#maybe i can use this thing for poke assists once i get some training done

[ranger-edgar]

sooooo

it turns out i have a z ring now

no z-crystals but this is so sick

#pkmn irl #pokeblogging #pokeblr #alola arc #maybe i can use this thing for poke assists once i get some training done

[therainningtown]

I Don’t Want To Wake Up To A World Without You In It: Belphegor X Mc

(You Can Be Anything In This Story, Species, Appearance, Age, Anything. Just Don’t Make It Weird.)

(This Is An AU Of Some Sorts So I Won’t Be Following The Exact Same Plot Of Obey Me. Like The Whole Chapter 16 Thing Won’t Happen And That This Takes Place Around Chapter 23 To 30.)

(So Basic Premise, Basically Your Food Was Poisoned With A Potion Due To A Demon Being Angry About The Exchange Program. Using The Potion To Have You, Try And Kill One Of Brothers. But You Finally Had Enough Energy To Puke Up The Potion.)

(But Not Without Consequences. Puking Up Blood To A Deadly Amount, Along With Your Already Weaken State. You Passed Out And Died, But The Brothers Didn’t Want To Believe It.)

(Lucifer Immediately Called Diavolo And Assistant For This Type Of Situation. When They Came, You Were Escorted To A High Rating Hospital.)

(But Once He Exited The Room You Were In. Barbatos Had News To Deliver.)

“Unfortunately, Mc Lost High Amounts Of Blood In Such A Short Amount Of Time. Which Is Said, They Died Before The Medical Aids Got To The House…”

“You Knew. Didn’t You?” Belphegor Walked Towards The Trusted Butler. “You Knew What Would Happen. And You Did NOTHING To Stop This Shit?!?!!” “Belphegor I Only Saw So Much, I Didn’t Know They Would—” “HA! Don’t Make Me Laugh You Moron. Are You Just Pulling Excuses Out Of Your Ass Now?”

…

“Well TELL ME?! Tell Everyone Here That You Just Can’t Deal With Your Mistakes And How You LET MC DIE!!!” Belphegor Almost Puked At Realization. “They Died. What’s Done Is Done Belphegor. No One Can Change The Outcome, I Only Warn Those Abou—” “NO! Mc Is The Only Person Who Could Do That. They Done So Many Things For Everyone And DONT You DARE Think They Can’t Change Your Ideal Furture!” “Belphie Please.” “NO BEEL! Aren’t You Going Miss Them Too? Because Of Mister Perfect And Mysterious. THEIR DEAD. And We Can Never…Ever Get Them Back.” Belphegor Took One Look Around The Hallway. Mammon Was Being Dependent On Lucifer’s Arms Around Him, While Leviathan Cried Into His Hands. Satan Gripped Asmo’s Jacket While Asmo Cried Loudly. While Beelzebub Was Trying His Best Not To Cry Or Scream.

“Belphegor. I’m Sorry About This, But Mc Wouldn’t Want You To Blame Anyone. Not Even Yourself.” Barbatos Held His Shoulder Before He Shook It Off. “You Disgust Me Barbatos, You Honestly Do. But You Loved Mc. Didn’t You?” The Butler Nodded, “That Blood Will Be On Your Hands Now, Even If Mc Didn’t Want Me Blaming You Or Your Precious Future King. But The Truth Is, It’s All Your Fault.”

“Hey! Hey!” Belphegor Was Shaken Awake By A Pair Of Hands, “Hmm…Five More Minutes.” He Waved His Hand, “But Don’t You Wanna See The Cows That Live Here?” “You’re Only Saying That Cause My Familiars Are Cows?” “Maybe? Maybe Not?” “You’re Mean Mc.” “Not As Much As You. Always Trying To Ruin Lucifer’s Day With Satan.” You Poked His Cheek, “Yeah, But It’s For A Good Cause.” “Pfft, Whatever You Say Pretty Boy.”

“Oh Look! The Sheep And Herding Dogs Are Also Out Today.” You Pressed Your Face Up Against The Window. Belphie Chuckled, “You’re Like A Kid Who Never Saw These Guys.” “Hmph Well, Cause It’s Always Fun To Look At Other Types Of Animals. Even Ones You See On The Daily.” “Like You For Example!” “Are You Saying I’m An Rabid Animal?!” “You Act Like One When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep. But No.” Belphegor Pouted As You Laughed, “It’s Because No Matter How Many Times We See Each. I’m Always Excited To See You.” You Pulled A Sweet Smile.

Belphegor Blushed And Looked Towards The Seats In Front Of You Both, “Oh~ Did I Make The Belphegor Blush?” You Poked His Cheek Before He Slapped It Away, “No, It’s Just Hot In Here.” “Hehe, Just Admit It.”

“Do We Really Have To Walk All The Way To The Cherry Tree?” Belphegor Groaned As You Huffed, “Yes, But Maybe Along The Way We Can Get A Little Cab Up On The Way.” “Why Couldn’t We Just Call One Now?” “Well I Mostly Wanted To Walk With You And Also It’s Good To Be More Active!” The Train Blew Its Horn Before It Started Going Off To Another Station.

“Ugh, You Remind Of Beel. Always Wanting Me To Be More, Active.” “Well I Don’t Want You Rotting Away On Your Bed Now Do I?” You Poked His Forehead. “Now C’mon, We Can’t Waste Our Precious Time Together!” You Grabbed His Hand And Your Backpack. “Woah! Mc Slow Down, Will Ya?!”

“*Huff* *Puff* How Could You Run For So Long Mc? Geez *Huff*” Belphegor Crouched Down While You Let Out A Breathy Laugh. “Sorry, Guess I Really Wanted To Get Here Quick.” You Pulled Him Up To His Feet. “But That Wasn’t So Bad Now Was It?” “Would’ve Been Better If You Didn’t Swing Across The Ground.” Belphegor Groaned. “Oh Stop It, C’mon We’re Almost There. We Just Need To Climb A Little Hill And Get Somethings Ready.” You Started Slowly Walking To The Passing While Belphie Puffed.

“Well Hello Belphie, Finally Caught Your Breath?” “Ugh.” He Faceplanted Onto The Soft Grass While You Deadpanned. “I Killed Him.”“You Good Belphie? I Got The Blanket Ready.” He Didn’t Response Only Letting Out A Muffled Groaned. “Ugh, Your Brothers Spoil You To Much.” You Grabbed His Arms And Dragged To Him The Fluffy Blanket. “Thanks.” “Yeah, Yeah. Now Get Up Mister Grumpy Pants.” Belphegor Moved His Head Up While Giving You A Glare. “I’m Not Grumpy.” “That Look On Your Face Is Giving Me Mixed Signals.” Belphegor Turned His Body To Face Towards The Sky As You Grabbed A Couple Drinks From Your Bag. “Here You Go.” “Thanks.”

…

“Hey Belphie?” “Huh?” Belphegor Looked Over To See You Drinking And Finally Putting It Down On The Grass. “What Do You Think Happens After We Die?” “Wow Morbid Question Right Off The Bat.” He Chuckled But You Didn’t. “But Honestly I Don’t Know. Maybe We Get Reincarnated Or Something. But If My Father Is The Decision Maker. I Think He Wouldn’t Be To Merciful With Me.” Belphegor Held His Head With His Palm. As You Let Out A Deep Sigh, “Well I Maybe I’ll Turn Into A Star.” “Why Is That?” “Well In The Human World. It’s Theorized That We All Have A Little Bits Of Stardust In Us.”

You Straighten Your Arm Out And Pretended You Held One Of The Specs. “So Instead Of Being A Little Bit Of A Star. I Wanna Become One.” You Smiled Halfheartedly, “That Seems Rather Bittersweet…” “But Then You Can Look At The Stars. See Me And Say, Heya Mc How Are You Tonight!” You Mocked His Voice A Little. Belphegor Chuckled, “Yeah, But You’re Not Going Away For Bit You Know That?” “Well…” You Frowned. “What If I’m Already Gone?” Belphegor Held His Breath, “Would You Ever Accept That? That I’m Not There To Sleep With You Or Make You And Beel Snacks? Or How You Could Never Hear Me Laugh Again? Would You Ever Accept That Reality?” He Let Out A Nervous Chuckle, “Well It Never Happen—” “Belphegor.” “You’re Not Accepting Reality Here.” Your Dead Voice Gave Him Shivers.

“You Have To Understand I’m Not There Anymore. And You Need To Understand That, Beelzebub Is Getting Worried, Lucifer Is Getting Worried. Everyone Is Getting Worried About You.” You Got Up And Walked A Little Bit Forward. “You Need To Accept That I’m Not There With You. So You Can Get Through The Grief And Move On.” “Please Mc. Sit Back Down, You’re Talking Non-sense Here…” Belphegor’s Voice Became Horsed. “I’m Sorry, But Please Understand I’m Doing This For You. So You Can Continue. Just Like How You Got Through The Lost Of Lilith. So Do The Same For Me…” “Wait!” “Goodbye, Belphie…” “WAIT! Mc Don’t Go—”

Belphie Shot Up With His Hand Outreached, Just Like His Dreamself Was Doing Before The Dream Was Abruptly Ended. “Mc…But I Need You Here To Help…Me.” Belphie Crossed His Arms And Tightly Held Onto The Sweater You Gave Him Just Last Year Before You Left. He Looked Over To His Nightstand, The Lilly Of The Valley. “Known To Ward Off Evil Sprits…” He Sniffled Before Throwing The Blanket Off, And Grabbed His Favorite Pillow Before He Started His Journey To The Tombs.

He Knew Cerberus Was On Watch For The Grimoire. But He Didn’t Really Care If The Massive Guard Dog Got Mad At Him. “He’ll Probably Understand Why I’m There.” His Steps Were Silent As Not To Wake Anyone. But Most Of His Brothers Were In Their Rooms Crying Over The Lost Of A Lover. Or Just Sleeping Away Their Grief, Just Like He Was Doing Earlier. Soon He Reached The Door And Unlocked It With His Magical Power, He Started The Descend Down The Stairs. When He Heard Claws Stepping Onto The Ground He Noted That Cerberus Looked At His Tired Eyes. “Hi Cerberus. I’m Just Here To See Them…” The Dog Went Away Near The Grimoire, Somewhat Understanding. Since Belphegor Went Down Here Many Times For The Same Reason.

Belphegor Held Onto His Pillow Tighter Has He Started Getting Closer To The Tomb Which Had Your Engraved Name. Along With Flowers That Somewhat Spilled Out The Edges Of The Grave. “Hello Again Mc.” He Started At Your Resting, Peaceful Face. He Held Out His Hand And Softly Stroked Your Cold Cheek. “It Happened Again, The Same Nightmare That You Weren’t Here. And Far Away Where I Couldn’t Reach You.” You Didn’t Reply, But Lay There With Flowers In Your Hold. “I Know It’s Silly But I Just Keep Getting It Over These Past Few Days. So I Might Just Sleep Here With You For A Bit. Until Those Nightmares Go Away.” He Shuffled And Sat On The Ground Near The Gravestone. “I’ll Let You Know If Breakfast Is Ready So We Can Eat It Together Tomorrow.” And He Placed His Head On His Trusted Pillow, But Before He Drifted Off,

“Sweet Dreams Mc…”

Heheh, I’m Not Sorry For This. Also I Got This Idea Cause I’ve Listening To I Love You So By THE WALTERS A Lot Recently.

#obey me mc #obey me x reader #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me asmodeus #obey me belphegor #obey me leviathan #obey me beelzebub #obey me satan #obey me angst #obey me shall we date #obey me au

[absolutepokemontrash]

I come bearing a request! The Brothers with an MC who's really good at cooking and baking? Like, the stuff food blogs dream of. Master-level instagram pastries. Could compete with the chocolate guy if they put their mind to it.

👀 ooooo, I do love me some pastries-

(I know you have an *ahem* distaste for Lucifer, dear moot, so enjoy Lucifer acting like a bit of a dingus in his section!)

Lucifer

Oh, the human can cook. *insert asshole eyeroll here*. Great. Wonderful. Groundbreaking. That’s what’s got all his brothers acting like- what was that word Levi used? Simps? This human has turned six of the seven rulers of hell into a bunch of simps.

Sure, the human has near godlike cooking prowess. Sure, everyone looks forward to their day for cooking. And sure, everyone thinks the human’s pretty great.

Tsk, not him though. He’s a refined demon. Some silly food isn’t going to make him a lovesick fool… did he smell eclairs..?

Lucifer peered into the kitchen to see MC carefully taking a tray of eclairs out of the oven and letting them cool off on the counter. His favourite dessert… right there in front of him…

Due to not being a total moron, MC notices Lucifer and asks him what the hell he’s doing just standing ominously in the doorway. Lucifer makes up some bullshit excuse about reminding MC to do their homework and just leaves. Okay, game plan, he needs those fucking eclairs or he will spontaneously combust.

As he snuck into the kitchen that night, Lucifer took a moment to briefly wonder why he was creeping around his own house. He was the Avatar of Pride for pity’s sake! He could eat whatever he damn well pleased! Oh shit was someone coming- no? Okay, back to sneaking.

Lucifer crept into the kitchen, saw the eclairs, and all logic was thrown out the window. Time to eat!

“BEEL NO! NOT THE- Lucifer..?” “…” “…” “…you’re very talented, MC, do you mind making more of these?”

SOMEONE SNAP A PICTURE! THIS IS THE CLOSEST LUCIFER HAS GOTTEN TO BEGGING IN THE LAST THOUSAND YEARS!

Mammon

Ugh, stuck babysittin’ some dumb human, how lame…

As Mammon was throwing a “I’m broke and I’m stuck in a pact with a dumb human” pity party, the most heavenly smell entered his nostrils. Cooking… good cooking… was Barbatos visiting or somethin’? Nah, Lucifer woulda made a big fuss about gettin’ ready for Lord Diavolo. Huh, so what was goin’ on in the kitchen?

Huh? The human? The human can cook? Well damn, maybe this whole deal wouldn’t be so bad. Oi! MC! As payment for babysittin’ ‘em, he got to have an extra big share of- OW!

Did- did the human just hit him with a spoon?! Th-they can’t do that!

Apparently they fucking can. Mammon gets told to sit the fuck down and wait for the food like everyone else. He grumbles on the way to the dining room, but he can’t fully hide his excitement to try the food.

The food even looked pretty! How did they do that?! Magic. It had to be!

After everyone’s tastebuds were blessed with the heavenly substance that is MC’s culinary exploits, Mammon decides he needs to get on this human’s good side in order to receive more food! Maybe even find some way to make a profit or somethin’!

After weeks go by of trying to suck up to the human without looking like too much of a chump, Mammon eventually realizes… hey, this human ain’t so bad. They’re nice, they make him feel good about himself, they give him headpats… he’s really hit the jackpot here!

He’ll offer to help MC bake or cook, but beware, he will try and sample the food before it’s done. Don’t let him lick the spoon!!!

Leviathan

First thought? This human ain’t shit. Thought after seeing their food? WOAAAAAAAH! JUST LIKE THAT ONE ANIME-

He was unceremoniously cut off by Beel asking demanding seconds. Humph, fine, he doesn’t actually care about this dumb normie food anyway.

…well at least until Levi saw a little something something on TV that he just had to ask MC to try and make. He shyly knocked on their door and when they answered, Levi shoved the screenshot in their face and stuttered out a dinner request.

On the day MC was supposed to make dinner, Levi poked his head into the kitchen and tried to make it look like he was just standing in the same room as MC and not checking to see if they were making his dinner request.

Not that he’d blame them for not doing that… who’d wanna make some anime dinner for a yucky Otaku- OMG JAHSHSHABA THEY’RE MAKING IT! *fangirl squeals*

As Levi continues to commit the SIN of being in the kitchen at the same time as someone else, MC eventually just asks him if he’d like to help out.

“Here! Just keep turning the takoyaki.” “R-really? You trust me?” “Yes, Levi. You watched how they made it on your show, right?” “Yes! I won’t mess up! I swear on my honour as an otaku!”

All in all, it was a very cute bonding experience for the two. Now it’s a regular thing. Levi requests something for dinner or dessert, MC makes it, Levi helps out.

Satan

So, the human can cook. That’s nice. At least someone in this literally god forsaken house can.

He makes sure to thank MC every time they cook, then he makes sure to thank whatever deity is watching over him that Solomon wasn’t the human staying with them.

As the months progress, Satan realizes, he should learn how to cook better. I mean, Levi and Mammon were somehow both improving in their cooking endeavours, and if MC could teach those two, then he would be a breeze.

Satan walked into the kitchen and simply asked if MC needed any assistance with what they were doing. MC just slid him some garlic to dice and that’s how this mentor/student relationship was formed.

Satan was a star pupil, but Mammon and Levi weren’t above trying to sabotage Satan’s progress to get him to leave.

Here’s the thing, the sabotage worked, but it only worked once, and the two idiots didn’t stop to think that maybe they shouldn’t sabotage the meal they were going to have to eat later.

Well, cooking lessons continued uninterrupted after the ghost pepper incident…

Even when he’s ‘graduated’ their little cooking class, Satan’s always willing to lend a hand if needed. He also will slyly hand over some recipe books and cute baking supplies that he finds. MC should be prepared for lots of cat related things to come their way.

Asmodeus

The human can cook? Oh frabcious day! He’s saved from a life of his brother’s mediocre cooking! And the human’s so cute too! What a bonus!

Not only is the human cute, but their food is just so… aesthetic??? Pretty???? Omigosh he just has to get a picture for Devilgram!

For the first few months, MC’s relationship with Asmo consists of Asmo not at all subtly asking to take pictures of their food and post it to his Devilgram. Listen MC, his followers would just love it!

Being the saint-sheep they are, MC lets Asmo sit in whenever they’re making anything in the kitchen. And Asmo slowly realizes “hey, this cute human with the awesome food is actually pretty cool too!”

New Mission: Make the human fall madly in love with him so they’ll want to hang out more.

Whether the mission succeeds is up to MC of course. (I mean, I’m already smitten with him sooooooooo-)

MC offers Asmo a lot of the pastries they make, but the Avatar of Lust almost always declines. Listen honey, he’s on a diet- wait, don’t make that sad face! He’ll eat it! Look! It’s- it’s delicious…

Diet cheat day is now every day MC makes dessert. The feeling of bliss Asmo gets when he takes a bite out of anything MC makes is only second of the treats is second only to the joy he feels at seeing MC happy that he likes their food. It’s just so wholesome I can’t-

MC’s food Devilgram has almost surpassed Asmo in terms of followers and honestly- he isn’t even mad.

Beelzebub

Gasp! Lucifer finally got him the pet personal chef he’d always wanted! Thanks big bro! :D he’ll be sure not to eat this human!

On the first night MC was supposed to make dinner, Lucifer needed to hold Beel back from breaking into the kitchen to see what was causing that heavenly smell. It was, difficult… especially because Lucifer hadn’t slept in three days.

When they all sat down to eat, Beel practically inhaled everything and held up his half bitten plate for seconds.

We here at Stupid Headcanons incorporated recommend that MC have as many bodyguards as possible stationed around the kitchen at all times to ward off a hungry Beel. We don’t want him eating the ingredients and half-tempered chocolate.

A cinnamon roll through and through, he’ll eat everything MC gives him with a big ol’ smile on his cute little face. He’s not the best person to go to if MC wants advice or critique because the best thing Beel can usually muster is “it was really good.”

As Luke said in Lesson 5, Beel would make an awful food reporter. But we love him.

Similar to Levi, he’ll give meal requests on what to make for dinner. (At this rate, MC’s going to have to make some kind of list).

He kind of just waits by the door like a sad puppy whenever MC is making anything because he can’t get into the kitchen :(

Belphegor

The smell of freshly made chocolate chip cookies wafting through the house did reach the attic and it only fuelled his rage more. How dare the human win everyone over with cookies?!

After the attic incident, Belphie was won over with cookies.

Belphie just stands creepily in the kitchen doorway whenever MC is making anything and just makes shit really uncomfortable. Why’s he doing that, you may be wondering, well, he’s trying to calculate the energy needed to swipe the bowl of cookie dough and sprint to safety.

He never succeeds, mainly because once he gets to the bowl, MC already has the wooden spoon ready to smack him, so he just freezes mid-theft and slowly puts the bowl down.

“Oh my gosh, it says let the bread dough rest overnight? Let’s get a headstart and go to sleep now.” “Belphie what-” “I made a pillow Fort, come in. Let’s sleep.” “In the kitchen????”

How’d he make the pillow Fort without MC noticing? Years of experience. He’s trained in the art of- MC? What do you mean you can’t sleep right now and you need to get a head start on shaping fondant?

…he may have eaten the fondant while MC wasn’t looking… whoops… Beel may have rubbed off on him a little…

#Obey me! Headcanons #Obey me Headcanons #obey me #obey me! #obey me! shall we date? #obey me shall we date #obey me mc #obey me mammon #Obey me Lucifer #Obey me Leviathan #Obey me Satan #Obey me Asmodeus #Obey me Beelzebub #Obey me Belphegor

[rainy-day-coffee]

hi... how about head cannons about the dorm leaders with a magical girl mc from either the puella magi magica madoka, magical girl site, magical girl raising project or princess tutu universe please?

I'll be doing Magical Girl Raising Project for this one! I’ll be using the abilities found in the anime since I’m not creative enough to think of any myself. The personalities of the characters themselves have nothing to do with the abilities I chose, they’re their own person! This is written as platonic! I hope this is alright!

As an extra note, this was a really interesting topic to write about. I enjoyed it! I actually just binge watched this anime for this request! It was quite good, I might pick up the light novels!

Warning: Mild mentions of gore; spoilers for Magical Girl Raising Project(?)

Dorm leaders reacting to a Magical Girl Mc

A new game has been released! Customize your own Magical Girl and work hard to defeat monsters!

Granted a 1-in-10,000 chance to be a real-life Magical Girl, the unfortunate souls who agree to the contract are unknowingly pulled into a world of bloodshed. All Magical Girls are expected to collect Magical candies through acts of helpfulness. Whomever is at the bottom of the ranking list by the end of the week is greeted by death. That is, if they can even make it that far.

Magic: Swimming through objects as if they were water - the objects do not affect the user as they pass through them.

He’s never heard of an ability quite like yours! It isn’t teleportation--it’s literally going through objects, ignoring any kind of barrier. It sounds impossible. Understandably, he doesn’t believe you until you show him.

Please refrain from popping out of random places in an attempt to scare him. He doesn’t want to be on edge everyday, the stress he has now is more than enough.

He’s curious about the whole situation. Just how and why did these “people” wrap you (and others) into such a terrible contract? How is it possible to grant these special abilities onto otherwise magicless people? Unfortunately, you most likely don’t have answers for those questions.

Sadly, Riddle doesn’t know of a way to help you out of this. The library may have some information, but the chances are slim nonetheless. He can offer assistance in candy collecting instead!

Something always seems to be going on at his dorm, it would help him greatly if you were to keep an eye on everything and everyone. He knows it isn’t much, but every little bit counts. You have his full support.

Magic: Entering the dreams of others - the ability to pass through the Dream World, granting access to the dreams of those who are currently sleeping.

He’s extremely annoyed. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He’s only seen you a couple times before, so why do you seem to plague all of his dreams?

In his dreams, you move so vividly and in-character, it baffles him. Dream versions of people can be accurate, but never to such an extent each time. He’ll confront you about it soon enough. He has no evidence of what you’re doing, however vivid memories of dream-you push him to demand answers anyways.

Highly uncomfortable to know his dreams, his usual safe place, can be invaded by a person. He demands that you stop. You can go bother someone else, he doesn’t need that kind of help. If he sees you in there one more time, he may have to resort to other methods to get you to stop.

In regards to earning candies, unless you ask him specifically for help, there isn’t much he can do. You can always help Ruggie out with chores around Savanaclaw and you’ll be set. It’s a good deal for both sides, you can earn some candies and Leona can finally sleep comfortably again.

He finds the system you’re stuck in deplorable. Unfortunately, he can’t get you out of it, but if you ever need extra help he can always have Ruggie find one or two ways to get you those extra candies you need.

Magic: Hearing the thoughts of those in need - with enough training, the user can pinpoint the location of a person. Additionally, they can hear thoughts apart from cries for help.

Your special magic interests him greatly. He already has a good pool of information of all the students, but being able to hear their most inner thoughts is something truly amazing. No amount of research could easily give him those kinds of details.

He has the twins watch over you for a bit, gathering as much information as they can about your situation and what you go about doing.

Given the circumstances, he doubts he can rob this ability of yours through a contract. This does however present an amazing opportunity.

This could blossom into a wonderful partnership. You need to collect candies, and he’s always willing to accept requests from those “poor” souls who need help. By helping him, you can meet your quota! The rules never did mention what kind of help you were limited to offer after all.

He pities you, nothing can be done about your situation at the moment. You can rest assured though, you’ll never be at the bottom of the leaderboard with him around!

When time allows it, Floyd and Jade will be busy poking their noses where they don’t belong. The mascot that appears when you’re around seems to come from that phone you use. If they can see it, then that means these beings have made a mistake somehow. Is it possible to find a way to free you from this through that?

Magic: Transforming into any biologically living being - the size and shape of the creature do not matter, anything is fair game.

When he first discovers your special magic, he’ll be amazed! Transformation magic isn’t exactly easy, so being able to turn into whatever creature you want sounds like a lot of fun!

He’ll be begging you to turn into a wide variety of animals. Can you please turn into a tiger? How about an elephant? Maybe an alpaca? This could go on for hours if you don’t stop him.

Upon learning the darker side of the Magical Girl world, he starts to cry. He knows the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but this is too cruel. You didn’t know you would suffer this way. They should have at least given you all the information beforehand. Better yet, they shouldn’t be doing something so awful in the first place.

Because he finds it hard to keep secrets from Jamil, he ends up telling him about you. He then needs to convince Jamil that you aren’t trying to get him killed.

He goes around asking if people need help. He wants to do everything he can to ensure you survive. Money can’t get you out of this game, he’s tried to use it but that mascot that follows you around always refuses it.

Kalim doesn’t want you to die. Just thinking about it makes his head spin and worry bubble. It wouldn’t be his fault if you died in the first place, but the guilt would consume him entirely.

Magic: Freely manipulating sound - the user can generate sound from anywhere and even recreate the voices of others. As an added result of this ability, the user has enhanced hearing.

Vil won’t forgive you if you decide to mimic Epel’s voice so he can escape. He may be evading his lessons for now, but Vil will find a way to drill them into him later on.

He never would have thought such a thing was possible. This terrible fate you’ve had forced onto you makes no sense. The beautiful power you’ve been given is nothing compared to the price. He doesn’t blame you, he blames whatever is doing this. 

If such a game exists in the world of Twisted Wonderland, he’ll use his influence to dissuade people from playing. Vil will do this behind the scenes of course, his public image has to remain intact.

He actively requests your assistance. For example, helping his dorm improve their instrument playing--your impressive hearing can detect small mistakes they need to work on. Apart from this, he regrettably can’t offer more help.

Hone your abilities and work with what you have. He knows you can prevail. Please take care of yourself as you move forward.

Magic: Receiving one futuristic tool a day - the ability to randomly pick one useful tool out of 444,444,444. The tool breaks down and is no longer of use after a day passes.

He’s in awe. A real life Magical Girl! To think they could really exist outside of anime! Just what kind of world did you come from? Forget living in a world where magic is common, Magical Girls are on a different level entirely! Curiosity gnaws at him, but given how shy he is he won’t approach you with questions himself. Ortho is more than happy to ask any questions for him in his place though!

Once he finds out you’re one of those Magical Girls, he feels a tad sympathetic. You really got the short end of the stick in life didn’t you? He knew the possibility was there, that trope is not uncommon, but a small piece of him wished it wasn’t the case.

He supposes your special magic can be compared to gacha luck. You never really know what you’re going to get. Unfortunately, in your case you can’t even calculate rates for good rolls.

If you’re willing to let him, he’ll happily take apart the tools and gadgets you get from your daily pull. One of those future items should help him create even better machines than he can now! And even they can’t, disassembling and reassembling objects he’s never seen is a thrill in and of itself

If you happen to hear a small tip from Ortho or someone else about an issue occurring around campus, it may or may not have been Idia. He has eyes all around the school, spotting problems is quite easy.

He’ll be rooting for you from the sidelines. You’re a protagonist in this story, he hopes you can make it through to the end.

Magic: Extreme regeneration - being able to recover from any wound so long as a portion of the user’s body is left.

Mortified when he finds your body all mangled and bruised after a rough “accident.” Malleus is ready to destroy whoever or whatever did this to you. He cares about you greatly, the very thought of seeing you in such a state makes his stomach churn and pure rage wash over him.

Once you explain your situation, he can grasp enough to understand the major gist of it. He doesn’t quite know what a “Magical Girl” is but obviously it isn’t something good. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in such a terrible situation.

To know that you can take care of yourself in the face of danger, makes him relieved. Although he doesn’t like the idea of you getting hurt at all, a healing ability is always wonderful to possess.

While you earn candies, Malleus will be working on a way to free you.

Even if these beings who granted you this ability are “all-powerful,” his magical capabilities are among the top in all the world. Perhaps, he can start by politely asking for answers from the leader of this group. If that seems to fail, killing off that mascot seems like a good place to start instead.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #twst headcanons #riddle rosehearts #riddle rosehearts x reader #leona kingscholar #leona kingscholar x reader #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #kalim al asim #kalim al asim x reader #vil schoenheit #vil shoenheit x reader #idia shroud #idia shroud x reader #malleus draconia #malleus draconia x reader

[norcumii]

...oh thanks, Tumblr, it wasn’t like I was trying to answer that ask or anything. -_-

OHKAY. Take two! For this trope mashup meme, @dogmatix asked:

Rex/Obi or pairing/characters of choice - Apocalyse AU / Mermaid/Siren AU / Aroused by their voice

This modern!AU got a liiiiiittle bit more absurdist than planned, but NO REGRETS. Assistance was provided by @dharmaavocado and @deadcatwithaflamethrower -- THANK YOU BOTH!

*****

There was a lovely breeze coming in across the ocean, the sky had just enough puffy white clouds to keep things interesting, and Rex was taking a maintenance day. The last family group of tourists to charter a day trip had included several children that were at least two parts sticky and three parts grime. His poor Vigilance needed a serious scrub down, and Rex was not looking forward to restocking. Small Grubby Fiend 1 had stumbled – supposedly due to a sudden swell, but more likely because Small Grubby Fiends 2 and 3 hadn’t stopped ‘not kicking’ each other for way too long. Not being an entire idiot, Rex has gone right for the band-aids with cartoon characters, but since it wasn’t a cartoon Small Grubby Fiend 1 liked, that meant another – until all three Small Grubby Fiends had been plastered with far more of his first aid kit than was good for anyone.

It had been a long day.

So there he was, untangling life-vests that hadn’t even been used, while singing along with whatever music was playing from the boat’s speakers. Rex wasn’t sure if the music was pop, rock, or some other unholy category he’d never heard of, but thankfully it didn’t matter. He liked it, and could figure out which of Tup’s mix tapes it was on, which was the important thing.

Tup always made hilarious offended noises when Rex called them mix tapes, which was a significant reason why he did so. They were music folders, sensibly labeled by mood, because his little brother had realized at some point that was the only way to keep Rex up to date on anything past the 90’s grunge music.

Tup’s accusation, not his. Rex damn well knew how to use a radio – several kinds of radio, thank you very much.

He was several songs into mind-numbing chores when he spotted a flash of red streaking under the dock, and Rex ducked his head to hide a grin. He’d started spotting movement like that a couple of weeks ago, around the time the neighbors descended on their beach house. There were several ginger teenagers, so he figured one of them was a hell of a water rat who had damn odd taste in music.

To be fair, so did he.

It’d been weird at first, realizing he had an audience that disappeared the moment he acknowledged their existence. But the most he heard or saw out of them beyond the momentary glimpse was a bit of percussion, someone drumming in time against the water – and once, the dock itself – so Rex had shrugged and accepted their presence. It was kinda nice, actually, just to have someone around. He lived a ways off the end of a long, sparsely populated road, and while he didn’t mind the solitude, sometimes you just wanted another–

Rex’s train of thought went off the rails with a loud yelp as he discovered something slimy stuck to the back of a life-vest. It might have been edible once – it was a shade of radioactive green he didn’t associate with anything other than candy or video games, at least, so that was his best guess. Much as he wanted to blame the Small Grubby Fiends, he hadn’t done more than a spot check of these vests for awhile – could’ve been anyone.

Ugh. At least unlike some clients he could name, Rex’s eavesdropper wasn’t vandalizing anything. Wasn’t about to begrudge that.

Rex had managed to get most of the neon green grossness cleared when the rumble of an approaching car caught his attention. He wasn’t expecting visitors, not that that had ever stopped any of his brothers. Lost delivery drivers usually turned around before hitting up the driveway, which was long enough and had enough private property signs to keep out idiots looking for easy water access.

“Who the hell is this?” he muttered, setting the vest aside. He didn’t recognize the little black car, or the burly guy stepping out of the passenger’s side, but the guy waved and casually started towards Rex as if he knew who the hell he was.

Not reassuring, especially since the stranger rapped the car’s roof, and it headed back up the driveway.

“You seem lost,” Rex said, standing up and trying to look just the right level of intimidating.

“Nope,” the guy said back, still heading towards him. “Need your boat.”

“That’s work related – you need to wait till I’m back at the marina tomorrow. I’m at home, it’s my day off.”

Burly guy finally stopped, planting his hands on his hips – a move which just happened to part the jacket of his cheap suit enough that Rex could see the gun he carried. “I don’t think you understand, Mr. Fett. I don't want any trouble – I just want you to head inside, and take that day off while I borrow your boat.”

Oh, FUCK. Nobody really talked about how the mob owned most of the marinas in Tatooine Bay, but you didn’t need to declare water was wet to get drenched in the rain. It just wasn’t something that ever happened to someone you knew, just friends of friends or something.

“And if I don’t agree?” he couldn’t keep from asking.

Burly Guy had a surprisingly expressive shrug. “Most people don’t enjoy pushing their luck that far.”

To his credit, it was a remarkably polite threat. “I’m surprised anyone ever does.”

“Eh, every now and then there’s some freaky masochist looking for cheap thrills, but it ain’t my kink. Don’t think it’s yours, either, so if you’d just head inside, that’d be appreciated.”

The smart move was probably to comply. Rex wasn’t inclined to cooperate anyways. He was saved from making either bad decision by...sound.

It didn’t register as singing – there was something too off about it, a combination that wasn’t quite autotune, or that polyphonic singing Echo had gotten into when Fives got obsessed with the guitar. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t right in a way that was madly distracting.

The...singing? – pulled both Rex and the goon around towards the end of the dock, and if Rex hadn’t been so muzzy-headed from that sound he would have been gaping much more blatantly.

There was someone slipping out from under the dock, and it was most definitely not one of the neighbors.

It was a trim, shirtless figure in the water – ginger indeed, short red hair just dry enough to be messy spikes. Pale skin was freckled in scales of shimmering reds, protective lines over what would be vulnerable areas on a human. It swam close enough to the surface that Rex could see the sleek fins and tail, and part of his brain kept screaming ‘mermaid!’ while the rest took in the long, sharp claws on webbed hands and whispered ‘predator.’ Its singing showed sharply pointed teeth, and it should not have been nearly that gorgeous.

The mermaid glanced over at him, eyes a deep blue-on-blue that could never masquerade as human, flicking a look up and down him that could have been flattering or terrifying – it all depended on if that was measuring him for a meal euphemistically or not.

The singing changed as the creature turned its attention back to the goon, and the magnetic pull on Rex lessened. He staggered back a step, not too surprised to find he was halfway down the dock without noticing. The hazy feeling in his brain stopped, or at least dropped down to levels that were close enough to normal, so he got a clear view as the goon started walking into the water, oblivious to everything except the mer-siren-thing he was shambling towards.

The siren moved when the goon was almost waist deep in the water, flowing forward to delicately place a hand at the goon’s throat. The singing continued, but now there was a new undertone, soft and somehow questioning. Rex couldn’t tell if there were words to it or not – maybe a whole other language for all he knew – but the goon responded, voice soft enough that he couldn’t make out what was said.

Whatever he said, it didn’t please the siren. It kept singing, but it snarled, showing more of those pointed teeth, then it twisted and dove, hauling the unresisting goon under the water.

A terrifying few moments more, and the last hums of the song seemed to stop vibrating through the water.

“What the absolute fuck?” Rex said numbly. Thank everything, no one answered.

A smart man would’ve hidden inside, or driven off to a movie theater or something – inland and away. Rex wasn’t sure why he stayed: curiosity – morbid or otherwise – shock, or a healthy disbelief in the whole debacle. He was maybe a bit too numb to not have some kind of shock, but –

He felt like he maybe deserved it. “Yeah, I can have a bit of shock,” Rex muttered to himself. “As a treat.”

Okay, he might have more than a bit. But by the time the siren poked his head out of the water again – politely out of arms’ reach – Rex had calmed down a decent degree. They just looked at each other for a bit, then the siren gave him a polite nod.

“Hello there,” he said in a pleasant, deep voice with a hell of an accent.

Rex held up a hand, needing a moment. Of fucking course the British even colonized under the goddamned sea. “Hi. You speak English.” It wasn’t quite the most inane thing he could’ve said, but his brain hadn’t managed to catch up yet.

He was talking to a goddamned mermaid who had just kidnapped and possibly eaten some mob thug who’d been trying to take Rex’s boat. It had been a day.

“You’re not the first land-dweller I’ve made the acquaintance of.”

Rex absolutely refused to make any kind of a crack about being charmed. There was too much hysteria lurking in there. “Speaking of acquaintances, you didn’t, ah, kill that guy, did you?”

The siren’s lips pulled back from his teeth a little. “I still haven’t decided what to do with him, so right now he’s out of the way.” He must’ve seen something impressive in Rex’s expression, because the angry disdain smoothed over to something more neutral. “He’s stashed in a cave I know. Enough air to breathe, but the only entrance is underwater and too far for most humans to swim without assistance.”

That was...a lot. “Thanks for the help.”

The siren smiled, an oddly sweet, bashful expression. “I’d be a very poor guest if I didn’t assist.” He cleared his throat, his expression going awkward. “Though I...suppose ‘guest’ is a bit presumptive.”

Rex grinned. “No, I spotted you a couple weeks ago – ah, I mean, sort of.” Before he could make more a hash of that, he cleared his throat. “The name’s Rex.”

The siren folded his hands together and did a little bow thing. “Obi-Wan. Pleasure to meet you.”

He wasn’t blushing. He absolutely was not blushing. “So...you in town for long?” Ok, now he was blushing, that was worst subject change ever meeting worst fishing attempt – meeting worst and wildly inappropriate pun.

Obi-Wan’s expression fell, sorrow way too visible in those non-human eyes. “I suppose you could say that. I...no longer have a home to return to.”

Definitely not a topic to change to. Right. Rex cleared his throat and shifted. “Well. You’re welcome anytime, for what that’s worth.”

The slow-growing smile didn’t remove that sorrow, but it did kindle something warm inside. This was at least three different kinds of trouble, but Rex didn’t think he’d regret any of it.

~end

#star wars #My writing #meme #trope mashup #Rex/Obi #mermaid #dogmatix #still not thrilled with how it wraps but it's certainly not the worst fic ending I've read recently #oh I'm still salty #whoops? #meanwhile there's several lines in here i adore more than is reasonable #AND I DON'T CARE

[extremelyblackandwhite]

scrubs.

pairing: doctor!sebastian stan x biomedical scientist!reader

warnings: none

> next chapter

The coffee cup was laying neatly on his desk by the computer screen with surgeon-like precision. After years and years of studying, being an intern, and serving crazy, late or early rotas, Sebastian had got used to being the resident doctor. His routine, although unpredictable, had some sort of shape and one of the things he enjoyed doing was having his cup of coffee while looking at his first patient’s record before he could come in. Of course, like in every single job, there were unpredictable factors and for him it always seemed to be lack of test results in his record files.

    - Hey ... - he called out for one of the nurses who was passing by. She stopped by his door, poking her head in. - Where are the blood culture results from this patient?

    - The laboratory sent the samples back up. You’ll have to order a blood culture again.

    - Fucking hell ... - he mumbled to himself, throwing the file onto the table.

Of course, Sebastian never got to fully take his coffee. If he did, it normally meant she was on holiday. The biggest unpredictability of the job wasn’t the patients or the constant urgencies, no, the biggest unpredictability in his job was a woman. Not just every woman, no, a biomedical scientist in the microbiology department which always seemed to deny his tests or contest every medical opinion he had. 

He sighed as he pressed the lift’s button to the laboratory floor. There was always an unseen line between the doctors, nurses and assistants on the upper floors and the laboratory staff on the lower floor. Doctors barely showed up in the laboratory yet again not all doctors had a biomedical scientist after them. Actually, no other doctor had a war with a biomedical scientist, just him. Lucky him.

   - Stan, put a lab coat on. - speaking of the devil. - Did they not tech you health and safety in med school?

   - It’s Dr. Stan. - he grudgingly grabbed the lab coat she has extended over to him, stopping him from getting any further into her department. She was right about that, but he wasn’t gonna give her that. - It’s 8 AM, are you already hiding from your responsibilities?

    - Where are my blood culture results, Y/N? I have a patient coming in 50 minutes and I can’t tell them what’s wrong with them. 

    - That’s not my problem. - she turned around but he followed her still. - Will you please leave? I have work to do.

    - Oh really? Considering you haven’t given me the results, I’d think you just slack off the whole day here. - he sighed. - C’mon, Y/N. 

   - I’m sorry, Dr. Stan but maybe you should instruct your nurses in what correct blood culture bottle to send the blood samples. If you suspected anaerobic bacteremia why did you sent it in an aerobic bottle? They’re dead, I cannot plate dead bacteria. Now if you please, I have work to do. 

   - Did they or did you just lose the sample again?

   - Unlike you, Dr. Stan I do my job correctly. Now if you don’t mind, I have requests from Doctors who know what they’re doing. 

Sebastian grumbled, taking the lab coat on tossing it onto the hook. Y/N grinned to herself as she returned to her microscope, mentally celebrating the fact she had once again managed to upset Dr. Stan. It wasn’t that he was a bad doctor, he wasn’t, he was just too lenient with his staff while Y/N was razor sharp focused on getting work done so whenever a sample came in bad state, unlike other department senior scientists, she’d just deny them and go do tests on good samples. That particular mindset resonated with her superiors but Dr. Stan enjoyed coming downstairs to give her an earful as if she could do something. Well, she could do something, she could go upstairs and train the staff herself but she wasn’t paid for that and it seriously was not her job to do so. 

     - Dr. Stan, again? - Miriam, one of the scientists who had started around the same time as her and had experienced as many of their fights as there had been, sat by her side. - You two seriously need to fuck.

     - Miriam! - she widened her eyes, looking around to see if someone had heard them. - Why don’t you say it louder? 

    - Listen when me and cute butt from haematology we’re feuding, we fucked it out during the Christmas party and look at us now ... - she smirked taking the necklace with her engagement ring from under her laboratory coat. - Besides, he is a doctor. 

    - He’s too old. - she returned to inspecting the Gram slide under her microscope, but Miriam had other plans, turning off the light in her microscope. 

    - He’s in his 30s. That’s a baby in doctor years besides you two are making everyone miserable. 

    - I will make you miserable if you don’t start analysing the new samples. 

Telling a patient he needed to give blood samples again sounded easy enough. After all, Sebastian had had a whole communication module during med school and almost ten years worth of experience yet nothing compared to listening to a patient yell at him before he even had lunch. Surely with the amount of times, Y/N had done this to him he would be used to it now but not when all he’d have was coffee. With a scowl on his face, he walked into the cafeteria. Damned Y/N, damned Y/N and her petty fighting. 

    - Seb! - Dr. Mackie set his tray on his table. They’d done their residency together and he had even been present when he and Y/N had their first encounter and fight. - Word is you’ve already had your first fight with Y/N. What’d you do now?

    - I didn’t do anything. Blood came in the wrong bottle and she didn’t even try doing the test. 

    - You’re whining, Stan. 

    - Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. I have this patient, keeps complaining that he has an infection but there’s no markers. 

    - Hey man, I specialised in tropical diseases. Probability is, it’s not that. Why don’t you ask Y/N? She’s a microbiologist and you love to go over to see her.

    - Really, Mackie? 

    - You can ask someone else but you and Y/N like each other so much. Maybe she’ll give you a kiss if you get it right.

     - Thanks for nothing, Mackie.

     - Hey, maybe if you and her start dating, the upstairs and the downstairs people will finally have a peace alliance. 

Back to the microbiology laboratory it was. He couldn’t even remember what the two of them had started bickering about, but he knew it was around the time she had first started at the hospital. It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart, god no, Sebastian knew she was smart and completely capable and probably the reason why she had become a senior scientist quite fast; however, she was extremely argumentative and whenever she had to assist in one of his cases, they always ended up arguing. To be honest, she did look quite adorable whenever she was fuming at him, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and pointing aggressively at the results.

   - STAN! LAB COAT! - he was taken from his thought by the same woman throwing a laboratory coat on him. - I will report you to the board if you keep walking into my lab without a lab coat on.  

   - I need your help.

   - Okay. - she opened one of the various drawers in the laboratory, taking three bottles and placing it on the table in front of her. - It’s very simple. Yellow for paediatric, red for anaerobic and green for aerobic. Paediatric means child, anaerobic means no air, and aerobic means air. 

   - Seriously, Y/N? I know what it means.

   - Do you? - she cocked an eyebrow at him. - Don’t worry, we got the samples right these time. I have someone working overnight so you’ll have your precious results. Besides, it is probably negative. Looking at the sheet doesn’t really scream bacteremia. It might just be a localised infection which has the potential to become bacteremia. Unless it’s an AMR case, it’s probably no fuss. 

    - Great. It’s not that I need help with though.

    - Can’t you do your own job, Dr. Stan? 

    - 40 year old male, complaining of infection like symptoms but no markers. - he handed her the file which she skimmed through.

    - Did you check for CRP? White blood cell count?

    - White blood cell count is slightly high but not in a way which would really indicate an infection. Know of anything like that?

    - I can run some tests but I don’t really know. - she shrugged. - Have you asked Dr. Mackie? Patient been in any tropical locations?

    - He told me to ask you. 

    - Aw so even he knows that you suck at being a doctor? 

    - You know what, Y/N? You would be cute if you weren’t so argumentative. 

    - Don’t try to butter me up, Dr. Stan. I will ask around my colleagues, see if anyone has any idea before dinner time and then I’ll let you know.

    - Are you asking me for dinner?

    - Yes, because having dinner in the green light cafetaria with you is totally my idea of romance. I mean, why  not take me here now in this table?

    - Now, Miss Y/L/N, that’s is against health and safety protocols. You should know. 

    - Do they not teach you sarcasm in med school?

    - We’ll talk about it during our dinner date.

    - It is not a dinner date, I’m just giving you data.

    - It’s a date. I’m telling everyone.

    - Don’t you dare!

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan/you #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan/reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan/y/n #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan au #doctor!sebastian stan

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fire and Light (ao3) - on tumblr: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

- Chapter 7 -

There was an incident at the Cloud Recesses.

Nie Mingjue offered to go deal with it, and Wen Ruohan was so busy laughing at the sheer absurdity of the idea that he allowed Wen Xu to go in his stead, which was what they had all been hoping for. Nie Huaisang had come up with the idea of the staggered offer; he was surprisingly adept at predicting how Wen Ruohan would behave, which secretly worried Nie Mingjue more than a little.

(The plan did result in a few more ‘walks’, Wen Ruohan being temporarily reminded of Nie Mingjue’s existence, and Nie Huaisang was so upset by that side-effect that he wanted to resign from making any more plans in the future. That wasn’t plausible, of course, given where they lived, but Nie Mingjue would happily suffer a little if it meant that his little brother wouldn’t turn too scheming as a result of his success.)

Wen Xu returned a while later with a letter in his hand and a twitch in his eye that refused to go away for a while. He was of a nervous disposition, whether naturally or because of how he was raised, and his anxiety was only made worse by stress – the Nightless City, unfortunately, being full of stress. Wen Qing said that he used to be cruel and vicious, obtaining relief from his own pain only by hurting others; she said, with a little too much perspicuity given her age, that it was the inevitable result of his having found out long ago that there was no consequence to his actions and, moreover, that his meanness was the only quality of his of which his father seemed to approve. Nie Mingjue hadn’t seen much of that, except maybe for some arrogance in the beginning, but Wen Qing had rolled her eyes at him when he said as much, saying that of course he hadn’t seen it, it’d been different ever since Nie Mingjue showed up.

Why that made a difference, Nie Mingjue had no idea. He hadn’t done anything, or at least he hadn’t done it intentionally.

“What happened?” he asked. “Is –”

“A-Chao is fine, no thanks to Wen Zhuliu,” Wen Xu said, grinding his teeth in a way that would probably hurt his jaw and require copious amounts of Wen Ning’s medicinal soup later to ease the soreness and strain. “We were right about him trying to get A-Chao kicked out of the Cloud Recesses and dependent on him.”

“More brothels?”

“I wish. A-Chao has been refusing to go to them –”

According to the letters Nie Mingjue has seen from both Wen Chao himself and Lan Xichen, his reaction has been to all but burst into tears at the very thought – Wen Xu’s impassioned speech had apparently made a rather large dent in his impressionable psyche. He wouldn’t even risk walking thought a red-light district at night out of concern that he might succumb to some previously unknown predatory instinct and then die horribly as a consequence.

“– so Wen Zhuliu, shall we say, creatively interpreted his refusal into being a fear of disease.”

“I mean, it is a fear of disease,” Wen Qing said dryly. “Disease is how you scared him. With the information from my books, no less.”

“No, you don’t –” Wen Xu waved his hands, looking distressed. More distressed than usual, even. “On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this with you lot. You’re all far too young. Mingjue, you understand what I mean?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Nie Mingjue said blankly. “You haven’t even said anything yet.”

“He’s saying that Wen Zhuliu brought A-Chao a girl he could be certain wasn’t diseased,” Nie Huaisang said, his nose wrinkled. “Let me guess, the ‘incident’ in question was A-Chao being accused of rape? Probably someone young?”

“How did you figure that out?” Wen Xu demanded.

“I read a lot of pornography,” Nie Huaisang said. “Some of it involves less savory subjects.”

“Did I know you were reading about less savory subjects?” Nie Mingjue demanded, a little appalled. “Huaisang, everything we said about A-Chao being too young applies to you too, you know –”

“I read it for the art, da-ge. And the insight into what people like when they think other people aren’t looking; it’s surprisingly transferable to the rest of life. Anyway, since you’re here without A-Chao, I take it that he got out of it?”

“When he saw the girl lying in his bed, he remembered all of Mingjue’s scolding,” Wen Xu said. “He immediately ran out to find an adult to assist him. He’d been dosed with something to make him more susceptible - you know what I mean, that sort of thing, but also something to make him dizzy and forgetful, probably so he wouldn’t know for sure if he’d done it or not - but luckily he found a Lan who recognized it.”

“A Lan that knows something about drugs? That’s the most implausible part of everything you’ve said so far.”

Nie Mingjue poked Wen Qing in the forehead for excess cynicism.

“Not only did he know about it, he was able to eliminate the effects while preserving evidence regarding it,” Wen Xu said, sounding begrudgingly impressed. “His testimony of A-Chao’s innocence is rather unimpeachable.”

“What did he do, run to Teacher Lan?” Wen Ning asked, eyes wide. He’d been inexplicably terrified of Lan Qiren ever since they’d met briefly at a discussion conference – apparently Lan Qiren had imparted some wise words and Wen Ning had said something stupid in response, and now he wanted to dig himself into a giant pit any time the man’s name was so much as mentioned.

“Oh no,” Wen Xu said. “That’s the best part of this story, actually. This whole thing happened in the middle of the night, a dark one with barely any moon, and you know how A-Chao is with directions –”

“Tell him something he wants is the next town to the east and he’ll immediately go to the west, south and north before he makes it.”

“He got lost,” Nie Mingjue guessed. “And ended up…where? With who?”

“Qingheng-jun.”

The entire room simultaneously buried their faces in their hands.

“He intruded on Sect Leader Lan’s seclusion,” Nie Huaisang moaned. “The seclusion that’s been going on for nearly twenty years. Because of course he did, that’s our A-Chao for you. Oh, Lan Wangji is going to kill me…”

“You’re still in contact?” Nie Mingjue asked, surprised.

“We exchange letters, it’s no big deal. Tell me more about what happened – did they actually have to get Qingheng-jun to testify?”

“Oh yes, the family made a big stink about it. They wanted to get the girl married in as a concubine or the sect to pay out; they weren’t exactly happy when all the doctors confirmed that she was still pure. They even accused the doctors of being paid off! Lan sect doctors!”

“What did you do with Wen Zhuliu?”

“He claimed he had no idea how it happened. Somehow while also implying that I was being unnecessarily overzealous in A-Chao’s defense, since there’s nothing that unusual about taking a concubine – as if everyone wouldn’t understand it as being all but an outright admission that he was a rapist! I pretended I believed that he wasn’t responsible for the whole thing - he was, of course - and told him that if something like this happened on his watch without his knowledge, he was clearly a piece of shit bodyguard that ought to be replaced.”

“I bet he liked that!”

-

“I want to learn archery,” Wen Ning said.

“You already know archery,” Nie Mingjue said, ruffling his hair. “You’re very good at archery.”

“Not in public I’m not.” Wen Ning firmed up his jaw. “I want to be good enough at archery that I can win honor for the Wen sect when the main competition is archery.”

“That won’t be until the next time we host,” Wen Xu pointed out. “Which is years from now. You’ll be sixteen – no, seventeen by then.”

“Ancient,” Nie Mingjue, who was about that age himself, said solemnly. “Doddering. Almost decrepit. The only thing worse would be if you were twenty and on your way to twenty-one –”

Wen Xu glared.

“I’m serious,” Wen Ning insisted. “Everyone else has a talent. Why not me?”

“All right, then,” Nie Mingjue said, because mentioning how good a cook of medicinal cuisine Wen Ning was would clearly not be appropriate at this juncture. Lots of boys eventually wanted to learn a martial skill, no matter where their real talents might lie. He might have even said all boys, except of course there was always Nie Huaisang to be the glaring exception to the rule. “We’ll adjust your training regime, invite some specialized tutors…”

Wen Ning was shaking his head. “I want to go to the Jiang sect.”

“What?”

“They always win, don’t they? Maybe they lose out on first place to the Lan sect, with their arm strength, or by some fluke to someone else, but if they have a strong contestant, they win, and even when they don’t win they always place. It’s the best place to go learn.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to get invited to the Cloud Recesses.”

Nie Mingjue had half a dozens protests on his lips, and they all died at once. It was true. Wen Ning would not be invited to study at Gusu, possessing neither an exceptional talent for some facet of learning nor a family willing to push him in. Nie Huaisang would go without question on the basis of Lan Qiren’s former friendship with their father, assuming Wen Ruohan would allow it, and Wen Qing, only interested in the study of medicine, had recently started corresponding with various medicine halls and could maybe get an internship somewhere. She’d been talking recently about Lanling, and though he’d objected to that on the basis of Jin Guangshan, the whole world would welcome a promising doctor.

Only Wen Ning would be trapped here, in the Nightless City.

(With Nie Mingjue, who could not leave, because he wasn’t broken enough yet. Who might not ever be, might live and die without ever being allowed out any further than a closely supervised night hunt, like a bird in a cage.)

Nie Mingjue didn’t especially like the idea of staying here in the Nightless City alone, but his own interests had never been as important as those he could protect. Unlike him, Wen Ning had a future, a life of his own, to look forward to, and so Nie Mingjue looked at Wen Xu. “Do you think…?”

Wen Xu made a face. “I’m not sure,” he said, frowning at Wen Ning in a way that Nie Mingjue knew meant something to Qishan Wen minds because of the way that Wen Ning ducked his head in embarrassment. “They don’t normally take outside students the way that the Lan sect does. I guess we could ask, though, using the way the Lan sect blew up as a cover.”

“They’re readjusting,” Nie Mingjue corrected, trying to be diplomatic. “Qingheng-jun was in seclusion for such a long time – it’s a big change for them for him to come out. For his sons, especially.”

He wished that he could write to Lan Xichen. Not because he had something intelligent to say about it, but more so that he could listen to all the emotions Lan Xichen was undoubtedly trying to suppress – Nie Mingjue couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling. His father, locked away for so long so as to be little more than a myth, suddenly and abruptly brought back to life –

Perhaps it was better that they didn’t write. Given what had happened to Nie Mingjue’s own father, Lan Xichen would probably refrain from saying anything at all.

“In other words, they blew up,” Wen Xu said dryly. “I’ll write to the Jiang sect and make some inquiries, not naming any names. If we get their approval, we can figure out how best to petition Father. He’ll like that angle, though; winning honor…Huaisang came up with that, did he?”

Nie Mingjue was going to protest, but Wen Ning nodded.

“I figured. We’re still going to adjust your schedule, start getting you ready – we need to make it believable.”

“Why does it have to be believable if it’s true?” Nie Mingjue asked, looking from one to the other. “Why would A-Ning do something if he doesn’t want to do it?”

“I do want to do it!” Wen Ning exclaimed, his little face red but determined. “I want to do it really badly, Mingjue-ge. Really.”

“All right, then,” Nie Mingjue said, convinced despite his suspicion that they were up to something – but then, they were always up to something, and he was usually not included.

For very good reason, and at his own request.

“All right,” he said again. “If you want it, then we’ll find a way.”

-

“Tell me everything you know,” Wen Ruohan murmured. “And it can stop.”

For today, he meant. A fool’s promise, false gold, worthless – meaning nothing.

Nie Mingjue talked anyway.

-

Wen Chao arrived home from the Cloud Recesses, to everyone’s joy, and even managed, with some hurrying, to make it back a week before Wen Ning was scheduled to set out.

“I brought wine for everyone!” he announced.

“You did not,” Nie Mingjue said sternly, though he wasn’t quite able to stop himself from smiling.

“Okay, okay, I got gifts for everyone. But I also brought wine, if you want some – it’s called Emperor’s Smile, you’ll like it –”

“Forget the wine,” Nie Mingjue said. “You’ve grown!”

He had – at least half a hand’s worth, and his face was starting to show the curves of adulthood, despite the considerable baby fat remaining.  

“I’ve grown?” Wen Chao laughed. “Look who’s talking!”

Everyone laughed, even Nie Mingjue, who ducked his head – it wasn’t his fault that he kept on growing. His father had been especially tall, and his mother even more so; it was to be expected!

Admittedly, it wouldn’t hurt to start slowing down a little. Any time now.

“Yes, well, I grow any more and your father will chop me off at the ankles,” he said, shaking his head. Wen Ruohan seemed torn between pleasure at having such a hulking beast tamed at his feet – his words – and irritation that Nie Mingjue would shortly be able to look down at him. “Tell us about your studies, A-Chao. Did you make any friends?”

“Did you pass?” Nie Huaisang asked.

“Of course I passed! And I only cheated once –”

Nie Mingjue covered his eyes and groaned dramatically.

“When I go, I’m going to cheat all the time,” Nie Huaisang announced.

Nie Mingjue aimed for an even more dramatic groan.

“And you probably won’t pass even if you do,” Wen Qing put in.

Now it was Nie Huaisang’s turn to moan. “Has anyone ever told you that your tongue is as sharp and piercing as your needles, A-Qing?”

“No. You want me to demonstrate why?”

“Help! Help! Have mercy!”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wen xu #wen chao #wen ning #wen qing #my fic #my fics #fire and light

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Being Fake Soulmates with Dr. Chilton (Part 6)

<- Part 5

Frederick Chilton x Reader | The Good Place crossover

Final chapter! Warning: The Good Place spoilers, and a timeline that makes perfect sense because Jeremy Bearimy, baby. 

2,800 words

“No way. It’s too dangerous!”

“I thought you said we were in this together?” Chilton quirked a brow, eliciting a petulant grumble. You crossed your arms.

“Or maybe you think I’m expendable, so you’re willing to take risks with my life. Afterlife. Whatever.”

Frederick Chilton, who was not, as originally advertised, your soulmate, nonetheless clasped your hand with gentle tenderness. I would never do anything to hurt you is what a normal person would say in that moment, and perhaps his eyes said it, somewhere deep in their searching pools of green. But Dr. Chilton had a repressed way about him, tending toward overly clinical just stating the facts (or the sarcasm). Anything but genuine, vulnerable, sentimentality.

He guided you by your hand to sit down beside him on the baroque loveseat in one of his many living rooms, studies, and salons. After you settled yourself on the velvet cushion, he leaned his shoulder against yours in that quiet way he showed affection.

“After reviewing the town records,” he said, “I believe we may be the only two humans in the neighborhood. Some of the residents are far too dull—Chidi Anagonye, the moral philosophy professor who spent his life writing a single manuscript, Jianyu the silent monk—while others are too perfect—Glen, that one who is constantly volunteering, Tahani, the philanthropist. Real people have flaws, secrets, hobbies. I can only be certain of myself and you.”

“How’d you figure out I’m real?”

“I didn’t. I simply refuse to accept the alternative,” he said with a sad smile, and you began to think Dr. Chilton was sentimental after all.

***

Their voices were muffled even with your ear pressed to the door of Michael’s office—not that it mattered much what they were talking about. You were just waiting for the signal, and at that moment, it came. Their footsteps and voices grew louder as Frederick and Michael approached, and the door handle clicked.

“—which is why cannibalism loses more good-person points than defenestration but fewer than chewing loudly on a crowded bus.”

“Fascinating. I never thought about it that way,” said Chilton, looking genuinely disturbed.

You flattened yourself against the wall next to the door, thinking thin thoughts as the pair exited the office. A tall houseplant barely disguised your presence, and if Michael had any kind of peripheral vision, he would see you standing there plain as day.

But Dr. Chilton spoke animatedly, fixing him with a challenging laser-stare as he asked a probing follow-up question. Locked in Chilton’s eyes, Michael failed to notice the movement just behind his left shoulder as you slipped through the closing door before it could latch shut.

Safe.

Michael’s office was quiet and filled you with serenity in much the same way a teddy bear is filled with stuffing: forcefully and by no will of your own. Like the welcome room with its happy green plants and happy green words on the wall assuring you everything is fine, the office peeled your defenses away. Cream-colored walls yawned out around the perimeter, punctuated with bright windows, a portrait of Doug Forcett (a stoner from the 1970s who guessed, on a mushroom trip, how the afterlife really worked), and various artifacts of humanity enshrined like museum pieces, despite seeming perfectly mundane.

At the top of the room was a large mahogany desk.

Yesterday, Chilton watched Michael put away files in the desk that he wouldn’t let him look at. Chilton was certain they were the key to unraveling the mystery, so he suggested working together—he would distract Michael while you sneaked in to find the files. It was risky, but it might have been your only chance of discovering what was going on, and if there was a way to escape.

You began poking through the desk and found stacks of papers in an unreadable alphabet. The only thing you could read were lyrics to a genuinely terrible song Michael was writing titled “Love Train to the Cosmos.”

The last drawer wouldn’t budge.

Yanking the handle didn’t work. Banging on the side with your fist failed to unstick it. It was locked. Locked drawers were suspicious. The answers had to be in there.

You eyed a mountain of paperclips lovingly displayed on a pedestal labeled “Human Things.” Snatching two off the top, you unbent and re-bent the stiff metal wire, and inserted it into the lock. Faint clicks sounded as you turned and finessed the paperclip, feeling each pin in the tumbler slide into place. Then you gently turned it, and—pop. The drawer opened.

A single manila folder stamped TOP SECRET in threatening red letters rested inside, as if waiting to be found. You picked it up and opened it, and your breath caught. They were reports on “The Good Place.” The Good Place in quotation marks. Reports about you.

A pleasant bing sounded.

Janet materialized in front of the desk. For once, she was not wearing a cheery smile.

***

Frederick Chilton had always been a selfish man. Any opportunity that could advance his career and put him in the spotlight, he would take it no matter who it hurt. “Unorthodox therapy,” he called it in his private chats with Dr. Lecter. They bonded over their shared interest in unorthodox research before he learned Dr. Lecter was a cannibal. That would have been a clue to anybody else that it was time to change his ways, but Dr. Chilton spent the rest of his years just as selfish and petty—more so, even, as his disfiguring injuries gave him more reason for spite.

He could never accept himself as he was.

By the time he died, Chilton was an intolerable asshole who paid back the world’s cruelty with his chronic foul moods and acerbic sarcasm. He kept everyone at a distance.

And yet, here, in death, he found himself worrying over someone else.

The sun was shining in the ever-blue sky, dappled by lush green foliage before reaching the two men as they strolled the neighborhood below. Michael was built like a sapling with longer legs than he knew what to do with, making Chilton nearly jog to keep pace. He had a warm smile and an outgoing demeanor—always flattering Chilton’s ego and asking for his guidance. But something malignant hid behind those smiling eyes, and Chilton’s mind kept rushing back to you, hoping you were OK.

He hoped that you were safe. Not that the plan was going smoothly. That you were safe.

There was a difference, and Dr. Chilton noticed right away that his twitchy nervousness was not wrought of self-preservation. It was a new type of panic—worse than fear for himself, which he never thought possible considering the amount of terror he had experienced on his own behalf.

To distract himself, Chilton threw himself into the role of Michael’s assistant, focusing on his task of supposedly identifying psychological issues causing problems with the neighborhood.

“Our interviews should go in alphabetical order, under the pretense of a survey—a sort of afterlife census—to avoid suspicion. It should be feasible, with only three hundred residents—”

“We know,” Michael said coolly. His voice dropped from the usual friendly, flattering demeanor, slipping off like a mask.

“You know how you are going to handle the interviews? It is imperative the subjects do not suspect they are being studied.” Chilton swallowed, knowing full well that he was talking to the real Michael for the first time.

“Don’t play dumb.” Michael smiled an entirely different type of smile, twisted and clever with no warmth in it. “We’ve been watching you, Dr. Chilton. We knew you would figure it out eventually. It was only a matter of time before you saw through a psychiatric study.”

Chilton’s interest piqued at the same time his blood went cold. He wet his lips. “Is that what all this is, then?”

The pair came to a stone bridge that arched gracefully over a reflection pool. Michael stopped midway across, leaned one of his long, pointed elbows on the railing, and cocked his head at Chilton.

“You haven’t figured it all out yet? That’s disappointing. You humans really are so dense.” His tone was so mean that Chilton took an unconscious step back. Michael only laughed and told him there was no point in running away. “But I think you’ll want to hear what I have to offer,” he promised.

Most of what you had been told about the afterlife was true, Michael explained. There was a real good place, and there was a real bad place where bad people were tortured for all eternity. But the bad place had a problem: it was boring! Humans get used to physical pain after the first few centuries, no matter how creative the punishment.

“Once you’ve flattened a thousand penises, you’ve flattened them all. I’m trying to do something new here. Innovate!” said Michael with an energetic swoop of his hand. “Emotional torture can cause the same level of discomfort, but in a more sustainable and (more importantly) entertaining way. That’s what this neighborhood is for—to study you humans and find out what makes you miserable.”

And then he offered Dr. Chilton something that grabbed his attention. The opportunity to design bad place neighborhoods.

“You are asking me to help implement psychological torture?” Chilton turned over each word cautiously.

“Oh,” Michael scoffed, “Don’t tell me you’re concerned about the ethics? Doctor, I’ve read your file.”

Chilton winced. He had done truly amoral things in the name of discovery—things it made him sick to be reminded of. Strange, though. In the past, he would have been proud to be treated as a peer by a psychopath. Not ashamed.

“Think of it, the glory, the prestige. You would be designing the afterlife for billions of souls. You will be remembered throughout eternity as the man who reformed the bad place!”

“And my soulmate?”

Chilton blurted it without thinking. It sounded so childish and naive, and sure enough, Michael shook his head and had a long chuckle at his expense.

“There’s no such thing! I thought you knew,” Michael slapped his knee. “I made it up so you would torture each other! But once again, I underestimated the human libido. You people all think with your genitals, it’s—it’s gross. Humans are gross.” He made a face. “That’s why I need your help to design a better system. With your understanding of the human mind, we can make condemned souls miserable for thousands of years.”

Chilton couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for this plan, and Michael frowned.

“If it makes you feel any better, consider this the humane option. The alternative is going back to scooping eyeballs out with melon ballers and replacing them with live bees. What do you say, doctor? Join my team.” Michael extended a hand, and Chilton eyeballed it.

“Can my soulmate—”

“Not a soulmate.”

“—come with me?”

“This offer is only open to you.”

“So they will be tortured? Alone? For eternity? In a system I help design?”

“Nothing you can do will change that. They are going to be tortured—the only person you can save is yourself, if you decide to help me.”

Frederick’s brow knit together. He thought about refusing. He really did. Abandoning you seemed unthinkable, especially after your promise to each other to stick together. But he was a selfish creature, and choosing to be punished wouldn’t protect you. If he was lucky, by teaming up with Michael, he could design a more comfortable torture for you one day.

“Maybe this will help make up your mind,” Michael said. “Hannibal Lecter.”

“Lecter?”

“He’s here. In the bad place. So far, he has been especially resistant to traditional torture. I thought you might have a personal interest in taking a crack at him?”

***

On a floating, room-sized projection screen, Frederick Chilton shook Michael’s hand. Your head fell forward, shoulders slumping. The screen flicked off and dissipated into the office air.

“This is the 764th time he has failed,” said Janet, giving a sympathetic simulation of a sigh. “We were sure he was going to make the right decision this time.”

You shook your head. “Fame and glory? Revenge? He’ll never refuse those. Trust me—he died because of them and still never learned his lesson.”

“That is what we’re afraid of. Some people never pass their tests. Fun fact!” she perked up, “Hannibal Lecter’s test is working at a Burger King where he can only cook Impossible Whoppers, and his 19-year-old manager calls him pee-paw. He gets reset every time he eats a customer. His longest record is twelve hours.”

When Janet found you snooping in Michael’s desk, you expected to be dragged away, never to see Frederick again. Instead, she explained everything to you—the truth.

A long time ago, the bad place was exactly how Michael described it—a place where souls were sent to have their orifices filled with spiders for eternity. Then he decided to try something new. Originally, he paired you with Dr. Chilton hoping you would drive each other crazy. But no matter what happened, you kept falling in love. You kept supporting each other, and taking care of each other. The same happened with his other human test subjects—they kept improving and becoming better people than they were on Earth. Eventually, Michael changed, too.

He redesigned the bad place to be a test—a chance for human souls to earn their way into the good place. At the end of each test, you either pass and go to the good place, or your memories are erased and you start over again.

“So, what happens to me now?”

“You passed. You can go to the good place now, and spend the rest of eternity in paradise. The real one.”

“And Frederick? He’ll be alone?”

Janet nodded.

“Put me back in. Reset me, and make me his soulmate again.”

“Are you sure?” Janet asked.

“I’m not going without him.”

“He would leave you behind. You just saw that.”

“That wasn’t fair. Anyone would accept that deal. I would accept that deal!”

“No. You wouldn’t,” Janet said. “You passed your test a long time ago.”

For a while, a heavy silence fell between you as you processed this. Finally, you thought of the only question worth asking. “How many times have we had this conversation?”

“762.”

“Well then,” you said. “You know what I’m going to say.”

“I do. But you retain a vague sense of your memories from previous tests. At a subconscious level, you might realize you’re tired of this.”

You smiled. A big, genuine one that balled your cheeks and creased the corners of your eyes. “That’s not how I feel at all. I think I love him more every time.”

Janet nodded, but gave one last warning before erasing your memories again. “If he never passes, you could be stuck here forever.”

“Stuck falling in love with that insecure jerk over and over again for thousands of years? Sounds like heaven to me.”

“I thought you might say that.”

***

The first day, you really wanted to punch his pretentious snobby face for thinking he was so much better than you.

The first time you laid eyes on Dr. Frederick Chilton, he was waiting behind a mahogany desk with an ancient hardcover book in his hands. Not reading it—waiting, posed deliberately to be discovered that way, and give the impression of intellectualism.

“This is your soulmate,” said Michael, introducing you.

Chilton took a step back after shaking your hand and looked you up and down critically, as if he were appraising livestock. And right away, you knew there had been a terrible mistake. Who the fork did he think he—

Fork. Fork! Why couldn’t you say fork?!

***

Bright light streamed in through the open bedroom window. The weather was always perfect here, except when some glitch made it rain caviar and jelly beans. Or that time Frederick had a vivid nightmare, and organs began falling from the sky. Every day, something horrible seemed to go wrong in the good place. Things that challenged you and pushed your soulmate to his limits.

But most mornings were like this. Quiet. A time just for the two of you.

Your fingers lightly stroked his chest, delving into the soft hairs that rose and fell with his steady breathing. You pressed a soft kiss to his skin, then another, tracing a line of them lower, over a jagged, raised line down his abdomen. His scars let you know he was waking up. This was the good place—he didn’t have to let them show. Usually, he chose to appear as a younger version of himself, before all the indelible trauma. But on peaceful mornings like this, he would let them show just so you could soothe them. He never thought he would be that comfortable with anyone. That he could trust anyone so much.

Every day, you both knew you could overcome anything, so long as you were together.

#Frederick Chilton #Frederick Chilton x reader #The Good Place crossover #my writing

[gorochanfanclub]

Change of Plans

Majima x Original Female Character

Summary: Alternate Goromi origin story. Majima is trying to train his assistant to be a hostess for his latest Kiryu scheme, but gets more than what he bargained for...

Contains: Goromi, sexually suggestive content, a couple curse words, a very jealous Majima

A/N: Haven’t posted anything here in a hot minute but had this idea and wanted to share. Only reason I didn’t make this an x reader is because the way I wanted it to end, it wouldn’t have worked :/ The only really defining traits of the woman in the story are that she’s a very tall American, has big b00bie, and her name is Hiromi. Also... please don’t take this too seriously >.< it was just something silly I thought of lol. This isn’t usually the type of style I like to write in, but I thought it might be fun to make something not so serious or heavy for a change! I hope you all do enjoy it!!

Running her hands down her body, Hiromi looks at herself in the mirror, turning slowly to view herself from every angle possible. The pink leather shines and gleams in the dim light of the dressing room, flashes of snakeskin detail sparkling in the mirror. She barely felt her ass held into the garment, the highest parts of her thighs getting a cool breeze from the fishnet stockings on them. Her broad shoulders poked out the top, her breasts pushed nearly to her chin. 

The entire ensemble was loud, definitely something she couldn’t possibly imagine herself wearing usually. However, she hadn’t been the one to pick out this outfit in the first place, her boss did. Majima, in another one of his crazy antics, had dragged her to a cabaret club of all places, thrown the clothes in her arms, and shoved her into the back room, demanding she change instantly. 

Groaning, Hiromi wonders if Majima really intended for her to leave the room dressed like this. It showed so much skin. She barely remembers the last time she was out in public showing this much skin, even swimming, Hiromi always opted for more conservative attire. 

A loud knock at the door draws her from her thoughts, her employer’s voice shouting yet muffled by the wooden slab. “Hey, Hiromi-chan,” he barks, “Ya been in there for a while now. How long does it take for you to put a dress on?” 

Looking back at herself in the mirror she grimaces. “Majima-san?” she calls over her shoulder, “Do you really want me to wear this?” She pauses, “What is this even for?”

Even through the door, she can hear her boss groan. “I don’t pay ya to ask questions, Hiromi-chan.” 

“I know you don’t, sir,” she snaps back, “You pay me to drive you around. Not wear…” her eyes find her reflection once more, “less than modest clothing.” 

The doorknob starts to giggle at her remark. “I’m sure ya look great,” Majima mutters, saying something under his breath afterwards Hiromi can’t quite hear. “I’m comin’ in, ya decent?” 

Nodding with a hum, Hiromi watches the door fly open, her boss standing in the doorway, the cabaret club’s owner hot on his heels. Eyeing her up and down, Majima soaks her up. A wicked grin plasters itself on his face. “Hot damn, girly!” he exclaims, “Ya look great! The boys are gonna eat you up.” 

Blinking rapidly, Hiromi stares at him with eyes like saucers. “‘Eat me up?’” she repeats, “Don’t you think this is…” she can’t finish, only looking at the vast amount of skin showing from under her clothes. 

Majima tilts his head, “It’s what? Don’t like what I picked ya?” 

Hiromi shakes her head rapidly, “Uh, no it’s fine, it’s just a little… revealing… is all.” 

Making his way across the room, Majima claps a gloved hand on his assistant’s shoulder. “Of course it is!” he shouts, his booming voice echoing in the room, “When yer in this line of work, ya gotta show off the goods.” With a flirtatious wink that makes Hiromi’s cheeks feel on fire, he adds, “And trust me, girly... you got ‘em.” 

Majima then steps back, looking her up and down once more before stopping at her breasts. The dress was barely holding them in and it made Majima chuckle, “Not to mention, I think Kiryu’s got a thing for big knockers like yers.” 

“What?” Hiromi snaps, “This is a Kiryu thing? You’re dragging me into this now?”

The one eyed man only shrugs, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I? Yer on my payroll and I gotta use the tools I got on hand. Right now sweetheart, that’s you.” 

Slumping her shoulders, Hiromi knows it was best to simply accept her fate and take her orders. There was no arguing with Majima once his heart was set on something. The man was not only stubborn, he was determined. Sighing, she asks, “Alright, what would like me to do, sir?” 

Cackling maniacally, Majima claps, rubbing his leather gloves together in anticipation. “That’s more like it!” he shouts with glee. 

He then steps to Hiromi’s side, wrapping an arm around her bare shoulders, leading her past the club owner and out into the main section of the club. “Now,” he explains, “here’s the plan; yer gonna use,” he gestures to her body, making a particularly large gesture to her chest, “all this, to lure Kiryu-chan in, right?” 

Hiromi nods in acknowledgement as he continues, “Get him all buttered up ‘n’ shit. Then…” he snaps loudly in front of Hiromi’s face, making her jerk backwards for a second, “I’ll swoop in for the kill- start disrespectin’ ya and all. Kiryu’s a real gentleman, there’s no way he’ll pass up the chance to fight fer a girl’s honor.” He ogles her breasts once more, “‘Specially one as busty as you.” 

The woman stutters nervously and incoherently before clearing her throat, “Do you really think I’ll be able to win him over, Majima-san?” Looking down, she rubs the back of her neck, “Kiryu seems to be a rather tough nut to crack. I’m not sure if I’m cut out for this.” 

Walking them to a table in the back Majima chuckles once more. “I know yer, not,” he states blankly, much to his assistant’s surprise. “That’s why I’m gonna train ya…” 

Before she can protest, Hiromi feels herself being shoved onto the plush velvet sofa behind her. With a huff, she flops down, looking up through her hair to see Majima situating himself next to her. 

Sitting up and brushing her hair out of her face, Hiromi meekly asks, “Wh-what kind of training do I need, sir?” Looking down, she notices how far up her risque dress has ridden up. With a faint blush dusting her cheeks, she tugs it as close to her knees as possible, the action completely foiled by the lack of fabric the dress had. 

Leaning back, Majima makes himself comfortable. Crossing one of his leather clad legs over his knee, he sighs, “Gotta make sure you can handle Kiryu-chan.” Noticing the look of absolute fear on her face, he grins, waving a hand in dismissal, “Just relax, girly girl, we’re just gonna do some talkin’.” 

Majima reaches inside the inner breast pocket of his jacket, pulling out his packet of cigarettes and nonchalantly lighting one. As he inhales, a nostalgic smile works its way across his lips, tugging gently at the corners, “Y’know, I used to do this fer a living. Kinda miss it too…” 

He turns slowly to the woman on the seat next to him, “So yer in good hands, Hiromi-chan, nothin’ to worry yer pretty little head about.” 

She nods, taking his words in. Hiromi takes the chance to admire Majima as he prepares for his training session with her. The way the smoke floated around his head, it made him look like an angel, resting above the clouds, looking down on the world that belonged only to him. 

Majima could feel her eyes on him, watching him intently. Suddenly he felt nervous about being here with her, especially with the way he had dressed her, she was practically naked. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all… 

“Nuff about that, tho,” he beams, snapping himself from his dull stupor, pulling Hiromi from hers as well. “Let’s get down to it,” he sighs, raising a inquisitive eyebrow, “Ya ever done anythin’ like this before?” 

Touching a finger to her cheek, Hiromi tilts her head in thought. Majima smirked, finding the action somewhat cute. “Well…” she starts, “I’m not quite sure how ‘this’ all works but… I used to flirt a lot with men at the bars back in my clubbing days,” she turns to her boss with an expectant look, “Does that count, Majima-san?” 

Nodding, he smiles brightly, “That’s exactly the way you gotta act. Talk ‘em up, get ‘em to buy you more drinks,” he points a finger at her, “and usually I wouldn’t say this but since these’re special circumstances… there’s no such thing as ‘too handsy.’ Kiryu-chan’s been in prison fer ten long years, I imagine a perv like him would go wild havin’ a nice little thing like you pawing all over him.” 

Hiromi grins, nodding as she takes in her instructions. She hums, “I think I’m beginning to understand what I need to do.” 

Majima leans back, fluffing up his jacket then smoothing it down as he situates again, “Alright then, we’re just gonna pretend that I’m Kiryu-chan and yer gonna do yer best to win me over.” 

The woman nods shortly leaning back herself. In an instant, she crosses her long legs at the knees, the heel of her left foot tapping the glass table in front of them with a heavy thud. 

The action shocked Majima. His eye looks down to the pink stiletto next to his own thigh, the toes so dangerously close to grazing his leg. Trailing his gaze up her toned legs, he notices the fishnets end right at the thickest part of her rather voluptuous thighs, the elastic squeezing them ever so slightly. 

Following her body further, Majima trains his eye on the way the dress hugged her body in all the right places. From the way it strained against her hips, bunched slightly at her waist, then nearly ripped at her chest, he realized maybe he went a little too far with the outfit. 

Finally, his gaze meets her face. A blush threatens to creep onto his cheeks with the way she is looking at him. It was almost like she had flipped a switch inside her. The usual stoic and no nonsense Hiromi he relied on during a day to day basis was gone. In her place was a tigress, dark eyes staring him down like a wounded prey, ready to be devoured. 

Majima swallows, trying his best to keep his composure. He grins again, hiding his discomfort, “Hello there, my name is Kiryu Kazuma, what’s you’re name?” he asks, doing his best impression of the deep voiced Kiryu. 

The woman tilts her head with a wicked grin, “Hiromi. It means ‘generous beauty.’”

And what a beauty she is, Majima thinks to himself before tilting his own head in confusion, “‘Hiromi?’ That’s a Japanese name, ma’am. Don’t you think you’re a little tall for a Japanese lady?” 

Majima feels something grace his leg and he looks down to see one of Hiromi’s pink shoes rubbing itself gently up and down his thigh. She chuckles, “Astute observation Kiryu-san. In fact, I’m from America. Have you ever been?” 

Shaking his head, Majima shrugs, “Can’t say I have, Hiromi-chan. In fact, I’ve never left Japan.” 

Suddenly, the soft sensation of a foot rubbing his thigh is lost. Majima nearly lets out a displeased groan, choking it back at the last second. When he looks up to meet her face again, he is greeted with her leaning forward, her left hand supporting her and her right resting on the sofa in the spot her foot had previously been. 

“You should make a point to go sometime, Kiryu-san,” Hiromi mutters, her voice barely above a sultry whisper. Her hand begins to trace up Majima’s leg, palming his thigh gently, “I’m sure you’d get lots of young American ladies on your arm, what with you being so big and handsome.” 

This time, Majima isn’t able to hold back the blush on his cheeks. Here he was, sitting in a cabaret club with his long legged, scantily clad, foreign, assistant, and she’s fondling him like they’re lovers. It didn’t help that she was so close he could smell the mint of her gum from earlier still on her breath. 

“Maybe I’d rather stay right here,” Majima counters, “Why go to America when I have a gorgeous American girlie on my arm right now?” 

With a laugh, Hiromi’s fingers dig into the muscle on Majima’s thigh. With them so close to his manhood, Majima couldn’t help himself from jumping in shock. She really took his instruction to heart when he told her to get handsy. Swallowing, Majima wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this. 

“You flatter me too much,” Hiromi laughs. Batting her eyelashes she smiles that predatory smile once more, “But… I can’t think of any other place in this world I’d rather be, either.” 

Flattening her palm once more, she trails her touch up Majima’s leg, onto his toned stomach, feeling every contour of his chiseled torso. Taking her other hand, she hooks a finger underneath Majima’s chin, forcing him to look at her, also bringing him a bit closer. 

“I’ve got everything I could possibly want right in front of me…” she whispers. Instinctively, Majima grabs her hip, desperately needing someplace to put his hands. This earns a light chuckle from Hiromi, “Touching already, are we? At least buy me a drink first.” 

Looming over her shoulder, he waves to the club owner to bring something around. Turning his attention back to the woman in his arms, he nearly stutters, “So, Hiromi-chan, ya got any special guys in yer life? Can’t imagine a sexy little broad like you going to bed alone.” 

The hungry gleam in his eye starts to grow, almost matching her own hungry gaze. She smiles, grazing her fingertips across Majima’s collarbone, “There might be one, and if he plays his cards right tonight…” The grip on his jaw tightens as she pulls his ear to her lips, “I might just go home with him.” 

With fake shock, Majima opens his mouth wide, “That so? Well I hope I do, then. Wouldn’t want to pass up the opportunity to wake up next to ya.” His grip on her hip strengthens, his gloved fingers squeaking against the leather of her dress. 

Continuing her motions on his chest, trailing over the edges of his tattoos, Hiromi asks coyly, “Do you have any ‘special’ women waiting for you at home, sir?” 

Majima only chuckles, “Now, if I did, would I really be at a place like this, lettin’ you fawn all over me?” She only shrugs, “You might, I couldn’t possibly know.” 

Shaking his head, Majima smirks, “Nah, I only got one lady in my life, and that’s you, darlin’.” 

Hiromi chuckles, pulling away from Majima once more. The loss of her hands on his skin leaves him feeling lonely and cold. However, suddenly, he finds Hiromi spreading her legs, arcing one over Majima’s hips to straddle him. 

Hovering her bum just above him, she grabs his shoulders, one of her knuckles outlining his jaw. She mumbles against his cheek, her breath causing the hairs on the back of his neck to raise, “Then I think we should enjoy our evening together, Kiryu-san.” 

Kiryu-san. 

Up until she said that, Majima had completely forgotten he was supposed to be training her for a night with Kiryu. Suddenly, the idea of having to watch her touch Kiryu and whisper into his ear the way she was doing to Majima right now seemed extremely unappealing. 

Something inside him boiled at the thought of that. He wasn’t sure what it was but with the way her lips were grazing his jaw and the way her weight was pressing upon him, he wasn’t sure he could stomach watching her do all the same things to another man… a man that wasn’t him. 

Leaning back, he meets her eyes, still dark, still hungry. Majima’s good eye darts to her lips, plump and covered in a hideous, gaudy pink shade that didn’t suit her at all. He was half tempted right then and there to kiss it all off, just to return her to her natural glory. 

Still playing the game Majima had abandoned a long time ago, she smiles, “What do you say, Kiryu-san? Can’t we have some fun?” 

Hearing her say his name again was just enough to pull Majima from his daze. Tapping her hip, that he previously had been gripping for dear life, he mutters to her, “Alright, get up, this isn’t gonna work.” 

Hiromi instantly stops her motions, furrowing her brow at her boss, “Wait- what?” 

Majima, with a bit of difficulty, and reluctance, pushes his assistant off him, sending her stumbling onto the velvet where she previously sat. “I said this ain’t gonna work, girly.” Standing up he glances over her body once more, taking in all the curves, “Kiryu ain’t gonna fall for all that. The guy may be a pervert but he ain’t stupid.” 

Sitting up as fast as she can Hiromi shakes her head, “What do you mean? Was I doing something wrong? Maybe I could try again. Was it too much?” she sputters, desperate to please her boss. 

Was it too much? Majima scoffs internally. She nearly was grinding against him and she had the audacity to ask if it was too much. Fact of the matter was, she was way too good at this, Kiryu wouldn’t have stood a chance. Five more minutes and Majima himself would have lost control.

Waving his hand to quell her blabbing, Majima shakes his head, still trying to pull himself back to reality. “Nah, it’s useless. We’ll have to think of something else. Yer just not cut out fer this, dollface,” he lies. 

Hanging her head in defeat she sighs, “I’m sorry, Majima-san, I really was trying.” 

Sighing himself, Majima feels a pang of guilt, “Don’t worry about it.” His eye falls to the hem of her dress that had ridden up a little too high. Finding it hard to breathe looking at her, he turns away, “Why don’t ya go get changed? That old thing is ugly as fuck anyway.” 

Hiromi nods, standing up and smoothing her dress down, “Yes, sir,” she states. Before she turns to leave, she looks down at herself one more time. She chuckles once then glances to Majima, “It’s a shame no one will get to see it, though… In fact, it might actually look pretty good on you, Majima-san.” 

At that comment, a lightbulb shines in Majima’s head. He darts his attention back to his assistant, eyeing the pink leather dress. “Say that again, Hiromi-chan,” he commands. 

Her smile falls, face contorting in confusion again. She slowly repeats herself, “‘It might actually look pretty good on you?’”

Of course, Majima thought. If Hiromi couldn’t get Kiryu to fight him, Majima could. What in this world would piss Kiryu off more than embarrassing him in front of an entire cabaret club by having drinks with a yakuza in drag? And if that didn’t work, Majima knew he could think of something on the fly. 

“Hiromi-chan,” Majima starts, “Yer a genius, I could kiss you right now.”

Her eyes go wide as her face goes dark with a blush, “You could... kiss me?”

Realizing what he just said, Majima nervously rubs the back of his neck, “Jeez, it’s just a figure of speech. I just mean... oh nevermind... come here a sec. I wanna see somethin’.”

Doing as she’s told, Hiromi walks up to her boss meekly. Majima moves to stand beside her, comparing his height and build to hers. Seeing how similar they were, he asks, “Say, Hiromi-chan, looks like we’re about the same size.” 

She only nervously nods, “Why, yes, sir. I’m a rather large woman and, with no offense to you, you’re a rather slim man. It isn’t too far fetched to think we’d be a similar size.” 

Grabbing her shoulders, Majima shoves her towards the back of the club, to the dressing room. “Great, now go take that thing off… and hand it to me when yer done.” 

“Hand it to… you?” 

***

After a long hour of doing his hair and makeup, Majima came out of the dressing room looking like a new man or in this case… woman. 

While he may not have had the assets to fill the garment out, Hiromi couldn’t deny that it indeed fit him like a glove. Not to mention, the pink faux snakeskin looked so much better on him. 

Arms crossed as she watches him prance around, fully drowning himself in his new character, Hiromi shakes her head in disbelief, “I had no idea this is what you had in mind as a backup plan but… color me impressed, sir. This might just be your greatest scheme yet.” 

With a feminine chuckle Majima flutters his eyelashes, “Why, thank you Hiromi-chan.” Stopping for a moment, he looks into the mirror, a scowl on his face, “Just need a name to match this pretty face.” 

Perking back up, he whips around, “I got one. Goromi.” Gesturing between them, he nods, “It’s my name and your name put together. What could be more perfect?” 

Hiromi nods, chuckling, “Very clever, sir.” Turning her wrist over, she checks her watch, “Majima-san, it’s getting late, should I phone Kiryu-san and have him swing by?” 

A manic grin spreads across Majima’s lips, the anticipation of violence making him giddy. “Do it. I think it’s time for Goromi to make her debut…” 

#majima goro x reader #goro majima x reader #goromi #majima goro x ofc #goro majima x ofc #hope you all enjoy :)

[thegreatbigfourmain]

Royalty!AU

The young chief had a somber expression on his face as he readjusted the fur cloak resting upon his shoulders. Although Drago and the former Alpha retreated to the ocean, the battle had taken many casualties within the village of Berk. Both dragons and Vikings suffered in the crossfire, leaving them with half their population still standing. It left him with the drastic decision of needing a treaty with a neighboring village to keep his people and dragons armed for another attack.

However, that proved to be a problem. No one wanted to encounter what Berk did in their village. Many of his allies rejected his request no matter how much he emphasized the superb protection done by his dragons. Thankfully to the gods, one did accept. The kingdom of Corona could never turn away a desperate plea for help. And Thor Almighty he was in dire need of assistance.

The arrangement showed to be more than what the Vikings bargained for.

As a way to kill two birds with one stone, the King of Corona agreed to the Viking chief’s wishes if he complies in escorting his daughter, the princess. All other suitors were sent away by her highness, though she is compelled to choose one. He tried to weave his way out of it, but the king would not budge. In his words, “It is not an arranged marriage, but rather being a potential candidate for the role.” To his displeasure, he had no choice but to accept it for the good of his people. It forced him to have a very long conversation with his girlfriend, who was livid when she heard of the final decision. It was the cause for the look on his face.

Hiccup Haddock the Third put on a brave face before entering the throne room where her grace awaited his arrival. He did notice how Corona was the complete opposite of Berk. Everything from the buildings to the atmosphere was different and foreign to him. Banners of the kingdom’s emblem hung everywhere. It seemed like these people are obsessed with the sun. He shouldn’t think much of it considering he’s just as obsessed with dragons, something Astrid also poked fun of whenever they trained.

Astrid…

The brunet made his way down the aisle as he stepped on the softest lavender carpet his feet have ever felt. Then again, he hasn’t much use for fancy rugs and such in his home. The closer he moved toward the royal family, the more his heart sank in his chest. A future without Astrid was unheard of, but the world without dragons was one he simply could not live without. Like the king said, it is not an arranged marriage, just a courtship. If the princess prefers not to marry him, she might be willing to tell her father to keep the treaty. It was the only shred of hope he had for his relationship.

Finally, Hiccup stood in front of the three of them sitting in their lavish thrones. He had seen the queen and king before, but never the princess. He bowed respectfully to them before his forest green eyes couldn’t help but glance at the rumored beauty. When he did, it took every ounce of power within him not to gawk in wonder.

In layman’s terms, she was gorgeous. No, that did not fully define the vision before him. Hiccup could not find the words to describe being in her presence. He was utterly speechless. It horrified him.

The chief knelt down before the princess in an attempt to not gaze any longer. He kept his eyes on the carpet beneath him.

“Your highness,” he said as soon as he realized no words escaped his shocked lips.

“I am here to escort you back to my village of Berk. I hope you will enjoy it there for the time being.” Hiccup said while his fingers rubbed against each other, something he does when thinking of his next sentence. If he raised his head, it would only entice more emotions and thoughts within him.

"You may rise, Dragon Rider," spoke a soft, yet confident voice. Despite what his brain was telling him, Hiccup did what the voice told him to. In the back of his subconscious, he knew he would do anything that voice would tell him to do from now on.

Once he looked up, he was hooked.

Just what was it with him and blondes?

The blonde beauty dressed in a lavish lavender gown with intricate patterns stood before him. It felt as if they were the only two people in the room, no doubt due in part to the way his forest green eyes met her emerald irises that reminded him of spring. Her adorably speckled freckles spread across her button nose seemed to disperse once they reached her rosy pink cheeks. Her unusually long golden hair was braided behind her frame and decorated with freshly picked flowers will most definitely be out of place in Berk, though he wouldn't mind if she asked for him to pick those flowers for her every day.

What was he thinking?!

Probably depicting his nervousness, the princess flashed him a heart-piercing smile. If she meant it in a friendly way, it was anything but. It took every ounce of his being not to continue gawking at the princess before Hiccup cleared his throat to form some sort of response.

"Are, are you ready to leave Your Highness?" He stuttered his words like he was back to being a teenager, though his 20 years of age.

She gave a quick nod as she descended from her throne to meet him, the Viking holding his breath for the close encounter. When she was a mere few feet away, Hiccup gulped down the knot in his throat.

"What is your mode of transportation to Berk, Chief Hiccup?" she inquired curiously, with a slight tilt of the head. Could she stop being adorable for a moment while he tries to wrap his mind around everything right now?

"Umm, dr-dragons. Dragons Your Highness."

"Rapunzel. You can call me Rapunzel," she responded with a soft grin.

"Rapunzel," he repeated, testing out how the name rolled off his tongue.

"Is it safe?" A loud, anxious voice asked in the room. The pair glanced behind to the king standing up at the mention of his only daughter riding on the back of a dragon. Hiccup has mentioned their way of living in between the letters they exchanged, but maybe the realization finally caught up to his majesty.

"Very much so, Your Majesty. I built all the mechanics myself and tested them out numerous times. I have the scars to prove it," he chuckled, though it did not seem to ease the tension in the room.

Tough crowd.

The blonde giggled behind him, grabbing the brunet's attention. He didn't think he's heard such a melodious laugh before in his life.

"I'm sure it's fine, father. If Chief Hiccup believes so," Rapunzel confirmed as she stood beside him. Her presence alone was enough to nearly hinder the Viking under her spell.

The king still seemed to be hesitant, though gave the pair a nod in conformation to allow this stranger to take his child on a possibly dangerous journey back to his homeland.

"Very well. I wish you both well on your route to Berk," he replied in a baritone voice, though there was a hint of sadness in his bright blue eyes. Rapunzel must have seen it as well, considering she picked up her dress skirt to rush over and give her father a hug. The whole image might have been heartwarming if Hiccup didn't first notice the fact that this certain blonde seemed to be barefoot.

Just who is this girl?

The princess then gave her equally gorgeous mother a hug, the small family exchanging a few words before the blonde returned to Hiccup's side. Her smile was something his heart was beginning to enjoy.

"Ready when you are Chief Hiccup."

"Hiccup, just Hiccup is fine Your- Rapunzel," he chuckled, running his fingers through his hair out of embarrassment.

"Okay, Just Hiccup," she joked before taking the lead to show him outside.

The pair walked through the same elegant doors Hiccup did when he arrived to find his best friend waiting for him. He was accompanied by a guard who nervously kept his distance away from the nigthfury.

"Hey bud," Hiccup greeted, feeling much better seeing one thing familiar in this land. The nightfury jumped over to him like a dog, licking his face.

"No Toothless! You know that doesn't wash out! The princess is here~" the Viking groaned when Toothless backed away when he was satisfied.

"I'm so sorry Rapunzel," he muttered, clearly embarrassed by how informal the interaction was. The blonde didn't seem to mind, evident by the huge grin on her face. Toothless already lost focus on his human, examining the blonde and advancing towards her. His snout sniffed her face, getting close enough to ruffle her bangs. Hiccup noticed the way more guards readied themselves in the chance this might turn ugly. He chuckled, how naive.

"Hello, Toothless. Are you going to be taking us to Berk?" She asked softly. A slow yet confident hand reached for his snout, which surprisingly Toothless went in with no hesitation.

"What a sweetheart," she beamed as her other hand went to cup the dragon's muzzle. Hiccup couldn't help but smile himself. It seemed she could easily adapt to their ways faster than he assumed a princess would be.

While she kept herself occupied gaining more of Toothless' love, Hiccup glanced at the royal couple who gave him a knowing nod. His high from facing the princess quickly faded away with the realization that there was an agreement between the two lands. This was a courtship for potential marriage, not simply showing her around his land. The thought of Astrid returned to his mind and the guilt of anything he felt towards Rapunzel weighed heavy on his chest. She never once passed through his thoughts once he met Rapunzel's eyes.

The Viking mounted himself on the nightfury to ready himself for the long trip back to Berk.

"Are you ready, Rapunzel?" Hiccup asked in a monotone voice as emotions swirled within him. Thankfully, the blonde was oblivious to his change of attitude from playing with Toothless when she heard him.

"Yes Hiccup," she replied, walking over to him and trying to figure out how to mount the dragon. "Umm, Hiccup, how do I...?" she trailed off.

He had been so caught up in himself, he didn't realize her unfamiliarity with riding dragons. It reminded him of when he taught Astrid all about them a few years ago...

"Oh, I'm sorry. Here," he stuttered over his words as he reached his arm out. The blonde gently took it and steadied herself for Hiccup to heave her body weight, which was lighter than the axes he swings around, to settle behind him.

Thor Almighty give him the strength for the remainder of the trip to not have his heart pound like a Thunderdrum's roar when her arms wrapped around his lean form. He could feel her warmth all down his back, his arms frozen in place sensing Rapunzel adjust herself comfortably in her seat.

"Okay Hiccup, I'm ready," she said in a nervous, yet excited state.

Sensing her anxious tone, Hiccup absentmindedly reached down to gently hold her arm to ease her nerves.

"Don't worry. I got you," he muttered softly, sighing in defeat that this girl was doing something to his soul. It must have to deal with the fact her people are still new to dragons, and the more positive promotion they can have, the better it is for future generations. At least that's what he kept repeating to himself in hopeless denial.

"Take it easy with the flight bud, we need her to like us" Hiccup whispered to Toothless. The last thing he needed on his plate was Rapunzel not having an easy time on the way to Berk.

The nightfury seemed to get the message as extended his wings out for the wind to gingerly lift him off the ground. Despite the easy takeoff, Rapunzel still tightened her arms around him while letting out a cute squeak of surprise at the new sensation of being in the air.

This is going to be a long ride.

#royalty au #hiccunzel #drabble #again my grammar isn't the best #sorry lovelies #hopefully it's not too OOC for him #with the whole back and forth #ugh sorry y'all #still kinda proud of it though #more like hella proud of it

[yesthefandomfreakblr]

G U Y S ~m~ f e e l i n g s

big long post WOOOOOOOOOOOO

so uhh i did a lot of daydreaming today during school as one does when they don't care and are running on -12 hours of sleep and one cup of chocolate milk in lucky charms. I did a lot of thining about this whole 'Ripred pretends to be a service animal AU I came up with andddd ngl i'm liking this a lot.

- Cormaci and Ripred are dedicated pen-pals via Gregor and Ripred confides that he's always wanted to see the museums in New York. they talk about how fun it would be and Cormaci rather enjoys hearing from the snarky, witty, and kind of sweet stranger.

-One day gregor hands him Cormaci's note and Ripred sends gregor with his reply after their echolocation lesson. "Dearly detestable, (a customary greeting for the two) I have a large service animal vest and shades if you want to use them. meet me at midnight and we'll make a plan. XOXO- Cormaci"

-Ripred is over the frikken moon you have no idea. they make a plan, he tries on the vest, they meet in the morning to go to the museum.... And Ripred can't. It's just too bright and too loud and too many people so close to him. everyone stares and many try to pet him. Ripred knows he can't attack people or talk, so he just pulls Cormaci back to central park and has a full blown panic attack five blocks before they make it. they make it to an alleyway and he just shakes and gasps for air. sensory overlaods, especially when you've never had one, are no frikken joke.

-He just sulks back in the quiet, normal smelling, tourist free underland that doesn't burn his eyes. a few days go by and Cormaci proposes a picnic in central park. way less crowded, and with his vest people are warned not to pet him anyway. Ripred gives it another go.

-it doesn't suck. it actually goes very very well. he has the time of his life seeing the ducks and the horse carriages and sunbathing. they do this three times a week and gradually he goes to stores with her and they run small errands. after about two months She can take him anywhere and he won't get overwhelmed. of course, Cormaci hardly takes him into places or restaurants because he's not a real service animal. while waiting to cross the street, Gregor warns him to watch his tail. "what you think I'm just gonna fling it out and hit someone??" he flings his tail out for emphasis and hits someone. -rager speed activate- he catches them and apologises profusely. the 5 foot 2 ich overlander cracks up and compliments him on his reflexes. She hangs out with them the rest of the day and pays for their ice cream. He actually gets her number and they part ways. I mean she's weirdly chill but some people are. at least she didn't sue or panic.

-he uses the library computers to watch training videos and look up the criteria for service animals. He, Cormaci, And gregor's family all help expose him to all of the scenarios and help get him ready. He spends a lot of time with Lizzie. with her smelling salts, puzzles, and emergency phone in his pockets, Lizzie goes places with just him. they go to the museums and nerd out together.

They meet with the registration managers, and after the worst day of Ripred's life, (vet checks and behavioral/training testing. letting people grab, pinch, pull, poke, and prod him places he'd rather them not.) He get's officially registered as Lizzie's service animal.

-Ripred is ecstatic to roam the overland as he pleases and be able to help Lizzie. but he soon realizes she's not the only one who needs his help. Ripred builds a trustworthy council for the gnawers with two head leaders to rule in his stead. and helps Luxa build a better council so that she can visit a few days a week. this takes like a month.

Gregor's dad needs to go back to work, but is still very weak. Ripred, the two days a week he lectures, goes with him and carries his papers, medicine, and anything else on his vest and lets Mr. Campbelle lean on him during lectures. it's very interesting to him and excruciating not to chime in. So during breaks they geek out on theories about anything. Ripred helps him overcome his PTSD from his time in the rat lands. Texting his new distant friend Ripred finds out that Ally, the girl he one-hit K.O'd, has horses and actually does equine therapy. she helps Gregor's family for free. Ripred gets kicked by a horse.

Gregor needs help catching up with school, so he does that when they get home. and after the war of time, Gregor just needs him a lot. Ripred spends two or three nights a week with the boy, and they go on a lot of walks. They either walk for hours in silence or Gregor just breaks and gushes like a waterfall. He doesn't want to trouble anyone with everything on his mind but Ripred is safe. he understands. Gregor talks to him and Ripred listens. occasionally offering bits of valuable advice.

three days a week he goes to school with Lizzie, and finds that her teacher is very good at chess. they get along just fine and he talks to her and even helps with her lesson plans, given this is her first year. at first she tries to call Lizzie's emergency contact. but it's him. He lounges around and is the gordon Ramsey of education. He coaches Lizzie through panic attacks and she is never once bullied when he's around. she learns things from him and makes a couple more friends on the chess team. He'll sweep the floor with any one of them. He mostly reads during class but occasionally, during tests, (when Lizzie is most comfortable,) he'll react to the high stress of another student and put his head in their lap. (test anxiety is something else) and because they're elementary school kids, they make a cult for the rat. they call him Mr. Rat and leave offerings like shiny trinkets or snacks. he privately tutors the class for an hour after school because of this (they can leave if they want but he's smart and funny) and they all learn morse code/ ace their tests. going with Lizzie to P.E is his favorite. everyone else hates it. they fear him. He's no longer allowed to play dodgeball.

Grace is home but can barely walk. on good days her lungs will suddenly give out and it's extremely dangerous. with no one else able to run errands, and desperate to get out of the apartment, she begrudgingly and sorrowfully asks for his assistance. she wishes she could cut ties with the underland for good, but her family desperately needs him. the 'service animal' thing was just so he could go to the museum, but now he's a part of their lives. She leans on him in the grocery store and he sniffs out the best products as well as pushes the cart. if she goes down he has her inhaler and knows what to do. and aside from that, he makes great company. he's funny and smart. and she can tell him things she can't tell her family. about her chronic anxiety, her nightmares, her depression, her constant fear for her children and fear they don't love her anymore for trying to protect them and fear she didn't do enough and fear it will all happen again but this time someone won't come back... He understands what it's like to lose everyone. He understands not telling people things. He lets her talk. and only offers what she needs.

He still hangs out with Cormaci and they go on little trips together, but He's very busy taking care of his family. He never anticipated it to go this far or be this much work, sleeping in the underland once or twice a week, eating most meals there. But Ripred had decided to help Lizzie, a little girl that was very much like his own deceased pup. and in that, got closer and closer to Gregor, who was like a son to him long before he knew of Cormaci. In caring for and, in a way, adopting these pups, he'd adopted their parents and become a cornerstone in their daily life.

about Ripred and Ally, yeah they still hang out as often as possible she lives a couple hours out in florida but stays at her friends a couple days a week in NYC. it's kind of strange to him, but he finds it helpful that she would do anything for him. he can call her anytime for anything and she'll drive out or stay up late and talk, or uber eats him a snack. he ends up telling her absolutely everything. she's a good listener. her horse hates him. she gives Gregor free riding lessons and makes the BEST ribs.she's cool about the underland thing and just lets him talk. which he's not used to. within a few months, she knows more about him than Lizzie or Luxa. she sees him ugly and sees him nice and doesn't hate him for either. yeah she has a big crazy personality but if he accepts her, she'll return the favor tenfold. it takes a while but he gets used to having someone love him like a dog. she's kind of a dog. She knows what he's done, good and bad. and she's cool with it. but if he ever ever lies to her. she will never trust him again. he knows she's not lying.

Ripred supervises Gregor and Luxa's first date getting pizza and starbucks and going to a movie. He nips at someone's ankles for attempting to interfere.

Lizzie's panic attacks become more rare. to the point she doesn't need Ripred at school. Gregor's father no longer needs to lean on him, and can carry his own things. Grace returns to work and only needs her inhaler maybe once a week. Gregor is healing to the point he doesn't sneak out of his room and curl up with Ripred at night.

But none of them, not even Grace, want hm to leave. He experiences all of the Holidays with them during their first year together and he loves them all. food. Luxa joins to along with Cormaci of course. on Halloween he and Lizzie go as little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. gregor and luxa dress as bats. Gregor all black and Luxa a stunning gold. Ripred fights airport security. he tells his overlander friend, Ally, all about it. she thinks he's a bad-A.

As he is needed less and less Ripred goes back to the underland and helps Keep the peace. he was doing ok sending messages from the overland, but his presence is certainly needed more than twice a week. especially Luxa. she needs time alone to speak with a father figure, especially with Vikus's health fading. He helps relieve the pressure and helps her relax. She becomes like a daughter to him, Aurora as well. RIpred comes at a moments notice if any human male shows interest in his baby girl. He even brings Ally down and she honestly would kill to ride a bat. she gets to ride a bat. with everyone constantly dumping their problems on him and them having so many, Ally becomes vital to his mental health. to just have someone to relax with, to talk to to get Denny's at 2:00 AM with.

the years are long and full of hardships, love, and light. Gregor's family becomes more financially sound, they can comfortably afford to feed Ripred now, and go on annual trips. Luxa and Howard go to Hawaii. Vikus passes away two years after the COC, and Gregor's grandmother shortly after. Gregor's family decides to stay in new york. Ripred, Luxa, and Howard go to Virginia for a month with gregor's family in the summer and have the time of their lives. He brings Ally everywhere he can she makes him food, they joke together, sometimes stay at each others places, have a pick up lines war, and she's actually a valuable ally in meetings for writing things down and even contributing. they know everything about eachother. He often thinks to himself that she's every bit as sassy and kind as his mate, and if she were a gnawer, he wouldn't hesitate. but she's human.

and after four more years, at the age of nineteen, Gregor and Luxa are married. though they are no longer bonds, (the council decided you can only have one bond as not to split loyalties) Ripred walks Luxa down the aisle and takes his place beside gregor. where Ares would have stood. Gregor's mother is proud to call Luxa her daughter. Ally brings Luxa a pet cat, as is viking tradition for newlyweds to have one in their home. Ally's weird. but they like her.

Gregor's family half lives down there now and the gnawers and human tensions are almost nonexistent after so many years.

Ripred is godfather to all eight of Gregor and Luxa's children. and though he's starting to ache in the leg he broke in COC, his age starting to climb, it's not too much for him to play with his godpups or wrestle with Gregor. he'd be like mid 50's as human. (another reason he could never be with Ally, She's 25.) He attends Lizzie's wedding in the underland to hazard when she turns twenty. after all that time, he's nearly thirty, and plays a little less rough. he has another decade or two in him and is happy to live it. life has been hell to him... but now he's found heaven. he keeps his tears to himself watching his massive family, not of blood, but of choice, grow in a place that is not torn by war. a place where the walls are made of stone and a place where the sun shines. He doesn't mind people touching or hugging him anymore and you see his real smile a lot more often. but he's still too mean to die. snarky and sassy as ever. but a lot happier. in a bittersweet kind of way. he will never forget his wife or his pups, but he knows she'd be happy for him. and it doesn't hurt to think of them.

He may have been the registered service animal, but they were all helping him right back.

#the underland chronicles #ripred #gregor the overlander #ripred the rat #ripred the gnawer #ares the flier

[annawoodhull]

bring good news of a world so newly born

Requested by: me and my self-indulgent need for Ben and grilled cheese

Word Count: 1616

Prompt: Outlander AU in which Abigail introduces Ben to grilled cheese. That's the fic.

(Song title from '39 by Queen because I'm trash.)

There were a few inconveniences of being a woman from the future who now lived in late 18th century America. No air conditioning, no ibuprofen, but worst of all, no snacks. Late night runs to the convenience store a few blocks from her apartment with friends were the epitome of any college girl’s life, especially during finals time. And now she didn’t even have that!

But there was one thing she refused to give up (besides her bra if she could help it) was her favorite foods. By God, if she could find ways to modify them to make them work with what this time presented to her, she was bound and determined. The first attempt at this would be grilled cheese. If this went well, maybe she could attempt pizza.

Thankfully, she was able to purchase a loaf of bread and cheese from a few merchants in the town, but the butter was more difficult to come by. She had to resort to the old fashioned way, directly from the cow herself. Going through the process of letting the milk rest and then skimming the creak, or whatever the fuck it was called, off the top before she could churn it with a dasher. It was incredibly labor intensive and more work than she had expected, but again, her stubborn Irish ass was going to see this through.

She hadn’t intended to inform Ben of her little project until later on in the week, when they had agreed to meet. Between his battles both on and off the field, a lot of the major’s time was accounted for. She still insisted she would make a good asset to the Culper Ring, but he stubbornly refused to allow it. She suspected she knew the reason, but honestly thought it was ridiculous. You’d think you’d want a spy on your side who already knows how everything will play out.

Anyway, Abigail was sitting on the porch of her small cabin – abandoned by some previous squatter dweller type – and working on churning the butter. Her sleeves were rolled up and beads of perspiration rolled down the sides of her neck, trickling down the front of her bodice. She wrinkled her nose but kept on going. Sheesh, this was labor intensive as fuck. Twenty-first century people really had it made, though there were the Amish to consider.

Too busy plunging the dasher up and down while churning the butter, Abigail was too preoccupied to pay any attention her surroundings. By the time she heard a horse’s snort, she looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see Ben dismounting and leading the beautiful Gaius over towards a paddock to graze.

Then he turned around and took one look at her, a good long look that made Abigail flush from head to toe. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know she looked like a train wreck, blonde hair all askew, face flushed and damped with sweat. She’d stopped her churning the moment she saw him and nearly forgot all about it when he approached her.

“Never pegged you for the type for churning butter,” Ben observed with a amused grin, “though I’m not surprised you’d be stubborn enough to try.”

She grinned. “There is a reason to my madness, Tallmadge.” She went to wipe her forehead when she remembered she couldn’t let the butter rest. With a tiny grunt, she resumed her work, working the dasher up and down in a gradual rhythm. Hey, she was starting to get the hang of this! “I’m cooking for us tonight and then forgot I couldn’t just buy everything in one place, like I used to.”

“You must be rich, from where you come from,” he commented.

Abigail laughed at that, thinking of all the student loan debt she had accumulated with both her bachelors and graduate degrees. On second thought, maybe it was a good thing she fell through the stones when she did. “Hardly. But it was convenient, so I wouldn’t have to resort to this.”

Ben’s gaze flickered between her face and to her hands, observing as she worked it rather well. Her hands twisting with purposeful intent, with increasing speed. It reminded him of something Caleb had often teased him about, something he hadn’t done in quite some time. And now that he had this visual in front of him…

Abigail glanced up, having no idea where his line of thought had taken him, and found that his face was now just as red as the coat of a British officer. “Are you all right?” she asked, confused and mildly concerned.

Clearing his throat, Ben shifted his position, angling himself so that he was now facing partially away from her. Odd. “Yes, just a bit… flushed from the journey. Could use some water, perhaps.”

Abigail nodded, understanding. “I just made a few bottles from the creek. Help yourself and cool down.”

He thanked her and practically took off like a bat out of hell into the cabin. Abigail continuing churning, increasing the pace. He was an odd duck, that one. A very attractive and delicious looking one but odd nevertheless.

It took quite a while to achieve the finished product, but with Ben’s company, from a suspicious far distance, the time just flew by. She carried her butter inside, grinning in triumph at her accomplishment and held it out proudly for him to inspect. He nodded his approval with no small amount of affection, which made her feel even more accomplished.

“So what are you preparing for us this evening?” he asked, “since you went to all the trouble churning butter.”

“Nothing terribly fancy I’m afraid, at least from my time,” Abigail admitted, “but in my opinion, it’s one of the finest delicacies in the world. A grilled cheese.”

Brows furrowed, Ben titled his head, much like a confused puppy. “A… what?”

“Trust me, you’ll like it,” she promised. She went to work on working the hearth, which Ben had to assist her with at several points. While he helped, she told him all about stoves and the different kinds that ran on gas versus electricity, both of which mystified and fascinated him. The more time she spent in that time and with him specifically, the more comfortable she felt sharing different tidbits of the future. The very knowledge there was a future for the country that he was fighting for was enough to give him hope. The thought of being the source, or at least associated with the source, of his inspiration made her feel things she had no right to be feeling.

Yet, she was completely and hopelessly attracted to the him.

Once everything was settled, she went to work on slicing the bread and cheese, which she set on separate plates. Then she buttered the bread generously on each slice before setting the buttered side down in the skillet, quickly followed by the cheese and the other slice of bread. She brought the skillet over the makeshift grilled and watched with amazement as the fire worked its magic.

It didn’t take too long before she flipped it over. A few minutes of cooking on the other side, she pulled back the skillet carefully and plated his grilled cheese before working on hers. It was a little tricky getting the sandwiches out of the skillet, but she had to admit, they didn’t turn out half bad.

“Do you want yours cut in half or diagonally?” she asked, right after she performed an elegant diagonal slice for hers.

“However you cut yours is fine with me,” he said. He had risen from his seat to poke around her, curious to see her creation and drawn to the wonderful mixture of grilled cheese, butter, and crispy goodness.

When done, she handed him his plate but warned him, “Be careful. It’s hot.” His soft, amused smile at the domestic remark caused her heart to skip a beat.

They sat together at the small wooden table, and after a few minutes, they dug into their meal, though Abigail waited a bit so she could take in his reaction. After his first bite, Ben’s eyes widened before closing with surprised delight. He moaned appreciatively. “Oh, this is very good.”

“Really?” she asked happily.

Nodding eagerly, he took to consuming the slice with an almost single-minded determination. He hesitated on picking up the second slice, perhaps figuring he should make it last. She grinned at his sudden look of sheepishness. “Thank you for sharing this with me. Believe me, after a few months of camp rations, this is just…” he sighed with pleasure.

Abigail grinned. “I’m glad you like it. Grilled cheese can cure anything. It’s the American dream, baby.”

“Is all of your food in the future this good?” Ben asked, enchanted by the mere thought.

“Depends on where you’re looking, but for the most part, yes,” she said. Spotting a bit of crumbs and cheese on the side of his mouth, she smothered a giggle. She touched her own face. “You’ve got a little…”

“Where?” he asked, immediately touching anywhere on his face but the area where she pointed.

Rolling her eyes in feigned exasperation, she leaned over the table and brushed it away herself, her thumb gently pressed against the corner of his mouth. His gaze locked onto hers at the touch, the sudden proximity. He inhaled sharply. Abigail swallowed nervously. The cabin, which was already quite small, felt even smaller, more intimate.

“We should…” he murmured, trailing off.

She blinked slowly. “Finish our dinner?”

After a beat, Ben nodded. “I… yes. Dinner.”

Who knew that all the trouble to make grilled cheese could cause even more trouble?

#benjamin tallmadge #oc: abigail williams #turn amc #turn oc #turn washington's spies #seth numrich #hannah new #wwwy verse #drabbles #allie writes things #turn drabbles #turn oc drabbles #fic: when we were young #fic: turning tables

[kermitbread]

did somebody say tsukanene? no? ok here ya go

It's also in my AO3, as always

What a rather confuzzling situation he was in.

Tsukasa didn't know how this whole attachment with Nene began. All he knew was that one day, he decided that maybe he'd give liking his brother's assistant a try.

Certainly it doesn't seem like he wants to stop any time soon.

Did he like her in "that" way, though? Who knows? Amane seemed to feel that way towards her, he can even tell. Why should he be throwing a fit if her attention's all at his older brother and not him sometimes?

Why should he be mad if she smiles at someone else instead of him?

This particular human confused him. She confused him so much. What was it about her that made her so special to Amane, anyway? Besides her shortening lifespan, and those strange looking ankles, everything else about her seemed… average in comparison.

She didn't seem to be disturbed by his oddness anymore. Like that one time he began leaving dead birds around the bathroom for her to find (his own little way of giving gifts). As frightened as she was at first upon finding them, she'd just smile shakily at him before saying,

"Thank you for the present."

That was said so genuinely, he admit it left him unable to comprehend her words. Usually when he'd leave those nasty little gifts to Sakura she wouldn't say a word, but the disturbed look on her face was enough to tell him everything.

Thinking about it was too much hard work, though. Too stressful.

Yet he finds himself thinking about it anyway.

He sat by the rooftop, by the edge, legs swinging back and forth. His face deep in thought, so much that even if his kokujoudai tried to poke him, he wouldn't snap back to reality.

Well, his train of thought came to a halt when the door suddenly opened behind him, along with footsteps.

"Waah, I can relax today for once!" Nene stretched her arms up, a smile on her face. According to Kou, Hanako had gone off to an important meeting with the Seven Mysteries, so it meant she didn't have to clean the toilets today.

She took a whiff of the fresh air, not noticing Tsukasa watching her up from a distance intently. That was, until he decided to deliberately throw himself at her from behind.

"Nene!"

"Eh—Tsukasa-kun?!" She took a moment to balance herself as he stuck onto her back at once. Managing to stay on her feet was a race against time, especially with the twins charging at her with such speed.

"Amane's not with you today? Did he go to those boring meetings again?"

"Yeah, Kou-kun said it was important. What are you doing here all alone, Tsukasa-kun?" Nene took a breather when he finally pulled back, settling for floating right in front of her instead.

He could only shrug. "I wanted to play with Amane but seems like he's out of the picture. He can be so boring sometimes, ya know?" 

"I guess so…" She muttered. "Why not play with your friends at the broadcasting club? Nanamine-senpai seems to have free time."

"Sakura won't play with me. That other guy's not around either. Mitsuba's probably hanging out with that zappy kid. But Nene's here anyway, so it's fine!!" Tsukasa seemed perfectly happy saying those words, which slightly disturbed her.

Despite being polar opposites, there was one thing the twins had in common, and that was they hid a lot of their true emotions deep inside.

They really are brothers, huh?

And so, one thing lead to another, and Nene found herself being accompanied around the school hallways by Tsukasa. She had to stop him from scaring a few unfortunate people here and there with his pranks, although it wasn't as bad as what he'd be prone to do.

"Tsukasa-kun! Don't break the windows!" She tugged at the back of his clothes, dragging him away from her classroom before he could commit another crime.

He laughed, because why wouldn't he? "I wasn't gonna do that! I was gonna break the lights!"

"That's even worse!"

"Yashiro-san?" The voice of her classmate Akane made her stop pulling at Tsukasa and drop him on the floor, making him let out a noise as he collided downwards.

Akane took one look at her, then at Tsukasa, then at her again. He wasn't one to judge that much, but Nene hung out with the strangest people, apparition or not. And he wasn't blind either, as he was perfectly aware that this boy next to her wasn't the Honorable No. 7.

"You're Honorable No. 7's brother, aren't you?"

Tsukasa grinned at that, pointing at himself. "That's right! And I think you're that clockkeeper guy! Amane's told me all aboutcha!" Cue some useless rambling that seemed to go on forever and ever.

"Yashiro-san, you get involved with a lot of weirdos, you know that?" Akane ignored Tsukasa and turned back to Nene, who grimaced at his remark.

"I can… see that." She gritted out. It wasn't easy being her at all.

Finally stopping his chattering, Tsukasa blurted out, "Hey, aren't you also that guy who has a crush on that girl? Aoi? Yeah, she looks like an elementary school kid more than anything."

Akane's mood suddenly turned sour, and Nene feared for the worst. "What did you just say, you stupid little brat?"

Tsukasa, upon seeing his darkening face, smirked. "I said what I said, four-eyes."

Oh no. Oh no no no no no no. Nene chanted in her mind. Why did Tsukasa have to provoke him?! When it came to her best friend, Akane wouldn't hesitate to send you to your doom if you made one wrong move.

"It seems… you want to experience a second death. I don't care if you're Honorable No. 7's brother, no one insults Ao-chan like that and gets away with it." Even in his civilian form, Nene could feel the strong aura of power coming from the redhead.

She had to stop him before things could get worse!

Why isn't Tsukasa-kun moving?! He could get hurt! Oh, come on!

"S—"

Akane was just about to bludgeon the ghost to oblivion when—

"—STOOOOPPP!!!'

Nene had forced herself in the middle of the two boys, arms spread outwards, shielding Tsukasa from the angry Akane. The redhead stopped in his tracks, blinking owlishly at her.

"Eh—Yashiro-san?! Why'd you get in my way? I'm trying to defend Ao-chan's honor!"

"You seriously need to calm down, Akane-kun!" She shouted. "Tsukasa-kun was only joking around! He didn't mean anything he said!"

"I absolutely did—" Tsukasa didn't even get to finish his sentence when Nene clamped a hand on his mouth, shutting him up.

With a deep breath, she continued, "Maybe you need to learn how to differentiate a joke and a serious sentence next time."

Akane stared at her for a moment, then sighed, rolling his eyes. "I dunno what's with you defending the disaster twins so much. You're crazy, you know that, Yashiro-san?"

You're the one to talk!

"But, it seems that I gotta let it go for now. I won't be merciful to you next time, you shrimp." Akane narrowed his eyes at Tsukasa, in which the ghost responded by sticking his tongue out mockingly.

By the time the boy left, Nene let out a sigh of relief, letting her shoulders loose from the tension. It was a good thing Akane had made the decision to stop or the bloodshed would have been horrifying to witness.

Why was hanging around with Tsukasa becoming more like a babysitting job?!

She started to pity Sakura a lot more now.

"Maybe we should also work on your communication skills, Tsukasa-kun." She managed to drag herself to the girl's bathroom, hoping Hanako was finally done with his meeting and she could get some peace of mind.

Unfortunately for her, he wasn't around yet, as the two of them were met with an empty bathroom with nothing but Mokke playing a match of hanafuda among themselves.

She resist the urge to groan, walking by the window and sitting on the floor next to the Mokke. Tsukasa had been strangely quiet since their trek to his brother's domain, which was unusual of him.

In fact, he had been looking quite concerning. A look of melancholy that mirrored that of Hanako's, but at the same time didn't seem to belong on his face.

"You know what?" He had spoken up from out of nowhere, startling her a bit. A Mokke in his hand, he sat by her side, pulling on the creature's ears like a stretchy toy.

"I've never been with someone this long before. Amane usually plays with me a lot, but he'd always be busy again before I know it."

He didn't notice how Nene looked surprised at that, as apparent to her widening eyes, mouth parting a little. So she was right, after all.

She turned her gaze down to her hands. An awkward silence hung around the bathroom for a while, as she began racking her brain with various thoughts. Sure, Tsukasa was a force to be reckoned with, but even ghosts like him felt a little lonely.

And even ghosts like him needed a little bit of cheering up sometimes.

Nene didn't even know why, but she did it anyway.

"—!!" Tsukasa didn't have time to process what was happening, as soon as he felt her tug on the front of his shirt and pull him to the side.

His eyes became wide as he finally realized what she was doing.

It was a quick peck on the cheek, but he could still feel the sensation of her lips on his skin, even if it was only for a second.

No sound escaped his mouth, as he remained uncharacteristically silent, frozen like a statue.

Nene let him go, feeling flustered and shy in front of him all of a sudden. Who wouldn't be? She just kissed him on the cheek out of all people!

"I—I just thought… you needed some cheering up, t-that's all!"

He didn't reply, nor made eye contact. As Nene tried to get his attention, the door of the bathroom opened, and Kou stepped in.

"Senpai! Hanako's done with his meeting! He's calling us by the rooftop!"

"Oh—right! I'll be right there!" Brushing the imaginary dirt off her uniform, she rushed over to Kou, but not before turning to the dazed Tsukasa on the floor and waving her hand.

"I'll see you later, Tsukasa-kun!"

By the time the bathroom door closed, Tsukasa blinked back to his senses. The Mokke surrounded him, quite curious about his sudden change of attitude.

For what seemed like the first time in a long while, he couldn't deny that she had just made his heart race.

He tilted the edge of his hat downwards, lips pressed in a thin line, as he desperately tried to hide the growing redness escaping his cheeks.

Yashiro Nene confused him so much. So, so much.

#jibaku shounen hanako kun #toilet bound hanako kun #yashiro nene #yugi tsukasa #anime #tsukanene #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #idk what i just wrote #just take it #aaaaaa

[justanother-unluckysoul]

Working My Way Back To You 4/?

Killian gets captured. When Emma finally rescues him, he’s traumatized and nearly broken from the torture he endured. Angst and h/c galore as Emma helps him through it.

I tried to go easy on the whumpy side of it since it’s supposed to be for Comfortember, but it’s me so I probably failed lol

A slightly shorter chapter today, for the prompts “confession,” and “crying.”

This chapter did NOT want to be written and I'm still not 100% happy with how it turned out lol

But some of my favourite parts are coming up soon, and I am excited to share those with you. So just bear with me for this one!

Read this chapter on AO3

Working My Way Back To You

Chapter 4: Confession + Crying

Once he’s caught his breath and had some more water, Killian insists on using the bathroom and doesn’t seem to have thought it through very well, judging by how long it takes him to figure out he needs Emma’s assistance to do so. But in typical Killian fashion he quickly switches from awkward to inappropriately suggestive, and his dirty innuendoes have Emma blushing. How he can still get to her like that, she doesn’t know. But it’s good to see a bit of his normal swagger returning, although it’s still subdued. She even cleans his teeth for him and cracks jokes about how much more enjoyable he is with his mouth otherwise occupied. She knows full well that she’s set up the perfect opening for another innuendo but the fact that his mouth is otherwise occupied means he can do nothing more than wiggle his eyebrows and grin around the toothbrush. She laughs, and he laughs, and he almost misses the sink when he quickly spits out the minty foam, because he’s laughing too hard. Emma’s heart feels light and full.

“I must apologize for earlier, love,” Killian says once he’s sitting on the bed again.

He suddenly won’t meet her eyes and Emma misses the jovial Killian immediately. He raises his hand slightly in an aborted motion, and then he frowns at it in obvious annoyance. She wonders what he was wanting to do – maybe his nervous habit of scratching behind his ear. And Emma feels intensely sad for him, not being able to do even the simplest things for himself until his one hand heals.

“I woke from another dream to see a stranger leaning over me,” Killian explains, “I let fear get the better of me and I do believe my reaction frightened you, and those poor nurses, quite badly.” He cringes a little at the memory. “Not to mention my vile language.”

Emma almost laughs, still feeling slightly giddy from their previous antics, but she manages to contain it to a smile instead.

“I’m sure they’ve heard far worse than ‘bloody,’” she says.

Killian huffs out a soft breath as he smiles too, and his eyes meet hers for a second before looking down at his hand again.

“I’m afraid I was a bit more vulgar than that before you returned.”

Oh, that makes more sense. She’s heard some of Killian’s more explicit language before, when he’s gotten really worked up about something and let slip some rather creative curses under his breath. He always apologizes if he realizes Emma’s overheard him, not that she particularly minds it. There’s something almost hot about Killian’s muttered profanity. She quickly shakes herself from that train of thought – now isn’t really the time.

“Well, I’m sure they won’t hold it against you,” she says, “After what you’ve been through, I think you’re entitled to a bit of vulgarity every now and then.”

The smile drops from his face as Killian seems to think on that for a moment before he nods slowly.

“All the same, if you see them again, could you pass on my apologies?”

“Of course.”

 **

David and Snow visit as promised, bringing some items from home as requested, along with a paper bag containing a home-cooked meal for Emma and a perfect cup of coffee. Killian rouses himself from his exhausted doze to give them a weak attempt of his usual smile.

“Feeling better?”

“Aye.” At Snow’s side eye he amends – “Getting there. You know, some real food wouldn’t hurt.”

A nurse had brought Killian his breakfast (which, according to Killian, couldn’t really be labelled as breakfast) shortly after the bathroom excursion and Killian had made no attempt to hide the fact that’s he wasn’t a fan of the hospital diet. It didn’t help his mood to have Emma spoon feeding him either.

“Sorry, mate, Emma said you’re on a bland diet for now,” David says, and Killian pouts adorably.

“’Bland’ is an understatement,” he mutters.

“I’ll talk to the doctor later and see about getting you something a bit more appetizing, alright?” Emma says with a smile.

With what little he’d eaten during his imprisonment, Killian’s stomach likely wouldn’t be able to handle much more than the hospital’s provided food. It didn’t stop him from complaining about it though. Emma feels guilty eating her comparatively delicious meal in front of Killian, but he assures her it’s fine. Snow and David don’t stay long, obviously noticing that Killian’s still tired, and moments after they leave, he’s asleep again.

 ***

Around midday, the doctor stops by to check on Killian. Killian endures the pokes and prods with barely a wince and plenty of banter, until the doctor gets to his hand. As soon as he starts to unwrap the bandage Emma can feel the change come over Killian, the stoic bravado giving way to that same fear as the day he’d been rescued. Sitting at his left side, Emma tries to meet Killian’s eyes but he’s staring intensely straight ahead, muscle rippling across his jawline as he breathes short and sharp through his nose.

“This won’t hurt, Captain,” the doctor assures him, “I’m just going to look, okay?”

“Okay,” Killian repeats tightly.

Emma curls her hand firmly around his left forearm. She’s not sure what to say, not sure if anything she says will even help. Her thumb rubs a gentle pattern over his skin. She doesn’t want to look at Killian’s broken hand any more than he seems to. But it’s not as bad as she’d feared. The swelling had decreased from the last time she saw it (thank God that his captors had removed his rings at some point, so they hadn’t caused more damage as Killian’s fingers swelled up), the stitches small and neat, tape binding his fingers together to hold them in place with a splint. Only his thumb had avoided injury. Killian swallows, his head pressing hard against the pillow. Emma tries again to make eye contact and fails.

“Everything looks good so far,” the doctor says, “I don’t think you need the bandage anymore.”

Killian’s breath catches. His body turns towards Emma slightly, his arm tugging against the doctor’s hold. The doctor releases his hand, and Killian tucks it protectively near his chest.

“The most important thing right now is rest,” the doctor advises.

“When can I get out of here?” Killian asks.

His casual tone belies the tension that’s radiating from his body.

“I’d like you to stay for at least a week, just to make sure the antibiotics do their job properly, and to give your body a little more nourishment. You’re healing well but you’ve been through a lot. It’s going to take some time to get your strength back.”

“Surely you don’t think you can keep me in this bed for a week.” Killian’s voice carries a hard edge of steel now.

Dangerous, and desperate. Emma thinks of a wounded animal caught in a trap. She shifts her hand to Killian’s shoulder and squeezes gently.

“No, of course not,” the doctor says, “You’re free to go for a walk whenever you feel up to it. There’s a nice garden outside, and some fresh air and sunshine will do you good.”

He glances at Emma.

“Just don’t let him push himself too hard.”

Killian’s almost vibrating.

“I can make my own decisions,” he says, his voice too loud in the small room, “And I don’t need to bloody stay here either, I’m not-”

Emma hears his teeth click as he bites down on whatever he was going to say.

“No, you’re not,” the doctor says, as if he knows what Killian was going to say (Emma can make a pretty good guess as well – an invalid. Crippled. Broken.), “but you have been through a traumatic event and you’ve got a pretty nasty injury here. You need time to heal and if you try to do too much, too soon it’s just going to end up making things worse for you in the long run. Do you understand that?”

Killian doesn’t answer, just keeps clenching his jaw and glaring at the doorway. Emma smiles at the doctor in what she hopes is a reassuring way. She gets the feeling it’s more like a grimace though.

“He’ll be okay,” she says, “I’ll look after him.”

The doctor doesn’t look convinced, but he nods anyway and turns to leave.

“My hand,” Killian says suddenly and his voice cracks on the second word, his demeanour no longer angry, “Will I ever… get full use of it again?”

“Oh, yes, I believe so. Sorry, I thought you knew. You’ll need physical therapy but yes, it should heal almost as good as before.”

“Almost as good?”

“Captain, I’m sure don’t need to remind you that there was a lot of damage done. Modern medicine is a marvellous thing but… we can only do so much.”

Emma can feel Killian starting to tremble. Thankfully, the doctor decides to give them some privacy now, because it seems the pirate is reaching the end of what he can endure.

“Alright, I’ll check in on you guys later, okay?”

The moment the door closes behind the doctor Killian makes a sound, a soft noise of suffering Emma can’t put a name to.

“Killian?” Emma says worriedly, “Are you okay?”

Killian barks out a mirthless laugh and raises his hand like he wants to scrub his gathering tears away, but of course he can’t, and he looks so hurt by that realization.

“No, I’m not bloody okay,” he says angrily, “They destroyed my damn hand. My only hand, Swan. They’ve crippled me.” He lets out a shaky breath. “Gods, they broke me.”

And there it is. Emma’s been almost expecting him to break down at some point, but now that it’s happening it shocks her all the same. She reaches for him and he folds into her arms, crying silently, tears quickly soaking into her shirt. There’s only so much a person can take and God, poor Killian’s been through it all. Emma feels her own tears burning hot as they slip from her closed eyes.

“They didn’t break you, Killian,” she says, emotion choking her, “Your hand is going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

He has his arms around her, a little awkwardly because he’s trying not to bump his hand on anything, his face pressed into her shoulder. Her hand cradles the back of his head, holding him close.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he says, his voice cracking, “I’m so sorry, I tried…”

“No, it’s okay. Don’t apologize. Just let it out, Killian, I’ve got you.”

Killian mumbles something else but Emma can’t make it out. She just keeps murmuring assurances through her own tears and holding Killian until he’s able to calm down again. He’s clearly exhausted from his outburst and the subsequent breakdown, because within a few minutes of lying down again he’s drifted into a deep, surprisingly peaceful sleep.

To be continued...

#comfortember 2020 #cs ff #hurt/comfort #killian whump #captain swan #killian jones #emma swan #my fanfics

[such-a-random-rambler]

High - Part 9

This may be done, I’m not sure, there may be one more chapter but I haven’t decided yet.

and @janetm74 do you remember ages ago when you asked

9. Which idea came to you first 

it was this bit!

John was wrung out. The last thirty hours had been, not to put too fine a point on it, a waking hell.

Virgil had sorted the nausea, which was just as well as unrelenting thirst hit soon afterwards and it would have been torture to be unable to drink for fear of throwing it back up. Those few hours had almost earned him another bag of fluids anyway. Then came the muscle cramps, crunching through his arms, legs, hands and feet, leaving him writhing and trying not to scream.

He did scream at the hallucinations – The Hood lunged out at him from the shadows, sucking all the air from the room, leaving him clutching at his throat. An earthquake hit, the room collapsing around him, sea rushing in to drown them all in salty torrents. Half formed tentacley things crept up from the floor and wrapped themselves around his wrists and ankles, holding him still for the needles to stab him, and the leering monstrous shapes to yell at and taunt him.  

When they faded his blood turned to ice, body temperature dropping no matter how many blankets were stacked around him eventually shivering himself into an exhausted sleep.

Now he was awake, eating, drinking and with the energy to sit up Virgil said he was on the mend, but John felt more out of sorts than he ever had.

John’s life was all about control; procedures and protocol.  He wasn’t an emotionless robot, as much as Gordon liked to joke about it, but there was a time and a place for them. John wrapped self-discipline around himself like a safety blanket because it was a safety blanket – he lived on a knife edge where an uncontrolled outburst could cause disaster and  death.

Sitting in the medbay – the rest of the family sleeping or eating, giving him some much needed privacy – John wrestled with the flood of emotions that assailed him. He flickered between fear, anger, desperation, hate, apathy.

The moment he got a handle on one of them, something else rose up to engulf him, tossing him between tears and paranoia and shaking with rage within minutes. He was unused to such extremes of feeling, and unused to not being able to reign them in when he needed to.

His mind felt fractured, his sense of self washed away and that oh so important self-control practically non existent. He couldn’t dispatch like this! They relied upon him to be calm when they called. He was no use to anyone if he couldn't get a grip, and there wouldn’t be a place for him anymore if he wasn’t useful and he wouldn’t have a home and he’d lose everything and...

His thoughts were spiraling into despair. He couldn’t take it any more.

“Gordon Tracy, John may need assistance and you are closest. Please report the medbay.” The ever-calm and even tones of EOS chimed in his ear.

“What’s the problem?” Gordon hurried his steps along the corridor, flooded with urgency.

“He appears to be in distress.”

“Medically?”

“His heart rate and blood pressure are raised but not dangerously so.”

Unsure of what he was walking into Gordon opened the door to the med room slowly, just in time to see something go slamming into wall beside his head, shards tinkling to the ground.

“Heeey, what’s this.” He said, taking in the floor covered with the remains of several other glasses.  

John picked up another tumbler and it followed the last, splintering into crackling shards.

“I think we’re going to want those.” Was all he could think of to say, and not sure that John had noticed him come in, his eyes were so unfocused.

A third, and they were all gone. Except John’s rage wasn’t and with nothing else to throw balled up a fist to swing at the wall. Some of these walls were plasterboard, some were dry wall. Some were the solid rock that the hangers had been carved out of and would definitely break a hand. It was impossible to tell which that particular section of wall was, and it wasn’t worth taking any risks.

Gordon moved fast, stepping in front of John’s fist, pulling it down between them both. The momentum of it allowed him to twist John round and secure his hand behind his back, in a move  perfected by hours of training with Kayo.

“No need for that. You don’t need a broken hand on top of everything else.”

“Let me go Gordon.” John twitched, grumbling low, but at least aware enough to know who was in the room with him.

“Not likely.”

“Gordon, please. I....”

“I am not letting you go until you calm down.” John wasn’t a weakling by any stretch of the imagination but this last week had really taken it’s toll and Gordon had no problem holding on.

“Gordon I need... I need....”

“What do you need?”

The strength seemed to leach out of John, and he sunk to the kneel on the floor. Gordon followed him down: ending up curled up over John’s back. He could feel John trembling, heart thundering.  

“Talk to me, please.” Gordon whispered.  

“There’s fire in my brain” John practically sobbed, and Gordon’s heart broke for him.  “And ants crawling under my skin.”

“It’s going to be ok.”

“How do you know?”

A long time ago Gordon was in a bad place, hadn’t been feeling himself for a long time. He’d thought the whole world had changed and would never be the same. But it had only been temporary. He had healed and grown and those nightmares were in the distant past.  John was going through something very different, but maybe Gordon could still help.  

“This is just another side effect. You’ve had all the physical ones and now you have this. It will pass.”

The remaining fight went out of John and Gordon released his wrist. With a little bit of shuffling Gordon got in front of him, and settled so that John’s head was resting over his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around his big brother in a firm hug and felt John do the same, hands fisting into Gordon’s shirt.

“Did you know that a hug can actually lower your blood pressure? Scientifically proven, that.” Gordon said, squeezing tight.

“Hmmmm.”  

“You’ve been stuck in this room for far too long, you need a change of scenery.” Gordon said, thinking about the weeks he had spent looking at the same four walls and how it had bored him to tears, the sameness of it all. John lived in the ever-changing vastness of space, being confined to this room must be doing the same.

“I... I don’t know. I can’t think...”

“Then leave the thinking to me. I’m better at it anyway.”

John snorted.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s move.”

Gordon had to drag John up, but once there he could stand on his own. Sort of. Gordon needed to give him the occasional poke for balance, and pull for direction, but John did most of the work himself. Scott put down the book he was reading as they passed through the living room on the way outside, but didn’t say anything, just watched. Gordon loved it when Scott trusted him.

They made their way slowly down to the chairs by the pool, to the one that was right by the forest line and always in shade. Gordon pushed John down, and lifted his legs onto the lounger. John looked calm again, but a blank, empty, exhausted kind of calm.  

“Just lay back and concentrate on the wind on the trees. That also helps with high blood pressure.”

“It still hurts.” John sighed with a slow blink.

“I know. I’m going to get you a drink of water.”

When Gordon got back with the water – and a blanket and a snack bar, just in case – John was fast asleep.  

#John Tracy #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #drug use #Gordon Tracy

[chain-unchained]

December 12 - Part 4

Guys this part is ridiculously long and I am so sorry. I never meant to drag this out for this long and I just wanted to get it done. It’s important to the plot but I will be glad to get back to soft fluff. Anyway, hope you can enjoy this long ass read!

The spirits must have been on their side that day, for the impact of the Slime didn’t kill them outright. There was time to cut them free, and then he could hopefully use a warp totem to get them all out before the mine came crashing down upon their heads.

‘Just stay calm. You’ve trained with Marlon, you can do this.’

He held his sword aloft before him, then dashed in and cleaved the slime in two. Thus divided, it split into two smaller but still large slimes—Sam and Abigail were trapped in one, Sebastian in the other.

From the split also came several much smaller blobs, which eagerly latched onto Ashe’s legs in their fervent attempts to hug him.  The more he cut the big one, the more smaller ones popped out and clung to him. In seconds, he had dozens of them weighing down his limbs; he couldn’t even move.

“No, please—let go!” He was begging, desperate, and he didn’t care. “Please!!!”

His friends were just one cut away from freedom, and they were just out of his reach. The quaking was unbelievable, and with the weight of the little slimes on his body he lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees.

And then came forth dozens of monsters from deeper within the mine; it was seconds that felt like minutes later that he was deafened by the sound of the ceiling and walls collapsing from where the monsters had fled.

A piece of the rocky walls dislodged and struck him on the back, knocking him flat down to the earth and pinning him there. The wind was knocked from his lungs, and his sword tumbled from his grip.

‘Is this it?’

It was impossible to get his breath back. The rock on his back crushed his chest more each time he tried. The larger slimes carrying his friends danced in a panic just out of his reach as more chunks of the walls and ceiling came crashing down around them.

‘I really just got us all killed by slimes... It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have ever brought them here with me.’ His head drooped, his cheek resting against the uncomfortably warm earth. For a brief moment, he could smell the forest. ‘I’m sorry guys… I’m sorry Shane... I'm sorry Mom… and Grandpa… Am I… gonna be reincarnated as a slime…?’

 ####

 The world had gone dark, but now was swimming back into view. A clinical white ceiling greeted Ashe as he forced his heavy eyes open; his eyelids felt bruised. Actually, his entire body felt like it was just one massive bruise.

‘I’m… at the clinic?’

Gingerly, he sat up and looked around. The other beds in the recovery room bore Sebastian, Sam, and Abigail—all breathing. All alive. He sighed, relieved.

“…and that’s how I found them. Just like that.”

He heard Marlon speaking beyond the curtain dividers, and could faintly make out his silhouette along with Maru’s through them. They both spoke in hushed voices; Marlon was as composed and calm as ever, while Maru seemed to be borderline panicking.

“Thank Yoba that you did!” She wrung her hands anxiously. “Of course this happens on the one day Harvey’s not here.”

“Strange, that. He’s not one to leave town.”

“I know. But there’s a seminar being held in Zuzu City that he said he couldn’t miss.” The wringing intensified.  “This is a worst-case scenario.”

“Were their injuries that severe?”

“No, somehow—bumps, cuts, scrapes, bruises, and Sebastian managed to break his foot. But I’m not—I’m only an assistant. I’m not qualified to administer any aid without Harvey present.”

“A bit late to worry about that now. Besides, you seemed to know what you were doing to me.”

“I mean—I have a basic understanding of first aid, but like I said, I’m not allowed to perform it without Harvey being here.”

Ashe’s shoulders slumped as he looked down at his lap. He’d gotten so many people involved in this mess. Gotten his friends hurt, and almost killed. Put Maru at risk of losing her job.

The curtains abruptly were tugged open, and he jumped a little.

“Oh—you’re awake!” Maru sounded relieved, though still anxious. “Thank Yoba. How do you feel?”

“Uh—f-fine,” he fibbed with a meek smile, “just fine.”

He looked to Marlon, and the smile faded. The old swordsman’s face was as stoic as it ever was, but he could see the disappointment in his eyes.

“Never thought you’d lose to a slime, of all things. I suppose there’s a first time for everything, though.”

Ouch. That stung.

Across from his bed, Sebastian began to stir, and Maru quickly rushed to her half-brother’s side. “Sebastian…?”

“Ugh…” He groaned and lightly pushed her face away. “Give me a little space, would you?”

“Oh, Sebastian!”

Without warning she flung her arms around him in a tight hug. “I was so scared! I thought you were going to die!”

“Fuck’s sake—why does everyone try to choke me—” He tried in vain to pry her off of him. “Why the hell do you care, anyway?”

“What do you mean, why do I care?!” She pulled back, an angry expression on her tearful face. “You’re my big brother, of course I’m going to care about what happens to you!”

A flicker of guilt flashed across Sebastian’s face, and he looked away. “… Half brother.”

“Oh my Y—like that matters! Geez! You could at least apologize for scaring me and mom half to death!”

“I didn’t ask you to worry ab—” He stopped mid sentence. “You told mom?”

“Well, yeah!” She curled into herself a bit. “I kinda panicked and… maybe called Jodi too. And Caroline.”

“Yoba damnit,” he rubbed his forehead, “it’s not Mom’s business what I do. It’s not any of our mom’s business.”

Maru poked her fingers together. “I know. Look, I’m sorry, but I just—panicked, like I said. Harvey’s not here, and I didn’t know what to do. Besides, they were going to find out eventually, and they’d be even more upset then.”

“Shit, our moms are gonna finish the job for the slimes.” Sam had been awake for a minute at that point, just lying there listening to things play out as he came to.

Same for Abigail, who pushed herself to sit. “Well, fat lot of good putting fake names in the logbook did,” she said in a deadpan voice. “It’s been nice knowing you guys. Any second now they’re going to come bursting in through the door.”

“Er, actually… they’re in the waiting room.”

“Great.” She looked to Sebastian and Sam. “Might as well get it over with.”

Looking somewhat apologetic, Maru stepped out to fetch their mothers. There was a heavy air hanging in the room. It was awful.

“… How did you know we were in trouble?” Ashe asked of Marlon, who was still standing off to the side.

“Rasmodius reached out to me. Apparently the Junimos asked him to help you, and he in turn asked me.”

To say it was surprising was an understatement. Ashe didn’t think that the little spirits cared all that much for him, especially not since he hadn’t done much to fulfill their requests yet—

Once again the curtains were yanked abruptly open. There stood Robin, and Jodi, and Caroline, all wearing the look of mother bears on the rampage in search of their cubs. Terrifying didn’t even begin to describe the aura radiating from them.

“What were you thinking—”

“You nearly got yourselves killed—”

“How many times have I told you how dangerous those mines are—”

Their voices all overlapped in their attempts to admonish their children. There was no doubt that they were relieved to see them alive and well—the fact that they were so incensed was proof of that.

The heavy ball of guilt weighing down Ashe’s stomach compelled him to speak above them. “It’s not their fault.” In that instant, all their heads snapped to look at him instead of their children, and memories of such reprimands by his own mother flashed in his minds’ eye. “It’s mine,” he continued, somehow managing to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. “I’m the one who brought them into the mines with me.”

“Wh—it is not your fault, Ashe,” Sam insisted emphatically.

Sebastian nodded. “We’re the ones who asked to come along.”

“And I’m the one who got us into that situation,” added Abigail. “You told us that it was dangerous.”

There was a long moment of silence—awkward, heavy, painful silence. It was broken by the sound of Harvey all but skidding into the recovery room, looking mightily disheveled and thoroughly winded.

“Dr. Harvey!” Maru was relieved, and quickly sought shelter behind him.

“Ladies—” Hastily he attempted to straighten his lopsided tie and glasses, “I understand that you are concerned for their wellbeing, but I cannot allow you to stress my patients out. Much less before I’ve been able to examine them myself.”

“How can you expect us to be calm about all of this?” Robin gestured angrily towards her son, who was lying there with a look that begged to be put out of his misery. “We’ve told them countless times how dangerous those mines are, and they still went in!”

Harvey chose his words carefully. “With all due respect… they may be your children, but they are no longer children. At some point, you have to allow them to make their own decisions. Even if they still live under your roof. If you don’t, then they will be pressured into doing things like this behind your back.” He cleared his throat. “Now, please. I need to be able to examine them myself. Maru, could you bring them back to the waiting room?”

His tone left no room for arguments, and they reluctantly followed Maru out of the recovery area and back to reception. The four in the beds were stunned.

“Uh… Thanks for sticking up for us like that,” Sam said as the doctor pulled his wheely stool over to Sebastian’s bed.

“Hm? Oh, there’s no need to thank me for that. I only did what I felt was in your best interests as my patients.” With a faint smile curling up the ends of his mustache Harvey started to examine Sebastian. “I only got a little bit of the story over the phone with Maru—what exactly happened?”

Ashe swallowed guiltily, and began to recount the misadventure to him before the others could. Harvey just listened and nodded his head, moving from examining Sebastian to setting his broken foot in a cast. For a mercy, it was a brief summary. “… and Marlon brought us here,” he finished in a soft voice, picking at the thin white blanket covering his legs. “That’s pretty much it.”

“Well,” Harvey scooted over to Sam, “we can thank Yoba that things weren’t any worse. They could very well have been.”

Ashe cast his eyes back down to his lap. “I’m sorry…”

           “I didn’t say it to guilt you.” He smiled again. “Rather the opposite; there’s no need to dwell on what might have been. You’re all alive and safe now, and that’s what matters. That being said,” he swiveled around to Abigail’s bed, “it might be a good idea to stay out of the mines for the time being.”

“That won’t be an issue.” Marlon finally spoke again. “There was a massive collapse in the lower levels. Joja will want to close the mines to the public indefinitely.”

“Well there we go then.”

After a minute, it was Ashe’s turn, and he sullenly allowed Harvey to give him a thorough once-over. All he’d wanted was to fix up the community center; he didn’t want to put anyone in danger.

‘But that’s not really true. What I really wanted was something to distract myself from thinking.’ The community center was just a means to an end, an excuse. And maybe, just maybe… maybe he’d hoped something like this would have happened. Maybe he’d really hoped that one of these times he wouldn’t end up coming out of the mines.

As soon as that thought came into his mind, he physically shook it away, earning himself quite a look from Harvey. ‘That’s not true! Not even a little! I’m only thinking like this because I feel so guilty.’ He looked down at his hands resting on his lap. Abby had been right; he couldn’t keep carrying on like this. It was tearing him apart.

After a few more minutes, Harvey was satisfied that Sebastian’s broken foot was the most severe injury among the four. He still needed to set the man up with a pair of crutches and show him how to use them, but was content to let the rest filter out of the recovery area and towards reception.

“Ugh, I’m not looking forward to getting home…” Sam’s voice dripped with dread. “Even if Mom listens to what Harvey said, it’s still gonna be awkward as hell. She’s probably gonna want me to pay for my bill.”

Abigail’s face fell at the thought. “Ugh, tell me about it. And we didn’t even get to bring back anything from the mines so we don’t have anything we can sell.”

Well, there was something that Ashe could do to start repairing the damage he’d caused. With the both of them lulling behind him, he pushed the swinging doors to reception open.

The mothers’ heads popped up at the sound, and the conversation they’d been having ceased at once. There was a sort of muted look on each of their faces, and Caroline and Jodi rose to give their kids what was a much-needed hug.

“Harvey’s helping Sebastian with crutches,” Ashe said to Robin, who had gone a bit pale when she saw that her son was not among them. “And, um… I’d like to pay for everyone’s medical bills.”

Surprise flickered across the faces of everyone in the room. He could see that Sam and Abby were opening their mouths to protest his offer, and so he hastily added, “It’s the least I can do.”

“Honey, the thought is appreciated,” Caroline put her hand on his shoulder, “but the bills are already taken care of. Just please, be more careful next time.” She turned to her daughter. “Let’s go, Abigail. We have a lot we need to talk about…”

One by one Ashe watched his friends file out of the clinic with their mothers. He did his best to put on a smile and wave them off; after all, they were able to leave on their own two feet (well, Sebastian on one). That was worth smiling about, wasn’t it?

“Are you gonna be okay?” Maru asked as he turned to pay for his own bill. “To walk home, I mean.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, still managing to smile, “I’ll be fine—”

No sooner had the door swung closed behind Jodi did it swing back open. “Ashe?” panted Shane, his face red from exertion and the cold of the evening air. He was still in his Joja uniform, which was disheveled from his haste to get to the clinic from the mart.

“Shane?” Ashe’s eyes widened in surprise as he turned to face him. They only widened further as the man strode forward and folded him into a gentle hug.

“Thank fuck…” he whispered in between breaths. He was shaking. “Maru made it sound like you were on your deathbed.”

“Oh, er—” Behind the counter, Maru fidgeted guiltily. “Sorry.”

A new lump formed in Ashe’s throat, taking the place of his voice so he couldn’t speak. It hit him in that moment just how differently things could have turned out, and how happy he was to see Shane again.

“I-I…” His chin quivered, and tears began to well up in his eyes as he brought his arms up to squeeze Shane back. “I-I’m sorry…!”

 ####

 It was a slow walk back to the farm. Shane insisted on it, wanting Ashe to take it easy despite his insistence that he was just a little sore.

“Easy, easy does it,” the older man coaxed, helping Ashe up the front stairs—it was at that point that the pain really was catching up to him, and it showed. “I’ve got you.”

“Th-thanks…”

The stairs cleared, Shane held the door open for him. It was pleasantly warm inside the farmhouse, a welcome change from the bitter cold. Mr. Blue jumped over the back of the couch to greet them as they stepped inside, wending his way through both of their legs with audible purrs.

“I think he was worried about you.” Shane carefully nudged the orange cat out from around their feet so they could make it over to the couch. “Where do you keep your medicine and shit?”

With a wince Ashe let himself be lowered onto the cushions, the pain easing up just a touch when he did. “Uh… in the kitchen. Top left drawer next to the sink.”

“Okay. Sit tight.”

Ashe watched him root around in the drawer. “What are you looking for?”

“What do you think, dweeb? I’m looking for pain killers.” Shane looked at him. “You’re hurting pretty good, and don’t even try to deny it.” His fingers closed around what he was looking for, and he brought two small tablets back to Ashe along with a glass of water. “Here.”

“Oh, uh—thank you…” Ashe popped them into his mouth and took a sip of the water to help them down. “… I, um… I’m sorry.” He mumbled into the glass.

“You already said that, you know. Three times. On the way here.” Shane sighed and shook his head. “Seriously, what am I gonna do with you?”

“… I don’t know.” Setting the glass on the end table to his left, Ashe tugged his knees up against his chest and buried his face into them.

After a moment, Shane took the cushion next to him. “Ashe, what’s really going on here?” He asked. “There’s obviously something bothering you and making you not act like yourself.”

Silence. Then, “I miss her…”

“Your mom?” He wrapped an arm around Ashe’s shoulders as the farmer gave a tiny nod of his head. “I had a feeling. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I-I do, b-but… I-I’m scared that it’s gonna mess up your recovery somehow…”

“Bud, that’s not—those two things have nothing to do with each other. Seriously. And even if they did,” he gave a gentle squeeze, mindful of Ashe’s soreness, “I’m in a place now where I can handle it. And that’s got a lot to do with you. I’m not gonna force you to talk about it if you really don’t want to, but I’m here for you. You can lean on me for this.”

More silence. “I don’t remember what that’s like…” He sniffled, trying his hardest not to start bawling again. “I-I was taking care of Mom for so long that I forgot how to rely on others.”

“She was sick, right?”

“Y-Yeah. Cancer. I ended up taking her place at Joja so she could stay on their insurance.” There was another pause as he drew a deep shuddering breath. “I-I didn’t even get to attend her funeral. My b-boss wouldn’t give me the day off for it. It was the worst way to start the year.”

“Wait, this happened on New Years? This year?”

Ashe nodded again. “I-I didn’t really… y’know, have a chance to process any of it. Work, work work. And then I remembered Grandpa’s envelope, and… I came here. It was nice, having so much to do and people to distract me from… everything. But I can’t ignore winter no matter how hard I try…”

His voice broke, and the tears that he’d been trying so hard to hold back burst forth. “I-It’s not fair! She was all I had! I was all she had! A-And I was working so much that I couldn’t even be there for her most of the time! I had to watch her waste away from a distance! And now Joja wants to take even more way from me! It’s not fair! It’s not fair!!!!”

The room became filled with his anguished sobs, and Shane gently pulled him into another hug. “It’s not, you’re right. It never is.”

For what felt like forever, Ashe cried. He cried out the feelings that he’d kept pent up over the year. And when he had no more tears left to shed, he rested against Shane, completely spent.

“Did that help at all?” Shane’s voice was low and soothing as he brushed the bangs from Ashe’s face.

“… I don’t know…”

“That’s fine. It takes time.” He held him close. “Look, if you feel like you need to cry, come and cry on me. Okay? Doesn’t matter when or where it is.”

It took a moment, but Ashe nodded. He wondered if this was what Shane felt like when he was looking out at those cliffs on that rainy day…  

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