#ask-skim

[shantechni]

A short compilation I made of Mikey successfully (and unsuccessfully) ending arguments between Leo and Raph.

[skimmingmilk]

aughhh sonic going back in time to visit little two yr old tails as been in my brain for what feels like forever! like how many dots does he end up connecting? how does he have the strength to not travel back further and knock the daylights out of tails’s mom? how does he react to the whole kukku invasion and forest fire? so many questions…aaaaa im so excited for this fic i will be in ruins. in ruins, i tell you

also with the whole sonic punching tails’s mom thing: you were talking about tails and his parents, but like sonic interacting (or just seeing) tails’s parents is always something ive thought about. idk, im curious about what your take on that would be, if you have one. (sorry if you’ve already answered something like this ahshhshs)

your boys are just spinning around in my brain constantly. they are living in there completely rent free. i adore them sm, they make me sick. anytime there’s a reference or parallel to something in their past, it hurts. these boys need therapy immediately. maybe even before immediately. your portrayal of them is such a huge inspiration istg

anyway, sorry this is kinda all over the place 😭 i just had a bunch of thoughts and threw them together in the most coherent way i could lol. hope you have a good rest of your night/day! stay safe out there 🩵

So, I was saving this because it really inspired me to write a little something, and it felt fitting because I live for your baby Tails and Sonic art, it's seriously the best boost of serotonin for me xD I'm sorry it took a minute to get to this, and I'll address the second idea you had in another ask (someone else was on the same wavelength as you around this time, and also asked about Sonic and Tails and Tails's parents xD).

But for now, please accept a continuation of the back in time shenanigans <3

Sonic Back In Time Shenanigans WIP #2: Back for the Luggage

Tracking down a second Chaos Emerald so he could skip back in time for an afternoon wasn’t how Sonic saw himself spending the past few days. Though, to be fair, he spent a good chunk of them trying to ignore the very itch encouraging him to give into this particular whim of the week, but impulse control wasn’t Sonic the Hedgehog’s claim to fame. Not by a long shot.

His curiosity had been piqued. New insight into the lore of his little brother’s life before he’d ever crossed his path niggled at his mind no matter how far and fast he ran from the temptation to take a peek. The glimpse he’d got on that rainy night hadn’t been all that reassuring, with Tails so small and sick and the time Sonic got to spend with him in that dusty, stuffy cabin all too brief.

Cocoa Island. He’d looked it up after he and Silver returned to Sonic’s present, their respective futures stabilized for the time being, but he couldn’t find much information on it. If it wasn’t for the fact that Sonic could chart it on a map, it almost seemed like it didn’t even exist.

Historic records mentioned studies of the volcanic activity on the island more than a decade ago. Mines had also been dug out in the cave systems throughout the island long before Sonic had been born, in search of potential esoteric energy sources.

The Chaos Emeralds, no doubt.

But other than that, it seemed the island had never been properly settled. Sonic could’ve flown over in the Tornado for a quick jaunt—running to small islands never boded well for him, they were always tricky to aim for—but he knew it wouldn’t have the answers he was itching to find out.

And sure, the big one was already answered. The sick baby fox he’d had to leave behind in the care of some flickies after that rainy night obviously made a full recovery, or else Tails wouldn’t be alive in Sonic’s present, off on his own adventure. Flying solo. Alone.

But knowing that without actually seeing it, experiencing it for himself, didn’t satisfy Sonic in the slightest. He was all about experiences. And he wanted to experience this mysterious chapter of his best bud’s life, one he never really let himself think all that hard on.

So, that was how Sonic found himself on a nearly deserted island eight years in the past with two Chaos Emeralds in hand. It was warmer than in his present, willing to bet they were somewhere in spring or early summer as opposed to late fall, but the dense cover of pine trees kept the forest floor cool in its shade. Allergies tickled his nose, prompting Sonic to scratch at it as he took in his surroundings. Flickies sang throughout the branches, their chirps a comforting song accompanied by the steady hum of insects hidden in the brush. With his own curious hum, Sonic picked a direction and ran with it—er, walked with it. He took it slow for the moment, trying to find his way back to the cabin from that night. It seemed like his best bet to start his search for Tails.

Until a child’s voice somewhere in the forest caught his ear, both perking up and flicking towards the sound with an instinctive pull as everything else faded into the background. A breath Sonic hadn’t realized he’d been holding lifted from his chest. The child sounded light, healthy. No coughing or crying as far as he could tell. 

Sonic followed the voice to a clearing. Unlike the stormy day he’d first stumbled in on, sunlight flooded the patch of grass between the trees with its warm beams. One fell across a tree stump where a two-tailed fox kit lay sprawled across on his tummy, bright-eyed and bushy tails further confirmation that he’d made a full recovery. Sonic’s shoulders sagged with relief as he observed him from the brush, his own green eyes lighting up as he realized he was playing. Making motor sounds with his mouth, Tails rolled a toy airplane through the long, wild grass. His tongue poked out as he accidentally blew raspberries amidst his very serious airplane noises.

“Pfft—” Sonic’s laugh nearly sputtered out of him, cut off only by the fact that the kid heard him and froze.

Ears swiveled in his direction, but Tails couldn’t see him through the trees from his spot on the stump. The toy airplane fell to the grass with a soft thump as the baby fox squirmed and tried to hoist himself up into a sitting position, his two blue boots dangling just over the edge as his bare hands planted themselves on the wood between them to support himself. One tail flicked up and down with excitement while the other twitched limply against the tree stump, like it didn’t know it could lift itself up like its twin.

“Mom?” he called out, and the hope in his voice ensnared Sonic’s heart in a vice. “Mom!”

“Ah, sorry, little guy. Not mom.” Sonic stepped out from behind the brush with his hands up, a sheepish smile on his face. “Just me. Long time no see.”

His tails immediately wilted as the bright-eyed, eager expression on his face retracted into something shy and pensive. But not scared, Sonic noted. There wasn’t a trace of fear in his eyes.

“Remember me? I stayed with you during that rainstorm the other night,” Sonic added, hoping to jog the little guy’s memory, but he didn’t actually know how long it had been since that night. 

He didn’t have Silver’s neat little time travel gizmos. His comm couldn’t pinpoint where he was in time, only in space. Which meant he couldn’t stay long, because if Tails or anyone else tried to ping his location, it’d probably come up blank. 

The Tails sitting in front of him drew his legs up, curling into himself a bit the closer Sonic got. Okay, well maybe he was a little afraid. Sonic stopped short of reaching the tree stump, hoping a reassuring smile would get him the rest of the way.

“My name’s Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog. What’s yours?”

Tails stared at him for a moment, until his gaze slowly slid past him to focus on the tree line behind him. Sonic planted his hands on his hips and canted his head back to see if anything was there, but aside from the buzz of insects and rustling of flickies in the leaves, the forest was still. No one else but the two of them smack dab in the middle of it.

“…Mom?” Tails whispered, grabbing onto one of his tails to hold.

Sonic’s smile slowly slid off his muzzle. In all the time he’d known Tails, he’d never once called for his mom. Not a single cry. By the time he came into Tails’s life, whatever innate trust he’d had for this faceless person had completely evaporated. There was only one person Tails had ever called out for, ever cried for, ever searched for when he was lost or scared or lonely.

Sonic swallowed thickly. “I don’t know where your mom is, bud. You waiting for her?” Tails nodded with the most intense certainty, his ears flopping forward and back with the force of it. “Did she… did she say when she’s coming back?” 

This time Tails pursed his mouth as he thought carefully about his answer, his pensive expression the same one he’d still make to this day when he debated how to explain something to him. If he should explain something to him. If he should give his big bro a glimpse into the inner workings of his big brain, or if it’d be easier—safer—to keep it all to himself.

And just where’d he pick up that particular trick?

But this Tails was young enough—hadn’t been hurt enough—to trust someone who looked like a grown-up, so he slowly shook his head in response, wide blue eyes gazing up at him like there’d be some sort of prize if he answered all the questions correctly. 

Sonic’s brow furrowed. “Do you know how long it’s been since you last saw her?”

“Long.” The small, squeaky voice was so matter-of-fact, Sonic nearly fell over with the sheer amount of joy a single syllable filled him with; his little bro’s attitude had been baked into him from the start.

“I’ll bet,” he huffed out a chuckle, choosing to sit cross-legged in the grass so he wasn’t towering over Tails like some kind of threat. “You like planes?” Sonic glanced meaningfully at the toy plane still discarded in the grass.

Tails glanced down at it, the tip of his tail in his mouth as he gently chewed on it. “Mmhm.”

Though Tails had long-outgrown the habit of chewing on his own tails, Sonic would still occasionally catch him nibbling on the ends of pens and pencils when he was deep in thought or starting to get hungry. Or, at least, he used to. Back before Sonic had been captured and Tails had been out on his own for six months…

“I like ‘em, too,” Sonic piped up with a grin. “Probably my favorite way to travel! Second to running, of course.”

Tails blinked at him, head canting to one side. Sonic’s smile grew and he scooched forward a couple inches, steadily closing the gap between them.

“Y’see, running’s sort of my thing. What kinda things do you like to do?”

Tails glanced down at the toy plane again, then up at the sky. He pointed shyly at the white, puffy clouds slowly floating by overhead. Sonic followed his gaze, unable to help the way his smile crooked to one side.

“You like to watch the clouds?” Sonic filled in for him, beaming when Tails nodded. “Me too. You ever look for shapes in ‘em?”

The little guy’s brow furrowed. “Shapes?”

Sonic laughed as the perplexed, and ultimately unconvinced, expression remained fixed on Tails’s face. “C’mere, I’ll show ya!”

Unceremoniously flopping onto his back, face turned towards the sky, Sonic patted the grass beside him. Though they were mostly shielded by the thick cover of trees, a light breeze still wafted down into the clearing and carried the salty scent of the sea with it. The stands of grass tickled Sonic’s side as he laid back and took a deep breath, listening for the familiar patter of eager footsteps following his lead.

Except they didn’t come.

Sonic pushed himself up onto his elbows. Tails was still curled up atop the tree stump, chewing on the tip of his tail as he watched him with worry in his eyes. Worry that had no place being there in a kid so young.

So Sonic cracked another smile. “Don’t worry. The floor’s not lava,” he teased, but it was something the toddler obviously didn’t understand. “It’s safe, bud. I’m not gonna hurt ya. Promise.”

Tails’s gaze darted to the treeline again, searching amongst their thick trunks and low-hanging branches before snapping back to Sonic. “Mm… s’pposed to wait here,” he mumbled, his words sounding a little thick as some of his syllables slurred together in a mouth that was still so small, but ultimately what he’d said was clear enough for Sonic to understand.

His smile slowly faded as he processed the simple explanation; the same feeling rising in the back of his throat as when he sat with a sick Tails in the cabin while the kid asked if he could go home. “Your mom tell ya that?”

Tails nodded. “Wait here. Be good.” His little face scrunched up in a look of pure, earnest determination. “Wait here an’ be good, then mom will come back. She said… she said.”

But she wouldn’t.

No one would.

And maybe Tails already knew that. Even if he didn’t want to believe that someone he loved would leave him, he’d always been a smart kid. Tails’s tiny claws caught in the fur of his tail as he clung tighter to it—like he could physically cling to the hope that his mom would still come back if he did this one thing really well.

If he did his very best.

“Look Sonic, I made this for you!”

“Sonic, I’ve made some adjustments to the Tornado’s aerodynamics, so her base speed has more than doubled! Pretty cool, huh?”

“I made a radar to help us track the Chaos Emeralds faster!”

“I still need to optimize your Extreme Gear’s turning radius and acceleration for your next race. It’s not good enough.”

“The Cyclone still has a ways to go in terms of balancing its different modes of transport. It’s just not good enough at land or air travel yet.”

“I’m wildly inconsistent. I’m just a burden to you. I’m not good enough.”

Not good enough.

Sonic’s fingers dug a little firmer into the soft, damp soil beneath the grass. “Well, I mean, ya gotta get off that stump sometimes. What about when you get hungry? You leave to go get food, dontcha?”

Tails stiffened, fur frizzed up like he’d been caught with his hand in the proverbial mint chocolate chip cookie jar. “Don’t tell,” he pleaded, eyes wide as panicked tears welled up. “I’m sorry—”

“Woah. Hey, hey, hey,” Sonic sat up straighter so he could lift his hands, using them to make a calming gesture as Tails’s little chest started to heave with each little gasp. “Easy there, bud. I’m not gonna tell her.”

“…Not?”

Despite the storm brewing just beneath the surface, faced with further confirmation that Tails had never truly felt safe or wanted, he refused to scare the kid with its intensity. Offering up a kind smile and reassurance, Sonic held up a finger to his mouth. Like they were keeping secrets from some nameless authority figure they’d never shared. 

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Tails’s ears perked up and the grip on his tail eased up. “M’kay…”

“M’kay,” Sonic mimicked, smile growing as he watched Tails scrub at his face with the fur of his forearm. “C’mere, kiddo. Watch the clouds with me.”

Tails looked at him for a moment, then scooted closer to the edge of the tree stump. He swung one leg over, then the other, his little boots scraping against the bark as he eased himself down. He was a little off-balance as he toddled over. Both arms splayed out to steady himself as one tail flicked up and the other was dragged behind him, still as limp and awkward as it had been on the stump.

Sonic’s gaze narrowed in on it immediately. “Didja hurt your tail?”

Tails paused and craned his neck back, wobbling a little as he tried to look behind him. “No,” he answered simply.

“Then how come it’s not up like your other one?”

Tails reached behind him and picked up the limp appendage, hugging it to his chest. “Doesn’t do it.”

Sonic’s frown deepened. “Let me see it.”

Tails didn’t even hesitate. He let go of his tail as he waddled right over to him. He turned his back to him, giving him complete access to the part of his body he protected the most. Sonic was the only one he’d learned to trust with them over the years, but he’d had to earn it. 

Sonic gently ran his fingers through the fur, watching his baby brother’s posture for any sign of discomfort. He didn’t flinch, but his good tail started wagging almost immediately, thwacking Sonic in the side of the face. 

“Careful with that,” he chuckled, catching it in a loose hold when it smacked him again. “You could take someone’s eye out with one of these bad boys. Here, hold onto this for me.”

He waited for Tails to grab onto his eager tail, hugging it hard when it wiggled uncontrollably. “S’tryna get away,” he giggled.

“Oh boy, better get a good grip. It’s a slippery one, that tail,” Sonic laughed, using the distraction to his advantage as he palpated along the base of the weaker tail with his fingertips.

There was barely any muscle to it, and the fur was patchy and matted, flattened in a way that his other tail clearly wasn’t, even though his fur overall could’ve used a good brushing. But it wasn’t injured, no welts or bruises or cuts. It was just… weak. Like it was developing slower than its twin. He’d caught a glimpse of it that night where he was sick, but now that he was getting a good look at it, the differences between the two were stark. He couldn’t imagine why; Sonic’s brain literally wouldn’t let him conceive of a situation where this would happen—where Tails wasn’t allowed to use one tail to the same extent as the other.

Whatever had caused this had reversed itself by the time Sonic met Tails, both little propellers of equal strength. At least, he thought they were. To be fair, he’d only been eleven and he hadn’t looked all that closely at them. And Tails barely let him patch him up from where he’d been smacked around by bullies or badniks in those first few weeks.

Idly petting along the length of his tail, Sonic stilled when it spasmed against his palm. Just looking at it, he’d have thought he accidentally pulled on it or snagged his fur, but there was a gentle rumbling sound emanating from Tails’s chest that assured him otherwise. Sonic flicked his gaze up to see Tails watching him, a smile on his face while he purred openly. His tail jerked in his hold again. It was trying to wag.

Sonic’s shoulders sagged, his own smile lopsided as he let his tail slip from his grasp. “All clear. Time to park those two tails of yours right here on the runway.”

Tails squeaked as Sonic nabbed him around the middle, but dissolved into a fit of giggles as he was lifted up and plopped down on the grass next to him. Kicking up one leg over the other, Sonic laid back once again, arms pillowed behind his head as he let out a contented sigh. Beside him, Tails laid back and wiggled a bit to get comfortable, both tails swept to the same side so they wouldn’t get pinched underneath him. He tilted his head up to look at the sky, the same color reflected back in his eyes.

“Shapes?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re gonna look for shapes, little buddy,” Sonic hummed. “Go ahead and tell me what ya find.”

Tails considered the sky for a moment, then pointed at a blob above them. “Oval.”

A sharp laugh burst right out of Sonic. “Sorry, sorry,” he wheezed when Tails pouted at him. “Not those kinda shapes, pal. I’m talking things like flickies or flowers or chili dogs! But good first try. I’m thinking that one looks more like… a whale.”

“Whale?”

“Uh-huh. See the tail?” Sonic removed one hand from behind his head so he could trace the oblong cloud as it faintly curved upwards at the end, making sure Tails’s eyes followed where he pointed. “And there’s its fin. And the wispy bits at the top are like the water shooting out of its spout.”

“Spout,” Tails echoed, blinking up at it like he was trying to solve a puzzle. 

“Yeah, you know. Like when they come up from the water and all that mist sprays from that hole on top of their heads like…” A devious grin spread across Sonic’s face before he looped his arm around Tails and dragged him close enough to blow a raspberry against his cheek with a loud, “pbbbbbbfffft!”

Tails squealed, legs kicking as he squirmed about instinctively, but made no move to pull away entirely. The ticklish sensation buzzed through him like a bunch of tiny butterflies; the feeling silly, unfamiliar, and almost overwhelming all at once. He eventually pawed at Sonic’s muzzle, pushing it away from the fluffy, baby fur of his cheek, but he was smiling and laughing as he looked over at him, eyes shining with delight.

“Was that funny?” Sonic snickered.

“Yeah!” Tails beamed at him, his tails beating an inconsistent rhythm against the grass. “You’re funny.”

“I’m funny?” Sonic feigned offense. “Excuse me, but seems to me like you’re the funny one, wiggling around over here like a cup of sparkle gelatin!”

“No!” Tails squeaked, curling up when Sonic poked him in the tummy. 

“No?” Sonic eased back, reminding himself to reign it in a bit so he could figure out if the “no” was just in play or if he was serious. 

As much as he wanted to give this little guy something to smile and laugh about while he was out here on his own—and it was so easy, it was almost intoxicating when he hadn’t seen his brother’s smile in weeks—he didn’t want to overwhelm the kid. But as he let him go and pulled back, a panicked look flashed in Tails’s eyes. His smile fell and a fear that was too big for a guy so small replaced it as he froze up.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Sonic lowered his voice, but even that didn’t stop the tears from suddenly sprouting in the corners of his eyes. “Was that too much? Sorry, kiddo. Not really used to you like this. I don’t know your limits.”

Tails didn’t answer him, probably because he didn’t know how. He was a baby, after all. Four-year-old Tails had often had trouble expressing how he felt or what he wanted. And heck, even ten-year-old Tails was still facing that particular issue. He couldn’t expect a maybe-two-year-old to know…

Tails’s tiny paw reached for Sonic’s arm, the light touch barely registering as anything other than an itch before his fingers curled into his fur. Sonic stared at his hand for a second, then immediately darted to his face. Tails sniffed, muzzle quivering as he held back his tears.

Always sucking it up. Always putting on a brave face. Always trying to be a big kid, like his big bro.

Even when he was just a baby.

“It’s okay,” Sonic repeated, his arm curling around Tails again. “I’m right here, it’s okay.”

Tails nestled against his side, nuzzling his face against him with a shiver and a barely suppressed whimper. “Mom… dad…”

The storm returned with a white-hot flash of frustration and resentment. Sonic directed his glare at the cloud whale lazily floating past them, since he couldn’t look the people responsible for this in the eyes. Not that he particularly wanted to. If they never crossed paths, his and Tails lives would only continue on for the better. That was one thing he was still certain of. There was nothing in the universe that could convince him otherwise.

Not even the baby who desperately wanted them.

But he didn’t know any better. They were all he knew. 

Releasing a long sigh, Sonic let go of the past and pulled himself back into the present—or, well, two-year-old Tails’s present anyway. He patted Tails’s side, then ruffled his fur a bit when he cuddled closer. His fur tickled as he rubbed his little face against his ribs, so Sonic scooched him up a bit more until his cheek was pillowed against his shoulder.

“Sorry if I scared you, bud,” he hummed, watching as one of Tails’s ears twitched from the lull of his voice. “Didn’t mean to. You’re safe with me, okay? When I’m around, I’m always gonna do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

Tails tipped his head back to watch him, silently absorbing his words, even if he didn’t understand them. But as Sonic looked down at him, he saw his four-year-old brother snuggling up to him in a storm and his six-year-old brother falling asleep on him during a movie and his eight-year-old brother trying to be strong for Sonic as they lost another friend… He could see all of Tails in the way he looked at him, every moment where he let Sonic see a little of that vulnerability he always tried so hard to hide.

He could even see his ten-year-old brother, hundreds of miles away, determined to bury that vulnerable little kid for good, somewhere Sonic would never find him. And that was fine. If that was what Tails wanted, then Sonic wanted that for him. He wanted Tails to feel confident and capable and every bit the hero Sonic saw in him every day.

“And even when I’m not here… when you can’t see me? I’ll still be with you. Wherever you go, whatever you face, you won’t have to do it alone.”

Tails sniffed, then lifted his head to gaze up at him. “Pomise?”

Sonic’s breath hitched, his eyes as wide as saucers as the fox kit who’d only known him for a few minutes at most looked at him with nothing but trust. “Yeah. I promise.” He had to clear his throat, then tugged Tails up to sit on his chest. “You’ve got no idea just how stuck with me you are, keed.”

“No idea,” Tails repeated, shaking his head with the utmost seriousness a two-year-old could express.

Sonic’s laughter traveled through him and right up into Tails, the two of them shaking with it. The feeling of being bounced about coaxed a few giggles out of Tails and he nearly slid off his unsteady perch. But Sonic’s hands supported him, holding tight so he wouldn’t fall.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Sonic choked out as his laughter petered out on a breathless sigh. “Don’t ever forget that, okay?”

“M’kay,” Tails agreed.

“M’kay.” With one hand remaining on Tails’s waist, Sonic lifted the other to poke him on the tip of his nose, grinning at the way he went cross-eyed from following his finger. “I’m gonna follow up on that in eight years, y’know, so better work on committing that to memory, stat.”

“M’kay.”

“I mean it. There’ll be a test and everything.”

“M’kay.”

“You’re so agreeable,” Sonic sighed, closing his eyes as he laid his head back, leaving the comfortable weight of the baby fox on his abdomen. “I don’t think I know what to do with a little bro that actually listens to me.”

He felt Tails squirm a bit, one knee digging into his ribs as he attempted to scoot further up, then a finger lightly tapped Sonic on the tip of his nose. One green eye cracked open, immediately greeted with a pair of pleased blue ones and a wagging fox tail. Despite the fact that it was pinned beneath him, pressed into the grass, Sonic felt his tail give a jerky little wag, too.

“Shapes?” Tails asked.

“You wanna look for more shapes in the clouds?” Sonic waited for Tails’s eager nod before turning him around and laying him back in the grass beside him. “You got it, bud! You need a redemption round, after all. Let’s see what kinda shapes you can find this time.”

Tails hummed, contemplative gaze fixed on the clouds for a good minute before he pointed slightly to his left. “Floor!”

“Floor?” Sonic squinted up at the cloud, making sure he was looking at the right one. “Oh, ‘flower!’ Yeah, that does kinda look like a tulip flower. Good eye, kiddo.”

Tails nodded proudly. “Mmhm. Floor.”

“Flower,” Sonic repeated, and even made the sign for it, touching each side of his nose with his fingertips, like he was smelling a flower.

“Floor-er.”

“Close enough,” he chuckled. “Oh, okay, now that one looks like a crab claw. Like from a crabmeat.” Grinning devilishly, Sonic made a claw-like grabby motion at Tails with his hand while the little guy laughed. “Or, y’know, an actual crab.”

They watched the clouds, picking more shapes out of them until Tails’s stomach started growling. Sonic quickly sped through the forest to gather up whatever kind of fruits or vegetables were available on the island, eventually settling on some peaches, plums, and cherries. He grabbed them from the other side of the island, so as not to take from anywhere Tails was likely to forage on his own. He liked the plums and peaches, the sticky juice staining his muzzle as it dripped from his hands. He kept trying to lick his fingers clean while Sonic wiped the fur around his mouth so it wouldn’t bother him later when it dried. He didn’t care for the cherries as much, but Sonic still left a small stash of them and the leftover peaches at the base of the tree stump.

With a full tummy and sticky paws, Tails let out a big, squeaky yawn before he curled up on top of the tree stump. His tails covered him like a blanket as he settled down for a nap, giving Sonic just the out he needed. He’d been debating how to head back to his present time without sounding any alarms for Tails. He honestly wasn’t sure he’d be able to if the kid just looked at him with those sad eyes, like he was being abandoned all over again.

But if Tails was asleep, then maybe this would all have felt like just a dream. Sonic had just wanted to check on him after leaving him so abruptly that first time, and then he figured it couldn’t hurt to give him one good afternoon. There would be so many days where he’d be on his own after this, so many months before their paths would cross. One afternoon where a stranger showed him kindness and played with him wasn’t going to break the time stream, but even Sonic knew it couldn’t really go further than that.

“I’d break time lines for that kid.” His own words echoed at the back of his mind, the certainty he’d felt at the time faltering when faced with the sleepy face of a baby fox who wasn’t supposed to have met him yet. It wasn’t so simple.

Sonic waited until Tails’s breaths were deep and steady, arms wrapped around the weaker tail while the stronger one blanketed him with its fluff. Smoothing down his bangs with his thumb, Sonic gently stroked the top of his head and scritched behind his ear.

“Love ya, little bro,” he whispered.

Things would be okay, Sonic reminded himself as he backed out of the clearing, picking up the two emeralds that were his ticket back to his time. Because they were okay in the present. Even if Tails wouldn’t be there when he returned, they would still be okay. Eventually. They always came out on top. Sonic still believed that.

If there was anything he still believed in above all else, it was Tails.

So, to be fair, when he left the Poloy Forest that afternoon, it had been with the intention that this wouldn’t happen again.

But then, Sonic the Hedgehog’s impulse control wasn’t his claim to fame, was it?

---

A/N: Anyway, just wanted to say thank you again, 0vergrown, and that I appreciate you so much! I'm so happy you're interested in this little side plot I've got brewing and all the angst potential that it holds <3 I have so many little scenes I want to write for them, you have no idea! Hope this scratches a bit of the itch for more of these boys who need so much therapy. So much...

And thank you everyone else who's also interested in this idea! Much love to all of you!

[halfway-happyyy]

more of frank talking you through it pleaseeee

i’m thinking like.. during prone bone maybe

ask and you shall receive, friend.

I actually hc that one of frank’s go-to positions is doggy (the man loves a view), so this isn’t much of a stretch (ha) at all. the rest is under the cut because it's naughty.

it’s one of those evenings where neither of you have successfully satisfied your appetites for one another. he’d come home from the site in a way, thundering through the front door in a huff and muttering something about having to drive home with a hard-on the entire way. fresh out of the shower, he’d given it to you hard and fast up against the kitchen wall while pasta sauce simmered on the stove, but even that wasn’t enough to scratch the surface of your craving for him. 

“what’s it gonna take, sweet girl?” 

frank’s got you pressed up against the window in your bedroom, the whole of manhattan spread out before you like a starlit tapestry. his fingers dance up your neck, and for a moment, you imagine the feel of his hand as it closes around the base of your throat, and a tiny, desperate whimper emanates from you.

“what’s it gonna take for you to get your fill tonight, huh?” frank presses a kiss to the side of your jaw and rasps, “open up.” 

doing as you’re told, your mouth falls open, allowing him to insert two fingers into it.

his head drops to your shoulder and a low groan sounds from him as your cheeks hollow out around his thick digits. “atta girl. just like that.” he lets you suckle on them for a little while longer before pulling them from the heat of your mouth with an obscene pop, and trailing them down the soft skin of your chest and stomach. you hiss as the cool air from the open window kisses the trail of moisture he’s leaving behind in his wake, and causes a shiver to wrack you.

“you always take everything I give you so damn well, baby.” he muses. "how did i get so lucky, hm?"

his wet fingers hover inches away from where you need him most when he asks, “can I touch you here, sweet girl?” 

all you can manage is a rushed, “yes, god, please, frankie…” 

his fingers circle the swollen bud of your clit a couple of times before pushing into you completely, and it’s all you can do to keep from crying out at the stretch.

“‘sat feel good, baby?” he whispers.

“mhm,” 

his head falls back to your shoulder while he continues fucking his fingers into you, and you’re entirely powerless at this point to keep from grinding your hips back against him, trying to glean as much friction as you can.

“I need more frank,” your voice is fragile, desperate, a wine glass at the edge of a tabletop. “please.”

frank tuts, giving his head a half-shake. “I’m not totally confident you can handle a third one, baby. I think that might just be too much for your sweet little pussy to handle, hm?” 

“please, frankie…” 

he finally relents and sinks a third finger into you, groaning loudly at how wet you are for him, at how he can feel you dripping down his hand. 

“you like making a mess as much as I do, baby.” 

you’d already come twice for him earlier, and the tell-tale signs of your third orgasm begin smoldering in the pit of your belly. he can tell by the way you involuntarily clench around him, and his lips find the shell of your ear. 

“I don’t think you need a third finger baby, I think what you need is my cock.”

he pulls his fingers from you without warning then, which causes tears to brim in your eyes. the sudden loss catches the breath in your throat like smoke, and frank shakes his head. 

“none of that, sweet girl. you know I’ve got you, hm?”

his hands grasp the sides of your face, forcing you to maintain eye contact with him. 

“who takes the best care of you?” 

you swallow hard, in an attempt to find your voice. “you do, Frankie.” 

“that’s right, baby. now get on the bed for me, yeah?”

making it there is half the battle, but you do as you’re told, and position yourself onto all fours for him.

frank saddles up behind you and taps the soft skin of your hip twice. “want you on your stomach, pretty girl.” 

you comply, and feel him line the head of his cock up against your soaked entrance. he teases you by rubbing himself up against your slick slit, cursing at the feeling of your wetness. 

“gonna fuck you so good, baby. gonna give you everything you deserve.” 

normally he’s careful to go nice and slow with you on account of his sheer size, but there’s simply no need tonight. 

“lift your hips up a bit for me,” his voice is breathy and barely audible, and your compliance is rewarded by being filled to the hilt with him. “yes fuck, just like that.” 

he starts slow at first; likes to watch the slow push and pull of his cock inside of you, slick with your arousal. his fingers leave miniscule half-moon crescents in the skin of your thighs that only heighten the pleasure he’s providing you. still maintaining his speed, he leans forward to press a series of kisses down the length of your spine. 

“fuck, frankie…” 

he nods against you, his warm hands resuming their purchase on your hips. “I know baby, I know. I feel it. you keep squeezin’ my cock like that and you’re gonna make me come.” 

and you want it like you’ve never wanted anything before; the feeling of him filling you with absolutely everything he has to give; his warm spend dripping down the length of your inner thigh and onto the bed sheets beneath you.

you like making a mess as much as I do, baby.

he slows against you, the sharp, fast intake of his breath telling you that if you make a single move, he’ll come apart completely. you’re so still that you can feel his cock twitch and throb deep inside of you, the sensation enough to cause a tremble of unbridled pleasure to wrack you.

“I want it, frank.”

"I know you do, baby. I can tell how cock-drunk you are just by the sound of your voice alone."

"Please,"

your wrecked plea is the catalyst for his release, which hits him like a freight train and pushes him over the edge entirely. your name, similar to a prayer, is a repeated, wrecked chant on his lips, and he stays inside of you for a couple moments longer, reveling in the all-consuming heat of you- his favourite place to be. with one past peck to your back, he pulls from you with a soft groan. 

“always so fucking good for me, baby. let me get a warm cloth, I’ll be right back.” 

“okay frankie, I’ll be right here.”

[vechter]

do you have any dickroy recs? i just read shaking it off and it was really good im kind of new to them but you seem to know them really well

do i ever...

the happy ones by karples

‘cause i’ll keep coming over by karples

truth is the first casualty by karples

more than you know by karples

just gimme one bad night by karples

king of night vision, king of insight by karples

Another Thing We'll Never Talk About by Rubynye

to the left by newsical

there's a hole where your heart lies by FromStarstuff

live wire by unveils

heavenly way to die by one_step_closer_to_death

ground beneath my feet by one_step_closer_to_death

love watching you go by butch_chastity

gates of horn and ivory by mishencockles

everything casts a shadow by mishencockles

Green, still green by mishencockles

little pearl, little pearl, i see the dirt in your lines. {where perfectionism goes to die.} by SHINeeNAilee

deaf, dumb, thirty, starting to deserve this by 2mad4plaid

all we are is an aching that can barely be filled by 2mad4plaid

we were reaching in the dark by 2mad4plaid

almost all of these are slash (and quite a few are smut so check the tags) im too exhausted to give summaries but i love all these fics immensely! also tysm glad you liked shaking it off to find a higher low <3 i'm assuming you've read my other dickroy stuff— it builds and builds and builds & angie, they can't say we never tried 

[artbyblastweave]

after reading Peter Clines Ex-Heroes pentalogy I can confidentiality say that Danielle Harris is one of the coolest heroes ever, what do you think of her?

^This lady So what I like about Danielle Morris/Cerberus is that she's a take on the Iron Man archetype in the context of an otherwise deliberately incredibly low-budget superhero universe, a setting where, with the exception of one millionaire, the superhero population consists almost entirely of working-class people in kludged-together wetsuits and motorcycle leathers who only get away with their low-rent costumes by virtue of the fact that they do, in fact, have incredibly potent superpowers. This is a hard circle to square, aesthetically, if you also want to introduce a hero who uses power armor, because that shit's expensive.

The solution? Cerberus doesn't debut after the other half of the book's elevator pitch, the zombie apocalypse, is already well under way. The fact that there's only one set of the armor despite the extensive documentation that must exist is due to the fact that the armor is a prototype, slated for eventual mass production but hastily deployed as a show of force by a rapidly disintegrating military that's at the point of just throwing whatever they've got at the wall to see what sticks. The typically-inadvisable trope of the suit's chief engineer also being the field pilot is initially justified by the fact that she's the only person left who knows how to operate it; and then by her reluctance to train a second person on how to operate it because she comes to be psychologically dependent on the physical protection it provides her. Protection that's at least somewhat illusory, to boot, because if you take a shot for every time the suit very realistically suffers a power failure or mechanical failure at a crucial juncture, you're going to lose your liver. The collapse of the logistics network impedes the armor's ability to work at full capacity almost from the start; those bracers on her arms in the above illustrations are for .50 Caliber machine guns that ran quickly out of ammo after her first skirmish and had to be mothballed. The series is very clear that Cerberus wouldn't be viable in the long run if she weren't on a team with several other superhumans, including an electrokinetic and a technopath, who can help cover the suit's weak points. Ironic, given the implication that the original point of Cerberus was so the army would have an answer to those same people. Overall, the armor is paradoxically portrayed as both viable and nonviable.

One of the really interesting things about Ex-Heroes's worldbuilding is that superheroes numbered in the dozens before the apocalypse, but supervillains only start to emerge in any real numbers after the apocalypse, when the prospect of being able to start a fiefdom or a cult of personality without someone noticing and coming to kick your shit are significantly greater; before that, criminals with powers mostly kept what they were capable of on the down low because there was no sane reason to adopt the kind of comic-book classic presentation that would call a superhero down on their heads. Thus the quiet thesis of the series is that quite a bit of classic superheroic nonsense would be actively facilitated by the end of the world and the collapse of society; the incentives and the restrictions would change, but heroism would remain pointedly necessary. Cerberus is also part of this quiet thesis. The perpetual tension of Tony Stark is that we know him to exist in a world full of cultural, legal and logistical restrictions, against which the specific fantasy of being Iron Man would inevitably run aground. Cerberus, as a superheroic identity, never existed alongside any of that. It's way easier to be a knight errant or a lone ranger if that's the only version of those things left that anyone can be.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

ive been snickering at this for the past like five minutes it aint even that funny ..

[The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe!]

[vlasdygoth]

I'm raiden with thisbe

[gynandromorph]

i have decided idletry has a calendar year of 360 days, a dozen months, 30 days every month, weeks of 6 days, oneday, twosday, threesday, foursday, fivesday, and endday (on the fence about this one's name), if you see any canonical mention of days of the week let me know--

[phantomrose96]

These tags are taking me out

Screaming crying resisting the urge to write a 10 question reading-comprehension quiz every time I post a story

[skimmingmilk]

I always think abt Sonic and Tails’ relationship is a lot like Shadow and Maria’s but what if Tails has the same fate as Maria? (This could be a prompt too, I love your fics sm!)

[glitteraffe-art]

This is a pretty simple explanation of the topic, and does not cover every detail, but hopefully it is a nice overview!

Slide text in text form, and reference and image source URLs under the cut:

Title Card: Cloning Mercenaries 101: How Real-Life Cloning Works

CW: Mentions of animal death (in a research context)

Slide 1: Foreword

If you're into TF2, chances are you've come across fanworks depicting the "clone theory" to explain why there's more than one of each mercenary.

Clone theories generally fall into the categories of either respawn/teleportation cloning, or biological cloning. Today, we'll focus on real-life biological cloning.

"But TF2 is a Looney-Tunes comedy! Why bother with the science of a fairly common, but minimally supported headcanon?"

It's always worth understanding how the real-life version of something really works!

Slide 2: What is Cloning?

"Cloning" broadly refers to the process of producing individuals who are genetically identical to another individual. It can include single- and multi-cellular organisms.

Cloning includes both natural cloning (like plant cuttings, asexual reproduction) and artificial cloning (like cloning DNA fragments, cells, and organisms).

"Reproductive cloning", is the cloning of a multicellular organism to create a new genetically identical individual.

Engie speech bubble: Natural cloning is more common than you may think: for example, plants grown from cuttings are clones of their "parent"!

Slide 3: Reproductive Cloning

There are 2 methods of reproductive cloning for mammals:

Embryo Splitting

- Used to create identical twins from 1 egg and 1 sperm cell after in-vitro fertilization (IVF)

- Not really for cloning an existing adult so we won't focus on it.

Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT)

- Used to create a number of clones of an individual organism from 1 body cell (somatic cell) from the organism and 1 donor egg cell

Engie speech bubble: We’ll be focusing on SCNT here!

Slide 4: Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (Diagram)

1. Nucleus removed from body (somatic) cell of individual to be cloned (by pipette)

2. Nucleus removed from donor egg cell

3. Somatic nucleus placed into empty donor egg cell

4. Resulting egg stimulated and begins to divide

5. Resulting embryo transferred to uterus of a surrogate mother to develop.

Slide 5: Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer

The resulting clone embryo is not 100% identical to that of the individual to be cloned.

- The body (somatic) cell's nucleus may have contained mutations

- The mitochondria (powerhouse of the cell) of the resulting clone embryo will be the donor egg's mitochondria

That's right! If the donor egg is NOT from the individual or their matenal line (mitochondria are passed down maternally) the resulting clone embryo will NOT be 100% identical.

Engie speech bubble: With different mitochondria, a clone may have differences in body parts with high energy demand, like muscles, heart, eyes, or brain.

Slide 6: Dolly the Sheep

Some methods using the principles of SCNT were used as early as the 1950s (based on earlier work in the 1920s) to clone amphibians.

The first successful mammalian clone using SCNT was Dolly, a cloned sheep born in 1996 in Scotland, and announced to the public in 1997.

Dolly eventually developed severe arthritis and a progressive lung disease and was

euthanized at age 6 despite sheep's average lifespan being 11-12 years.

Engie speech bubble: Dolly was named after Dolly Parton!

Slide 7: Some Downsides

Inefficiency & Failure Rate:

SCNT has a high failure rate - many clones die during gestation, and newborn clones may die of abnormalities. For example, for Dolly, 277 fertilized eggs -> 29 embryos -> 3 lambs born -> only Dolly survived.

Advanced Aging(?):

Due to Dolly's age-related diseases it was speculated her DNA was already genetically "old". Later studies of further clones found no evidence of having age-related diseases, but the idea of "advanced" or "accelerated" aging of clones made its way into pop culture.

Engie speech bubble: More recent cloning using SCNT have reported higher success rates, but still have many failures.

Slide 8: What Does this Mean in TF2?

A resulting baby born from SCNT will, in fact, be a baby. The baby will NOT have the memories, experiences, muscle mass, or, well... anything past genetics, of the individual they were cloned from.

In terms of TF2, a lot of time and money would need to be spent raising, feeding, and teaching the resulting baby for the next 18 or so years to get anywhere close to a useful mercenary. Not very efficient...

Engie speech bubble: In short, you'd need to look beyond realistic cloning

and take some sci-fi shortcuts to get already-adult clones as often portrayed in fandom.

REFERENCE URLs

(Removed the hyper links since Tumblr likes to hide posts with hyperlinks)

Image of Dolly is from here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/22/newsid_4245000/4245877.stm

I mainly referenced these while writing (Yes, Wikipedia unreliable, I know, but this slideshow is a for-funsies TF2-themed general explanation and not an academic essay):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223960/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_(sheep)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_cell_nuclear_transfer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning

I also looked at these when trying to determine if the Wikipedia information was reliable:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223969/

https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/General_Biology_(Boundless)/17%3A_Biotechnology_and_Genomics/17.01%3A_Biotechnology/17.1D%3A_Reproductive_Cloning

https://www.britannica.com/science/cloning/Reproductive-cloning

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790123/

[chaotixx-stims]

gregory house stimboard with red, fire, and explosions for anon!

💉/🔥/💊

🔥/☆/🔥

💉/🔥/💊

[redjaybathood]

Honestly, through what we saw so far about the upcoming series, you kinda just... Can't tell whether it will be good or not. Like, on the paper, Dark Trinity was a shit idea by a proven shit writer. The first 25 issues tho? Unexpectedly good both as a story and as a Jason Todd story.

So at least we can predict that: Helena Bertinelli's fans *will* be pissed no matter what Felker-Martin does. They never liked Jason to begin with, mostly (there's some overlap, but it's not that big, and they're less on tumblr and more on, I dunno, Reddit). Remember all these posts about Jason stealing something from female characters, or Jason fans actually, deep down, wanting to read about someone like Helena (Selina, Cass, Steph, whoever), but they just hate women too much, or whatever. Yeah, I don't think this (very loud although small in numbers) category of fans will love it no matter what's written. Expect the same complaints that Koriand'r, Artemis and Roy's fans made. It's just unavoidable. But that's gonna be less about a story and more about how her character was reimagined* and put into a book with a guy they don't care for.

*(if it will be - which, with what the author says about not liking superhero genre overall, well, I'm not sure of it is from experience with the genre or just overall vibe. Even if she didn't read much Helena comics... She could have done a tonn of research about Helena, read the best work with her. Maybe the end result will not be considered a reimagining. But, I am not so sure, even if that was happening, that it will help with the disregard canon attitude, prevalent in fandom and dictated by the medium itself (i.e. Huntress in New52 isn't the Huntress in '88)

What about Jason fans? Ehh. Look, I honest to god seen fans who LIKED Cheer. And that's just shows that there will be someone who liked it (not necessarily the same ppl who liked Cheer, it's just - it boggles my mind someone thinks it's a good JPT story). And there will be some who did not. The proportion, though...

What do we know so far:

1) Jason leaves Gotham. Which, yay! Wasn't it what a good chunk of us asked for? Except, of course, those of us who like: why does he have to leave? That's his city.

2) Jason partners with Helena. Which, yay! Wasn't it what... Yeah. It was. Because it is indeed compelling, for a Jason story, to put someone to be juxtaposed against. It doesn't work that well with Bruce past UtRH, never worked with Tim and Dick, wasn't really a thing with Cass, Steph, Damian, or Duke - and like, I get it, Jason's fans are mostly adults, and the last two have a much younger audience, on average. It won't mix well, if you want to really dig into similarities and differences.

So, on paper, Helena is a good choice of a partner!

3) There might be some romantic relationship between Jason and Helena. Which, maybe the biggest thing that wasn't on anyone's list. Like, if you are inspired by Nick Robles' cover - here it is on bluesky - I don't blame you, but if you gonna say "let women fuck whoever they want" I need you to remember that Helena is an imaginary woman who will want to fuck whoever her author or editorial mandate wants to fuck. And sure, maybe we shouldn't let pesky things like her being Dick's ex stop from being open minded. Because let's be real here, that relationship wasn't of that much significance at least for Dick. And yeah, the dating pool, if you are choosing between supers, is fairly small. She couldn't be written dating, I dunno, Dr.Fate, could she? I mean, she could have, but... It would be a even more surprising pairing.

I don't necessarily agree that a book should include dating? Like, it can very well be written without. If you know me, I was very against jaytemis, for example, even if I love them separately and together. And yeah, I am a jayroy fan, but that doesn't follow that I want Jason and Roy to have romantic or sexual relationship in canon. I am not against them being married with kids, tho. For tax reasons or not to testify against each other, or just pooling resources, or just for companionship... But okay, I am going to syop right here because this post isn't supposed to be about my ideal book that won't ever be published, okay. The example is just to showcase a book can be easily written without romance.

So, tldr, I sincerely hope that the romance either going to stay on an alternate cover, or that it makes narrative sense. I don't see how it would, and I have to admit i am sceptical. But it might.

4) Politics. So the investigation about serial cop killer, Felker-Martin is a pretty hard ACAB person. So from the point of story overall, the cop killer won't be an unsympathetic villain at the very least. Who knows, it might be Helena herself (unlikely, since Jason is hunting a telepath). Cops being murdered can have a broad appeal if you write them realistically enough. Look: "Sweat, blood, and powder burns. Broken bones and mind control. A city rotted from the inside out." That's about corruption of people with authority, right? Cops very likely is either a symptom of the rot, or a cause. And the telepath might be surgically removing it. (Upd: on second thought, Jason might be hinting that telepath either not because they're the serial killer but because they are behind the mind control and rot. Like a politician or a business man; or he does hunt the telepath killer but the mind control theme is also shown through, again, mainstream politics and business; sp it's not a given that the killer will be sympathetic but it doesn't matter for Jason fans either way. Point is, nobody will cry for those cops - unless they were "good ones" who were trying to change the system and the system literally removed them, and used their deaths for a political purpose etc). At least, that's the vibe I am getting. So this is not a worry of mine.

However. When talking about politics, what I'm worried whether the story will mostly serve as exploration of fascism - with Jason being the fascist. Not the cops only, or "the powers" (which, honestly, call me paranoid but it does not sound good in the current climate, as overall, but especially now, it basically is a dog whistle). Because let's be real, this accusation is not new for Jason. And, again, be reminded that she most likely views the genre as a whole to be, well. Fascist propaganda.

Which - weird choice to go and work for said propaganda, either it is too ambitious (to change the company from within) or. Not consistent. Especially with her being happy that editorial "let her get away" with something. She is not Pavlo Tychyna, one of the few survivors of Executed Renaissance by, among other things, writing only the things the party allowed to get away with.

That's not only thing she said about superheroics in a negative way. You seen that post with bsky links, the quote above is somewhere on there as well. I was drawn to this recent reblog.

On the other hand, she didn't say all that much, it's not like she's going over and over about how she hates it/condemns the industry. And like, it's a fair criticism, yk? Sometimes superhero comics are fasc propaganda. A genre created by Jews amidst the fight against Nazism and fascism... Now it's not always carries that spirit. Batman franchise, anyone?

I wouldn't agree it's all in service of fascism and inaction. But it also drives home the point how limited and skewed her perception of the genre and or industry is. Because there's a whole lot of different comics. Maus being certainly not pro fascist, for one (upd: correction , sp apparently it's only the superhero comics that are the issue so Maud as an example isn't a good one; hmmm a good chunk of Green Arrow, Swamp thing, Superman comics then). It's like saying that Cdramas are a tool of xenophobic propaganda, or romantasy is pushed by Mormons for anti-women rights reasons.

So yeah, I dunno, from the politics perspective it's my biggest concern, not gonna lie. It's not the politics themselves, it's - will it be a good story of the author isn't that familiar and or hates the genre, and might have not read much about the title characters, or got from what they've read - "it's copaganda" / "Jason is pro death penalty" or whatever Tumblr lefties ranting on about nowadays. I am afraid it's gonna carry into the story in some way.

But, I mean, nothing can be worse than "Jason was doomed from the start" patronising hand-wrangling victim blaming bullshit. Not to point fingers on another recent Jason thing I am hesitant about.

So to summarise: most of what I've seen people worried about - don't be. She's award winning novelist, so it might end well for everyone involved. And yeah, not everyone is gonna be satisfied but nobody ever is. People hated the Red Hood: Outlaws webcomic! Arguably the best Jason's work in the last five years! Which - yeah I know I'm in the minority here, let me be. It only goes to show that not everyone gonna be happy, but someone will have the time of their life. And honestly - good for them.

[leo-regulus]

Alright, I'll bite. What's Regulus' story? (Is this the South I've seen mentioned?)

Aight let's GO. This is indeed the South you've seen mentioned, and who occasionally posts on this blog. (Mostly when bothering his personal blorbo, Tsuki, but anything fishy and bloody tends to get his attention.) South is short for Southern Star, which is the public alias he's chosen, to separate him from the canon Leo Regulus, who in his words is "a sunshiny little bitch without the sense to bite the hand that poisons him".

He's pretty canon divergent, is what I'm saying here. Now, you've already seen Jesse's story, or the broad strokes thereof, so you know that the version of events our partner system and we write is pretty different than you'd expect. Reggie's story is a lot harsher than Jesse's, and so thus, I do need to give a content warning before we begin.

I can promise you that this story has a happy ending, insofar as anything can. But this is a story about war. In order to understand Regulus as a person, you have to swim a little while beside him. Did he make perfect choices? No. But you don't, in war. You can't. In a war, all you can do is try to survive, and try to win. No matter the cost. I'm gonna give this story a hard R18 rating: there will be non-explicit but described sexual content, incest, pretty questionable power dynamics, dubcon, lots of death, and lots more violence. If you note that Regulus was a maximum of fifteen when this story concludes, well, the hypocrisy there is the point. Welcome to war.

Below the cut, shall we?

-----

There are three things every Spectre learns by the time they call a Surplice and swallow a demon star. One, to stay as you are is to kill everyone you could have become. Two, to change is to kill the person you are. And three, most important, is that Athena always lies.

The Meikai is alive, more than any realm a living human has cause to walk. It is Hades, and it is Persephone, and it is their children. It is also itself. The Meikai's children, the Spectres, are shapeshifters. They move from human to the animal of their Surplice and back. Some can do it voluntarily, most find that their body knows what form it should be better than they do. The children of the Spectres, thus, must also be shapeshifters. They will shapeshift into the same species as their parent's surplice, and should they have two Spectre parents, then the children of those Spectres will be a mixture of both.

But it is the Meikai that decides this. If three Spectres gather, and one says "both of these Spectres will be the father of my children," the Meikai will consider this and agree. The children will be a combination. Who is their biological father, then? All of the Spectres involved who are not the mother, and the children will be a new species, a clean crossbreed of every Surplice involved.

A wolf who allows a mandrake to sire her children will birth a wolf of roses. A wyvern and a minotaur will create what very much looks like if a bearded dragon tried to become a mountain goat and succeeded. A griffon and two fish will create a sea-griffon, able to dive to the depths of the abyssal zone, and fly to the thermosphere.

So when two shark-sirens, a dryad, a lion-drake, and a witch have children, the Meikai does its best. The four seirína ichthýon, the Pisces sirens, are lionfish who bleed the poisons of roses, for whom depth is but a desire; and for whom a drop of human blood a mile or more away is a song of delicious carnage awaiting their arrival.

Albafica was the first. True to his word, Lugonis chose to offer him the Red Bond, fully believing that this would protect him. True as well to his word, Ilias cut down the one who he believed would demand humanity from a child more fish than anything else, believing as well that this would protect him.

The Pisces Cloth had tolerated Lugonis' dual duties as a Spectre and Saint only because they did not have a replacement on hand. With the Holy War drawing nearer, that replacement had come. Albafica was eight years old when Lugonis fell, believing himself to be the reason, unaware that he was little more than the weapon a calculating Gold Cloth was using against a man they did not believe would serve Athena when the time came.

Aquarius Krest and Cancer Sage, who were familiar with the Specters and with the unnatural, inhuman grace of their children, knew better than to let Albafica escape. But Athena is a goddess of war, and more than once a Saint has managed to bottle a technique for another Saint to use. It is not difficult, between a loyal Virgo and a long-dead Gemini, to wipe the memory of a child, so that he might never know who and what he was. So that he would be loyal, and believe himself both human and orphaned, and they could control the one Saint who could kill everyone just by bleeding into the water supply.

But ah, he was, as I said, the eldest of four. The Witch had just borne a second child, barely a month old, when Lugonis fell and Albafica was lost. Where Albafica was striped in blue and white, Regulus was striped in orange and white, more lionfish than shark. Even among siblings, there is always variation. As he was not a Pisces, the Dryad chose not to offer him the Red Bond.

He might have grown up protected and cosseted by all those around him: his parents as well as their siblings and coworkers. As it was, the Judges could see their failure to save his elder brother. Rhadamanthys, new to his role as a Judge all over again, and younger brother to the Lion, tended to hover.

It would not be long until the third and fourth children arrived: two girls, one striped in the soft yellow-orange of dawn, and the other striped in a reddish violet like an early blackberry. Pefko stayed nearer to her brother, being older and understanding in some way that she should have two elder brothers. Content to let the two play in the garden, the Witch and the Dryad kept a closer eye on Rioghnach.

It didn't save them. If it had, this would be a very different story. On a quiet day, Ilias opted to take both a then-five-year-old Regulus and a seventeen-year-old Rhadamanthys out into the surface world for reconnaissance. Nothing was supposed to happen. Between a Gold Spectre and a Judge, nothing was supposed to go wrong.

Neither had been expecting an Aquarius Saint on five hundred years of borrowed time, with orders to eliminate them both. He had fought Rhadamanthys before, and shot him down before either knew he was there. Ilias hid Regulus in the bracken of a tree, and fought.

Krest, for whom lightning was nothing but an inconvenience and who had nothing to lose, came out the victor. He took Ilias' body away, understanding that Rhadamanthys would just get up and thus wasn't worth the effort of finishing off.

Taurus Rasgado, who had been instructed to survey the area by one Gemini Tobias, did not find Ilias. He found Rhadamanthys, who he did not recognize and who he helped get back to town, and in the bracken of a tree, found a five-year-old who wouldn't say a word and who had Ilias' uncanny blue eyes.

When he returned to Sanctuary with Regulus in tow, Ilias' death had already been reported. His description of Rhadamanthys was enough to set the blame of Ilias' death on the Wyvern, and Regulus was given to the care of Sagittarius Sisyphus. He saw Albafica, the serving Pisces Saint, only from a distance. He knew who his brother was, noted the oddness of the single colour of his hair, the lack of recognition in his eyes.

They told him, later, that it was a Judge of Hell who had taken his father away. That they were his family, and that they would take care of him, and when he was old enough, he could fight with them, and avenge his father.

He thought of his two sisters. He had no way of knowing - would not know for years to come - that Rioghnach had vanished in the night, that no one knew what had happened to her. He had no way of knowing that Pefko believed herself alone among her siblings, her brothers lost to Athena and her sister surely dead.

The Dryad and the Pisces both had faerie blood in them, enough that neither could speak an untruth into the air. Neither could he. He could not - would not - repeat the lie of Rhadamanthys killing his father. No one would believe him regardless. And so he kept it to himself. They said they were his family. This he knew to be mostly a lie, as well, and so he did not dissuade them.

He trained. They spoke often of his father, the great Leo Ilias who could speak to the trees and the earth, best of Sanctuary's best. He thought of what little he remembered of his father, hissing in some old draconic language to the Meikai itself, cutting down intruders who thought they could steal from death itself. They told him proudly how much like his father he was. He wondered, to himself, if they knew anything at all about him.

But ah, he was a child yet, and children are inclined to believe the adults around them, especially if those adults truly believe their own words, especially if no one refuses those words. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps he was wrong.

He trained. He trained, until seven years later, at twelve, he found himself the youngest Gold Saint in the garrison. Not a few months later, he would be called to Ireland for his first solo mission.

(It wasn't as though they could send Albafica and Aspros again. They had sealed Albafica's memory away, but they had forgotten to keep the truth from him that his father was Irish, and so was he. Amnesia or not, compelled loyalty or not, few Irishmen indeed with the strength to stand up to the English will refuse to do so. Aspros correctly understood that it was easier to join a fish on a rampage to free his homeland than it was to dissuade him. Regardless, neither was being sent to Ireland again anytime soon.)

The Greek shapeshifters, the children of Spectres, are wanderers. They must be, for their homeland burns every quarter millennium, for their homeland is a glorified prison for the titans and humanity's dead. They linger so rarely in one spot. They are known everywhere, for their multitude of shapes and sizes and colours, recognizable best by the too-smooth way they move, the grace that never leaves them.

Failinis knew the moment she set eyes upon this young, golden-haired child, that Sanctuary had sent her not a saviour but a child who needed to learn to control his cosmos or he was going to burn Sanctuary to the ground in his sleep. Regulus asked her for training, for anything he could use to keep from losing his grasp on his cosmos.

He never told her that he had felt like his body was little more than jelly for years. That his bones were liquid if nothing was pressing against them. That he feared water, believing as sure as any sailor that if he submerged himself, he would dissolve into nothing more than seafoam. He never had to. She saw the way he molded himself into something solid by shattering it against the force of his blows, how truly he believed that if he dropped his guard down, he would fall so surely apart that he would never be whole again.

Balor of the Evil Eye, he of the darkness who lurks against the sun, could see as clearly as Failinis could that this was a Spectre's child, on his own, with no knowledge of the shadows in his heart. He told the child how similar they were. That the only way forward was to plunge into the darkness, and see if he might glow.

Connor watched her father die, and she told him she was okay, that she would be just fine. She lied, and he could hear the lies ringing in his ears, and he said nothing. Had he not danced around the same question for years? In the silence between their mutual lies, the lies they knew they would believe until those lies too would dissolve against the river that is truth and time, they found recognition. In that recognition, he saw their differences, and he walked away.

He returned to find Sanctuary in chaos. Aspros, who grew bolder and smarter and stronger with every day that passed, had attacked the Pope, believing that he could claim the crown by right of strength. His brother - his damned brother, cursed and bedeviled and kinder to Regulus than anyone else had been - had aided him, until Virgo Asmita shattered the hold Aspros had cast over Defteros, until Defteros had both killed Aspros and absconded with his body.

Albafica, who Regulus would have expected to be at Aspros' heel for this, who had always vocally supported Aspros over Sisyphus for the crown, had disappeared into his temple. He refused all travellers passing through his temple, forcing Aries Shion to teleport anyone who needed to speak to the Pope.

He chose not to say anything of his experience in Ireland. He chose not to ask anyone if they could see the growing darkness within him, the darkness Balor had not planted but only watered. He chose not to ask why no one could see Aspros' betrayal coming, how he was so unsurprised by it. He took to leaving his temple when at all possible, spending his off-duty hours and nights wandering the forests around Sanctuary instead.

Defteros had left him a note on his way out: the Genro Mai Ken, the technique that pushed the human brain to its limits. It was Gemini-locked, but possible to bottle if an Aquarius froze it before it locked into a target. When the ice shattered, the technique would release. It could capture an unsuspecting target. It could wipe the memory of whoever it hit. The twins had found the truth in darkness, and they had been destroyed for it.

Sanctuary would not have noticed, in the chaos following Aspros' demise and Defteros' desertion, if he dissolved into foam. But there was darkness in the sea, darkness that would not be lit by anything but the denizens of the abyss, and Regulus was fairly certain he could beat up any fish that bothered him. The only fish he would want to see would never have followed him under the waves.

No one kept track of him now, not if he was off-duty. They trusted he was like his father, wandering and listening to the trees. The trees had never spoken to him before. The power had been something to do with dragons, and if he thought of dragons, he thought of Rhadamanthys, the scream of his techniques dying in his throat as he froze from the demon star out.

He climbed as high as he dared to go, hidden by the cover of midnight. Albafica didn't guard his garden: no one could survive but himself, and anyone who died there could be used to fertilize his roses. But the garden ended at the cliff, and it was from there, surrounded by pale gray roses that seemed to capture the lightning sparking from his skin, that he dove.

No one noted his disappearance. No one noted that he didn't make a splash.

He hit the water and it wrapped itself around him like an overjoyed partner, and he did not dissolve into foam. Well, mostly. When his vision cleared, he could feel the foam around his wrists, his spine, his ears, and everything from his hips down.

He turned a cartwheel in the water. The orange and white of his lionfish tail answered him, the spines at his wrists and back dripping with a poison that reminded him painfully of Albafica's cologne.

He felt more solid than he had in years, and there was a song in the fins that had been his ears, faint but sweet on the current. The true lionfish of the sea approached him, small and curious. They could speak to him. They asked his name - Regulus, he said, like the star in the sky - and he asked where the shadows were. He had to find the shadows. He was thirteen years old, and if he had learned one thing from his time in Sanctuary, it was that no truth could be found in the light.

The lionfish told him that if he was willing to grant them a blessing of the depths, so they could dive with him, they could lead him to the shadows. He who didn't know the dangers of pressure under the waves, waved his hands, trusting his cosmos to allow them to stay at his side. He had been so lonely, for so long. He who was foam pretending to be a person, shadow pretending to be a star, worlds away from those he called his siblings-in-arms. The lionfish were as they were. They had come to him.

They lead him into the deeps. Filtering through the currents, cold against warm, westbound versus skybound, until the Calypso Deep opened up below them.

There, said the lionfish. We can't go with you any further. But sometimes we see fish like you, part land and part shadow and part foam. The jellyfish say that's where your nesting grounds are. Not to approach, unless something is terribly wrong. Regulus, who had spent hours by their side, who had learned the tale of the immortal jellyfish and half the fairy tales of the sea, understood. And indeed, something was terribly wrong, and had been such, for years. He dove, ever deeper.

Deep enough into the ocean, direction becomes meaningless. Land is a distant story, the sky unreal, the surface nothing but a daydream. The only way of telling that you're diving deeper is the thermocline, and after so long, even that becomes meaningless. Close your eyes, and even the warmth of ascent can be nothing more than an approaching hydrothermal vent, sweet with metal and kelp.

He didn't open his eyes until he broke the surface, the sky red with stars, an endless night and the open sea. A civilization, on the nearby shore. Their ships tall and proud, their sails black and violet and silver. He swam in that direction. Perhaps they would tell him where he was.

The docks were well-kept and clean, and atop a nearby empty boardwalk was a girl in a wheelchair, tossing small fish to the birds. She had flowers in her orange-blonde hair and a pretty green dress, and fins where her ears should have been that were striped just like his own.

He swam up to her. "Hi," he said, awkward as any thirteen-year-old boy. She looked down at him, surprised.

"Oh, hello," she said, and her voice was a song, and he never wanted her to stop talking. "I don't think I've seen you around before. If you're new, I bet Mom and Mama could make you some chowder."

He climbed up onto the boardwalk, and found that his tail had returned to legs as he left the water. Even better, his trousers had returned as well, leaving him finned even at the ankles but capable of walking without embarrassing himself in front of a pretty girl.

She lead him through the docks and down a forest path, a forest that seemed to compress itself just for them. He would have guessed the walk by eyesight at several hours. It took them twenty minutes, before they were walking into a grove of lilies surrounding a herb garden and a clean-looking building. They talked as they walked, and she told him that she lived in this kingdom, that recently they had found their prince, that they were preparing for war. He hoped she wouldn't have to fight, but by the tone of her voice, he knew as well as she did that she wouldn't have a choice.

Just as he didn't. But she opened the door, and the man who greeted them was only a little taller than Regulus, with blue-gray hair and the gills that marked him as a freshwater fish. The freshwater fish took one look at Regulus and backed away, eyes wide, before turning on his heel and bolting, calling for someone named Luco in the tone of a man who really, really didn't want this happening in his living room.

Luco, a tall woman with long, curly brown hair and a shining green surplice, stepped into the room, and Regulus knew her on sight. She locked eyes with him, and he was sure she knew him equally well.

It had been eight years since he had been lost to Sanctuary. It was Aiacos' future sight that had proven his survival. The girl at his side had never asked his name, and he had never asked hers. He had no idea where he was. But he'd been right. The truth, after all, had been found in the darkness.

The girl at his side - Pefko, yes, his sweet sister who he had lost, who had lost him, who was never going to lose him again - brought him next to see the prince. Her smile was sweet and nefarious and she was a Spectre's daughter as much as he was a Spectre's son, and he knew she was tricking him just like Sanctuary once had, but she wasn't bothering to hide it. Why should she? He was home, and he was never going to leave again, and that meant making sure he wouldn't.

She really didn't need to worry. Regulus stepped into the room to see Hades Alone, blond-haired and filling the room with divinity enough that Regulus didn't even notice his knees hitting the floor. He had met Athena Sasha before, could see the family resemblance in their faces. But unlike her, Regulus knew as sure as he had known that he would dissolve into seafoam, that he would follow Alone anywhere he wanted to go, and he would never falter, never trip, and never turn away.

He called the Leo Surplice to his skin as easy as breathing. He hadn't even noticed that he'd done it. Alone set down his paintbrush, and stepped over to him. He caressed Regulus' cheek with one paint-stained hand, and his smile was sweet, and Regulus could not look away. "You have had a hard time, haven't you?" Alone asked, and it needed no answer. "We were less without you, and we missed you so terribly. But you're home, now. I'm so glad."

Introductions had to be made, of course. Regulus needed to learn the rules of the Meikai, all over again. He would need lessons for his shapeshifting, lessons Pefko was happy to teach. The other apprentices and Spectres were delighted to have a new sparring partner, one who knew all of Sanctuary's current tactics.

The Judges argued over who should get to claim him. Rhadamanthys argued that since Ilias was his brother, he should get him. Aiacos argued that by that logic, Lugonis and Luco were both his siblings, and so he should get him, and his eyes betrayed he knew more than he was saying. Minos slammed her gavel down, and argued that since Albafica, her one true love, had been stolen from her, she was the only one who was equipped to help Regulus understand how to be a proper fish.

Honestly, Minos made a pretty good argument. Aiacos had never sounded like he cared enough, and Rhadamanthys... No. He knew now that Rhadamanthys had failed to save him from Sanctuary. He would not trust him with that a second time, even if Valentine's sandwiches were a strong reason to go to Wyvern.

He chose Griffon, in the end. Witch Arkhes, the woman who was his mother, was far too smug about this, and he conceded she had every right to be. The Lady Minos, who had clarified to him later that Albafica had been her best friend before Sanctuary had stolen him, and would do right by her brother-in-law, was even more so.

Regulus was gone from Sanctuary for two weeks, by the time he remembered he should probably tell Sisyphus he wasn't dead. Luco and Arkhes were able to confirm that yes, Sisyphus was also his uncle, so Sanctuary hadn't lied about everything. His testimony was enough to tell them that Albafica was okay, but lost to them, possibly forever.

Alone, at whose side Regulus was if he wasn't called to do something as a Spectre, noted that it was possible to break the spell. Alone kissed him, and in that kiss was divinity, and the promise that they would find a way to bring his elder brother home. Of Rioghnach, there had been no sign: Aiacos said they would be waiting a while, and because Aiacos always told true when he spoke of the future, they were willing to believe him. (It did not stop Regulus from looking. After all, Aiacos had predicted that he would return, too.)

He returned to Sanctuary with lies on his lips that he couldn't quite say. He had needed some time on his own, you see, his father could speak to the earth but he could hear the sea. He hadn't realized how long he'd been gone, of course, but he had always heard the pain of Sanctuary's grief and it had been too much for such a young mind. But he was back now, and stronger, and could help.

They believed him. The rush at their belief in his lies - they had always lied to him, and now he could lie to them and there was nothing they could do - might have been a sign. It could have been a warning, if he'd heeded it. But he had been betrayed, he had been forced to confront Sanctuary's lies and how they had torn his family apart. He could see the rage in Alone's eyes, the one time he asked of his sister. He could see the vicious protectiveness over Pefko, how neither of them were willing to let anything happen to her. She was a powerful fighter with her cosmos, able to win without rising from her wheelchair. She was still theirs, and they wanted her safe, as neither of them had been, as Sasha wasn't, either.

But Sasha had chosen her own path, she had gone into Sanctuary with her eyes wide open and no one's blood splattered across her face. She couldn't be saved. Albafica... All Regulus had to do, theoretically, was shove him into the sea. His shapeshifting would do the rest, and Regulus could drag him home.

Luco had already tried to bring him home. The spell holding his brother's memories away from him was too strong. They could tell him the truth. He simply wouldn't be able to believe them. All he would hear is lies.

It's hard to believe lies when you don't have legs, though. Regulus bided his time, and waited, inching closer to his brother until he could speak to him. Albafica was pleasant, but distant, keeping him at arms-length. No one had recovered from Aspros' death, not really. No one trusted each other any more: if they could, they would have seen the betrayal coming. No one knew how to bridge that chasm. No one knew who would be next.

Regulus knew. Regulus, unlike Aspros, held no love for this place. Regulus, just like Aspros, had a brother he needed to save, and darkness was the only way he was going to do it. Not terribly long into his duties as a Spectre, though, he passed through Caina, and noticed a familiar cosmos.

Aspros, hair as black as night, tending to the flowers. Regulus stopped, blinking. Yes, that made sense, he was dead, and the Meikai was an afterlife. But it also did not: Ilias and Lugonis were not to be found here.

"Er, hi?" he said, only slightly less awkwardly than his first words to his sister. Aspros jumped, clearly not having expected him. As it turned out, he'd died and showed up here, and Aiacos had refused him a proper afterlife until the end of the Holy War. He'd told Aspros to go bother his brother, apparently, "until there's some real blood in the water and the fish's a-hunting." So he'd been laying low, unsure how to begin dealing with everything that had happened the night he died.

Regulus, who had always found Aspros to be less difficult to deal with than Sisyphus and who currently wasn't being called a traitor to everything Athena stood for, smiled and told him not to worry about it. It didn't take much to convince Hades Alone to allow Aspros to resurrect with the power of the Gemini Surplice. And it would be nice to have some backup when the Holy War broke out. It worked exactly as planned, and Gemini Mavros rose from the ashes, his old prideful determination beginning to show once more. He'd missed that. He wouldn't admit it, but he did.

Not six months later, as he learned to be a Saint by day and a Spectre by night, whenever he could sneak away, something teleported into Sanctuary. Some form of metal, horseless carriage, with sturdy black wheels and belching foul smoke into the air.

It had crashed just outside Sisyphus' temple, and Regulus watched his uncle pull only one person out from the wreckage. Aries Shion, there a moment later, was able to verify that the teleport had bypassed all of their security likely by accident, and had fragmented when it hit ground. There were likely more survivors.

Sisyphus tended to the woman he'd pulled from the wreckage. Regulus hung back, sure that if he stayed away, no one would notice his disappearance. But he also wasn't stupid, and he had tasted the divinity of both Athena and Hades, as well as that of the twin gods. He would have been a fool not to notice the presence of Khronos in the Libra temple, and how Dohko seemed ever so secretive about it.

Careful reconnaissance allowed him to learn that the survivors had all landed in the Twelve Temples: Dohko had found Khronos Ivy, Manigoldo had found a man named Vivian, Sisyphus had found Miss Sam, and Albafica had found someone by the name of Jesse who was somehow surviving the roses.

Some battle strategies require deep thought and complex plans. Some are so obvious they scream, and Regulus has always been a good liar without ever saying anything untrue. He smiled and he brought medical supplies and food and made himself apparent to Jesse. They were an academic sort, so he took full pleasure in raiding the Gemini temple for all of Aspros' academic correspondence.

It wasn't hard to prove his own immunity to the roses, either, and the moment he had managed that where both Jesse and Albafica could see, both were willing to tolerate having him over for dinner. As it also turned out, Regulus was a better cook than Albafica was. Now with an established place with them both, he could try convincing his brother to see the truth.

Easier said than done, but it was also... nice, in a way, to spend time with his brother and with Jesse. Albafica was a practical, blunt man, who had little interest in social pleasantries but who was perfectly happy to exchange mission stories and battle tactics all night over a few glasses of whiskey. Jesse was viciously academic, had all the social graces of someone who generally only socialized to exchange information about some niche topic or another, but who also approached battle strategy with a viciousness Regulus was more than growing to appreciate.

Sure, Lady Minos wouldn't appreciate that Albafica had fallen for Jesse and not her. Regulus also wasn't worried, because he had come to know his Judge well, and had a pretty good idea of how she was going to take to Jesse.

His own romantic life was nonexistent in Sanctuary - although he'd have to be blind not to notice the way Unicorn Yato seemed to think siding with Regulus would earn him a breather from Pegasus Tenma - and busier than he expected in the Meikai. Pefko, of course, was his one true love: she had been the first to see him, to truly see him, and there was nothing he wouldn't do for her. Master Alone, or 'dear heart', as Regulus had started to call him, was ever intoxicating and ever safe, the only one who could calm him from the rage that tended to overtake him whenever he thought too hard about Sanctuary's crimes.

There were others, too: Master Alone had never restricted his love from any of his Spectres, copying off Rhadamanthys who regarded his lovers like a dragon regards its hoard; and so Regulus came to learn them, too. Fenghuang Sui, Kagaho's younger brother, sweet and sometimes childish and sometimes burning brighter than the sun. Tarantula Vanessa, mad and sharp and always a surprise. Centaur Viermer, relaxed and bookish and steady. Hanuman Tokusa, who understood the scars Sanctuary left. Wyvern-tektos Maria, who would take over for Rhadamanthys if she survived the Holy War, quiet and detailed and brutal. Ghost Janice, lackadaisical and grumpy and unforgiving. Sylph Edward, always good for a game, focused and witty.

The months passed, and it became clearer, ever so much clearer, that his home had not once been Sanctuary. He had nothing in common with the apprentices and Saints, he found the guards in charge of training unnecessarily difficult to get along with, and every bit of camaraderie the garrison once carried had been destroyed with Aspros' death.

Albafica had told Jesse of the fateful mission where he had met Luco, and where she had tried to break his amnesia, and the safeguards had stopped her. Jesse, suspecting that Regulus might know something, asked him about it. He told them. Not everything, of course, they didn't know he was a Spectre, they didn't know what happened to Ilias, they didn't know the full truth. But he verified what Luco had said, and not long after, Jesse and Albafica went on a mission to France.

They came back... different. Regulus stepped out that night, knowing they'd be stuck all evening writing the mission report, and went to ask Lady Minos for the gossip. It hadn't been the first time she'd seen him since his disappearance - apparently there had been a mission several years ago? - but she'd duelled him for fun and for practice anyway, and he'd been pleased by how much they had both improved, and she was sure she could make a Spectre of Jesse. Regulus laughed, and laughed some more when she let him have a glass of whiskey she'd stolen from Rhadamanthys, and figured it wouldn't be long now.

He wasn't wrong. He was sent out on recon with Albafica twice. The first time, he hadn't needed a reason to shove his brother into the sea, a pair of Berserkers did it for them. Albafica finally admitted he'd been practicing his shapeshifting when no one was looking, able to accept he was a fish if not a Spectre's child. Regulus hit him with his tail, and they swam on. The second time, it took ten seconds of deliberation before they chose to take the route by sea instead of walking all the way to the mission point. They met the immortal jellyfish, on that mission, and there he was able to begin to believe that Albafica understood that they were brothers, that they should have grown up together, that it wasn't too late to grow up together now.

But, in order to do that, they would have to get Albafica to the Meikai. Master Alone was sure that he could break the spell - "I'm not Hades' chosen for nothing, my lovely fish." - and all they would have to do was get that far. Thanks to the Marinas suspecting the appearance of two unkillable fishmen in Sanctuary's waters, the seaward route to the Meikai was blocked. They'd have to run over land.

The plan was made. They prepared. Aspros swore he would help once they got close enough to the Meikai, even as it betrayed his resurrection to the garrison. If they ran by cover of darkness, they'd be able to do it. Regulus had one job: delay the garrison for as long as possible, so that they didn't know Albafica and Jesse were gone.

In hindsight, he should have hit Asmita upside the head with a rock a few times first, and then challenged him to a drinking contest the night before the plan was put into action.

He hadn't done that. He had grown confident with his time in the Meikai, grown resentful with his time in Sanctuary, and he was on the cusp of getting everything he wanted. Once Albafica was home, he could stay a Spectre for good. Sisyphus would be heartbroken, but Sisyphus had never seen Regulus, only Ilias in miniature form, and the more Regulus learned of Ilias' time as the Leo Spectre before him, the more he was sure Sisyphus had never seen Ilias, either.

He was far too confident when Albafica and Jesse left. He was far too confident when Asmita saw right through him, already aware of the plan, and told him flatly to tell him where they went or Asmita was going to kill him.

Regulus, who had cemented his place as the strongest of the garrison by trouncing Aspros in a few practice duels in the Meikai, did not see this as a concern. But there are rules to practice duels, and there are not such rules to Gold Saints fighting for what they believe is right. Asmita had no interest in fighting Regulus himself. He snapped his fingers, and Sisyphus stepped forward, his bow drawn, his eyes blank and unseeing.

He raised the bow. Regulus, faster with his body than with his mind, whose only thought was "shit, didn't the Basilisk say Altar Hakurei tortured him to death for info last time?", shot sideways. If he could take Asmita out...

The arrow caught him in the back of the neck, through his throat. The last thing he saw as he fell was Asmita's face, unreadable as always, and the rage bubbling through his blood that made him wish he could call roses to his fingers, and ruin everyone else's day the way they ruined his.

When he wakes up, again, it is with a new moon in the indigo sky above him, Leo shining brighter than the rest. He takes his first few breaths of dew-strained air, heaving as he sits up. His throat hurts. His gills hurt. Hells, his everything hurts. There is a figure beside him, clad in a surplice, and it takes him a moment to place her.

Pefko, carrying Dryad, standing through the aid of her surplice and holding a shovel. Dryad clings to her curves and holds her steady. She's never looked so beautiful before. He looks around, and he recognizes the graveyard around the edge of Sanctuary. His own grave only notes 'Regulus - Gold'. There are flowers at the headstone, daffodils, the kind he knows grow in Sisyphus' temple, and nothing else.

He stares up at his sister. "It's been six months," she says, quietly, and he can hear the rage in her tone that she's holding back. "Albafica died getting Jesse to the Meikai. They're Fracture Jesse now. Lady Minos is furious."

He nods. "And Master Alone?"

Pefko bites her lip. "Pandora did something to him. Sealed him away in Persephone's atelier. She says it's because his mortal heart is holding Lord Hades back."

The snarl that escapes Regulus' throat is more like a lion than a fish. To imply that Master Alone is stopping Lord Hades is an insult. To defile Queen Persephone's spaces, sealed after her death, is injury grave enough to slaughter Pandora himself for.

He rises on unsteady, finned feet, and calls the Leo surplice to heel. Pefko holds out a silvery cape: the signature of any Gold Spectre. He takes it and clips it under his pauldrons, standing in both moonlight and darkness. It seems fitting. "We have work to do, my love," he says, and we will leave them unspoken there, in a graveyard where they know both of their fathers are buried somewhere, and there is so little time.

Breaking Hades Alone out of Persephone's atelier is a mission for several Spectres, and involved less hitting Pandora with a rock than Regulus would have appreciated, but it is done nonetheless. He ascends to the Planetary Temples, and sets them guardians. Tokusa and Mavros both go. Pefko chooses to guard the Meikai, distrusting that the Saints will take the bait, that they'll spare his kingdom. Regulus...

Alone cups his cheeks in his hands and kisses him. "I have a mission for you, and you alone," he says, softly, and whatever he is about to ask of him, Regulus will do it. He doesn't have a choice in the matter. Not because Alone is compelling him, only that he does not think he could both refuse Master Alone this and survive his own traitorous heart in a single night.

Alone loves his Spectres, and he loves his family, and the two are the same. But his time in his lost queen's atelier has shown him one thing: that he, Alone, is as equally important as Hades, who is an altogether different person. This is not widely regarded as true: Pandora and the twins both seem to think Alone is only a stepping stone, that his voice matters not. Hades disagrees with this, believes Alone matters as much as he does.

He believes that the Saints have fallen prey to the same idea. He believes that his sister Sasha is not a willing captive of Athena. He believes that since Regulus escaped, that since Regulus was able to help Albafica escape, that perhaps Regulus can convince Sasha to leave Sanctuary.

If she does, if they have no goddess to command them and no godvessel to use as a pawn, the Saints will not be able to win the Holy War. If that happens, the Meikai will claim victory, and the world will be safe. Regulus, who understands wanting to do everything in his power to keep his sister safe, thinks of Pefko being captured by Sanctuary, and his path is set.

Yes, he can exorcise Athena from Sasha's body. Just like he once had to with his brother, he just has to get close enough to her that she'll let him do it. Besides. They're about the same age, and Sasha had always been friendly to him when he was off-duty. He's been at the Pisces temple when she slipped down to see Albafica, who was the closest Gold Saint at hand and also not an out-of-touch old man, who has snacks on hand for a teenage girl who wants cake.

He's been able to charm Alone, and that should have been impossible. "I will bring her home, for you," is what he says, and Alone's smile is brighter than the sun, and his kiss equally as sweet.

Regulus brings the plan to his lovers, the survivors thereof, in hopes of some ideas. He has a few, but he no longer needs to do everything on his own. He can trust those around him, like the Gold Saints no longer can. Pefko makes a face, and tells him he'll need to find some way of making sure she doesn't recognize him. Vanessa, who has snuck in and out of Sanctuary multiple times, offers to come with him: Sasha has handmaidens, and they might be faster if they work together. Viermer remarks that if they can get onto Star Hill, they can give Aiacos a birthday present.

It's Janice who slams down her mug of ale and flatly goes, "You, fish? You're better off playing the Wyvern and seducing her into it. She's only get the Pegasus" - this word she spits out like the poison that it is - "looking at her, and you're a damn sight finer. If it breaks him too, all the better."

Regulus nearly chokes on his drink. He opens his gills to the air, wheezing a moment. "What, you figure if I get her out of it enough, she won't notice a damn exorcism?!"

Janice nods. Sui looks annoyed, then frustrated, then canny. "I've been reading," he says. "All the reports say the Bloodstained Goddess takes advantage of people by seeing the intentions behind the darkness, and convince them to follow her light instead. You could exploit that. Let her think she can make a Saint out of you. It won't work, but she doesn't know that."

Regulus makes a face. "Now that I think of it, I distinctly remember at least one Golden Round where the others got into a screaming match over whether or not she was human enough for them to be worried about boys."

Maria bursts out laughing. "Human enough? Probably. Stupid enough? With the way you lot got sheltered there, almost certainly."

It's a bad plan. It's a terrible plan, really. It's also a viable plan, because he knows Sasha well enough to know that she's torn between her duty and the fact she'll never, ever be a normal girl. She asked him about that, once, if it bothered him that he wouldn't get to be a normal boy, that they were defending a world full of things they could only dream of themselves.

He lied to her then. This time, though... He makes his preparations with Vanessa and Viermer both at his side, one to aid him in getting Sasha's guard down and the other to spy; ready to head back into the place that ruined his life.

This time, to burn it down from the inside out. Just like a good poisoned rose. Albafica would be proud of his viciousness. Of course, they can't know who he was, but his parents thought of that, some long ago time before he was born. His name is Regulus. His middle name, though, is Raitis, after his grandfather. So then, Raitis he would be.

He makes his way to Sanctuary under the cover of night, feeling oddly as though it should never have been this way. But he does it all the same. It isn't hard to pass through the twelve temples: so many are dead, or gravely injured, or missing, and he knows the way. He climbs up on a rooftop on Athena's temple to watch, comfortable with his position.

It doesn't take long for him to be spotted. The pair of Bronzes - Saro, and one he doesn't recognize - try to get him off the rooftop while he jeers at them. He can kill them both without even trying, and they know that, and he knows that.

Sasha must have heard the commotion. She steps out, and he 'falls' off the rooftop, landing neatly on his shoulder, his legs taking out one of the two guards. He makes some stupid comment about not knowing if the rumours that Athena's light shone from her very skin are true or not, and he'll be out of her hair now, he just wanted to know.

She's surprised and taken aback, but she smiles. Score. He rises to his feet, remarks that maybe he should spar the two guards properly one day, and turns to jump off the pavilion into the night.

"Wait," says Sasha. "What's your name?"

He turns to give her one look, one smile, full of mischief. She doesn't know how much he wants her dead, for all that's done in her name. She doesn't know how much he's holding himself back, because Master Alone asked him to. "You can call me Raitis," he answers. "Celestial Midnight Star Rusalka Raitis."

He jumps off the pavilion, and the guards can't chase him, and he can feel the mirth in Sasha's cosmos. She hasn't recognized him. It's hard to, at this point: his hair has grown out a bit, the stripes of his fins extending over his hair and his face. As a human-looking fish, his hair had been brown, unassuming and ordinary. Now, it's orange striped with white, and his eyes are such an intense teal no one would take him for his former self.

Rest in peace, Leo Regulus. No one knows you're not dead, and they won't find out until you stand over the ruins of this mountain as a victor.

It takes months to convince her. Months of fighting Saints, months of missions with Jesse and Janice, months of the Saints trying to find out the entrance to the Planetary Temples. Months of facing off against Pegasus Tenma, who seems obsessed with Master Alone despite having abandoned him to a cruel world that never loved him as he deserved.

Sasha believes with her whole heart that she can make a Saint of him, loyal and true, because Sui was right: she can see that his viciousness is only a desire to protect his family, twisted by war. She thinks the Spectres promised him that if he fights for them. She has no idea that her own army killed both of his fathers and his brother, and he is going to kill them all if he can get away with it.

She also seems to think he's stupid enough not to notice this, and so he plays along, seeming to let his guard down more and more. So she rewards him for it, letting her own guard down, asking him about his day when he visits and complains about how much she can't stand the handmaiden that teaches her mathematics. Seeing his opportunity, he remarks how he knows a Spectre who might really enjoy being one of her handmaidens, a Spectre who might really need a change in environment.

Vanessa laughs when he tells her, laughs hard enough she doesn't notice that she's accidentally woven his arms to his chair in spider-lace. Sasha takes her in immediately, believing that she can fix Vanessa's fae-madness if given enough time. She seems to believe that this is an act of great trust from 'Raitis', who might set down his surplice if it's proven Vanessa can do it and survive.

It isn't so long after that that Sasha flirts with him, asks him to tie up her corset because she can't reach it and the handmaidens would be upset to find him in her quarters. He plays the gentleman - regardless of what Lune says, he is capable of basic social graces, he isn't that much a hedonistic beast - and politely averts his eyes, lets her grow blatant with it.

He lets her think this is her idea, and maybe it is, maybe there's more to it for her than playing directly into his hands. He lets her think this is something fragile, something gentle, like she might scare him off if she sharpens too fast. She's the one who encourages him, who eventually tells him point blank that he's a Spectre, he doesn't have to treat her like she's made of glass.

Later on, all he will remark is that she's lucky she never had his loyalty, because it would have probably been easier to kill her than it was to hold back only as much as she told him to, and he's only holding back because Master Alone wants her to come home.

Later on, he returns to the Meikai and refuses to see anyone until he's scrubbed himself down. The light doesn't burn, but it's filthy on his skin, and he hates it. Master Alone calls for him anyway, fusses and feeds him cake and holds him until he feels he can stop crying.

It's another three months before he thinks he can get away with an exorcism. She trusts him, now. She thinks she has him. She mentioned once, to Vanessa, that she thinks if she can draw her brother out of the Planetary Temples, she can tear 'Raitis' from him, and maybe seeing Raitis' joy at the light will force Alone to do the same.

She's a fool. He hears this and he laughs himself hoarse, finishes his drink and accidentally shatters the mug with his rage. He'd be happier slitting her throat. He's cut down enough Saints that he knows he could take his time with it.

He and Jesse, in one of those missions, tagteam Virgo Asmita, and finally bring him down. In this he feels he's avenged his brother, and dear Vanessa, who died to slow Asmita down, only partially: Asmita did this on Sasha's orders. He's not finished yet. He wants to be. He isn't.

Sisyphus is gone, Khronos Ivy sent him to the future with Miss Sam because her friend begged, and he has seen her powers enough times he thinks he knows what happened to Rioghnach.

Ivy doesn't have control enough to do it again. The only way out of this war is through it. The only way to stop dealing with Sanctuary, the only way to save the Meikai, is to end this war.

He kisses Pefko, tells Luco and Arkhes that he'll be home by sundown, and goes back to Sanctuary alone.

He goes to Sasha and says he cannot become a Saint, because her brother has too great a hold on him. That there is a way to break the connection between mortal and divine. He chooses his words carefully, so carefully, so she does not realize what he means. He sees the rage in her eyes when he says her brother has him more than she does. He knows there is a fire inside this girl, he has seen it, she has asked him to stoke the inferno. He knows, on some level, that she is a prisoner and she truly believes her brother has been stolen from her, that she truly believes if she wins, he'll come home.

Regulus knows he is never going to convince her. He could see the conviction in Sisyphus' eyes, he can see it in Sasha's now. He tells her that maybe there is a way, that maybe if the connection between mortal and divine is broken...

She agrees, and lays down on her bed, allows him to draw sigils and runes in her own blood. He has this ritual memorized. She has to be as mortal as she can, keep Athena from her mind as long as possible, until he can sever the connection.

It takes him over an hour to draw out all the runes and sigils, all the reagents he needs. He isn't watching the time: they've never been caught before. He's thinking of how much this will hurt her, how much he wants to go home and sleep for six months with Pefko's hand in his hair and Sui humming a lullaby and Alone's presence soothing his every breath.

Confidence, it seems, has always been his downfall. Aries Shion notices, stops for backup long enough to gather Pegasus Tenma, Unicorn Yato, and Tokusa's damn sister who keeps showing up on missions specifically to ruin Regulus' day. (He won't kill her. She's still Tokusa's sister. Tokusa keeps telling him to, but he won't. That is Tokusa's job, not Regulus'.)

Shion, unlike Sasha, is trained in magical ritual. Shion isn't an idiot, and he recognizes the Leo Surplice. Shion, who has seen Albafica in fins and scales because Shion was always weird about Albafica, knows what he's looking at.

The ritual is far enough along that Sasha probably doesn't know what's going on around her. It's not so far enough along that he can stop. He doesn't have a choice: it's dodge, or take a Stardust Revolution to the face.

He jumps out the window. Swings around and back up on a railing, bites down at his wrist where he keeps a spare vial of Alone's blood. It hits him like a Galaxian Explosion to the gut, and he feels the wings of his surplice burn as they rise from his back. He's not the first Spectre to take a shot of godly ichor and transform, but he's never done this before, and if he's going to finish this off he's going to need to kill all four of them.

Maybe five. But it's possible Lord Hades can just resurrect Sasha, and now that he has the thought, he feels like an idiot for not just doing that in the first place. Maybe she can't be. She's Athena, after all.

Shion keeps Regulus distracted enough for his little Bronzes to help Sasha up, wipe away the blood and destroy the reagents. Seeing what Regulus did, all four of them take some blood from the bowl Regulus had drained from Sasha. One of them stays behind with Sasha, he isn't sure which.

Three-on-one is never good odds. Regulus, fighting in broad daylight and with all of them knowing exactly what he can do, does not have good odds. No one is coming as his backup, and he knows that.

Fine. If he's going to die today - and he is, he knows it just as much as he knows he damn near had this - he's going to bring them all down with him, and open the way for one of his fellow Spectres to finish this war.

He fights. He fights, unrestrained and vicious, three-on-one, keeping them all in his sights so they can't hit him from behind. The wings help. It's almost like he's fighting underwater, and he can use height to his advantage.

It isn't enough. The Pegasus - the fucking Pegasus - is a Sagittarius. He calls Sisyphus' bow. Shion shields him and Sasha powers the arrow, and Regulus isn't able to dodge in time.

He lands, and staggers, and falls. Sasha stares down at him, clothed again now, and he's glad for that. He can feel seafoam at his fingertips, knows without looking that his hair is fading to brown, that they'll finally be able to recognize him. Knows that this is it. He hopes they'll send his body out to sea, because he knows they're not going to bury him a second time where Pefko can reach him.

"Regulus...?" Shion asks, hoarse.

"Got it in one," Regulus hisses. "You killed my family. Almost got you back." He smiles, and closes his eyes. "Almost. Alone loves me anyway."

He can feel Sasha's rage at his supposed betrayal. He doesn't care. The last thing he can feel is oddly enough, Vanessa, her cosmos full of mirth. She'd never made it out of Sanctuary. Her surplice had never returned, but she had fought Asmita and he had come out of his temple alone. She's there for a moment, and then she, like Regulus, is gone.

When he awakens, it is centuries later. It is Albafica, standing over him. His hair is crimson, he has facial hair now, and his fins are black, streaked with white. His eyes are still as blue. There is a woman beside him, in the surplice of the Bean Sidhe, with hair as red as the portraits of Lugonis. They are unmistakably siblings. He can see, faintly, the traces of Ivy's magic around her.

"Hi, Rioghnach," he croaks. "Hi, Albafica. Where's... Pefko?"

"Still a tree," Albafica replies. "She turned herself into one. The Meikai was falling apart, and you were dead, and she figured this way she'd be around when you got back. We figured we'd get you first."

"We won the latest Holy War," Rioghnach answers, and she sounds just like Luco, and she's chipper enough that she brightens Regulus' mood just by breathing. "It's annoyingly all the Garudas' fault, so I guess they're good for somethin'."

Regulus makes a face. "Well, at least we won. Help me up...?"

And they do. With all three of them, it's not that difficult to wake up Pefko - or rather, find the right place and ask Persephone Liadan to do all the actual work because Regulus is too unsteady to stand, let alone stop holding onto Rioghnach.

Pefko throws herself at her siblings, who catch her. And for once - for the first time - all four of them are finally together.

[confusedmothboy]

hey hi hello. i MUST know more about his involvement in the adult timeline. truth be told i don’t really gaf about the adult timeline but I’m so curious to see how it would play out like this with eddie !!!!!!

im gonna go through his involvement in the adult tl like hes in the show itself bear with me

[warning for drugs, an overdose, suic!de, imagery describing that in the second written portion]

eddie is revealed as a survivor in season 1 episode five as the group's starting to discuss what to do with the blackmail and gather the group that would have gotten it back together. we find out that he got a postcard of his own and ripped it up and shoved it down the garbage disposal because he can't be bothered to deal with whatever it might mean. he decides not to tell travis because he assumes (and is eventually right in the assumption) that it'll just make him spiral. but he doesn't realize until later that morning that it's connected to the other survivors until he gets a phone call from nat.

--

Eddie felt his phone buzz in his pocket, the way it did when he was getting a call. Without looking at the caller ID, he stood up, leaning against the kitchen counter to answer it.

“Professor Taylor, what can I do for you?” He introduced himself, an instinct that persisted even outside of his office on campus.

“Eddie. We need to talk.” He heard Nat’s voice on the other line. “Did you or Travis get one of those fuckass postcards too?” She asked, her voice panicked. Eddie couldn't answer her question verbally, obviously. He glanced at Travis, who hadn't looked up from the paper. 

“Miss Watson, it's been a while, how have things been?” Eddie responded, to a confused noise from Nat. 

“The hell- No, Eddie, I know it's you.” Nat said, frustrated. Eddie paused to make it sound like whatever he was pretending to listen to was real. “Well?” Nat asked. 

“Yeah, I’d bet, let me check my schedule, I’ll see if I can fill in for your class on Monday.” He continued, much to Nat’s protest and confusion. “History of the far East, right? Oh, don't worry, I could have a lesson planned for that within the hour. No, no, don't you worry, Barbara, take all the time you need out with your kids. Alright. Alright. You rest up, now. Alright. Buh-bye.” Eddie ended the call, and put his phone on Do Not Disturb. 

--

nat and him talk later as well, and she promises that she won't point the other survivors to him or travis. unfortunately, eddie didn't realize that there would be two postcards delivered to their house, and he had missed the one meant for travis. a week after he clears everything up with nat, travis starts freaking out over the blackmail. he asks eddie if he got a card as well, and eddie denies it (which travis believes because. if eddie though they would only get one card delivered then why wouldn't travis also think that). travis and eddie's storylines only intersect with the rest of the adults through nat, because she's the only one they stayed friends with.

they call nat up around episode 7, and talk it through with her before she leaves for her stakeout. at this point, none of the other survivors have put together that they should find the two. everyone but shauna forgot about them and ofc shauna's still tracing the adam thing.

speaking of, no, eddie doesn't help clean up adam's murder. he's a) not in new jersey in the first place, and b) employed. he has his own pressing issues to deal with in episode 10. im imagining this awful scene of him in the teen tl finding jackie's body that gets spliced with him in the adult tl finding travis's body OH MY GOD. IT WOULD HURT SO BAD. -end season one-

at the start of season two, nat is still taken by lottie's cult, but more around the second episode rather than the s1 finale because then the news has time to reach her. eddie pretty much runs into misty while doing his own investigation on nat's whereabouts and tags along her and walter's investigative work. except he is really running out of vacation days and yes his husband just died but unlike literally everyone else here he is EMPLOYED. HE HAS A 401K.

eddie to literally every single one of the survivors after they all meet up at lottie's cult:

after finding nat, he figures it's alright to head home. he doesn't like lottie, but he knows that she always had a sweet spot for nat, so he figures not much can go wrong at the cult. unfortunately, he can't get a ride back home and all of a sudden he's in lottie's little sharing circle and they're proposing a hunt. and that's when shauna says something Very Wrong that he immediately takes as her having something to do with travis's death. don't ask me what cause the adult tl is a vague blur but it was something drug related (talking abbout misty's plan with lottie and the fent needles or whatever but he wasn't in on that conversation) and he comes to the conclusion that SHE was the one that laced the stuff travis od'ed on.

season two concludes with nat dyng and lottie being dragged away and eddie can't explain it but he knows (or thinks he knows) that somehow shauna's behind all of it. which she's not. but that doesn't mattter to him at that point.

in season three, eddie uses his weekends and free time to stalk shauna. his boss is on his ass for neglecting his lectures but he can't exactly explain the direness of the situation. eddie is immediately on board with misty that shauna killed lottie. again, he didn't like lottie but he hated shauna more. and he knows something's up with tai so he stays away from her. he's part-timing their bullshit at this point.

when shauna snaps against melissa, eddie isn't there to see it (again. employed), but misty breaks it down for him and they both conclude that shauna's fully back in her wilderness mentality.

also, after eddie starts backing misty with her investigation and walter and misty split up is when misty figures that of the first four times in the wilderness weren't the charm, it mght be worth one more shot with eddie, cause it's not like he's taken anymore (shocker: the gay man rejects her)

after van's death, eddie starts openly antagonizing shauna, to which shauna and tai start turning on him. we've established that this guy gets very cold and self destructive after losses. this is the end of season 3 so everything beyond this is just speculation on where the characters will go during season 4.

eddie leaves the group once he realizes he's becoming a danger to himself, but we all know what happens when the survivors try to leave after getting roped back in. tai and misty go after melissa, while shauna goes after eddie. misty can't stop her, so she just gives eddie information about what's going on with shauna when she assumes he needs it.

eddie eventually quits his job at the beginning of season 4. he's been seeing shauna's fuckass minivan everywhere and he realizes that The End Is Nigh. cause we all know she's harboring the same grudges against him from the wilderness. if she tried to kill him out there, she'll do it again 26 years later. he locks himself in his house for a whole episode and a half before finally he decides to pack his valuables and drive down the east coast to give them to a cousin of his before he meets his end. he puts some mighty emphasis on the security of his vintage dishware.

in season 4 episode 5, eddie runs to his car and guns it south. he quickly notices shauna tailing him and after hours of trying to lose her, he decides that it's not worth it to involve his living family in her bullshit any longer (he STILL thinks she killed travis and lottie and did something with nat so. he knows he's next). and he's right to think she was gonna kill him. she had just been waiting for him to leave his house, she learned her lesson not to attack people in their living rooms. eddie drives to the cemetery where travis is buried, and shoots himself in the head as he sees her headlights coming down the road. he always was a fan of romeo and juliet in english class.

--

“Want a smoke?” Eddie opened his eyes to the inside of an airplane. Drenched in dark blue lighting, the plane shuddered with turbulence. Eddie gripped the armrest instinctively, and turned to the voice. Eddie. Eddie was looking at Eddie, the him that he was twenty five years ago, to be exact. Younger Eddie’s brown and green jacket was without wear, his hair trimmed, his earring a single, simple stud. The real Eddie shook his head, processing the question. “Suit yourself.” The younger Eddie -Ed, maybe- said, taking a cigarette out of the box and flicking the lighter on. He took a deep drag.

Eddie looked around the plane. He was belted in, and fussed with the clasp before giving up. To his right was himself. To his left was Jackie. Jackie. Her eyes were blank, her face devoid of any emotion Eddie associated with his sister. 

“Jacks- hey.” Eddie managed, his eyes welling with tears at the sight of her, a memory suspended in time. 

“Don’t bother. She can't talk. None of them can.” Ed said, gesturing behind the row the three were sitting in. Eddie turned around and saw Nat, her younger self, same as Ed. In the back rows were Ben and Javi. All their faces were blank, unmoving and unfeeling. Eddie tried again to undo his seatbelt, and Ed scoffed. “This is how we remember them. I was confused for a while, and then I realized we never really saw them as people. As individuals beyond whatever we did. Didn't you ever figure that out?”

Eddie turned to glare at Ed, mostly out of confusion. That couldn't be true. He’s fucking with me. 

“I’m not fucking with you.” Ed said, like he was able to read Eddie’s mind. “You and I both know that deep down, the people we surrounded ourselves with were just props for boosting our own self worth.” The boy’s words were mumbled slightly, his cigarette bitten between his teeth. 

“I don't remember being such an asshole when I was your age.” Eddie said. 

“Twenty five years here will do that to you. Took you long enough, I mean, if we had known it would have been over so quick, I would have finished the job before any of this shit happened.” Ed exhaled a cloud of smoke as he talked. A projector whirred to life at the front of the plane, just a few rows up from where they were sitting. 

Pasted on the screen was a scene that still replayed in Eddie’s mind occasionally. The razor blades, the miscellaneous pills scattered around. He hadn't been able to finish the job back then. Eddie looked back at Ed. 

“I had a good life.” Eddie said finally. “I learned to be happy that you failed that night, fuck you very much.”

“What did you accomplish? Tell me that. You got a nice job, a little house, stayed with him after all those years?” His younger self rolled his eyes. “Just to get pushed to the brink by Shauna and Lottie at the end of it all?” Ed crossed his arms. Eddie was speechless. He had done everything he did to preserve the dreams that the boy next to him had dreamed. On the screen, his current body was projected, laying on the dirt of that cemetery, growing cold. Eddie had to look away, the blood on the gun his hand was holding in a death grip was enough. He didn't need to see his own head.

“Oh, don't bother looking for him around here, by the way. We both know why he's not on this plane. I can still feel that resentment, you know. You can't hide from me.” Ed said, after Eddie’s silence. Eddie was snapped out of his thoughts. 

“You don't know anything. I loved that man more than your apathetic ass could ever fathom.” He spat, ignoring the gnawing feeling in his stomach at the comment. 

“I can feel that pit in your chest too. Two things can be true at once. I would hope an esteemed history professor like yourself would be able to recognize that.” Ed said tiredly, tapping the ash from his cigarette onto Eddie’s arm. Eddie brushed it away, annoyed. He refused to believe that he used to be that pretentious as a young man. The projector showed scenes of Eddie, Travis, and Nat, a glance at the trio through the years. “Look, you spent twenty-five years talking those two off the ledge. And it fucking killed you, I mean, way before you did.”

“Shut the fuck up. I’ll-” Eddie started. 

“Hurt me? Beat me up? We both see the irony in that. Plus, you're not going anywhere with this.” Ed tapped the seatbelt around Eddie’s waist. “Lord knows I’ve tried. Oh, she found you. For my sake, not yours, we're gonna turn that little recap off. I don't want to know what she does with us.” Ed said, looking back up as Shauna appeared in the scene. The projector clicked off, its fans whirring to a stop. That was the first thing Eddie agreed with him on. The momentary relief was replaced quickly by the realization that his life was over. He had died. And now that he was gone, what more was there to discuss? He felt his heart sink. 

“What happens now?” Eddie turned to Ed, not able to hide the fear in his voice, or the way his hands started shaking. 

“Calm down.” Ed said, leaning back in his seat. “You think I know? We’ll find out together.” Ed closed his eyes with a smile as the plane rattled violently. Eddie glanced at Jackie, back at Nat, Javi, and Ben. They all had the same expressionless looks on their faces. His lip quivered as the lights flickered off in the cabin. 

Eddie slowed his breathing as the rustle of treetops underneath the hull rattled the plane.

--

if you read all this i'll give you 5 dollars (no i wont)

[kanoyachi]

kageyama very grimly nursing a glass of milk at the bar