it. SLOW BURN GUYS.)Language, depictions of mental illness, Gore and Violence, (Warnings will apply to all chapters just to cover all the bases.)

Word Count: ~3,140

A/N: New aesthetic/header by @tumbler-tidbits​ and I loveeee it! Thank you so much! ALSO! Chapter 16 WILL NOT be the last. The end is in sight, but it’s not here yet ;) 

Unbeta’d for reasons, but heavily edited by me, so if you find mistakes that irk you PLEASEEEE  message me so I can fix them :)

Enjoy!

__~*~__

Halfway to the hospital Sam broke the silence, taking a quick scan of the poor Omega girl, Carrie, to make sure she was still fast asleep before speaking. “Cas, we can’t let him do this.”

“It’s done by now, Sam.” Castiel didn’t miss the clench of Sam’s jaw, but with what he now knew, this had been inevitable. In this particular fight against Fate, they’d lost miserably. “It was done the moment we let him take her. Getting between an Alpha and his Omega is never an intelligent decision, but I felt their connection, Sam. When I healed Y/N I sensed her soul and it was--” Castiel huffed, frustration seeping through as he came to terms the new information in his head, then tried to form the words to make Sam understand. “--Her soul is damaged similarly to Dean’s. It’s whole, I think, but I don’t believe either of them will ever be the same. The Mark is--”

“I know, Cas.” Sam whispered, “I know what the Mark does.” A long silence stretched as Sam attempted to sort out what this all meant for his brother. “You know...this is the worst time for Dean to shove off into some--some, extra jacked up Bonnie and Clyde murder act. I mean Cas, she killed like nine people, and that’s only what we know of! She killed a hunter, you said so yourself. We’ve killed monsters for less, and Dean’s barely holding on as it is--”

“--It’s not her fault Sam. Y/N is not a monster, she’s a human. I would think that you of all people--”

“--It’s just that throwing himself into an Omega just as messed up as he is--” Sam’s knuckles whitened where he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“--Is a recipe for disaster, yes, I know, but they are true mates. There’s nothing we can do.”

“There always something Cas.” The silence resumed, loaded and heavy, and continued even after the girl had been properly dropped off at the hospital. 

__

Sam didn’t quite understand why Castiel hadn’t flitted off to somewhere less stressful, normally he’d be gone by now. Instead of leaving, Castiel stayed by his side as they walked back to their own motel from Lane’s.

“True mates, huh?” Sam asked after a while, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. The concept was so foreign; he wasn’t sure either him or Dean had ever even believed in any such thing, especially with the lives they lived. The side streets were dark and empty, devoid of anything interesting enough to keep Sam from overthinking. The Alpha knew the Angel was right about one thing, atleast: it wasn’t Y/N’s fault she’d gotten wrapped up into this mess they’d created. Castiel nodded solemnly.

“That must be the source of their psychic connection.”

“I thought that was just some fairy tale...or just genetic compatibility or something.” Castiel shook his head.

“Not at all. They’re rare, but it is a soul connection. You probably have one waiting somewhere as well.” 

Sam avoided Castiel’s last statement. “Did you see anything else while you were in her head?” The side-eye Castiel gave him before looking away spoke volumes. “What? What did you see? Anything that could help us figure out the Mark?” Sam found he was almost afraid of the answer as Castiel inhaled deeply.

“I saw...everything Sam, but there’s nothing inside Y/N that can help us find a cure.”

__~*~__

Dean’s thick fingers kneaded into your shoulders, lazily exploring the dip and curve of your muscles. Your smile was soft as you let his tingling touches wander your skin while your fingers trailed over the keys of the cheap keyboard, playing ‘See You Again,’ the song that had been haunting him. When he’d explained how you had followed him in that way you’d had to giggle. It wasn’t your favorite song like he, and apparently Lane, thought--oh god, Lane, you thought, but pushed it away-- it just happened to be the one you’d been playing when you had collapsed the first time. It had haunted you too, you thought. It was hard to be sure.

Memories were still surfacing and rearranging inside your head, forcing you to sift through the mess. However, the night everything had begun had been clear as glass since it had come back.

An average day in your average life had ended with a glass of wine and your piano, grumbling about your shitty workday and contemplating yet another dating site until suddenly you’d found yourself in searing pain and curled into a ball on the floor. From then on it had been nothing but nightmares and sleepless nights until you’d been committed.

Telling Dean that part of the story was equal parts cathartic and painful, but you hadn’t been able to explain past being released from the facility. Those memories were still too much, but Dean knew enough to fill in the blanks on his own.

He’d dreamt your experiences as you had his.

Dean connected the timelines for you carefully, and realized you had been connected since he’d taken The Mark. Then he’d managed to explain what the Mark of Cain even was, and how he’d come to recieve it. That story had culminated with your tears but ended with you on all fours, just like every snippet of conversation the two of you had attempted since mating the first time. His bite mark throbbed deliciously, igniting the heat still simmering under your skin.

He couldn’t keep his hands off you, even when he wasn’t fucking you. The need for your skin on his was almost a physical presence it was so intense, and your scents had long ago combined into something intoxicating that kept you both on the edge of arousal for what had seemed like days, though it had only been overnight. The sunlight peeking through the curtains and spilling onto the shitty carpet was mesmerizing as you tapped the last key and held it, letting the sound linger. Behind you, Dean raised up and planted a soft kiss to the back of your neck.

“It’s so much prettier when you play it.” He mumbled, his mouth settling over his bite to worry his teeth at the healing scar.

“Mmm, yeah. I’ve had some practice...but I think I’d rather hear you sing it.” Dean knew you’d heard him sing before, while you’d been sleeping, but he groaned at the thought of having to do it again.

“Not today sweetheart.”

“Oh come on,” you turned around and pressed against him, forcing him onto his back so you could crawl over him. “I love it.” When you pecked your lips teasingly against his, Dean grabbed your hips and pinned his erection between your bodies, following your mouth up as you tried to pull away.

__~*~__

Sam hadn’t slept well, spending all night after Castiel explained what he thought had happened to you doing research. He’d sent the Angel to the bunker for some books he thought might help, but in the end Sam had fallen asleep at the little motel table, drooling over the ancient tomes until the shrill ringing of his cellphone dragged him from the fitful rest.

“Agent Betts?” Officer Bishop asked the second his call was answered.

“Hm?” Sam grunted, sleep leaving him confused for a moment. “Oh, yeah. Yes. Can I help you?” The voice was familiar, and he shook the grogginess off quickly when he realized it was Bishop.

“One of Y/N’s doctors is back at the station, and uh...he says he has information about her he needs to share, but he won’t talk to anyone but you.”

“I’ll be right there.”  After hanging up, Sam checked his messages. He hoped there would be one from Dean, but there were only three missed calls--all from Lane--and a text from Castiel about having some business to take care of. The latter worried him, but not as much as not hearing from his brother.

Half an hour later, Sam was sitting across from a seemingly different man than he’d met the first day they’d arrived. Instead of bristling when the giant Alpha walked through the door, Doctor Cameron slouched his shoulders and shifted his gaze down to the table. Sam frowned, immediately realizing the man had been through the ringer. His initial theory that both doctors were in on Y/N's situation was revised upon seeing the doctor was disheveled, sporting a deep black eye with a giant knot beside it.

“Morning, Doctor,” Sam said evenly as he dropped to the chair across from Cameron.

“I know you’re not FBI,” Cameron conspiratorially leaned forward and whispered, his normally flat voice holding a frantic edge.

“That so?” Sam raised an eyebrow, only mildly surprised at the turn of events. Maybe this doctor knew more than Sam was giving him credit for.

“Yes. I know Doctor Mara wasn’t human. And I know your name is Winchester.”

Sam didn’t like the sound of that, and leaned forward menacingly. He kept his eyes locked to the other Alpha’s and his shoulders squared. Cameron bristled when Sam’s scent strengthened, dominating his own. The hunter’s voice held a dangerous edge, telling Cameron to tread carefully as Sam growled out,  “I’m listening.”

__~*~__

“Do you think it was the hypnosis or the magic?” You asked breathily, right hand stretching over Dean’s ribs at the spot over his heart. The thick thumps were just as frantic as yours, but slowing down as he recovered from knotting you the umpteeth time.

“Huh?” He grunted before realizing what you meant. Dean shifted lower on the pillows and tucked you closer into his left side. He was enjoying these moments too much, and held you tighter for fear you could disappear at any moment. “Oh, that connects us? I dunno. Hard to tell when you mix magic and science like that.” Your unsure ‘hm’ had him pressing his lips to your forehead. Rationality was starting to creep back in as the adrenaline ramped down, leaving your bodies all but useless for the time being. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”

The apology was unexpected and you pulled away, propping your head on his bicep to look him in the eyes. “What do you mean?” The greens seemed alive as he stared at you with new intensity, guilt hiding transparently behind the vibrant colors. You couldn't recall anywhere in the story where he'd personally inflicted you with the Mark, and your confusion was obvious.

“If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be in this mess. You wouldn’t have--”

“Don’t say it,” you snapped, body stiffening against his. You held your Alpha’s gaze for a moment before burying yourself back to his chest.

“Omega,” Dean warned, but you sat up in a huff to glare at the wall, unable to meet his gaze if he was going to force the conversation.  

“I know what i did, but I don’t wanna talk about it, okay?” When you turned to look at him, for the first time you didn’t see lust...not in the way he was looking at you, nor in the way you were seeing him.

For the first time you were reminded that you were strangers. Connected in two very important, disturbingly strong, ways, yes, but still completely alienated from one another. He’d been inside your mind and your body, but the lives you’d lived were lightyears apart. Tears pricked at your eyes as you forced yourself to look back at the ugly wallpaper across the room.

Would it be possible to ever close that distance? You didn’t even know yourself any longer, how could he?

The venomous thoughts whirled in your gaze, and Dean saw them clearly because he’d seen that look in the mirror a thousand times.

“Hey,” his voice was quiet but firm as he sat up beside you, his giant shoulder bumping against yours playfully. “I’m gonna sort it out. All of it. The Mark, your...case. You’re not gettin’ in any trouble for this, sweetheart, I swear it” Your own guilt slammed into you as he wrongly assumed what you’d been thinking; the lives you'd taken, the things you'd said...you knew those weren’t your fault, but under the confusion it was still a heavy weight. 

When you looked up into his earnest gaze however, you were lost again, the chill of moments before being replaced by the familiar warmth emanating from your arm.

He hissed when you did as the warmth increased to painful levels, and a moan escaped your chest when you were forced to shake off the quick flashes of blood and eyelids. 

“Fuck,” you whispered, pulling your arm close to inspect the vague rash. When the angel had healed you it had gone away. Disappointedly, you realized you should have known it was too good to be true. Everything was going to crash down around you soon, you could feel it as well as you could smell the coming rain. “I guess even Angels can’t fix us.”

__~*~__

“Something highly unnatural is going on with Y/N,” Doctor Cameron said around a mouth full of croissant. After verifying he wasn’t full of shit, Sam had brought him to a diner for breakfast before heading to the motel to see Dean and his Omega. They needed to arrive with arms full of refreshments for the newly mated couple or risk being torn apart by Dean for even knocking on the door.

“You think?” Sam scoffed, but kept his voice low as he continued. “You let a demon fuck with a psychiatric patient. What did you think was gonna happen?”

“I didn’t know what she was!” Cameron defended. “I thought we were conducting--”

“--Highly unethical, unauthorized, treatments on mentally ill patients? Yeah, much better.” The Doctor balked at Sam’s interruption, but Sam ignored it. “In another life, I would have been the one making sure you ended up behind bars for pulling something like this, but I’ll just have to settle for fixing your mistakes instead.” Sam beckoned with two fingers toward the spiral notebook Cameron had kept on his side of the table. With a glare he slid “Doctor Mara’’s notebook across to Sam.

“We were conducting unprecedented research in the field of Omega Psychiatric Studies, I don’t deserve jail time, Mr Winchester, I deserve a Nobel!” Cameron snapped indignantly. “Doctor Mara didn’t tell me what she had going on, but it’s all in here. Very disturbing. Explains why she never let anyone look at her notes, not even Doctor Adams.” Cameron grudgingly dug back into his food as Sam flipped through the pages of a demon’s journal. He knew Cameron wasn’t lying, but he was disquieted with how easily the hypnotist had accepted this new knowledge of the supernatural, like demons were no big thing compared to the fact that his research had been compromised. It was disgusting.  

“Who’s Doctor Adams?” Sam frowned at the name, thinking it sounded familiar.

“Oh, he was Y/N’s psychotherapist. In charge of her meds and all her therapies, but Mara was always sticking her nose in since she was the lead on the case. Shame, really. Seems like he’s one of the few that actually cares about their patients in that place.” That’s where Sam knew the name from, Y/N’s file.

“Why didn’t he come when Y/N disappeared, if he cared so much?” The poor excuse for an Alpha just shrugged and Sam rolled his eyes.

“Had a full case-load when we got the news I guess. I didn’t ask because he’s a nosey asshole.” Cameron cleared his throat as he finished his food and spoke up again. “If you’re thinking about calling him, he can’t help. Only I can. You see, Y/N is still technically hypnotized.”

Sam’s head snapped up from where he’d gone back to looking through the notes in his hand, long hair whipping him in the face. “Come again?”

“Yes. When she attacked me I tried to release her from the session, but whatever dream she was in had her locked inside. Something about a man named Lester,” Sam blanched, but Cameron didn’t notice. “Then Mara pumped her full of drugs, which probably made everything worse despite all appearances. You’ll have to look in there--” he motioned to the cursed notebook that contained nothing good, “--to find out which ones, but, technically speaking, Y/N could still be locked inside a dream. I need to see my patient, Mr. Winchester.”

Sam growled, his unexpectedly protective hackles rising. It suddenly dawned on him that if Dean had marked Y/N, she was family now, and after what he’d done, Cameron would never touch Dean’s Omega again. Especially now that they had another option. “I don’t think so. We’re done here. Breakfast on me.” Sam dropped a $50 bill on the table. “Thanks for this,” he said dismissively, tilting the notebook toward Cameron before standing to his full height. Sam used all 6’4” at his disposal as he loomed over the doctor who’d assisted in the mess they were in. The atmosphere in the restaurant shifted as he did, the challenge made clear for anyone to see, or smell. “You need to go back to wherever you’re from. Today. Now. And if I ever see you again, especially near Y/N, I’ll shoot you.” Without a backward glance Sam left the smaller Alpha glaring at his back and coming to the realization that everything he’d worked for was effectively leaving with the hunter.

__~*~__

Cold showers were a staple of Omega life, but having an Alpha in there with you brought the experience to a whole new level. Dean’s fiery hands contrasted perfectly with the freezing water, soothing and exciting you simultaneously. Your nipples were sore from the constant attention, but thankfully your Alpha had realized this and softened his touches to a light caress.

The bruises littering your skin made you smile as you examined them in the dim lighting, physical evidence that you finally had the Alpha you’d always pretended not to dream of. Part of you thought maybe you’d set feminism or the Omega rights movements back a few years, but couldn’t find it in you to care as you turned in his arms under the spray. It had come with a hefty price, but when Dean’s body slotted so perfectly against yours better than anything you could have ever imagined, you knew it was worth it. He was worth it.

The dead eyes of your combined victims dancing in your nightmares begged to differ, but that could wait until reality set in.

__

A knock on the door pulled Dean from the nap you’d both succumbed to late in the morning, and he groaned as his shoulder protested the awkward position your upper body was pinning his arm into when he tried to sit up.

“Go away,” Dean grunted, already knowing the scent of his brother before he’d fully woken up. Sating his rut had helped the immediate rage he held for his younger sibling and his angelic friend, but all wasn’t completely forgiven.

“I have bacon,” came the muffled response, and a quick sniff confirmed Sam was telling the truth. He’d brought greasy diner food, which went a long way with Dean in the moment considering neither of you had eaten in almost twenty-four hours.

“Alright, hold on.” The conversation had already woken you partially, and Dean finished the job by rolling into you and snuggling his nose close to your ear. “‘Mega,” he whispered, “we’ve got company...and the company has bacon. You might wanna put some clothes on before I let him in.” He smiled when you cracked one eye open.

“Bacon?”

__~*~__

Questions? Comments? Incoherent screaming?

Bring it on!

🖤

__~*~__

Black Eyes & Bloodlust Tags: 

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[incognitajones]

okay so one of my favorite things about Fixer Upper is that they work in the same place!!! So if you're up for it what I'd like more than anything is for some fluffy caretaking h/c follow-up where Jyn takes Cassian home early to their(!!!) house! :D

Jyn’s phone buzzes once, and then again, and she reaches blindly for it while still staring at her computer. Two texts have arrived almost simultaneously: one from Bodhi, saying that he’s sick and going home, and another from Cassian.

feeling shitty think I have to leave early can I get a ride home?

Jyn smiles at the screen and thumbs back a quick response.

ugh, so needy (jk) sure just give me 5

When she arrives in the lobby, Cassian’s waiting on a bench by the main doors, looking so miserable that the small laugh she’s been holding in since he texted her dies in her throat. His face is unhealthily pale and he wobbles when he gets to his feet. She grabs his backpack by one strap and reaches up to push his hair off his forehead, hot and slick with sweat.

“You look awful,” she says, shocked into tactlessness.

“The food truck betrayed me,” he groans, dropping his head heavy against her shoulder.

“You should’ve known better than to listen to Bodhi and get the foot long,” she tells him, because it’s the truth, but she also strokes his hair in an attempt to be comforting. Poor Cassian. Although it’s still kind of amusing that her stoic boyfriend (he hasn’t taken a sick day in the year she’s known him) has been laid low by street meat.

He crosses his arms over his stomach and swallows hard. “I need to get out of here fast. Before it comes up all over this marble floor.”

Luckily she’d driven to work today, which she doesn’t often do; otherwise she’d have to call for a cab or an Uber and pray that Cassian could keep it together for the ride home.

The fresh air outside revives him momentarily. He lifts his head and breathes in deep, but then she sees another wave of nausea wash over him, his face turning a sickly yellow instead of its usual olive tone.

“Cassian? Are you going to…?” It takes him a second to focus on her, but eventually he swallows and shakes his head.

“I’ll get you home as fast as I can,” she promises, and keeps her foot on the pedal at a steady five miles over the speed limit all the way. Cassian rolls down the window and leans against the headrest, eyes squeezed shut, gulping in drafts of the wind blowing in. As soon as she parks on the street, he throws the car door open and hurries to the house—he doesn’t quite run, but it’s close.

By the time Jyn gets to the doorway he’s disappeared, but she can hear retching from the bathroom upstairs. Poor guy. She shuts the door behind her and hangs up his coat, abandoned on the floor; Cassian dropping his stuff in a pile in the hall is another sign he must be seriously ill.

She follows him upstairs and taps on the doorframe lightly in warning before she steps into the bathroom. “You okay?”

“No.” Cassian’s sitting on the floor, slumped against the side of the tub with his cheek mashed against the porcelain. “Trust me, you don’t wanna be here for this,” he groans, his voice echoing weirdly off the tile. He lurches back up to his knees and grabs for the toilet. Jyn grimaces and kneels behind him on the bathmat, rubbing his back in sympathy as he heaves. At least it doesn’t sound like there’s much left to come up.

After a few moments he lifts his head, panting. “This is disgusting,” he croaks, sounding so defeated that she blinks. “You’re never going to want to have sex with me ever again.”

Jyn stifles a laugh. “Oh, Cassian, don’t be such a drama queen. You saw me hungover after Baze and Chirrut’s housewarming party and it didn’t turn you off forever.”

“Don’t you have to go back to work?” His voice is slurred and faint.

Jyn shrugs. “I took the rest of the day off, I can do some work from home.”

True, watching anyone puke isn’t her idea of a fun time, but she loves Cassian and she wants to be here to do anything she can to make him feel better. She gets up, her knees cracking, and draws him a glass of cold tap water. He drinks avidly, gulping it down. “Careful, if you drink too fast it’ll just come back up,” she warns him.

She reaches for a clean washcloth and soaks it in cool water, gently wiping the sweat from his forehead before draping the cloth over the back of his neck. He sighs. “That feels good.”

The doorbell rings. She hesitates, debating whether to leave Cassian. It’s probably just someone selling something anyway. But he flaps one hand at her in dismissal. “Go on, it’s fine. I’ll just get into bed once my stomach finishes turning itself inside out.”

It’s Leia on the front stoop, Ben (now seven months old and so fat his chins have chins) propped on her hip. When Jyn opens the door he stretches out his arms with a gummy smile that dims as soon as he sees it’s just her. He likes Jyn, but he loves Cassian.

“I hear Cassian’s not feeling well?”

Jyn blinks. She spent so many years isolated, talking to basically no-one except her boss and Bodhi, and now there’s a whole handful of people who know stuff about her life, who care enough to ask questions. It’s a bit overwhelming sometimes, honestly.

But it doesn’t explain how Leia already knows about Cassian, unless she’s psychic.

“Bodhi texted Luke, who called me.”

Of course. “Yeah, looks like the two of them got food poisoning from one of their lunchtime adventures.”

“Well, we have gallons of this stuff.” Leia hands her a bottle of Pedialyte. “Don’t hesitate to come and get more if you need it. And if you want to come over for dinner later, in case Cassian can’t stand the smell of cooking, you’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Leia.” Jyn waves goodbye to Ben, dodging his grab for her fingers—she certainly doesn’t want to risk passing this germ on to the rugrat.

When she gets back upstairs, Cassian’s already in bed, huddled into a shivering ball. Jyn goes back and forth gathering supplies, trying to anticipate anything he might need: garbage can by his side of the bed, just in case he still isn’t finished puking; Pedialyte and water on the night table. She brings his favourite blanket up from the living room and drapes it over him, tucking it in around his shoulders.  

She leans over to kiss his sweaty temple, about to sneak out of the room and leave him alone to get some rest. But he cracks open one eye and stares up at her pleadingly. “Stay?”

She can’t resist his pitiful tone. It’s awkward but in the end they work out a position that’s comfortable for both of them. Cassian curls on his side, head nestled on Jyn’s stomach just beneath her breasts, with her laptop on a pillow next to her thigh. She strokes her left hand absently through his hair, rubs his shoulder and kneads the tight cords in his neck, paying partial attention to the discovery document (she’ll have to re-read the whole thing) while she listens to his breathing. At first it’s laboured and interrupted by hitches as he holds his breath, willing himself not to be nauseous, but gradually it evens out and slows down. She glances down at his face; his eyes are closed, the tension in his forehead smoothed out by sleep.

Jyn thinks about shutting her laptop and crawling under the covers for a nap too. But her stomach suddenly growls beneath Cassian’s head, reminding her she hasn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. (Thank god she didn’t take Bodhi up on his invitation to meet them for lunch.) Cassian might not want anything to eat for a while, but she’s hungry. She slides out from under him gently, nudging her pillow over for him to use instead.

In the kitchen, she scans the fridge and cupboard trying to figure out what to make. Jyn has vague memories of her mom feeding her applesauce and bananas after she was sick, but according to Dr Google that’s no longer recommended for people recovering from gastrointestinal issues. A plain chicken broth and rice soup, she decides, maybe with an egg whisked in if Cassian’s stomach can take it. She’s still no gourmet cook, but she can handle that. She washes her hands scrupulously and gets to work.

The soup is nearly ready and she’s chopping a few green onions for her share of it when she hears footsteps on the stairs. Cassian stumbles into the kitchen, wearing nothing but pajama pants and his grandmother’s crocheted blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His hair is sticking up at all angles in an endearing mess. His eyes are bloodshot and he’s still pale, but he doesn’t seem to be sweating.  

“Feel like you could eat something?” she asks, and he nods.

She fills a mug of soup and passes it to him. He cups his hands around it. “This actually smells good,” he says, sounding surprised.

Jyn nods. “I texted Bodhi, he says he’s feeling a little better already too. I guess the good news is this doesn’t last long.”

She gets a mug for herself and leans against the counter, eating in companionable silence. But after slowly sipping just half his mug of soup, Cassian puts it down on the counter.

She eyes him anxiously. “How’s your stomach?”

“Fine.” He yawns. “I’m just exhausted. Feels like a bus ran over me.”

He’s been working long hours lately—too long—and Jyn’s sure that’s part of the reason this virus hit him so hard. “Come on, back to bed.” She curls her hand into his and urges him up the stairs.

But when they get there, he tugs her down on to the mattress with him and she doesn’t resist. She notches her head under his chin and lets her feet slot between his. He pulls the crochet blanket up over both of them and wraps his arm around her waist, securing her against him.

“I really don’t want to go to work tomorrow,” he mumbles into her hair.

“You don’t have to.” She yawns too, fatigue catching up with her. “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Good, then you can sleep in with me.” He spans his hand across her back, warm and intimate, and sleep slides over Jyn like a wave.

Next morning, Jyn wakes when the mattress shifts beneath her as Cassian gets out of bed. She doesn’t open her eyes but listens intently, hoping he’s not still sick. But the only noises she hears from the bathroom are running water, the friction and splash of brushing teeth. When Cassian returns he slides into bed behind her, curling up in an echo of her posture but not quite touching her. She can feel his warmth all along the line of her back.

Jyn smiles to herself and rolls over, nestling into the circle of his arm. “Feeling better?”

“Mmhmm.” He hums into the top of her head. “My appetite is definitely back.”

“Want to go out for breakfast, then?” she asks, thinking of waffles.

“No.” He grins at her, slow and suggestive, and dips his head to trace his tongue along the neckline of her t-shirt. She laughs and pulls him up into a kiss tasting of mint.

#jyn x cassian #rebelcaptain #cats and metersticks #my fic #prompt fill #more sick fic #fixer upper #modern AU

[you-are-my-neverland]

Book Recommendations (1)

Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff

Summary:  “ Everyone says that middle school is awful, but Trent knows nothing could be worse than the year he had in fifth grade, when a freak accident on Cedar Lake left one kid dead, and Trent with a brain full of terrible thoughts he can't get rid of. Trent wants middle school to be a fresh start, if only he could make that happen. It isn’t until Trent gets caught up in the whirlwind that is Fallon Little—the girl with the mysterious scar across her face—that things begin to change. Because fresh starts aren’t always easy. Even in baseball, when a fly ball gets lost in the sun, you have to remember to shift your position to find it.”

Personal thoughts: It’s definitely a book geared to more younger audiences, but I think it’s a good read for all ages. I actually haven’t read it in a while, but Trent is a character I think lots of people can relate to. He struggles with anger and rage; emotions he has no idea what to do with. Fallon is a quirky character that you can never quite get a hold of, and she makes for a spectacular story. 

Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Summary:  “ A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel. Kiko has always struggled with saying what she’s thinking, and an overbearing mother makes things even harder. Her one hope and dream is Prism, a fancy art school. But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.”

Personal thoughts: ‘Starfish’ is a book that touches on a lot of sensitive issues, such as emotional and verbal abuse, presumed sexual assault (my memory isn’t that clear on what exactly happened so djkadhf), and Kiko herself is a very complex character. She’s a survivor who has to face every survivor’s worst fear; the abuser returning. Art is her only escape, but when that too fails, she feels like she’s spiraling. On many levels, she’s a character so many people can connect to, and the story really shows the reality of life. 

Turtles All the Way Down by John Greene

Summary:  “ Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.”

Personal thoughts: You’ve probably either read or heard of this book, but if you haven’t yet, this is a definite book you should read. Aza is really an intriguing character, and one of the things I like about her is that she doesn’t really get a happy ending. The book is her trying (and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to find a way to cope with her disorder. It’s a really deep book (lots and lots of good quality quotes). It’s not supposed to be a positive or negative book; it shows the real struggles of dealing with mental illnesses and trying to balance your normal life along with it.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Summary:  “Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price–and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.”

Personal thoughts: This book is genius. It’s part of a duo-logy, and is set in the same universe as the author’s Grisha trilogy. In my opinion, you don’t have to read the Grisha trilogy (I didn’t), though it would probably be helpful. You’re able to figure things out pretty quickly though. I’m serious about this book being spectacular though; it’s one of those books where the main character is so clever that you wonder how the author possibly wrote them. Kaz is a trickster and a conman, and makes the book filled with twists and turns that leave you shocked. The other five main characters will grab your heart just as much though; wily and clever and heart wrenching with every page and every new thing you learn. It leaves you holding your breath-but don’t hold it for too long, because there is a sequel, Crooked Kingdom (I...sobbed).

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Summary:   “Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.”

Personal thoughts: For once, we meet a main character as twisted and cutthroat as the ‘villain’-who also happens to be the love interest, if you can call them that. Jude is vicious and bitter after surviving for years as a human in Faerie. The Fey are cruel, tricky, deceptive, especially towards her. This whole book was just awesome, really, but in a dark way. Jude goes past just trying to save herself; and in turn endangers so many people.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvator

Summary:   “An unlikely group stumbles across ancient magic in Virginia: Blue, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, who has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. Gansey, who seeks the Welsh magic he believes saved his life. Adam, who searches for a way out of the circumstances he was born into. Ronan, who seeks to recover the magic of his childhood.”

Personal thoughts: Another series I give my heart too. The first book in The Raven Cycle series, this book is rich with mythology set in a realistic world. Rich boys with backstories, headstrong girl with physic abilities, ley lines-what could go wrong? It’s a story about youth, mystery, romance, friendship, fantasy-a little bit of everything thrown in between. Each character is unique, from your perfect rich boy Gansey to scholarly Adam, cold Ronan and spunky Blue. Even if the book doesn’t sound exciting, I can guarantee that you’ll probably be completely absorbed in one way or another. 

Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Summary:   “Ten years ago, God gave Braden a sign, a promise that his family wouldn’t fall apart the way he feared. But Braden got it wrong: his older brother, Trey, has been estranged from the family for almost as long, and his father, the only parent Braden has ever known, has been accused of murder. The arrest of Braden’s father, a well-known Christian radio host, has sparked national media attention. His fate lies in his son’s hands; Braden is the key witness in the upcoming trial. Braden has always measured himself through baseball. Now the rules of the sport that has always been Braden’s saving grace are blurred in ways he never realized, and the prospect of playing against Alex Reyes, the nephew of the police officer his father is accused of killing, is haunting his every pitch. Braden faces an impossible choice, one that will define him for the rest of his life, in this brutally honest debut novel about family, faith, and the ultimate test of conviction.”

Personal thoughts: Honestly, this is a book I can reread over and over again. Maybe because it’s a book that focuses on Braden’s faith and his struggle as one of the main topics, but it really pulled me in. I practically devoured this whole book in one day. Braden really struggles internally on what is the right thing to do, as well as externally when his brother, Trey, returns to be his guardian. It focuses a lot on their brotherly relationship-in which of them have two very different perspectives of what their lives have been like-some romance, but mostly it’s a book about Braden himself. When the line between right and wrong is blurred, what path do you choose?

#books #book recommendations #i paraphrased the summaries from goodreads #because i suck at my own summaries #lost in the sun #lisa graff #starfish #akemi dawn bowman #turtles all the way down #john greene #six of crows #leigh bardugo #the cruel prince #holly black #the raven boys #maggie stiefvator #conviction #kelly loy gilbert #tw: mentions of abuse