#lemme scream into the void for a second

[oobbbear]

爬回去看绿蓝了，每过一阵子就重新刷一遍真的好喜欢啊啊啊… 想推荐也推荐不了现有的英译都不完整长篇一个没收录, 但我理解这玩意字太多了比起看漫画更像读小说哎😔 动画我还看不惯火柴人看习惯了慢慢啃旧章节吧,,, 说起火柴人本来想回去再刷一遍紧张丸的，可看了两眼就意识到了这玩意真的好怪，初中看的时候完全没有意识到的怪救命啊啊根本看不下去紧张丸是个孩子啊放开他救命额啊啊啊，以前喜欢捡了东西的���现在真的一章都看不下去救命，18年火的那个魔女和她捡到的孩子的那个模版现在想想真的好怪额啊啊啊啊，是我被外网影响了还在这玩意真的很怪我不晓得，总之以前喜欢的好多东西都看不下去了好可怕

SQ还是好的SQ是美丽的SQ是看了多少遍都不会怪的😔🙏✨我爱我的百合永远不要变

爬走睡觉去了🏃‍♂️

[ourlittleuluru]

沈星回啊 😭😭

这颗星回来了！ 他终于回到他的家，她的身边 (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

Yes... Can you tell I'm still not over this? 😿 I just... Ahhhhh

(I need to do overtime work but I just wanna put this PV on repeat and see every little detail T-T but okay lemme ramble on a bit in the read-mores... c':)

Okay lemme just ramble here because I said all these in the tags but I feel like screaming it out again into the void because!! To me, this kiss felt so... vulnerable. like...

It feels like Xavier finally felt safe, that he can let his usual guard down and just fully, honestly, be in this moment with MC (more that he usually allows himself, that is). Like to me, this feels like he could give in to his desire to be with her. FULLY.

and not just "I get to be with her *but...*", that kind of vibe, ya know?

like he could finally have this. without fear nor needing to put some invisible distance.

and he STILL asked for her consent!

AM I TRIPPING? ToT Am i reading too much into it?????

ALSO DAYUM??? HE WENT IN FOR A SECOND?!!?! He's waited for way too long for this moment 😭 like... ever since the start, pretty much??? Or at least ever since his Shooting Star Myths (because those two have been skirting around each other the whole time during that lifetime!!! D:<)

[interludered]

Guilt between lovers, her name is reunited.

Gojo Satoru x Geto Suguru

The last of Us au

not proof read

t/w death, descriptions of maggots, rotting flesh, other zombie things word count 2.3k

a/n hi, this is actually a "happy ending" if you read all the way through. it is a reply i wrote a long time ago and i just thought it was super pretty! Suguru luvs Satoru very much here, and vice versa. please lemme know what you think.

When sleep confronts Suguru again, his prayers for peace seem to be answered. It’s subtle, but it will do. He isn’t sure when his body and mind began to be kind to him, but he happily is taking in the relief, the comfort that swaddles him carefully like how his mother used to, it blooms through his chest and seeps into each limb. The blue color that saturates his laugh is not metaphorical sadness in its physical display but instead a sense of peace that colors him. His red cheeks turn purple in the hue that decorates his being, and when he is throwing his head back, Gojo stands above him, bright smile shining as he becomes the sun, the halo of light that adorns his head makes him look ethereal. The glow makes Satoru nearly silhouetted, but Suguru won’t miss the way he looks at him. The ends of his hair gleam and shimmer, colors him flush with red. His cheeks round, childlike wonder still decorates his eyes. Suguru’s pupils dilate in response, eventually being hauled upwards to stand. When their hands meet, purple blends the two with ease. Another laugh painted into the sunny sky, sand falling off his clothes and back where it belongs on the beach that surrounds them.

He’s being dragged to the edge of the water, ocean eagerly lapping at his ankles. The ocean always seems to excited to greet the two. When Gojo looks back at him, tugging him into the water, the reflection in the dark rims of his glasses tells him they’re in their teens again, his youth haven’t yet slipped away. And when Suguru is too lost in his fantasy, daydreams consume him whole, fully, Satoru is splashing him. The water gets directly into his ear. Suguru is laughing, though his scolding the other doesn’t stop, letting go of his hand to wipe his face. His words hold no weight, instead, splashing the other back. Although when he looks down, the violet that once flowered is now disappearing, it skips over blue and becomes a void of color, black painted the top of each finger as he absorbed all of what was offered, though Satoru becomes all pink and red again. Yet, Satoru stands out against the waves that consume Suguru, fading deeper into the sea as he only seems to devour it’s color, sun beginning to fade. Though, that doesn’t stop his best friend, no, he’s pulling him closer instead. He always seemed to control the ocean, blue eyes contort each wave to his body, letting it caress the skin that protects him, teaching Suguru to do the same. The voice that sings out is Satoru’s, uncontrolled laugh, carefree exhibition. He doesn’t notice the way the salt in each wave scratches Suguru’s skin uncomfortably, wincing in the painful pursuit to be with his best friend.

He ignores every burn and slash, blue leaking out into the waves as it carries his color to shore, makes him greed for the fill he once had. It leaves him empty, engrossed in his feeling of vacancy. Instead of acknowledging how each pain receptor screams, a beg from his flesh that leaks its hue, he ignores every cry. The ocean shows no relent in its chase. It’s just as greedy as him, just as unforgiving. Each wave is pulling him under, mirroring his actions. Each time he swims up for air, another wave pulls him down. He isn’t sure when the riptide began but Satoru remained aloof as Suguru was pulled under. The oxygen from his lungs coursed out with each tug. He isn’t sure when his eyes fluttered shut, breath stolen with each passing second, but he does remember how he felt cold. His chest no longer blue with contentment but instead hallow and reflective white held its place instead. He only opens his eyes when a fist is being connected to his cheek, sending him backwards and onto his back.

The ocean beckons him again, the abrasive surface of sand lays under him, fingers digging deep until he is blinking. Above him, once again, is Satoru. But this time, the moon makes him glow. He’s older now. His mauve and pink cast deepening to one of carnivorous red, anger finding its home inside of him. The waves crash louder onto the land beside him. He can’t make out what he’s saying, though if he focuses, the muffled sound of resentment surround him. It’s like a bell goes off inside his brain, making him wince once again, Satoru’s words ringing loud and clear: 

Of course I wouldn’t believe you! 

You think you can mock me? 

You think you can just waltz back into my life after all this time? 

You left me, not the other way around!

Suguru’s eyebrows pulled together in a tight knot, his head shaking. His body seemed to argue with him as he willed himself to move. To speak. To do anything. But the emotions from the other pin him down, hold him tightly to seek out vengeance for his pain. The pain that Suguru caused him. The fangs sink deeply into his flesh, releasing the venom to infect his bloodstream. It burns hot, a blade dipped into molten lava and scorching his skin with each pass. It filets him wide open, and lets maggots infect his bones. It sears him and cauterizes the blood vessels. And when every nerve ending feels like it’s on fire, he finally gains the freedom to breathe, sitting up quickly.

The change in scenery has him reeling backward. Confusion fogs his brain as he looks around, a field of follows and a bright sunny day adorns his vision now, birds sing in the air as he pats himself down. His school uniform feels too tight on his body, hugging every curve and muscle snuggly. The field glows with variety, yellows, purples, oranges, and pinks. They smear together like Claude Monet and turn into small dots in the distance. The insects that visit and gather what they need flutter with grace. When Suguru moves to stand again, he blinks and the scenery changes again. When he reaches his full height, he is looking Satoru in the face.

Though, it’s not him anymore. His eyes glazed over and bloodshot. Blue eyes that once controlled and contorted the ocean were lost. It’s a hazy green iris now, something that looks so foreign on Satoru's face. The fungi that create harsh veins under his skin send a shiver down his spine, the colors they turned his skin no longer radiate romantically but something that he finds repugnant. Infection oozed thickly out of the cracks in his skin, fungi nesting in odd places. The creature he once called his best friend, his one and only, lurches forward to capture Suguru, all teeth to puncture the soft flesh. It sends them both crashing into the ground.

When Suguru hits the soil, it collapses beneath the weight of his body, letting him sink further into the ocean's welcoming waves. He opens his eyes underwater, the shine of the moonlight above him beckons him forward. And when he breaks the surface, the hard ground does nothing to break the fall onto his knees. He is soaked, the scent of salt water lingers as it drips from his clothes. His mother comes to his side, holding him as he coughs up the remainder of the liquid that finds its way into his lungs. She takes the lead in lifting him to his feet, arms wrapped around her much smaller frame. He misses her. She’s whispering something into his ear, though through the sounds of him choking, he can’t make it out.

He’s pulling back to rub at his eyes, only to have a bouquet of flowers pushed into his chest. When his own bloodshot eyes open, regardless of the stinging from salt water, his mother is smiling up at him. His arms go to wrap around her but by the time he steps forward, she has already turned to liquid, sinking deeply into the ground below him. The colorful field once enriched with variety now becoming a sea of red. It starts at his feet, purple irises spinning to show dainty, spindly leaves, each a rich red. They are thin in nature, and poisonous no matter the animal. When consumed, death only follows. As his vision rises, he watches each plant transform. The lily plagues the once beautiful field into something that feels more reminiscent of a blood bath.

Suguru kicks something in his attempts to step forward. The bouquet that only moves a few inches lays at his feet, tightly bound with red lace around the green stems. Suguru swallows as he leans over to pick it up, and when he stands, he’s once again met with blue eyes—ones that hold the ocean, childlike wonder and curiosity picking at the white-haired man so cleverly.

Only this time, Satoru’s glasses lay cracked on the ground. The sun has long set.

The moon now embellished his pale features. Suguru goes to speak but words refuse to emerge, Satoru’s eyes drop to the flowers in his hand. He seems inquisitive, but sadness makes the air thick, hand wrapped tightly against the raven-haired man's throat to suffocate on every syllable that tried to escape. The sand beneath them crunches, Suguru stands still as he watches Satorus's blue eyes gloss over, tears introducing themselves as they cascade down his cheeks, eroding the surface as each hits the sandy beach. Suguru watches as he backs away from him, frozen, the ocean beckoning him back. When he is trying to step forward, he discovers his own feet tied with weights that hold him still. He shakes against them, in attempt to break the grasp, but when he looks up again, Satoru is gone.

The red spider lilies in his hand seem to be rooting under his skin creating a permanent hold into the stems, rope burn digging deep wounds into each ankle. All Suguru can do is stare, eyes desperately searching for the other in the ever-expanding abyss. Yet, the only thing he feels is the ocean lapping excitedly at his ankles once again. Suguru! It’s a dull voice in the distance, a happy purr in cat-like tendencies the other holds. It’s a warmth that radiates deep into him, piercing down on his chest. It’s morning! You can’t stay asleep forever!

Oh, but he could. However, It’s sunshine that filters through the window and onto bare skin, kissing his shoulder, freckles living happily there. They only seem to peak when the sun greets them, the dirt king gone from his skin and allows them to meet without barriers. Come on wake up! It’s the weight of his best friend in the morning as he lays on top of him, causing Suguru to groan in annoyance as he tries to escape the grasp of the other. It’s his voice that lulls him out of his anguish, a smile teasing his lips as he wraps his arm around the body of the other, pulling him down beside him. He’s never been so happy to be annoyed so early. In fact, Sugurus never been a morning person. In the early morning of their teenage years, he would’ve cussed, his only bargain being the scent of coffee he was greeted with. But now, if it meant having the comforting body of his other half wake him up, pulling him from the dreams that haunt his head well into the day, he might tolerate his mornings without it.

When Sugurus arm is fully secure around the torso of Satoru, he flips them, pinning the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed man beneath his body weight, the blanket successfully trapping Satoru's arms to his side as Suguru now lays on top of the other. He almost feels bad for laying his dead weight on the other, left to struggle beneath him. Almost. But, instead, he yawns tiredly as he finds a spot of comfort with his head on Satoru's chest, arms securing Satoru’s under the blanket. The cool morning air hits the bare skin of Sugurus back and he can’t help but shiver. “A few more minutes,” he mumbles, his eyes still shut, a small smile danced across his lips, hidden from even his best friend. Sleep clogged his brain, voice gruff from the fatigue that lingered. He listened to the steady beat of the other heart, each pump causing his anxiety from the night to dissipate and a new emotion to replace it:

Tranquility, he thinks. The peace that washes away each bitter ending. The sun that rises every morning, is a reminder that it’s a new day. The riptide has disappeared and the storm passed, and the ocean returns to singing a sweet melody. The same one he has long familiarized himself with since meeting the other. He relishes in the steady breathing, his own breaths matching the one he lays on. The heat that permeates through the comforter that bound them together, his own legs twisted and trapping him happily.

“I haven’t slept in a real bed in 6 years, Satoru, I think I deserve a few more minutes.” Suguru continues on, still muffled as he twitches his nose, hair still knotted at the base of his scalp from the night prior. He hopes to find a brush today, perhaps one of the many people who call the shelter a home will have a spare, and he won’t have to kill another clicker with his own. He has a feeling a trim wouldn’t hurt, and Satoru would strangle him if he cut it short, so he will settle for the knots for now. Maybe Satoru would help him. Hell, he knows he will. It widens his smile a little more. His own personal secret is hidden on the chest of his one and only. It’s hard to believe he only just got him back. It feels like, somehow, he’s been there all along. The picture he holds secret, water-damaged and wrinkled, doesn’t seem to weigh down his bag anymore.

[absurdthirst]

I just need to scream into the void for a second if you don't mind. Lemme preface this by saying I'm very severely ill. Doctors aren't sure how long my body will hold out as I'm at the stage where I'm struggling with eating and drinking and can't maintain much nutrition in my body period. feeding tubes and such are almost never approved by insurance for the disease i have. There's no treatment or cure, research is dacades behind where it should be. I've already lost much of my independence, mobility, many friends, all my hobbies and passions are no longer accessible. I can't handle light or sound or many smells a large amount of the time. I'm bed bound about 22 hours a day. I've lost so much of myself and my life to illness, except for my spouse and my marriage. This weekend my spouse dropped a massive bomb on our lives and absolutely ripped the rug out from under me. I won't go into details, but yeah it's enormous and has destroyed the one little bit of certainty and stability left in my life. We're gonna try to see a couples therapist and stuff, but idk whats gonna be. It's been too much on top of everything with my health. I went into literal shock like body freezing to the touch, non stop shaking. I have almost nobody left in my life independet of my spouse - for obvious reasons at this point most of my friends are people I know through her and are friends first and foremost with her and with me by association. I have almost nobody who can be here just for me and isn't like torn between us as it were So I just needed to vent on here for a sec.

Anon,

I am so sorry that you are dealing with all of this. Just your health issues are enough to weigh down someone. I hope that somehow, a balance in your disease will be found and you will find some quality of life improvement.

I am also sorry that you are also dealing with marital issues on top of your health. One issues is enough, but it is a weight that can drown a person when combined.

I know that it is easy to just give advice through a computer screen when not knowing the details and fully understanding, so I won't insult you by trying to insert that here. Just know that if you need to vent or talk, or just bullshit about something inane, my inbox is open. My DMs are available.

Thank you for allowing me to be a safe space for you to vent. Please know that I am offering up prayers for you. 🌻

[alex-the-bard]

so i’m seeing a lot of intro posts so i guess this is it

heyo, the name’s Alex, or if you’re lazy Al or Lex is fine, they/it if you please (do it or i will hurt you)

@moonysfavoritetoast is my husband!

massively adhd, deeply traumatized, followers will suffer the wrath of vent posts on their dash

likes; reading, writing, drawing, screwing with my friends, crying

dislikes: anything bigoted, homophobes, the sun, writer’s/artist’s block

dni: bigots, homophobes, people with a need to be the smartest person in the room, zoophiles, pedophiles, war criminals

now with that out of the way lemme get into what i actually wanna say:

this blog is a safe space for ✨ANYONE✨

yes

✨EVERYONE✨

if you’re feeling alone, scared, or just need someone to talk to, i’m here, i’m queer, and i’m all ears!

also i fucking swear if i hear a word out of my moots abt self harm i will bring the wrath of the gods upon them and make them take care of themselves.

also handing out free hugs, headpats, and kind words to anyone that needs it so just hop on over to the abyss to scream and the lord of the void will see you as soon as they can.

FRIENDS!!!

KOSA paper:

tags:

dreamscape nexus: #Dreamscape Nexus

the Documentarian/Doc: #Documentarian’s letters

second loop of the cycle: #second time around

Ascario documents: #recovered from Ascario

[machinesonix]

Hello Tumblr, it's been a while. Once again I find the specters of literary analysis haunting my blood screaming for release, and you are my favorite void in which to scream. Today we're taking a departure from Dune to talk about some thoughts regarding the horror genre and why I think It really knocks it out of the park.

Famous racist H.P. Lovecraft in his essay Supernatural horror in fiction asserts that the earliest human emotion is fear and the oldest fear is that of the unknown.

I largely agree with what Lovecraft is getting at here that the unknown is the key to eliciting a feeling of fear, even if the primacy of an emotion having to do with age feels weird. Please, Tumblr, understand that I do not share his opinions regarding the Chinese, but the guy was among the first to pick apart the horror genre to find out what made it tick.

Lovecraft's expression of fear of the unknown is decidedly dated, even aside from the bigotry. His writing is famously full of 'Dear reader I dare not describe what I beheld' sort of stuff. It's even more diminished in the public eye by the fact anyone with internet access has a very clear image of Cthulhu as being like a squid dragon as depicted in the sculptures in its eponymous story despite once they actually find the thing and run a boat into it it's like some geometry violating cloud thing.

The thing I do appreciate about Lovecraft is that he's never actually under any compunction to explain anything. Polaris starts with the line 'I am a scholar of the Pnakotic Manuscripts' and that's all we really get. There's an economy of words here in letting us know the narrator is an academic and the subject of his studies is something with an unholy assembly of consonants suggesting it is very strange. In Call of Cthulhu everything we know about the cult and its intentions is communicated by the phenomenally unreliable character of Cesar, who shines a light on the global scale of the operation, fleshing out the worldbuilding while only leaving us with more questions.

Now I'm not breaking any new ground by singing the praises of Stephen King. Dude's far from perfect, and his idiosyncratic style makes all sorts of people just bounce right off, but I think It is probably the best example in the public eye of this 'fear of the unknown' thing in practice. See, for King 'nightmare' is not just a word you use to describe a scary situation. In a nightmare, you feel like there's some hidden logic to the world you can't quite understand. There's a terrible sense of foreboding that preceeds the terror because our brains are familiar with that script. Even if something isn't implicitly awful, there is a pervasive wrongness that our subconscious latches onto.

So lemme just take a second to underline the fact that a clown in a sewer is really fucking bizarre. Like yeah, we're 40 years out from the Tim Curry movie and it's ingrained into the public concious, but please do your best to imagine your response to a sewer clown in an Itless universe. It is important to dispell the whole 'Oh yeah, that old chestnut, the sewer clown' to establish how totally surreal this famous scene actually is.

The thing I think is the real masterstroke is the line 'We all float down here. You'll float too!' Nowhere in the book do we have any inclination of what the fuck that means. There is a threat implicit to it; whatever future Pennywise has planned is not gonna be good, but it's not like there's anything implicitly wrong with floating. The story prominently involves a toy boat, several sinister balloons, a semi-aquatic clown monster, and moments of disconnectedness from reality. If you're a ginormous nerd, you'll know that in the Stephen King Multiverse, the nightmare that manifests as Pennywise is trapped between realities, 'floating' in a gloaming space. There are many floating things, but there's no real explanation. Rather than being point blank 'The thing is impossible' like Lovecraft does, we're given a box of puzzle pieces that seem like they make a complete picture and the slowly dawning realization none of them actually fit together.

[miusmusings]

Kiseki: Dear to Me ep 1 aka we have several kitties in our hands

Ok let's start~

Ai di? Eddie? Which one are we gonna follow? I'm not immune to pretty faces, I'm gonna protect him with my life now. Also are they a couple? Sorta ship it oeo

Okee guess not. Hmmm Picking up someone out of the blue, and Ai di scratching his back like that, very cat-like of him. A meow =w=

Why is Mr. I'm-The-Only-One-Not-Wearing-Black just standing there like a statue? Where's your concern for a friend. Oh, they're supposed to be old acquaintances as per mdl? That explains it the smile.

What's that red thing on the photo? Lemme guess, blood? It is a mafia (can we call this mafia?) setting.

Zhong Yi is a brave, brave person for not screaming when he saw a bloody hand on the road all of a sudden. Kudos to him. Could never be me :')

Oh oh oh (nooooo) they're using the same remedies. Does ql drama world not have not other, more effective medicines for woundtending? That looks like a gash too deep for home treatment, if you ask me. But ig he'll be saved by ql logic ahaha (I love ql logic. Why can't we have ql logic irl huh)

For once there is no (not felt by me atleast) homoerotic subtext in woundtending. Shocking.

(Anyone know what are the names of the books? Ig they're all books related to studying medicine and such, but I'd still like to know)

Ze Rui, my boy, blackmailing is not how you woo the love of your life. But it's effective here, so owo

Ze Rui is dramatic af. A bread isn't gonna break your ribs, chile. He reminds me of our cats throwing a concert of shame whenever mealtime is late by like half a second.

Zhong Yi keeping tabs. Finally a character who makes (tries to make) financially sound descisions. Like love ain't gonna fill your stomach (not with your sugar kitty mooching off you u.u)

Ze Rui, my boy, you're sus af. I'd have taken away any valuables before leaving you in my home, too. Scamming alert u.u

"It's your karma then." 👏👏👏👏👏

My meow meow is back. He's got some claws. And He looks great in pink! And he has a (potential) boyfie too, good for him!

Knowing your hookup form the night before didn't go home with you for your rizz but for your decade old rice cooker.... that must hurt.

OH? Is Xong Yi snapping finally?

Nvm false alarm. the intimacy tho. Which other surfaces do you wanna shove him against, Ze Rui? BUt threatening is bad flirting technique smh

I don't wanna say it but - poor husband working his ass off to earn money and feed his other, lazy ass of a husband. Also Zong Yi looks so meow meow here? He looked Tired, I feel bad for him :\ Ze Rui take care of your man sometimes, too! Don't make him be the only caregiver in the relationship, it won't work out

Ze Rui is so Kitty Coded that they had to add cat noises jajaja

Oh so Ze Rui does have some brains. His friends (?) did call him the brains of the group hmmm. But ZR lookis so smug, is it cause he made a fool of ZY or cause he has ZY on his (technically ZY's) bed

Ok we need a list of Bread in qls. Bread as a metaphor, bread love (also hate) language yeye

Oh tragic pasts time.... How expectations can go both ways, huh? Too much too little, atleast it seems like ZY still has a good family? (I'm jinxing it-). Seeing that this is Taiwanese drama, and after reading a lot of danmeis, I wonder if ZR is an illegitimate child? As they call it in the danmeis, a 'mistress's' child?

Ok ok I have a theory - Ai di is an ornage kitty (the kind who're always too excited and wants your attention 24/7 or they'll wreck havoc on your room), Ze Rui is a fancy long haired high maintenance kitty (a calico?? Let's not look at the sciences of this), Zong Yi is a black-white kitty, not totally a void but def wiggly and also got the coldness of a white kitty.

Putting clothes on your (future) lover, a beloved if new trope :3 (ye i'm looking at loa)

I want a piece of that cake too, so hungry ueueue

ZR is three cats in pyjamas confirmed. Cats never ever finish their meals cause they too 'eat in small portions'. smh

They're not using the there was only one bed trope?

OH OH THAT LOOK WHEN ZY starts eating. I see you I see you. I feel food was very important in today's episode like, it's used as a method for establishing who's controlling the situation, then it's used a bridge for communication and negotiation, and it's used to show economic differences (like ZR can bother wasting food and eats in small amounts, definitely not smt a person coming form a less privieged section of the society can do)and finally this look. I'm not gonna analyse this cause ye- but.... food.... maybe I'm just too hungry XD

This Zhang Teng would right in a drama of supernatural genre

I like the ending ost u.u

OK there was some INteresting power dynamic. A injured gang member who probably kills at sight and is rich, is now under the care of a impoverished, seemingly harmless (when are doctors, potential ones included, ever harmless) student with barely any way to defend himself from violence. But Zong Yi may refuse to treat him. Then we have the knife. Doctors are gain power from their skill, but is it enough to counter a the power of a criminal gang? And the gang member depends on the (aspiring) doctor for his life, while the doctor's life depends on the gang member's life. Ze Rui constantly uses words like "brat", "kiddo" etc to further demonstrate the power dynamic at play (cause in Asia seniority = social power and respect), but Zong Yi hardly ever argues about the use of these words. Like, he isn't even trying to establish that he too, has some power over the situation. Is he truly so accepting of others' holding power over him or is he just unbothered cause he treats Ze Rui's words as completely irrelevant to his life? Hmmmm. Who exactly has the upper hand rn? I'd say it's Zong Yi rn, but then again Ze Rui can successfully overturn anything Zong Yi does (like the locked door) and force Zong Yo to do his bidding soo...fd

[talesofwell]

Respawn Errors Teaser/WIP

An actual coherent WIP, with (mostly) complete scenes and no randomly ending in the middle of a scene! Technically a WIP since there's going to be a lot more to this short; I guess this could be considered as part one of Respawn Errors? Even though I do want to post the whole short as one piece once it's done. I dunno, just wanted to throw this up.

Summary: Something's gone wrong with respawn...

——

Respawn Errors

You could always feel a respawn error. The fact that there was any feeling at all told you what it was. Respawn was painless, entirely sensationless even. You died, then opened your eyes again in the respawn room as good as new. It took ten, or fifteen, or however many seconds (depending on how often you’d died already), but it felt like no more than a blink. Just dead, then not.

Respawn errors, though… Whether it ended up just leaving you with a new scar, or rearranging your organs in all kinds of fun and painful ways, you felt it. Sometimes it was something as simple as pain or injury, but there was also full-body pins and needles, memory loss, nausea, panic attacks, dizziness: the whole list of shitty side effects.

This was different. BLU’s Scout had experienced more than his fair share of errors, enough to know what could be considered “normal”, under the circumstances. This time there was no pain, no nausea, none of the usual unpleasantness. Instead, there was a… giddiness. A flush of almost orgasmic ecstasy that raced from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He felt stretched, then compressed, and then the entire world—such as it was, in the void—pulsed.

He opened his eyes in the respawn room, gasping and stumbling as he hadn’t since his earliest days with BLU. Something was… not wrong. Different. His hands flew, feeling across his torso, arms, legs, crotch, head. Nothing felt out of place, and he didn’t seem to be growing anything new. He wasn’t spitting blood, and his memory was still intact; he remembered the RED Soldier’s shovel swinging in to split his skull all too well. There had to have been an error, though.

He looked around, and froze. He was… He was usually taller than the benches in the respawn room, right? Wait, of course he was taller than the fucking benches, what the fuck was was he thinking? Why did they seem so tall, then? And everything else, for that matter. The lockers were steel cliffs a good thirty feet away, and the handle of one of Hardhat’s toolboxes sat right at his eyeline.

“SCOUT?”

Scout yelped and covered his ears, looking up to see who’d screamed at him. Up, and up, and up… His eyes went wide, and his hands fell limply to his sides.

“Hardhat…? I- I think I need some help.”

——

There he was, the tricky wanker. Sniper rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. He’d been trying to get a clear shot on the damn RED Sniper for the last hour, but the bastard was always just too far around a corner, or just below a windowsill. Now he was sitting pretty, thinking he was so clever, ducked down behind a shipping container with his Huntsman and waiting to nip off any Blues who made it over the moat. Bloody drongo, Sniper thought, settling his rifle stock against his shoulder and laying his finger on the trigger. Gotta wait for just the right-

“Sniper!”

He jerked, scope jittering away from his target. God, he’d been sitting still too long if he was this twitchy. He cursed under his breath, gritting his teeth, and slowly turned from the balcony window he’d been sniping through.

“Truckie, you’d better have a damn good reason for interruptin’ my- What the bloody Hell!”

He leapt back from what Engineer thrust toward him. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. It looked to be a perfect, doll-sized replica of Scout. And it was cursing furiously in a tiny voice as it flailed and writhed in Engie’s hold.

“Lemme go, Hardhat! This ain’t fuckin’ funny! Put me the fuck down! This ain’t fuckin’ helpin’!”

Sniper bent down slightly, pushing up his aviators. “Strewth… Is that Scout?”

“Fuckin’ right it’s Scout, numbnuts!” The tiny figure in Engie’s hands pedalled his feet desperately before going limp with a defeated sigh.

Sniper couldn’t believe it. It was Scout, maybe a foot tall but otherwise still bearing perfect adult proportions. Engie held him with a hand under each armpit, though he was small and thin enough that one hand easily could have encircled his entire body. Sniper curiously tipped back the bill of Scout’s tiny cap; a baseball bat about as long and thick as a half-used pencil swatted his hand.

“Hey, fuck off!” Scout barked. His voice was high and almost tinny, but distinctively Scout’s for all that. “Will ya quit starin’ and fuckin’ help me? Hardhat’s just been runnin’ around lookin’ for ya, holdin’ me in this-” He looked over his shoulder at Engineer and bellowed schreechily, “-fuckin’ retarded way! I can fuckin’ walk, gears for brains!”

Engie frowned at Scout, but set him down on the crate that Sniper used as a coffee table during fights; Sniper’s tall coffee mug stood almost as high as Scout’s waist. Scout started to sit, but, realizing the mug would likely be taller than him if he did, remained standing with a scowl. He started pacing across the crate-top instead, his cleats making a soft tik-tik-tik against the wood.

Sniper did sit, and Engie as well—they were still beside the window in plain view, when all was said and done. Lighting a cigarette, Sniper watched Scout sulkily stalk from one side of the crate to the other, occasionally giving the coffee mug or that one exposed nailhead a kick.

“So… how in the Hell-?” he started, frowning when Scout winced and covered his ears.

“Christ, lower the volume, wombat,” he said. “Ev’rythin’s right loud.”

Sniper raised an eyebrow, but obligingly lowered his voice. “What happened?” He frowned at Engie. “Don’t tell me this is some kinda experiment ya roped him into?”

“Hell no!” Engie yelped, and Scout cursed.

“Seriously! Hardhat, we been over this!”

“Sorry, son, sorry,” Engie said, patting Scout on the head. Scout growled at him. “But this wasn’t me. I think somethin’s gone wrong with the respawn system. Real wrong.” He poked Scout in the side, which sent him stumbling halfway across the crate. “Tell him.”

Scout glared, rubbing his ribs, but he sighed and looked over at Sniper. “It felt like a respawn error, kinda. I mean, the fuckin’ RED Soldier bashed me, and I was actually feelin’ shit before I came back. It felt… nice, though. Kinda. I dunno!” He threw up his hands. “I just died and fuckin’ respawned like this! Hardhat was already there, and he brought me t’you so we could try to figure this shit out.”

“I think that when-” Engie made a soothing gesture when Scout flinched and opened his mouth to scold again. He said more softly, “I think that earlier, when the Demos went boom and took out halfa both teams, it was too many simultaneous respawns fer the system t’handle. Now it’s all… screwy. I gotta admit, I came out just a li’l before Scout and I felt the same kinda thing. Doesn’t seem t’be anythin’ wrong with me yet, though.”

“Bullshit,” Scout said. “Total bullshit. I get the fuckin’ Thumbelina treatment and Engie’s fuckin’ fine?”

“I said there ain’t nothin’ wrong yet, son,” Engie said. He looked uncharacteristically grim. “Who knows what mighta happened that just ain’t had the chance t’trigger yet?”

Sniper took a drag from his cigarette and scratched at the long scar running along his left cheekbone. “Has anyone else respawned since? D’ya know?”

“I saw the RED Scout bite it on our way over here, but I dunno if the Reds are havin’ the same problem,” Engie said, chuckling when Sniper blew a weak plume of smoke at Scout, who coughed and staggered, waving his hand frantically before his face. “I didn’t see any a’ours, but who knows what’s happened in the last couple minutes?”

Sniper grunted. The sounds of battle beyond the sniper deck hadn’t stopped during the course of their conversation. Scout was peeking out the window, having moved away from the smoke cloud and leaning carefully around the edge of the frame. He winced when blue Pyro-chunks went fountaining up in front of him.

“Pyro’s out,” he said, shrugging and stepping back from the window to lean against Sniper’s mug. “Maybe we should head back to the respawn room, meet up with him and see if anythin’s wrong.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea, Twinkle Toes,” Sniper said. He got to his feet, tucked into the corner, and plucked Scout up by the back of his shirt. Scout yelped and squirmed, but settled once Sniper lowered him onto his shoulder. He chortled—which was odd in itself; Scout didn’t chortle—and stood with his feet firmly planted against Sniper’s vest and a hand keeping him steady by gripping Sniper’s hat.

“Whoo! Hi-yo Silver! Awaaaaay!” he crowed, pointing in the direction of the respawn room. Engie snorted behind a hand, and Sniper rubbed his eyes with a weary groan on his way down the ramps.

“How is he even more annoyin’ when ya shave him down by five feet?”

“Less talkin’, more walkin’! Mush, wombat! Mush! To Pyro!”

——

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Breathing was hard, his limbs felt heavy, and his clothes were way too warm and tight. The RED Scout groaned, eyes squeezed shut, and laid a hand against his forehead, battling nausea and a throbbing pain in his temples as he respawned. What the fuck?

“Eugh, what the Hel- Mmph!”

Scout slapped a hand over his mouth. That was not his voice. That was not his voice. It was deep and a little raspy, and there wasn’t any of the usual (slight) whistly lisping that came from his not-really-that-big-fuck-you front teeth. The usual inflections were there, but it lacked the pitch and smoothness that he’d come to associate with his own golden pipes over the years.

He coughed and cleared his throat, and was about to speak again when he caught sight of the hand he’d coughed into. He stared, raising the hand, fingers spread, before his face. The fingers were long and slender, and clothed in black leather. Gloves. He never wore gloves, especially not gloves like these, which even to Scout’s eyes looked fancy and expensive.

“What the fuck!”

That voice! It wasn’t his voice! He looked down at himself, and wailed. There was no familiar red t-shirt and dark grey-brown pants, high white socks and worn red sneakers. Instead, there was finely crafted, almost brick-red Italian wool—suit jacket, waistcoat, and pants—and he could feel some kind of smooth, flowy fabric encasing his arms beneath the jacket. Even his underwear felt… soft. Kinda nice, actually…

“Ugh, Dio mio, what ith thith fresh Hell?”

Scout spun, and recoiled with a yell. That was him! He was standing there, a few feet away. It was like looking in a mirror, if the image in the mirror had suddenly stepped through and taken a life of its own. It spoke with his voice, muttering barely audible curses, and looked thoroughly disgruntled. Scout felt sick.

He cautiously shuffled forward and poked… himself in the shoulder, drawing a sharp flinch and a decidedly un-him-like sneer.

“Are… are you me?” he said weakly. The man that looked like him rolled his eyes and flicked him sharply in the forehead. The familiar gesture drew out an equally familiar response:

“Aw, fuck off Spy!” Scout blinked, and stared. “Spy?”

“Obviouthly, you mitherable petht.” Spy-in-Scout’s-body glowered, crossing his arms over his chest. Scout’s chest. Fuck, this was weird. “Ugh, why can’t I thpe- thpea- speak properly? Merda, thith ith- thisss isss-” He threw up his hands. “Nel nome di Dio! What ith wrong with you!”

“Wrong with me? I can barely fuckin’ breathe, my head’s fuckin’ killin’ me, I feel like I’m gonna puke, and I’m in your fuckin’ body, apparently! That’s what’s fuckin’ wrong with me!” Scout snapped back. “What the fuck is goin’ on!”

[...]

Spy was silent for a long moment, just looking at him, before he said, “Have you had a thig-” He closed his eyes, took a slow breath, and continued in a more deliberate and grating tone, “Have you had a cigarette since you respawned? Merda de Dio…”

Scout blinked again and opened up his—Spy’s—suit jacket, searching for the pocket where Spy kept his disguise kit. Spy rolled his eyes and Scout yelped when he slapped his hands away and dug through the jacket’s left inside pocket—and his pants pocket—to retrieve the disguise kit and an engraved Zippo lighter. Muttering to himself in Italian, Spy took out a cigarette, almost put it in his own mouth, then groaned and handed it to Scout. Scout reached for the lighter, but Spy flicked it to life himself and lit the cigarette for him before stuffing the lighter and disguise kit in his pocket. Scout’s pocket. Scout’s body’s pocket. Scout pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to shake off another wave of… he could only call it “existential confusion”. He’d put up with some pretty freaky shit in the time since he’d signed on with RED, but this definitely took the fucking cake.

He took a puff on the cigarette, grimacing at the taste and the burn in his throat and on his tongue. How could Spy smoke these things? Weed he could get behind, but cigarettes were just fucking gross. The throbbing in his temples almost immediately lessened, though, and the nausea receded. He even felt a little more relaxed. He took another puff, and crossed his arms over his chest as he slowly started feeling less like he’d been run through the tumble-dryer on high. He looked down at the still lispily muttering Spy (oh fuck, was he really that fucking short?) and let out a sigh.

“If ya buzz the esses like zees when ya talk, ya won’t lisp as much,” he said, “or keep yer tongue further back from yer teeth when ya say ’em.” He shrugged when Spy shot him a suspicious look. “I don’t want ya makin’ me sound like a fuckin’ lispin’ moron.”

“But that ith… is so far removed from the truth, I would not want to sound disingenuous,” Spy said, blinking and making a small sound of surprise; the lisp, and the slight whistling accompanying it, still clung, but it was definitely less pronounced. “It actually works. Huhn.”

Scout rolled his eyes. “After years a’speech therapy, I’d hope it fuckin’ works.” He took another puff and looked for a spot to ash, eventually settling on just ashing off to the side when no likely ashtray presented itself. “Now that y’can talk without givin’ yourself an aneurysm, will ya tell me what the fuck is happenin’? Is this…”

He had been going to say “normal”, but the word was so far from their current situation, he couldn’t get it out. Spy grimaced and looked down at himself, tugging at the hem of his t-shirt.

“No, this is not something I have ever heard of, or experienced, before,” he said. He examined his hands closely, frowning at the calluses on his fingers. “Respawn errors are a fact of life out here, but this is decidedly abnormal.”

“‘Abnormal’? Understatement a’the fuckin’ century there, pal,” Scout grumbled. In his (admittedly limited) experience, respawn errors meant a headache, or feeling dizzy, or needing to puke. This was… “This is so fucked up. What the fuck are we supposed to do? Die again and see if it gets fixed?”

“Under more ordinary circumstances, suicide may be preferable to our current situation,” Spy said wryly, “but if respawn is malfunctioning badly enough to cause-” His mouth twisted. “-whatever this is, I would rather avoid risking it failing completely if I die again. So, no, dying again is something that we should do our best to avoid, I think, if at all possible.”

“It was just a suggestion, Jesus Christ,” Scout said. “I don’t hear you offerin’ anythin’ to get us outta this.”

“Because I have not had a chance to think, between shepherding you through how to satisfy nicotine cravings and trying to figure out how your malformed mouth works.” Spy ignored Scout’s indignant “Hey!”, and rubbed at his forehead, shutting his eyes. “Ingegnere is our best chance to fix this, clearly. Respawn is facilitated by a machine in some capacity, after all. More complex than his sentries, but he is still more likely to have at least some idea of what to do with it than anyone else. We should go find him, and see-”

A sharp electrical bzzzt filled the respawn room and Scout and Spy both covered their ears with cries of pain. For a few endless, agonizing seconds, Scout felt like his entire skull was being criss-crossed by live electrical wires; it was as though all of the bones in his head were vibrating. His vision faded into a void of white, and he heard nothing but a nerve-piercingly high, almost electronic whine. It was like chewing on foil or hearing nails on a chalkboard, but a million times worse.

Then, in a blink, it was gone. Completely. No fading or winding down; just gone, as if a switch had been flipped. Scout let out a hard breath and lowered his hands from the sides of his head. Oh, come the fuck on! What now? He didn’t need any more weird shit on top of everything else going on right now. He looked quickly around the room. Everything seemed the same. Spy stood before him (still in Scout’s body, unfortunately), though he was now cursing and rubbing his ears, and nothing about the respawn room itself had changed.

Wait. One of Wrenches’s toolboxes sat a little ways behind Spy. That hadn’t been there before. Frowning, Scout stepped past Spy and reached for the toolbox’s handle.

The toolbox unfolded with a smart snap before his fingers came within an inch of it, and Scout yelled and jumped back as a sentry started assembling itself before him. The clack and rattle of metal was the only sound after that brief cry as both he and Spy stared, watching the level one sentry build itself up before settling with a sharp, high beep. The turret head swiveled around the room, more quickly than Scout had ever seen a sentry move. It turned its barrel first on Scout, then on Spy. It beeped again, swiveled back to Scout, then to Spy, still moving too fast. Scout frowned when the sentry let out another beep, this one shriller, almost a sound of alarm. He glanced at Spy, who was scrutinizing the sentry with an air of blatant disbelief. There was no fucking way…

Swallowing hard, Scout crouched down to the sentry’s level. Its turret swung back to him, its barrel extending and retracting as it continued emitting periodic alarm beeps, and Scout hesitantly reached out to lay a hand on top of it.

“Wrenches? Issat you?”

He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry when the sentry bobbed its turret up and down in an unmistakable nod.

——

[maddys-nerd-blog]

ITS RESCUE TIME FELLAS

For real this time!! Here’s the action packed second part to this chapter!! You’re gonna see a much of Katie’s feral side coming out cuz of the jaguar form. Plus, some Raph, Casey and Mikey action goodness! General warnings like swearing and heavy violence once again!

Hun is not gonna have a good time 🤣🤣🤣

LET US GET TO THE ACTION!

Ransom 5

A TMNT Crossover Short Story Fanfic

Part Five: Revenge

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… “— eave the freaks—“…

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… “— want guns on all doors—“

… a harsh thud, something being thrown without care…

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… distorted voices clashing left and right, belligerent and vile, resisting, almost screaming…

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… “—ou fucking—“

… a sharp crack, something being hit…

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…

…

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… thu-thump. Thu-thump…

Thu-thump. Thu-thump…

Thu-thump.

Thu-thump…

… was he alive?

… he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure what this was.

It was as if he’d been submerged underwater: all sound escaped him, muted, garbled by the unknown. If there was any type of noise it was drowned out by a rush of water that pounded through his ears, blocking it out. His body was weightless, drifting aimlessly in this eternal darkness, dragging, pulling, clawing for his soul as invisible hands latched around his limbs and held on. Naturally, he was stricken by a wave of terror.

Was this the afterlife? Purgatory?

Or the entrance to Hell?

He prayed it wasn’t the latter.

He hoped he’d pass on to a place where his soul was forgiven for all the stupid bullshit he’d done as a young man. He wondered if Ma was waiting for him on some sunny beach shore. She always loved the beach…

He thought about the light of his life, emeralds gemstones for eyes dazzling, a radiant smile set ablaze by her beauty.

He thought of her voice… hoping it would lull him into a sense of calm before he went…

…

…

…

… but… he remembered…

Voices. Echoes, words reverberating back at him from the void, filling his being with a sense of purpose…

‘You wouldn’t cut your losses and turn tail, would you?’

‘DAD! GET UP!’

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thumpthumpthump—

Leo… Kathrine… they were in trouble!

He started willing himself to move from this void; arms as heavy as lead writhed and struggled, his legs kicking through a sea of molasses, body thrashing and swimming against the strain of heaviness. The hands around his soul wouldn’t release him so easily, anchored to the very essence of his aura to sink him further. No! Opening his mouth he screamed, screeching and shaking, wailing, crying out in protest. There was nothing he could do, nothing else to offer, nothing but his soul to sustain him as he fought to break free. There were people who needed him. There were things he needed to fix. There were still experiences he had yet to try.

He still needed to help his family.

He still had to look Kathrine in the eye and finally say with his full chest, ‘Marry me goddamn it.’

He swam, he fought, he writhed and kicked and stretched his arms and pleaded, please please I know I ain’t th’ best guy, I ain’t th’ hero, I know I made mistakes, I know I’m not worthy but lemme see her one more time, lemme help her son, please!

With the combined strength of a thousand men, he ripped himself free of the darkness, swimming, swimming, fighting to reach the surface with all his might, extending his hand to grab on to something to pull him free—

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

Oxygen.

Awareness.

Sound.

Pain.

This was the reality Danny was brought back to as consciousness crashed into his body like a freight train going off the tracks. Lungs seized momentarily as air caught in his chest, dented ribs yearning to bring life to deflated organs. He choked down the wheezing gasp that brought with it a coppery taste which coated his tongue, making his nausea worsen. Vicious, horrible head pangs hammered all over his skull and brain hard enough to make coherent thinking a chore. A sticky liquid had crusted his hair and caked around the entire right side of his head he realized, not too keen to face the possible doom of hemorrhaging. Danny briefly worried if he were going to slip back into unconsciousness due to the head trauma.

“—all four of you to take point at the rear. Cover the block. Scope the entire street.” Commanded a gravely voice. “She won’t get three feet inside this place without getting shot.”

“Mmmph!” Protested a muffled cry. “Mmhprh!”

“Don’t worry, turtle. First your ‘mother’, then the two of you. If the rodent isn’t already dead, that is.” The deep rumble of insidious laughter followed.

Danny found it a battle to pry his eyes open— his right, he discovered quickly, was swollen shut, only allowing his left vision, albeit hazy and unfocused.

The world spun. He found he was laying on his back, bright lights blinded his retinas and rendered the yōkai queasy. Colors were a kaleidoscope. As he tilted his head to fall to the side where the voices were loudest, he regretted the motion when his skull rattled with a vengeance. Figures taking shape with darker shades stood out, amongst them the giant of a man walking away from a green and blue mess kneeling in front of him.

Leo.

Leo, who sat with his back facing Danny, wrists painfully tied, torso wrapped in rope, ankles also bound glaring at the human as he left. The hoodie he wore was torn at the shoulder and collar. Danny’s heart sank when he spotted the familiar gag fixed back around his mouth to stifle his speech. But his posture suggested defiance. Bound hands were tightened into fists. He knelt in front of the rat with a level of determination, hatred in his eyes.

Was he… shielding him?

Danny blinked his good eye slowly, blinking back the misty vision of the world to better clear its fog. When he breathed his lungs ballooned and his chest heaved, causing the man to choke on air as he coughed against an obstacle stuffed into his mouth. Fucking Hun. First he tries t’ pummel me t’ death then he gags me? If he wasn’t suffering from internal bleeding he’d have rolled his eyes. Danny raised his head as much as he could, pushing the surge of nausea aside as he worked the energy to make himself known to the kid. So, twisting his torso to turn his body to the side the yōkai mewled to get his attention.

Leo’s body went rigid the moment Danny spoke. He whirled himself around, eyes wide, meeting the gaze of his caretaker with a sense of shock. Violet rings hung thick under puffy eyes like he hadn’t gotten any rest in a month, along with a nasty gash across the bridge of his beak that stained the cloth around his face. There was hesitation lingering from the boy’s being, not quite sure if he was imagining things or if Danny truly was alive.

Danny, stubborn as always, chirped weakly to settle his anxiety.

Instantaneously the mutant’s eyes watered. The way his eyes crinkled around the edges, the way his expression brought such a wave of relief, Leo sounded ready to burst at the seams. He whimpered to his guardian in a manner that suggested concern— no doubt about the current condition he’d been forced to endure. He clearly didn’t know the extent of his injuries. For all he knew, his internal bleeding could be getting more severe the longer he laid here like a slab of concrete.

And yet Danny still found the strength to offer Leo a smile. A crooked, weary, broken smile with bloodied teeth chomping down around the gag to provide some semblance of comfort to the boy.

Leo’s whimpering turned into sobbing. Thin tears trailed along the curves of his wounded face, evidence of being pushed too thin, of the last three days worth of stress and confusion catching up to him. Danny’s heart ached for the poor thing; how long had he been out? How long had this kid believed he’d been dead?

Worse yet… what time was it?

Danny’s golden orbs flickered past Leo’s shoulder to gauge what was going on. There were men stationed at the garage entrance— he counted twenty goons all displaying the Purple Dragon logo on their vests, more than he’d previously calculated— armed with firearms of different make, pistols, shotguns, rifles. Hun was talking to three other guys, telling them to head to the back with the others on the second floor. But when he craned his sore neck up to look up at the ceiling once more to find, amidst all the irritating lights currently driving pins into his eye, the skylight displayed a sea of stars drowning in a darkening dusky sky.

Fuck. He thought with a twinge. If th’ time limit is gettin’ close then I gotta figure out how t’ get loose if I’m gonna give Kat any kind of assist once she gets here.

Danny didn’t have to struggle to know he was still tied up; the way his fingers twitched told him his circulation was cut off, they were freezing cold. Movement was still limited by the restraints but what little he could do wasn’t much. Unless he wanted to wriggle around like a hooked bass and speed up the process of his internal bleeding, that was. There was no way he’d be able to get his hands free, he knew, but what else could he possibly do?

At this rate, Kat was good as dead.

Danny twisted one hand around in the bonds, ropes biting down into torn flesh under his fur. Blood crusted between his hands and fingers. No dice. Grumbling with agitation, he kicked his legs out in anger, tail curling around his ankles—

He went rigid. His eye went wide. Hold on a minute…

Tail?

Hadn’t Hun snapped it with the crowbar? With bated breath he went to shift it just slightly enough to evade prying eyes. The bottom half of his tail hadn’t been busted. The upper half was terribly broken, but from the mid-point down he had full mobility of the appendage. There was a searing pain that shot to his spine when he moved it… but it was free.

Holy fuck. Holy. Fuck!

He had an out.

Hun wasn’t counting on him regaining consciousness. He probably assumed he’d done enough damage to leave him totally out cold through the night and hadn’t accounted for the likelihood of him waking up. He’d left his tail unbound.

Danny’s grin turned evilly cocky behind the cloth. Ya messed up, fuckwit.

Sluggishly the yōkai slithered the tail towards the easiest place to reach, his feet. If he could get them free, Danny could sit upright and hopefully untie Leo’s hands— it was a long shot, but it was still a plan. Danny fussed with the knots of the ropes tethering his feet together, the tip of the tail tugging at the sturdy restraints with all the strength he could muster. He must’ve been messing with the damn knot for what felt like an eternity, meanwhile Leo sat vigil at the yōkai’s side, unwilling to let his guard down.

Danny could feel his throat tighten with agony, breathing growing more difficult. The thought briefly came to mind; ‘What if I bleed out? What if I got some kinda puncture in my kidney or liver? What if I’m close t’ passing out before Kat gets here?’

The thought scared him. And he didn’t get scared easily.

He couldn’t die yet. Not when Leo still depended on him. Not when Katie was at risk of getting gunned down. He had to pull through long enough for help to arrive.

He had to. He HAD to…

The knots were starting to give to his persistence, he could feel them waning. That gave him hope. If he could just keep up the pace—

“Well lookie here!”

Danny’s heart thudded in his chest, gaze rising to locate Hun as the bigger man finally took notice of Danny’s awakening. Leo’s anger reappeared, his hands balled into fists, snarling behind the gag as best he could. Fuck, not now. Not now not now why NOW?

“I thought you were dead!” Hun chortled— too loud, too much soprano, too much noise in his jelly-like brain— “You certainly looked the part all damn day! The blood that came pouring outta your ugly face after I beat you senseless? I’ve seen faceless nobodies bleed out a thousand times, but you’re a stubborn little roach!”

Hun stormed towards the two; Leo instantly began to shout around the gag furiously, thrashing in his binds. Danny wanted to calm the kid down before the thug laid his hands on him, but it was too late. As Leo created more noise, Hun shoved the helpless turtle aside, causing him to tumble onto the ground with a heavy slam. Unable to use his arms to catch his fall the turtle struck the concrete unforgivingly hard in a pathetic display of writhing.

“I must’ve crushed th’ back of your head,” Hun surmised, grabbing Danny by the bloodied collar of his shirt. He held him aloft like he weighed nothing, dangling the rat man with one hand in the air. “Your eyeballs almost popped outta your skull! I was certain I killed you, but,” he chuckled. “Guess I didn’t hit you hard enough.”

“Mmrgh…” Danny mumbled behind his gag in an attempt to speak but it did nothing. Keep yer eyes on my face and not my feet, just keep flapping yer yap. All I need is a minute.

“You should’ve seen your boy,” Hun scoffed. “The dumb animal really went savage on me!” Lifting his right hand the man showed off a set of severe bite marks around the space between his thumb and index finger that punctured deep enough to draw blood. Holy shit, LEO did that? “Tried taking my thumb off. Put up a pretty decent struggle before I shut him up. He really doesn’t know when to pick his fights… I guess he takes after you.”

Don’t let him get t’ you don’t let him get t’ you, he’s trying t’ crack you down, do not let him win!

“You should’ve heard it! ‘Don’t touch my Dad! Leave him alone! Wake up, wake up!’ I didn’t know turtles were so worthless without their guardians protecting them. He thought he was actually going to SAVE you!”

Danny’s hands twitched, unable to move, unable to wrench himself free. If he’d had the power he’d have gouged Hun’s eyes out. His expression turned vile against the swelling and bruising. Just a little bit further, he could feel the bonds at his feet giving way. Come on, come on, PLEASE!

“He kept saying, ‘My Dad’s hurt, do something! My Mom will kick your ass!’ I’ve never heard something so hilarious in my entire life! You freaks are so loyal it makes me SICK!” Hun brought Danny closer, their faces eerily inches apart to the point where Danny could see the deep brown irises of the human man, how sinister they were, how his pupils shrank with sadistic glee at the yōkai’s plight. “Why is it you lot are so determined to protect each other? Why do you go so far just to save your kin? In my world, it’s every man for himself. You should know! You were a convict too; I can see it in your eyes, you know what I mean. You’re a guy who’s been in the slammer once. I don’t forget that look in anyone’s eyes. Why stick your neck out for the sake of this dumb terrapin?”

Around his feet the ropes went slack. They slipped to the ground, unnoticed.

Somewhere overhead shadows fell past the skylight, the evening finally setting in. Four figures hovered from the glass panes.

Danny’s heart skipped a beat. Kat.

Hun, confused, looked up to inspect the strange arrival. “Who—“

This moment of distraction was all Danny needed. He held his breath, counted to three—

CRACK! “AUGH—?!”

Danny threw his head forward and smashed his brow directly into Hun’s, hearing the familiar sound of bone shattering. The pain that erupted throughout his entire skull added onto his other trauma and almost knocked him out cold, but he gnashed his fangs into the cloth and fought through it. The moment Hun staggered and his grip on his collar lessened, Danny quickly brought his knee up and, without giving him the chance to react, crushed it under his jaw and cracked his chin in one swift motion. He kicked off Hun’s chest to get himself loose, freeing him of the human’s hold as he dropped to his feet.

Don’t think, just move! Acting fast his aching tail lashed out, wrapping around Leo’s middle as he tried to make a desperate break for the nearest exit, dragging the bound turtle in tow. It didn’t matter if his hands were still tied, it didn’t matter if he could barely move, it didn’t matter, it didn’t, he had to get Leo out of here, clear a space, get him to—

Something was chucked into his spine.

He saw stars.

It hit him with such power it threw him off kilter, sending him tumbling, unintentionally dragging Leo alongside the rat. Danny heard a brick clatter to the wayside.

“YOU STUPID ANIMALS!” Hun tenaciously roared, slightly slurred from the broken nose he currently clutched, drawing a small revolver from his belt as he took aim…

Right for Leo, who sat entangled in the tail wrapped tight around his stomach, who stared at the gun with this strange blank expression, caught in headlights, motionless as though he’d already mentally accepted his fate.

Time slowed.

‘All it takes is one second, Daniel.’

Hun cocked the safety off.

‘One second to choose between life… or death.’

Danny’s heart dropped with terror. He screamed, shoving himself in front of the kid, acting as a living barrier between him and the impending bullet, praying to God for a quick death, praying the shot didn’t go through him and into Leo, praying for Kathrine to forgive him; Kat, Kat, Kathrine I’m so sorry, I love you so much, please don’t hate me, please—

C

R

A

S

H

Glass exploded overhead. It rained down onto the unfortunate bastards caught in their deadly hail, spliced and diced as the shards fell, catching pieces of moonlight in their fractured panes.

Without warning, four shadows fell into the warehouse among them.

One hit the ground hard and fast, a tremor shaking the foundation of the first floor when he landed. Two others dropped stealthily silent at his side, framing the giant. All of them were wearing thick, heavy black clothes and masks.

The last slowly rose to her full height. Covered from head to toe in black, the woman leveled a pair of toxic green eyes onto Hun beneath the hood of her jacket, taking in her target.

In her hand dangled a revolver. The other, his Cloaking Broach.

Katie’s voice broke through the blanket of silence that captured the unexpected audience. With a murderous hiss, she spat Hun’s words right back at him. “You’re going to regret pissing me off.”

She raised her gun to the sky.

She fired.

BANG!

Her shot struck the circuit breaker in the ceiling, taking out all the lights. Electrical sparks showered down around the warehouse.

Soon, a cacophony of voices rang throughout the warehouse as Hun and his lackeys panicked.

“WHERE ARE THEY?! SOMEONE GRAB THE MUTANTS!” Hum exclaimed.

Then, another voice. “LEAVE NONE STANDING.” As dark green and purple tendrils warped around the slim figure of Katie in the pitch black, transforming the woman. Three silhouettes branched off.

Cries bellowed into the dark as the three moved at once. In a matter of seconds, all hell broke loose.

Danny wasn’t taking chances; tail tightening around Leo he all but hauled him out of gunfire range as bullets began to soar and whiz past his ear. The deafening screams and wails of the hapless goons went ignored.

Danny hadn’t gotten a decent look around the premises but he at least managed to find cover thanks to his night vision, however obscured it was; he ducked behind a tall set of crates, pulling himself and Leo behind the sturdy barriers. He didn’t know how long they would hold but for now, it would have to suffice. Despite the chaos unfolding around them he found it easier to breathe.

They found them. They came. They really came. Kathrine had pulled through.

He could feel Leo start to tremble; violent, terrified, full bodied shakes rattled the slider. His breathing turned uneven, uncontrollable. He heard him begin to weep.

Danny didn’t have to be the best medic in the world to know this was a panic attack.

He’d had a gun pointed right at him— he very likely could have been shot and had it not been for the timely intervention of their group, the turtle could have…

Acting on instinct the yōkai hugged the slider close to him— unable to wrap his arms around the boy, his tail curled tighter at Leo’s middle to shield him from the madness. Truth be told, Danny was scared shitless. Anything could go wrong. Anything could happen. But in this small corner Danny was all Leo had to protect him from whatever threat crossed their path. Hell or high water, he would die fighting to keep his promise.

Let them kill me first. I ain’t letting this kid down.

*********************

Five seconds.

That was all it took.

Five seconds for her to break the necks of the lookouts on the rooftop to get by undetected.

Five seconds for Katie to shatter the skylight windows of the warehouse and leap into the fray of goons packing heat.

Five seconds was all it took for her to move when she saw Hun point a pistol at her baby and the man she loved, who threw himself in front of the mutant red eared slider in an attempt to take the shot meant for the teen.

Five seconds of dark red tinting her world in a bloody film.

The Cloaking Broach effortlessly turned her from woman to yōkai, the cover of shadows illuminated her ghastly feline form as terrified thugs began to blindly open fire, pops of light like firecrackers indicating their unlucky locations. In one command her boys pounced into action: Raph taking the stairs. Casey covering the entrance. Mike advancing on the main floor.

Katie bared her fangs as a bloodcurdling growl rumbled deep in her throat, lowering herself into a crouch, the thin fur on her arms and neck rising with unbridled rage. The jaguar form granted her plenty of advantages, one of them the blessed gift of speed and inhuman strength. She had to make full use of their abilities before her stamina wore off. Mouth dropping open she released a gut churning screech that echoed throughout the facility.

Katie took off in a sprint.

Her hands grabbed one guy by the back of his shirt and seized him. One instantaneous snap to his neck and he crumbled. Kicking off his falling body she grappled another man by the torso and took him down, his gun firing sporadically as they collapsed. He didn’t get the chance to scream when she tore his neck open. She ripped the gun from his hands, taking shots towards where the stairs started as three goons tried to ambush Raph whilst he was busying himself with two burly looking jackasses.

Three shots. Three bodies staggering along the stairs. Katie continued moving.

She lunged for another big fellow, a woman this time, trapping her in a corner. She went to throw a fist, but Katie dodged. She moved to uppercut her, but she parried. Using her elbow Katie crushed it into his the and cracked two ribs. Finally she unleashed long, thick claws to sink them deep into the stomach and slashed it open. The sorry excuse for a woman gurgled something that sounded like ‘help’ under her breath. She thought she heard her wheeze, ‘I have babies.’

Katie spat on her.

No mother in her right mind would ever think of harming another’s child. Not unless they were depraved.

“GOONGALAAAAA!” Casey declared nearby, followed by a heavy thwack from his hockey stick as he struck someone. Seconds later an explosive hockey puck blew some guy far back into the brick wall. He skated around a pillar just in time to avoid being pelted with a piece of broken concrete, using the cover to thrust his arm out and catch the man in the torso and tase him with his glove. Dark blue light ignited around the man’s body as he was electrocuted without mercy.

Raph on the other hand sprang forward onto one goon, canines bared like a vicious snake ready to devour its prey. Sai in his fists he used all his strength to bring them up and into the shoulder blades of the hapless moron beneath him, pushing off the man to twist his body into the air and kick one leg outward, striking another bastard in the groin with powerful force. Tearing his sai out of his opponent’s arms he jumped to his feet and tackled the second to the ground, landing devastating punches one after another at the thug’s face, bellowing in outrage with each blow.

“THIS!” CRIK! “IS FOR!” CRUNCH! “MY BROTHER!” KRAK!

“You want some’a this, fool?!” Mikey’s tone suggested anger as he lashed out, nunchucks spinning rapidly, striking with precision and careful timing. The biggest of her kids battered and bludgeoned any man who tried to touch him, expertly weaving and leaping out of harms way in time as a shot nearly took the gentle giant down. He used his height to his advantage to gain leverage over his opponents, striking with deadly precision. “Come GET some!”

“FLUSH THEM OUT! I WANT LIGHTS, GET EYES ON THE FREAKS!” Hun screamed amidst the frenzy of rapid fire and ricochet bullets. “I WANT THEM DEAD!”

You’re going to be dead in ten minutes, but I’m patient, Katie thought.

She flipped over one guy like an acrobat, unknowingly catapulting into another duo of morons that managed to get some solid blows into her sternum and face as she struggled to gain her bearings. A couple of hits to the diaphragm rendered her momentarily stunned, fingers latching into her hair and ripping her backwards to deliver a strong-armed punch to her cheek.

“Stupid—“ Asshat hissed as he went to punch her in the nose. She caught his fingers in her teeth and sank them down to the point of breaking them. When the hand let her hair go Katie struck her palm straight up, breaking the teeth from his mouth and slicing his lips. Katie swung her hands in crazed, rapid motions, cutting him deeper, deeper, slicing his face and torso until she took him down to the floor. Whomever had tried to assist him ran away in fright— smart man.

“MA!” Raph yelled from the second floor, sai clashing into a shotgun, using the prongs to shove the barrel to the side and sideswiping his attacker to take him down. “Three o’clock!”

Her eyes widened. Turning in the direction of the crates, she caught a trail of blood streaking an unsteady line around the corner. In that bloody mess the footprints turned somewhere in the slew of storage containers.

Danny. Leo.

Katie just barely managed to avoid being stabbed from behind as a squealing simpleton attempted to run her through with a switchblade. Seizing his arm she snapped it at the elbow joint and rammed her own straight into his throat, proceeding to body slam him as she cracked his head open like a walnut. She tore the knife from his twitching fingers, clutching it in a fist, claws digging into the metal handle. Where was Hun?

“FUCKING— CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT! WHAT DO I PAY YOU IDIOTS FOR!” Hun shouted in outrage, the unmistakable sound of a Glock disengaged off its safety. “WHERE ARE YOU, RAT?! I’M ENDING THIS!”

Katie’s mouth twisted dangerously into a ravenous sneer.

The clock started ticking.

Ten.

She cut through the rest of the lackeys in her way, moving against the wave of bodies that struggled to find and subdue her. No. No. NO. No man was going to stop her now. Not while she was still breathing.

Nine.

Hun was a fortress as he pushed and shoved his cronies aside like they meant nothing, searching the crowd with ominous intent behind every fiber of his body. He grabbed one of the heavier crates and heaved it across the warehouse— her heart skipped a beat when the massive wooden box hit Mikey dead center in his chest and sent the ‘chuck wielder into a beam shell-first. The sound that came from the metal structure reverberated into her eardrums and made her fur stand straight. “MICHAEL!”

The orange masked teen huffed, getting back to his feet albeit shakily, spitting blood to the side and calling, “Good! I’m good! Just… dizzy!”

“Casey, cover Mike! Raph, on my seven!” Katie cried. She took point as she raced forward. “NOBODY follow me!”

She didn’t want them seeing what she was about to do.

Didn’t want them to see the carnage that was about to unfold.

That was her sin to bare. Not theirs.

Eight.

Hun pushed aside another crate, searching high and low. He fired his Glock randomly at something in his line of sight. The gunshot struck a solid object, but thankfully not any people. “Where are you?! When I get my hands on you both I’ll make you WISH you’d been shot!”

He fired somewhere near his left—

A muffled scream made her stomach seize.

Daniel. That was Danny’s voice.

And from where she stood a mere twelve feet away, she saw understanding cross Hun’s repulsive features.

He readied another shot with a click. “There you are.”

Seven.

Katie suddenly found her second wind. She flew— soaring off unmoving bodies and gaining momentum as she ran. The muscles in her calves and thighs tightened. The adrenaline rushed all over her body. Her veins were on fire.

She didn’t care.

As Hun prepared a second round she caught him off guard. She lunged, grabbing him by the shoulders as she hung on. Then she drove the switchblade into the depths of his back and started repeatedly shanking him. Hun screamed, blindly reaching behind him, trying to grab Katie to pry her off. She avoided his meaty hands, continuing to stab him in the muscled tendons of his back and aiming for his spine—

“FUCK OFFA ME!” Hun exclaimed. Without hesitation he threw himself back, and in turn, took Katie with him as he slammed her into the wall. She grunted, the pain exploding into her head and back, as Hun did this a second and third time. She lost her grip on the knife as it clattered out of reach into the dark.

Hun shook her off enough to seize her by her ankle, tearing Katie off and holding her aloft like a gutted fish. “YOU!“

Katie growled in return.

She twisted her body like a python, wrapping her arms around his appendage and sinking her claws through the sensitive skin around his forearm and shredded it completely open.

Six.

Hun reared back like a horse, wailing his arm around to toss her off. She didn’t let go. She instead haphazardly clawed her way up his arm, to his chest, to his shoulders as she latched on and embedded her teeth into his collarbone—

The gang leader punched her. He cracked her jaw as he dislodged her off him, taking the opportunity to snap her head back as he grabbed her throat and began to squeeze. Katie gagged, coughing, kicking and hissing against the ironclad grip around her windpipe. Her claws scratched his knuckles and wrist.

“Finally,” Hun panted, shaking the mutated woman like a ragdoll. “YOU’RE the top prize of New York? Another genetic hybrid? You’re a MENACE. I can’t believe you caused all this mayhem for worthless freaks! You really must be that deranged!” He crushed his thick fingers around her neck, making her spasm in agony as the ability to breathe was robbed from aching, broken lungs. “Just wait. I’ll take your pets. I’ll take them and turn them into handbags, sell their shells, turn their blood into addictive drugs… and I’ll make you watch it all. But not the rat. That rodent has something VERY special waiting for him. He’ll be saved for last. I’ll take all the fur from his skin piece by piece, I’ll rip his tail off, I’ll take his eyes… and you’ll see the life drain out of him as he dies at your feet… all the while I’ll keep you as my private little WHORE.”

Five.

The scent of death was so potent it could have strangled an elephant.

One thought integrated into her brain:

KILL.

Four.

Katie snarled. Not in despair…

But bloodlust.

She swung on him; thick black claws caught the bottom of the left eye and tore the fragile flesh. Hun yelped.

It wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t enough until she took his life.

Katie pile-drove both feet right into his abdomen and kicked over and over again, heels digging hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Pummeling her booted feet as physically hard into his pelvis, the force of the strike the final time made the buff gang leader spit blood as something in his pelvic region cracked. As soon as he was doubled over, Katie knocked both feet into his face and sent him sprawling. She wrenched her neck out of his hands and climbed on top of him. When he swatted at her she pushed his arms down.

Three.

Katie straddled the bigger man, hovering over the disgraceful cur— a primal animal ready to devour.

Hun’s eyes squinted through the daze of his attack, grinding his teeth in agony when he stared up at the jaguar woman. Realization dawned upon him. “You wouldn’t DARE.”

Katie slowly raised her arm. Claws extended out of the tips of her fingers.

Hum’s face blanched. “You wouldn’t!”

Two.

Katie’s eyes flickered a deadly shade of crimson. Her face turned feral.

She thought of Danny, the man she loved— his screams of anguish that would forever haunt her.

She thought of Leo, her son— pleading for Danny’s life, the horror that filled his voice.

She thought of Grace, her sister— handed off to Draxum and taken to a lab, being used for some kind of sinister experiment.

Letting him go would spell death for them all.

Letting him walk away after everything he’d done? All the lives he took? All the devastation he’d created?

Never.

One.

In the darkness the jaguar screeched, bringing her claws down like a guillotine.

In the darkness Hun drowned in his own terrified cry as she ripped his jugular open with her hands.

In the darkness, blood was spilled.

True to her word, Hun hadn’t lasted more than ten minutes.

**********************

The chaos lasted an eternity. That’s what Danny believed.

The gunshot was TOO close to his head and had missed by inches— inches. A single shot nearly blew his brains out and he would never have been known until it was too late. His heart had stopped after the attempt on his life, he could barely catch his breath after that. Any closer t’ th’ left, and I’d be…

He’d gone into a shock of sorts, freezing on the spot as he struggled to put the pieces of his composure back together. Air dragged into constricted ribs, quickened and erratic. But he refused to waver. During the horrific ordeal he never let Leo go, having clung to the teen as though he were a lifeline, holding him close to keep him safe. The poor kid was a hysteric mess, burying his face into Danny’s arm and weeping, terror plain to see from a mile away as tears stained his sleeve. Danny sat like steel. Never moved. Never once did he dare to ease his grip on Leo. Nobody was taking this kid, nobody was going to hurt him, nobody would get the chance, nobody—

The brawl came to an abrupt end. Doors flung open as petrified screams fled into the night.

Quiet settled over the warehouse. Dread hit him at once.

Where was Katie? Where were the boys? Had Hun done something, had he hurt her? Where did everyone go? Where were the gang members?

He felt Leo shiver against his side, whining worriedly. Danny’s tail pulled him closer, shielding him. Don’t let him out of your sight.

He couldn’t chance it.

He couldn’t risk being careless—

Physical contact viciously ripped him back into reality.

It became a battle to breathe.

Someone was touching him. Hands were on his shoulders someone was touching him they were going to start with him someone was going to take Leo away—!

NO!

Fight or flight set in. Primal desperation kicked his senses into overdrive. Danny began to buck like a lion, yelling and howling against his gag in outrage, no no no they can’t do this, they can’t, I’m not going down like this I’m not dying here I’m NOT LETTING THIS KID DIE. “MMHF— DNN PHHKN THHK HHMPH! DNN HHFF HHMPH!”

“DANIEL! DANIEL, DANIEL, IT’S ALRIGHT! IT’S ME!”

Clarity.

He froze. Was that…?

Eyes shot open in the dark—

Lights blinded him, white LEDs shooting daggers into sensitive retinas after spending days being shuttered away. Recoiling Danny groaned, shying from the source, the hands returning to touch his face, he fought the urge to scream—

“Daniel.” Gentle, soft as silk, quiet and comforting. “I’m here.”

He forced his blurry eyes open a second time. Blinking away tears that prickled weary orbs, Danny finally found a familiar face.

The most beautiful sight on this planet.

Emerald green eyes. Tan complexion. Tussled black hair. Smooth, elegant face. Blood speckled around her cheeks and neck. Bruising crawled throughout her throat. Her clothes were tattered and bloodied. A battery powered lamp sat at her side. She looked like she’d been run over by a truck.

But Kathrine was gorgeous. She always was.

“Oh God… Danny,” Katie whimpered. Tears stung his eyes as she spoke his name. “What’d he do to you…?”

His shoulders shook. His barriers came tumbling down around him. In this moment Danny broke into tears, cutting like razor blades down an injured face. He kicked himself for this internally. Men were supposed to stand strong in the face of despair. Men were supposed to be the fortitude for others to fall to in dire need. Men, his father taught him, would never shatter under the pressure. They couldn’t show sensitivity, they couldn’t CRY. It was a privilege reserved for women or weaker people with no backbone.

But damn his old man.

The woman he loved made it. Leo was okay.

They were going home.

Katie brought him closer, tilting his head forward to touch her forehead to Danny’s. Her fingers tenderly brushed his shaggy hair out of bloodshot eyes to better get a look at him, the motions familiar, slow, rhythmic, compassionate as she soothed the battered yōkai. As tears trickled down his muzzle and stained his gag he wept joyfully in her hands, yearning for his words, wanting dearly to voice his gratitude. She mumbled to him, “I’m here baby. I’m here. Sorry I took so long.“

Danny shook his head, trying to talk, trying to tell her it was fine, but he settled with a muffled grunt for now. This tender feeling of comfort provided by the woman who loved him was more than enough. He just wished he could kiss her.

At his side Leo squeaked, timid. Danny relinquished his grip on the terrapin, nudging him to look over.

Katie raised her head to find Leo. Her eyes widened painfully, and her lips quivered. “Mijo,” she gasped.

Leo almost instantly tried to hurl himself into her arms, but still being bound he teetered forward clumsily, Katie catching him before he could shatter his beak into solid ground and pulling him into a crushing embrace while the boy sobbed with relief in her shoulder. “Oh mijo…! Bromista! I’m so so so sorry, I’m right here, shhh-shhh-shh Mama’s got you.”

“Mom!” Coming in from behind the other three arrived, winded and sheathing their weapons, the battle over. “All clear. Those bozos ain’t coming back—“ Raph sported a gnarly gash under his jaw, his black clothes ripped and torn apart at the elbows, dark brown eyes turning alert as soon as he saw Leo. “Oh shit… Leo…”

Leo’s eyes poked around Katie’s shoulder, dark red and glassy. The slider’s expression fell even farther into remorse. He strained his hands against his bindings, weeping harder at the sight of the older turtle. Like being torn out of a trance Raph moved; lowering himself to a kneel as he drew the bound terrapin into a hug, forgoing his own injuries in favor of providing him reassurance. “I’m so sorry, bro… I’m so so sorry, I’m such an idiot, I never meant a word o’ what I said. I’m so glad yer okay.”

Nobody missed the warbled shake of Raph’s voice repressing tears.

Mikey wiped blood away from his nose with the back of his arm, cuts sinking deep into his legs and shoulders, shaking slightly from being chucked into a steel beam. His expression sank with empathy, but he immediately dropped to his knees to help his surrogate mother with the slider. “Hey Lee. We got your back.”

“I got the first aid kit,” Casey knelt at Leo’s side with a seriousness Danny had never seen before, rummaging around his duffle bag. His bottom lip was split, his left hand looked swollen, his ear bled from the earlobe, hockey mask pushed up to rest atop his head. “What looks the most bad?”

“There’s a gash on the bridge of his snout. This thing stopped a majority of the bleeding but it looks deep,” Katie gently tilted Leo’s head forward to grab ahold of the knot tying the gag in place. “Honey, hold still. I’ll get you loose. Mike, can you please untie Danny?”

Mikey nodded. He unclipped a shuriken from his belt as he moved behind the yōkai with a friendly grin. “‘Sup, rat dude! Don’t worry, I’ll have you outta this in a minute!”

He sat still for the bigger turtle as he worked on the ropes, sawing away at the restraints diligently. As he waited for his bonds to be cut Danny watched in silence as Katie took care of Leo, Raph using one of his sai to slice through the cords around his wrists like butter. She whispered consoling things to the kid as she fussed with the gag, some words in Spanish, others in English, but her attention never strayed off the slider. A mother in her element.

“Respira, cariño, solo respira profundamente,” Katie soothed, untying the cloth and easing it off his mouth, taking care not to disrupt the gash across his snout in the process. “Just focus on my voice. I’m not going anywhere.”

Leo hacked out a blood soaked wad of fabric, sputtering into a coughing fit that robbed him of the ability to use his words. Katie rubbed his shell in circular motions, easing the turtle forward in case he needed to vomit. Raph slashed the last of his bonds free in one fell flick of the wrist. Leo’s hands slowly moved to the front, both visibly shaking, the traumatic stress still apparent. “I gotcha Bud. You’re good. Ma, ya need th’ water?”

“Yeah. Leo, here, take a drink of this—“

“N-no…” Leo’s voice was a raspy whisper. Shaking his head he pointed a finger over to Danny, who blinked his good eye in befuddlement. “D-Dad… h-he needs it…”

The cords holding Danny prisoner finally snapped, Mikey’s impromptu knife severing the strands. Blood rushed back into numbed over fingers and made his hands prickle from the sensation of circulation returning, rushing back into aching veins that yearned for movement. A relieved huff pushed through the fabric still wrapped in his teeth.

Fingers found purchase on the knot at the back of his head, and two seconds later the gag was finally loosened from his mouth. Swollen clawed fingers reached up to yank the cloth free, spitting the long since blood saturated rag to the side as he nearly choked. He struggled to repress a wheezing fit, fighting to keep his pain to a minimum but his lungs ballooned in his ribcage and begged for air. What I wouldn’t give for a bottle of gin.

“Dad…!” Leo, unable to withhold his worry, attempted to go help him. But the slider was still weak, atrophy turning his arms into sore, shaking twigs that went to reach for the yōkai. He nearly collapsed had it not been for Raph helping him to kneel.

Katie squeezed around the two to fit in the space to reach Danny, her hands cupping his face as blood slithered down his chin. “Daniel. You okay?” She asked.

“‘M… fine.” Danny worked his words out of a parched throat begging for water. “J-Just a he-headache…”

Not falling for his charade Katie held a bottle of water to his lips, encouraging him to drink. “Hey, take it easy. You probably have brain fog.”

“Side note, is anyone else confused?” Mikey piped up, cutting the last of the ropes from the yōkai’s torso. “Leo must have some kinda concussion. He just called Danny ‘Dad.’ I think you got the wrong rat, man. Your Splints is gray.”

“D-Don’t… have one,” Leo cleared his voice to better speak. “I know… what I said.”

“Wait whaaaat?” The ridges of Mikey’s brows rose.

“Dan? Dad?” Casey had to ask next. “Dude, seriously? You sure you’re not concussed?”

“Yep.” Leo grinned. The motion almost looked too forced from the pain. “That’s… my Dad.”

Katie’s emerald orbs glistened— tears hanging at bay, a soft smile growing across her face. Glancing back at Danny she mouthed, “Really?”

Danny took one look at Leo, who grinned weakly at his guardian with happiness. He looked back to Katie, tired hands reaching up to run them through her hair. The feeling of her smooth locks beneath aching, battered palms grounded him. They anchored him.

They reaffirmed the reality of his survival, of all the suffering he’d endured to reach this point.

How he’d go through it all over again to keep them safe.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I am.”

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

ONE MORE CHAPTER AND ITS DONE!!!

Hope you liked this one! 😁😁

@queen-with-the-quill @tending-the-hearth @goldenflowerdragon @figuringitoutasigoalong @lameboobah

[halfcloven]

Lemme tell ya. Dreaming while your body is in a panic because you're low blood sugar is something else. It's like roleplaying the experience of dying.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with my insulin pump yelling at me that my blood sugar was at 51 mg/dL (For reference, non-diabetics are typically around 90-110 mg/dL. Having a blood sugar at or below 40 mg/dL is when things get deadly).

So I get up, consume a small feast of tortilla chips, and lay back in bed. Doctors say to check your blood 15 minutes after eating to see if anything has changed. It’s good to check in on your body often to make sure you’re not dying, y’know? However, I, being the sleepy head that I am, and understanding my body well enough to feel comfortable that the amount I ate more than did the trick, ended up drifting back to sleep in this state of my body screaming and setting everything to panic mode, while I was just wanting to get some goddamn rest. 

Over the next 30 minutes or so as my body remained in that state of panic, struggling to absorb the cheap carbohydrates in the chips, I continuously drifted in and out of sleep, with each oneiric journey met with an intense, terrifying vision. 

They all shared the same theme: Me, alone, standing before a great circular object of titanic, otherworldly proportions.

In the first, I stood before a massive, monolithic well in the ground. The sky was unnaturally black, like a million vials of ink had been spilled into it, with fingers crawling down to the horizon and pouring onto the earth in a thick smokey grayscale veil. The pit's pale brick walls stretched for miles—impossibly large, with the other side swallowed in shadow and impossible to see. I teetered at the edge, staring down into the silent maw. The wind was still. There was no choir of demons. No evil force threatening to push me in. No primal fear dear to me to torment me. Just me and the circular void.

A disconnection between my physical, mental, and dream self occurred. My heart was racing, my body still in that low-blood-sugar-oh-god-we're-dying-save-us-NOW panic that causes adrenaline to flow and sweat to pour. That little thing in the back of our heads that tries its best to keep us alive, reminding us that it’s probably not a good idea to stick our hands in vials of acid to see what would happen, was then slamming every button it had in its little limbic hole to try and save us. It thought we were dying.

My mental self ‘woke up’. The dream became a pseudo lucid dream, where I was aware of my teetering blood sugar, but only half-aware that I was dreaming. It was a strange state of understanding my situation, but not enough to the point of being able to wake up and fix it. 

Meanwhile my dream self, experiencing this mixture of an impossible setting before me, my body racing in panic, and understanding subconsciously that I truly was close to death’s door, enabled my mind to experience a special kind of dread I’ve never felt before.

There’s different kinds of dread one can feel. The dread of needing to give a speech. The dread of meeting new people. The dread of losing a sick loved one. Between the anxiety and fear one experiences encountering these various forms, I’ve always found a small mote of something within each one that personally helps me endure them: They have an end. Once you finish a speech, a wave of relief washes over you. After you meet new people, you can escape to wherever you need and recuperate. When those you care for pass away, the pain of seeing them go begins to ease.

This dread had no little mote. Nothing within it to hold onto. The absence of relief, the abandonment of hope. It was the dread of seeing death right by your side, holding your shoulder, patting you on the back. It was the dread of the moment right before your immediate, guaranteed death—that second where your mind recognizes its situation right before you hit the ground or right before something rushing towards your head at violent speeds, where you can only think, “Ah, I’m dead.” 

The delusions of the dream and anxiety-riddled mind firmly believed in that moment that I was in the process of dying, that the thing before me in the dream was whatever death was. It felt like the pit, death, was a sort of entity that was semi-present before me. Inhuman, indifferent to me being there, and absent to everything relating to the physical world. It was occupied somewhere else, doing whatever death-related task it was busy with.

This lasted on and off for roughly 30 minutes. The feeling I had throughout those 30 minutes was hard to describe. Almost like an absolute absence of everything I am, and of everything I had ever hoped of, dreamed of, and worked for. The thought just kept repeating in my mind: “This was it. I lost.” 

The following dreams after the great well had similar imagery. The second, I was above a black hole which rested in a great, dirt field, with the same black sky and monotone colors. The third, I floated above a massive black mirror that stretched across the earth, with ornate dark metal decorating its obsidian surface that reflected nothing. I can’t remember the rest.

Eventually, my body finally absorbed the carbs it was needing into my bloodstream and calmed itself, letting me drift into a now restful sleep and ending the near-death visions.

Not a real fun experience. Don’t recommend it. Be sure to keep a healthy, consistent eating schedule or else you get the death dreams.

[lifebloodshade]

Deep beneath the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, in the abyssal darkness the King so desperately sealed away, a final egg hatches, far later than its brethren.

The Vessel that emerges from this egg is weak, underdeveloped, overcooked. Weak, but desperate, and within moments is trying to climb, even as their body begins to fade and break. Despite the debilitating state of their body, their innate will to help the sibling who screams keeps them going. Even so, they don’t make it many platforms higher…

… but the ledge they do end on is covered in blue. Several unlit bulbs of cerulean are hanging overhead. As they begin to stumble and lose consciousness, they almost seem to hear a voice, a call, echoing through the mind they should not have.

They awake again, maybe hours later, perhaps decades. Alive. Whole, somehow, but… draining. Slowly. A small paw reaches up to feel at their mask, the other supporting their weight, and their tiny claws come away stained in blue. Even as they watch, the liquid absorbs back into their black carapace, leaving them confused as to, frankly, how they yet live.

When they manage to sit again, and observe their surroundings, they realize that they are not where they collapsed, anymore. They are in a room as blue as the fluid they now leak… and off in the bright expanse, they almost seem to spot a creature with several eyes, watching them. Waiting, almost.

Almost instinctually, they turn their head again, ignoring the drip, drip, drip, of blue, falling from their mask. Their eyes lock on a pedestal. No, not the pedestal itself, on the charm atop it. With wobbly legs and unsure steps, they stand and begin to toddle over to this pedestal… and when they finally lift the charm up, they again act on some strange instinct, and pin it to their chest. Instantly, they know its name. Lifeblood Core.

The vessel lets out a voiceless gasp as their body is filled once more with that blue fluid, making up for their weak body and frail shell. Quite the strange feeling… though no less strange than the soundless voice that plays through their mind.

“You must leave this room. Ascend. Find the Ghost. They will lead you, they will protect you. Go, frail one.”

And so they do, with nary a second thought. Not questioning whom that voice belonged to, because clearly, it belonged to their deity. Whom else would it be? How they know this, they are unsure, but they are certain of it.

So they climb, and climb, and climb. A soundless sigh escapes them, as they reach the top after an unknown number of tries spent falling to the ground.

Only to find a locked door. Of course, why wouldn’t they be stuck inside this hellish place.

As they pound their tiny fist on the door, weaponless and seemingly hopeless, they hear soft footsteps approaching from the other side. And… a touch of void, as well? But they are the only Sibling aside from their screaming one far above, are they not?

Quickly shaken from their thoughts, the door begins to rumble, shake, and glow… before vanishing altogether, in a burst of soul. The suddenness of it causes them to fall back, landing on the equivalent of their rump… only to find themselves staring into a familiar pair of dark sockets, deeper than they appear yet shallow and… shocked?

Two “voices” of voidspeak break the silence at almost the same moment. Just a single word, the same word, in fact.

…. Sibling…?

[sugawarassoulmate]

osamu i just 🍑 pleaseeeeeeee? congrats on 3k!!!

thaaaaank you

i kinda like this concept lol. sorry besties, this ain't bully!osamu lol

words: 611

cw: fem!reader, break ups, friends-with-benefits, implied oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, depressed!reader, minors dni

after your breakup, you were a wreck. four years down the drain.

you wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and refused to leave your apartment. nobody had seen you in weeks with the exception of osamu.

he’d make you some food to put in the freezer for you when your appetite decided to appear again, he cleans up the living room, waters your plants, does your laundry, drives you to and from work, makes sure you remembered to take a shower at least. by the end of the first week, he’s practically living with you.

he doesn’t even mind that you don’t thank him most of the time. not that you could, anytime you say more than two words, you burst into tears again. you just stare at him with a grateful look in your eyes and he nods his head and continues on his way.

osamu doesn’t mind picking up the pieces of your life—even if it means fucking you stupid on the nights you climb into his lap.

“oh, god, samu!” you cried, tears staining your already red cheeks. but sometimes it was hard to tell if you were crying for pleasure or sadness. you grabbed the sheets all the same, begging him not to stop. he continued, of course, wiping your eyes as his thick cock sinks into you once more.

“shhh, i got ya,” he coos, kissing your temple, both of your cheeks, and then your lips. “just focus on me…” this was a true testament to your friendship. this wasn’t out of love or some deep-seated passion, it was to feel something. the only time you weren’t void of emotion was when your best friend was deep inside your cervix.

of course, osamu did love you like anyone would love their friend, which is why he had no issue helping you out. those brief moments of euphoria were sometimes the only thing that could get you through the day. “samu, samu, i’m gonna cum! your cock feels so good—fuck!” you reach for him to kiss you, which he allows, letting his tongue enter your mouth. “cum inside me, wanna feel it. wanna feel something, please, please, please!”

“gonna cum fer me?” he breathes against your lips, drilling his cock deeper inside. fingers slipping between your bodies to tease at your clit, you make him groan when your walls clamp down around him. you cum in between sobs, nails raking down his back as you reach the high you’ve been craving.

your cunt sucks him in, refusing to let go. “cum in me, yeah?” you plea once more, voice gruff from screaming all night. “wanna feel it running out of me. wanna make a mess…” when you talk like that, it tugs at his heart. for a moment, he can imagine that you’re actually present in the moment and not using him to fill the emptiness inside.

osamu cums spills inside you, hearing you gasp at the fullness. you thank him in between kisses, tears still running down your face that he tries to wipe away. he takes a few second to get his bearings, face hidden in the crooks of your neck. when he pulls out, his load dribbles out of you, making a mess of your thighs.

but he can see the look in your eyes, the sadness slowly creeping back in at the realization that osamu’s not the person you want right now—just the one that’s available at the moment. grabbing your thighs, he presses them to your chest to properly fold you in half. you don’t even question it when he dives straight towards your cunt.

“lemme clean ya up,” osamu says, helpful as ever.

©sugawarassoulmate 2022 all rights reserved - please do not repost/translate my work on other platforms!

[snootlestheangel]

Screaming into the Void

SoapGhost Short Story: Apocalypse AU? I think? May turn into an actual story if y'all want, but fuck if I knew. If y'all want it as an actual story, lemme know and I'll do it over on ao3. Find me as FeelzMaster

It had been exactly three hours, forty two minutes, and twelve seconds since Ghost had last heard from Soap. Task Force 141 was assigned clean-up detail; get the vile monsters off the streets, out of the subways, eradicated from buildings, and separated from the population of survivors. They had been split up by a particularly grossly mutated mass of solid shadows, the slimy creature barely able to stand at its full height in the subway terminal.

Ghost remembers someone unfamiliar interjecting over the comms that a drop was about to be made on their location. He remembers Price screaming something about him and his men still being down there. Ghost doesn't remember how he lost Soap. He knows that Soap was behind him one second, the next the ceiling. Or technically road, as the subway is now buried in rubble. He remembers Price calling out. He remembers Gaz's weak response. He remembers not responding directly but instead calling for Soap.

"Soap, how copy?" Silence.

"Johnny, can you hear me?" Nothing except the coughs coming from his teammates.

"Johnny, please." Shrieks surround them now. Price is pulling on him, trying to get him out. Gunfire mixes in. He's screaming and fighting against Price, the same name stuck on his lips.

"JOHNNY!"

It has been three hours, forty four minutes, and two seconds since Simon last saw Johnny. Price and Gaz had dragged him back to the secure location them and several dozen others hid during the night. Simon is trapped inside, unable to leave. It's nighttime, and there's no way he's going out there. He wants to, he needs to go out there and look for his Johnny, but he can't. Those... things... thrive in the darkness. Nighttime is their fuel, the gasoline that turns a campfire into a bonfire.

"I'm sorry, Simon, but you saw what happened. I can't risk losing another one of you." Price's words stung Ghost, but he'd rather be damned than let the old man know that. His Johnny, his beloved, his sweet bolt of lightning... he couldn't be gone.

It has been four hours, thirty seven minutes, and fifty six seconds since Simon last held Johnny, since he last breathed in that intoxicating warmth. He made a promise. Johnny promised they would make it back to base safely. Johnny promised that when all the dust settles, they'll disappear, just the two of them. They'll slip into the shadows and melt into each other, a never ending bliss.

But he broke it. Johnny isn't there. Johnny isn't safe. Johnny is gone.

Ghost growls in frustration as he kicks the wall in anger, briefly thankful for his heavy combat boots. Johnny isn't gone. He refuses to admit defeat until he sees the silver tags spotted with the Scot's blood. Tears burn in his eyes as he falls against the wall, heavy breaths reminding him how tight his chest has gotten. A small whimper breaks the silence, crashing through the dimly lit room with reckless abandon. He inhales sharply as more whimpers threaten to follow suit. He's in the furthest, darkest corner of the large warehouse, yet he still feels utterly surrounded by prying eyes. True, just a few feet away are his teammates, fitfully dozing, and beyond them the dozens of survivors they herded inside during the day.

Ghost mentally curses as two small whimpers slip past his guard, painfully loud in the silence. Price turns towards him, yet his eyes are still closed. Ghost knows it's bullshit, that his captain is perfectly aware of what's going on, but he can't find it in himself to care. He's cold, he's tired, he's sore, he wants his Johnny. Oh god, Johnny.

What were once whimpers escape in all out sobs as Ghost sinks further in on himself. His vision is blurred not by tears but by the morbid image of the destruction covering the last place he knew his lover to be. His Johnny. He no longer is in control, the pain and the anger and the grief are waving flags of anarchy in his mind, setting all his fears and his sorrows running, tearing his already bleeding heart. He's vaguely aware of someone removing his mask and muttering something, probably about not wanting to soil the thing. Hands are placed around his and a presence leans against him. It's warm and comforting, but it's not enough. It's strong, but it's not what he wants. It's not what he needs. It's not Johnny.

"Oh Johnny."

It has now been over twelve hours since Ghost last saw Soap. The sun has risen, and he has been ready to leave for nearly two hours. Price managed to get in contact with some rescue crews, and a team has been sent to their location. Among their ranks are several medics, and Ghost can only use the last of his faith to pray they can save his Johnny.

They rush to the ruins of the street that used to be above the subway, but now lies within its tunnels. They quickly descend into the rubble, picking their way carefully, weapons at the ready and flashlights burning. An eternity passes without any sign of the sergeant, and Ghost is growing impatient. He's snapping at the couple of men from the rescue crew, he's arguing with Price, and he even sent a threatening glare in Gaz's direction.

The darkness of the monsters seeking shelter in the ruined subway, the darkness of a world torn to shreds, the darkness of losing his lightning, it's all so suffocating. The rubble wall in front of him seems like it's going to topple over and consume him whole, bury him into nothingness like his Johnny.

"Simon." Price's voice is uncharacteristically soft, and Ghost stiffens at the sound.

"He's gone." No. That isn't possible, Johnny can't be gone.

"Simon." That was the last straw for him.

Ghost whipped around, red flashing in his eyes, flashing around him as his flashlight clattered to the cement. But the words were caught, trapped behind something. Something loud, angry, desperate. And so he let that out first. He let out all the pain, the anger, the grief, the injustice of it all, let it all out into the darkness around them. His screams challenged those of the flesh-hungry monsters that lurked.

Johnny was never supposed to go before him. He was done losing people, he was done gaining someone's trust, he was done giving his heart out just for it to be spat upon and rubbed into the dirt. Broken, feral cries echoed around him, and for a brief moment Ghost believed he had suddenly turned into one of those creatures without knowing it. The screams died as his throat dried, yet the pain remained. His throat burned, his eyes burned, his heart ached. He couldn't go on, not without his driving force, the power behind that wild sergeant of his. He crashed to his knees, ignoring the shock of pain that runs through his broken body.

And with all that's left in him, all the love, hurt, brokenness, passion, everything, he lets out one last scream.

"JOHNNY!"

[two-gays-in-a-trenchcoat]

Getting In Your Head (prologue)

TWST AU where the MC actually has powers, but needs to keep them secret for fear of their friends’ safety.

The new student at Night Raven Academy has no magical powers. They were summoned by accident, and it was only by pure sympathy that they were permitted to become a student. The new student was void of any magic, powerless and defenseless in a school filled with magical beings. Or, so you’ve led them to believe.

Gender-neutral reader, SFW, 1.2k

You had been awake long before your alarm rang, and its piercing shriek made you flinch at its suddenness. You smacked it until it quieted itself, before sighing and rolling back over to continue staring at the ceiling, sprawled out on your rickety bed. With your eyes, you traced patterns in the ceiling, occasionally finding a hidden face or shape in the wood grain.

An hour earlier, you’d woken yourself up in a cold sweat, heart pounding and adrenaline rushing. Another nightmare. You were suddenly glad you had no roommates, lest they be subjected to the annoyance of your ever-present nightmares. But this time was different. This time, you remembered what your nightmare was about.

Magic coursed within you, the tingle in your fingertips making you trace magnificent colors in the night sky. In your palms, you summoned a glowing butterfly, and a laugh of joy echoed behind you.

“Lemme see! Lemme see!” The boy cried, shoving his head over your shoulder. You were more than happy to share your gift; it gave you a happy, warm feeling inside.

“Wanna hold it?” You asked sheepishly, to which the boy nodded frantically. Butterflies were his favorite.

“Yes! Please!”

You offered your hands out, the butterfly flapping quietly, and he reached for it, the glow of its wings reflecting in his starstruck eyes. But just as his fingertip brushed against its fluttering wing, the butterfly suddenly morphed into a giant horsefly, dark and scraggly and angry. It pounced on the boy’s face, and from its body more of them spawned, hordes of the wretched flies swarming over his body until he was but a mass of buzzing wings.

You stumbled back, horrified. But behind you came more buzzing, even louder than before. Three more children had been covered by your flies, and screamed as they were getting devoured.

You covered your ears and curled up on the ground, but you could still hear them. The buzzing, the screaming.

You pulled yourself up from the bed, twisting until your back popped and stretching out your neck, determined to put the nightmare behind you. You changed into your school uniform, grumbling as you struggled to secure the pants that were two sizes too big, and tied the laces of your shoes to the exact tightness you preferred. You stood up and looked at yourself in the mirror, fussing with it until it looked presentable. With a satisfied hum, you backed up, only to be caught for a moment, staring at your reflection.

You peered at the person in the mirror. A quiet, unassuming, innocent student, void of any magic. A smooth, but not completely wrinkle-free jacket, and a messenger bag stuffed with homework. You leaned forward and conjured a happy smile, admiring the apples of your cheeks and the faint crinkle in the corner of your eyes. Then you morphed it into a scowl, furrowing your brows and snarling, and for a second, you could see why Grim would get so scared of you when you were upset. You pulled your expression into one of shock, eyes widening, lips making a little ‘o’. You then let your face reset, back to neutral, face slack and void of any emotion. You pressed your lips into a thin line.

This is me. This is who they see.

.

.

When Grim found out you weren’t entirely magic-less after all (the little creature could be dangerously perceptive when he wanted to, and you did spend practically every waking moment together) the first question he asked was, “Why? Why keep your magic hidden when you’re at a school designed to train people like you into harnessing their abilities?”

“Because,” you’d snapped. “My magic isn't like everyone else’s. It’s dangerous.”

He scoffed. “All magic is dangerous.”

“No,” you said. “Not like mine.” The hollow tone of your voice and the haunted, foreboding expression on your face was enough to get him to stop prying.

Not to say he would be easily kept quiet. No, your wallet was really starting to hurt with how much money you spent on tuna for Grim to keep his mouth shut. He was the only one who knew about your powers, and you wanted to keep it that way.

The second question Grim asked had come two days later, just before you were heading out to class.

“What even is your magic, anyway?” Grim wondered out loud, and it made you steel up.

“Is that really important?” You grumbled, shoving a pitiful piece of toast in your mouth.

Grim glared at you. “Stop dodging the question.”

“You want to know? Fine!” You whirled around, snarling and eyes alight with fury. Grim scrambled back, and after catching a glimpse of his truly terrified face, you took a deep breath and drew yourself back in. “My magic…. it’s not physical, like you’re used to. It’s like…. mind magic…?”

Grim’s eyes bulged out of his head. “You can read minds?”

“No,” you shut him down quickly, before he could come up with any devious plots on how to utilize your powers. “I can’t read people’s minds. But I can, like, put thoughts into them, I guess? It’s hard to explain.”

If possible, his eyes grew even larger, practically sparkling. “So you can hypnotize people?!”

“No-“ you caught yourself, paused for a moment, then started over. “Well, I mean, kind of…? Not the hypnosis like you’re thinking about, it’s more like….” You bit your tongue, struggling to find the right words. “I can put thoughts and feelings into people’s heads. I can make people…. see things. That aren’t there. Like, put images into their minds, make any illusion seem like a reality.”

“But it doesn’t actually happen…?” Grim scratched his ear. “Well, what’s the point of that if you can’t actually do anything? How is that even dangerous?”

You pursed your lips, looking away. A dark shadow crossed your face. “You’d be surprised with what you’re capable of once you get inside someone’s head.”

.

.

You went downstairs, looking for the troublesome little monster, only to find him nowhere in sight. You groaned and stomped back upstairs, where you pounded on the door across the hall from yours.

“Whaaa…?” The confused, sleepy question came from behind the door.

“Get up, furball,” you said. “Class starts in fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes?!” There was crashing followed by a groan, and suddenly the door was flung open in your face. Grim was panting, his bowtie crooked and fur pressed flat on one side of his face. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

You began to head downstairs. “Last time I checked, that wasn’t my job,” you called over your shoulder.

You went out without waiting for Grim, knowing that he’d catch up soon enough. He glared at you, and you had to stifle a chuckle.

“You’re a lousy roommate, you know that?”

You snickered. “And you’re a lousy pet.”

“Hey!” Grim swatted at your shoulder, and you narrowly missed his claws as you sidestepped. “I am not a pet!”

“Y’know, for someone who wanted to be a student so badly,” you mused, “you really suck at going to school.”

“Take that back right now!”

You hooted with laughter as Grim swiped at you once again. Still cackling, you sprinted in the direction of Night Raven College, with the angered cries of Grim following you.

This was okay. This was normal. You were just a normal human, with no magical powers, who messes around with their friends and gets into trouble. You were one-hundred percent ordinary in a school filled with the extraordinary.

And you intend to keep it that way.

[thewildmother]

The oc blog was a fun idea until I realized I now have to come up with an entire tagging system for it.

[lyriumsings]

Besties and Lyrics for Octavia please, if you'd like! ~ @whowhatifs

Thank you for the ask!!

Besties: What’s their friendship with Rowan like? What are some things only he knows about them?

I think Octavia’s friendship with Rowan has actually changed a lot over the years. In the earlier days (pre Seven breakup lol) I think it was…shallower? For lack of a better term. Still very close and tight knit but very typical annoying sibling type dynamic. They very much saw Rowan as more of “Seven’s best guy friend”, as in Rowan felt slightly more like Seven’s friend than theirs sometimes. (Also this is just Octavia’s perception of their friendship I headcanon that Octavia is actually quite close with all of the band they just kind of underestimate how much people care about them to be honest.)

Now, after the breakup I think they got a lot closer. That’s when it kind of clicked for her how much Rowan (and everyone) valued their friendship. I would say Octavia got especially close to Rowan just because of how close they both were to Seven. And complains to Iris and Devyn felt like raining on their parade somehow?? They ended up having lots of serious talks about things they never had before and just really mourned that loss of friendship together. And not going to lie the idea of Octavia x Rowan as a full on romance given enough time would not be out of the question; BUT that being said I don’t think Octavia would ever be able to honestly say whether or not Rowan was a….second choice. If Octavia ever had to directly confront the fallout of that between them, Seven, and Rowan,,,,the guilt oof.

There is actually quite a few things that the band + Orion specifically know that Seven doesn’t know both because Octavia hadn’t told Seven yet when they were speaking and didn’t get to because they weren’t. But specifically Rowan? Rowan knows exactly what happened the night Octavia left their parents home for good (it was not good). And he knows more of the ins and outs of Octavia’s relationship with their last partner, Dean, who they dated on and off for about 8 months in the second year post Seven split. This was also very not good, without getting too into detail both involved “varying degrees” of domestic violence both physical and emotional.

Outside of like that lmao Rowan is actually the only other person outside of Seven allowed to look at their song book. He is the only person at all that’s seen their very, very messy lyrics about Seven post break up and some particularly sad ones about their mental health and their Aunt Lydia (who she was very close to and passed when they were a teen) Octavia is not really built to be alone, so after Seven it felt very natural that that void be filled on a friendship level. Obviously, nobody is replaceable but at the same time life goes on and people need people. Especially Octavia. They have a need for outside input and someone to bounce their thoughts off of and share their feelings to.

Lyrics: What are some songs you associate with your character? Any specific lyrics that really scream your character?

Since this is already so long lemme link their spotify playlist fksjdjd all of these songs are VERY Octavia and I headcanon them as canon songs for her and the band. But top five incase you don’t wanna listen to this mammoth of a playlist i keep adding to is:

1. Lonesome and Mad by Under the Rug

“I feel like I wanna go home but I am home.” On sooooo many levels.

2. Gilded Lily by Cults “Always the fool with the slowest heart”

3. Cigarettes and Feelings by The Haunt “i always fall for the things that will hurt me” Homegirl wouldn’t know a red flag if it announced itself and red is their favorite color anyway so baby what it do lmaoooo

4. Vices by Mothica honestly just the whole song tbh djsjd

5. Panic Attack by Liza Anne “I never learned to pull myself Out of my own damn head Shoulders caved in to protect All of my insides from falling out”