#hint: plug it in to a certain link

[daily-airimomoi-vitamins]

[Have you ever looked into a mirror?]

"No, I don't think I have"

[Do you know your name]

"No, I think not"

Do you know why you're here?

"Yes, I do."

Why?

"s̸̟̬̾̕ṯ̶̫̆̃o̶̹̺͋c̴̦̠͋k̸̰̀ ̵̯͔̆i̶͎͊̕ś̸͔̈ ̴̩͓̌l̵͇̆ȍ̵̘w̵̢̄"

[lady-bess]

Fallout - Chapter 1 "Into The Ether"

Jack Daniels x F!Reader Explicit/18+ (Minors DNI please) Chapter Word Count: 6.7k Chapter Tags: Description of Injuries, Graphic Description of Injuries, Canon-Typical Violence, Comatose Patient, Grief, PTSD Referenced, Medical Equipment Mentioned (Not Graphic Detail), Angst, Golden Circle Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Deceased Character, Discussion of Death, Hallucinations.

Series Masterlist | A03 Link | Tumblr Masterlist

<- Previous Chapter (Prologue)

Four months after his accident, Jack is finally showing some signs of life. Clara and Jane work to stabilise him, but his welcome back to the land of the living is not as smooth as they'd like.

3:27am. February 8th, 2018.

It had been like any other evening. Quiet, fairly boring, and with nothing more than a soft hint of jazz music filling the crisp, white room. Aside from whenever agents needed urgent care, the lab was usually a peaceful place; but the night shifts were the best for it. Nothing but silence for hours at a time, filled only by a soft hum, pen tapping, or one of Statesman’s workers mumbling along with whatever tune the radio played. It went down like this most shifts. 

Until tonight.

A shrill ring came from the other side of the room – nothing overly loud, but in the dead silence of the room it was jarring enough that it made people jump slightly. Working away at her desk, the noises piqued the interest of the lab assistant, Jane, who was working the night shift. Normally her shift was a quiet one, tasked with monitoring anyone who was in stasis and just maintaining the equipment. It was her boss, Clara, who mainly used the machinery during the day.

Monitors sprung to life next to one of the stasis chambers in the Statesman labs. A higher heart rate than normal was picked up, a faster flow of oxygen was being delivered to the patient in question, and the chamber itself was registering small movements up and down their body. Standing from her seat, Jane went down to the stasis chamber that was making all the fuss, her heels clacking on the linoleum floor as she paced towards it. 

It wasn’t very often that Statesman needed to keep anyone in stasis – not long term, anyway. Most agents would be in it for an hour or two, potentially overnight if their injury was severe, and the nanites would do their job and get people fighting fit almost immediately after waking. But this case was unique. 

There was only one chamber in use at the moment, so finding the suspecting noise wasn’t too difficult. It wasn’t uncommon for this machine to spring to life on occasion if certain components needed adjusting to best support the life that laid within it, so Jane initially didn’t think much of the noises.

Jane stood at the foot of the chamber, which laid horizontally, plugged in to all manner of monitors and Statesman’s versions of life support machines (everything being significantly more technologically advanced than what even the best hospital in the world could offer, of course). She squinted at a panel that was fixed to the end of the chamber, trying to make sense of the numbers it was giving. This would always be the first thing to check; the panel in question gave out readings for inside the chamber, things like temperature, oxygen levels, and there were sensors littered throughout that would tell her if the patient had moved even a millimetre. It never yielded much information, and had so far only been useful at letting either Jane or Clara know what might need adjusting – but today those readings were very different, and she almost couldn’t believe her own eyes. 

“It can’t be…,” she whispered to herself as the panel told her there was movement being registered up and down the patients’ body. Nothing major, but their muscles were slowly starting to shift inside the chamber. It wasn’t enough to warrant being concerned by most patient’s standards, but this one was different. In the four and a half months since this chamber had been occupied, there hadn’t even been an eyelid twitch. Aside from their breathing, which in itself was being aided by an oxygen tank, many would look at the life within the chamber and deem the patient to be deceased. 

Jane moved down to the head of the machine, which had all the heart rate monitors, brain scanners, and life support machines set up. She glanced up at the heart rate monitor and gasped; for the first time since September last year it was actually registering the patient as having a steadier, stronger, heartbeat. The brain scan was also picking up more activity than usual, synapses firing properly for the first time in months. Their frontal lobe specifically was active, and activity was registering in areas of the brain that correlated to memory and executive function. Both the left and right lobes were firing up, indicating that movement would soon be noticeable on both sides of the body. A relief, really, considering what they went through…

Jane turned to the chamber and looked in through the glass panel which ran down the length of the chamber. Her eyes widened at what she saw; the patient who had laid borderline dead for over four months was now starting to twitch. It was barely noticeable, but after monitoring for so long the whole lab had gotten used to the fact this guy just never moved a muscle. At first she only noticed his hand move slightly, but the longer she observed the more movement she saw. His fingers spasmed, his legs kept making small jumpy movements, and then as she looked at his face she noticed his eyelids were flickering.

“Holy shit,” she said to herself, then promptly left the bedside of the chamber and headed back to the desk. She picked up the receiver of the phone which was there, and dialled her boss’ emergency line. Since this patient had come in, Clara had given Jane and all the other lab assistants strict instructions that her direct emergency line only be used in this very scenario. With shaking hands, Jane pressed the phone to her ear and waited for the click on the other end.

“Jane?” came Clara’s voice down the line. Jane breathed a sigh of relief at the sound – she knew what to do when the patient awoke, but she also knew it would probably be better if Clara were here. Not for her sake, but for the patient’s.

“Clara! Thank heavens. It’s happening; he’s waking up,” she said, then looked back over the machine. An even louder noise had just started up, indicating more significant movement. Jane couldn’t help but smile slightly – everyone had been waiting for this day since he came in. It was all a little surreal to think that it was actually happening.

“Are you sure, Jane?” Clara questioned, disbelief laced in her voice. It wasn’t that she doubted Jane, but rather that by now she’d written off this day as ever being possible. Jane nodded, still looking at the machine, until she realised Clara would have no way of knowing that she was moving her head. Clearing her throat, she looked away from the machine and paid attention to the call again.

“Yes, I’m positive. There’s movement, Clara. I can actually see it, too. It’s not just one of the machines playing Hell,” she explained.

“Alright, I’m on my way. Keep him stabilised. If you think he’ll wake up properly before I’m there, let him. It could be dangerous if we keep him under any longer than he’s already been. Don’t wanna risk another four months of nothing,” Clara explained.

“Got it; see you soon!” Jane said, and hung up the call. She headed straight back over to the machines and started monitoring, fiddling with some dials as she went to make the waking up process a bit more pleasant on him.

“Alright cowboy, let’s get you back with the living,” she muttered to herself as she worked away diligently.

After four months being in a comatose state, former senior agent Jack Daniels was finally waking up.

4:23am. February 8th, 2018.

“Jane?” Clara said, bursting through the door of the lab, hurriedly throwing her lab coat on as she strode towards Jack’s bed. “How is everything?”. 

Jane turned to see Clara walking through the lab, her eyes slightly wide in a kind of shock she’d never seen on her face in all the years she’d been working here. She smiled faintly, taking her reading glasses off momentarily while she spoke with her boss.

“We’re good, don’t worry. His movements are getting more frequent, and stronger, same with the brain wave frequencies. But he still isn’t awake yet,” she explained, handing Clara a digital chart of the patient’s progress. Clara mulled over the data, swiping through the various statistics to see how fast the rousing process was looking to be, attempting to estimate when he might be fully conscious. She nodded slowly as she took it all in, huffing out a breath of air as she finally let herself calm down. She’d made it in time, and that was what mattered.  

“Alright, let’s have a look at him,” she said, heading over to the opposite side of the stasis chamber. She analysed every machine, even though she knew Jane would have already looked over everything with a fine tooth comb. But it was the only thing she could do to put her mind at ease, the nerves for Jack waking up rising in her chest, and a sickening swirl presenting itself in her stomach. She steadied her breathing as she looked over the tests, eyes widening as she saw for herself that this was really happening.

“I’ve been thinking, Clara…,” Jane said, snapping her out of the little trance she’d been pulled into while her fingers danced over dials, wires, and tubing.

“What’s that, Jane?” she asked, looking over at her younger assistant. Jane chewed her lip slightly and nervously tucked a stray strand of her mousy brown hair behind her ear, knowing she was about to say what would be on most people’s minds once he was awake.

“When he wakes up…he won’t know will he? That you’re no longer Ginger, and that he’s no longer Whiskey,” she asked.

Clara sighed as she placed the chart Jane had handed her on the side, then shook her head solemnly. These last few months had been tough – with Jack in the med-bay this whole time, completely out of action, Champ still deemed it appropriate to hand over his moniker to Clara. She’d been reluctant to take the title at first, not wanting to step on any toes – but, as Champ pointed out, “He’s no agent of ours now, even if he does survive this”. So, she threw her hat into the ring. 

That had been the one thing to make the decision slightly easier; Champ had been dead set from the second he had his accident that Jack would no longer be on the payroll as soon as he woke up. He intended for the former agent to heal up, and then he’d be sent on his way. A new identity, and far away from here, left to fend for himself and deal with the consequences of his actions. 

Clara had taken over all Jack’s previous duties since the moniker became hers last September, including the training of new agents alongside Tequila. With Kingsman suffering heavy losses last year, and with Statesman resources backing their British cousins, a whole new generation of agents were being cherry picked from across the world to eventually be part of the new Kingsman regiment.

It had been a lot of work, albeit rewarding, but that didn’t stop Clara from having a hand in the labs. It was how she came to be here in the first place, and without these labs she’d never have had the hands-on expertise to even shoot for Jack’s old job. That and, having now got his moniker, there was an element of responsibility that she still felt for her old friend.

She hated what Jack had done, and his rationale for trying to derail Harry and Eggsy’s mission; but he still didn’t deserve this. Even the British agents had agreed that things went too far, and they hoped just as much as she did that he would soon recover – although it was almost a hell of a lot worse. Clara couldn’t bear to think about what could have happened if he hadn't been pushed so far over. If his head had tipped back just a little further, sending him into the machinery instead of clipping the outside of it – knocking him unconscious.

Shuddering slightly at the thought, Clara turned back to Jack. The head wounds he’d sustained were basically healed now, thanks to the Statesman developed alpha gel and nanites, but no doubt there would be memory loss and a stack of physical rehabilitation for him to go through. Statesman tech was good, but it wasn’t physically possible to prevent muscle atrophy in its entirety. Jack had a long road ahead of him.

But a complication in this road, she’d found, was Champ’s sudden change of tune. For weeks he’d been bitter about what Jack had done, as was everyone else in the organisation who knew him personally. They all knew about his strong feelings towards drug use, but never in a million years did anyone see it manifesting how it ended up. At worst it had caused a bit of tension between Jack and Jefferson (better known as Agent Tequila) whenever he mentioned using a narcotic substance recreationally, but the feud never went beyond a shouting match and aggressive eye rolling.

Lately, though, Champ had started wondering if Statesman were inherently to blame for Jack’s outburst. Agents went through routine psychological intervention, making sure that they were always fit for duty, but the tests stopped there. Previous trauma was never really considered, and with the exception of an on-site psychologist for when agents needed intervention after a mission, there was nothing in place for the team to use as an outlet for anything else they might have been struggling with.

Jack’s outburst highlighted a fundamental flaw in how agents were screened before going out into active duty, and Champ had begun to carry a lot of guilt on his shoulders as a result of this. Procedures could be changed, differences could be made going forward, but that didn’t undo any of the damage which had already been afflicted. He wondered how fair it would be to punish Jack indefinitely for something which could very well have been prevented by the organisation in which he worked for.

While Clara agreed that perhaps there was a better course of action than just sending Jack on his way once he was better, that did rather leave things in a sticky situation right now. He was slowly waking up, and he had no idea that life had changed for him quite so dramatically. Handling this would surely be difficult.

“No, Jane. He’ll have no idea,” she sighed, again. “I honestly think we can worry about that later, though. If he calls me Ginger, don’t correct him. Let’s get him awake and stable; then we can bring Champ in for a full debrief,” she said. Jane nodded, folding her arms across her chest as the two women just waited for time to pass. That’s all this was now – a waiting game.

“Yes, ma’am.”

A plush duvet surrounded Jack as he gently stirred from a good night’s sleep. The bedding had been freshly put on last night, and he always loved the first morning after changing the bed. The pillows were nice and fluffy, the sheets were all neatly tucked in, and everything smelt of fresh linen. Aside from sharing this bed with the woman he loved, there was nothing which could improve how he woke up feeling on mornings like these. 

Jack’s eyes slowly began to open - nothing major at first. Just a faint flicker to establish it was actually daytime - sunlight streamed through the cracks in the curtains in the master bedroom, lighting up the solid wood furniture Jack had spent so much time painstakingly crafting for him and his wife. 

He felt a warmth next to him, and a slight stir of movement. He rolled towards the shifting weight, his arms reaching out to touch the body of whom lay next to him. His hands felt soft skin and he smiled, humming in contentment, all while his eyes were still partially closed.  

“Jack?” a woman’s voice said. Her breathy voice filled his ears, making his entire body prickle with goosebumps. Her voice was always so calming, and the sound of his name coming from her lips filled him with a warmth that enveloped him entirely. It was something he could never get sick of. 

He opened his eyes more and smiled as he came face to face with his wife. She smiled down at him, leaning up on her elbow in bed. Her long, dark brown hair cascaded over her face and shoulders, brushing against his cheek. Jack smiled and chuckled as her hair tickled his face slightly. 

“Good morning, my love,” he said, reaching up to caress her cheek softly. His thumb stroked her soft skin, a stark contrast to the roughness of his own hands. She smiled and leant into his hold, her own palm moving to sit atop his fingers. 

“Morning, pumpkin,” she giggled. Jack smiled, his hand sliding down the woman’s tanned skin, down her shoulder, and across her arm. 

“When will that nickname be dropped, Lela?” he asked. She giggled again, sticking her tongue out flirtatiously. 

“Never! The day you agreed to marry me was the day you agreed to a lifetime of silly name calling,” she teased. 

Jack chuckled, slipping his arm across his wife’s waist as she slipped down back into bed with him. She was right - he had agreed to that the day they got married, but he wouldn’t trade this life for anything else in the entire world. 

“Alright, that’s fair enough,” he smiled, “Did you need something, my love?” he asked. Lela had got into the habit of waking Jack slightly earlier in the morning if their baby boy was moving around a lot - at first it was accidental, she would wake him when she couldn’t settle. But after a couple of instances he insisted that she just wake him, not wanting to miss a single precious second with his wife or unborn son. He always had a horrible feeling he’d miss something if he wasn’t awake and present for every second with her. 

“It’s time to wake up, Jack,” Lela said, smiling softly. Jack furrowed his brow, confused. 

“Lela, we are awake?” he said, chuckling softly under his breath. She smiled faintly, tears prickling her eyes. 

“No, Jack. I mean really, wake up,” she said softly, sitting up in bed. Jack wondered if she’d had another bad dream and was still slightly confused, so he sat up with her. He wrapped his arm around her waist and squeezed her slightly, comforting his wife. 

“I am awake, doll. We both are, we’re just still in bed. Everything is alright,” he said, planting a kiss to Lela’s cheek. She smiled softly at his touch, but sniffled. “What’s wrong, sugar?” he asked. 

Lela turned to face Jack, her eyes now red from holding back tears. His heart pounded in his chest, now concerned as to what was upsetting his sweetheart so badly. She had seemed fine just minutes earlier…

“You’re not awake, Jack. Not really. None of this is real,” she said. 

“Not real?” he said, clinging slightly tighter to Lela’s body. He didn’t want to believe a word she was saying. 

“Think, Jack. Really remember. What happened to me?” she said. 

Jack screwed up his eyes, a splitting headache shooting through his head, causing him to cry out in pain. Lela shifted on the bed, her hands holding either side of Jack’s head. 

A phone call. That’s all he remembered. A phone call that changed his life. But how-

“I died, my love. This isn’t real,” she said, answering the lingering question at the front of his mind. 

Jack opened his eyes at last to look back at his wife, nausea filling his body and a migraine coming on that made him feel like he was going to pass out. As he opened his eyes, everything around the two of them had fallen away to nothingness - only each other remained. There was no ranch, no comfortable king size bed, no hot mugs of tea on each other’s nightstand. Just each other in the vast abyss of nothingness. 

“You…,” he began, not entirely sure what to say. If she was dead, then where was he?

“You got it,” she said, smiling taut. 

“Where are we, Lela?” he asked, his fingers curling around her wrists as he desperately held onto her in case she left him. In case whatever vision of her that was clearly before him dissipated into the ether like everything else around him had. She shrugged. 

“I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t fully figured it out, truthfully. I’ve been here a while, but I wasn’t expecting you to join me any time soon,” she said. Tears ran down her face as she spoke, and by now her words were almost choking her in the back of her throat. 

“Why do I need to wake up?” he softly cried. Lela kissed her husband gently, tasting the salt from their tears as her lips touched his. 

“Because it isn’t your time. Not yet, anyway, Jacky,” she said. 

“But I don’t want to wake up. If I do, if I go - you won’t be there,” he sobbed. Suddenly the memory and pain of losing his wife came flooding back, overpowering Jack’s emotions. Wherever he was, he wanted to stay. He couldn’t go through that again. For so long he’d worked to repress what happened to Lela, never being able to cope with the fact she and their unborn son had been taken from this world. 

“I don’t want to say goodbye again - I can’t, I won’t!” he pleaded. Lela smiled softly. 

“I know you. And I know you’ll stay strong. At least, this time, I get to say it,” she said. 

“Say what?” Jack asked, his grip tightening on skin that slowly felt like he was losing his grasp on. 

“A proper goodbye. We never got one last time,” she said. 

“Lela, please, don’t!” he said. In spite of his grip, Lela slipped away from him with ease. 

“Jack, don’t make this any harder than it already is,” she cried, “But you’ve got to wake up”. 

With the words ‘wake up’, his vision became even less clear. Wherever he had been, he was slowly slipping away. He braced himself as best he could for whatever was about to come next. The only thing he knew for certain was that Lela would not be where he was heading. 

“Goodbye, my love,” he said, wiping his eyes of tears. 

“Goodbye, Jack,” she smiled, then whispered, “Wake up”. 

Jack’s eyes slowly began to open.  

5:39am. February 8th, 2018.

It was over an hour before there was any more significant movement from Jack. Jane and Clara had done all they could, and since she’d arrived at the lab earlier this morning, the two women had just been making sure that he would be comfortable when he eventually woke up. The side effects of being comatose for over four months would still cause havoc, undoubtedly, even in spite of the Statesman technology making the transition a more pleasant one. 

Blindingly bright lights – that was the first thing he noticed. That and a very dry mouth. Like, painfully so. Jack grunted slightly, trying to move his body and get a feel for where he was. 

What had even happened?

His eyes felt heavy as the lids fluttered open, Jack grimacing as the blinding white of the room he was in flooded his senses. Mumbled voices filled his ears, and in a way it felt like it was the first time Jack was actually hearing anything.

“Wh-what- where am I?” he muttered, but he wasn’t actually sure if he was loud enough for anyone to hear. 

His vision was blurry as he slowly began turning his head, trying to see where exactly he now found himself. All he could surmise thus far was that he was in a bed, and somewhere clinical, judging by the lack of colours shining out at him in the room. He could feel something up his nose moving as he turned his head, and with each movement a tube rubbed against the skin of his cheek. 

Was he in a hospital? The Statesman med bay? And why did he have a ventilator tube inserted? 

Jack blinked a few times to try and clear his eyes, and slowly the film began to dissipate across his pupils. Blurry masses of shapes began focusing somewhat, now making way for discernable objects. Monitors, IV bags, other beds further down the room. 

And then, running past his line of sight quickly, was Clara. She barrelled over towards him just as a wave of fatigue came over Jack, and a piercing screech came from one of the machines around his head. He screwed his eyes up, cursing inwardly at the noise, but when Clara muted the mechanism he found it hard to want to open his eyes again. 

All he knew was that he wasn’t with Lela anymore. He wasn’t sure how long he’d actually been with her, in whatever kind of purgatory dream-like state he’d found himself in, but every fibre of his body longed to be back there. He didn’t know exactly how he ended up there, how he ended up here either, but he didn’t greatly want to be anywhere other than by her side again. 

Back where he belonged. 

“Jack?”. 

The faint muffled voices of Jane and Clara managed to break through to Jack, and in spite of his best efforts to try and force himself back to the land of the dead, he just couldn’t. Slowly he began opening his eyes again, refocusing to the bright light and the face of Clara now leaning over him by his bedside.  

“Ginger?” he said, croaky and hoarse as he forced his words out.

“Jack, stay with us, we need to stabilise you,” Clara said, frantically messing with the controls on the panel closest to her. Without even realising it, he was panicking as he adjusted to being awake again, and it was sending all the readings way out of sync; she needed to get him under control before he flatlined again. His heart rate was off the charts, and his blood pressure was joining it. 

“Where am I?” he asked, breaths speeding up as worry set in, causing his chest to tighten in the process. He hadn’t been breathing autonomously for months, and his increased breaths was putting undue pressure on the ventilator which had kept him alive all this time. The more he woke up the more a tightness made itself known across his chest, sweat collecting on his brow as he panted, slowly feeling every wire and IV line that was inserted into his body. 

“You’re in the med bay. Calm down, Jack, it’s going to be alright,” she reassured him, administering procainamide to him through one of his IVs to try and return his heartbeat to normal. 

Jack felt the effects of the drug given have an effect almost immediately, and that weight left his chest in mere seconds. His breathing began to regulate, and the blood rushing through his ears from a pounding heart gave way to the sound of a gentle rumble of the machines behind his head. 

But then, like someone turning on a light switch, Jack’s mind went blank. 

“Whe-who…who am I?” he stammered.

“Shit,” Jane said. “Clara, his amnesia has already set in!” she exclaimed. Clara looked down at Jack, his eyes darting around the room frantically. They had worried that this would happen, that the amnesia often experienced by agents in the stasis chambers would rear its ugly head before they could properly stabilise him. 

“Get the photograph,” she said bluntly, her hands still working away at the machinery.

“But you said-,” Jane began protesting.

“I know!” Clara yelled, tears pooling in her eyes, “It might fuck him up for good, Jane, but we can’t have him forget who he is, or else there’s no going back. There’ll be no saving him. We’ve got to use it,” she explained.

Clara didn’t want to use the photograph of Jack’s wife for this - not after the grief of her death, and his subsequent actions, were the reason he was even in this position to begin with. But things had moved too quickly for him to be stable, for another prompt to be used - they didn’t have the time they needed to let him sit with something else, a new trigger, and hope it worked. He was crashing, and if he forgot who he was then it would be game over. 

Agents forgetting their own identities was not uncommon. The same happened with Harry only 18 months ago. But, unlike with Harry, Clara surmised that the trauma that would be needed to bring Jack back after a complete memory lapse would be too severe to safely recreate. They had to just work with what they had, and restore him as much as they could, before that became the reality. 

“Alright,” Jane said before rushing to Clara’s desk. Flinging open the desk drawer, she began pulling out a stack of paper files. Clara had made sure to keep all of Jack’s personal information nearby in case of an emergency, so anything people needed to know about the former agent sat in these brown envelopes.

Flicking through the papers, a photograph fell out. A small polaroid, with a woman’s portrait on it. She was young, early twenties, and had long dark brown hair. She was smiling in the photograph, taken on what looked to be a birthday, in a local bar that was still operational now, over twenty years later. Jane grabbed the picture and headed back over to the bedside.

“Jack, I’m sorry,” she whispered as she reached the bedside, holding the picture over his chamber.

“Oh…oh who-who’s this lovely lady?” he asked, the first smile in months spreading out onto his face. It hurt, he noticed, and for a brief moment he wondered why. But his eyes remained locked onto the image of the young woman, and slowly a searing pain started making itself known to him. Like a hot, burning migraine, gradually taking over his head as he tried to piece things together. 

Who was she? Why is she familiar? 

“She’s dead, Jack,” Jane began, steadying her breathing as she allowed Clara to continue to work away. Her boss gave her an approving nod before she continued her monologue, “Cops said ‘wrong place, wrong time’,” she said.

Jack’s eyes widened as everything, everything, came flooding back to him. Clara managed to just stabilise his vitals before the visceral screams started, filling the room and ringing in the ears of everyone around.

Jane withdrew the picture as Jack began to yell, his voice hoarse and screams cracking from not using his vocal chords in so long. But it was too much to bear as everything came flooding back; his wife, losing her, him joining Statesman, and every decision he had made which led him to where he now found himself; plugged into machines with a serious head wound. He had no idea how much time had passed, or how much of his life he’d lost in these four walls.

The heat he felt from the oncoming migraine soared across his head, almost burning at his temples as he sat bolt upright. Anger filled his body, raising his heart rate higher than what it had been in months. Clara’s eyes darted from Jack to the monitors, worried about her friend immensely. After waiting so long, this couldn’t be what ended him; she wouldn’t let him die like this.

“JACK!” she yelled, leaning forward and holding him by the shoulders and trying to get him to lay down again. “You’ve got to calm down, come on!” she pleaded. Her fingers tightened around his shoulders, bracing his frame in her hold. She nodded towards Jane who administered a higher dose of his IV medication, all the while allowing Clara to comfort him. He needed to lay down, or else he’d risk passing out and having to go through this rigmarole again. 

Jack’s breathing remained fast, the panic searing through him as he remembered everything that had led to this moment. His splitting headache shot through him again, beginning to feel like a pulsing sensation behind his eyes, which momentarily snapped him out of his anger fuelled haze for a moment to screw his eyes up and drop his head into his hands. 

“That’s it, come back to me,” she said, soothing him as she lay him down gently.

“She…she’s dead…and I-I almost…I almost killed millions,” he sobbed, tears streaming down his face. They stung as he cried for the first time in years, Jack never being the kind of man to show much emotion, even before the accident. He looked up, catching eyes with Clara.

She almost broke as she looked into them, dark brown pits which were laced with torment and anguish, bloodshot red and petrified. It was a look she had never seen before in Jack – he always was the one who kept things in check, never let anybody in, never let anybody show if he was suffering. She supposed that was where the fault lied with, really – the fact that he had never let anyone in on the fact he was clearly suffering with so much that it ended up bleeding into his work. His principles. His morals.

“But you didn’t, Jack. They’re alive. Eggsy and Harry stopped you,” she said. There was no point sugar coating what had happened – the truth would come out eventually. Her hand moved to gently caress his thick brown, and slightly greying, hair. She soothed him softly, comforting him as he came back to them. 

“Th-they did,” he said, voice quiet as he tried to piece together the entire chain of events that lead to him having a head wound this serious that it put him in this state for so long. “In September?” he asked. Clara nodded.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, still holding him in her arms.

“What month is it now, Ginger?” he asked. Jane caught eyes with Clara, a look of sympathy on her face briefly – it was expected this would happen.

“It’s February, Jack. You’ve been out cold for four months,” she said, choosing for now to ignore him using her old moniker. A more appropriate time would come where he’d find out that now was no longer her title, and that instead she now carried his. 

He slowly nodded, wiping a hand down his face. He felt that his signature moustache had remained, a sign that someone had clearly cared a great deal for him personally while he’d been out for so long. 

“What was I thinking?” he said quietly, pressing the heels of his hands in his eye sockets. Clara sighed slightly, pulling him into her. Instantly he dropped his hands and wrapped his arms around her body, clinging to her for dear life. He knew that if it weren’t for Clara, there was no way he’d still be alive. He didn’t fully remember what exactly happened during the fight, what in particular got injured and how, but he knew for certain that she would have been the reason he would live to tell the tale. For that, he would never be able to thank her enough.

“You had a psychotic break. Or, at least that’s what we think. Unchecked psychological issues caused you to go rogue, Jack, and that should have been something we caught much, much sooner,” she explained.

Jack slowly released Clara from his arms, sighing to himself as he steadied his breathing and tried to collect himself. He knew he would undoubtedly have a long road ahead of him now, and no doubt a severe punishment to boot. His body felt weak the longer he was awake, and if he had truly been out cold for as long as Clara said, he would need to do a lot to recover from being almost dead for so long. 

But all that could wait, as far as Jack was concerned. He’d pay the price physically every day of the week if it meant that what he originally intended never came to fruition. But the thing he needed to know the most was what would happen now he was back. 

What was his punishment? 

“What damage did I do? What’s gonna happen to me?” he asked.

“Jack, I need you to just calm down. You’ve got a long road ahead of you both physically and mentally. Last thing I need right now is for you to be getting agitated. You just woke up from a coma,” Clara said, almost a chuckle in her tone.

“Clara,” he said, voice cracked and broken, “Please,” he pleaded, “I need to know”. Clara shook her head, but a pain in her chest tugged hard at telling those pleading eyes ‘no’.. 

“It ain’t my place, Jack. Champ will be down here later today though. Rest up, we’ll get you some solid food, and you can freshen up a bit if you can manage to sit for a prolonged period of time. That’s all I want you to do today,” she said.

“Clara, I-,” he began, but she turned around and cut him off before he could continue to speak.

“Are we clear, Jack?” she said sternly, a tone she didn’t like taking, but one she could if needed.

Jack’s breathing hitched as her voice tore into him, piercing his skull as he still adjusted to sounds again. He rarely heard Clara use that tone, and from those four words alone it answered to him any lingering questions he had about the severity of what was to come - even if it was Champ who would deliver the punishment, it was no doubt going to be harsh, albeit just. 

He nodded slowly as he settled back down into the bed he’d laid in for months, his arms loosening around Clara’s torso as her comforting embrace came to an end. She was right; all he had to focus on now was resting up, and seeing what his body could cope with after so long being comatose. The rest to come would unfold, and he’d come to learn about the fallout of his actions. 

“Yes. Perfectly clear.” 

Clara nodded and smiled faintly as she began explaining a few details to Jack about the condition he was in, and what rehabilitation might look like. But he wasn’t listening; not really. Her words got lost into muffled speech as he slowly began dissociating, the gravity of the situation dawning on Jack.

He worked for years to become the hard outer shell people knew him for; the stern agent who never complained, and never faltered. He repressed his wife’s passing for so long he almost could convince himself that it never happened in the first place. 

But now, after over two decades of burying and hiding behind the facade, Jack now had to finally open himself up to his reality. He would at long last have to face the music, and accept his suffering. 

A single tear rolled down his cheek as his eyes fluttered closed, heavy and tired after his body had to fight so hard to keep him stable and alive once he awoke. Clara wiped his cheek gently as she allowed him to slip away to sleep, happy he was stable enough to do so, then headed towards the phone. 

She picked up the receiver and dialled her boss’ number. She knew Jack would need time before proper questioning, or punishment even, but she had to let the relevant parties know. 

Taking a few deep breaths while the phone rang out, Clara’s hands stammered slightly with nerves and the anticipation that rose within her as she awaited for Champ to pick up the phone. Soon, the reality of Jack’s actions were about to become painfully clear - and it terrified her for what was next to come. 

The receiver clicked on the other end, and Champ’s familiar southern drawl filled her ears, paired with the fatigue from the early morning nature of the call. Clara would normally mock Champ for such a trait, but today there was no time. 

“Champ, it’s Whiskey. Jack’s awake, sir,” she said. 

“He’s alive.”

Series Masterlist | A03 Link | Tumblr Masterlist

Next Chapter (Ch. 2 - A Curious Affair) ->

A/N: Aiming to release new chapters every Wednesday! Comments and reblogs are always appreciated 💕 Thank you for reading!

LadyBess xox

[tonguetiedraven]

Can you write demon Ryu getting in a territory fight with another demon over Rin? (Funny and scary at the same time, like a cat fight lol) Set durring cram school, and Ryu being a type of demon you haven't written about before <3

I got @marble-wolf to help me with this one <3

Here's a snippet of the fic, and there's a link to the full thing at the end. Thanks for the ask!!!

-- -- -- -- --

Ryuuji had kept it a secret since he was little. As much of a secret as he could keep it, which had not been much of one in recent months. 

Konekomaru and Renzou knew, of course, because there was no hiding it from them. They'd grown up together as family, and he'd simply been too young to hide it for a while. 

He was certain Lewin suspected as well, mainly because his master was eccentric enough to think it and observant enough to notice the hints Ryuuji wasn’t quick enough to hide. 

He’d almost given it away to everyone in Kyoto the first time, and he knew he’d given it away with the reaper, but thankfully Rin’s flames had existed and kept Rin from realizing Ryuuji had frozen the reaper when it was trying to bite Rin, and Rin’s flames got the stupid demon to back up.

He often wondered if it was why Amaimon had gone for his throat that first time. 

Izumo figured it out when they were in the lab being surrounded by zombies, which meant at this point, Rin and Shiemi were probably the only ones that didn’t know. No one knew what Takara knew, and Yukio had probably figured it out in that closet. 

The rest of them finding out didn’t bother him, but Rin finding out worried him. For a lot of reasons. He didn’t want to be judged for what he was, and he didn’t want Rin getting weird around him. He wanted Rin to see him, and not that. 

Despite trying to hide that secret and be normal around Rin, Ryuuji struggled hiding the most around Rin. He’d struggled since the beginning, and he had deluded himself for a while that it was because Rin was a nephilim too and drew that part out of Ryuuji, but…

Truthfully, it was because everything about Rin drew Ryuuji in, and the demon part of himself was not content with Ryuuji’s decision to not do anything about his massive and distracting crush on Rin.

He was blaming the demon entirely for why they were here. Kinzou’s concerts were fun enough with ear plugs, but any kind of concert was always a bit of a risk for him. 

A siren couldn’t exactly sing without side-effects. 

Rin had come up to him with that toothy (fangy) grin and those big blue puppy dog eyes, and Ryuuji had gotten lost in them and come back to himself to find he’d agreed to going to a concert with Rin and the others.

Now he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Rin and Konekomaru, and thanking the Myōō that Kinzou was loud and trying not to look at Rin in his punk outfit. The white fitted jacket and the hoodie were very Rin, but the leather gloves and the ripped slacks with chains were another touch, and the blue studs in Rin’s ears were devilish and Ryuuji was entirely convinced they were there solely to break him.

Rin was bouncing in place and singing happily (but not very well.) His hand caught Ryuuji's sleeve and shook his friend with an excited noise.

He tugged and called, “sing with me!” 

He was high off the energy around them and Ryuuji seemed distracted. Rin would pull him out of it.  

Ryuuji’s eyes went wide and a small noise that was not a squawk left him. Thankfully it was entirely swallowed by the volume of the crowd.

“Sing?” He mouthed at Rin. Ryuuji couldn’t sing. Singing was a problem for him. 

Rin's eyes lit up at the surprise in Ryuuji's eyes. It was fun to draw out that expression.

“Sing! You don't need to sing good!” Rin comforted if that was the issue.  

Ryuuji’s problem was the opposite. He sang a bit too well.

Konekomaru bumped him with his elbow as Kinzou went back to the chorus of BRS. 

Ryuuji’s eye twitched as he tried to think what to do. He could fake it with most anyone else, but Rin with his stupid (attractive) demon hearing would know he wasn't singing because he could pick out voices despite the overwhelming volume of the music.

“Just like aria class,” Konekomaru whispered around a cough. 

Ryuuji glanced at him and did not glance at Rin and his big eyes and locked his gaze back on Kinzou who was bouncing around the stage with more energy than anyone should have when they were growling out their lyrics like that. 

Just like aria class. Ryuuji could keep the magic out. 

The first few notes didn’t make the world end, so Ryuuji let himself sing a little louder. He did like this song.

Rin's next bounce was a little too high as he gave an excited fist bump and sang with Ryuuji. His tail was wagging wildly and he really might ignite. (But if he did that, Kinzou might haul him up on stage because his flames were cool to the Shima.)  

A particularly high jump had Ryuuji stupidly looking over, and his useless heart gave a hard thump at the obvious excitement Rin had. He’d never met someone who just felt so strongly about every moment and let himself really feel his excitement without hesitating even though he had every reason to with the flames. Even his tail was out there for everyone to see. 

He sang a bit louder and a bit more earnestly, hardly noticing himself starting to lose control of his voice. 

He wanted to dance and sing like that with Rin. (And maybe a bit more.) 

Rin liked Ryuuji's voice. It was better than Rin's. He could actually carry a note.

Rin sang louder with Ryuuji and he could hear other voices too!  

Ryuuji let himself start to move a little with the music, feeling the pull of it and not watching his voice like he should. 

The music swelled louder around them as Kinzou’s song reached its climax, and the audience was dancing and jumping and moving together, and Ryuuji was singing the lyrics at full volume as the song ended.

Rin gave the loudest sort of cheer and he beamed at Ryuuji. He didn't look worried or grumpy or distracted anymore and Rin called that a win! 

Ryuuji's singing voice was great too!  

“Your voice is beautiful!” A voice was drawing Ryuuji’s attention momentarily from Rin, and at some point when he hadn’t been looking, he’d gotten himself surrounded by people. Mostly girls, though there was a boy too.

His eyes shot to Konekomaru in alarm who gave a tired sort of nod. 

“Please,” the second one asked, pushing in and reaching to grab his arm, stepping on Renzou’s foot to do it. “Please, can I have your number?”

“No! Give me your number!”

“Can I have a dance?”

“Can I record you singing?” 

Rin's face changed from his elated excitement to pure annoyance as he grabbed onto Ryuuji's arms (gently!) and pulled him back. 

“He's shy! Go away!” Rin hissed, obviously annoyed. “You can't just crowd people.” 

Especially not Ryuuji!  

Ryuuji’s eyes shot to Rin in brief confusion (and something excited about that defensive tone) and Konekomaru stepped between them with that distraction to quickly (and quietly) speaking a mantra to stop the bewitchment.

“We’re in a crowd,” the boy growled, “you can’t stop—”

The mantra took affect and the crowding teens backed up, looking confused as Rin pulled him further away. Izumo and Renzou had closed in on his other sides, keeping them back. 

Next time Ryuuji got invited to a concert, he was going to say no, distracting blue eyes or not. He was a siren, and singing had consequences. A lot of them.

[yukidragon]

Hello Dearie!~ Hope your well! So one of your latest posts got me wondering about something I think is kinda important...

How was Joseph when he was hitchhiking and traveling to El Paso? Was he kind, when he got help? Since he had no job during that time, how do you think he paid people back since... You know how greedy some can be... Even though you theorize he uses sex kinda as a way to feel love.

The man ran away from home at 18 then died at like 25... I honestly think he'd be slightly desensitized to sex to a point until he finds his Sunshine.

What are your thoughts?

I’m doing pretty well, thanks! I'm having a lot of fun watching the votes come in on the flashfic poll I made. I hope you're doing okay as well.

That’s the thing about Jack’s past. There’s so many huge gaping holes that it’s hard to be certain about what happened to him while he was still Joseph/[Redacted]. We have information that I linked to in this post of what we roughly know so far, and we have some teaser art Sauce drew that is technically non-canon until stated otherwise. The picture of Joseph hitchhiking is a good example of that. Credit, as always, goes to the awesome Sauce.

If I remember correctly, the caption was something to the effect of “You do what you can to get by.” While this picture and even the tagline that went with it feels very solid in terms of Joseph’s story, until it appears on an official source, this can only give us hints as to what he might have gone through.

Since I shared one of Sauce’s absolutely gorgeous pictures that they posted publicly on their old twitter to talk about it, I would like to take a moment to plug the SnaccPop Studios Patreon, as well as the official Sunny Day Jack twitter and tumblr. Remember, always credit artists who are kind enough to give permission to use some of their art like this, and don’t share any of the private content posted on the patreon.

The fact that Joseph ran away from home, presumably with nothing but the clothes on his back is very troubling. Unless he came from a ridiculously wealthy family and had money burning a hole in his pocket at all times, scraping together enough money to simply stay alive would be a major concern for him. Considering he followed the train tracks on foot when he ran away, I have a feeling that he didn’t have much cash on him when he left everything behind.

We don’t know what year it was when Joseph ran away. All we know is that he ran away from the high school he was attending 12pm. At the time, he could have been as old as 18, or he could have been as young as 14.

There are some pretty horrific stories out there about what can happen to teens who run away from home. Violence, murder, SA, prostitution, drugs, etc... Any number of truly awful things could have happened to young Joseph... and the fact alone that he felt compelled to run away from home and change his name in the first place is very telling that something terrible happened to him even before that.

On that note, I want to remind people that this is an Adults Only game. If you’re not in the headspace to discuss the above topics, you might want to give the rest of this ramble a skip. Or you can jump to the story after the line break. That's a lot softer than these topics.

Some of the things Jack says in the demo about “other people” and his talk of how someone like Ian can’t know what real love is quite telling. It’s like he speaks from experience where people took advantage of him and used his desperation for love against him. It’s possible that this is just because he never felt his parents’ love for him was real, or maybe he had a relationship with at least one toxic lover who exploited him and his longing for love. Maybe a combination of both or something else entirely.

Joseph could have been the type to mistake kindness for love and latched onto any kindness that he was shown, even to his detriment. He could have been someone so jaded by fake love and the pain it brought him that he lashed out at the world that didn’t love him and refused to get close to anyone until he matured and learned how to at least mask his distrust.

The reporter, Dan, said during the interview that people don’t get buff like Joseph did for their own sake. Narratively, this would suggest that Joseph did have a reason to put on muscle mass that had to do with other people. It could have been for the sake of being more attractive, or it was to defend himself, since he might have engaged in fights, as suggested by the knife he carried around.

Because we know so little about Joseph’s past and can only guess at his motivations, he could have gotten so bulky because he had to resort to hard labor in order to survive. Jobs for drifters tend to be pretty shady and hard on a person. It could have ranged from anything to digging ditches to running sketchy errands, to, well, prostitution.

Now... given the nature of the game and its hard limits, it’s very unlikely that there was any underage prostitution going on.

After Joseph hit 18 though...? He could have done sexual favors in exchange for money, food, shelter, etc. Someone extending a kind hand to him in exchange for what he can “provide” for them, particularly sexually, is an unfortunate possibility. Given some of the things Jack has said and his behavior, it’s possible that he’s so sexual because it’s something he knows from experience that he can provide that people want from him if nothing else. I still believe that sex and love are closely tied together in Joseph/Jack’s mind, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t mistake a sexual and transactional relationship for a loving one, or that he might have reached the point of desperation where it was either have sex with someone for money or starve to death.

It’s possible that Joseph strictly used sex to pay his way until he became a star, hence why Dan’s questions bothered him so much. Sex workers can become desensitized to sex, even sex repulsed. He could have never been in a romantic relationship and was just constantly used by others to the point that when he finally felt love from his sunshine as Jack it contributed to him being yandere for them. Love would have been idolized in his mind in this case.

It’s also possible that Joseph could have been propositioned to have sex with someone in exchange for food/shelter/favors, but always refused to sell his body like that. It could be people like Dan tended to just see Joseph as a sexy body to lust after, not as a person who deserves love and to be cared about, and that was what upset Joseph so much.

There are many possibilities and too few clues at the current time to be sure of anything. We have hints, but they’re vague enough to point us in different directions.

For all we know, Joseph could have been pissed off at Dan for asking him sexual questions simply because he’s a children’s TV show host and kids would’ve been listening to an interview where he was in character at the time. It might not have anything to do with his past at all.

For a fair number of yandere characters, the object of their obsession is the first person that they want to have sex with. Their darling is the first person they felt love or desire towards, ever, or even just so deeply that it drives them crazy. It is possible, however unlikely, that Jack was a virgin when he and MC have sex for the first time, and he just prepared himself to be the perfect lover for his sunshine by researching techniques.

It’s possible that Joseph always had minor yandere tendencies even before he became Jack, which could show itself in that stubborn yandere obsession that only the object of his affection will do. If it's not his sunshine, he doesn't want anyone.

It’s possible that Joseph never really wanted to act on any sexual impulses he had until he felt real love for someone. Once that happened, then it was like a limiter was removed and he unleashed years of repressed desires that are all directed at sunshine.

On that note, it would be a funny subversion to the typical romance story formula if the amorous male lead was the "innocent" virgin while the object of their desire isn’t. The male lead typically is written as a Casanova/tomcat type character who had sex all the time with random people until they come across their virgin “true love” and become obsessed with them and them alone.

I mean, I really doubt that to be the case, but it's a funny thought and you never know.

Until the full game comes out with Joseph’s background, we’re only left with faint implications that we’re building into headcanons. Heck, for all we know, Jacktor’s name might not be Joseph at all. After all, the missing poster is an artist’s rendition that has a few similarities between the person depicted and Jacktor, so a misdirect isn’t out of the question...

All of that of that is pretty much just a long and winding way of saying that even though I’ve come up with quite a few headcanons for what Jack’s past life might have been like, I’m constantly reexamining the idea and coming up with new directions to take it for when I finally stick with one I'm sure I want to use with Sunshine in Hell.

For example, I originally considered having my MC, Alice, have a past life by the name of Mary who was Joseph’s childhood friend and first love who died young. As you can see in this post, I changed my mind on that last part and brought her back later in his life so that they could be lovers.

Between those two points, I considered removing the reincarnation aspect entirely, and instead Joseph never knew love, which was why he latched so hard onto Alice, who actually makes him feel loved for the first time in his life. He can literally feel how much she genuinely cares about him.

However, after the NSFW short stories I wrote here and here and headcanon posts like these, I started getting more ideas to expand the reincarnation storyline even further. I'm still not decided if Alice being reincarnated is going to be canon to Sunshine in Hell yet, but I must admit these ideas I'm playing with about Mary and LambsWork Productions are intriguing...

The timing of your ask is kind of funny to me, especially since one of the ideas I had was specifically related to this image of Joseph hitchhiking to El Paso. It wound up turning into a full blown flashfic in fact!

Before I go into that though, I'm going to quickly jump back to one of your questions first. I think that Joseph would be grateful for any help he was given. He might express it differently at different points in his life, but I get the feeling that he was absolutely starved for kindness shown his way.

Right after running away, Joseph might have still been a bit prickly. We've seen from the disciplinary report that he was an unruly teenager, one who made choices that he regrets as an adult. He could have been standoffish and distrusting during this period of his life, thinking all kindness is hollow and fake, only to regret being so cynical later on.

Unfortunately... the life of a runaway is hard, and a rebellious attitude can only take a teen living on the streets so far. The harshness of living as a homeless drifter no doubt forced him to be jaded and strong enough to stand on his own. It's probably a big reason why he bulked up. With big strong muscles, he can defend himself physically, sell his body by being more attractive, or both.

Though Joseph didn't necessarily intend to be attractive in order to sell himself. He could have wanted to look more attractive to be more charming. He gave himself tattoos and changed his look. He changed his name and erased his past when he ran away and when he became Jack. He's even stated outright in the demo that he'll be whatever MC wants him to be.

Being attractive draws people in. It helps charm people, and Jack has shown himself to be very, very charming both in the present and when he was acting. I mean, hell, most of us who are fans of the game are drawn in by his personality more than his looks. Joseph could have learned how to improve his charisma to get by and made himself more attractive to be appealing to others.

Hell, the fact that Joseph is an actor proves that he learned how to put on an appealing front that people respond to positively. When he was a teen, he obviously hadn't mastered that skill yet. It must have been something he learned while homeless, which would make it a survival skill.

Of course, it's still a survival skill considering Jack is using his charm to make sure MC needs him to stay forever...

I'm really rambling on and on with the possibilities of Joseph's past in this post. Let's leave the rambling there and wrap this post up with the story Sauce's picture inspired me to write. I hope you enjoy this sweet little tale about Joseph hitchhiking. Happy Valentine's Day! 💕

...

It was getting dark, but the Texas sun was merciless even at sunset. Cars zoomed along the major highway above the speed limit without a care for any hitchhikers desperate for a ride. Joseph had been walking along the major strip of road all day, thumbing every car that passed him by. He kept looking back to catch the driver's eye, but they always averted their gaze from his like he was a dead raccoon carcass rotting on the side of the road.

It didn’t surprise Joseph that they looked away. If they looked him in the eye, they might see him as human and feel bad for leaving him stranded in the desert.

His legs ached, sweat made his clothes cling to his sun-baked skin, and his empty stomach cursed him for having nothing to eat since the miserable scraps that were his breakfast. Joseph itched for a smoke, but he was down to his last cigarette, and the taste and feel of it in his mouth was the only thing dulling his nicotine craving. Once that was gone, he was shit out of luck. He barely had enough change to buy a cup of coffee, let alone another pack of cigarettes.

Joseph readjusted the beat up old backpack that carried all his worldly possessions when it started to slide off his shoulder. The sun was gone now and the orange was quickly fading from the sky. The chances of someone picking him up once it went full dark was slim to none. If he didn’t get a ride soon, he might have to resort to sleeping by the side of the road again.

Another car came barreling down the highway, a fancy black one with tinted windows. There was no way someone rich enough to afford such a car would stop to help out a drifter like Joseph, at least not without payment, but he jerked out his thumb anyway. Maybe his luck would finally turn halfway decent for once.

The fancy car went right past him, as expected. Joseph sighed and lowered his arm, only to jolt at the sound of screeching tires behind him. He whipped his head around to see the black car at a dead stop, streaks of rubber marking where the driver hastily pulled it over to the side of the road. He barely had a moment to really register that they actually stopped for him when the passenger door flew open.

Joseph took that as his cue, and walked briskly to the car. He barely caught a glimpse of brown hair popping out the open door before the passenger abruptly jerked back inside. A yelp followed by a frustrated grunt and the clicking of the seatbelt let him know that the person had been in such a hurry to get out of the car that they forgot to unbuckle their seatbelt first.

It was both funny and strange to watch this small lady scramble out the car, nearly toppling over after finally getting to her feet. Joseph didn’t know what to make of it. When she turned his way and he finally saw her face, his jaw dropped, sending his last cigarette tumbling to the ground, forgotten.

Mary.

Mary Phoenix. His Mary. His sunshine.

Mary was grown up now, just like him, though she was still so much shorter than Joseph, her curvy body filled out in ways that would have left his teenage self drooling. Hell, he was practically drooling now. She was gorgeous, soft and welcoming and everything that was right in the world. She looked paler than she used to, far more sickly than the last time he saw her, with dark circles under those unforgettable pale blue eyes of hers that flew open wide as they locked onto him.

Joseph was dreaming. He had to be. He had this dream too many times before to believe this was really happening to him. There was no way Mary was here out in the middle of nowhere, just suddenly here, still alive.

Mary died. She was dead and her family moved away. Joseph must’ve passed out in a ditch from hunger or heatstroke. He knew how this ended, with him eventually waking up from this happy dream before or after it turned into a nightmare, leaving him feeling cold, empty, and cursing God for taking his sunshine away from him yet again.

Despite this, his feet carried him closer to her. He couldn’t help it. The first step was tentative, the next one a little quicker.

Fuck it. Joseph didn’t care if it was a dream. Reality could fuck itself. If he could only have his sunshine in his dreams, then he would gladly stay dreaming forever, as long as he never had to lose her ever again.

“Starlight?”

Mary’s voice was tentative, shaky, and barely carried over the sound of the cars whipping by, but it was like a fuse had been lit, and Joseph exploded.

“Sunshine!”

The next few seconds the world was a blur of laughter and tears as Joseph scooped Mary into his arms as she lunged into them. He spun her around as he gently crushed her close to his burning chest, his heart beating so fast that he was sure she could hear it.

Mary clung to Joseph just as tightly, her body faintly trembling as her tears dripped onto his shoulder. “It’s you,” she said beside his ear, her voice filled with joy, disbelief, and so many more emotions all at once. “It’s really you, starlight. I found you. I found you. I finally found you…”

“You found me, sunshine,” Joseph said softly beside her ear in return. He breathed her in, catching something sweet and nostalgic that he could never quite name but it always made him think of Mary.

Real. This was real. Mary was real. She had to be. She was too warm to be a dream, her tears too wet against his hot skin to be his imagination, and she smelled so sweet and familiar and real… She was real, and Joseph couldn’t stop himself from crying along with her as relief swept through him and left him shaking. “I’m right here.”

Joseph wanted to kiss her so badly, but it had been years. She must have moved on, found someone new, better than he ever was. The thought of Mary in love with someone else was an icy dagger in his heart, but the pain was dull compared to the joy he felt at seeing her lovely face smiling back at him… for all of a second.

Mary closed the distance between them unexpectedly, her warm lips seeking out his in a kiss filled with years of longing. His surprise lasted for only a moment before Joseph returned the kiss with equal desperation as he pulled her even closer.

Suddenly they were just barely teens again, secretly meeting in her bedroom and sharing their first kiss, hoping not to get caught by her parents. It had been awkward and clumsy, but no less warm than the one they shared now. There had been tears then too.

If this really was a dream, Joseph was happy to never wake up.

Although the dream didn’t end, the kiss unfortunately did. Flustered and breathless, Mary pulled back and had to look away, her face a brilliant shade of crimson. “S-sorry. I… I should’ve asked if that was okay…”

Joseph blinked in confusion, still a bit dazed from the kiss until he realized Mary was worried about the same thing he was. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity. As if anyone could ever replace her. “You never have to apologize for kissing me, sunshine.”

Mary blushed deeper at the dazzling smile Joseph gave her. She no sooner looked his way again when he punctuated his statement with another kiss. She jolted initially, but quickly melted into him, and he chuckled again before losing himself in the kiss and her.

Joseph didn’t know why Mary was there, nor did he care. That didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered to him was making sure that no one took his sunshine away from him ever again.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur  

[debrisyume]

Kris is the Knight I’m dying on this hill

People seemed to be on board with the “Kris is the Knight” theory at first, but I noticed overtime that fans have become really critical of this theory. Unfortunately, I’m a stubborn asshole who has not budged on my belief on this theory at all, so I want to make a post explaining why I still like it in spite of all the issues people have pointed out. I’m open to the idea of being wrong but I honestly don’t think this theory gets enough credit. There’s more proof of Kris being the Knight besides chapter 2’s ending and I wanted to go into that. I’m also going to be talking about the common counter-arguments and why I don’t think they completely shoot down the theory.

Before I get into everything, I want to say I have a second post to go along with this theory. Basically I was originally writing a separate theory that was dependent on Kris being the Knight, and I even added some evidence for it to that post, but eventually I realized I needed to make a more extensive post on why I believed it. I think both posts will make the most sense when read together, so I’ll provide a link to it after I post it a little later.

Edit: Here it is! Please read after checking out this post :)  

—First, the obvious. Kris made a dark fountain at the end of chapter 2. Now, the interesting thing about this is that they seemed to have planned this ahead of time, before Queen ever told them about how to make one. Remember that TV Kris made sure to turn on for some reason? That suddenly gained a big sinister smile? It was unplugged in chapter 1, but was suddenly plugged in in chapter 2. Someone plugged it in between chapters, and I don’t think it’s Toriel. We see her read a book instead watching the perfectly working TV in chapter 2. The TV is also noted to be dusty and not used for a long time, so Kris or Toriel deciding to plug it in all of sudden is... weird. Maybe Kris plugged it in for Susie, but I don’t think they planned for her to come over. They’re not the one who invited her in, it was Toriel, Susie is also the one that decides to walk Kris home by herself. And if they wanted to watch TV, why is the remote still stuck in the couch? It doesn’t seem like they ever planned to hang out with Susie. The narrator saying that ‘it’s not yet time to wash your hands’ at the beginning of the chapter also hints towards the fountain being pre-planned.

This seems to point toward them wanting to make a fountain and already knowing how to before they met Queen. This is something that I think needs to be explained even if they aren’t the Knight, but overall it makes more sense if they have this knowledge ahead of time because they were the Knight all along.

—When talking about the Knight’s blade, Queen shows a human-looking hand and a knife that looks exactly like Kris’s. I think these images come from her memory of being ‘born’ and somehow seeing the Knight make it and declare her leader. These images are very specific (knights usually have swords, not knives) so I think this is accurate info about the Knight. 

—Speaking of the knife, Kris actually has two different knives, the one they took out at the end of both chapters, and the one they used to eat the cake with (the sprites are different, first one has a crossguard like the one queen showed, has a dark brown hilt, and seems more jagged, while the cake knife doesn’t have a crossguard and has a black hilt). We also don’t ever see Kris get that cake knife back. This implies that they used the first knife for something else that night and kept it on their person.

—Queen claims that every Lightner has the determination to make a fountain, but later on she says she doesn’t know everything. We are meant to question what she says. She even phrases it as a question at first.

* Is This Not Something That All Lightners Possess...?

* If One Was Simply 

* Determined Enough

* Could Not Anyone Make A Dark Fountain?

She doesn’t actually sound very certain, like this is just a theory of hers. The reason monsters can’t handle too much determination is because their bodies are made of magic and dust, not solid like humans. A kid asks Kris if it hurts to be made of blood. We know they still turn to dust because what’s buried in the graves are precious objects of theirs. Gerson’s hammer is buried in his grave to ‘symbolize his existence’ as opposed to, you know, his own body. So that points to them still being different from humans even if they don’t use magic as much anymore. Determination also comes from the soul (it’s where Alphys got her supply) but Kris is apparently so determined they don’t need it. In Undertale, when it comes to determination, only one person could use it to reload the timeline. In Deltarune, could it be that only one person, the one with the most determination, could make a fountain? (Wow I sound like Queen now)

I think that could be the case because the Roaring should have happened by now if literally anyone can make a fountain, unless the way to create fountains has always very rare knowledge. Whether that’s true or not, I still don’t think monsters can make fountains though. The way Darkners group monsters and humans together in one group might mean that they tend to believe that they all work the same.

—If that’s the case, why did Ralsei, who knows more than Queen, bother stopping Berdly? Well, he’s obviously in on it lol. More on that later.

—Here’s the thing, Kris is already special compared to other Lightners. Only they can seal the fountain, we see them do it in Snowgrave, so it’s not like they need Susie there with them. Honestly I don’t think it makes very much sense that anyone can make a fountain but only a human can seal it. That comes across as very unbalanced. I guess everyone is pretty lucky that there just so happens to be a human around in the same place where fountains are being made.

This even parallels something in Undertale. It took seven human souls to create the barrier and the equivalent power of seven human souls to break it.

—Kris already has a save file in the Dark World. This is different from Undertale, where the first save file just says ‘empty’. In fact, their name comes back in chapter 2, like they had overwritten ours (something interesting I noticed is that the first save file doesn’t have a location written on that says where Kris has been last, but the second one says Kris last saved in Castle Town). The narrator describes the save points as something Kris only can see, and they reach out to it ‘by instinct’ (‘you’ is definitely Kris considering lines like ‘your brother’ and such), and so far we have only seen save points in Dark Worlds. All of this hints towards Kris being in the Dark World before. There is even more stuff pointing towards it.

Susie and Noelle are very confused by stuff that goes on in the Dark World. Susie wonders where she got her axe and doesn’t get why the food isn’t filling. Noelle freaks out during her first battle. We don’t see Berdly’s first reaction but he was likely confused by things as well. By contrast, Kris doesn’t seem to question anything at all. They get into quite quickly by making flashy poses right away (as opposed to Noelle who just copies them and Susie who gives a lazy wave of her hand), they aren’t confused by their sword and shield, they immediately understand that the ball of junk is their DW inventory for some reason (not wanting to throw it away and feeling bitter upon being pushed to), and they aren’t weirded out by Ralsei.

How do I know this? Kris is able to talk on their own, we see them tell their friends that they want to be alone during the Spamton side quest more than once and tell their mother that they want to wash their hands without our input. They should be perfectly capable of asking Ralsei who tf he is, why he made their room look like their brother’s, and why he knows so much about them, but they don’t. There’s also how the Castle Town save point just calls him a fluffy boy instead of describing Kris as feeling suspicious of this boss monster lookalike. And I think it’s because they already know who he is. 

I believe that Kris created the supply closet Dark World, and took special care in creating Ralsei, so he’d resemble an old OC of their brother’s. I think it only makes sense if Kris or Asriel was the person who made Ralsei (for obvious reasons), but Asriel has been in college for too long for no one else to discover the Dark World. The supply closet and computer lab Dark Worlds have nearly identical “starting areas”, a big box with a path leading out to the right. The only difference is the texture and color, so I think the creators are the same (Ralsei doesn’t say his fountain has a creator but he also doesn’t say that about the other fountains either, I don’t see why his fountain has to be the one exception regarding this). Similarly, the unused classroom and computer lab worlds both have the same pink tree for the man who gives you an egg.

There’s even unused/placeholder dialogue that says Kris has been in a Dark World before. One of the Darkners says ‘You’ve come again to this wonderful place, now tear off that mask beneath your face!’. Interesting reference to Kris’s identity issues aside, this guy is saying Kris has been here before. I know it’s not canon, but I think it’s quite compelling when taking into account all the other evidence that Kris is familiar with Dark Worlds. Anyway, obviously not sustainable proof, but I still wanted to bring it up.

—People try to debunk this theory by saying that King should recognize Kris, but did he ever actually meet the Knight? Queen clearly didn’t, otherwise she would know more about their motives and how fountains work. And why would the Knight talk with one leader and not the other? I think the fountains are the whole reason why they know about the Knight. Toby said the fountain changed King’s behavior, and the robot trio talk about Queen changing too, suddenly becoming obsessed with the Knight. ‘Knight this, Knight that, what does it have that I don’t?!’

Despite never meeting them before, she’s super loyal to them. I think that’s how it works for King too, he doesn’t seem to know any more about them than Queen does. It’s more like he thinks they want him to kill Lightners and be the sole ruler because that’s what he wants, and he’s using the Knight to justify himself (the other kings don’t mention the Knight beating them up, I think them being ‘locked away’ took place in the Light World, same as Queen learning Asriel’s name and his search history through him using the computer).

And that’s another thing, the Knight is definitely a Lightner, but King hates Lightners and all Darkners so far are able to tell who’s a Lightner on sight. Why doesn’t King seem conflicted on following the Knight for being a Lightner? Unless he doesn’t know or doesn’t realize it, which only works if he never met them like Queen. To be honest, I really doubt the Knight is charismatic enough to get them both on their side like that so easily, especially if they’re not there for too long. Does King really seem like the kind of guy to be so devoted to a random stranger visiting his kingdom? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to want to make the Knight his servant for helping his leadership instead of saying things like ‘My Knight... I shall not fail you...’, especially since that’s how king & knight relationships are supposed to work? Is a single act of usefulness really enough to make him so loyal?

Same with Queen, she never got the chance to talk with them but is suddenly obsessed with them according to sweet cap’n cakes. This to me points to a supernatural reason for their devotion to them, like the fountain almost brainwashing them or something. Queen also calls them the Roaring Knight despite not knowing what the Roaring is. I think she’s only aware of this title because the Knight projected this while they created her Dark World. When you check the sole laptop in the room (obviously Queen) it said someone left it on, and then someone also spilled the playing cards on the floor. Kris also turned the TV on and we see the probable next main boss smile. I think Kris interacting with these objects is what makes them the leaders of their worlds and gain main boss status, because they were touched/enlightened by the Knight.

(The fountain making Darkners stan their creator is why I think Ralsei is so biased towards Kris compared to everyone else too)

—Here’s my interpretation of the communion line. Basically, when Spamton is saying ‘speaking of communion’ he’s referencing his previous line of ‘communion with (unintelligible laughter)’ which I think means ‘contact with Gaster’. Which can totally apply to Kris!

Their phone makes the same garbage noise that Spamton’s did, like Gaster is trying to talk to them too. They’re scared of the bunker that plays Gaster music, and something happened there that we don’t know about yet. The goner human Gaster helps us make has their fashion style and hair color. There’s clearly something going on between them (and frankly I’m concerned for Kris!). I’m not sure if Gaster is the one who taught Kris how to make fountains, I also like the idea of them discovering it on their own. They’re very interested in using magic and did occult with Catti, maybe they discovered something that way. Gaster could have somehow helped them find out how too. He’s clearly interested in Dark Worlds like I said in the link (there’s his relationship with Jevil and Spamton, but also entry 17 seems to talk about Dark Worlds too), so I can totally see him being connected to the Knight and encouraging them to make more. I think Gaster’s “communion” with Kris is the whole reason why they started making fountains in the first place.

Why does Gaster interrupt Spamton (yes I think it’s Gaster who does it, please read the linked post)? He seems to be kinda touchy about people talking about him going by the ‘it’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening’ line, but mainly I think it’s because he doesn’t want the player to know that the Knight is Kris yet, but clearly Kris doesn’t care lol.

—People who don’t think Kris is the Knight often propose this alternative: Noelle and Berdly were studying, the Knight hid in a closet and made the fountain while Kris and Susie were on their way to the library. I have a couple of problems with this.

First of all, why is the Knight doing this in the middle of the day? Wouldn’t it be easier to get away with at night or evening where there’s less witnesses? Couldn’t Kris and Susie just ask around town if they saw anyone run out of the library at that time? Especially with the traffic jam making them stuck and unable to get home or hide right away. In fact, the traffic blocks EVERY exit except for the one road towards the school, which narrows down the Knight to Toriel and Alphys of all people. Could the Knight even get to the library if they wanted to?

And why does the Knight wait for Berdly and Noelle to come in first? Why bother hiding in the closet and not just make the fountain the second they come in the room? And supposedly King tried to kill the Lightners on the Knight’s orders, shouldn’t that mean they have no problem with killing Noelle and Berdly?

Some of these can be explained, but my biggest problem is why Noelle and Berdly never mention the room suddenly growing dark and a ton of smoke appearing along with a light show. Fountain creation is really hard to not notice, yet they never bring it up at all, nor do they mention seeing someone run out the closet door. Wouldn’t they try to run away if they suddenly saw smoke coming from the closet too? 

There’s also how the Knight escaped. If they left before the fountain was fully formed, how did they slip past Kris and Susie? Shouldn’t they be hanging around the library somewhere since the cars won’t let them leave? If they waited until the Dark World formed first, why does no other Darkner mention a strange Lightner around? Lightners aren’t exactly common visitors, but somehow no one talks or knows about them?

And shouldn’t Kris and Susie be inside the closet after sealing the fountain, if that’s where the fountain was made? They went inside the supply closet in chapter 1 and ended up in the room next door. Everything in the room corresponds pretty well with their adventures, for instance, the checkerboard and Seam plushie is to their right, because they had to go left in order to reach King’s castle. In chapter 2 they are right by Queen’s laptop, which likely symbolizes both Queen and her mansion, where the fountain is. I think it makes more sense for the fountain to be made by her laptop, than for it be in the closet (which is said to have old electronics, not really fitting Queen’s mansion) so far away. 

I’m aware of the closet being described as being big enough to fit in a large person, which sounds weirdly specific, but considering the other details about it: the “old” electronics, the way it’s pitch black and creepy looking, the two plugs coming from it, I think it’s actually supposed to be the basement, where we have two plug enemies and the large NEO body. I don’t think the NEO body was physically in the closet, I go by the popular theory that Mettaton drew it, but if the closet symbolizes the basement, then the line about a large person could be referencing the NEO body. Even if you don’t count the size of Spamton NEO during his final attack, he’s still one of the largest NPCs.

Also, Noelle and Berdly’s books were closed, so I don’t think they were studying in the first place lol. They aren’t even sitting in the chairs right by them either, they’re sleeping on the table with their knees on the ground. 

Now, I do understand where people are coming from when they think that Noelle and Berdly sleeping disproves Kris being the Knight. However, I want to say I think it doesn’t make much sense whether Kris is the Knight or not, because there’s no clear explanation for why they’re asleep but Kris and Susie are not. Kris and Susie moved from the closet to the classroom in the first chapter, which couldn’t have happened if they were asleep. The room is also in a mess which is likely caused by their exploring. 

If Noelle and Berdly fell asleep before the fountain was made (however that even happened), they still woke up during the Dark World adventure, so they should be awake by the end of it, unless something put them to sleep right before the fountain was sealed. And hey, look at that: Queen left the area which means Noelle and Berdly were alone with Ralsei, who can sing people to sleep with his magic. Berdly and Noelle never fell asleep before the Dark World was made, they fell asleep because of Ralsei.

This was probably so Berdly and Noelle could think of the Dark World as a dream, as he was there when Susie talked about Noelle meeting the ‘real her’ in the Light World, so he knew Susie told her it was a dream and may have wanted to make it easier for Kris and Susie to keep the Dark World secret from them. In the Snowgrave route, Berdly is frozen to death, so him being passed out still makes sense. Noelle might have fallen asleep on her bed out of physical and mental exhaustion after Susie left. Susie even says ‘Noelle needs to wake up’, which is obviously referencing her telling Noelle it’s a dream, but it could also be literal in that she left Noelle to rest. If this theory is right, there are ways to confirm it without us seeing it. Susie said she would tell Kris what happened with Noelle but hasn’t done that yet, she could mention Noelle falling asleep then. Noelle is definitely going to come to the Dark World again, so when she sees Ralsei she’ll probably bring up to how he sang to her, where we’ll realize he was using his lullaby to make her sleep.

I know Noelle killed Spamton with Iceshock, which points to her being awake. But the whole situation regarding her using it was weird. Kris yelled out for Ralsei and Susie to help them, but neither could hear them. Kris whispered Noelle’s name, yet she was able to hear them and use Iceshock. I also don’t think enough time passed for her to physically be in the room to kill Spamton. The screen also blacked out for a second before she froze him.

I’m about to go on a tangent but bear with me: “Joining the party” grants some deep connection between Kris’s soul and the party members. The soul takes damage for the characters who aren’t Kris and will even join them in a battle (Susie vs Lancer). If Kris collapses during the Berdly fight, Noelle will say she can still hear their voice, and she expresses confusion at Kris hearing something she was only thinking in her head. There seems to be some sort of telepathic communication going on here? I don’t understand what makes it stronger for Noelle than for Susie (she can hear Kris’s voice but can’t understand them), I’m guessing future chapters will get deeper into that, but this would explain Noelle hearing Kris’s order despite them being quiet. 

Noelle has a tendency to black out during the route and unconsciously use Iceshock, I think this also happened when she froze Spamton at the end. She used Iceshock in a sleepwalking state or immediately fainted upon using it (Three numbers came up which means she used three iceshocks at once, which could have tired her out). I’m leaning towards her sleepwalking as Susie doesn’t mention anything about Noelle acting strange at the very end, whether it’s seeing her use a spell or walk out of the room like a zombie. Probably Noelle can use Iceshock without having to gesture with her hands and just has to think it for things to freeze.

Lastly, I don’t really agree with the idea that Berdly and Noelle wouldn’t go inside the lab because it was dark and creepy. Berdly has a tendency to pretend to be more competent than he actually is, he would act like he wasn’t scared and encourage Noelle to come inside with him, not to mention how Noelle likes scary things. A dark room wouldn’t deter them too much, they’re not going to assume it’s dangerous and look for the lightswitch like Susie and Kris did.

—Here’s what I think happened last night: the pie was a red herring to make us less suspicious of Kris, to hide the fact that they made a fountain. I don’t think Kris was especially trying to hide anything from us, considering how less secretive they are the next day. They likely took out their soul to have more control/not feel guilty over what they were doing, and thought it would be funny to creep us out with the smile. Maybe taking out the soul is actually required to create a fountain, we still don’t know much about how they work after all. They went downstairs to eat the pie because they haven’t eaten anything all day, they plug in the TV, and then they go to the library (maybe in the really early morning?) to make the next fountain. After they make the fountain they visit Ralsei for some reason, or they only save in his castle (or maybe they do this before they made the fountain, it’s hard to tell and ultimately doesn’t matter).

They also somehow cut off the internet, maybe the fountain creation itself is what cut it off. It was working yesterday because we see the annoying dog in the computer lab working on something, and Queen mentions being concerned about the lack of internet right before the Knight appeared. The lack of internet just happens way too close to the Dark World being made for me to not think it’s connected. That might also be the reason why there’s no librarian that day? Then Kris goes back home and sleeps for like 5 minutes, and then they sleep during the whole day at class (more than they usually do, as noted by Alphys) because they were super active almost the whole night. Eating the pie probably didn’t take long enough for Kris to sleep the whole day away, but if they had to walk to the library and school too, I can see that really tiring them out.

Because the internet wasn’t working, no one felt like going inside the computer lab besides a couple of students, just like people missed the supply closet and unused classroom Dark Worlds. It honestly wasn’t that late when Kris and Susie started their new adventure, yet no one is there besides their classmates and apparently only one other person came in the library later, the one monster in the upper floor, and they didn’t even go to the computer lab, it might not be a very popular place. Susie even mentions how things feel “off” because no one is around, my guess is that she was unaware of the internet outage because she doesn’t have her own computer/doesn’t use it much. 

As much as Kris eating the pie was a great troll, I think it makes more sense for them to have done something else that night, like make a fountain. Between the different knives, the TV being plugged in, Kris sleeping the whole school day, and the save files, it really seems like the pie was just a red herring. It’s also a good way to divert attention from them doing something else because we’re made to think they only ate pie.

It’s perfectly possible that they did something else last night, but I think creating the fountain makes the most sense as it doesn’t overcomplicate the plot that way. We would have to deal with Kris and the Knight and Gaster(?) all having their own, differing agendas.

—One problem I have with Kris not being the Knight: it just... doesn’t make sense to me for the Knight to not explore the Dark Worlds. What most people seem to go with is that they create them, maybe hang around for five minutes, then leave. But Dark Worlds are literally fantasies come to life, the Knight puts so much effort in the Darkners’ histories and personalities, yet they don’t take the time to actually enjoy them? The escapism theme isn’t exactly subtle, the Dark Worlds are even based on entertainment! Yet apparently the Knight isn’t actually interested in exploring one? If they have and the Lancer fan club just misses them, why don’t more people talk about the Knight or at least mention another Lightner being around? Kris being the Knight fixes this, they’re just waiting to explore them later.

—Here is an extremely interesting line of dialogue. This Swatchling only says it if Kris is alone— when the Lancer fan club is back together they instead wish luck to Ralsei. So, why is everything tailored for Kris, specifically? It’s not like Queen particularly cares for Kris, she forgets what they like in the Giga Queen boss fight and appreciates them specifically for not having any opinions— she doesn’t know anything they like besides their search history (which she can’t even remember) so she wouldn’t ‘tailor’ anything for them. I think this line is referencing the fact that Kris is the Knight, because Dark Worlds reflect the will of the creator. So everything, the whole Dark World, technically is tailored for Kris.

—Here’s another issue, I just don’t get why Kris is being so reckless. If they want another adventure, they don’t have to make the fountain themselves. They can just wait for the Knight to do it, but for some reason they feel compelled to do it themselves? But why would they if they sincerely believe that too many fountains will cause the Roaring? Especially since they can just wait to find one the next day. That way they aren’t risking the whole freaking world and don’t have to get worried about getting caught by their friends.

I think they opened the door not to let the police in (Undyne is also taking... a really long time to come, maybe she talked with Toriel during the time skip instead?), but to give themselves an alibi. Otherwise Susie would believe the person who made the fountain was either Kris or Toriel, but with the door open and Toriel mentioning the “stranger” creeping around her house she can think the Knight broke in. The reason they’re making the fountain needs a better reason besides Kris doing it because “Susie said so”. If that’s the case, I imagine they would tell her rather than keep it a secret. I also don’t think it’s a good enough explanation for why they still make one in the Snowgrave route. 

—Let’s talk about Ralsei: why doesn’t he give a fuck about the Knight? He never comments on them, he never wonders who it could be, he never tells Susie and Kris to be careful in the Light World with them around, or to investigate who it is even though the Knight is the person creating all these fountains, something he is supposed to be strongly against. The Knight isn’t even in the prophecy despite basically being the entire reason the heroes are needed at all. That makes no sense, aren’t they a much more immediate threat than the Titans or the Angel?

Not only does Ralsei never acknowledge the Knight’s existence, but he never talks about the Dark Worlds/fountains having a ‘creator’ at all. He doesn’t say ‘someone created a new fountain’, he says that ‘a new fountain has appeared’ in both chapters, like it just showed up on its own. Queen says the fountain was created with the will of the Knight, Ralsei says the Dark World reflects the will of the fountain. He doesn’t say anything that’s wrong or contradicts Queen, but if our only context about fountains was from Ralsei’s dialogue, we wouldn’t think that there’s someone making these fountains at all. It’s as if he doesn’t want the other characters to think about who’s making these fountains too deeply (basically he doesn’t want Kris to get caught).

Ralsei can apparently ‘sense’ fountains. He just so happens to enter right after Kris and Susie fall in and not after Noelle and Berdly did, even though enough time passed for the first area to get wrecked and for Berdly to move to another place. Shouldn’t have Ralsei sensed it while Kris and Susie were in Castle Town with him?

Also, remember what I said about the traffic jam preventing the Knight from getting too far away from the library? This problem is even worse if we take Ralsei at face value and believe the Knight only made a fountain after Kris and Susie left the Dark World. That is such a small time frame for them to be able to make the fountain and escape before anyone sees them. 

To put things into perspective, the traffic jam is full by the time Kris and Susie leave the school, yet Ralsei doesn’t sense the ‘dark presence’  until after they leave his Dark World, meaning the Knight had to make the fountain and leave without anyone noticing in the time it took for Kris and Susie to walk down the hallway. It’s so absurd to me I just have to think Ralsei is lying. I actually think it’s possible Ralsei can sense fountains, it’s just that he sensed it much sooner and didn’t tell anyone. Alternatively, he didn’t sense a fountain but rather a person, I mean “presence” is usually used for sentient beings. He might have sensed Kris and Susie entering the Dark World or something, that would explain how he only seemed to come after they entered.

The whole Titans prophecy was very suspiciously timed, he leaves it at the last minute even though it’s very important information and could have led to catastrophic consequences if he didn’t say it soon enough. What if Ralsei wasn’t there when Berdly tried to make a fountain, or if Queen managed to convince Noelle to do it? If he told Kris and Susie beforehand that making fountains leads to the Roaring, they could have explained it to them instead so nothing bad happened. What if they came across the Knight trying to make a fountain in the library? They could have told them about the Roaring and the Knight would stop if that isn’t their real goal (Honestly I doubt they want the world to end even if they aren’t Kris) Ralsei is already hiding things, who’s to say he’s not making this up?

Some people try to explain Ralsei’s actions by saying that it wasn’t the right time for him to explain the Roaring, and I can kinda see it because no one was making a fountain before, but King had a very similar plan to Queen.

He talks about how the world should be “blanketed in darkness” and that Darkners will rule it, but Darkners turn to stone if the whole world is dark. Even though Ralsei was determined to talk everything over and not fight, he didn’t explain to King that Darkners literally can’t rule the world. It’d be much more effective to talk him down by explaining that no Darkner will be alive if that happens, yet he doesn’t say anything. Queen also says how wonderful things will be for everyone once she expands her Dark World to cover the whole world, but Ralsei still doesn’t correct her. Again, it’s like he made it up at the last second.

In fact, I’m going to take this a step further. Hearing King’s plan is what gave Ralsei the idea that Darkners will basically die if the world is covered in darkness, because if they met other bosses who wanted to do similar, he needs an easy way to convince them to stop if things go too far (but not before the gang gets to experience a cool boss fight or two).

I think Ralsei knows Kris is the Knight and is working with them to create fun adventures together. There’s no great destiny or anything, just a kid and their imaginary friend able to bring their fantasies to life. There has to be a prophecy, a world-ending threat, and a villain to root against so everyone (both the characters and the player) can stay invested in the story. That’s why the teens can’t find out Kris is the Knight, if they knew the whole adventure was artificial, it would ruin the magic for them. That’s why Ralsei hides the fact that the Darkners are objects from Susie, and not from Kris. Kris already knows this, but it might affect Susie badly, knowing Lancer is “fake”. Kris also has the perfect opportunity to explain this to Susie after saying “seems a little far-fetched” when she talks about Lancer and Ralsei coming over, but they choose not to, like they want to go along with Ralsei’s idea.

Ralsei stops Berdly because him not be able to make a fountain would bring everyone one step closer to finding out the Knight is Kris (especially if humans are still known to be more powerful than monsters in some ways, which isn’t all that unlikely considering how they seem to live in separate communities. That could be because there’s too much tension from them being scared of each other), and if it did work, well, we’re here to explore Kris’s worlds, not anyone else’s.

Ralsei is very attached to Kris, and gets agitated when Susie learns how to ACT because that’s Kris’s special talent. Making fountains is Kris’s “special thing” too, so Ralsei is covering for Kris so everyone can continue to have fun. Ralsei not being concerned over the Knight makes sense if he knows who they are and is actually ok with them making fountains, and the person he likes best and always makes exceptions for is Kris, so...

I know I just spent the last few paragraphs really scrutinizing Ralsei, but I don’t think he has bad intentions in the slightest. I mean, I don’t think what he and Kris are doing is very smart either lol (I don’t think either of them completely understand how Dark Worlds and fountains work), but it’s not done out of malice. Granted this behavior is very manipulative but Asriel/Flowey and Chara were also manipulative. In fact I’d say this whole thing could be a parallel to the buttercup plan in Undertale.

—Another common debunk I’ve seen is that Toby already did a red herring with Kris at the end of the chapter, so why should chapter 2 implying that they’re the Knight be any different? I already talked about the little hints that Kris didn’t only eat the pie last night, but honestly I don’t see Toby faking us out twice in a row. I’d guess that’d be a funny running gag, make Kris look suspicious as hell only to reveal their actions were innocuous after all, but that’s runs the risk of the audience distrusting every big reveal as a fakeout (I mean there are already people who think Kris didn’t make a fountain but rather hit a gas leak), and it makes far more sense to me that the second ‘supposed’ red herring isn’t a red herring at all. Toby isn’t this epic troll writer 24/7, he doesn’t subvert expectations just for the sake of it. 

Kris was never going to kill everyone in chapter 2, that makes no sense for the story. Kris was never going to kill everyone for the same reason why we never expect the main character to die within 5 episodes, that’s more endgame stuff than anything else (there’s also nothing foreshadowing Kris being a murderer in the first chapter). If you see chapter 2’s ending as revealing what Kris did after flashing their knife in chapter 1, things click very well.

—People’s biggest issue seems to be that it’s ‘too early’ for a Knight reveal, but I disagree. I don’t see the problem with revealing this in chapter 2, that just means Toby has other priorities for the story. I don’t think the Knight’s identity is the big, main mystery of the story, to me it’s “what the hell is up with Kris?” although that could just be me projecting my own desires, there’s still so much going on with them that we don’t understand or know about. Them being the Knight would be a great way to find out more.

And if the Knight is Kris, it’s not like we’re gonna learn exactly why/how they’re doing this right away. There’s still way more to learn about Kris’s motivations, and about the world of Deltarune in general. I shared my own thoughts as to why but there’s likely a lot more going on with Kris’s psyche. Deltarune isn’t really starved of mysteries. We can afford to have the answer to one of them already.

And frankly I find the why/how much more interesting than the ‘who’. Honestly, out of all theories about who the Knight is, I think Kris being the Knight is the one that has the most going for it right now, because we have good reason to believe that they know more about what’s going on than we do. I have seen some very interesting write-ups about who the Knight is and what they want, but there aren’t really any clues pointing to someone in particular (if you dismiss everything that says it’s Kris). The info we do have about the Knight and their motivations is so vague you can easily make a theory about them being anyone. Not only that, but we likely aren’t going to learn anything about them in chapter 3 either because the Dark World there apparently isn’t made by the Knight. Until there’s some substantial evidence that points to someone else in future chapters I’m going to keep believing in Roaring Knight Kris.  

I won’t mind if this post doesn’t convince anyone who doesn’t see Kris as the Knight. I just hoped I explained my reasoning well enough for why I think it’s Kris. It honestly kinda bothers me how people treat this theory as obviously false, which is why I wanted to compile all the evidence for this theory and not only the obvious stuff. 

Thanks so much for reading!

[beautifulpersonpeach]

hello bpp!

i just wanted to ask about pann. i think you mentioned it in one of your old posts which is how i found out about it. i know about pannchoa and check it out from time but i just wanted to ask if you have some tips on how i can navigate the original pann site as a non korean. pannchoa is okay but i noticed that it seems a lot of bts articles that are translated are mosy often the maknae line only and a lot of the time it’s just about V lol.

or should i even bother going through the effort? loool.

**

Hi Anon,

Honestly, I want to ask you not to bother.

Me trying to tell you how much of a bad idea this is:

My tip on how to navigate it as a non-Korean is to avoid it altogether. Nate Pann (like DC), is a cesspool of filth, and it's not a site I personally frequent often. It's one of the few forums that allows you to create an account without a Korean phone number or ID so you've got the bottom feeders of Korean society running amok, and the worst characters from the international side camping there. There's already some overlap in behaviors seen in Q-anon conspiracists with k-pop fans (just being honest y'all), but imagine a site filled with homophobic incels + conspiracy theorists + underemployed and self-righteous agitators, laser focusing all their God-given talents on k-pop idols and their fans.

Like Reddit + 4chan but for k-pop. Occasionally you see posts from one Ajumma ranting about some local news but the k-pop communities on that site are.. nothing to write home about.

And this is before we get to all the misinformation. The site pages are supposedly regulated by a team supervised by a guy called Nate, but in reality, there's zero accountability and what you have is people just shit-posting 24/7. So you're more likely to become less informed by keeping up with articles on Pann, than you would've been otherwise. It's become almost as bad as DC in that way. There are certain cues in how a story/rumor is written that can hint to how legitimate a story is, but it's difficult to explain to someone not familiar with the language or the site.

The one tip I have for Pann:

If you'd still like to check out the site, I'd say it's a good idea to stick to the trending topics or search for: 톡커들의 선택. Topics that make it to that list tend to have the most engagement which often means the most opportunities for the news there to be vetted, though of course that doesn't always happen. Last I checked there was no good option for translations on the site, so one would have to manually copy-paste to whatever translator engine they normally use.

Alternatives to Pann:

The ARMY fandom is actually very good at filtering legitimate information and passing that along to everyone else, and on calling out misinfo (I'm excluding shipping/akgae spaces here, obviously). You can follow a list of Korean and Japanese translators linked here who consistently provide good updates. If you'd like to stay up to date on what's happening on the k-side, some alternatives or complements to Nate Pann are Naver, and the local e-newspapers i.e. Chosun Ilbo, Yonhap, and Joongang Ilbo.

Also, just being more aware of other k-pop artists/industry folks is a good idea, especially for people we know have a long history with BTS, such as Tablo, Tiger JK, The Lab etc. Sometimes their instagram/social media posts give some hints as to what's coming in terms of music projects and other gossip. These are better alternatives to Pann IMO, if the point is to become more informed about k-pop news in general.

*

A quick word on how I personally navigate Korean forums because I think that could be the follow-up question here. Most of what I learn about is from actually talking to people, not by scouring various forums looking for this or that. I'm friends with local Koreans who are into k-pop and are fans of other idol groups or khh artists, and I also have family who are very plugged in with local news and gossip too. Again, these are people I actually know and have met several times over the years in real life. We regularly chat about whatever and sometimes they'd link to or reference a community forum or we choose to meet on this or that site, and just by way of being on those sites, because BTS is BTS and everyone and their momma is constantly in their business, I see shit from time to time that needs to be reported.

BTS is a bit of an anomaly for many reasons, and one reason is that most things anyone needs to know about BTS, are things the boys directly tell their fans. The middlemen a.k.a. the Media, have a history of getting it wrong when it comes to BTS. The boys realized this early on and have since cut out the middlemen when there's anything actually important to communicate about themselves. We've seen this happen with their 2018 MAMA speech, and more recently, the 2022 Festa Dinner.

Good luck. :)

[rintarous]

after shutting off your phone, you immediately jumped out of your seat and waved at your brother and his teammates from the balcony as they said their thanks to the audience. you made eye contact with tsukishima and rushed downstairs to congratulate them in person.

“you guys that was an amazing rally!” you squealed as you met up with them in the luggage area. “thank you, y/n” daichi smiles. you clapped your hands and walk towards to your brother. “keikei you were on fire today! akiteru nii chan is definitely going to cry when i’ll tell him” you rambled, linking your arm with tsukishima

“did you have to make that rhyme?” was all he could let out, tired from long ass game they played against inarizaki. “where’s shoyo and tobio?” you looked around for the freak duo. “SHOYOOOOO” you jump at him. “y/n!” he screamed back, catching you as you latch yourself onto the middle blocker

“HOW DARE YOU MISS THAT TOSS FROM TOBIO” you nagged at him. hinata drops you as he scratches the back of his neck in shame. “that jump felt good” he reasons. “you dumbass” kageyama buts in your conversation, smacking hinata on the back of his head. “OY KAGEYAMA-KUN” hinata swats him away.

you tapped kageyama on his back, “yeah?” he looks down at you in confusion. you motioned him to come closer and you whispered something in his ear. “do you know anyone in inarizaki?” you asked. kageyama raises a brow but nods his head. “yeah, miya-san. why?” he answers. 

you smiled devilishly. “can you do me a favor tobio-chan~?” 

—

you, along with tsukishima and kageyama were on your way to look for atsumu miya and his team. “kageyama, you could’ve said no to my sister you know?” tsukishima groans for what seems like the nth time today. you stopped in your tracks and flipped your hair to glare at your brother. “why are you with us then?”

tsukishima rolls his eyes, “so i can see if you’re gonna do anything stupid and irresponsible like last time” he deadpans. you let out a small gasp, ready to smack your 6′3 ft. brother in the face until kageyama speaks up.

“miya-san!” kageyama calls to his blonde upperclassman he met at the japan youth training camp. “oh hey tobio-kun” atsumu waves, zipping his bag and walked towards the setter. you scanned the people behind him to look for a certain someone.

“i have a request from my teammate’s sister” kageyama starts, moving towards to the side for you to come out and meet atsumu miya. “aww is she a fan?” atsumu grins widely, “you want a selfie with me? since tobio-kun asked, sure” he assumes, grabbing a hold of your shoulders to pull you to his side. 

“actually no” you say, removing his hand from your shoulder with no emotion, shocking atsumu. this was probably the first time he got rejected. your brother, who was behind kageyama, covers his mouth to prevent himself from laughing out loud. luckily, he manages to make it seem like he was coughing. 

“she wants a picture with your middle blocker. the one who has the jersey number 10″ kageyama explains while you stand beside him, looking at your nails, completely ignoring atsumu who was beet red. 

“o-oh” atsumu chokes out. “with suna.. okay wait i’ll get him” he jogs back to his team who were just lounging around their baggage area. “who was that ‘tsumu?” osamu asks as he stares at you, kageyama and tsukishima. “the guy i met at training camp. apparently the chick next to him wants a picture with suna” atsumu shares to his brother.

“SUNA?!” osamu exclaims in shock, whipping his head towards suna’s direction. “yo what the hell do you want from me” suna groans, hiding more in his varsity jacket, if that was even more possible while scrolling mindlessly through his phone. “someone wants a picture with you c’mon lets go” atsumu grabs his arm and forces him up.

“who wants to take a picture with me?!” suna complains as he was basically dragged out of his own will away from his little space he made for himself back there. “her” atsumu motions you to suna. 

“shit it’s the girl i made eye contact with at the vending machine earlier” suna thinks to himself as he stares at you, who was busy talking to kageyama and tsukishima.

“here’s our middle blocker!” atsumu presents suna as if he was some powerpoint presentation. “this is suna” atsumu introduces you to him. kageyama gives you a small push to him. “kageyama!” you gasp as you were standing next to the person you’ve kept your eye on all day.

“take my phone and hurry up” you chucked your phone at kageyama who barely manages to catch it. atsumu leaves the frame as kageyama positions the phone. “1, 2, 3... smile!” atsumu chirps as he looks at the pictures kageyama was taking. 

“suna don’t just stand there! do something!” atsumu jokes, looking at how stoic suna was compared to you who was so lively and smiling at every angle possible. suna sighs and throws up a half-assed peace sign. “there we go!” atsumu laughs, clapping his hands.

“you were great out there” you compliment suna beside you. suna raises a brow again, “you think so?” you felt the blood rush to your cheeks. you were practically speaking to the guy you’ve been tweeting about. “yeah it was like love at first sight” you bat your eyelashes at him.

“oh god.. is this what the twin’s fangirls are like?” he thinks to himself, grimacing a bit at the sudden confession. you grabbed your phone from kageyama and skimmed through the pictures he took. you smiled happily as you see at least 20 pictures in your gallery. one of them was gonna be your wallpaper for sure.

“can i take a selfie with you before i go?” you ask suna who looked like he was ready to dash back to their area. suna internally groans but nods anyway. completely ignoring that shit eating grin that was plastered on atsumu’s face.

“hey why are you guys taking so long?” osamu joins in the little circle. “fuck” suna curses under his breath. “hey suna what are you doing?” osamu asks, walking up to atsumu. “oh how cute. they’re taking selfies” he comments.

you ignored the two boys as you held your phone up high. since you were too short, suna had to crouch down a bit. you took a bunch more and just posed in every way possible. “thank you” you gushed, scrolling through the photos again. 

suna shoves his hands in his pockets and walks back to their luggage area, leaving the twins with you guys. “hey y/n right?” you hear atsumu call out. you turned around and looked at him with a blank expression. “yeah” you turned your attention back at your phone.

“can we have your twitter or something? you seem like a fun person to be with” atsumu asks, whipping his phone out. you shrugged and told him your username. “it’s tsukkiyn” you took a peek at his phone that has twitter open. “okay followed you. see you!” atsumu waves goodbye to you and your group as he along with his twin walk back to their baggage area.

“bye! thank you miya-san!” kageyama bows at his upperclassman as you walk side by side with tsukki, grinning ear to ear. “happy now?” tsukishima asks as the three of you head back to the team. “very” you squealed, staring at your phone gallery filled with pictures of you and suna. 

“he shall be my boyfriend in no time” you declared, shocking the two boys beside you. “you’re so confident, y/n. how do you do it” kageyama chuckles. “yeah let’s not make it seem like he’s some toy alright?” tsukishima reminds. “besides, they’re from hyogo, we’re from miyagi” you scoffed, “you didn’t have to put it like that kei” tsukishima shrugs, “just saying”

—

“SUNA HAS A FAN!” atsumu screams, jumping around the poor boy. “yeah let’s not talk about that” suna waves him off, bringing his attention back to his phone in hopes atsumu would get the hint and leave him alone. “who has a what now?” he hears kita ask. 

suna never wanted to hide in a hole til now. 

“it’s suna, kita-san!” atsumu beams in joy, “they even took a picture together” osamu adds. suna whips his head towards osamu and had the biggest look of disbelief on his face. “sorry bro but.. it’s unusual for us” osamu chuckles 

“i even got her twitter! but it seems like she ain’t interested in me” atsumu mumbles the last part. “not everyone is after you, dickwad” osamu retorts, sitting next to his best friend, suna.

“i don’t understand why you all find this so amusing” suna mumbles under his breath. too bad for him, osamu heard it. “cuz’ it’s like the first time we’ve seen someone who wants a picture with you or somethin’“ osamu reasons. “plus she looked like she was an atsumu fan but no., she’s a suna fan” osamu continues, wiggling his eyebrows.

suna takes a deep breath and rolls his eyes, “we’re not idols. we’re volleyball players” knowing they won’t stop pestering him anytime soon, suna plugs in his airpods and raises the volume to the max.

as if! — six ( suna has a fan )

[ prev / next ]

↬ what you want is what you get. thats how its always been for you growing up. but the one time you let time and destiny do it’s thing, surprise, surprise! it’s not how you want it to be. maybe you‘re just clueless on how things should play out without having it your way.

a/n: wow i can actually write??? 🤡 p.s since no one asked heres an update

[ taglist: @therealwalmartjesus​​ @90s-belladonna​​ @babybluebisexual​​ @o-o0613​ @thenezuko​​ @tycrackculture​ @kuroos-babie​​ @clowninfortodoroki​ @dorkyama​ @iikiag​ @wakaitoshi​ @svtbitch​ @reogou​ @whalien52dreams​ @prettysetter​ @floralprintedsheets​ @kisskeiji​ @preparingtofall​ @kaffulatte​ @akaaaashit​ @imuziawi​ @thenezuko​ @shoutobabyboy​ @issalilmessy​ @akaashi-bby​ @k-gada​ @jimilogy​ @inairizaki​​ @terriblejob-sam​​ @kuryusmu​ @miyuswriting​​ ]

[cestlestial-beings]

like that

Summary: Three times Sam and Dean have sex: 1. Dean visits Sam at Stanford and they find out they feel the same way about each other; 2. Sam confesses to Dean that he's a man, and Dean does his best to ease Sam's worries; 3. Years into Sam's transition, Dean enjoys Sam's masculine traits.

Fandom: Supernatural Characters: FTM!Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester Pairing: Sam Winchester/Dean Winchester Word Count: 4600 AO3: Link

Notes:

Thanks to @jackklineisperfect for beta reading :) Any errors you find are my own.

Pronouns are based on Dean's perception, not Sam's identity.

Part 1/Stanford Sam looks like this.

More notes on physical transition for transgender men are included in the end notes on AO3.

Full Fic:

The First Time with Her

Dean fell in love with Sam when she was sixteen. One day, it just clicked. She was beautiful.

He would never act on it. She was four years younger than him, and they were siblings.

But every time he hooked up with someone else, he thought about her.

* * *

Dean visits Sam a couple of days before her birthday, two years into her time at Stanford.

He has no idea how she’s going to take it—they’d had enough angry arguments over the phone during Sam’s first six months that they haven’t spoken to each other in more than a year, despite how much Dean has wanted to—but here he is, in front of Sam’s apartment building, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk.

Finally the front door to the building opens, and Dean sees her.

His breath catches. She’s embraced her feminine side since she’s come to Stanford. She’s wearing a fitted t-shirt and shorts that show off her long legs instead of the too-loose hoodie and jeans of her high school days; she has a wavy, shoulder-length hairstyle and bangs instead of a choppy, done-at-home haircut; and she has just a hint of makeup on—light eyeliner and lipgloss. She looks nothing like the frumpy, tomboyish girl she’d been when Dean saw her last.

“You’ve been standing out here for two hours. Are you just gonna stand there looking like a stalker, or are you coming to come in?”

He ducks his head and jogs up the steps to the door. Right back into her sass, before even a hello.

“You look so grown up, Sammy,” he says, as she walks him up the stairs to her apartment.

Sam smiles shyly. “My friends are really insistent on helping me with my style.”

No kidding. Dean’s never seen her look so much like a girl.

She leaves the stairwell at the third floor and stops at a door about halfway down the hall, then turns to him.

“Dean, why are you here?” she finally asks.

He gives her a wavering smile. “I wanted to surprise you for your birthday, Sammy.” He knows that doesn’t answer her question, so he sighs and adds, “I know I gave you a lot of crap for leaving me and Dad behind, but…” He shrugs. “I miss you. I’ll accept your decision if it means you’ll be in my life.”

“Awwww. That’s so cute.”

“Shut up,” he says, rolling his eyes. All grown up and yet still the annoying little sibling.

And then she smiles, and it lights up her whole face. His heart melts, and he hates himself for it.

She pulls him into a hug. “I really missed you too, Dean.”

* * *

Sam introduces Dean to her roommates as “an old friend” which strikes Dean as strange, but he rolls with it. She grabs her stuff and they go out for burgers, talking about everything except what Sam left behind. The conversation is so natural, it’s almost as if the two-year gap since they last saw each other hadn’t happened at all.

Dean gives her a gift (a small stack of classic movies he knows she hasn’t seen but should) and buys her a milkshake. He sticks a candle he’d brought with him into the top of the milkshake and lights it, and Sam laughs when an employee comes over to tell them to put it out because it’s a fire hazard. As it gets dark, Sam takes Dean on a walk around the Stanford campus, pointing out certain landmarks as they go.

It’s almost ten at night when they get back to Sam’s apartment building. They stop in front of the building, and it feels like the end of a date, neither of them sure where to go from here. Something shifted in their relationship since they’d seen each other last; there was a new, unexplored dimension to it that hung heavy in the air between them.

“Where are you staying?” Sam asks him.

Dean points to the Impala, parked across the street. “That’s my room for the night.”

Sam rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she says, already headed inside.

“Won’t your roommates mind?”

“No,” she says. “They have boys over often enough, I don’t think they’ll care.” Dean feels his cheeks start to burn, and he can see Sam start to blush at the careless comparison as well. “You know what I mean!” she says, elbowing him hard in the ribs.

Sam lays a futon out on the floor for him and gives him a stack of sheets before leaving to go through her bedtime routine. He sets up, feeling nostalgic for when they shared rooms as kids. You have to sleep on the floor because you’re younger, Dean would say after setting up the bedding on the ground, and Sam would throw a fit but finally give in, and ultimately Dean would give her the bed because he felt guilty.

Dean looks around the room, running his fingers along the back of the spines of textbooks and picking up picture frames with photos of Sam and people Dean doesn’t know.

Sam finally comes back into the room, dressed in plaid pajama pants and a loose AC/DC t-shirt. She’s so gorgeous that Dean loses his breath for a moment.

“Hey,” she says, shutting the door behind her, and it’s a little awkward now, since they’re alone, awkward like it hasn’t been all night. She bites her lip and pauses like she’s going to say something. It takes her a moment but she finally says, “There’s something I feel like I should tell you.”

“Hm.” He’s completely still, waiting for what she’s going to say.

She takes a deep breath. “Part of the reason I left was to get away from you.”

It feels like a punch in the gut, and he turns away.

“No, Dean, I…” She runs a hand through her hair. “I wanted you in a way that I wasn’t supposed to, so I ran. I ran because I was guilty, and scared. I just thought you should know, before you leave again. So you can know not to come back.”

Dean’s breath stops completely as he takes in her words.

She forces a laugh. “God, it was a mistake inviting you up here tonight when—”

He cuts her off with a kiss. She’s surprised but leans into it almost immediately, the tension melting out of her body. He thought this would feel worse. He thought this would feel gross, and predatory, and wrong. But he can tell how badly she wants him, so it just feels good.

He pulls back, just a little. “I want you too,” he says. “In a way that I’m not supposed to.”

She lets out a short, giddy laugh, and pulls him back in for a kiss.

He sits down on the bed and pulls her onto his lap, their mouths never leaving each other’s. His hand slips up under her shirt to cup her breast, and he’s surprised to note she’s still wearing a snug-fitting sports bra, even in her nightwear. She leans away from him and pushes his hand down.

“You don’t want to…?” he starts to say.

“No, I do. You can touch me anywhere but there.”

He doesn’t really understand but he doesn’t mind because there’s so much more of Sam to explore. He lets his hands roam down her back, across her belly, around the firm curve of her ass. He pulls her shirt off of her and helps her slide out of her pants and she’s here, bare in front of him in just her underwear and so, so beautiful.

“Are you sure?” he whispers, and she nods, hungry. “Okay.”

He flips her over onto her back and takes a moment to pull off his own clothes. He feels self-conscious in a way he’s never been with other girls as he undresses in front of her. When his clothes are off, he crawls over to look down at her. Her eyes are sparkling and happy, the corner of her mouth just barely pulled up in a smile.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes, and now she does smile, fully.

He presses kisses down along her body, along her collarbone and arms and stomach—careful to skip over her still-covered chest, like she asked—and he pulls down her panties, down and off (lacy pink doesn’t seem like Sam’s style, but the thought only registers in his head for a moment).

He kisses her lower stomach, and he feels her gasp lightly, goosebumps rising on her skin. He pushes her legs apart for access and slides his tongue along her folds and up to her clit. She’s wet already.

“Dean,” she moans, and the sound runs straight through him to his rapidly hardening dick. She buries a hand in his hair while his tongue swirls around her clit. She tugs his hair a little bit. “Dean, I want you inside me.”

He slides back up and kisses the corner of her mouth. “Sure, baby.”

“Condoms in the second drawer,” she says, pointing to the nightstand.

He opens the drawer and rifles through it. There’s a couple of dildos, a vibrator, several sizes of butt plugs. “Sammy, you naughty girl. Playing with yourself, huh?”

Her face is in the shadow of his body, but he can still see her blush. She slaps his arm. “Just get the condom, asshole.”

He obeys. Fishes one out, tears open the packaging, slides it on. When he looks back at her, her lips are parted just slightly, her eyes hooded with desire. Fuck, she’s beautiful. She’s everything he’s ever wanted.

He lines himself up with her hole and she uses her hand to help guide him in. He pushes in and she gasps, pressing her head back into the pillow and squeezing her eyes shut. He slides in slow, letting her adjust to his presence inside her. She’s tight and warm and it feels so good it’s almost overwhelming.

Dean stops when he’s all the way in.

She opens her eyes and meets his, bringing up her hand to rest on the side of his face. “This is pretty fucked up, huh?”

Yeah, he wants to say. There’s a part of him insistently reminding him that it’s not too late to stop, to put things back to the way they were. To make their relationship be that of siblings, not whatever the fuck this is.

But he wants this and Sam wants this and he doesn’t want her to feel like a freak for her desires, so he says, “Less fucked up than everything else about our lives,” and she laughs softly before pulling him down for another kiss.

Sam keeps him close as he rocks into her, slow and sensual, and sometimes when he hits just the right spot, she’ll moan against his lips. Their bodies move together with a familiarity that only comes from having known each other their entire lives, though they’ve never known each other like this.

She comes with a moan, and the feeling of Sam clenching around him pushes him over the edge a few seconds later.

“Fuck, Sam,” he says, the pleasure washing over him in waves.

“Dean,” she says, and, breathing hard, she takes his face in both of her hands, watching the pleasure on his face with a satisfied smile.

He pulls out and flops down next to her, lying on his side so he can watch her catch her breath.

She brushes a lock of sweaty hair out of her face and rolls to face him as well. She grins. “God, you’re hot.”

“I know,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. He leans in close and kisses her forehead, the way he’s done since she was a little kid. He thought it would feel weird, a gesture of an older sibling right after sex, but it just feels natural. Like the physical intimacy they’d just shared was simply an extension of the emotional intimacy they’ve had their entire lives.

“Hey,” she says, running her fingers along Dean’s cheek. “I don’t have class tomorrow morning.”

“So...?”

“So you can keep me up tonight,” she says, and she winks at him, an awkward wink closer to a blink, and he laughs at her attempt to be sexy. Her cheeks turn red, but she scowls at him. So cute.

“Okay, I’ll keep you up tonight,” he says, giving her a quick kiss.

And he does, but they spend more time talking than fucking, and he’s so content. He could stay here forever.

* * *

Dean doesn’t call for a year, even though he knows he should. But what is he supposed to say, after a night like that with his own sister?

Finally he works up the nerve.

It’s a short conversation.

Sam is in a committed relationship now. She’s trying harder than ever to distance herself from her past, and Dean doesn’t fit into her new life.

It shouldn’t hurt like it does. Dean is the one who’d put space between them, and she was going to move on eventually. But he still feels hollow, and he doesn’t call her again.

The First Time with Him

Sam is having a breakdown in the motel bathroom and Dean doesn’t know what to do. Dean thinks she was set off by meeting Dean’s old flame Cassie, and Dean doesn’t know how many more times he can assure Sam that Cassie isn’t the one he’s in love with anymore, that Sam is the only person he has eyes for.

“That’s not it,” Sam said, but wouldn’t elaborate any more than that.

“Come on, Sam, just talk to me,” he says, resting his head against the bathroom door. “Please.”

“Give me some space, okay?” she says again.

He sighs, but there’s not much he can do, so he goes out and gets a couple of burgers and comes back. When he enters the motel room, Sam is sitting on the bed in a huge, oversize hoodie and a loose pair of Dean’s jeans, staring at the wall. It’s almost impossible to make out any of her form beneath the clothes. She’s been dressing in super loose, baggy clothes like that more often than not lately, and Dean doesn’t understand.

“Food,” he says.

Sam begrudgingly gets up and sits down at the motel room’s table, helping herself to one of the burgers. She munches on it silently, her red, puffy eyes carefully avoiding Dean’s.

She’d been so much more masculine by the time Dean had broken into her apartment to tell her Dad was missing. Away from her feminine attire and presentation she’d had the previous time they’d met, and back to a short, boyish haircut and masculine outfits that hid her curves. Anyone would see her as a guy at first glance, and probably at second glance too. I just feel more comfortable like this, she’d said, and then it turned out her committed relationship was with a woman. Dean was shocked. Had Sam really been a butch lesbian this whole time? Was what happened between them two years before just a dream?

It didn’t make him any less drawn to her, though. She was still Sam, with her piercing green eyes and sharp intelligence and a level of empathy and kindness that seemed miraculous, given the background she came from. And she was still drawn to him too—their relationship became physical a few weeks into working with each other again.

The closer physical intimacy meant that in the past couple of weeks, Dean has been noticing that some things are seriously off. Sam wears a tight sports bra every time they fuck and refuses to take it off. She barely speaks to him when she’s on her period. Sometimes during what he considers pretty vanilla dirty talk, she shuts off for the night. He chalks it up to hormones, but he knows it’s something more, especially now that she’d had a full breakdown over whatever it is.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” Dean asks, not yet starting in on his burger. He tries to keep his voice gentle and even, to coax her into talking about what’s been bothering her so much.

She sets down her food and pushes it away. She absently taps the table with her finger like she’s trying to decide whether to share what she’s thinking or not. She’s still avoiding looking at Dean, and it’s starting to piss him off that she’s barely acknowledging him.

“Sam, come on,” he says, and his voice comes out harsher than he intends. But he’s tired of her brushing it off and pushing him away when it’s not something that either of them can just ignore. “You can’t just expect me to walk on eggshells around you, hoping that I won’t set you off about something I don’t even understand. Why the hell are you upset?”

Sam shakes her head.

“Come on, man, give me something,” Dean pleads.

Sam swallows. “I’m not who I am, Dean.”

Dean furrows his brow. Sam couldn’t be any more unclear if she tried. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m…” She gestures down at herself. “This isn’t me. It’s not me. I’m not supposed to be like this.”

“Like what?”

“A girl.”

“I don’t get it.”

She takes a long, shaky breath. “I want—I need—to be a man.”

Dean supposes he should be more shocked by her declaration, but Dean has always seen her more as Sam than as a girl. And finding out she feels like a guy… Things just start to click.

All the times Sam had called herself Dean’s brother as a little kid, despite John and Dean’s frequent corrections. Excited chatter about how much she related to the boys in her most recent book. Complaining about not playing soccer at the same time she quit the girls’ soccer team. The complete withdrawal into herself as soon as she hit puberty.

Dean had always figured it was identity confusion because Sam had never had a female role model growing up, but that wasn’t what it was, not really.

And more recently—leaning into anything masculine while distancing herself from femininity. He remembered when a store clerk had called her “sir” the other day, and her face had brightened. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time—it seemed a lot of people mistook Sam as a guy—but it makes sense now why it would make her happy.

“Okay,” he finally says, waiting for her to elaborate.

“‘Okay’?” she asks. “What do you mean, ‘okay’?”

“I guess I don’t understand what this means, exactly.”

“It means…” She sighs, runs a hand through her hair. “I’d be different, Dean. If you were okay with me starting hormones, it would mean I would look different, and sound different, and probably feel and smell different too.”

She laid it all out for him, but he’s still not sure he understands. He has no clue what the changes would look like on Sam specifically. He focuses on the one part of the sentence he did understand. “What do you mean, if I’m okay with it?” he asks. “The Sam I know would never ask permission.”

Sam picks at a fingernail nervously. “I don’t want to lose you,” she says softly.

“You’re not going to lose me, Sam,” Dean tells her. “I’m going to stay with you, I promise.”

“No, Dean, I mean… You’re attracted to women. Just look at Cassie. She was so… And I’m so…” Sam shakes her head as she struggles to find the right words. “I’m going to change and…” Her voice starts to fade as she talks. “You’re not going to want me anymore.”

Dean has no idea what to say. He can’t see any universe where he wouldn’t want Sam. He’s silent for a long moment as he looks at Sam carefully, thinking about what she would look like as a guy. Yes, he loves her body as it is now, the soft curves and smooth skin and feminine moans he pulls from her during sex. So what would it feel like to be with her, if it was different? Stubble and broad shoulders and a dick?

He tilts his head slightly. He’s never sought out guys, never really been interested, but he’d never really been averse to it either. If Sam became a man, Dean’s pretty sure he wouldn’t mind. He would miss some things, but he wouldn’t mind. His attraction to Sam is because she’s Sam, not because she’s a woman.

Sam shifts uncomfortably, his eyes still avoiding Dean’s.

“Hey,” Dean says, and his hand snakes across the table to take Sam’s. “I’m gonna love you no matter what, okay?”

“Yeah, but not like—”

“Yes, like that,” Dean says. “I loved you the way you were when I came to see you in college. I love you the way you are now. I’ll love you no matter what changes you or your body go through, okay?”

Sam’s eyes well up with tears. “Really?” he says softly.

Dean squeezes Sam’s hand and gives him a reassuring smile. “Yeah.”

Sam sniffs. “God, I tell you I feel like a guy and then start crying like a girl.”

Dean stands up and pulls Sam up to his feet too.

“Hey,” he says, taking Sam’s face in his hands and wiping away Sam’s tears with his thumbs. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Dean pulls him into a hug and holds him close while he cries himself out.

Normally they’d look for their next job at the end of a day like today, but they take the night off and talk about where Sam is going to go next. How he’ll get hormones, if he’s going to get surgery, how fast the changes will happen.

Sam gradually starts to open up about it and get more and more excited, and Dean can’t help the warm feeling deep in his core. When Sam is happy, Dean is happy too.

* * *

Dean falls asleep in Sam’s arms that night and only wakes up when the light streaming through the crack in the curtains hits his eyes.

He groans and rolls over so he’s facing Sam. He nudges Sam awake.

“Hey, handsome,” Dean says, and Sam blinks his eyes open sleepily. Sam smiles when he meets Dean’s eyes.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

Dean brushes a messy lock of hair away from Sam’s face. It falls right back into place. “Since you’re a guy now, would it be gay if we fucked?” he asks. He’s excited to try, now that he knows the feminine words to avoid and the masculine words to try out. Now that he knows what will turn Sam off and what might turn him on.

Sam rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, does that bother you?”

“Can’t knock it ’til I’ve tried it,” Dean says. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like to suck a dick.”

Sam raises his eyebrows.

Dean starts to scoot down the bed and looks up at Sam through his eyelashes. “You mind if I give it a try, stud-muffin?”

Sam bites his lip. “Hey, I’d like if you never called me that again, ever.”

“Daddy?”

“Gross, that’s so much worse.”

“Lover boy.”

“Dean.”

“Little brother?”

Sam doesn’t object to that one, so Dean takes it as a green flag. Not a traditional sexual term, but he thinks it’s kind of hot.

While Dean goes down on Sam and listens to Sam’s moans, he realizes this feels right. Sam, a guy. It’s going to take some getting used to, but it fits. Things have changed, but they’re the same; it’s a new chapter, but still the same book.

The Hundredth Time with Him

It’s a few years later, sometime between near-world-ending events, that Dean wakes up in a motel bed with his arm draped over Sam. Dean still likes being the big spoon, no matter that Sam is bigger than Dean now. When Sam started testosterone, he bulked up big time. He’s huge and all muscle, but that doesn’t stop him from snuggling up against Dean.

Dean yawns and strokes his fingers lazily through Sam’s chest hair and Sam hums sleepily. He runs his hand down Sam’s side. Gone are the feminine curves Dean loved about Sam before, smoothed out and adjusted by hormones, but Dean loves the new shape just as much. And ever since the surgery they’d only had to commit light fraud to afford, Dean’s pleased that he can touch Sam’s chest wherever he wants.

Sam rolls over and nuzzles his nose against Dean’s. Dean strokes a thumb along Sam’s jaw, the stubble prickly under the pad of his finger. Dean hadn’t expected so much facial hair growth, but he doesn’t mind it. The scent of Sam’s aftershave turns Dean on just as much as the familiar smell of her vanilla shampoo used to.

“Hey,” Dean says, pressing a light kiss to Sam’s lips. “We should get up.”

“I don’t want to,” Sam mumbles, eyes still closed. He’d been up far past Dean, finishing up on a lead for some research, so Dean doesn’t blame him for wanting to stay in bed.

“Come on. We’ve got work to do. I’ll suck your dick if you come take a shower.”

That seems to do it. Sam groans and rolls out of bed. “Fine.”

Sam is too sleepy to do much himself, but Dean takes his time lathering Sam up with soap, scrubbing him all over his body with a washcloth. Sam is so comfortable in his body now, too, in a way that he never was before. It’s a relief to be able to touch Sam anywhere without Sam turning off or pushing him away.

Dean massages shampoo into Sam’s scalp and grins at the moan it elicits from Sam.

He shuffles around so he’s in front of Sam and gets on his knees, brushing his soaked hair from his eyes. Sam looks down at him through hooded eyes and buries a hand in Dean’s hair. Dean smiles and takes Sam’s dick between his lips, lapping at the tip and water running over it. Sam’s cock is still small, but it’s grown since Sam started hormones, almost an inch and a half long now, sometimes a little more when Sam is hard.

Dean slides two fingers into Sam. He knows Sam’s body almost better than his own, so when he curls his fingers, he finds Sam’s g-spot instantly. “Mm, fuck, Dean,” Sam says, pushing his hips towards Dean.

Dean takes his time, sucking on Sam’s cock and stroking his fingers in Sam, enjoying Sam’s panting and gasps until Sam comes with a moan. Dean feels himself start to get hard as Sam’s pussy clenches around his fingers. Dean runs his tongue along Sam’s cock one more time and then stands up. He meets Sam’s lips with his own. “Worth getting up for?” he murmurs.

“It was… adequate,” Sam says, and Dean punches his shoulder while Sam laughs.

“Last time I ever do anything nice for you,” Dean grumbles.

“Aw, come on,” Sam says, and he tugs Dean in, pressing their bodies close together. Dean leans his forehead against Sam’s and lets out a contented sigh. It crosses Dean’s mind, briefly, how far they’ve come. How far Sam has come.

How everything about Sam is different, except that he’s Sam.

And Sam is all Dean wants.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

She [10]

Warnings: non-consent sex (butt plug, vaginal sex); violence, spanking/whippinh

This is dark! Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Series Synopsis: Steve Rogers’ life is turned upside down by a reporter.

Chapter Summary: Steve takes control.

Note: Hope you enjoy the last chapter! 

Thanks to everyone for their patience and feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Steve

He walked around her and took another look at her ass. He could see a hint of the plug between her cheeks and his lashes fluttered hungrily. He came back around as the chain chafed down her stomach and she wriggled. Helpless, hopeless, she pulled with all her weight on the cuffs.

He grabbed one of the nipple clamps and pushed it even tighter around her flesh. She yelped and he released her as she stopped her struggle. Blood stained the silver, just a trickle, and he took a hot breath. He felt like a wolf, fangs bared and mouth salivating for his prey.

He looked down and watched his hands as they deftly worked at his belt. He unbuttoned his fly and pushed the zipper open. He paused and snaked the leather loose from the loops. He folded the belt in his hand and tested it against his palm. It sent a chill through him.

“N-no,” She gasped. “Please--”

He snapped the leather across her thigh and she gave a shrill shriek. She sobbed as she swung from the hook and fought to still herself on her tiptoes. 

“What did I tell you about that word?” He hit her other thigh and she gave another shout. He hit her stomach and she sputtered as the breath went out of her. “Well!”

“I--” Her eyes searched his. Sheer terror struck her and he saw the strength seep from her. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

His cheek twitched and he neared her. He tilted his head as he trailed the leather down her stomach.

“Good,” He licked his lip. “You’re a quick learner and the faster you learn, the better.”

He grabbed her shoulder and turned her. He rested the belt against her ass as he stepped around her and peeked at the lens. Assured that she was center stage, he drew back and lashed her. Hard. 

The strike reverberated around him and fed into the next. She let out noises he’d never heard before. Pure agony. Her feet slipped and he held her hip to keep her in place. He didn’t stop until she was sobbing. Until her head slumped in defeat and the welts on her ass were raised and some bleeding.

“Aw, no,” He cooed as he went around her. He grabbed her chin and lifted her head. Her tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin. “Don’t cry. You’re stronger than that.”

She tried to shake his hand away and he slapped her. The split in her lip began to well again. She gulped down her breath and her eyes rolled back. She was dizzy as she swayed and her head lolled. She sniffed and her feet scrambled beneath her until she could still herself.

“Ah, don’t you do that,” He grabbed her head and forced it up. “I’m not even close to done. If you pass out, I won’t stop.”

She nodded and he raised a brow.

“Yath, Captam,” She slurred and blood dribbled over her lip. She’d bitten her tongue.

He let her go and repositioned her again. The curve of her ass visible to the lens as he came up behind her. He rolled the top of his underwear down along with his jeans. He let out a moan as his cock brushed up against his boxer briefs. He pushed the denim and cotton to his thighs and stroked himself.

He brushed his tip against her tortured ass and she flinched. She moaned and the link of her cuffs clinked in the hook. He pressed his fingers between her cheeks and wiggled the plug. She whimpered and he slid his hand lower. He bent his knees and spread her folds with his finger and lined himself up with her entrance.

He paused. He was holding his breath and so was she. He rescinded his hand and latched onto her hip. He slammed into her so hard she was taken off her feet. She exclaimed and grunted through her teeth as she kicked in pain. 

“I told you,” He snarled. “That toy was nothing compared to me.”

She shook and her fingers wrapped around the hook above her. He grabbed her shoulders and wiggled his hips as he tested her limits. She was tight. Very tight. She whimpered at every little move.

He thrust once, so harshly that she was once more off the ground. He repeated the motion several times until she was trembling in pain. Or pleasure. The way her cunt clenched around him was delicious.

He moved more steadily against her, slamming into her hard enough to jolt the plug in her ass. Her whines became laboured and desperate. He felt her cum and the wet sounds of his cock sliding in and out of her grew louder.

He leaned against her as he reached down to her leg. He grasped behind her knee and bent her leg up and then the other. He lifted her so she was hanging from the hook and impaled entirely by his cock. He held her like that as he hammered into her from below. Her voice was stuttered and strained.

He loved the sound. The slick squelch of him inside her, the broken cries of the woman at his mercy. And they were all for him. His little secret. His hobby. He crashed into her relentlessly and felt the ecstasy bubble in his core. 

He puffed as he felt the rise, too enamored to slow it. His flesh clapped against her as her juices dampened the front of his jeans. He squeezed her legs and bucked into her violently as he came. He bent his head and sank his teeth into her shoulder to keep from crying out. She yelped as he emptied himself inside of her.

When he was still, he let her legs down and she hung against him. He eased himself out of her and his cum spilled down her thigh and dripped onto the floor. He sighed and rounded her. He reached for the camera and removed it from the tripod. He pointed the lens at her face, her swollen cheek, her bloodied lips, her dazed eyes.

Then he turned her and showed her dripping cunt; a creamy mess. He cradled the camera in one hand and focused on her ass as he grabbed the stem of the plug. He began to pull it out but thought better of it as it was halfway out. He pushed it back in until her ring was tight around it once more.

“Actually, you can keep that in.” He said as he stood straight. “I’m not done with your cunt.”

🖋️

Steve had to keep from whistling as he walked through the halls of the compound. He doubted the man beside him would appreciate that. Nick Fury was never much for levity. And now was not the time for celebration; well not for what was left of the Avengers.

As they passed through the front doors, the familiar flash of cameras greeted them and Steve smiled. He looked around at the clamoring reporters. Not so troublesome as those paparazzi droning like flies. No, a pleasant little flock of birds waiting for him to dangle a worm.

“You sure about this?” Fury paused just outside. “It’s not too late.”

“No, I’m certain.” Steve preened. “It’s time.”

Fury huffed and stepped up to the podium, several microphones mounted before him. He flinched at the feedback which greeted him and he cleared his throat. The press quieted as he stared them down with his single stern eye.

“Good morning.” He said stiffly. “I am not one to mince words so I would like to get to the point of this conference and to hand this over to man who you all are here to see. So I will say it straight; we have brought you here today to bid farewell to one of our greatest heroes.” The crowd gasped and looked at each other and then Steve. “It is bittersweet for us but we wish Steve Rogers, Our Captain, the best in what is to come for him.”

Fury nodded and backed away. He waved Steve forward and the golden soldier happily took the spotlight. He smiled at the stunned crowd.

“It has been with a lot of deep and difficult consideration that I have decided that it is time for me to step aside. But do not mistake me. This is not because I am hiding or because I am running away from one little interview. In fact, I am thankful for that article because it made me see that my time has come and gone.” 

He looked around and took a breath.

“I am leaving behind a good team. They are brave, smart, loyal, hardworking, and devoted. I leave you in good hands, better hands. But that is not to say that I will leave you entirely. Should the day come that you need me or my shield, I will be here. I will do as I have always done.

“But in the meantime, I will do something else. I have chosen to take on a new crusade. Starting right her in New York. All across the five boroughs. My new project is called Sarah’s Sanctuary. An infrastructure of shelters, youth centres, and food banks to be opened throughout the city to support all those pushed to borders of society; elderly, adult, children; men, women, LGBTQ. It will offer specialised services to all; housing, counseling, addiction treatment to things as basic as daily meals.

“Because as you know, you can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the boy.”

A dozen voices called out at once. Steve beamed at the reporters as they shouted their questions, desperate for more. He retreated with a wave and left them to their cameras and notepads. Fury followed him inside. They were silent for different reasons as they walked the halls. Both with too much on their minds.

🖋️

When Steve got home, he wasn’t surprised to find even more photographers than before waiting at his door. He skirted past them and closed them out as he stepped inside his Brooklyn walk-up. He had everything he needed; right here. He locked the door and continued past the front room and to the kitchen.

He took his time, admired the fruits of his hard work. Two boiled eggs, toast and butter, and a small cup of yogurt with granola on a metal tray. He balanced it all with a tall glass of water and unlocked the door to the stairs. He descended and passed through the thicker door at the bottom. It locked behind him.

His eyes found her right away. She was curled in a ball on the thin futon, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her face was swollen and dried blood flaked away from her lips. She was still naked and shivered. Her eyes opened slowly but she didn’t move.

He stopped beside the mattress and set the tray down beside it. 

“Sit up.” He ordered.

She hesitated. Then slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. “Yeth, cap-tain,” She said through her clumsy lips. She flinched as her tender ass met the futon and the plug became more obvious. She covered her chest and kept her legs bent to shield herself.

“I brought you something to eat.” He said. She stared at the tray and frowned. “What?”

“Where are my clothes?” She asked and he growled.

“You wear whatever I give you or don’t give you.” He sneered. “And eat when I bring you food.”

“It’s cold in here,” She complained and reached for a slice of toast.

“You won’t be cold much longer,” He assured her. “Finish your meal, go get cleaned up, and I’ll make sure you’re sweating in no time.”

She blanched and gulped. She bit into the bread and looked at the floor. She winced again and he saw the glossiness in her eyes.

“I announced my resignation today,” He said with a grin. “So… you won.”

She looked at him, appalled. He snickered and paced the room.

“I’ll tell you what,” He turned to her and struck that famous stance. Hands on hips, squared jaw, stoic gaze. “If you do me a favour, I’ll get you a blanket.” He watched her swallow, realisation struck her harder than he had. “You see, I’m an easy man to work with. Once you figure that out, you’ll life will get a whole lot better.”

END

[shipskicksandgiggles]

Title: Mistletoe and Holly

Word Count: 1,278

Warnings: none

AO3 Link: x

Summary: No one in Stark Tower really celebrates Christmas, but the season still grows on people on occasion.

~~~

“What’s your favorite thing about Christmas?”

“What?” Harley glanced up from the book he was reading.

“What’s your favorite thing about Christmas,” he repeated.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas. Also aren’t you Jewish?”

Peter flopped down on the couch next to him. “I mean yeah, but like, even just the time of year is kinda cool in terms of aesthetics. You’re telling me there’s nothing you like about it?”

Harley sighed, leaning over to set his book down. “Not really? Honestly most people in the Tower don’t make a huge deal out of Christmas. Steve and James are Jewish so they have their own thing. Pops asked if I wanted to be included actually, which was sweet but honestly I don’t know if I could. Thor still doesn’t understand the holiday even after Bruce tried to explain it to him, but it’s not like he celebrates either. Something about the over commercialization of it I think makes him a bit green. Clint and Nat both grew up in places where the happiness of children was punished and therefore have a much more negative view of Christmas than the rest of us. Dad and I both have less than good memories of Christmas, even if it did bring us together.”

“But you have a tree up,” Peter argued.

“That’s all Pepper. It’s a PR thing I guess. Something about needing a tree in the common area to not piss off the American people or some bullshit. We still have a menorah visible on the mantle as well, but that actually has meaning to some people.”

“That’s… completely fair actually.”

“Yeah.” Harley stared at the tree. “I love the argument that Christmas was a pagan holiday stolen by Christians for their own purposes, but it still can’t make me like the holiday.”

“Did you celebrate before you met Tony?” Peter asked.

“I mean yeah? Everyone did in Rose Hill. It was obviously hyped up Jesus bullshit, but everyone was involved.” He laughed, but it sounded hollow. “It’s probably part of the reason I hate it so much.”

Peter nodded, allowing them to lapse into silence for a few moments before Harley piped back up.

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, well, I was just curious I guess. Even though I’m Jewish, I still love certain things about Christmas. I just wondered if you did too.”

“What’s your favorite thing then?”

Peter considered the question for a moment before hopping out of his seat, phone in hand. “You want me to show you?” he asked.

“Do I actually get a choice?”

“Not really. Text your dads and tell them we’ll be back in a bit.”

~~~

10 minutes later, they were speeding out of the garage with Peter in the driver’s seat headed God knows where.

“Can you at least give me a hint as to where we’re going, dear?”

“No can do sugarbear,” Peter answered. “I promise it won’t take long to get there.”

After Peter had dragged him down to the garage, he’d selected a set of keys to one of the cars and plugged his phone into the speaker system before Harley had managed to latch his seatbelt. Now, Christmas music was streaming quietly, and Harley had to admit that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Peter drove through the city, heading out of Manhattan entirely. Traffic was lighter than Harley’d expected, but he supposed more people had decided to stay in with their families given the snow and the cold.

Once they’d gotten out of the city, Peter started making turns seemingly at random until they reached the top of a hill overlooking New York. He pulled over and parked the car, jumping out and opening Harley’s door before he could reach for the door handle himself.

“Here,” Peter said, pulling him closer to the outlook. “This is my favorite thing about Christmas.”

Below them, New York was lit up like, well, a Christmas tree. As far as the eye could see, Christmas lights were scattered between buildings.

It was breathtaking.

“Oh,” Harley breathed.

Peter hummed before stepping back slightly, tapping something on his phone screen.

“Wanna dance with me?”

Silver Bells began filtering its way through the speakers of Peter’s phone, and Harley couldn’t help but laugh as he let Peter pull him closer so they could dance.

“You’re a sap, sweetheart.”

“Your sap, angel.”

He laughed again before leaning down to kiss his boyfriend. “You’re unbelievably cute.”

Peter blushed, and Harley didn’t even hesitate before peppering his cheeks with even more kisses.

“Dork.”

“Mhm.”

~~~

They took the long way home, weaving their way through residential neighborhoods and back streets to look at more lights. It was at least another hour before they stumbled back out of the elevator into the penthouse with Harley attempting to sing his way through Mistletoe and Holly.

“Hey, welcome home,” James greeted them.

“And speaking of mistletoe,” Tony pointed up.

Sure enough, there was a sprig of mistletoe hanging above the elevator. Peter reached up to give Harley a quick kiss before dragging him into the nearest chair, still giggling.

“You kids have a good time?” Tony asked.

“Yeah,” they both answered in chorus.

“What’re you watching?” Harley asked, glancing at the TV screen.

“We were about to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. You wanna join us?”

“Sure!” Peter answered.

“There’s popcorn and soda in the kitchen. We’ll wait to start the movie until you get back.”

“Thanks dad, pops,” Harley said, kissing his dads on the cheek as he passed.

“I’ll grab a blanket!” Peter called as Harley went to grab the snacks.

Once they settled in to watch the movie, Peter tucked into Harley’s side, Tony hit play. The movie was comforting, nostalgic even. Harley had almost managed to drop off by the end, the warm weight of Peter enough to calm him into a light doze.

“C’mon, old man,” Peter's voice floated in, coaxing him awake. “Time for bed.”

“‘M not old.”

“No you’re not honey, but you still need to come to bed.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas, kids. Team breakfast is still standing even if we don’t celebrate,” Tony said, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb them too much.

“Goodnight boys, sleep well,” James whispered as he walked out of the room.

Peter finally managed to get Harley out of the chair and down the hall to his room. “You wanna cuddle?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back okay? Just want to change into pajamas.”

Harley nodded and Peter ran across the hall to his own room. He took the time to throw on a pair of sweats, and in no time, Peter was back.

Within moments of them being tangled together, Peter started to doze off on Harley’s chest. Despite being almost asleep moments earlier, Harley couldn’t seem to do the same.

Something just kept nagging at him.

“Hey Peter?”

“Hmm?” Peter lifted his head to look at him. “What’s up?”

“Just out of curiosity, how did you find that spot? With the lights?”

Peter smiled. “Aunt May and Uncle Ben used to drive me out there every Christmas. They didn’t celebrate either, but May told me about how they got lost once on their way home from an office party and when Ben pulled over to find a map, she got out and saw the view and they just sat for a while before coming home. I never forgot it.”

Harley swept the hair from his forehead and kissed him softly. “That’s sweet.”

“Mhm,” he nodded. “Gives me something to look forward to every year. Did you like it?”

“Yeah,” Harley answered. “I think I finally have a favorite thing about Christmas.”

[tipsydipsydo]

Request: "Can I get an imagine with dom male reader x taekook, where the reader had a bad day and the boys cheer him up with fluff or some smut, thank you!"

Requested by: anonymous

Pairing: Sub! Taekook x Dom! Reader

Gender of the Reader: male

Word Count: 2k

Genre: Fluff (Idk? xD) and some Mentions of Smut at the End

Warnings: not really buuut the reader has a bad day and some anger outbursts; Swearing; a bit smutty content at the end; soft Dom-/Sub-Themes; sub! Taekook; Dirty Language; Dirty Talk

A/N: first Reader x Member Pairing request uhhhh~ 🥳

...and to the dear anon who requested this, I hope you'll be able to find this here! 😅💜

Links:

My Masterlist for your requests!

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「© tipsydipsydo」

This following story is my intellectual property and belongs only to my blog tipsydipsydo.tumblr.com!

I’ll not accept any kind of reposting, stealing or using/editing my work!

That includes reposting my content on other social media platforms too, even when you link me as the original author.

Thank you.

Taehyung sighs and looks on the display of his smartphone for the sixth time in the last five minutes. Still no message from you, even though it's already 11:28 a.m. and the meeting should have started at 9:00 a.m.

Actually, this one today should only be clarifying the last questions and then the final contract should be signed, right? And that can't last more than two and a half hours when you had the deal with the potential investor already at the last meeting (more or less).

The company you work wanted to expand and enter a new part of industry, so they were looking for a possible investor. And your boss chose you to take over and lead the subsequent negotiations with the agency of the Investment Group!

This is an extraordinary compliment for you that your boss recognizes and appreciates your skills. He also said that, depending on how well you present the company to investors and able to manage and coordinate the whole process, you also have chances of being transferred to a higher position!

So you did everything, really everything, to convince the investors and to arrange the deal. You don't want that you've sat in the office late into the night and worked countless overtime hours for nothing, especially when there is a possibility of getting into a more attractive position and thus also better payment.

It looks like your efforts are paying off. Already at the first meeting, where you presented the company and the idea for the expansion, the investors were very interested and said at the end of the meeting that they would be very happy about a subsequent meeting.

In the weeks that followed, further meetings took place and hypothetical, but nevertheless very concrete planning approaches started then. The last meetings felt like the deal was already finalized and they're already discussing how the plan was actually implemented.

The boys were be happy for you and every time you had another successful meeting-day behind you, it proved, that the night shifts in the office seems to pay off.

They confirmed to you that the deal is almost completed and all you need now is just the investors' signatures on the formalities.

Well, that's what you want to get today.

Despite all the optimism, Jungkook and Tae are getting more and more worried about it because you still haven't told them about the good news (they can't be any other way)!

After all, signing contracts doesn't take three hours?? Then finally, at 11:47 a.m. comes the redeeming "Ping!" simultaneously from your two boyfriends smartphones.

Kookie and Tae make a competition out of 'who can unlock his phone faster and with it, congratulate you for the successful deal'. Kookie is the first one who enters your shared group chat. But his smile disappears as he reads your short message. It may be short, but Jungkook has to read it several times to really understand the meaning behind it.

You [11:47 a.m.]: The deal is off.

"W-What ... What the-", comes over Jungkook's lips. In this moment, Tae is faster than Jungkook and he’s the one who respond to your message first.

Tae♡ [11:48 a.m.]: What?? Why?! How they could choose against the deal?! I mean, you said the deal is as good as made and they were insterested right at the beginning?

You [11:49 a.m.]: Fuck, I don't know it?! They just said, "there are some logistical problems and expectation differences betweem their comany and ours" and "that we couldn't solve them together even after new discussions and compromises". That's why they said the deal is off and simply dropped us. I can't believe it, everything went so good until now, WHY the fuck they decided against us?!?!

You [11:49 a.m.]: They said there would be some 'expectional disagreements' ...did they mean that the financials? That the certain sum of money they've to invest into our new project is too high? But then there are always possibilities for discussions and new compromises?! God, that fucks me so up! I want to know what their goddamn problem is!

You're sitting in the company's cafeteria and are trying to calm yourself down before the lunch break will ends. So that you can return to your work desk with a more or less cleared mind and somehow are able to survive the afternoon.

You thought, after the incompleted deal and your chance to get promoted was wasted, your day couldn't actually get any worse.

Well yeah, it's possible.

You know that when David turns around the corner and looks at you with a big spiteful smirk, apparently he has already heard about the news. This asshole is not even trying to hide his satisfaction about your dropped deal.

Of course, like every damn time you have to meet him in the building, he has to leave his very personal comment on it. You don't know why you were punished for having to work with him in the fucking same department?!

"Hm? I heard that the meeting didn't went so well, after all the investors jumped off. But it was already foreseeable that it won't work anyway. I don't understand why Mr. O'Brien chose you of all people for the Management of the investment-coordination for this project.", just when you hear these first words, the anger in you starts to grow in lightning speed.

"I mean, let's be honest and that's what I'm gonna say is not meant to be rude, I just want to give you a little helpful tip. I assume that everyone in our Department will agree with the fact that you still have to work on your presence. If you want to get an investor interested in a project so that they're willing to provide financial resources, then you have to sell the deal with ambition, self-assurance and self-confidence. Investors need to know what your concrete plan is, that you're standing 100% behind that project and that it'll be profitable for everyone!"

"I think you lack a little bit of dominance and assertiveness, you should work on that urgently. Yeah, you can be submissive in your own bedroom when it's that what you like, but in the tough economic world you have to be able to assert yourself. That's just a tip from me. Despite the disaster, have still a nice day~", he said in a mocking tone, patting you on the shoulder and then going whistling to the food display of the cafeteria.

You need a moment to realize what exactly this bastard shamelessly said into your face. He doesn't know that you're the Dom in the relationship, he just wanted to put a little more salt in the open wound of your injured pride. And that hit a dangerously sore point. How dare this bastard to say that you're the submissive part in the bedroom?!

You're about to go after him and become verbally abusive, you won't let yourself be offered such a talking shit! But you know it better, you would only make things worse if you stand out negatively now through emotionality. You already know that this action would only confirm David in his opinion about you. When you behave unprofessionally now, everyone could think that you are unable to deal with defeats. So you try to swallow your anger and frustration as best you can down and just ignore David for the rest of the day. Even when you really want to punch him into the face.

However, to give the anger at least some space, you complain frustrated to your two darlings about everything. They listen to you patiently and rebuild the image about yourself again. But also plead to you, to please don't do any crap mindlessly, led by emotions.

You're really glad when you can finally finish work and end this catastrophic day.

When you open the door, the pleasant warmth of the apartment welcomes you and a delicious, all too familiar smell rises in your nose.

These two things alone make you feel as if something heavy has been removed from your shoulders. You take a deep breath and really feel how you return to your inner peace.

You are at home, nobody can strain your nerves anymore, only your two beloved boyfriends are waiting for you.

It seems like they've prepared something for you, so that at least the evening of today will be better than everything else before. Jungkook is at the stove and is cooking your favorite dish. You wrap your arms from behind around him and give him a gentle kiss in the crook of your neck, letting his scent soothe you. When you also feel the warmth of Taehyung on your back, everything is suddenly not as bad as you first thought.

The boys bought your favorite wine for your favorite dish, which makes the dinner perfect. It looks like Taehyung is about to get up to get the dessert or so, when he stops and looks at you with a nervous but excited smile. On Jungkook's cheeks, you can see a hint of a blush too. You raise an eyebrow questioningly.

"W-Well... when you texed us that you don't know if you can control yourself around David, to not punching him right into the face... Jungkook and I thought there are other and much better ways to reduce stress and anger... We... well... before you came home, Kookie and I p-prepared each other for you... and right now... we're both wearing your favorite plugs. We thought you'd rather pounding your anger and frustration in us than having problems at work. So... please use us as your stress reliever.", said Taehyung, biting his lower lip, looking at me in a kinda... begging manner? Hmm, seems like there is someone who wants to be fucked hard and rough~

"S-Sir, please dominate me. Own me. Make me to your whining and begging sub...", Jungkook whispers with dark red cheeks. You see the lust and excitement in his dark, dilated pupils, to get used and to take your anger and frustration without any complain.

God, your boys are just perfect. They know exactly how to behave in order to make their master proud.

"It's really the case that you want to be used ad my stress reliever, completely selflessly? Even when I think that this 'reason' just came up to you perfectly, so that you didn't have to beg to get fucked hard and without any mercy again. Hmm, am I right?"

The way Taehyung and Jungkook are blushing and stuttering furiously confirms your guess.

"Such needy horny Boys I have here. Tz tz tz... Come, let's see what I should do to my Babies when they're so greedy for my cock and a rough fuck...", you chuckle devilishly when you go with them to your shared bedroom.

The next day.

You [09:12]: Hey Darlings~ I have really great news! I got my promotion despite of the unfinished deal! My boss was very pleased with the huge amout of work I put in this project and he assured me, that it wasn't because of my negotiation strategy that the investors dropped the deal. There seem to be some internal problems in the Investment Group at the moment, which is why they can no longer support projects at the moment. And guess what I've been promoted to... I've become department head and that means I'm now David's boss! I think now we both can discuss who has to work on his assertiveness ... 😏😈

You [09:15 a.m.]: And I hope you're okay and your precious asses are not too sore~ ​​love you ❤

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

A day late, but ah well...

As usual, we’ll go ahead and do an Open Question Night. Which basically means that, while my ask box is always open, tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on it and answering things as they come in. Any fandom or work I’ve talked about here (or posted on AO3) is fair game, as are general questions about writing, etc. I do accept prompts, but I am. Not very good at filling them in a timely manner unless they Immediately spark something, lol.

So, yeah, what’s on your mind?

Also, since I don’t think I have for a couple months, plug for my Discord server! It’s pretty quiet, mostly intended to be a slightly more interactive extension of this space, but you’re welcome to check it out!

Anyway, the usual Coming Attractions details are behind the cut!

PodTogether 2021:

I participated in this challenge for the first time this year, and it was a whole lot of fun! Of Other Suns is a SW/AtLA crossover, and I think it turned out pretty well! My reader/podficcer and I worked pretty closely together during the initial brainstorming process, working out what we wanted to do, and also bounced off one another during the whole editing/finalizing process. There’s a lot that I didn’t end up putting into the fic (because time and length; I am a. Uh. Very wordy writer; the aim was for 6-12k words, we ended up with nearly 15k as it is...), so I might poke more at this specific AU, or crossovers linking up at a different time (either a different point in the SW canon, or in the AtLA canon, or both). I...definitely have extensive headcanons for SW characters as benders of various elements (or nonbenders), and there are at least two Force-sensitive AtLA characters who were outside the scope of the crossover.

Anyway, if you want to check it out...click this link XD (and definitely listen to the podfic too!!! It’s really great)

Precipice:

So, between the final push on PodTogether and some origfic stuff I got done, I...did not get anything finished and posted for this, alas. But! I am saying it here in the hopes that doing so publicly will for once get me to actually stick to a deadline, which is that I will get either the first Protectors chapter or the next Preludes one-shot (or both!) up by this Sunday, September 12. The Protectors chapter will be mostly scene-setting, establishing where various characters are when we open, six years after we last saw our heroes. The Preludes segment will involved Hondo contacting Obi-Wan (and Anakin, who’s with him when he gets the call) about something Relevant To Their Interests.

I will for sure get that Prelude out this month, and hopefully at least two Protectors chapters, but we’ll see how things go at work and how much brain that takes, which is always a factor...anyway, with any luck, I’ll start establishing a Rhythm. I don’t think I’ll be doing weekly updates, the way I did for the first few arcs of Precipice (in part because there are some other longform projects I intend to start putting out and if I am going to do Weekly Fic Posts, I’ll probably alternate), but we’ll see how things go.

AtLA Fic:

Again, I didn’t finish what I wanted to (other than the aforementioned crossover for PodTogether), but I have been working on stuff in the background and, while I’m not going to commit to a Specific Deadline like I am for Precipice, I do plan to post at least the opening chapter of the still-untitled Avatar Zuko AU I’ve been working on this month, so watch this space!

Other Fic Projects:

I’m poking around at what to do for next years SWBB (if only because my wordcounts have been Steadily Increasing and I’d like to get a head start in anticipation of that happening again this year, lol). Still considering exactly what to do, whether I pour all my focus into OFLAM, like I consider every year, or see if I can work up Bail Unfucks the Timeline or another half-plotted AU I have in the back of my head, or go with a different prompt/storyline that occurs to me at some point between now and then, but I’m starting to Actively Ponder things.

I do have that BSG1 crossover outline in the works, I swear XD I’ve got...uh...maybe half to two thirds of the first third of the overall storyline written up? XD It’s a. Uh. Long one. I might go ahead and release it in three parts, just for length/convenience, and because it does more or less have three distinct sections (the initial contact/New Caprica fallout and establishment of the Haven settlement which makes sense in context; the second contact/algae planet; and then an adventure on a resurrection ship to retrieve a Specific Boxed Five and possibly walk away with Ellen because that would just ruin Cavil’s day and I do so love to ruin Cavil’s day, lol). ...I’m going to go ahead and post a preview snippet at the bottom of this post, as Motivation XD

I think that’s all the fanfic stuff I have specific updates for. There’s generally always stuff noodling around in my brain (lately, for Star Wars, AtLA, BSG, or some combination of the three), it’s just how much of it materializes, lol.

At some point, I plan to revisit some BSG epics I had going on (Serenissima; rewriting For Sorrow Sung or doing a slightly different storlyine with the same concept; The Other Battlestar; a few others), but no concrete plans as of yet.

I also kind of want to explore a far-past AtLA setting I designed for a challenge community way back? But I’m not sure if that would work better as an original work with the serial numbers filed off, if I could figure out how I wanted to do that (I have done it before, as I’ll talk about below, but this concept, while not directly involving any characters from Avatar canon as it’s set 2000 years prior to Sozin’s reign, does to an extent lean on the Avatar specifically as a concept, in a way that the other fic I did this with did not).

Original Fic:

Due to a challenge on rainbowfic, I actually got. Quite a bit written? Most of it was not super plot-relevant, but I dropped some Hints about a character in Lux and I got to play in some heads I don’t very often. I might go back to the Regency AU at some point, and there’s a specific reveal I want to write up for a secondary character in The Farglass Cycle, but I haven’t quite figured out how to structure that one, so we’ll see how it goes.

Had an interesting discussion the other day about the way original fiction sometimes starts as fanfic with the serial  numbers filed off and...well, a lot of my original stuff starts that way? Or has some roots there, anyway.

Lux doesn’t quite as much, but I definitely ported in at least two characters who started as fanfic characters (leaving aside that this is, y’know, The Apocalypse IN SPACE so, like. Various fandoms that deal with that probably influenced things, plus several key players are Public Domain Characters sooooo), plus some of the way the world is constructed draws on the Native Tongue trilogy and I flat-out stole a concept from Queen of the Damned, though the way it works in this world is different (also, to be fair, I think I’ve seen it in other places, too; but I personally got the idea from there).

The Farglass Cycle and Untitled Intrigues Story, however, straight-up started as fanfic concepts. And I don’t think it’s obvious unless I point out what the source materials were? Farglass, in particular (it’s the AtLA fic I mentioned earlier), because it started as an alternate future and then the map and magic system got reworked, plus the Avatar themself wasn’t even super involved in the original fic context, and while certain characters are very loosely based on AtLA characters, by now they’ve been so altered by the setting that it’s...I used the same archetypes, if that makes sense?

And then Untitled Intrigues Story started as a fusion between two wildly different fandoms, and while one character is a pretty clear expy if you know where he comes from, and another character kept the same actress in my head, I don’t think it’s very clear other than that.

...anyway, not sure where I’m going with that, other than it’s been in my head lately, lol.

...I think that about covers it! What about you guys? What are you all working on? Slash any questions, etc.?

Teaser for BSG1 AU outline, as promised:

So, anyway, SG-1 is prepared for rain and mud and a survivable-but-kinda-unpleasant environment. They’re also prepared for the usual shenanigans--Goa’uld, cranky local politics, weird alien tech that Daniel really should know better than to touch but sends him into another dimension anyway...

Just. Y’know. A normal mission.

They’re...not quite prepared for what they actually find when they step through.

Which is a very tense and now slightly Confused crowd of people, and a firing squad made up of very large killer robots, with a teenage girl as their target.

(One of the large killer robots is. Uh. Well. Half a large killer robot now; that particular Centurion was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kawooshed in the face. As one does.)

(Said Centurion absolutely wins the ‘Weirdest Death’ pool for the week in Download City, because that is clearly a thing that exists because it entertains me)

There’s a beat where everyone just stares at everyone else, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The wormhole disengages.

Daniel takes half a step forward, opens his mouth to start the ‘we are peaceful explorers from Earth and y’all seem to be having a Moment here, sorry for interrupting, but, uh...’

And then the moment end and absolute chaos erupts.

[abizarreyodelingincident]

LU: We’re all heroes here, right?

It was all coming together. The great showdown between the Heroes of Courage and their shadow. The ultimate conflict between legends and their inner demons given form. Soon, the demon thought to himself, soon, the pieces would fall into place, and only darkness would stand triumphant in blood.

"Surrender, Dark Link," the one they called Warriors demanded, sword raised in askance.

"Me? Surrender?" he asked, gleeful. "When it is finally time for you to listen to your repressed darkness? I know it, I see in your hearts, and long ago, you've fallen to temptation, to anger, to hatred. Why don't you reveal yourself, Fallen Hero?"

Shock covered all faces, none too slow or too quick to materialize. Expected. No hero that had turned his back on the goddesses could hope to survive eight of his heroic companions if they found out. But here and now, before the throne of the royal family, in the presence of a potent ally...

Nervous glances flew between them. The poor heroes. They could not possibly believe that one of their own, one they had trusted so long would suddenly turn cloak. They wouldn't believe it! But on the off-chance... if there ever was a possibility...

The harmonious, almost elegant formation loosened. Its members more tense. Backs shifted away from others, subtly, at first.

It was all Dark Link had known it to be. If only one of them shouted 'Liar!', it would make the perfect cue for the fallen hero to reveal himself and take his rightful place at his side. Then, together, Tainted Light and Bloody Shadow would storm the Sacred Realm.

So easy. Trauma had erected walls between them, and now, none could move before it was too late.

Victory was his!

"Alright, fuck it!" Legend suddenly broke, nimbly jumping back away from the others. "I'm the one! I have had it with the quests and the trials and the tears every time a god wakes up from its post-orgy nap and realizes that thousands are suffering somewhere. I've spent more years away from home than within at this point. I endured and endured and then..."

Silence reigned for the span of a troubled heartbeat.

Legend's gaze searched and found Twilight, and the anger shining found a mirror.

"Then that fucking fish ripped my last hope for happiness away from me."

"Veteran..."

"Traitor," Warriors sneered, his weapon drawn.

Flames lit at the tip of Legend's fire rod, casting their glow upon his tempered sword. "Well, even if I hadn't been one, I still would have wanted to punch you in the face, Captain."

Dark Link muffled his own cackling, for fear it would spur the heroes away from this outcome. A drawn-out battle between heroes, weakening both sides before he could swoop in and massacre the rest. Oh, it was just as he had hoped when he had sensed the hidden darkness below the heroic spirit they all carried.

They were conflicted, hesitant. Easier preys, a balancing factor in the soon-to-be fight. A few, more decisive, but the deciding moment, the instant that would cut this moment from history as the triumph of darkness, had yet to come. A question was ignored, discarded outright. And Legend's expression tightened. Braced itself for violence...

"Wait!" called a man's voice.

That part, Dark Link hadn't anticipated.

The heroes froze, metal clanking where swords were hastily pulled back and bonked against armors or shields. Then, one broke away from the group, standing taller than his fellow traitor, with more hesitation.

"I can't do this. You'll have to do it to me too."

"Twilight?!" gasped Wild, though for some reason, it didn't sound as betrayed as it should have.

"Pup...?" Time asked, his gaze heavy. Not yet hostile.

Twilight rubbed the back of his neck, his slanted grin a good display of country boy charm. "Yeah, me too. For the same reason, actually. I... I never asked for it, spirits and gods toyed with me and convinced the one I love that she should exile herself away from me forever. I ain't proud." He paused when Legend shouted 'fuck that!' and pondered. "But I want my pound of flesh. Honestly, I didn't think I'd get this far." He lifted a hand a summoned an energy ball black as night. "I use dark magic all the time. Thought one of you would have beheaded me by now."

Four, Time and Wild nodded, forced to concede the point. "I suppose it says something when your inner self is a feral predator that tears monsters' throats out," Four said. "Though, for the magic, that's more understandable, I think the only one that can really tell is... "

As he trailed off, his eyes widened, and so did the rest. Warriors gasped and scurried away from their wanderer.

Legend looked as if the Wind Fish had smacked him in the face. Jaw slack, and a faint shimmer of hope behind a whole lot of shock.

"Well, I wasn't going to say anything," Hyrule said, biting his lips. "I didn't want to be judgemental. Also, the hero before me went on like, ten quests and the world is still a desolated apocalyptic wasteland. Everything's poisonous or venomous, or some strange combination of both. I never knew water was drinkable before meeting you. I saved two different princesses and neither rewarded me with riches, so I've decided to pull the plug before a third needy damsel pushes me through months of fighting for my life against hordes of monsters."

With tears in his eyes, Legend rushed to envelop his successor into a manly hug.

Dark Link slowly raised his sword, clearing his throat. "Pardon, Heroes of Courage? And Traitors against the Goddesses, I guess, perhaps we-"

"Speaking of post-apocalyptic worlds," Wild began, not noticing he cut off their archenemy.

Twilight's breath hitched, his eyes suddenly watery. He seemed to be fighting a smile. "Cub?"

"Hylia really fucked up the timing of her divine intervention, " he said with a shrug. "I lost everyone except Zelda. Even lost myself. And yet, she never says a word... I just... I do hate her."

A bear hug cut off the tears before they could fall. Twilight lifted his little brother off the ground, whispered reassurances in his ears whilst his wolf hood was used to bury Wild's face into. The remaining Links let them share the moment, looked aside despite the uneasy detente this sudden spill of secrets had caused.

"Well, if we're playing cards on the table..." was Four's preface.

Groans mixed in with a growing sense of incredulity.

Four shot a wistful look to their common enemy, then back to a small, pocket mirror. His reflection's lips were a thin line. "My brother might have been born of darkness, but he had light in him too. He didn't deserve to fade away into nothing... I'd do anything to get him back."

He looked up again, a hint of nerves in his stance, but otherwise decisive. Twilight opened up his free arm and invited him with a wink. For once, there wasn't a protest at being treated like a kid. Just a quick sidehug and a few smirks exchanged on the side of evil.

"So," Legend drawled, waggling eyebrows at Warriors, "looks like you're outnumbered now. Five to four. Still interested in some vigilante justice?"

Warriors pinched his lips together. A series of emotions flashed in his eyes, his stance, and that would have been fine and good, except Legend, for all he wore the tag of an uncaring bastard, knew his companions very well by that point. It wasn't exactly horror that came to the front of his mind.

"... Seriously? You called me 'traitor!' Turned on me and everything!"

Warriors' expression twisted again. He tried his usual nonchalant hairflip but only managed to dishevel it some more. "What? I had to be convincing. How was I supposed to know I wasn't the only one with resentment issues?"

Hyrule snorted. "We share the same spirit, don't we?"

Something dawned on Twilight, his face lighting up, hope renewed, but before he could act on it, Legend tilted his head. A smirk sharp enough to draw blood.

"So, what's your story, captain? Lost your shampoo?"

"Was turned on by most soldiers in my own unit for being the target of a lustful stalking sorceress. Apparently," he drawled, venom on his tongue, "it was my fault the war happened. I shouldn't have existed. And those were people I'd fought side-by-side with for years. Imagine what strangers think."

The Links winced.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Legend said, and by all accounts, meant it.

"... Thanks."

The moment passed. They shuffled awkwardly. Neither very willing to say much after an unexpected heart to heart.

A little way away from the rest, Time frowned. "Didn't you lead the army to victory though?" he asked, pensive.

Tossing his arms in the air, Warriors huffed. "Well, yeah, I wanted revenge on the sorceress too!"

Dark Link gulped. All eight of the Chosen Heroes had nodded in unison at the explanation. Discreetly, he took a couple of steps back toward the darker corners of the throne room with a thought for the nearest exit.

(Unfortunately, Dark Link had, very consciously, chosen a room with no exit to avoid any chance of his preys escaping. He thus saw a crucial flaw with that plan.)

A few feet away, the tension had all but melted. "Old Man?" called an hopeful Twilight.

"After a decade of peace fighting through the trauma of my adventures and finally getting to marry the woman of my life, I did not take the call to adventure well." His hand went to his adventurer's pouch and his items, where his descendant knew a certain mask had been hidden. "I came prepared this time around. What's one more dead god if it means this is the last time I'm stolen away from my family? Although," he added, glancing at the assembled fallen heroes, "I had not anticipated my family growing this large this quickly."

"Sap," Warriors said, but he strongly patted Time on the back nonetheless. "So, that's seven now? Sky, anything you want to confess?"

The question, it seemed, wasn't even an 'if' anymore. More of a polite 'why?'. The unspoken undertone had similarly evolved to suggest that 'why not?' would be considered an acceptable answer at this point.

Sky wilted under the pressure. "I tried. To break the curse, I mean. Demise's curse. I found the triforce, spoke with the goddesses." The soft angles of Sky's face sharpened. "But it was pointless! Couldn't do it. Wouldn't. T-they told me that the wheels of fate had turned or some bullshit and I just had to make peace with the idea that my Zelda, that my reincarnations and hers would be plagued by a demon god for all eternity! I know Hylia... Zelda's different. She's hylian. We belong to one another."

The general surprise brought a blush to his face.

Clearing his throat, he said: "Anyway, erm, yeah, I'm doing it for my Zelda, our descendants and, well, all of you. I'm sorry I didn't solve this in my own lifetime, but since we have the opportunity."

"Attaboy, Chosen," Legend crooned. "I knew my inner bastard had to come from somewhere."

Loving teasing followed that comment.

As one, eight heroes turned toward Wind, who had yet to speak. Unbothered, he shrugged, his giant bone hammer hefted across his shoulders.

"What? I told you guys I'm a pirate. Raiding, pillaging, treasure hunting and underage drinking, all that. Hell, the closest thing to a dad I have is a cowardly conman who works me to the bone. I'm down for some godslaying."

Warriors and Sky highfived him. Which was followed by a noogie, a punch to someone's kidney and a bit of a chase around the throne room. All under the (non-evil) laughter of the onlookers.

Then, it dawned on them.

"So, we could have dropped the charade from the very beginning?" Legend asked, incredulous. Months of pretending! Dancing around the subject!

With a sigh and a mumble that might have been a 'typical', Warriors nodded. "That's what happens when members of a team keep secrets from each other."

"To be fair," Four said, "we had good reasons to believe we should keep our true allegiances secret. Who wants to say 'I'm a disciple of darkness' to eight heroes of legend?"

"Hmm, hello?" Legend waved at himself, unamused.

Time breathed deeply, a twitch working under his jaw. "Never say that again," he hissed. At the curious looks he got, he added: "You wouldn't understand."

"So," Twilight said, clasping hands together, "how do we go about this then? Does anything change or...?"

"Besides the obvious?" Wild snarked.

"Yeah, besides that," Twilight replied, equally deadpan.

Warriors slid back between them with his usual flourish, though his focus was spread across the whole group. "I say we need to at least re-establish our priorities, now that it's out in the open."

Thus, they gathered much closer than before, shoulders to shoulders. Dark Link had long abandoned the idea of a surprise attack. Messing with heroes was fun, idiots had lines they didn't cross. Those gremlins he'd led on a wild goose chase apparently had more teeth than sharks. Evil, malice-infected sharks.

"Alright, so we are in agreement," Time said once the group talk had ended, "we will kill all the gods and remake the world in our images. Lost loved ones will be restored as will lost civilizations. Orphans and toddlers won't be drafted into hopeless battle against monstrosities. Sleeping-in will not be a pipe dream. Water will be drinkable. As will be booze."

Wind pouted. "I still say the booze to water ratio should be higher."

Warriors chuckled and ruffled his hair. "One cannot live entirely on booze, little brother."

Wind shot him a weirded out look. "What are you talking about? The hell do you think pirates live on?"

A gloved hand moved between the two before the argument could be taken seriously.

"There will be time to discuss the details later. For now, we ought to make progress on our primary objective."

At this very moment, one of the pillars in the throne room wobbled and toppled over, crashing with such ruckus that even a comatose Sky would have been awakened. Behind the dust cloud created from the impact, a frozen Dark Link stared at them all with the confidence of the mouse before a pack of wolves.

"Well, this is awkward."

"Shut up, Legend," Twilight groaned. "Just because we're all openly evil instead of covertly doesn't mean you should snark more."

"Bite me, wolfboy."

"You wanna go, bunnyboy?"

Warriors separated them. It was far too early to lose someone to in-fighting. At least a day needed to go by before that would be considered acceptable. There were rules to proper evil forces, after all.

"Right, anyway, Dark Link," - Time smiled tightly, eight bloodthirsty fallen heroes behind him, eyes alit with malice - "how about we make a deal?"

[maybanksslut]

lol I feel so awkward coming in here, plugging a fic for you to read, but you did ask for it, so I suppose it's alright... 📜 here's a link to a James Potter x reader fic I wrote a while back. It's called grey skies! I hope the link works! (I don't use the app, but it's hell trying to put links in an ask on the website, so I'm figuring it out, lol.)

Also, if you want more recs, let me know!

Ok I didn't let me copy more than five things but

“You know you can’t keep secrets from me.” James leaned in with a cocky smirk, eyes twinkling behind his round, gold rimmed glasses. (Y/n) shook their head, still smiling all the while. “And I’m no Divination expert—” that earned a scoff “—but I’d say your aura is a shocking pink.”

I'm in love with the way you've written James, he's totally in character! He's playful, cute and your descriptions of the faintest of things are immaculate. Every interaction between the reader and James only makes me fall more in love with their friendship, and you've created such a strong connection to the characters. Just *chef's kiss*

But still, the thought lingered. If his Patronus and Animagus form were the same, but his Patronus was clearly not a stag anymore, undergoing some sort of change… whose Patronus did it match?

All the moments James is unsure whether he loves lily or someone else... They're so realistic and beautiful, I can't even explain it. Your writing creates such a clear image in my head and I love it! Also the hesitation between Lilly and the reader? Gorgeous work, Olive!

James scoffed but grabbed their hands anyway, swaying with them in time to the music, shuffling in a clumsy, charming sort of way. The two spun and danced ungainly around the small dormitory, bumping into beds and tripping over discarded shoes, laughing through it all. The candles illuminating the room painted them in warm colors and each resounding laugh that filled the air seemed to make the room glow brighter. James sang along with the song he recognized as being the one (Y/n) always insisted on playing when they hung out, his voice not terribly off key, but missing every other word. (Y/n) laughed and joined in, filling in the missing words and grinning like an idiot.

I swear to god, Olive, this scene is so beautiful and cute and romantic and funny and AAAAAAAAAAAH I absolutely adore it! the descriptions kf their feelings and how the room looks are so vivid, and the happiness they radiate really makes me believe in a happy ending. If this isn't true love, I dont know what is.

(Y/n) breathed in once more and pictured the Gryffindor common room, fire blazing, Peppermint Imps melting on the tip of their tongue, and James’ sweater, with the distinct smell of his cologne and a hint of broom polish…

I gotta be honest, I screamed like a little girl. Y/n loves James wiiiiiiiiiiii! Also how he smells... It's yet again a vivid description, and also so well matched with his personality.

“I think I love you—” He corrected himself “—I know I love you, I just think I have for a while now and wasn’t really sure of it until now.” His hands had the urge to reach for (Y/n), to wrap them in a hug and feel their body against his. Would their heart be beating as loudly as his? He balled the front of his sweater in his hands. “So yeah, I think you can be loved… Do you think I could be?”

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? how did you make such a phenomenal, touching, beautiful and realistic love confession? I cannot explain how much I love this paragraph, it's just excellent! these are the things that make me certain you should be a professional writer.

in conclusion, this fic was wonderful. a) your writing is gorgeous, you have a rich vocabulary and your sentences are vivid and of good structure, b) the setting you've created helps build up the story, you've set good places for the story to happen and yoir characters seem real and close to me, c) the whole story is amazing and just wonderful and words cannot explain it.

I can for sure say this is the best fic I have ever read in my entire life, for any character, any fandom, any genre. I love it with all my heart.

[stellardrift]

Absent−mindedly I opened the prospectus and began rereading the fragment which had so absorbed me— prior to the horrible fiasco at Julie's. I skipped from one item to another. At the back of the prospectus there were maps and charts and reproductions of ancient writings found on tablets and monuments in various parts of the world. I came upon the mysterious writing of the Uighurs who had once overrun Europe from the over−flowing well of Central Asia. I read of cities which had been lifted heavenward twelve and thirteen thousand feet when the mountain ranges began to form; I read about Solon's discourse with Plato and about the 70,000 year old glyphs found in Tibet which hinted all too clearly of the existence of now unknown continents. I came upon the sources of Pythagoras' conceptions and read with sadness of the destruction of the great library at Alexandria. Certain Mayan tablets reminded me vividly of the canvases of Paul Klee. The writings of the ancients, their symbols, their patterns, their compositions, were strikingly like the things children invent in kindergartens. The insane, on the other hand, produced the most intellectual sort of compositions. I read about Laotse and Albertus Magnus and Cagliostro and Cornelius Agrippa and Iamblichus, each one a universe, each one a link in an invisible chain of now exploded worlds. I came to a chart arranged like parallel strips of banjo frets, telling off laterally the centuries since the dawn of civilization and vertically listing the literary figures of the epochs, their names and their works. The Dark Ages stood out like blind windows in the side of a skyscraper; here and there in the great blank wall there was a beam of light shed by the spirit of some intellectual giant who had managed to make his voice heard above the croaking of the submerged and dispirited denizens of the marshes. When it was dark in Europe it had been bright elsewhere: the spirit of man was like a veritable switchboard, revealing itself in signals and flashes, often across oceans of darkness. One thing stood out clearly—on that switchboard certain great spirits were still plugged in, still standing by for a call. When the epoch which had called them forth was drowned out they emerged from the darkness like the towering snow−capped peaks of the Himalayas. And there was reason to believe, it seemed to me, that not until another unspeakable catastrophe occurred would the light they shed be extinguished. As I shut off the current of reverie into which I had fallen a Sphinx−like image registered itself on the fallen curtain: it was the hoary visage of one of Europe's magi: Leonardo da Vinci. The mask which he wore to conceal his identity is one of the most baffling disguises ever assumed by an emissary from the depths. It made me shudder to think what those eyes which stare unflinchingly into the future had perceived.

Henry Miller, Sexus

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ @sasuhinabigflash2020​​ || Day Seventeen: Craving ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ] 

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Lying on her bedroom floor, Hinata stares up at the ceiling, occasionally giving an owlish blink. The little glow-in-the-dark stars and planets she stuck up there when she went through her space phase are still there, their oddly pale yellow-green dim and listless in the daylight hours of morning. About how she’s feeling right now, as a matter of fact.

It’s quiet today. Like it is every day. And has been everyday for...gosh, how long has it been, now? She’s lost count.

Lost count of the days since everyone disappeared.

Not just her father and her sister, either. Everyone. One day Hinata simply woke up...and found she was the absolute last person on earth. Or at least...she’s yet to encounter a single other person. And it’s been months, at the very least. The phone never rings. No cars drive by. Turning on the television shows the same programs as per usual, but they’re all reruns. And the news stations are just endless cycles of advertisements.

Online is much the same. Nothing updates. But nothing completely stops, either. Somehow she still has power, internet, phone connection...it’s odd.

She goes to the store a few blocks away. Everything is still there. And nothing is going bad. The produce still looks the same as the first day she went.

At first...it was extremely hard to wrap her brain around, as one would likely expect. Theories clogged her brain for days. Was she actually in a coma, dreaming all of this? Was she dead, stuck in some weird limbo? Had she simply...lost her mind?

And then the thoughts of absolute loneliness. Never seeing her family again. True, she didn’t have the best relationships with either of them, but...to have any chance at that changing ripped away made her realize how much she’d truly wasted a very final opportunity.

In the end, however...there was simply acceptance. Deciding to, at least until she reached some unspoken limit, to just...try living. See how far she could get.

And so far, it’s been...okay. While she can’t explain (and maybe doesn’t want to explain) the seeming lack of passing time beyond a day and night cycle (how else could nothing be rotting?), other things change. The weather still varies. It just rained yesterday, and it’s a balmy seventy-two degrees today according to her phone, and sunny. And thought it’s not been quite long enough to confirm seasons, Summer does seem to be conceding to Fall.

Which makes her wonder how that’s going to go. There’s been no shut-off in the power, but what if something happens? She’d never know how to fix it! Maybe just...find someplace where the power was still on. Or steal a generator. Eventually though she’ll run out of gas, right…?

Many of the rules of this new (?) world escape her.

But for now, those life-changing questions aren’t what’s on her mind.

...she has a craving.

For a few moments longer, she maintains her position on her floor. But then enough will musters up, and she sits upright with a grunt before hauling herself to her feet. Putting on some shoes, she then leaves the house and heads down the road.

The door she leaves unlocked. How’s she going to get robbed, being the last person left? And that way, no ever worrying about locking herself out, either.

...it happened once last year when Hanabi was out of town with a friend and her father on a business trip. Most embarrassing reason to talk to her neighbor ever.

Plugging in earbuds to her phone, she keeps one ear open, just in case. Otherwise, her favorite pop songs play in the background of her walk, humming absently. A few times she’s mustered up the courage to sing out loud, given no one is around to hear. But even being completely alone...she’s still shy.

Twenty minutes sees her at the supermarket. Not bothering to take a cart, she instead tries to remember what aisle she needs, wandering down the front and reading the signs above each. What category does it fall under, again…?

Lost in her musing, she actually squeals out loud in surprise at a sudden crashing sound.

W...what…?

Frozen in place and barely daring to breathe, only her eyes flicker in search of...something. Anything. It sounded like it came from the back of the store...maybe some animals got in? Those, at least, she’s seen plenty of. Squirrels in her backyard, cats sunning themselves on porches. She tries not to think of all the abandoned pets with no one coming home for them anymore.

But in the subsequent silence, she doesn’t hear the scurrying of surprised feet like she would expect of anything inhuman. Instead...an impressive string of oaths and swears reaches her ears.

...no, it...it can’t be…

Throat suddenly dry, Hinata weighs her odds. On one hand...it could be someone friendly! Maybe she’s not as alone as she feared! But...on the other...they might see her as a threat, and kill her. Or do...other horrible things to her.

Loneliness can leave one wanting, after all. Or just drive a person to a sick, brain-rotted edge.

Eventually, she overcomes the absolute tension in her legs and shuffles forward a few inches, doing her best to remain absolutely quiet. There’s now just vague rustling sounds as...whoever it is rummages through...whatever they’re doing. Part of her still wants to run screaming, but her curiosity about another person existing in this unreal reality is just a bit more convincing.

She peers down each aisle as gingerly as possible, finding each empty as she gets closer and closer to the noises. And with every step, the nerves in her gut wind tighter and tighter in apprehension. Could this be any more suspenseful?!

Finally, reaching the last aisle, she lets one eye look past a display of chips before withdrawing with a hint of a gasp.

They’re there! Whoever they are!

Calming her racing heart just enough, she then glances back around. An entire display of boxes - of what she can’t tell from here - has been completely obliterated, creating a huge spill of cardboard across the back corner of the store. And right in the middle of it is a person.

Clearly scavenging for certain types of...whatever those are, they stuff the occasional box into an oversized duffle bag slung over their shoulder. Seems someone else is making a supply run. Looking at another box, they weigh the option before tossing it nonchalantly.

...for some reason, that makes her frown.

Once the bag is full, however, the person in question starts heading back her way.

Panic.

Withdrawing and not knowing where to go, Hinata dances in place for a long moment before ducking behind a “pixelated” display of cases of soda depicting the local football team logo. From there, she watches as the stranger walks right past her.

He looks to be about her age. Messy dark hair, fair complexion, typical clothes of boys she’s seen at her highschool. But she doesn’t recognize him...not that she’d know everyone anyway, her school and city are pretty big. Or maybe he’s from out of town, passing through and gathering more supplies.

The possibilities are endless, and she’s only getting more curious.

Once he reaches the doors, he slings the bag to the floor and...picks up another one? Where’d he get all these things, anyway? Then back he comes, clearly on a second round as he ducks into another aisle.

Realizing she’s safe, Hinata makes to follow, creeping up to the same aisle.

Only to scream when he comes back out.

Seems he took a wrong turn.

To his credit, he doesn’t shout back. Rather, he stumbles back with a wheeze, going ghostly pale as Hinata manages to trip over her own feet and fall on her backside.

“P-please! Don’t kill me!” she cries, arms lifting to shield her face.

“W...what?”

Hearing his own panic, Hinata risks a glance. He just...stares at her in obvious confusion.

“...I...I thought, um…” Well now she’s embarrassed. Heat floods her face. “...it’s just been so...so long since I…?”

“Christ lady, you scared the shit out of me,” he then cuts in with a heavy sigh.

“S-sorry!”

“The hell were you doing?”

“Well, I...I came to get -?” Oh hell, that’s not important. “...I heard a noise, and...saw you. I haven’t seen another person in...in months. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I guess.”

“...you too, huh?”

She blinks.

“Everyone else just up and disappeared on you?”

“Y...yeah. I thought -?”

“You were the last person on earth?”

“...mhm.”

“Me too. But it seems there’s at least two of us. Which makes me wonder if there’s any more.”

“I honestly thought this was all some strange dream...maybe I just h-hit my head and fell into a coma.”

“Yeah, same here. But then I started getting hungry and no one but me was gonna feed me.” He gestures to his bag. “Hence a supply run.”

“Yeah, I...I know how those go.” After a pause, Hinata sheepishly gets back to her feet, posture withdrawn. “...I’m Hinata, by the way.”

“Sasuke. I’d say nice to meet you, but uh...kinda biased given your the first face I’ve seen in months.”

At that, she can’t help a giggle. “True. Still...I’m g-glad to know I’m not alone. Where do you live, if...you don’t mind me asking?”

“Like eight blocks west of here.”

“I’m three to the north.”

“Makes you wonder how we haven’t crossed paths until now, huh?”

“Yeah...weird.”

They fall into an awkward silence.

“...W-well, I...I better let you get back to…” Hinata gestures to his bag.

“Hey, you wanna share numbers?”

At that, she jolts. “... I -?”

“Just in case we want to talk or something. Not like we have anyone else to chat with, right? And we might need help at some point.”

“Oh...g-good point. Um…” Fiddling with her pockets, she pulls out her phone and trades her digits. “Sasuke, right?”

“Yeah. And Hinata?”

“Mhm.”

“Cool.” He tucks his mobile back into his sweatshirt. “Guess I’ll, er...talk to you later.”

“Guess so. Um...b-bye.” Giving a very awkward little wave, Hinata steps past him and just..scurries for the door, heart once again pounding in her chest as she hurries back up the road.

If...if this Sasuke guy is still here...who else could still be around? Suddenly everything she’s assumed for the past few months is thrown into doubt. A few blocks apart, and it took them this long to cross paths. How many more could there be…?

Or is it just them?

So shook up is she, Hinata doesn’t realize - until she’s back in her house, leaning wearily against her front door - that she didn’t actually get what she went out for.

...well...maybe next time.

She’s had enough excitement for one day.

     I have...no idea what this is kjdfdjhg just a cliche “last two people on Earth” idea that hit me completely out of nowhere xD The actual prompt has very little to do with it beyond never being revealed because...reasons.      (I dunno what she wanted, she wouldn’t tell me lol)      Anywho, I guess not...much else to say? Random piece is random, but hopefully still enjoyable! I need to start doing these at better times but I always write better at night...and today was busier than I expected. Take all my excuses :’D But on that note, I’ll see you guys later - thanks for reading!