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forever--darling · 1 year

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as the world caves in | neteyam x avatar!reader

summary: there is nothing left to do but bite the bullet and face everything head-on. when neteyam finds you at the tree of souls, he can't help but demand answers while showing the remnants of his broken heart.

pairings: neteyam x avatar!reader

word count: 8.7k ( i am nervous about this one)

warnings/notes: slow burn, swearing, major angst continued, mention of sky people, many feelings (too many to be honest), arguing, admission of feelings, crying, double heartbreak, almost to the end (1/3)

series masterlist | one of us: part six | requests are currently open for now

Freedom is a privilege no one really appreciates when they have it. Especially when you’re used to having it; you take it for granted, think it’s going to be there forever, and think that your life is built around free will and personal rights. But that's not always the case when you live in Pandora as a sky person. You’re locked up in a building, dependent on oxygen, on resources that aren’t even from the planet you’re on. Privilege is designed and seen by the link pods, the only machine that can transform you into someone else within seconds. Even that is short-lived though because even when you have the ability to become someone else, something else, freedom isn’t permanent. Because sooner or later, you always have to wake up.

It was iridescent, the only way to utterly describe the sight before you. Iridescent bathed in bright neon bioluminescence lights that glowed as readily as the green lush of the forest. Mauve tendrils dangled down in front of your face, whispering soft assurances back at you, as you stared forward with silent prayers on your tongue. Silent prayers you had held in until now. It was like once they met your lips, they would become poisonous to not only yourself but everyone else around you. The sight of Vitraya Ramunong’s long luminescent rods, reflected in your eyes coating them with hope and The Great Mother’s comfort. The Tree of Souls offered a sacred site for those seeking solitude, a place to bear your soul in the hope of being answered.

You had a lot to bare as you stood there within the draped tree, queue with the lightest sensation bound to a mauve tendril. A neural link, the only possible connection between you and the great Eywa. With your eyes closed, your eyelashes felt like woodsprites on your cheeks and you took in a deep breath, one that felt as if you were filling your lungs completely with hot scorching blood rather than air. A plea was the only thing you could think to ask her. No other words could fall from your tongue but they didn't need to as you could feel her; her large motherly arms and firm comforting aura. You knew you didn’t need to say anything for her to feel your presence and the pain that was sewn across your heart.

Salty tears were beginning to form behind your eyelids. You clenched your eyes harder, trying to conceal them from falling across your blue skin. It was as if the organ in your chest that you were trusted to keep safe was failing you. Slowly piece by piece being chipped away along with the hope you were trying to hold onto. But the longer you kept using the link pod and prolonging the link process, the more it felt the virus was no longer just infecting the body you were born into but every part of you.

Almost as if the virus had made it to your brain and the effects were nullifying the spiritual bonds you had with the Omatikaya clan. Abiotic forces aren’t derived with empathy and you knew it wouldn't surrender just because of your ceremony. You were one of the people and now just as quickly, it felt as if you were being ripped away. With no escape, no lifeline from this very battle, you knew under Eywa’s consolation she wasn’t trying to offer you absolution from your lies or secrets but open up a home for your soul.

As the tears began to slip from your eyes as easily as you were slipping from the concreteness of the world, you could feel the mourning that had overtaken you. Your cries were mournfully falling from your parted lips and you dare to let them swallow you whole. You were mourning this life, this world, this encapsulating version of yourself you hadn’t even known existed but that this body had graciously granted you. You were mourning the future and the love that had overtaken your heart but now fell at your feet like withered petals.

The Great Mother had her great plan laid out and with you completely stuck in the dark about it, you couldn't help but let sickness claw and tear at every remaining hope you had left. Its cuts were deep, tainting, and leaving the last remaining pieces of your personality to resemble the physicality of your human body. Death had plagued you and you knew based on the shakiness of your form and the dizzy spells behind your gold eyes that things were bad. If you were feeling the effects here in this other world and this other body then it had reached a point of no return.

With your jaw trembling, and lips chewed to a pulp in between your pointed teeth, you released the queue from the tendril. Standing up, your hands wiped manically at your cheeks ridding them of the hot salty streams. You rid yourself of the physical implications of the pain that was sewn deeply across your back. Instead, as if it never happened, you let the tendril fall through your touch, the softness and comfort of it leaving your fingertips. Staring forward at it, your ears twitched at the quiet sounds of Omatikaya ancestors.

You then let your head fall back to peer up at the towering tree before you with complete and utter awe. It was a site that had been off limits to you until now, until you had become one of the Omatikaya. With tear-stained cheeks, a broken laugh fell from your lips. With the luminescent green ground warm under your feet and pulsing with every neuron of the forest, you felt the sorrow and the ruminations be pulled from your body.

Laughing like a madwoman, you walked along the hanging tendrils with a light smile pulled at the ends of your lips. You leaned into Eywa’s consolation, her plan tickling your ears as if she were going to whisper it to you. Face clean of the intense feelings that once harbored your body, you walked as if your shoulders were free of every burden you had acquired. It was as if Eywa heard your silent pleas and offered you a moment of relief. A moment of bliss overcompensated by an expression of tranquility that had appeared across your face.

Within the secluded part of the thick forest, your skin buzzed at the sound of muffled footsteps walking along the lush ground. Your ears twitched at the familiarity of it and you let out a breath of relief. Relief that he had decided to come and find you within the tree of pure spirits. You knew you should have retired to your human form hours before, the weakness evidently now taking a hold of your insides, but you couldn’t when you hadn’t seen him yet, knowing that you hadn’t talked to him. You needed to take in every moment of his presence you could. The very presence that left your heart aching for more — for more time, more courtesy to the feelings that were tightly wound around you, for more of him.

Your smile widened. It was soft and completely docile as you watched the lush ground of the forest illuminate under each of his heavy footsteps. Dots decorated his face like ivory stars radiating within the darkness of the eclipse, and you held your breath, praying to the Mother that he would reward you with the sight of his pearly white-coated smile. If there was anything you wanted to commit to your memory, it was that look, that infrequent smile, and the swelling feeling that appeared in your chest at the sight of it.

With anticipation and you standing under the tree, Neteyam felt his chest constrict at the sight of you completely dosed in bright colors reflecting off your skin. You were mesmerizing and ethereal as you stood there still dressed in what you had been during the ceremony with soft wispy pieces of hair framing your face. Even if he wished you could be the last thing he’d ever see, he felt the misery reach around him again and squeeze every delusion to the surface.

The sight of Lo’ak’s battered face flickered behind his eyes and it only reminded him of what had led to it. Of what destruction he had encountered that led to his own crumbling. When he stared at you in your ethereal form, he didn’t feel like he had anything left. Like after all the long months of stolen glances and mixed signals, there was nothing left of himself to give to you. Slowly he had wantingly opened up his ribs and the confines of his body to offer you everything he had inside, mistakenly. Because where that fondness of you still remained it was now overshadowed by anguish and exhaustion.

As he appeared in the light, the soft callings of Eywa draping his face in color, you felt your smile slip from your face. As if the Great Mother was asking you to push it back inside where it came from — to save it for another time away from the Toruk Makto’s oldest son. A gasp was wrenched from your throat, breathlessly, gold eyes dancing across his skin worryingly. Because paired with those scattered constellations was blackening blood expelled from the deepest cuts across his temple, just above his eyebrow, and bottom lip. His chest rose and fell distressingly when he breathed because of the purple and black swellings pressed along his torso and sides.

“Neteyam,” you whispered, disbelief coated across your tongue.

Your eyes flickered down to his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as if they hadn’t softly been pressed against your chest hours ago. His tail swished from side to side while his guarded eyes that managed to never leave yours, the entirety that he approached, refused to waver until you said his name. His eyes stared back at you until his name had fallen effortlessly from you. The overwhelmingness that coated his insides forced him to drop his stare to the lush green ground rather than the woman before him.

Your silence became suffocating as you stared, unable to look away from the stains that coated his skin, caused by someone else’s hands. It made your whole body tighten. The effects of his crestfallen expression and the state of his body filled you with an entirety of new panic you had never felt before. Your thoughts bled with questions like bulletholes that were detrimental and unable to coagulate. How did this happen — the spotting with his father, while in the sky, did a sky person shoot them down, threatened them, chased them back into the forest where more were left waiting, and worse of all had they been far over the territory line than anyone realized. Like a never-ending horror show, you felt the panic take over every inch of your body completely taking priority over anything else.

Neteyam could not stop the pounding in his ears as your quietness did nothing to resolve his pain-stricken self. Even with you there in front of him, he felt Lo’ak’s words echoing in his head, tearing down every reserve he tried to build up on his walk over. He told himself to not get too close to you, to separate the light featherlike hold you had around him. The hold was evident in the way his eyes flickered back up to you with your silence drawing him back in, asking for him. The notion brought on a cold sweat that bathed his skin and sunk deeply into the open wounds like salt.

He could read your mind, the panic that had completely overtaken your features, burning every other emotion that had once resided there. Your mind was going around in circles like a boundless carousel and he cursed himself for feeling affected by it. Your eyes met his and with so much uncertainty filling them, he only had one answer for what and who was responsible. “Lo’ak.”

Your eyes widened the panic starting to crawl at the back of your throat drowning you completely, “W-What? Is he okay? What happened?”

A slight hiss fell from his lips as if you had reopened one of the many bullet wounds lodged deep within his chest wall. One that Lo’ak had put there. Tilting his head to the side, he closed his eyes for a moment. It was like you had struck him and he hated himself for how much you asking about his brother affected him — hated how much you affected him.

When he looked at you again he noticed that the pinched look of confusion on your face had deepened at his reaction. He shook his head slowly, glare meeting your timid gaze. “No. Lo’ak.”

You shook your head softly, trying to decipher the meaning of his brother’s name. Frantically, your eyes swept back and forth between Neteyam, the boy in front of you, whom you were desperately praying for day and night, and the dark forest behind him. His cryptic response left you with a dizzying, all-consuming trepidation. Your hands hung out in the air, ears tightly pulled back, and your gaze matched the constant steady of your thoughts as they flickered every which way. Lo’ak.

As if Eywa had sent you the very answer, your breath was snatched from you and your body stiffened. No. No. Your eyes snapped up to meet his just as your tail swished irritatingly. His once fleeting stare didn’t move again but stared forward, watching as all fear was expelled from your body with a single realization. You looked at him with disbelief, taking in his clenched jaw, spiteful eyes now being overtaken by unshed tears. Within the desolate area, it was like the distance was vast between your fragmented bodies. It was like you had already lost him to an unimaginable force pulling the two of you apart. But to Neteyam it wasn’t an unimaginable force, it was Lo’ak.

Distress overtook your shaking form at the thought. Lo’ak. You wondered what he must look like in comparison to Neteyam and felt your entire will be wretched from your body to only be laid at the future Olo’ektan’s feet. Because what happened to them wasn’t something or someone but each other.

“Neteyam, no,” your voice trembled as you let yourself breathe again, “No.”

He was silent for a moment, face struck with the same distress that you thought had occupied you. But based on the tension that was pressed firmly between his shoulder blades and the scowl on his face, his was far heavier than yours. His glare didn’t falter but only seemed to harden further as if he was once again the shell of the man he was when you met him. Spoiled with an anger that was grasping tightly at his throat, mostly afraid of anyone seeing past the facade he had stitched onto his face for years. He was trying to hide the stability of his sanity and the pain that was threatening it. He was trying to hide how you made him feel and worst of all, the affliction you had caused him.

You could see it past the unshed tears in his eyes and the frustration that was reverberating from his hands. How desperate he was for some exoneration. As he stared forward at you, you knew then that somehow he had heard about everything that had happened between you and Lo’ak. It was a rotting truth that somehow had taken the man you had known for months and turned him inside out. As horrible as it was, some of you felt satisfaction. Even as his heart twisted before you like it couldn’t take any more, you were presented with the indisputable fact that what he felt for you was there. His pain served as a confirmation to you.

“He told you,” you whispered.

Neteyam huffed suddenly, his arms lifting out in front of him as his hands clenched further into fists. At the sight of the dried blood as well as the open cuts on his knuckles, you felt your stomach drop and your eyes soften There was nothing you wanted more than to step forward and take each of them in yours. You wanted your touch as well as your lips to heal his wounds you had caused not only physically but emotionally, but the look in his eye had you glued to your spot. A wave of anger and hatred you had never seen before in it.

You felt yourself stepping closer craving to be near him. Needing something to ground you as it felt like the whole world was burning around you. His eyes narrowed, and you felt yourself crumble slightly at the sight. Deception.

“You act as if I did this,” you suddenly felt defensive as if you had to protect what was left of your own heart, “The choice wasn’t mine. I didn’t ask Lo’ak to make this decision of who he wanted to be his mate. It’s not mine to bear.”

“So you’re saying you told him no,” Neteyam said, breaking slightly noticeable by the sharpness in his tone as he took a step closer to you, “You explicitly told him that you didn’t want to be his mate. That you couldn't, not with what rules Mo'at has set.”

It was a shot. Such harsh words to get back at the inexplicable deception he felt by you. He wasn’t going to try and lessen the blow not when he thought you had done so much worse. You felt it just as it was meant to. Like he was trying to hurt you, go against every part of himself that had feelings for you, and hurt you plain and simple — whatever it took. You knew this was his defensive nature, his soldier makeup, doing everything he could to not break, to not tarnish, to remain strong to the orders bestowed on him.

He was being cruel because cruelness would keep you at an arm’s length away. Far away so he could stay true to what the clan needed of him, what the world needed of him. They needed every part of him including his heart which meant it wasn’t free to give away, especially to you.

You glowered up at him, trying not to let your mind get distracted by the bleeding cuts across his face.

It was your turn to have your quietness serve as an answer for him. An answer to his question. He nodded then dropped his arms to his sides as a pained exhale parted his lips, “Then it is yours to bear. Then it is just as much your choice as it is his. It is yours to bear.”

It is yours to bear. The words were spiteful but so desperate and you felt them shake your core as every expectation and ask of him seemed to be proudly on his shoulders at that moment. He bears the entire world and he always would until it would lead to his collapse. He would hold it all until it finally killed him. He will give the clan, his family, and his father everything until there would be nothing left of him but an imprint of dust. He didn’t have the strength to carry the weight of his love for you, let alone his pain. The repetition of the unknown article of it was completely evident as were the tears in his eyes that threatened to fall. Where he held up the entirety of the world and the conflicts that arose with it, the rest was yours to bear — his heart, his soul, his suffering.

“Then I will bear it,” you whispered, the sob within your chest was scorching, as the quiver of your lips was inevitable, “You’re right. It was just as much my choice as his. I should have told you that he had asked me, but I didn’t. Because I haven't decided.”

You had watched as he had absorbed your first sentence like it would save him but then by the end of your honest answer, you watched just as carefully as his entire body fell. Because I haven’t decided. Soldiers and warriors are trained to be made like gunmetal and piercing arrows, but even gunmetal can tarnish and arrows can break. No one is imperishable or has the ability to prevent themselves from getting hurt because you’re not in charge of your own pain. Other people were. They are the ones who deliver the blows, who ask for everything and give nothing. They are the ones who prove that you can’t be imperishable.

His eyes became drenched, his unshed tears displaying it all to you. You knew then as your own tears threatened to spill, even if you took his suffering away, bearing the weight of it wouldn’t make the truth any less painful. He shook his head almost mournfully, like no matter what you said to him, he would be saying goodbye to not only you but the possibility of the two of you.

“I didn't give him an answer or tell him no because I just needed a minute — a moment to feel like this isn't my life. That a man can propose to me and I have the ability to say yes. Trust me, all I think about is what Mo'at said. Because no matter how hard I try or what I do, I will never be allowed to live like everyone else. Not while I still have this weight of a whole other life on my shoulders. And it is suffocating because it’s all I can think about. How ceremony put aside, I will never be one of you.”

Just like that streams of salty tears rushed down your cheeks, the hold on them broken by the very same words that had once been spat in your face by the same man before you. The very man, who once had to say those heavy agonizing words as if it was the easiest thing he ever did. Now you mirror them back at him earnestly, torturously like it took everything in you to say. With your ears pulled back, you feel that sob rising in your throat like a knot that refused to disappear. It threatens to cause more wreckage to this already fatal tragedy.

You sighed, it sounding broken as it escaped, “So when Lo’ak asked me if I wanted to be his mate, I allowed myself a moment to feel what it would be like to say yes. A moment where I could have everything. Right then, I couldn’t say no because I needed to remember that feeling it gave me, and now I just need time to try and figure out what to say.”

The exhale that is ripped from his throat pulls the sob right out of yours. His dreadful gaze is nauseating as he steps closer to you, his own lips trembling as if he had already been crushed, and by his next words, maybe he had.

“A moment?” a cool chuckle fell from his lips, “Really? So, then why did you go to Mo'at? Why do you request a consciousness transfer? If it was about some fucking sentimental bullshit, you wouldn’t have asked this of our Tsahik and decided to gamble your life with Eywa. You’re planning your whole damn life here Y/N. Your future. So, don’t go and tell me you haven’t given him a decision yet because you needed a fucking moment to try and revel in some feeling.”

It turned out as he stared back with daggers in his eyes, it wasn’t the weight of everything he carried that led to his demise but the weight of his broken heart. You think yours became collateral damage, broken just as much as his, caught in the line of fire.

“Neteyam,” you cried, not knowing what else to say but his name.

He recoiled from you, taking a step back as if whatever answer you gave him or explanation wouldn’t be enough. His lips twisted painfully, trying to stop them from trembling as he wiped at his eyes. He had been trying so hard, to keep his tears from escaping, to keep them where they were gathered within his eyes. At the sound of his name falling from your mouth, sounding so much like grief, he was able to pull himself together letting his anguish be masked by anger.

“Just stop! Just... what the fuck, Y/N? A consciousness transfer. Are you serious?” he cursed, the only way to handle how absolutely empty he felt inside, “Are you trying to make me lose my mind?”

Taking your silence into his hands and the fresh tears that fell from your eyes like a river, he let the last of his patience snap inside him like his last will to live. “How can you do this? Do you have a fucking death wish?”

That one hit you right where it needed to and you felt your mouth drop in shock and just as your chest tightened it was accompanied by a flutter — a flutter that wasn’t supposed to be there. You didn’t let it have your attention though, not even for a second. However left with your mouth agape, you were stranded of knowing what to say next.

“What you are asking of the Great Mother is too much. It is dangerous, not to mention rarely successful. You are risking your life and what I can’t believe is that Lo’ak was going to let you. He fucking knew and was going to let you go through with it anyway. He is a coward and he knew about your request to Tsahik. Not only did he not try to stop you, but he used it as a way to get you to be with him. Like some damn bargaining chip. He is a fucking coward and you’re just mindless.”

“Mindless?” you huffed, your voice unsteady and aching from the cries that had reverberated within the quiet forest, “You don’t get it, do you? You were supposed to understand this better than anyone but I guess I was fucking wrong about that too. Neteyam, time here is a factor. A factor that one day is going to run out, maybe quicker than any of us realize. Oxygen is depleting, and resources are limited. More sky people are coming. They are coming and they are not going to stop. Nothing is promised and what I want more than anything is this. It’s this life.”

The flutter increased but as it did it only became an ache, an ache that seemed to increase as your heart rate did. His eyes drank you in as if it would be the last time, a sheer of sweat formed across your back and your palms. He doesn't move closer though. No, he just stands there, mesmerizing every inch of your face in case this is an argument he won’t win. In case Tsahik accepts your request and you are uprooted from this existence and his whole world.

“I can’t let you do this,” he spoke, strongly, his voice cutting through all of your senses as if it had complete control over you.

“It’s not your decision to make.”

It was brutal. Your words and admission were brutal, leaving him with his breath hitching like he was afraid to cry. An irrational fear that it would break everything inside of him to pieces worse than you already had. He hated this. He hated this. That was all he could think as his eyes clenched shut, worried about the ruinous consequences he would face when he chose to ask his next question.

“Why Lo’ak?”

The question was torturous to him, the mention of his brother excruciatingly reminding him of the markings across his entire body as well as the welts across his knuckles that were left.

He sighed, as he managed to push out the last of his remaining words, “Why didn’t you say no? I know Lo'ak and for years I have had to listen to him talk about you, go on and on and on about how he feels. But I think you and I both know that the way he feels isn't how someone should feel for their mate. So, tell me, why haven't you told him no?"

The ache worsened and it was like your chest was going to explode. Your lungs were burning like pins were being pelted at the organ trying to poke holes into them. That nauseating feeling returned to your head from what you could only assume was the rush of emotions pulsing through your entire body. But you wouldn't let yourself falter under his unwavering gaze. You wouldn’t dance around it and offer him cryptic explanations or hide how easily you craved him. You craved him and knew that with every fiber of your being as easy as he had broken you, he could put you back together. And as you stared at his wet eyes, emerged in unsaid words, you knew deep down that if you could, you would spend an eternity letting him do it.

“Because I knew I could never have you.”

A shudder shocked through Neteyam’s body at your words, his hands clenched shut, yearningly. His head was swirling with a newfound desire. One of relief to hear you admit it so willingly, to finally say in so many words that what you felt for him was real and that what he felt for you was requited. It wasn’t in his head and it never had been. It had always been him. That thought paired with the way your gaze was swimming in so much passion and so much hurt made his chest tighten as if he would stop breathing right there. He felt his words get lodged in his throat and he knew if you got any closer you would be able to hear the interworkings of his heart. The way his heartbeat was frenzied and completely under your control.

“Neteyam, the way I feel about you is... consuming. The way I want you consumes me, completely.”

He knows the meaning behind your words, how scary it had to have been to say them. He knew the weight of them as they actively slithered their way past his chest after all the beatings it had taken in a single day. The words installed every single hope back into his shattered organ but even with the warmth that was beginning to spread, the spite dipped in acid was not budging from where it sat lodged in the base of his stomach. He knew what he was about to do was going to leave you battered and bruised and completely dejected but he couldn’t help himself from saying it anyway.

“No,” he denied your words like he was denying a fact that had been calculated wrong. He was taking your feelings that had been expelled from deep inside and was giving them back to you on a platter as if he didn’t want them.

“No?” you choked breathlessly, your voice losing all the strength it had left as the burning in your lungs become completely unbearable.

His face loomed over yours, face twisting further than it had before as if his next sentence would hurt him more than it could possibly hurt you, “No because how could you just not say anything? How could you contemplate having something with Lo’ak? If it was me... how could you? If you felt this way, why not tell me?”

With a shuddering inhale you reply with, “You’re going to be Olo’eyktan one day.”

He huffed, your answer fueling the anger that lingered in the base of his stomach. You lifted your arms up just as your vision began to blur, becoming waves of mauve and the blue of his skin. With your hands reaching out towards him, he didn’t bother to move away from your touch. “How could I tell you when—”

He cut you off, voice overpowering yours. “I trusted you. I trusted you and the second that I think… you just move on as if I didn’t have a say. You know you’re just like everyone else.”

His words tore into you. Tore into your flesh as if making you bleed could possibly heal his own wounds or rather settle the scale. It felt like maybe it had as it was like your lungs had bursted, the struggle to breathe emulsifying with the rapid heart rate and your sweat-coated skin. Your hands were shaky and desperate to be held, hoping he would grace you with one last touch.

With the only breath you had, you felt yourself pushing it out painstakingly with his words I trusted you still coating your heart. “Neteyam, I—”

The link pod lifted like the top of a casket and you felt the light blind your eyes in hues of white. A huge gasp was wretched from your chest like your soul was trying to be yanked from your body. As if the afterlife was present and ready to collect. Skin drenched in sweat, your lungs were gasping, trying to devour the air that was being pulled in from your diaphragm. Fingers curled together at your sides, you felt your eyes flickering to the ceiling as control had disappeared from your body. The feeling of the gel encasing your body was cool but you couldn’t completely register it. Not with your heart beating as fast as it was paired with how your whole body was twitching beyond belief. It was almost like every anatomical system was failing you.

“Fuck,” the coarse word echoed in your ears like hysteria as the person lifted the metal cage from your body, “No, no, no. Ugh, fuck.”

The ringing in your ears subsided, as the sudden interruption of the link process numbed your senses. Within the next few seconds, you were cognizant, able to hear the obnoxious beeping next to your ears that usually only went off when there was a machine malfunction. Then you felt the twitching in your toes like a reflex reacting to a sensation. It started in your fingers a second later and from there began to travel up your entire body through the neuron channels of your nervous system.

Two hands slipped under your shoulders and began to lift your body as your gasping got worse. “Max, help! Need some help here, now!”

Norm watched as the twitch in your fingers stop for a second, a mere second before your eyes began to roll to the back of your head. Your body went limp in his arms and knowing what was to come, he slipped a hand under your knees and lifted you from the link pod. Your breathing was short now, too quiet, as your eyes fluttered behind your eyelids. The second your human body started to convulse in his arms, jerking back and forth, he began to lose his grip. With not enough time to get your body to a bed, he fell to his knees and laid you on the tile floor. As he rolled you onto your side, he couldn’t help but take note of your gritting teeth and shaking limbs. Your cold, pale skin, slipped through his fingers as your head flailed from side to side.

“Max,” he screamed out again as a few other scientists appeared at his side trying to do what they could to help. His arm braced against your back to keep you from falling flat onto your backside. “Diazepam, now!”

His panicked eyes found your form again and as he stared at your stiffening face, all he could think about was you at six years old, laughing in a chair, sharing your red stringy candy. Your giggle was the sweetest sound in the world as you watched the scientist make horrible jokes that could only get a child to laugh. Then as he blinked the memory was gone, replaced by the eighteen-year-old young woman who now lay convulsing under his hands. Suddenly, the future, the very demise that the two scientists had been working all day and night to deter or to altogether avoid was playing out right in front of his eyes. An inevitable outcome of an impossible problem.

He says your name. Once and then twice. Anguish and distress laced into his voice so strongly he felt that it could be permanent. He doesn’t move but stands, now with the physicality of holding his world up in his arms; you. His calloused and familiar hands cascaded across your arms to your back — your exposed now suddenly cool back. His touch languished as his fingers rubbed up and down the base of your back feeling the indent of your spine. Your name suddenly felt like the only word he could manage to form as his breathing heaves up and down while his body trembled and shook with terror.

The rest of your words had been stolen from you and let to drift into the unknown that was the desolation between him and you. His name was the last thing to grace your tongue, leaving him in a puddle of heartache. Your dispute was being pulled into the air by the large gasp that had been wretched from your body. Legs collapsing under you, he felt his entire universe shift as you fell forward, eyes rolling back into the base of your head. He grunted as he caught your torso in his hands, his battle-scarred hands, covered in his brother’s dried blood and his own. Your neck collapsed from the weight of your head and he felt your forehead fall to his chest. The pull of gravity paired with dead weight drilled your body straight into his.

He felt himself stumble as his hands shifted to wrap around your back while the panic began to claw its way from his stomach. With one arm strongly wrapped around your lower back, his other hand drifted up quickly to your face. Pulling your head back away from his chest, he feels his insides tighten at the way your head folds back. Your face was tilted up towards the mauve tendrils of the Tree of Souls as if asking for a kiss from Eywa herself while Neteyam’s hand cupped your cheek, brushing the soft hair from your face.

“No, no, Y/N,” he tripped over his words as he took a breath, solidifying the terror rising up in his throat. Alarmed gold irises wide and quivering flickered across every feature of your face. The slope of your nose, the curve of your lips, and the softness of your eyelashes that peacefully kiss the tops of your cheeks. He found himself tracing the ivory specks that were scattered across your smooth blue skin.

“No, Y/N, please,” he begged, the tone of his voice foreign to himself as he stared up into the lush dark forest around him. The quietness reminded him of the void that surrounded him. Ruminations were taking over his face led by your heavy words that had once been whispered in his ears like the best-kept secret. The way I want you consumes me.

But all things must come to an end.

You were being ripped from his reality and as his thumb traced over the cupid’s bow of your upper lip, he knew this couldn’t be his goodbye. Whatever had happened to you, this wasn't going to be his last image of you.

All of his senses became alit at that moment, focused on your collapsed form in his body. Clearing his throat, he tilted his head up towards the night sky as the stars taunted him back. He let out a loud scream, a call sign that echoed within the trees of the forest. His hand fell from your face and instead swooped under your legs, pulling your entire body up and off of the ground into his strong statue. He stumbled away from the Tree of the Souls into the clearing of the forest, eyes racking the sky in desperation, a quiet please falling from his parted lips.

He heard the familiar screech paired with blue and purple-coated wings as he was about to tilt his head back and yell out again. Relief flooded Neteyam’s system for a moment as his Ikran flew down and landed within the trees of the forest. He climbed on with ease and connected his queue, arms tightening around you. With a single click of his tongue, the Ikran was taking off into the night sky towards the village. Neteyam's eyes throughout the ride flickered from you to the sky, feeling the panic increase and begin to suffocate him from the inside out slowly.

Landing in the base of the village, he slid from the creature, his arms numb and chest heaving. Not many people were still out and wandering but those that were, found their wide terror-stricken faces on Neteyam as he carried you with both arms. The anguish of his pain was now tightly swelling around every piece of him, the idea of losing you in his grasp killing him slowly. The fire was put out and other riders and hunters who watched the future Olo’eyktan sprint by with the new Omatikaya woman in his arms felt the alarms going off in the man’s head. They could see the panic laced within his eyes and couldn’t help but feel it forming in themselves. They all began to mumble to one another and just as his own hut came into view, it felt as if the news was going to get there before him.

Stood outside, illuminated by a soft lantern and the night sky, Jake stood with Neytiri. They were whispering under their breath as their youngest son sat in their tent, getting patched up their two daughters. Lo’ak’s hisses of pain and discomfort echoed out of the tent but the couple was too immersed in their conversation. Their conversation about Neteyam. Jake had agreed to give the boy another ten minutes before he was striding out of the village with an attitude to be reckoned with. Neytiri stood trying to calm her husband down as they tried to unravel what had happened between their two sons to invoke a fight.

A fight that seemed to come out of nowhere, invoked by all of the worst possible feelings and words. Jake had been trying to wrap his head around what his oldest son could have been thinking for almost twenty minutes. His very son who could never go out of his way to defy him — his very own son that would one day own and control every piece of Jake’s current world.

Neteyam — the warrior, the soldier, the hero. The very man who could have outfought Atlas, Achilles, or Hercules. The very man who gave everything to the world including his bones, tears, sweat, and blood. The perfect son. The perfect soldier. Toruk Makto’s firstborn had thrown a punch at his younger brother, multiple at that and Jake simply couldn’t figure out where any of it was coming from. The last look on his son’s face as he stormed off, was the only thing on repeat in his mind.

“Dad!” Neteyam yelled with as much of his voice as he could as his throat was raw.

Jake’s ears flickered curiously able to hear his son’s voice as well as the desperation heard in it. With his arms tightly crossed over his chest, he was prepared to deliver hell but as he turned to face Neteyam, his facade dropped immediately. Quickly it was forgotten as he found his son's battered form rushing towards him caring a statue of dead weight in his arms. A dead weight Jake could clearly identify as you. Neteyam was barely breathing at that point as both his mom and dad rushed toward him.

“Dad, please,” Neteyam begged.

“Shit,” Jake cursed, eyes scanning your ashen form to see no markings or visible injuries, “What happened?”

Neteyam stumbled over his words, his father’s question bringing back every single second of the conversation you two had. Muted within his ears, he felt as if he could still hear your voice. He shook his head, arms tightening around you unable to even calm down enough to let his father take you from him, “I-I don’t know.”

Neytiri gasped at the sight of you, her hands reaching out to take one of yours that was hanging limply in the air, “Oh Eywa.”

Jake’s hands ghosted over your form as if he wasn’t entirely sure what to do. His marine persona instantly clicked on and like a true soldier, he began to go through a checklist in his mind. No bulletholes or blows to the head. “No injuries? She didn’t fall or anything?”

Tears gathered in their son’s eyes and Jake tried to not let himself get so caught up in it knowing his attention needed to be on you. Neteyam shook his head still unable to let his tears fall recklessly across his face, especially not in front of his father. “No, no, we were just talking and—”

As if it was the most evident answer in the world, right in front of his face, especially as a previous dream walker it should have been the first thing he thought of. Sudden disruption to the link process. It was the only explanation, usually done by either someone manually kicking a person out of the avatar body through a red button or the individual pulling themselves out. Jake knew Norm and Max though and knew how dangerous it was when a link process was interrupted. What it could do, the harmful effects, and how the longer the link procedure the higher the risks increase. Jake knew Norm and Max. Jake knew you. This wasn’t deliberate. Something had happened.

“We have to go,” Jake suddenly snapped, his eyes connecting with Neytiri’s within the darkness of the village, her eyes clouded with sorrow, “We need to go right now!”

As if his words had cut through the air like a knife, his head snapped into the direction of their hut, hearing the front flaps be pulled back quickly with hurried steps following. Kiri and Lo’ak rushed out from inside as they heard their father’s tone through the doorway. Spider and Tuk were only a step behind them. It was as if a war had been set off then. Like a siren had gone off initiating war and the beginning of a long cold spell of suffering. All of their eyes fell on the lifeless form draped across Neteyam’s arms.

A moment of silence. A beat where all of their eyes were drilling into the body — your body. The shock after a few seconds wore off and their eyes widened in horror and their lips twisted on their faces. The parents were quiet, feeling the grief that was starting to form within their children and the denial that was sure to follow. Jake shook his head, hands locked around your cold shoulders, knowing that it wasn’t time for that yet. Not when they didn’t know what had even happened.

It was too early to be grieving over someone who wasn’t even dead. That’s what Jake told himself as the tears from his youngest began to fall in complete confusion. Jake could only hope that he was right as the thought rang through his mind — you being sick. Norm told him it wasn’t great. Dread formed within his stomach then, knowing it had to have been the cause.

At the same time that Kiri mumbled out Neteyam’s name to draw his gaze to her, Lo’ak was sputtering out in confusion, “W-What h-happened?”

How was he supposed to explain this to his children, his four children who didn’t understand the entirety of what link pods were or the neural pathways that connected the human consciousness from one form to another? They barely could perceive the idea of dream walkers and let alone that you were one, how was he supposed to explain that what happened to you wasn’t normal but there was a chance you were okay?

Just then a cry from Tuk filtered into his ears and he felt his fatherly instinct start to outway the soldier. Neytiri was about to release your hand from her grasp to scoop her youngest child up into her arms but was still at the worried look that washed over her husband’s face. His frown practically glued her in her spot and asked her not to move. “Neytiri, we have to go.”

She nodded and as both her and Jake released their hands from around you and stood, he could feel the sharp gaze from his children burning holes into his back.

He couldn’t escape though as his oldest son’s voice was drawing his attention again, “Dad I want to come with you.”

Broken. That’s how Jake could describe Neteyam. The sight of a broken man as if he had lost everything and at that moment as he held your body in his arms, unshed tears staining his eyes, he was. And it was all that Jake needed to understand what was going on. You, that was the sole answer. The answer that Neytiri and he had spent most of the evening trying to find. The common link between it all. Neteyam’s brazen attitude, his absence in the hut at night, his distractedness, the need to start a fight with his brother, and his storming off after. You — you were the formidable answer.

Which was the exact reason why he couldn’t let Neteyam come. If that wasn’t the look on his face and if you weren’t the answer to everything, he would. Now that he was older, it was very rare that Jake wouldn’t have Neteyam accompany him anywhere, but this wasn’t right. Especially when he wasn’t sure what they would find, he couldn’t.

“No, I need you to stay with your sisters and with…” Jake felt his voice trail off as his eyes fell down to the avatar’s body still tangled in his son’s grasp. It felt wrong to say that it was you because even if it had been for months, in the current state it was just a shell of a person — consciously you weren’t there. “Just take her to Mo’at, okay? She’ll know what to do.”

Jake watched his son’s ears become taut, his lips twisted into a frown. The disappointment was the sole cause of the look on his face, almost as if he had his hands tied around his back. There was no argument, no defying of his words, just complete silence, bestowed on Neteyam like an unwanted gift. He watched as his father and mother called to their direhorses, the sound of their calls perpetrating his ears. Then as if they were never there, they hopped on and rode off into the forest. The pliable shape of your avatar body was the only reminder that it all had in fact happened.

one of us taglist is not working the best right now and I have over the limit of people asking to be tagged (it says it's fifty) so, for now, I am just not going to have a taglist because I can't tag everyone and it's taking a lot of work to figure out.

#avatar #avatarimagine #avatar way of water #neteyam x reader #writing #fanfiction #neteyam imagine #avatar imagine #avatar fanfiction #lo'ak imagine #lo'ak x reader #lo'ak fanfiction #neteyam fanfiction

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seren1tyhaze · 10 months

Text

of grocery lists and spilled (oat) milk

PAIRING: mark lee x afab reader

WORD COUNT: 3.2K

SUMMARY: sure, keeping your grocery list in Mark Lee's dms may seem like next level delusional but it can't do any harm, right?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: for my lovely @strwbrysunday who inspired this and for being there always for every step of my delusional writing process <3 In case I don’t pull something together in time, we can count this as a VERY early bday tribute to Markly

WARNINGS: fluff, romantic meet cute, light swearing, rekindling romance, childhood friends to lovers

PLAYLIST: Broken Melodies and Like We Just Met by NCT Dream

Life is but a dream, we got history

Your alarm is blaring in your ear as your cat licks the tip of your nose, jolting you awake to see hot sun streaming in your bedroom window. How bright the room is has you scrambling for your phone, desperately hoping you hadn’t overslept (again).

Your phone screen confirms the worst as you whip back the covers and slide into fluffy slippers next to your bed, knocking a cup over as you reach for your cat’s food in the kitchen and spilling some of it in the process. She happily purrs against your bare legs before starting to eat slowly out of the small tray and you realize you’re going to have to drink the shitty office coffee since you’re both out of espresso pods and oat milk.

You quickly shower and are out the door in record time, thanking yourself that you hadn’t unpacked your work bag when you had gotten home late the night before. Work has been brutal lately, giving you barely any time in the evenings to yourself and you’ve never been one to wake up early in the morning. You know you have to go to the store today so you plan to try to sneak out a bit early to get your essentials.

Once you’re settled in the train car for your twenty seven minute ride, you work through a couple emails to get a head start on work before turning to your grocery list.

You glance to your side to see if anyone is looking over your shoulder at your phone, knowing the unconventional location of said list would seem questionable to a passerby.

Even you can admit that your delusional habit you had started ages ago was a little strange, but it felt comforting at this point and wasn’t hurting anyone. You opened up your Instagram DMs and tapped into the extremely one sided conversation with a charming, smiley rapper with 11.5M followers who did not know you existed.

Yes, you kept your grocery lists (and other important info you needed to find quickly) in Mark Lee’s DMs.

It had started as a joke a few years ago when you had finally admitted to your closest friend in the city that you and Mark had gone to summer camp together when you were kids. It had only been for a couple years but you remembered it like it was yesterday. The early morning kayak trips, knocking bare knees around a late night campfire, and how he used to sing you to sleep accompanied by the soft strumming of his guitar from the steps of your cabin.

You had followed his career ever since, listening to new songs as they were released, watching him on variety shows, and flipping through magazines whenever you saw his stunning face and bold style gracing the covers. You enjoyed seeing the short poems he would post on his stories or read out loud on the rare live he would do after shows.

Your friend had encouraged you to slide into his DMs at the time, purely motivated by her desire to meet his dancer best friend that he was sometimes spotted with at the most exclusive clubs. You had tapped open the message conversation with him and in typing quickly, accidentally pasted your short grocery list into the chat. She had laughed at you and you sent the message anyways, knowing that there was no way he would reply or ever even see it in his message requests.

You had a solid amount of followers for someone who didn’t work in the entertainment industry due to the app you had helped develop rising in popularity in the past few months. You sometimes helped out with filming vlog content for the website or TikToks but mostly kept to yourself and didn’t really have any interest in being internet famous.

Since you had first put your grocery list in Mark’s DMs, you had used the space to put little notes to yourself, including a drunken ramble one night about how 16 Personalities has royally fucked up everyone’s perception of MBTI.

Today, you opened up the message to add in your latest essentials, putting oat milk in all caps since the last few times you went you somehow managed to forget it. You needed food for the week, chicken and veggies, some other basics like mascara and tampons and remembered running low on cat treats.

Sliding your phone back into the front pocket of your bag, you let your eyes flutter shut for the rest of the ride to work, finally feeling the adrenaline of waking up late wear off.

Many hours later you are angrily typing on your computer, finishing up some code review for the development team, eyes flicking repeatedly to the clock in the bottom of your screen.

“I’m sorry you had to stay late, you should head out soon before it starts raining harder,” your coworker messages you, leaning from behind their monitor across the open office space, offering you a small smile.

You send off a couple frustrated emojis before typing up your feedback for the team in an email, feet already sliding into your rain boots you kept under your desk for gloomy days like today.

Checking your watch, you realize you are barely going to make it to the grocery store if you don’t leave now. The only benefit will be that it should be pretty empty this late at night. After a short train ride, you’re pushing a cart through the empty aisles, grabbing what you need and humming lightly to yourself. There are a few fellow late night shoppers milling about alongside the workers stocking the shelves for the next morning.

You grab the last item on your list just as a series of yawns hit you, making your way to the self-checkout area. You are about to scan your first item when you glance down at your cart, noticing you’ve managed to forget the oat milk again.

“Fucking…” you murmur under your breath, dropping your pack of tampons back into the cart and spinning on your heel, heading towards the back of the store to quickly grab the milk.

You’re almost back to your cart when you hit a wet spot on the floor, slipping in a dramatic, banana peel comedy sketch moment, falling hard on your back, managing to catch the back of your head with your hand before it collides with the linoleum floor.

The oat milk cartons in your hands crash to the floor, one of them starting to leak out in a milky puddle next to you.

Suddenly a masked face appears over you, white cloth covering most of his features, dark eyes holding a confused look. You are breathing heavily and blink a couple times to clear your vision.

“Yo…are you okay?” comes a loud and worried voice, holding a hand out in an offer of help.

You feel a little light headed but accept the hand anyways, allowing yourself to sit up and meet the eyes of the young man now crouching next to you on the wet floor.

“Uh yeah…yeah…the floor was we-” your speech is cut off suddenly as he pulls down his mask, shaking dark hair from his eyes and making eye contact with you again.

Kneeling in a puddle of rainwater and oat milk was none other than the man whose DMs you had monopolized for the past few years and the name you had moaned late at night with your hand shoved under your covers. It was the face you had studied countless times in high resolution photos from the airport posted on Twitter, a face that you had memorized down to the prominent mole on his cheek and the curves of his shining white teeth. Mark Lee had just watched you bite it on the floor of the grocery store right before closing.

You can barely keep eye contact with Mark as you stand up, looking down to see damp pants and your shirt rumpled. Embarrassed, you thank him under your breath, reaching down to pick up the milk cartons and tossing them in a nearby trash can. You quickly begin scanning the items from your cart with shaky hands, placing them in your tote bag, hoping to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Did you remember the cat treats?” he asks quietly, pushing the black hood off his head and stepping closer to you, handing you a carton of strawberries from your basket.

You lift up your gaze to meet his, mouth falling open at his question. His eyes are big and kind and he has a shy but warm expression on his face, plump pink lips settling into a pout as he finishes his question.

“You…read those messages? I’m uh…Mark…Lee…Mark Lee. I’m so sorry…” you ramble, brain scrambled and swimming with all other reasons why he could have asked that, praying that he somehow hadn’t been reading your messages all these years.

“How could I not when the cute girl from summer camp kept me informed on every little detail of her life,” he replied, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, smiling bashfully as his fingertips made contact with your now flushed cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Mark, I didn’t think there was any way you would remember me and it just kind of became a habit,” you stuttered out, scanning your last item and reaching for your wallet. You were acutely aware of how close he had gotten and silently hoped your makeup still looked good and that your hair had stayed lightly curled from yesterday’s styling. Every inch of your skin felt like it was on fire and you knew how red your neck had to be getting.

“I got it, but don’t forget the oat milk,” he offers as he scans a carton of the same brand from his own cart before swiping his card on the reader to pay for your groceries. You are once again stunned but tip your head down in a silent thanks.

“But for real, thank you for recommending this brand, it’s the best!” he laughs, scratching the back of his head awkwardly and grabbing your bags for you.

“I can’t believe you remember me,” you say quietly, a grin settling across your face as the two of you walk out of the store. His hand is brushing up against the back of yours as he keeps close to your side, popping open an umbrella to shield you from the light rain that hasn’t quite cleared yet.

“I’ve thought about you a lot over the years, but also know our lives took us in different directions. But I always hoped you were supporting me from a distance,” he replies candidly, tapping into his phone before handing it to you with an open contact card screen.

“Now, can you please give me your number so I can call you and we can go on a real date that doesn’t involve you laying a puddle of milk?”

“Hey, maybe that’s my idea of a perfect first date!” you laugh out, quickly adding yourself as a contact in his phone before handing it back to him. Your heart is pounding as your fingers brush against his, unable to believe that this is happening. You half expect to sit up in your bed any moment, thinking that all the videos you studied about lucid dreaming must have finally paid off.

He chuckles, closing the umbrella as the rain comes to a stop at the most picture perfect moment. The air smelled fresh in the post storm haze, fog settling lightly around you amongst flickering streetlights and the hum of city sounds. He reaches back to pull his hood up, covering dark and piecey short hair, hanging perfectly at the sides of his forehead. Whenever he turns his head, you catch a glimpse of an intricate pattern buzzed into the shorter sides, exposing flashes of his scalp in contrast to his dark hair.

Your eyes trail down his face and take in his full frame for the first moment since you first encountered him in the store. He’s broader than you had imagined, your height difference the same as when you had known him as a kid, but his arms look strong and tight jeans leaving little to the imagination. His face is bare but immaculate, brows perfectly coiffed and lips plump and moisturized.

He clears his throat lightly at you ogling him and you meet his sparkling eyes again as he sits your bags gently on the ground next to him, placing a tentative hand on your lower back.

“Yes?” you ask teasingly, batting your eyelashes a little for good measure, suddenly feeling confidence bloom within you. He sighs before speaking again and you feel the tension and nervousness between the two of you start to melt away.

“Ever since you sent me those videos on Halloween, I’ve been having to stop myself from sliding into your DMs like some sleazy asshole,” he mutters, voice suddenly lower and strained as his pinky finger brushes up against yours, linking with it and swinging lightly.

You knit your eyebrows together in confusion, trying to think back to what videos he could be talking about. Hazy memories of your drunken night out to multiple bars and house parties start flooding in as you begin to remember what you wore that night.

Golden fabric and black strappy laces from below your navel up to your neck flash in your mind and you suddenly remember your cheetah costume that was less than safe for work. Those heels went straight in the trash when you got home because while they made your legs look amazing, they gave you the worst blisters of your entire life.

“...I did not send you videos that night,” you start cautiously, placing a hand on his chest to ground yourself. You are trying to force the memories forward but all you can think of is the countless shots you took with your friend and some sloppy make out sessions on the dance floor.

He chuckles, nodding silently and letting his forehead fall towards yours, pressing against yours tenderly. It did bring you comfort but also made your heart skip a beat.

“I am…mortified,” you sigh, blinking up at him from the awkward angle.

“Don’t be, you looked fucking hot,” he breathes out, warm breath minty and fanning out across your lips.

His lips are on yours seconds later, hand sliding down towards your ass and pulling you closer into him. He breaks away from you, inches from your lips, checking your face for any sign of discomfort, only to find lust laden, hooded eyes blinking rapidly.

You surge forward to capture his lips again, bringing your hand up to his neck and digging your nails into the skin there. His tongue presses against your lips eagerly and you give him access instantly, a soft whine buzzing against his mouth. You lose all concept of time and space, forgetting you are standing on the empty downtown streets in front of the market, in the arms of one of the most famous musicians in the world.

You break away first, having to calm your breathing pattern and releasing the material you were gripping on his chest.

He chuckles and slides his hand up your back, massaging your shoulder lightly through your raincoat. He’s so much more gentle and tender than you could have ever imagined and you struggle to maintain eye contact with him.

“I can’t believe all I had to do was buy a carton of oat milk to finally kiss my first crush after all these years,” he laughs out, leaning in to gently nuzzle at your hair.

“Do you need me to add anything to our grocery list? You know, it’s almost been two years since we started it, I think,” Mark laughed out a little loudly, despite being close to your ear in Taeyong’s crowded apartment.

“Wait, I thought you two just moved in together recently?” Jaemin cackles, taking a long sip of beer. You didn’t realize he was eavesdropping on your conversation, assuming he had been too focused on Jeno’s karaoke performance happening in the center of the room.

You dip your head down, embarrassed by the fact that Mark’s closest friends still didn’t know the full details of your reunion and start of your relationship. You had sworn him to secrecy, telling him he could fill them in on the past camp days and make up some story about how the two of you had met at an art gallery opening.

“Oh Jaem, haven’t you heard of our adorable meet cute?” Mark asks mischievously, nudging your knee with his and dragging his lips over your ear. His eyes tell you everything, just as they always had, just like when you first met.

“Oh do tell,” he gushed, letting his chin drop into his hand with his elbow propped up on his crossed legs. He tapped his cheek with his fingers, wiggling his eyebrows at the two of you.

While you refused to let Mark share the story of years of grocery lists and your fall at the market check out, you did let him share how he asked you to move in with him a few months prior.

On a normal Friday morning you had pulled open the fridge, reaching in without looking, and feeling your hand brush against an unfamiliar piece of paper on the oat milk.

A watermelon shaped post-it note (that had seemingly been “borrowed” from your desk) was taped to the front of the carton with hurried handwriting in a statement that made your heart flutter.

I hate this distance and I hate singing broken melodies. Move in with me <3

The carton almost slips from your fingers but you manage to catch it and pour some with a shaky hand into your waiting tumbler.

Pulling your phone from your jeans pocket, you lean your back against the counter, petting your cat’s head as she emerges from her favorite spot behind the toaster oven.

Opening Instagram, you tap into your conversation, adding a to do list in the same format you usually used for your grocery lists.

To Do List: Help my new roommate pick out more comfortable pillows for the bed -.-

Typing bubbles appear almost immediately, and a string of sappy emojis and voice notes start flooding in from Mark.

It’s still surreal to see replies from the message thread that had been one-sided for so long. You still message in Instagram from time to time, finding comfort in the space, despite spending hours on the phone each day and being in almost constant contact via other messaging apps.

A knock at your door pulls your attention and you have to dab your eyes with the back of your hand where tears have pricked up. A couple large boxes are waiting outside your door and you drag them inside before snapping a picture to send to Mark. You had planned a camping trip for later in the summer, looking forward to reliving those muggy summer nights spent chasing fireflies, spending your days reading in a hammock and falling even deeper in love with the boy who first made you feel special all those years ago.

#nct x reader #mark lee fanfic #mark lee x reader #mark lee #nct dream x reader #nct dream fanfic #serenity wrote something nice and angst free for once #are you proud #serenity’s love letter to markfs

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ideas-4-stories · 24 days

Note

Cross Guild AU Romance Prompt: Mermaid Shifter AU where devil fruit users can still swim, everyone can shift into their mermaid or man form. Buggy is part of a pod with his crew and they live together in this wonderful reef. They all have these wonderful tails that fit their personalities, while Buggy's is extra special in that his is this bright white with these pearly scales and fins that no one else has. Yet his is not the rarest tail, the rarest tails are the black tails, and they belong to Mihawk and Crocodile, who live in the shadowy area beyond Buggy's reef. They guard everyone in Buggy's reef, but stay aloof and distant. No one goes near Mihawk and Crocodile's shadowy territory. One day Buggy hears a commotion or sees something off in the shadowy territory. Against his better judgement, Buggy swims to the area and is horrified when he sees Mihawk and Crocodile in a life and death struggle with a wicked looking sea creature, like a sea king or a kracken. Mihawk is fighting hard but Crocodile's hurt. With bravery he didn't even know he had, Buggy joins the fight and actually feeds one of his muggy balls to the creature and blows it up. He gets knocked out cold in the process. When he wakes up, he'd in the dark castle like reef Mihawk and Crocodile call home. The moment Buggy is coherent, his only concern is Mihawk and Crocodile, seeing to their wounds and even swimming out to get specially sea plants and anemones known for their healing properties. Mihawk and Crocodile are stunned when Buggy comes back with his arms full and sets about grinding up everything and treating them with tenderness they've never ever experienced before. This little red nosed white tail captured the hearts of Mihawk with his black and red tail and Crocodile with his black and purple tail and they mean to keep him. Mihawk and Crocodile try to intimidate Buggy, only for Buggy to yank them both with him out of their shadowy reef to his vibrant, colorful one, first for lunch, then the next day for dinner, then again and again until Mihawk and Crocodile are no longer the distant guardians in the shadows, but Buggy's badass mates.

Mermaid Shifter AU is quite interesting, I like that everyone has tails that match their personalities. I wonder types of tails that Cabaji, Mohji, Alvida, Galdino, and Daz have… OH! Richie can be a catfish or lionfish I don’t know.

Question, Mihawk and Crocodile has other colors on their tail, does Buggy have colors other than white?

I like to think Buggy having a clownfish-style tail, that’s probably from all the times in the past that I’ve seen Buggy being a mermaid and he had a clownfish-style tail and stuff. There are clownfish that are mostly white with tips being orange and/or black.

Is the shadowy part of the reef like Kuraigana Island? I really hope so, does that mean there’s fruitwanis or animals much like the humandrills there?

I’m just have so many ideas running through my head. Anyway, Buggy helping Crocodile and Mihawk fight off the kracken (I don’t why I like that better as the enemy) When you wrote ‘actaully feeds one of his muggy balls to the creature’ all I can imagine is Buggy shoving it down it’s throat and didn’t get out of the way in time.

Buggy waking up and only thinking about Mihawk and Crocodile (My heart! So cute and sweet!) I feel like he’s ignoring his own wounds, swimming out to grab the healing plants (probably went out with a gasp or something that makes Crocodile and Mihawk thinking he wouldn’t come back, BUT HE DID COME BACK!) Buggy coming back, treating them with such tenderness that both wouldn’t think of (MY HEART!)

Not the two trying to intimidate Buggy, as soon as both know they want him! Good for Buggy to yank them back to his reef. Buggy must of been quite scared but Mihawk and Crocodile need doctors help to make sure those wounds don’t get infected. Then going out for lunch, then the next day for dinner, what about the day after breakfast?

That must of been a shock for everyone, I see their faces now.

I feel like the shadowy reef would be added into Buggy’s domain now as how the colorful reef is now apart of Crocodile and Mihawk’s domain. Afterall they are mates in the end.

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bobamilkk · 2 months

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Silly lil swap au!!! Steven’s mom is white diamond and the og 3 homeworld gems are the crystal gems!! Greg’s still his dad and most of early season one would be pretty much the same but with a more dysfunctional found family cuz they’re silly like that. The og crystal gems are now villains to be redeemed but in like. Slightly different ways idk man- With the diamonds it’s Pink in White’s place and then blue plays a bit more of an aggressive role than yellow does

-Jasper is the first time he sees a gem poof. It’s similar to the pearl episode but it’s a robot Peridot made instead of a pearl hologram- She gets frustrated with Steven not taking his battle training seriously and gets punched straight in the face because of it. She doesn’t stay in her gem nearly as long as pearl does and Peridot actually helps him when this weird lil robot keeps trying to fight him- The only reason Jasper doesn’t come back in a few hours is cuz she’s embarrassed she got poofed me thinks

-Sapphire comes to earth to use her future vision to see the status of the cluster and properly check on it- She has her group of 3 rubys with her and they manage to poof Jasper in the same manner of Garnet getting poofed by Jasper in canon. Ship chaos happens and Jasper manages to poof 2 of 3 rubies while the last one escapes in the escape pod with Sapphire. Steven bubbles the rubies cuz he’s silly like that and wants to make sure they’re going to be ok

-cue a couple fights later and Jasper gets frustrated that she’s lost a few battles to a lone ruby and a sapphire of all gems and starts pushing the other gems away and preventing them from fighting with her- She goes to attack Sapphire while Ruby’s catching her breath since she’s seemingly defenseless but Ruby jumps in and they fuse and sit there having a panic attack. Jasper stands there in shock for a moment cuz she’s not entirely used to fusion either before going to attack again-Only for Steven to jump in the way and save them

-Ruby’s getting stressed over the cluster and pacing in the barn so Lapis recommends Steven goes to show them what it’s like on earth-Cue Sapphire and Ruby slowly realizing they love each other. Also the frog. Steven shows them what a frog is and Ruby excitedly shows it to Sapphire. Gay people-They don’t fuse as often but like. By future they’re permanently fused?? But for the majority of the main series they only fuse when needed

-Amethyst comes to earth to collect Sapphire!! She has her limb enhancers to make up for her height n stuff- Idk how the baseball episode parallels will work but. They’re there. Somehow!! Garnet also gets to fuse to hide Sapphire since Amethyst wouldn’t expect a fusion idk anymore

-garnet somehow manages to poof Amethyst in her panic and Steven unbubbles her because he’s curious about her limb enhancers and peridot won’t tell her because she’s scared of him knowing too much about homeworld. She traps herself in the bathroom peridot style until Steven manages to make her realize she’s safe here and the cluster is bubbled and she’s allowed to be herself and doesn’t have to be afraid of being shattered for being defective if she messes up even slightly. She gets her peridot arc or smthn

-Greg gets taken to the human zoo like in canon but Pearls there with Holly Blue Agate to watch over the humans and their growth. She was sent there after white was shattered as punishment for failing her diamond and it’s seriously messed her up- She does see them being free tho and helps them escape with Greg without thinking- Steven offers for her to tag along and she hesitates until Holly Agate comes along and she immediately jumps in the ship

-Pearl watches Steven sleep like in canon but it’s. Creepier. It’s habit from the human zoo but she starts to investigate his gem in the process and realizes it’s her diamond aka white. She goes to remove the gem to free her diamond back-Maybe get her status back by having white back-Desperation type beat- only to wake Steven who panics and pushes her away- She panics massively and starts sobbing and calling him her diamond

-Instead of the loud distraction yell of “She’s Gone” from pink Steven- Steven accidentally mind controls pink for a split second and it makes them both tumble back- I don’t know fully how this scene would work tbh I gotta brainstorm more but. Ik white diamond Steven has a different set of powers than canon Steven- He’s got whites mind control powers n shit

-Bismuth takes the role of Spinel in the movie!! Not in the same abandoned sense but in a “you ruined our perfect plan” and wants to kill him for it whether her diamond wants her to or not- she’s silly like that!! She resets the gems like Spinel does and Jasper signs her life to Greg like pearl does- She carries him around n is super protective of him. Ma’am’s ready to kill someone on sight for Greg-

-Post-Corrupted Steven gets silly lil corrupted traits still. 1) his gem is flipped so it’s like a horn now 2) he’s got silly lil underbite fangs 3) spikes on his shoulders so his jacket is tied around his waist so it doesn’t get ripped 4) he’s like. Extra extra tired all the time someone save him

You should send me asks about the au it’d be so sexy of you /j

#Steven universe #steven universe au #steven universe swap au #steven universe fanart #Oliver was here #info dump

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jakesullysleftnipple · 2 months

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Why So blue?//Mission With Miles continuation//

Miles Quaritch finally sees your new Na'vi body

a/n: So sorry for this coming out so late. It's a little hard trying to write avatar fanfic since my fixations keep changing but a promise is a promise!

Weeks have passed since the mission you had with Miles and his team. Since then you and him haven’t seen each other often. Aside from casual heys and team meetings you guys practically never talked. With the newfound information about the Na’vi base, he was busy coming up with a plan to storm it. Once General Admore heard of the location that was all she wanted to focus on. Getting Miles and his team back out there and “passive the hostels”. But thanks to you it took longer to make a plan. Your words and how you viewed this vast and dangerous world gave him second thoughts about this mission. He constantly tweaked the plan or held off planning altogether. Not everyone noticed but people close to him like you and Lyle did. Speaking of you, today was a very big day for you. Today was the day your avatar was finally ready for you to link with.

You were standing near your avatar in its chamber. Pressing your palm against the cold glass tube, wanting to feel closer to this new version of yourself. As your human body stood there watching intently, The Na’vi you were still in deep sleep. It was insane how they managed to capture your looks so well, the way your eyes were shaped, the way your hair was, hell even down to the body shape. The major differences are the blue color, the size, and the tail. You were enthralled by your Na’vi, how different yet familiar you looked. You’ve dreamed of this day, the day you could roam this vast planet as one of them and now that dream has become a reality.

“Alright, it’s time to get you set up. Ready to link with your avatar?

It was Max, another one of your good friends. Since you and he study in a similar field of work you were always rambling to each other about work. You haven't seen him in a while too, he’d go on frequent trips to Pandora with the other scientists to study the plants, animals, and Na’vi if they came in contact with them. His words broke you out of your train of thought. You whipped your head around being met with a kind smile, of course, you were ready.

“Yes, I am.”

You say confidently as you pull yourself away from the glass chamber and follow after Max. Even though you were excited you were just as nervous. Your nerves make your body tense and your breathing grows shallow. It wasn’t a busy day at the base today, hallways were crowded with people due to frequent scouting missions lately. Within a few minutes, you both arrive at your designated linking pod. Max gave a quick rundown of what to expect and what you should do during your time in the pod. It didn’t take long for you to get set up, you loved watching your coworkers link up so you were very familiar with the process. As he talked you through it you started to climb into the pod, the softness of the foam comforting and helping relax your nerves. Now it was time for the process to begin, Max carefully laid you down in your pod and made small adjustments to make sure you were comfortable. Nervousness was written all over your face, clear as day to anyone.

“No need to be nervous, the linking process is not painful at all. When you wake up in your new body it will feel very different so go slow when it comes to moving. Other than that you’ll be okay.’’

He reassured you while placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. You knew this already but hearing it from someone else made you calm down more. You and Max give each other one last smile before he begins the linking process and closes you in your pod. Now you were alone. Just you and the many thoughts that circled your thoughts. As you lay there your heart pounded, the sound loud enough for you to hear and not just feel it shake your being. Now wasn’t the time for that, now was the time to relax and transfer your mind into your new body. So you closed your eyes and took some deep breaths while thinking of things that relaxed you, Pandora's life. As quick as your nervousness came it left as your mind transported your mind to Pandora. You could feel the warmth of its sunbeam on you, the softness of the grass brushing against your body, the sounds of nearby creatures moving through the trees and ground. It was like you were there again. Your heart no longer raced and the only thoughts on your mind were the ones of Pandora. You craved that life again, even if it was for a few moments. Without warning your mind went blank. You felt nothing, you thought of nothing, and for a brief moment, you were nothing but a conscience. Then bright fluorescent lights stained your site. You wanted to get up and cover your eyes from these painfully bright lights but your body was so heavy, like you had sleep paralysis. Slowly your vision came back to you, the bright lights getting no softer as you slowly became aware of your surroundings. Sounds of people running back and forth now filled your ears. It was hard to make out what they were saying and see them, hell you weren’t even sure what was happening. Max told you before you went under that it was normal to not remember what was happening but that too slipped your mind. You were just focused on moving. Right as you tried to pull yourself off the medical bed someone placed their hand on your chest and held you down.

“Stay down for a sec, they need to do some motor function checks.”

Who said that? You asked yourself as your face scrunched up still trying to adjust to the light. From the feeling of their hand, they were not a human. Your first instinct was to shove them back and move anyway but your vision finally got clear when you noticed it was Lyle, your best friend. He was busy looking at something else in the room but still, he held you down. Then 2 more nurses came up to you and started to run some small tests. Seeing how your eyes reacted to light, how your fingers moved, how your ears reacted to sound, and a few more things. Once you were aware of everything you laid back down and just let them do their job. The heaviness of your body dissolved the more you became aware of your body. Your new body felt so different, even though you were several feet larger you felt lighter.

“Alright now let's get you up.”

Both nurses help pull you up from your lying position in bed so you can start some training. As you sat up you finally got to see what your body looked like up close. It felt unreal to be a Na’vi, you couldn’t help but admire your new features. If it wasn’t for the nurses guiding you upward you would’ve sat there longer just to look at yourself. It was necessary to do a bit of training before you were allowed to continue with your day. Lyle gave you a few words of encouragement for your training before he too had to go off.

“Wish I could stay to help but Miles needs me again, see ya later!”

Oh shit Miles! You thought to yourself almost forgetting about him. Since he was always ducked away in his office it was so easy to forget about him and every time he was brought back to your attention you couldn’t shake the thought of him. Thankfully you had to train so hopefully that could distract you a bit. Alongside this new form, new clothes were made for you. Every Na’vi recom could pick So for the next few hours, you trained your body and explored the outside facility. You were getting used to your new instincts like your eagle eye vision and your newfound flexibility. It was fantastic! You felt so alive and now with your new Na’vi form, you can finally get the full Pandora experience. Just the thought of it made your ears perk and your tail twitch. You were thrilled to be in your new body, you were thrilled for all the new things you could experience like bonding with creatures. It wasn’t long after the training that you got back to work inside, most of your equipment was too small to handle so you helped out elsewhere. For the most part, you hung around Max, telling him about all the cool things you could do. He enjoyed having you company as he worked on his assignments. It was nice sharing a conversation with someone who had the same passion as pandora as you did. Most people here were only focus on money or any excuse to escape Earth, it was rare to find anyone here who wanted to work here for none selfish-ish reasons.

“Hope I ain’t bothering anything but Miles needs you for a bit.”

Lyle butted his head into your conversation with Max to tell you that. He gave your shoulders a firm squeeze before dragging you off.

“Hey!- ugh, see you later Max!”

You shouted to him before Lyle pulled you in front of him and nudged you off. Lyle seemed to also be happy that you were Na’vi now. The grin on his face still ide like when you transferred into your new body. He kept shoving you down the hall like it was urgent.

“Why does that old fart need me? I thought he was busy with the general again and stop pushing me damnit!”

“Alrighttt. I don’t know why, might be to look over the information you two gathered on the mission. All he said was to bring you in quick while he was rummaging through papers.”

He pulled back from you and crossed his arms, letting out a small sigh as he continued to walk alongside you. Even in your Na’vi you still came up a little shorter than him, only by a foot or so. As you both walked he talked about the mission Miles and the general were plannin. He said they didn’t have an exact plan yet due to last-minute changes and uncertainty from him. You too found it weird but one of the last statements was how you changed him. Enough to start him on the path of thinking logically when it came to his harsh actions. You didn’t think much of it until Lyle brought it up to you. Once you both made it there Lyle patted you on the back and wished you luck as he went off elsewhere.

“For a soldier, he is a bit strange.”

You mumbled to yourself as you headed into his office, first, you knocked but he didn’t answer so you just walked in after a few moments of waiting. And there he was. Not paying attention to anything else but the papers in front of him. He was hunched over his work like his life depended on it. He brushed his fingers through his short hair and he grumbled incoherent words under his breath. He glanced up quickly, only catching the bottom half of you. He assumed you were one of the other recom members. He smacked his teeth and with a deep sigh, he spoke.

“You’re not who I asked for, excuse yourself and get who asked you to get, and stop wasting my time.”

His voice was strong and demanding, it was clear that he was aggravated and stressed. Just then you closed the door behind you and walked up to his desk. Your tail whipped with curiosity as you watched him look over and over the files.

“We haven’t seen each other for a while and that's how you speak to me? Wowwww.”

He says with sarcasm written all over your voice and face. You threw your hands up and turned away from him. As soon as you spoke he stopped everything, the papers he had slipping out of his hand and onto the desk. His eyes finally meet your figure. His ears narrowed as he looked at you. That was when you turned back to him. A sly smile on your face as your tail moved quicker. It was hard to hide your emotions with your new body, you looked like a cat ready to pounce. Once he figured out who it truly was he too couldn’t hide his excitement. He stood up from where he sat at his desk and walked over to you. His hands held his hips as he waltzed up to you, that sly smile he always wore on his face. Even in your new form, he was still roughly a foot taller than you.

“Well look at you buttercup...You're just as eye-catching as you were in your human body…”

“Thank you, sir, probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me pfft.”

You both laugh a bit before Miles gently grabs your chin and examines your face. His tail slowly swayed as his low-set yellow eyes took in every inch of your face. You and him have grown fond of each other's physical touch so you didn’t stray from his touch. He stood still as he took your presence. His eyes longed for you, it had been a while since the both of you had been alone. He took one step closer to you and pulled you into a kiss. A deep sigh of relief escaped his lungs as his lips pressed firmly against yours. You were a little surprised but kissed him back, leaning closer to him as he did the same. You let your hands rest on his chest while his other hand held your lower back, not wanting you to move just yet. His tail like many times before wrapped around your leg as he continued the kiss a few moments longer. Finally, you both pull back, just looking at each other in comforting silence. He smiled at you, the tension and stress melting away thanks to you.

“Hm..That’s what I needed…But since you are here, I could use your help.”

He nodded and let him lead you to his desk. He sat down in his chair and had you sit across his lap. Before he got back to work he couldn’t help but yo admire you, he looked at you with the same look in his eyes when you were in your human body. No matter what form you were in he still found you captivating. He wasn’t big on expressing things like that verbally but he could physically. While he worked and explained some of the details to you, you brushed your fingers against his short hair and he kept his arm around you. That's why he needed you, he didn’t want you to work or run errands. He wanted your presence again, he needed it. And now you were here to do so.

#miles quaritch #avatar miles quaritch #atwow fanfiction #atwow #avatar the way of water #avatar twow #quaritch miles #atwow x reader #avatar 2022 #miles quaritch fanfiction

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vi-enti · 10 months

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school’s over so back on the fanfic grind (a grind i have not openly shared on the internet since like. 2018), unsure if this is an idea to continue but i am thinking so hard... about the difficulties of the healing process. really gotta purge that poison

. . .

“Hello, this is… Hajime Hinata. The date is… I have no idea what the date is. It’s been 14 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes and 24 seconds since we woke up from the Neo World Program.”

“…I don’t know why I said it like that. It’s been about two weeks.”

“Uhh… I’m not sure what to say here, really. Naegi—Makoto, that is—told me this would be a good way to get my thoughts down. That way if there’s anything I forget, or anything I want everyone to know after… Well, I don’t think I can really forget anything. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could.”

“Sorry there are so many quiet gaps. I’m trying to think about what I want to say... I guess I’ll start with the facts, and we can go from there. I was the first person to wake up, and then Sonia. Kazuichi took a few hours longer, he was so… his limbs were so scarred. I could barely tell the healthy tissue apart from all of the burns and cuts. When he got out, he just kept screaming and crying, he just kept—“

“Akane was next, but she was barely a shell, too weak, so Makoto put her back under for a few more days before waking her up. She wasn’t in the pod though, we—they moved her to a hospital bed in a different room. This facility really has everything. You wouldn’t believe the scale of the medical equipment, Tsumiki would love it—“

“Basically, Akane woke up a week after Kazuichi, technically, and then we put her into a medical coma for a while. We as in… I didn’t do that. I mean, I did, but it didn’t feel like me.”

“Actually, I never feel like… me. I don’t know who me is supposed to be now. I’m still him—I mean, I’m still me—but I’m not me— fuck, this doesn’t make any fucking sense, I just can’t— Sonia, don’t touch me—“

“…”

“…I want my mom. I don’t remember the last time I wanted my mom. I don’t even… remember my mom, anymore.”

“…Patient 5, Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko. We plan to wake him from his induced medical coma today, following complications from his enucleation operation directly after awakening from pod sleep. There was an infection at the area of operation and I deemed it too dangerous to continue until it was cleared. Naegi had some objections, but his background is not medical, and does not always need to be taken into account. Patient 4 will simply have to wait.”

“He still has the damn thing.”

“…they all do.”

“Alter Ego, end recording.” Hajime slumped back against his chair, bringing a hand up to push his hair back. It was a newly acquired habit, one always accompanied by the feeling of missing something, like there wasn’t enough hair to run through his fingers. He hated it. Hated thinking that it wasn’t newly acquired at all, that whoever he was in the past few years did it all the time.

That hadn’t gone nearly as well as he’d liked. These voice diaries were supposed to be records so they could explain things easier to the others once they all woke up, something to jog their memories. Privately, he was sure that Makoto had asked him to make them more for his own sake, as if they’d help somehow with all of the different thoughts running through his brain all of the time. If he spoke them out loud, then somehow they’d disappear. It was the compromise they’d settled on after Hajime had refused to attend Future Foundation-provided therapy. Most of the time they turned out exactly like this, not suitable for anyone’s ears except his own.

Makoto was an idiot. Talking about it wasn’t going to stop the constant streams of thought in his brain, analyzing every thing and every action around him, picking apart the movements of his friends and their slight changes in tone, detecting every potential threat and every potential weapon for killing someone—fuck.

He was so tired of dreaming up all the ways people could die. His rare moments of sleep were already haunted by spears and giant Tetris blocks, by fire and poison and terrified faces. He didn’t need more deaths on his mind, constant echoes of terrors of his own creation.

Sitting up properly, he stretched his arms out before standing up to examine his half of the room. At least two people kept watch in the pod room at all times, waiting for anyone to wake up next and making sure nobody died. It reminded him of the hospital in the simulation, someone always watching over Akane and Ibuki and—

An alarm beeped and Sonia, on the other end of the room, startled awake in her own chair. She had stayed on that side after Hajime shoved her away earlier, eventually drifting to sleep by Gundham’s pod. It was the one she stared at the most, blue eyes alight with grief and fury, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She was better off than Hajime, at least. One of his eyes stayed empty. Makoto had warned him that she shouldn’t be allowed to spend so much time with Gundham, but he could never bring himself to pull her away. Clearing his throat, he waited for the former princess to look up towards him.

“Shift change. You should go sleep in an actual bed, I can wait for Kazuichi and Makoto if you want to go on ahead.” She shook her head, fingers trailing over the glass coffin holding the Ultimate Breeder.

“No, that’s alright. You’ve been here long enough, you need to rest before Fuyuhiko. It’s only a few more hours away. Besides, I…” Sonia trailed off, gaze shifting to the pod next to Gundham’s, covered with a sheet. Everyone had to be checked on, but there was just one person Hajime couldn’t stand to see. The only person in the room that caused his dead eye to come to life.

He couldn’t identify the emotion, but it had to be hate. It had to be, right?

At least he knew he wouldn’t be judged for it. Everyone had someone they couldn’t look at in this room, couldn’t face directly. Hajime was just the only one weak enough to require a sheet covering the pod. The only one who couldn’t be controlled if he had a fit of anger, or worse—one of despair.

Swallowing back bile, he nodded, making a quick exit from the room to the quarters right next door. A large room had been set up with beds and necessities for them, the six that were here and constantly switching out. Kyoko had suggested separate rooms, but after multiple nights of Kazuichi sneaking into his room or Sonia screaming in her sleep from across the hall, Hajime had fought for them to all be together. Makoto, almost with a child-like excitement, had insisted that he, Kyoko, and Aoi stay there too.

The lucky student in question had been sitting on the floor cross-legged when he walked in, laptop resting on a knee while he glared down at the screen. A glare from Makoto wasn’t usually all that effective, but whatever he was seeing seemed to be genuinely pissing him off. If Hajime had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have bothered disturbing the younger. Still, someone had to go fill in for him with Sonia until Kazuichi took over for her. The mechanic was nowhere to be seen—probably sitting at Akane’s bedside, as usual. Tapping Makoto gently on the shoulder, Hajime waited for him to look up from the email he had been so focused on.

“Oh, you’re back! Has it been six hours already? I didn’t even notice.” It wasn’t a long time to spend watching the pods, but Aoi had insisted. They had three pairs switching out, and she didn’t want anyone spending more time in the pod room than they did outside of it, in the fresh air and the real world—or so she said. Hajime was sure it had more to do with her growing concern for the five of them, Kyoko and Makoto included. While they hadn’t been in the program nearly as long, they still seemed just a bit too pale to her. As for himself, Sonia, and Kazuichi… Aoi had never known them before, but worried nonetheless about irreparable damage.

“Yes, I’m back. Will you find Kazuichi and tag Sonia out? She’s just finishing check-ups.” The shorter nodded, shutting his laptop and standing from his seat on the floor. “Everything alright?”

“It’s just Byakuya, he’s facing some problems bringing the medical equipment we need over to the island. The Future Foundation doesn’t see the need to care for some of the pre-existing conditions your class has, they’re just barely allotting enough supplies for taking care of the… last bits of Junko. It’s like you aren’t even humans to them, they just have no empathy!” Makoto rubbed his temples, forcing a weak smile onto his face. It hadn’t escaped Hajime that the bright-eyed boy that they had met in the final trial and the tired man before him right now seemed so far apart from each other. Because of us—because of me.

“We aren’t human to them.” He placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to offer some comfort. “But we are to you. You’re the best of them, Makoto. I know you’ll work things out.” The younger’s smile twisted, not exactly happy, and he nodded in response.

“Right. The Ultimate Hope, that’s me. I have to be able to fix this.” Hajime raised an eyebrow, not meaning that at all, but Makoto was already walking out of the room to take over watch duties. That had gone… stunningly bad. Whatever part of his soul had been able to produce hope for the others in the Neo World Program had been hiding, his mind and body too used to the actions and words of another. Another who had no idea how to give someone hope for the future, much less comfort someone just the slightest bit. All Hajime seemed to be good at these days was making things worse.

A warmth squeezed around his hand, like someone urging him to stop thinking, and he yanked it away from—from nothing. There was nobody there. He just needed to get some rest before Fuyuhiko’s surgery today.

Two beds remained empty, waiting for their last members. Akane was awake, but still too weak to leave her hospital bed, and Fuyuhiko would join them today. Hopefully. Sitting on his own perfectly made bed, he wondered if all of the remnants would end up sharing a room for the rest of time. The three of them awake so far had their nightmares, some worse than others, and it was impossible to imagine the rest being able to sleep easy after all that had happened. It was too easy to imagine everyone around the room, as if their spaces were already there waiting for them. Glancing around, Hajime could imagine each and every one of them smiling at him, if he could just bring them all back, if he could just wake them up.

A flash of pink and white hair danced at the corner of his eyes, a gentle smile and a false one, and he slammed his head down on the bed, covering his vision with a pillow. Sleep now, hypotheticals later. Hypotheticals that could never, ever be reality anyways. It was dangerous to get lost in thoughts of a happy ending.

He didn’t deserve an ending just yet. There was too much to fix.

#me and my fucking em dashes #anyways i'm just sharing this to see if it's?? interesting??#i've been writing hella fanfic but i'm always very hesitant to put it on the internet #but i've had soOoOOo many worms lately thinking about facing trauma and healing relationships and how that process is just so bumpy #i have a whole lot more that isn't hajime pov but this is all i'm sharing ATM #i just really want to put these folks in therapy. and that begins at the beginning!#moon babbles #danganronpa #i GUESS #cw surgery #cw medical #just in case #hajime hinata #sonia nevermind #makoto naegi #dr2 #moon writings

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petracozbi · 2 months

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What if Branch is just like, really fu€k!ng strong??

No but, hear me out. Branch essentially spent two decades isolated, surviving in the wilderness and digging a giant underground bunker, you can’t tell me he didn’t gain some insane amounts of muscle mass from that?? (Not to talk about durability, speed and endurance!)

I have a headcanon, that Branch gained an absurd amount of muscle during the two decades he spent in isolation; not only from building the bunker, but from hunting critters (as I could see him turning to eating meat, since sweets probably wouldn’t be accessible in the forest), them often being at least twice his size, and he’d probably get way more protein than the other trolls that way. I could also see him chasing off predators that were nearing pop village, and when intimidating them weren’t enough, he’d get into physical confrontations, so he’d probably also have some pretty gnarly scarring.

Him sometimes getting around the forest, akin to Tarzan, is also something I’ve been considering a possibility as well. That would certainly add on to the list of reasons why Branch is very physically adept in my headcanon.

Even better if Branch has kind of a sleeper built; maybe he’s even a little shorter than the average troll, from having his growth stunted when he first was on his own, and not as experienced with obtaining his own food. I could also see him being furrier than the other trolls, because of having to keep warm during harsh winters, etc., so people might not even be able to notice his muscle definition unless they physically grabbed onto him, and I don’t think he’d willingly let someone do that (maybe with the exception of Poppy).

———

Now imagine this, Brozone slowly figuring out through random daily events, that their little brother just might be a unit:

• One of the bros (Probably Bruce or JD), trying to wrestle Branch into a headlock to give him a noogie or a wet Willy, only for Branch to basically be an immovable force

• Branch picking up Floyd whenever he’d be too fatigued to walk, and easily moving around with him until they’d get to their destination, no matter the distance

• Branch carrying around a bunch of stuff, and when the bros offer to help, they almost collapse under the weight, totally dumbfounded as to how he’d been carrying it with almost no effort

• The bros walking around with Branch in pop village, observing how trolls would come up to him, asking for help with what the bros deem to be at least a three-troll-job, like flipping over a fallen critterbus, or help pull up a pod, that 5 other trolls were installing but struggling to hold up, and Branch basically taking on half the weight himself

• Maybe JD trying to sneak up on Branch to give him a hug-time hug, only for Branch to, on instinct, twist around and lock him in an armlock

• Them all being at a party, and as Branch dances with Poppy, he’s able to throw her into the air, way higher than what should be deemed possible

• The bros looking for Branch, only to find him coming out from the forest, dragging a giant growl-beast that he took down behind him

• Branch having a nightmare and accidentally punching the sh!t out of JD when he and the others try to wake him up

I could probably think of more, but this is what I have so far.

———

In a sadistic way, I just think it’d be funny for Brozone to constantly be hit with one wave of guilt after the other, at how much Branch had to go through on his own after they left, and being hit with the realization, that it’s no longer him needing their protection, and instead it’s Branch that’s way more capable of protecting them.

Like imagine if they all went on a trip, camping or smth like that, and a predator showed up, trying to attack them. I could see JD, Bruce and Clay telling the others to get behind them, only for Branch to surge forward and take down it down before they can even process what’s happening.

Imagine them just staring in shock and maybe a little horror, at their baby brother, covered in blood, awkwardly standing there and feeling a little unsure of what to say. He’d probably make it worse too, when trying to reassure them: “Don’t worry, it’s not my blood!” Like, Branch, no..

#trolls #trolls headcanons #trolls brozone #trolls branch #branch trolls #jd trolls #trolls clay #trolls floyd #bruce trolls #trolls poppy #my headcanons

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serenasoutherlyns · 2 months

Text

simplicity and other myths -- chapter six

“Nothing about this is simple, Casey.” Tracey took a bite of salad.

cabenovak. explicit. ao3. chapter one. chapter two. chapter three. chapter four. chapter five.

Casey woke up in an unfamiliar bed. It took a minute to figure out where she was, to remember the night before. She had dreamt of Olivia, and Alex, she was not well rested. Alex was fast asleep beside her. She looked peaceful like this, her features softened by sleep, not distressed the way Casey had often seen. She suddenly saw possibility in the woman beside her. She thought of the night before and Alex’s tearful eyes, of Alex at coffee with her slender fingers wrapped around her cup. Casey would like to know her better. She did not resent her relationship with Olivia. Olivia was just her friend, after all. Alex stirred and sniffled and fluttered open her eyes.

“Hey,” said Casey. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Alex whispered. “Sleep okay?”

“I did,” said Casey, lying.

“You wore me out,” said Alex.

“What can I say,” said Casey.

“Coffee?” Asked Alex. “I need it within ten minutes of waking up or I get nothing done all day.”

“Sure,” said Casey. Alex dragged herself out of bed and threw on some shorts and a tank top. She threw Casey a robe and headed for the kitchen.

“What do you think of me?” Asked Casey when she joined her. Alex froze for a second, processing.

“I like you, Casey,” said Alex, wavering only slightly. She left it at that.

“Likewise,” Casey replied.

“Great, glad we got that settled.” Alex pierced the coffee pod and pressed the start button.

“What did Olivia say to you?” Casey asked after a pause. She had to know what she was up against.

“She didn’t,” said Alex. She handed Casey the first cup and popped another pod in. “She froze up when I asked her what she wanted.”

“Ah,” said Casey. That was the kind of question she knew she should ask Olivia.

“So she must not want me,” said Alex. “Whatever. I’ve been rejected before.” Her words were hollow and Casey detected a bit of resentment.

“Well if she didn’t say she didn’t, I’m not sure you can assume that.”

“I asked her to choose me,” said Alex.

“I see,” said Casey. “Is that why I’m here? Are you taking me away from her?”

“No,” said Alex, “you’re commiserating.”

Casey put her coffee cup down. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” She smiled, and placed her hand on Alex’s waist. She jumped slightly at her cold fingers.

“Or something,” said Alex, taking Casey’s other hand. She took a last sip of her coffee.

---

Olivia stretched her arms above her head, which hurt. A dull ache filled her skull, and no amount of ibuprofen was doing the trick. She tried a hot bath to no avail. Casey could help, Olivia knew. She gave a great massage. But would it be worth it to call her?

The morning after the last night they had seen each other, Olivia felt a surge of panic in her chest. Simply sleeping beside Casey without sleeping with her felt too good, too right. Casey thought of her as a friend. And there was Alex, who she went to in the evening. Before anything could happen:

“When are you going to stop punishing me for the past?”

“What do we have in the present?”

“What do want? Do you even like me?”

“I’m drawn to you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You’re different, Alex.”

“Of course I’m different. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

“You have no idea either.”

“Choose me.”

Alex had put it that bluntly. It was almost begging. Olivia saw the woman she loved all those years ago in it. The woman who left her. The woman who loved her. She didn’t respond, and when Alex gave up waiting and left, Olivia realized she couldn’t. Because she knew who she would choose. And she could really use a massage.

---

“Hey Liv,” Casey said quietly when she answered the door. Olivia looked like hell. She’d sounded pathetic on the phone, and Casey had rushed over, leaving Alex confused. “It’s bad, hm.” Olivia nodded. “Go get in bed, I’ll be right there.” Casey took off her boots and coat, then went to the bathroom and grabbed the mint lotion she knew Olivia loved.

She kissed Olivia on the forehead and told her to turn over. She started with her lower back, the moved her way upwards. Olivia’s occasional hisses of pain and sighs of relief filled the room. Casey felt her relax more and more by the second. She saw Olivia’s eyes start to droop, then close, and when she felt her breathing slow down and even out, she knew she was asleep. Casey didn’t get a good sleep anyway, so she laid down and closed her eyes too. When she woke up, it was almost five o’clock. The room was lit in pinks and oranges. They should eat something, and Casey slipped out of bed to survey the fridge. Finding nothing, she called for Indian food. When it arrived, she gently stroked Olivia’s arm until she opened her eyes.

“There’s chicken tikka masala.”

“Mmm,” said Olivia.

“Feel better?” Casey asked.

“Yes, thank you so much.”

“My privilege,” said Casey, and kissed her. Olivia felt her heart jump.

---

“So, what, you’re saying you’re sleeping with Casey now?” Said Serena, accusatorially.

“I have slept with her twice,” said Alex.

“And Olivia?”

“As much as said she hates my guts.”

“Come on, I doubt that.”

“It felt like it,” said Alex. “I can’t chase after her anymore,” she said.

“So you went for the next best thing?”

“Well, don’t you think she’s attractive?”

“Sure, but,”

“I don’t need you on my case, Ser.”

---

“Woof,” said Tracey Kibre, in response to Casey’s dilemma.

“I know,” said Casey.

“Weren’t Alex and Olivia a thing?”

“Yes,” said Casey, “a few times.”

“Well do you love either of them?”

“I,” said Casey, who didn’t expect that question, “I love Olivia. But it doesn’t matter. And I’m fond of Alex.”

“What are you talking about, it’s the only thing that matters.”

“We’re just friends,” said Casey, “we’ve been clear on that since the beginning. Alex isn’t my friend at all. It’s… simpler.”

“Nothing about this is simple, Casey.” Tracey took a bite of salad.

“Olivia and I have an arrangement. I can’t mess that up.”

Things change,” said Tracey. “People, too.”

#svu #svu fanfic #cabenovak #benovak #cabenson #calex #sficx #olivia benson #casey novak

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avaixe · 1 year

Text

Bitten

*not my gif*

🧸 characters; neteyam x fem!metkayina!reader

🚫 warnings; fluff, mentions of blood, worried Neteyam, probably a lot of grammatical errors, aged up characters apart from Tuk, not proofread (sorry in advance)

❕ synopsis; you had to come back from the hunting party early as you had been bitten badly, you are treated urgently, soon after you wake up Neteyam greets you, and with the medicines going through your blood to your brain you accidentally confess something you’ve never told anyone.

This is my first story, please give any advice on how to fix up my work 🛐

————— The hunting party was going well before one of the girls had cut her arm on a piece of coral, attracting one of the Akulas roaming around. The Akula knocked people around causing many to hit into sharp rocks or clusters of coral. I immediately swam to protect her, it swam forward towards me, my heart rate beating fast as it came closer and closer I successfully stabbed my spear into it’s mouth stopping it, it then flung it’s head side to side before catching part of my torso into it’s mouth. It bit down before spitting me out, moving towards Se’ina who’s arm was still bleeding out heavily. Thankfully many of the hunters came and killed it before it could do anymore damage. The rush of adrenaline had stopped the pain from actually processing, it was only when I went up to get a breath of air that I felt the deep stabbing, looking back down into the water I examined the bite marks in the water, clenching my jaw in pain as the salt water seeped into the large wounds. I clutched my torso in pain trying to stop the bleeding desperately. Aonung had noticed my disappearance before looking up the the surface where he saw me treading the water with one hand. He swam up to see if I was ok.

“Are you alright sister?” He spoke looking at me in worry as I took deep erratic breaths trying to stop myself from giving into the pain.

I nodded my head as I screwed my face up, Aonung taking notice to my signs of pain. He then began to examine me, when going to look at my torso he moved my hand out of the way causing more blood to spill from the wounds, I felt my body go limp from the extreme blood loss, my vision going blurry as Aonung resurfaced. I saw him hazily yell to one of the hunters that he was going to take me back to Awa’atlu, right after hearing him speak he grabbed onto me, and pulled me onto his ilu. Sometime during mounting his ilu I had passed out, body limp as my brother pulled me up.

-3rd person view-

Aonung had rushed Y/N back to Awa’atlu, since they were expecting a large group of people they didn’t sign the horns, Aonung got up to the shore and hoisted Y/N up onto his shoulder, he then rushed to find his sister or his mother as either one of them could help. That’s when he saw Tsireya in the water hanging out with Kiri, Tuk and Lo’ak.

“TSIREYA!” He yelled trying to obtain her attention. She turned her head to see her brother with a body hung over his shoulder. She recognised the tattoo on the body’s left bicep that her sister decided to get for one of her birthdays, she also recognised the curly unbraided hair that fell over her head because of the way that Aonung was holding her. As she was examining her she also saw the blood that was running down her back and over Aonung’s chest. Her breath hitched as she immediately started swimming towards them. Lo’ak, Kiri and Tuk following close behind.

“What happened?” Tsireya questioned as they rushed to their Marui in hopes to find their mother or some sort of medicine for Tsireya to help use to heal her sister.

“Akula bite, Se’ina cut herself on a cluster of coral and it attracted it, I haven’t had time to actually examine her wounds properly.” Aonung said with a shaky breath as he placed Y/N on one of the mats in their pod.

Tsireya gasped as she saw the state of her older sister, she was bleeding very badly, blood poring out on both her back and her stomach. Their mother must have been nearby because she could hear the commotion going on in her marui, as she entered she was greeted with shaken kids who she moved out of the way, after seeing her daughter she rushed to the healing pod to grab supplies. While everyone was panicking Lo’ak had gone to grab his older brother who was helping his father out for the day while his best friend went out hunting.

“Bro.” Lo’ak yelled running into his family's marui.

“What?” Neteyam looked up scowling at his younger brother.

“Y/N is passed out she got bitten out hunting.” He spoke rushing to pull his brother off his feet and out of the pod. Neteyam happily obliged, running with his brother back to where Y/N was being treated. When he got there he saw his sisters as well as Tsireya and Aonung sitting on the floor in the entrance in a small circle, Tuk sitting in Kiri’s lap for comfort.

“When is Y/N going to be better?” Tuk whined.

“Soon just have patience.” Kiri spoke as she smiled softly at Neteyam signalling him to sit next to her, Lo’ak also sat down in between Neteyam and Tsireya. The group sat in silence as they waited for any news. Ronal worked quickly on fixing her daughters deep punctures, she was soon done and waited for her eldest daughter to wake up.

Some of the people began leaving, everyone but Neteyam. The sully children went to distract their little siblings as did Tsireya after Tuk begged for her to come, Aonung was told to go help his father with duties as he was no longer hunting. Ronal told Neteyam it was ok to leave but he told her that he wanted to stay, knowing the special friendship Y/N and Neteyam had she allowed him to stay.

Neteyam sat nervously waiting and waiting until eventually he just about gave up. He got up to leave the marui pod before Ronal came out to tell him that Y/N was awake. “Would you like to see her?” She spoke softly. Neteyam whipped around and nodded. Walking over to the area where Y/N is.

-Y/N pov-

I woke up to see my mother next to me, playing with my hair, as she waited for me to wake up. I groaned as the light hit my eyes, covering them with my forearm.

“You are awake, finally.” My mom breathed out a sigh of relief next to me. “How are you feeling?” She smiled at me.

“I am alright, thank you for caring for me.” I smiled back at her while slowly sitting up. She nodded at me before walking out of the room, I heard her talking to someone in the next room but I chose to ignore it and to examine my now closer up wounds, sticky with pastes to help them heal. My ears went back as I heard someone else enter the room. Looking up I saw the man I have been in love with ever since I first saw him, he doesn’t know this though, I cannot tell him no matter how much I want to be with him. For our friendship.

He smiled at me as he saw my state. It was only a couple of months ago that I had been put in his position, he had gotten shot in the shoulder and barely survived. “Are you alright?” He spoke moving closer towards where I was lying before crouching down so I was eye level with him. In all honesty I wasn’t ok, I couldn’t even think straight, the medicines my mom had put into my wounds had began to make me loose my mind, my brain turning to mush I started thinking about my feelings towards the boy again. Looking at him with dazed eyes. I had zoned out on his face.

“Y/N, why are you staring.” He chuckled putting his hand on my arm bringing me back to reality, I looked at him face scrunching up not a single thought could actually be processed at this point. Thoughts mashing together as I tried to create a proper thought. He was so pretty, so very pretty. But before I could shut myself up I said it out loud. “Your so pretty, so perfect.” I said reaching for his face and touching it gently running my hand all over. “Handsome.” I spoke inspecting his face further as he stared at me wide eyed. Something that Neteyam told anyone was how much he loved you, and to be hearing these words now hurt his heart, he wasn’t sure if you were being genuine or if you were just saying that because of the medicine. He remembered being out of it when he had medicine given to him but he would never be so out of it to confess to his best friend like you were doing.

“What?” He said scrunching his face up.

“I love you, you’re so perfect, everything about you is so perfect.” I said, I knew what I was saying, but I knew if I was in my normal state I wouldn’t be saying this at all, but life is short, live it to your fullest. “I see you, ‘teyam.”

“Your on medications and being delusional.” He said looking to the side.

“I may be on medications but the only thing that’s doing is giving me more confidence to say this to you.” I spoke shakily. Neteyam’s ears went back as he listened to me closely. “I see you and only you, you’re just so fucking perfect and it hurts me so deeply knowing that soon enough you’re going to have a mate and forget all about me and my love for you will continue even though your heart chose someone else’s and-” I was cut off as Neteyam’s lips landed on mine, my eyes widen in shock before they close.

I sat up further and wrapped my arms around Neteyam’s neck as he gently placed his large hands on my waist, careful not to hurt me. Neteyam deepened the kiss as he pulled me closer, I let out a gasp as he lightly bit onto my bottom lip, he then slipped his toungue into my mouth. We were so in the moment that we didn’t notice Lo’ak come into the room until he spoke.

“What the actual fuck.” He said before pretending to throw up. I hid my face in the crook of Neteyam’s neck in embarrassed. I heard Neteyam laugh at both me and Lo’ak

“I uhhhh, I think I’m gonna dip.” Lo’ak said before speed walking away. I groaned into Neteyam’s neck as he laughed,

“I cannot deal with this now,” I spoke embarrassed. “Lo’ak is going to tell everyone.” I ran my hands over my face in annoyance.

“What is wrong with that?” He asked me.

“Nothing I just expected everyone to find out by us telling them not by Lo’ak blabbing.” “Find out what?” Neteyam smirked at me wanting me to say it.

“That I’m so head over heels for you.” I spoke looking away.

“I see you.” He spoke turning my head to face him. “No matter what happens I will love you for eternity. Who cares that everyone knows.”

I softly smiled at him before moving in and pecking his lips once again, feeling him smile against my lips.

“I’m tired.” I spoke while putting my head against his chest.

“Get some rest.” He said kissing my forehead.

“Please stay.” I said grabbing his hand, Neteyam gave in easily as he sat behind me placing me on his lap, he was so warm and comfortable. I snuggled into his chest getting comfy before I began to drift off to sleep, Neteyam’s arms wrapped around me embracing me. I had never felt more safe then in Neteyam’s arms. Neteyam soon also fell asleep.

-3rd person view-

Lo’ak had told everyone before bringing them all to the marui to where he had seen Y/N, someone he thought of as a sister, making out with his own brother. When they walked in they saw Neteyam and Y/N cuddled up to each other, sound asleep.

“Awwwww.” Tsireya cooed. “Oh.” Aonung said while scrunching his face up.

“Kiri, did Y/N and Neteyam mate?” Tuk asked. “I um, no Tuk I don’t think so.” Kiri responded shocked at what her little sister said as well as the sight in front of her. “I’m going to throw up that is so disgusting.” Lo’ak said before pretending to throw up again leaving the pod.

Everyone else left, Tsireya being the last one closing a small cloth hanging from the ceiling across so they could have their peace.

(Please give any advice, please 🙏)

#atwow neteyam #neteyam x reader #atwow x you #neteyam #neteyam sully

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goshdangronpa · 4 months

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ibuki 🤪

Yeethaw it's Best Character

Favorite thing about her: There's so much to love!!! Her spunk, her look, her distinct voice ... Something really underrated about her, though, is her emotional maturity. For all her quirks and silliness, she's among the wisest people on the island. Her FTEs with Hajime are unique in that she's the one helping him deal with personal hang-ups, not the other way around. The advice she gives resonates perfectly with the themes surrounding the characters' dark past and the better future they can create.

Least favorite thing about her: It really is messed up that she tells Mahiru to "snatch some shots" when Mikan accidentally exposes herself in a tumble, but I think she'd relent if she knew about that girl's circumstances. So maybe the real worst thing is her hilariously rude takes on music. No, Ibuki, there is more to drumming than making loud noises!

Favorite line: "Welcome to the world of girls' love! It's slippery when wet!" There's much to criticize about DR's portrayal of LGBTQIA+ chars but I love how overtly queer many of these characters are, especially the enthusiastically girl-loving Ibuki.

brOTP: Whether you like it as a romantic ship or a friendship, Ibuki's bond with Imposter is a genuine delight. She takes their crappy Byakuya attitude so good-naturedly that they can't help but respect it. If they'd lived past Chapter 1 ... well, I'll go into that more as I develop my Ibuki protag swap project, but suffice to say they'd have a strong impact on each other. She'll help bring the individual at the core of the Imposter, and they'll help Ibuki channel her boundless energy into being a genuine force for hope.

OTP: You already know. I've liked some noncanon ships even before I knew the concept of shipping (zutara was just so obvious to me even as a kid), but tsumioda is the first to make me lose my damn mind. "Sweet girl helps sad girl" is irresistible, especially with my spin where the sad girl helps the sweet girl right back. The whole "Mikan once killed Ibuki" is a dealbreaker for some, but it actually seals the deal for me. This extreme interpersonal conflict is the kind of barrier that, once overcome, will make them both better people and better partners for each other than they ever could've been ... Oh my god, I talk about them like Nagito talks about hope, HELP

nOTP: I don't think I have any nOTPs - only ships that are more interesting (or funnier) as failures. Sayabuki is one. Ibuki strives to always be herself, no matter how that might alienate potential friends and fans. Sayaka would call that idealistic and naive, having her own motivations for doing things she otherwise never would. A clash would be inevitable. In fact, have a surprisingly detailed relationship arc for them in my head, taking them from musicians on the same tour to secret lovers (and first love, on Ibuki's end) to bitter exes. I'll write that fanfic someday.

Random headcanon: Ibuki's always so brazen when flirting with people, but when she develops an actually serious crush, she gets really awkward and even more motormouthed.

Unpopular opinion: I don't think Ibuki would immediately be all smiles and forgiveness with Mikan after they all wake up in the pods. A girl who prizes being real with people got taken advantage of in the worst way by someone she called a friend. Even for someone as friendly and emotionally stable as Ibuki, that's gonna require some deep reflection, emotional processing, and tough conversation! I do agree, though, that they'll eventually work it out (and fall in love)

Song I associate with her: HEY BIG MAN PUT THE MONEY IN MY POCKET

Favorite picture of her: The one I drew!

#danganronpa #super danganronpa 2 #sdr2 #goodbye despair #ibuki mioda #tsumioda #answering asks about characters

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sullysticktogether · 1 year

Text

Body and Soul Pt. 4

Walking through the cafeteria was an event in itself, many people coming up to you and praising how Jake had secured a spot for you and him in the village, making jealous comments disguised as jokes, or simply stating how it wasn’t fair that two newbies were already helping ‘improve relations’ with the Na’vi. You would simply just give them a tight-lipped smile in return with little to no comment about it. Jake was already seeming like a local celebrity and you couldn’t get mad at him for it, it's not like he knew what the outcome would be. With a sigh you managed to secure a tight spot between Norm and someone else you hadn’t been introduced to yet.

“Hey Norm.” You greeted, though your voice wasn’t as chirpy as yesterday. “I see Jake doesn’t mind his spike in popularity.” You pointed out with a nod in his direction as you got your fork ready to eat. Norm was quiet for a second, looking down at his plate and then up at Jake with a shake of his head.

“You feeling any better than yesterday?” He asked, quickly changing the subject, obviously not as happy as his first day. You gave a small nod, quick to chew your food before answering.

“Just had to process almost getting killed like three times.” You were playfully sarcastic with Norm, even though you’d only been there for a few days, you knew that you and Norm had an unspoken friendship thing. You had trained a little bit together for the Avatar program, and you two were actually passionate about coming here, oh, and you two were both currently annoyed that Jake was acting like hot shit. “I should’ve just stayed with you yesterday.” You mumbled, taking another bite, not wanting to look up at the crowded table.

“You’ll be fine, at least you already know some Na’vi to get you through the day.” Norm replied, his head turning attention from the rest of the table to you.

“I’m already just wanting this day to be over.” The rest of breakfast was pretty quiet between the two of you, just making small talk as you both were obviously not in the mood to deal with the newfound attention Jake has garnered.

You decided that you would shower before starting your day in the lab, especially since Jake seemed to have extra time to go meet with Selfridge, which you guessed he’d just want to talk to Jake and see how he managed to do what they couldn't accomplish prior to his arrival. You were quick with your shower still, not wanting to be the one that was running late. Slipping on some comfortable yet appropriate clothes, you decided it was time to face the day, as much as you didn’t want to.

By the time you reached the labs, Norm, Jake, and Grace were running through some, flashcards, of the important people in the clan. You were quick to catch up to them, Grace giving a nod in your direction as she finished reminding Jake of who’s who. You recited them quickly before heading over to your own pod, ready to get the day done and over with.

“So who’s this Eywa?” You overheard Jake asking, making you flash a look at Norm before laying down in your pod. You tried to ignore their conversation as one of the other scientist finished prepping your pod. Letting out one big sigh to try and shake the frustrations you were already feeling off, you closed your eyes.

Waking up a few hundred feet off the ground was nerve wracking, your only support being the hammock. You were careful to not shake it as you moved back onto the supporting branch. You were awake before Jake was, giving you the perfect opportunity to find Neytiri first. Navigating your way down to the bottom layer, you saw Neytiri talking to her mother. You didn’t want to interrupt them so you just slowly walked over, just making your presence known. Neytiri gave a head lift in acknowledgment as you finally reached the two of them.

“Good morning Neytiri, Mo’at.” You greeted, watching as Mo’at nodded to you before walking away. Your eyes continued to follow her frame, you had assumed she had other duties to attend to rather than making idle chit-chat with you. Soon enough, Jake was by yours and Neytiri’s side, a smile on his face like nothing bothered him.

“Come, we start today.” Neytiri said sternly, guiding you two away from the home tree. You obediently followed her to a small field, noticing the same horse-like creatures that the hunters rode last night. She lead you up to two near each other, watching for you to approach them separately.

“Easy boy.” Jake stated, trying to calm the direhorse whilst waiting for Neytiri’s instructions. You stayed silent, opting to just reach your hand out to pet its muzzle to show you didn’t mean any harm. Even though you weren’t around animals a lot, especially larger ones, you still knew a little about them.

“Pale is female.” Neytiri corrected, leading you and Jake to mount the direhorses. Jake was at more of an advantage than you since he was taller but you managed to get up with no help and only a little bit of a struggle. She calmed the direhorses down once more as they had begun to fuss a little bit at the two of you on top of them. Neytiri handed Jake the tsaheylu, watching to make sure you also grabbed it as well, she watched as both of you connected to it. You immediately felt a rush run through you, it was an intense sensation. You could feel it’s heartbeat with every pump, it inhaling and exhaling, you could even feel it take a step back in your own legs. “That is tsaheylu. The bond.” Neytiri informed as you patted the side of your direhorses neck softly, trying to slow down your excitement. “Feel them. Feel their heartbeats, their breath. Feel their strong legs.” She instructed, wanting both of you to take it in. It was an important moment, its the first time both of you have actually connected with something on this planet. “You may tell them what to do. Inside. For now, say where to go.”

“Forward, slowly.” You commanded with a soft voice, careful to keep your balance as the direhorse obeyed, take a few steps as you got used to the feeling. Jake, however, wasn’t so cautious, instead rushing forward only to get thrown off into the mud. You have to admit, it made you laugh, seeing how it wasn’t instantly perfect. You instructed your direhorse to move over to where he landed as Neytiri also caught up with the two of you. “So maybe you aren’t as much of a prodigy as everyone says.” You teased, an eyebrow raised as he stood up to clean the mud off. Before he could make a comment, Tsu’tey and another young hunter came riding in on their own direhorses.

“You should go away.” Tsu’tey spat, looking between you and Jake, though his eyes remained on Jake longer.

“No, you’d miss me.” Jake retorted back while you kept quiet, not wanting to stir up any trouble. “I knew you could speak English.”

“Jake.” You were quick to interrupt him. “Maybe don’t cause issues when they have given us the opportunity to safely and graciously stay here.” You warned, your eyes sending an almost glare at him. He sent you the look right back though while Tsu’tey stared at the two of you, scoffing.

“These aliens will learn nothing,” Tsu’tey started, “A rock sees more.” You held your tongue while he insulted you two, you very well couldn’t cause an argument, at least not now. Neytiri just smiled and sent the two on their way before turning back to you and Jake.

“Again.” Her gaze was directed at Jake as she waited for him to mount the direhorse again.

You spent the afternoon learning basic instructions on the direhorse, increasing and decreasing your speeds, learning to maneuver them around with ease. You had gotten the hang of it fairly early on, opting to be patient and take your time with learning and not wanting to push your direhorse too much while Jake seemed to rush into it, falling off more times than he cared to admit. By late afternoon, your first day of training was over. On your way back to the hometree, Jake stuck close to you, catching you off guard when he spoke.

“Just so you know, I can handle myself. I don’t need you to look after me.” He had said with a little venom, clearly not over your comment from earlier.

“I don’t think you need anyone, especially me, to look after you. I just think you’re reckless and you’ve gotten us in a very dangerous situation, all their eyes are on us and we can’t afford to cause any more issues than what we already have.” You kept your eyes forward, you still weren’t over yesterday, even if you told yourself you were.

“You’re the one that decided to chase after me, ever since we got here, you’ve always been near me like you’re my keeper.” You wanted to deny it but what he said was true whether you liked it or not. Instead of continuing your little argument, you kept your mouth shut, instead opting to just peacefully walk to dinner. He seemed to be fine with your silence, not pushing you for a response. Falling asleep in your hammock was much easier tonight than it was last night, knowing you would wake up in your pod peacefully and not have so much stress through the day keeping you awake unlike last night. Opening the pod door, Grace was awaiting for you and Jake expectantly, probably wanting to hear about your ‘progress’ if you had to guess. You gave her a brief summary before walking to the cafeteria to try and get whatever you could to eat. As soon as you finished, you were gone, just ready to be away from everyone once again. This world was supposed to be different, yet here you were, alone all over again.

#an actual jake sully x reader #avatar x reader #avatar fanfic #avatar #jake sully x reader #jake sully fanfiction

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interstyx · 1 year

Text

MURDER DRONES HEADCANON #4: Mémoire Morte/Absolute Solver

Crack.

Snap.

Metal brushing metal. Jitters crawling down the left arm. Metal brushing cloth. Metal brushing something else. Then, a jolt – skimming the nape and jerking the eyes awake. Burning hands still clamp her to the floor, scorching every inch of the torso, stinging her head, her neck, the bearings of the servos in her joints, damage/pain warnings right under the outer plating of her chest, sending little shocks across her movement controllers, still limbs shuddering intermittently–

Before her emotional processors can output a panic signal and demand her to move, the inner racket all goes still at once. It’s flushed out of RAM in just a few cycles, and as the final consciousness programs initialize, Uzi is left in complete silence. An uncomfortable warmth in her joints stays behind to keep her company.

What is it now, the third time today?

Uzi checks the time. 26:07:19:8817. Copper-9’s sun just began to set. Way too late to try for another few hours of sleep-mode, way too early to throw stuff at N until he falls from the roof of the spire.

She shifts around, groaning. Power is at 40-something percent. Too high to justify oversleeping, but low enough to warn her early that a nap is in line at around midnight. Worse yet, she’s guaranteed to spend about half of today in low-consumption mode, with all the ill temper and slow processing that implies.

Eh. No point staying still then. She swings both legs back, then forth, levering herself up. The gray, dirty patina covering the inside of the landing pod reminds Uzi to dust off her hoodie – a necessary morning routine she’s had little time to get used to. Maybe she shouldn’t. It’s not like N ever cleans up that greasy coat of his. Though well, that much old oil won’t ever wash off now.

She stretches her left arm, pulling her elbow to her chest, holding it there, then releasing it and extending the arm as far as it’ll go, and going at it again. When it finally feels comfortable, she gets up and kicks the spinning chair right beside where she’s sleeping. No reason for it, it’s just good to get those CPU cycles going.

When making her way up the pod’s ladder, her hand brushes the wall behind it. It’s so dusty it gets inbetween the joints of her fingers, threatening to get stuck inside and irritate her servos for the rest of the day. She tries to ignore it and climb a few more steps. She can’t. Her right eye jitters. She clambers up the rest of the ladder and leaps outside, shouting into the darkness of the corpse-spire.

“N, for robo-Christ’s sake, do you things have a duster in those hands of yours?”

Nevermind the dust, she feels even dirtier after saying that. Geh. Cleaning. Worth the try at getting N to wake up though – not like she can tell where he is without his visor or eyes glowing.

No response. Another groan escapes Uzi’s mouth. A scan for literally anything else to do that isn’t cleaning returns zero results, and she doesn’t feel like rewatching anything in her anime catalog. She shakes her fist at the dark.

“How aren’t you at full battery yet, you lanky oilsucker?!”

Yeah; far too early. Maybe not having anything to clean the pod with is a good enough excuse not to do it for a few more days? The specks of dust still stuck to her fingers answer with a clear “no”. Though… Maybe enlisting robo-Satan’s help will make it easier.

She holds her left hand up, then pushes it forward, like casting a spell. Then again, but really hard. Again, putting her whole soul into it. Another time, going nnghhh as if pushing a boulder. A few more times in quick succession. No luck at all.

Uzi stares at the hand, sighing and turning it over to examine the palm, as if something will come of it. Nothing does. Wiggling her fingers one by one reveals nothing new, though they feel unusually numb. Having magical powers isn’t awesome at all if they don’t work when you want them to.

Really, the only thing to come out of stopping that bullet was the night jitters, and managing to make the chairs in the pod spin a few times. Absolutely not what Doll cracked it up to be.

“And I still haven’t managed to teleport even once…”

Way too much silence. On second thought, even a rewatch of Naruto will do, as horrible as that pile of slop is. But maybe it could still work. Maybe just one more try…

She holds her left up again, and gives a half-hearted push. Nope, definitely no luck. Maybe when N comes back she’ll–

CCCRRAAACCCCKKKK.

The entire arm comes apart.

From one second to the next, hinges, wires and bellows are torn asunder from inside. Something else tears and squirms its way out – black, or dark gray, with a hint of an oily sheen –, crawling like a bundle of caterpillars against the cloth of Uzi’s hoodie. More of it keeps blooming from intact spots, mangling what’s left of her limb before Uzi can process a reaction.

Her arm shakes for a few moments longer, maybe due to the few remaining servos choking up mid-movement, trying to force their way through the black mass that’s now squeezing them beyond their designed resistance. It bends outward and keeps bending, ripping some more wires in half and finally silencing the dying mechanisms than once made it move. What was once a limb is now a bundle of unrecognizable scraps of metal spread across a squirming black surface, close to twice the size of the original thing.

Somehow it doesn’t hurt, even though it really looks like it should. Or maybe it does, but Uzi can’t keep her attention off a new sensation flowing to her processors right from what’s replaced her arm: little pinpricks stinging its surfaces over and over and over, sparing no square centimeter, like this new thing is burning but also growing numb as an unoiled mechanism left in the cold would.

Holy hell.

Uzi tries to turn it over, or maybe wave it a little. A surviving contact around the middle of the mass sputters and dies, making a lone metal finger twitch, then go forever still. She tries again, and this time it answers – kind of. It only follows her orders with around a second of delay, lazily undulating as she pictures the movement it should take in her head.

“N! LOOK AT THIS THING THAT’S MY ARM NOW!”

She doesn’t have time to process its appearance before an anxious urge takes her over. The other hand shudders in place as she’s figuring out what that is; lick the oil.

Copious amounts of the stuff are dribbling from the metal cobbles still hanging onto the new arm, and it really seems like this bundle of black stuff (tendrils?) is covered in a thick film of oil. She grasps them with her right hand and brings them to her face.

A tinge of disgust hits her mid-motion, but there’s precious little time to think it through as her tongue is already skimming the underside of the tendrils, where the thicker currents of oil have assembled and are about to fall off. Both arms tremble. She trembles.

The crawling anxiety doesn’t let up: its grip numbs her upper processors, blocking off everything between cache to DRAM memory, leaving space only for the strange itch that the shuddering tendrils respond with to the intermittent visits of the tongue. It only lets go once there’s pretty much no more oil to be found, even in the tiny wrinkles between one tendril and another.

Robo-Jesus, robojesus, robojesusrobojesusrobojesus. What’s going on?

Well. That’s her good hand gone. Guess that ambidexterity program from the other day will start coming in real handy right about now. Handy. Hah.

She stumbles across the snowy field looking for any trace of anything hanging from the spire’s ceiling, trying to figure out just how the hell this thing is supposed to work. No trace of N anywhere yet. Shouts for him meet no reply save for their echo.

The tendrils only move kind of how she wants them to, and slowly at that. The pinpricks don’t stop. Once, she stumbles and the tendrils catch her before her remaining arm can. The parts that meet the snow hurt until she gets up and keeps walking. She holds them close to her chest in a reflex: the pinpricks slow down and cease when they’re there, somehow. A bit like holding up a puppy to calm it down, if you could also feel it like your own skin.

Something else is happening meanwhile. Uzi tries to ignore it, focusing on the weird jitters, twitches and undulations of the tendrils. Something else that sinks down to the stomach, up to the head, taking a home behind the eyes, sliding and creeping, slowing down her processors again. It hurts, but without direction, like it’s bursting from inside and/or crushing from outside.

She stumbles again. A little hit of pain from the tendrils wakes her up (was she sleeping, or just that lost in thought?). Must have moved some ten meters without noticing it – or the low-power alert flashing on the corner of her vision. This feeling, which she has no name for, pulsates together with the symbol of a depleting battery. When it lights up, strength abandons her legs, and when it goes dark, weakness leaves instead. This is new. She takes entire minutes to process it, trying to wrap her head around that new thing – that need – she’s now feeling.

In some dictionary file somewhere in Uzi’s hard drives, there’s a word that might fit what’s haunting her: “hunger”. The act of naming it helps a little, pushes it back into a tiny box of language where she can study it. Hunger. She’s never felt hungry before.

Is this what they feel like? A little angry thing inside freaking screaming for oil? All of a sudden it makes sense, huh. No wonder N would ask for a bit of mine.

She kicks something under the snow. A little extra push makes a limp torso, one arm and head still attached, emerge.

The hunger pangs inside her.

Is that a bit of oil still on the neck?

Without thinking, she licks her lips.

The tendrils spring off her chest and drag her down with an insane amount of force, like a big dog pulling at a leash. They practically throw her at the ground, clambering until she’s facing the corpse, just a few centimeters away from its frozen arm. They wrap around the torso, then arm, then the joint between them, suddenly more like a pair of tendrils rather than a bundle of them, covered in sharp barbs cutting effortlessly at the metal skin.

Shudders. Trembling from legs to head. This corpse looks less like a corpse and more like a solution. The tendrils raise its arm to her mouth. Before she can even realize the sense of worry that’s settling in, her face curls into a smile, lips receding and freeing two rows of sharp, sharp teeth, then leaping forward and digging into the solution with glee.

Wait a minute – sharp teeth? Since when?

The progress they’re quickly making lets her know just how sharp they are, and that there’s two fangs that weren’t there before, or at least weren’t that long. The sense of worry stirs up and turns to panic. No time to think. Pressure increases and the teeth meet with a little vein of oil that pops into Uzi’s mouth, soothing though cold.

Everything lets go at once, except for the feel of oil flowing over her tongue, so suddenly and completely she can hear the almost total silence surrounding her, intruded only by the faint whistling of a breeze grazing the spire. The low-power alert disappears, and her processors build up to full performance again.

I’m eating a corpse.

There’s a gap between seeing a corpse, even between being innately familiar with corpses, and sinking your teeth into one. This thing caught between these sharp jaws – they feel like an other, not like her –, it’s a person, or it was once. She can’t just break into Death’s home for a quick meal. That’s wrong.

As soon as she tries to retreat, everything washes back and crushes her under a wave of sensations. Panic. Hunger. Low power. The tendrils squirming. She just doesn’t have the strength to pull her mouth back more than a few centimeters, and even that is an inconceivable task. She can only hold for four painfully long seconds before the jaw snaps shut again, pressure letting up on her as it builds up on the bite.

She’s caught in a tug-of-war. Every inch she takes from the hunger goes to the panic, and every inch she reclaims from the panic, the hunger takes. But this is far from a stalemate – hunger’s winning. She can tell from how the metal making up the corpse’s arm screeches and creaks every so many agonizingly long seconds, whenever the moments of clarity granted by the soft taste of oil fade away.

Between these moments, a thought comes to her: the low-power alarm fading in and out. 39% crumbling to 6% and bouncing back to 39 a moment later. That makes no sense. Her battery can’t be rising and dropping all of a sudden that quickly, even if the oil was somehow restoring power. Something must be denying her that power, then giving it back when she bites.

It’s denying her that power… To force her to feed on the corpse.

Stop. Stop it.

The metal creaking gets more acute. She can see the arm bending upward on her periphery. It’s about to snap.

Stop.

Two precious seconds come and go. It doesn’t take many calculations to realize it will certainly break soon.

Stop! Stop!

One second. Her logic circuits say maybe one more and it’s done.

STOP.

Crack!

A fountain of oil flows from the broken-off piece of limb. Uzi jolts upright, violently clutching the arm by its wrist the same way you’d hold a cup of water – angled up to get every last drop as quickly as physics allow. The tendrils unwrap from the corpse and wrap again around her torso, warmth sending jitters down her back. A flush of laughter takes her over, briefly interrupted by bursts of coughing from the oil she’s still drinking.

Did I do that? Did I get up to drink that arm? Is that me laughing?

Uzi tries to cry, but then she laughs again.

The arm is now dry.

Her hand drops the arm. She can’t tell if it did that by itself.

And she goes down for another bite.

—---------------------------------------------------

The wind’s pretty gentle today. It lets N glide left and almost effortlessly between buildings, which is really quite convenient as he’s gulping down one last swig of oil. Last time he had to make a quick turn going against the wind with oil still in his mouth, he could neither finish the gulp or make the turn.

N extends his wings and rises up in the air, then slowly glides down onto the spire of corpses. It takes a bit of crawling to find the entry-exit hole – it’s slipped his mind on which side it is again – but at the same time he gets there, he also swallows that last swig right on time and lets his face settle into a smile.

The glide down is long and playful, spiraling upside down all the way to the pod before finally landing with a soft thud. Is Uzi awake? Nah. No way. N quietly and slowly opens a hatch, peeking inside only as it stops creaking and finds its stop. He’s wrong. Uzi isn’t there. Did she go somewhere? Hope she’s not worried. He just didn’t want to ask to nibble on her neck again.

Crack- Snap!

A metallic noise alerts him, and other sounds suddenly become noticeable, pretty far away. Laugh - cry - metal creaking. Uzi’s voice. That sequence of sounds is very familiar to him, but it takes a second for it to register it’s Uzi making them, and a fraction more to realize that shouldn’t be happening. He bolts for the source of the sounds as soon as it’s done registering.

She’s right there, just on the verge of a ray of light leaking through the spire’s roof. She’s hunched over, munching on the side of a dead drone’s head.

A little glint of light reflects onto his eyes. Those are teeth. She’s smiling

But there’s also marks of sweat on the side of her visor. Her eyes are wide with something unpleasant – fear, stress, panic, or any of their siblings.

“Uzi?”

Such a stupid thing to say that he curses himself immediately. She jolts up and turns to see him, smile immediately fading as their eyes meet, then raises her right hand and pulls the head out of her mouth, somehow struggling to get it off her jaws. Isn’t she left-handed?

Uzi stumbles back and crawls away, dead silent. Panic paints her eyes. N sprints to her – then stops dead in his tracks. Her left hand is a heap of black, barbed tendrils glistening with the sheen of oil. A soft “biscuits” escapes N’s mouth, and he hopes she doesn't hear.

No time to think. N walks the rest of the way and kneels to her left side, trying his darndest not to look at the tendrils writhing right beneath his sight. She’s still trying to crawl away, mouthing something. Something like “get away”.

He doesn’t. The tendrils are encircling his torso and closing in. He puts his arm behind and around Uzi’s back, receiving only shivers in return.

“You okay?”

She nods. She’s not. The tendrils start pressing against his coat.

N wonders whether he should offer her a hug. Uzi’s hand is clamped close to her chest, eyes lost in the distance, but she doesn’t seem to object to the arm around her back. Maybe she needs it. Maybe she’d hate it.

He wraps his other arm around her, scanning for any sign of resistance, seemingly none appearing, then holds her up to his chest. Maybe she’s relaxing a little? Can’t tell. Can’t tell. Maybe it’s a mistake. Biscuits. Biscuits. Biscuits.

Uzi tugs at his coat, pulling him a bit closer. Rip. Rip. Rip. The tendrils are cutting through the coat’s cloth, one by one digging into N’s torso, wrapping like barbed wire. He breathes a sigh of relief. Little drops of oil – his own, surely – slither down his back.

“Heaven smiles above me…

“What a gift, here beeee-low”

She’s still tugging, but a bit lighter now. The tendrils’ grasp doesn’t subside. To be truthful, it hurts. It hurts a lot.

“But no one knoooows

“The gift that you give to meeee

“No one knows.”

For a while, there’s nothing. Not even the wind, or any movement or pressure or even hurt. Well, there’s one thing – a little spark of warmth.

Then Uzi speaks, voice cutting right through N’s nerves.

“I can’t see very well. I think my hair’s in the way.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Her hair isn’t that long.

N pulls back his right hand and retreats slightly, seeing pretty clearly that he’s right. A tendril goes up to Uzi’s face to pull a bit of hair aside, leaving little black stains all over her head. There’s a yellow nub right there, square in the middle of her forehead, glowing faintly, far fainter than it should – well, not a nub: an eye.

“I still can’t see. It’s so fuzzy…”

“It’s alright. I’ll take you to the pod.”

—---------------------------------------------------

NOTES:

First go at prose in a long time. It’s so indulgent it hurt my fingers as I wrote it and now hurts my eyes as I read it, but I hope it’s cheesy enough to be fun.

This is pretty much my take on the whole Uzi transformation idea, which funnily enough I started working on about a week before the Episode 4 teaser aired. Yeah, everyone and their mother knew Uzi was in line for some Resident Evil shit as soon as they finished the pilot, but this is MY take dammit, and I want it out there before the canon one takes precedence.

Well, “my” isn’t fully true, or really true at all. You might’ve noticed it’s pretty inspired by a delightful piece of concept art (see below) by the equally delightful @multiversal-pudding, whom I happened to come across in @nyaifyz’s discord server. Between I, the pudding in question and another fellow by the name of @fennoske we came up with a bunch of worryingly detailed ways to torture the little purple ball of anger with her own body, of which this fic is but one product.

Couldn’t have written a single word here without their hilariously cruel minds to aid me in developing this torment, so I strongly recommend checking them out (especially their take on the Solver!Uzi concept once they publish them). Hope you’ve enjoyed it.

#murder drones n #murder drones uzi #murder drones #writing #angst #body horror tw

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