#on a side note WHERE IS THE STARGAZE NEWS AT!!! WERE DYING OUT HERE!

[hinaliix]

Long time no trigun doodles

[tojisveryown]

𝙸𝚗 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝙴𝚢𝚎𝚜 | 𝟶𝟼

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚋𝚋𝚢𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

𝙰𝚌: 𝚠𝚃𝟼𝙸𝙳𝟸𝚀𝟺𝙰𝙺𝚄𝟿𝚏𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚠𝚝

𝚂𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜: 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝.

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚕𝚌𝚘𝚑𝚘𝚕, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚛𝚞𝚐 𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 𝟷.𝟿𝚔

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚜: 𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎 𝙰𝚄, 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎, 𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏 𝚖𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝙿𝚕𝚜 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚕

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝟶𝟼 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

(𝚄𝚗𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍)

⋆ 💌 ⋆

Spring was nearing to an end, the cherry blossom trees were on the verge of falling and the nights were filled with the sound of rain. Days passed and your spring break ended. 

The weather had been horrible, no sunny days were near. The cloudy and gloomy days were ongoing. The weather report stated that the next few weeks would be cloudy and or rainy. 

Your spring break was ending and school was around the corner. For the last day of break you did nothing but stay in bed, Utahime was out visiting her family so you were left alone to sulk on what you had overheard before break begun. 

Your last day was spent thinking how you’d be able to look Gojo in the eye after the information you acquired. “Who am I kidding? It’s not like he’s talking to me anyway.” 

You fell asleep sulking on the fact that tomorrow was hours away.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

You walked up the steps, reminiscing on the day you overheard Utahime and Gojo’s conversation. You knew that it was something that you couldn’t bring up so casually and that it was something that have had to come from Gojo’s heart. Gojo was the only one who would’ve been able to tell you, out of respect you decided not to poke your head into business that wasn’t yours. 

You reached the floor where your class was held and pursued your way to class, along the walk there Nanami had walked by your side.

“Good morning Y/N.” 

“Moring Nami,” you looked up at him and nothing had changed, still the same old Nanami, “You look the same.” 

“Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” Of course it wasn’t a bad thing, you hated change. You’ve always loved consistency. 

“Mmm, not particularly. See you later?” Nanami nodded and you both went your separate ways. 

You picked a seat and got yourself ready for the first boring day back. You dreaded this specific class, and what made you dread it even more was the fact that Gojo had the exact same schedule as you.

It didn’t help that the person who sat next to you was the person who you sought to ignore. 

“Miss me?” You knew who it was without even turning your head, it was the same person who was able to get your heart pounding, the one and only stupid Satoru.

You didn’t answer him, you felt as if there was nothing to say. It’s been weeks since he ignored you. Why the sudden change? 

It wasn’t that he knew you were eavesdropping, right?

“Hey,” he nudged your elbow with his “No need to ignore me.” Hypocrite much? He rested his big, fat, obnoxious, ugly, bug-looking head on his palm and looked straight at you. His crystal blue eyes were practically burning holes though your head.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

Throughout the lecture you were being bothered by Gojo, any chance he got he’d nudge your elbow and whisper things like 

“Hey, are you mad at me?” “Of course I’m mad idiot, you ignored me for weeks” is what you wanted to say

“Y/N, talk to me”

“Y/N the lectures almost over”

“Y/N let’s have lunch!”

You didn’t respond, it was time for Gojo to be ignored while you did the ignoring. Noticing that you wouldn’t respond he began passing you notes, he’d write down things on sticky notes and stick them on your notebook, arm, and even head. 

Most of the things he wrote were trying to get your attention, and when he got bored he began drawing penis’s on the notes and sticking them all over your arm. You gave him the side eye signifying you were done with his shit.

He looked up at you and noticed your sharp gaze, “I’m sorry.” He said as he took the sticky notes off your arm, notes, back, and backpack. 

He sat quietly next to you until the lecture was over. 

He noticed you weren’t packing your things, “Hey, class ended. Come on Y/N let’s get lunch.” He pulled your arm and grabbed your notebook.

“Gojo would you please leave me the fuck alone? I’m trying to work on this godforsaken project that you were supposed to help me with.” Gojo let go of your arm and flipped through your notebook.

“These note’s suck Y/N we’re never gonna get an A with this.” he looked at you innocently as you violently grabbed the notebook from his grip. 

“Fuck off Gojo, I’m trying here.”

“Not hard enough.” you sighed and packed your things going into the opposite direction from him. You were sick of Gojos antics.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

You found a seat at the very back of the library, you came here often especially when it was to study. You liked how peaceful it was and how not many people were around giving you the advantage.

Just when you were about to open up your notebook you were startled when hands appeared in front of your eyes. 

“Haha, so funny. I’m dying. Gojo i swear to god keep bugging me and I’ll kill you.” You later realized that Nanami’s hands were over your eyes after he let out a small laugh.

“You sound stressed.” Nanami pulled the chair beside you and sat down, “You okay Y/N?” 

“Yeah sorry, this projects killing me.”

“Mhm, is Satoru not helping you?” you flinched at his name, you had given up on calling him Satoru. He broke your trust. You hoped that he’d realize you went back to calling him Gojo, right?

“Not in the slightest.”

Nanami helped you revise your notes and for the rest of the break period you and Nanami caught up. You had heard how his spring break was and how he trip to Malaysia with his family went. You and Nanami had grown closer, and this didn’t go unnoticed by a certain blue-eyed boy.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The following day Gojo again tries to talk to you but you ignore him, you were done with the inconsistency he had with you and you hated the fact that you’d always find yourself slipping when it came to him. 

“Y/N come on, why would you talk to me?”

Silence 

“Y/N please.” still nothing, “I’ll work on the rest of the project if it means you’ll talk to me again.”

“Okay deal but you’re on thin fucking ice Gojo.” and again you let yourself slip.

You had thought it’d be best for you to bury what you had heard about him deep into your heart. It was something that Gojo himself would decide to tell you and if he never spoke up about it, it comes to show that he never truly cared about you. You wanted to believe he did but why was it taking him so long to fess up? 

“Hey, let’s go on another date to you know.. catch up?”

⋆ 💌 ⋆

It was a Saturday afternoon, the skies were gloomy and grey and the weather was still horrible. The weather constantly put you down, you felt like it was too much of a drag to even get out of bed.

“Oh that’s right, I have a date with Gojo today.” You almost had second thoughts with the way you felt, you wanted to stay in a ball wrapped up in your sheets. 

Nonetheless you still got ready, during break to keep yourself distracted you went shopping for new clothes, you wanted to give yourself a new imagine, a makeover. It was time you come out of your shell, new beginnings were approaching, you couldn’t stay the same forever. You wanted change, you almost craved it.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

It was 6:47, You waited at the train station for Gojo, you came there fairly early but you couldn’t wait to get this stupid date over with. You don’t even know why you agreed, one thing led to another and your mouth moved on its own and now you’re here. 

You knew you had came a few minutes too early but you didn’t expect to wait a total of two hours. It was about to be nine o’clock and yet no sign of Gojo, not once did he text or call. 

“Maybe he forgot..” you sighed and looked up at the dark cloudy skies. “Ha, who am I kidding he didn’t forget.” You knew Gojo was a player, tons of girls fawned over him and craved his attention. You knew Gojo couldn’t resist their attention. You knew that the last thing he would crave, was yours.

Still, you waited another hour. By now there were a few crowds of people but you still weren’t able to spot the blue-eyed man.

Another hour passed by and it was nearing midnight. You wanted to believed he’d show up and that he didn’t forget, but with Gojo believing was never bound to end up well. 

You took a deep breathe and stood up from the bench you were hopelessly waiting at. You dragged your feet to the exit and just as you were about to take the first step leading outside your eyes met with a panting Gojo 

“Y/N.”

Was your hope being tested?

“Y/N, I am so sorry. I thought our date was tomorrow and then I saw-”

You cut him off by pulling him into a hug, “Shut up Satoru.” Your watery eyes hid themselves into the hoodie he was wearing. It smelt like the hospital, you knew he was lying. He didn’t forget, he needed an excuse. 

⋆ 💌 ⋆

Gojo took you to his apartment, it was late and most of the things you two could’ve done were already closing. His apartment was on one of the highest floors and the balcony he had gave you two the perfect advantage for stargazing. He set up a comfortable space for the both of you.

The stars weren’t completely visible but the dark clouds was indeed a sight to see. The silence between you and Gojo was very comforting. 

“The moon looks beautiful tonight isn’t it, Y/N?”

“Huh? It looks the same as always.”

Gojo laughed, his head was now turned facing you and moments later you turned to face him. You two stared into each others eyes, you both saw sadness and regret. You both craved a happy ending. 

Gojo leaned in and placed his soft lips on yours. One thing led to another leading you and him onto his bed. Tonight was the night where you and Gojo became one. 

⋆ 💌 ⋆

“I’m glad we spent time together. This will be one of my favorite days for the rest of my life.”

“Stop being corny.”

“Y/N.” He looked at you deeply with his crystal eyes, the moonlight shining on his skin, the warmth of his body pressed up against yours made this night special. Sadly all good things come to an end. “I’m sick.”

“I know but it’s just a little while longer and th-”

“She really is right you know, you really are a stupid Satoru.”

“Utahime it’s not like I can fucking tell her ‘Hey I have pancreatic cancer and I’m dying!’ Do you know how stupid that sounds?”

“Satoru-”

“Fuck I know okay?”

“If you know tell her. Do you honestly think she would be okay if one day you just stopped showing up?”

“There’s no hope for us, you know that Utahime. I refuse to be the reason that she can’t love after I’m gone.”

“You’re gonna be her biggest regret if you don’t love her now.”

“Yeah, I know.” Gojo’s expression on you softened, he cried in your arms and you cried in his, knowing the person before you was soon about to be yet another faint memory.

You finally understood why the weather had been horrible, mother nature felt for you and Satoru. That night the sky cried with you both.

“How much longer do you have?”

⋆ 💌 ⋆

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐! 𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐 :) 𝙰𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚌! 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢'𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥

⋆ 💌 ⋆

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝: @peppytine​ @enesitamor​ @fairyblue-alchemist​ @diluczs​ @honouredsatoru​ @thankuary​ @sookyshima​

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

⋆ 💌 ⋆

[choppedhyena]

In Memory

Levi Ackerman x gn! Reader

Armin Arlert x gn! Reader

Erwin Smith x gn! Reader

Mikasa Ackerman x gn! Reader

hola 😎 i have a request for ya! which i do hope you like cause I literally spent hALF aN hoUR thinking of how it should go... anyWAYS, i’m gonna request it rn cause why not? .. anyways—maybe a hc for Levi, Armin, Erwin, Mikasa, and Pieck; their S/O’s favorite memories with them are playing in their mind. They wished it happened again. people thought they (they = pieck, levi, armin - yk)—people thought they went crazy. out of their mind insane. They do often smile, when they hear their S/O’s laugh. They cry when they hear their S/O’s screams. They couldn’t save them in time. they were now dead. // now do keep in mind, that this all happened weeks after their S/O’s death. they felt so useless at the fact that they couldn’t save them in time. the one they loved the most...

Note: I DELETED THIS AND HAD TO MADE THE POST so... please like and share thank you. Also I'm not caught up on season 4 but I know what has happened so I don't know Pieck's personality, I didn't want to get her wrong.

Prompt List

Mastlister

Summary: their s/o passed, they blame themselves and other and sadly cannot cope.

Warnings: Death, Blood, Feels and Fluff Words: a lot just a lot

Levi Ackerman (Sadderdaze)

Somethings never change for Levi losing the ones he loves left and right but why did he think that would change with y/n.

During the Battle of Shiganshina, Y/n was by Levi’s side the whole time.

They always was anyways, the lone survivor of Levi’s Squad after the 57th Expansion. Years ago, they vowed the loyalty for him then again 3 years later, till death did them part.

They both lead the group of soldiers to eliminate the Beast Titan.

As the Beast began to throw rocks everyone took covered in an abandoned town, after the first-round y/n and Levi resurfaced on the roofs.

They both noticed the beast was readying for another throw, yelling for the other to go bad into cover.

“GO BACK!” Y/N yelled into their cupped hands; they still couldn’t hear them.

Levi started to run to help them, only to be held back, y/n telling him there isn’t enough time.

Levi protested only for Y/n starting to push him back down to between the houses.

Suddenly, Y/n gave him a hard push on his back making him lad down on the ground. Looking back up to his love, their leg of in a now, missing part of the roof.

Levi quickly shot back up to help them out, grabbing their hands pulling as hard as he could.

“Levi… LEVI! Please take cover, you’ll die.”

“I’m not leaving you behind… not again.”

Levi had left Y/n in charge of his squad as he joined Erwin in the 57th Expansion. Nearly dying because of the Female Titan and protecting Eren.

Y/n pulled their arm away from him, giving him one final hard push in the chest right before the rock came pass them.

“I love you” they whispered.

As Levi flew back to the ground, he held eye contact with them all of his memories going through his head, knowing that this was the last time he would see of them, forever.

As for y/n, all their memories flew through them.

Late nights with Hanjie, mornings drinking tea with Erwin and Levi.

Levi… the night of their wedding, cake, slow dancing together, then stargazing. Oh, what they’d give to do that one more time with him.

Then they were gone.

Days later, everyone was concerned about the Captain. They could hear his cries and sobs when they’d pass his room. If you’d knocked, his cries would stop, and he’d stay silent till he watched your feet leave.

Every time Hanjie would open his door to bring breakfast or dinner, they could see the hopefulness in his eyes only for them to fall. Not like he ate till he was starving and knew he had too.

Years later, as Levi slept at night, he could still hear the whisper and cries of his love. That’s all he could hear ever, yet now he hid it well.

The nights he couldn’t sleep he’d walk through the halls of the fallen soldiers. In the middle of all the paintings, was Erwin. A gold frame shining in the moon light. Next to him was y/n.

They also had a golden frame and at the top were their favorite floor in their favorite color. Whomever painted it, Levi thought they did an amazing job.

The captured the brightness of their eyes, their gloss on their hair and the perfection on their hands.

Levi sat on his knees, lightly placing his hand on theirs. Wishing he could feel them just one more time.

BONUS:

“I bet you’re not popular with the ladies…” Zeke sighed.

Levi looked down thinking about y/n for the first time since the battle. “I was popular enough…”

Armin Arlert (When Will I See You Again)

Most people admired Y/n relationship with Armin, never put a title on side thing but the two and others knew they loved each other.

And when y/n died… well it was hard on everyone.

Since Armin inherited the Colossal Titian he saw and heard y/n die with his own eyes or really with Bertholdt eyes.

They stood by Armin till the very end or what they thought was the end.

The two stood in front of the giant titan, directing him. The plan… they knew they were going to die but it was with Armin and that’s all y/n would ever want.

Bertholdt let out the burning steam, burning them alive. y/n’s eyes looked at Armin, they screamed and cried till nothing… black.

Armin on the other head was giving the Titan Serum, eating Bertholdt and becoming the monsters he hated.

From the second he woke from the shift, all he could thing of was Y/n.

Where are they?

Are they okay?

Then and dare he say naturally, the memories caved in.

Seeing through his predecessor’s eyes, he remembered his love burn to death. Hearing their caries and he saw them always looking at him.

He cried and blamed himself for their death, y/n thought they were dying together but Eren couldn’t let him live in peace.

“they died thinking they were with me.” He whispered.

He always tired to keep his resentment in around Eren and Mikasa, but everyone could here him scream in pain in the forest next to the HQ.

He used Bertholdt’s memories to see them together all the time, Sasha and Mikasa would become worried he wasn’t grieving well but soon like screams every night stop.

Instead, it was quite crying at night, which wasn’t any better for anyone.

Then they left to find the Sea, one thing that could make Armin come to peace with himself.

Reaching the ocean everyone would play and have fun their but looking down in the water, Armin could’ve sworn he saw his love looking back at him but alas he lost the sight as fast as he saw it.

He knew Y/n would and still is by his side everyday till death brought them back to each other.

Erwin Smith (My Kind of Woman)

Everyone knew Erwin as a very stoic man, a calm gentle giant but with a heart and will of Iron.

And that was true, but that was after someone not one would talk about.

Their name is Y/n, Erwin Smith’s great love.

In 845, the Survey Corps returned from an expiation, but most do not know what happened.

“Four abnormals on the right wing!” some one shouted

Erwin looked at y/n who was smiling but still looking out for themselves and others. They looked over at Erwin and smiled even wilder.

Ever since training, Y/n saw bright side of things. It was their idea to recruit the Underground rebels.

In all most a flash of lighting, rain pored down soldiers dying all around.

10 abnormals flailing around, killing and eating people.

Erwin stared behind him, watching his comrades die under his orders. Then he locked eyes with y/n as they jumped off their horse as a Titan waved its arm at her.

“Erwin!”

Y/n yelled hoping he would turn and help them, and he did, yet despite the connection they had…

It was too late, they were harshly picked and swished, screams reaching everyone’s ears. Held above the Titan’s mouth their blood poured into then as the life quickly left their eyes they were dropped into its mouth.

If it wasn’t for Levi, Erwin would’ve been died too.

Ever second since then he blamed himself, knowing if he was just a little faster.

He paid someone to make a painting of her for his office, they were his right-hand person, but others knew it was more than that.

He would cry as quite as he could for years till it was small smiles or few tears while in his office or drinking tea with Levi or Hanji.

They both learned not to question it as it was a normal thing for the man after five years.

The new recruits would ask about the painting of a random person in his office, he would say someone special.

Yet it’s been years he would still become choked up that night.

Mikasa Ackerman (i wanna be your girlfriend)

Mikasa and Y/n met in training, two people how just sat not needing to say anything to enjoy each other’s company.

Eating dinner, they’d just sit and watch everyone else bicker and talk, nothing needed to be said. Despite being Sasha’s sibling, the older one seem to get all the personality then again there was nothing wrong with the way they were.

Although being close to death of a many of times, they lived and slightly loved Mikasa and watched her grow into a beautiful women she was.

Over the years, y/n become more vocal not wanting to miss out on the moments they had left with everyone. They and Jean would bicker and laugh about dumb things, Connie and they would just sitting and reminisce on old times.

Then Sasha met Nicolo and well y/n had never more vocal about anything before.

“Oooooh the cook, he’s perfect for you.”

y/n would tease Sasha along with Jean and Connie, although Nicolo didn’t seem to mind, Sasha would turn redder than a beet!

Then the war came, Y/n didn’t leave Mikasa side unless it was to save their ether extremely brave or stupid sister.

As y/n and Mikasa run to Eren’s ad after killing the War Hammer Titan, Mikasa yells at Eren.

Y/n watches the two argue, as the War Hammer Titan stands tall and definitely not dead.

Y/n watches as it starts to shoot a crystal goop at them, Y/n wipps around slamming themselves into Mikasa, holding onto her and they both flay away from the now hardened crystal.

“thank you, y/n.”

Y/n only nodded, looking back at the crystal. Again, they themselves in danger for Mikasa but they knew if it came down to it, they would die for their family.

After the battle, everyone was on the air ship, Mikasa had left y/n with Jean, Connie and Sasha. They talked happy to see each other alive.

“You guys are really special to me.”

Next thing anyone knew, both Jean and Y/n heard rumbling from the entrance. Turning around they saw a little girl with a rifle.

y/n quickly realized she was aiming for everyone of the ship, mainly their sister. Running in front of the fire, trying to do the same thing they once saw Hanjie do years ago still the girl shot.

The bullet went straight threw y/n’s stomach; push through the pain they grabbed the gun from the girl. They butted it into the little girl’s head, knocking her out.

The adrenaline wore off, y/n put their hand on their stomach. Their hand covered in blood, they turned around to see their sister on the floor surrounded by their friends.

“Guys…” they dropped the rifle on the floor.

The word came out their mouth, everyone with tears in their eyes slowly turned to look at them.

Jean watched as the blood dripped from their suit on to the light brown flooring.

Y/n began to walk to them, waddling side to side.

Mikasa entered the room watching Y/n fall over into what was now a pool of blood. She quickly ran over, flipping them over sobbing.

Jean quickly applied pressure into the wound, but it was too late. Y/n looked up at Mikasa, their bloodied hand lightly touching her face.

Mikasa sat head on her knees, in between both Blouse graves. She could still here the raspy breaths, the yells of Jean telling them to stay awake and the laugh Eren let out seeing the dead bodies.

She’d cry at nights realizing she loved them more than a friend, she felt like a piece of her was now gone.

During dinners Mikasa would push her food around till she couldn’t sit and not laugh or sob. Armin had become worried of her, but he knew she just needed time.

[vexillumalbum]

Cześć! Fellow polish person here! I thought maybe you could do some hcs on victor, Gavin and shaw (they're my faves) having a dream about mc dying or leaving them and they wake up and she comforts them or maybe they don't tell her about the dream and just... watch her from afar to know she's fine. something short but angsty with comfort. you know! anyway, dziękuję i miłego dnia!

Oh hello, fellow polish person! Miło mi cię tu widzieć! (tran.: Nice seeing you here!) I hope you’re alright! Dziękuję za wiadomość i miłego dnia! (tran.: Thank you for your message and have a nice day!)

Note: I wrote this also for Lucien and Kiro but I wasn’t sure if I should publish it so let me know if you would like to see something like this for them. (Lucien’s angst is delicious, I tell you that)

I tried to keep it short as you requested :) 

A little angst and comfort below, hope you’ll like it

Gavin

Screams. High-pitched, terrifying wails chilled the blood in his veins. It didn't bother him that they were so frequent or that they were so loud - the number of missions on which he heard such cries probably exceeded the amount of instant ramens he had eaten in his whole life - but that he knew exactly who the screams belonged to. You.

There were so many dark corridors and he didn’t knew which one led to you. And every time he thought he was taking the right direction, he suddenly reached the end of the corridor, his body hitting a brutal concrete wall. 

“(Y/N)?! (Y/N), where are you?!” He was running in circles as with each passing moment your cries were getting more and more horrifying.

Gavin couldn’t take it, he couldn’t bear a thought of you getting hurt while he was near and he wasn’t able to help you any way. He promised he would protect you. He—

“Gavin!” One of your screams sounded like his name and he fell to his knees, tired and distraught, his face in his hands as he was begging the heavens to let you be save. 

“Take me, not her, please, take me, not her!” He was a mumbling mess.

“Gavin!”

Gentle hands were cradling his face and his first instinct was to fight the gesture but then, in his haziness, he recognized the scent of your floral shampoo and let himself sink into the delicate touch. He immediately hooked his arms around your figure and hugged tightly to his broad chest.

He was soaked in sweat, his pajamas was sticking unpleasantly to his body.

“You’re alright, Gavin. It was just a dream.” Your soothing voice was what ultimately pulled him out of slumber. 

“You,” he croaked. “Are you alright?” 

“Of course I am, silly. It was a dream. We’re both in our bedroom and we’re both safe.” You hugged him back, feeling his heartbeat even through his shirt. By slowly stroking his back you managed to calm him down a little.

“Good.” He looked over to the window where the sky was still dark. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up in the middle of the night.”

When you assured him it’s fine and asked him if maybe he would like to tell you about his nightmare he only quickly denied before resting his head on your shoulder. Unconsciously, his lips found your neck enabling him to feel your pulse and body heat. Indicating you were alive and well.

You anew fell asleep safely tucked in his arms with Gavin watching you breathe evenly and making sure you were still there with him. If you as much as stirred in your sleep, he would hug you a little tighter - he did it not only to comfort you, but also to comfort himself.

Victor

The metallic, slightly salty smell entered Victor's nostrils, and he immediately looked up from his laptop, frowning strongly. He knew that smell perfectly well. 

The trouble he had felt in the last few hours of checking reports in his home office was gone, and the man felt anxious instead.

“(Y/N)?” He called out but only silence answered him.

Victor called your name a few more times, quickly making his way to the living room. Each time he got no answer, which only reinforced his uneasiness. And when he got to the kitchen, his eyes went wide and his strong rapid heartbeat was all he could hear.

Blood. There was blood everywhere - on the marble floor, the black cabinets, stone countertops, on the window and even the stove. Everywhere. 

“(Y/N)?!” He was in a panic now, trying to maneuver around the room so as not to step into the red substance, looking for you. But you were nowhere to be seen. You... or your body. 

Even so, something told him it was your blood that was spilled around the kitchen. The pit in his stomach grew and grew and he was slowly losing his mind, only the worst images flooding his imagination, and then he saw a it. A large kitchen knife laying on the floor. A knife he knew all too well. 

Bzzt bzzt bzzt

It was a dream. 

Victor looked around the room, hoping to see you lying next to him under the blanket, but when he saw an empty bed instead, a familiar panic began to reign in his stomach. You never woke up before him, so where were you?

It took him about three times less than usual to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, but he wasn't running yet. He knew those horrible scenes from a moment before were nothing but a nightmare, so he avoided rapidly searching the apartment for you. 

Only when he did not find you in the kitchen or in the living room, and no noises could be heard from the bathroom, he began to panic. 

“Victor?” The entrance door opened revealing your confused figure balancing a grocery bag in your hands. Seconds later you were enveloped in a tight hug, that knocked the air out of you. “I’m happy to see you too. Something happened?”

But he didn’t reply. Victor only held you tighter squishing the bread you had bought minutes before. The warmth he felt radiating from you was comforting him and reassuring that it was not another dream. 

“Vic, you’re squishing me.” 

“Don’t ever do it again.”

“Do what?”

Again, he didn’t answer. 

This morning you experienced the little-known side of Mr. CEO. He did not leave your step, you ate breakfast shoulder to shoulder, and when you got to work he was waiting in the car until you safely entered the building.

You asked him about the reason for his behavior several times, but all he said was "You're imagining things.", so after a few tries you abandoned the topic. Victor, however, did not experience inner peace until the next evening when you were lying in his arms safe and sound.

Shaw

It was another fight between the two of you. He didn't remember what had happened, but probably something stupid as usual. Maybe he had been a little late to his date with you again, or maybe he missed a few consecutive text messages from you.

He tried to excuse himself that he was busy and that his studies were taking up a lot of his time. But you were having none of that.

“Stop being such a child, Shaw!” You spatted as you were angrily walking back and forth in his apartment. 

“I’m a child? Babe, I think you’re closer to being one than me, right now.” He laughed but you weren’t in a mood for jokes and banter. Normally it would take a few ‘i’m sorry’s, a couple of jests and a hug for you to forgive him however this time you didn’t even want to look at him. 

“I’m serious, Shaw. All you ever do is fuck up. You’re never on time, you ignore my texts, do you even know I’m your girlfriend?!”

“Of course I—“

“I wish you were more like your brother.” Your words pierced a hole through Shaw’s heart and he stood there frozen as you were angrily glaring at him. 

“You don’t mean that.” His voice was weak, quiet, but you heard him anyway. 

“I do.” Was your last words before you took your belongings and strutted out of his apartment leaving him completely speechless. You didn’t say goodbye, but he somehow knew it was the last time he would ever see you. 

Shaw took the first thing his hands found and threw it against the wall. 

Before the empty glass shattered against the brickwork, however, Shaw jumped up from the bed panting abruptly. He woke up extremely upset and tried to ignore the thin layer of sweat that covered his body.

“Fuck.” The man muttered before picking up his phone and dialing your number. He wasn’t even surprised he knew the combination by heart at this point.

“Hello, Shaw!” Your melodious voice made his stomach flip. He was in too deep. 

“Would you ever leave me?” Wow, smooth

“What?” Your confusion could be clearly heard but he really didn’t care to elaborate.

“Do you think I’m a child?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand your questions.” He groaned as his back fell against the pillows. “Did something happen?” You sounded worried, and at that moment he began to regret calling you. 

He ran a hand over his lavender curls and, suppressing a sigh, said "Forget it.”

“But—“

“What time do you finish work today? I’ll pick you up.”

“At five, I guess.”

“Alright. See ya.”

He threw the phone on the other side of the mattress, internally cursing his subconsciousness. 

Maybe today he shouldn’t be late. Oh, and he would buy you something. Flowers? Yeah, flowers sounded good. And he’d heard they had opened new hotpot place. This evening you two should definitely check it out. And then maybe stargazing. Or he would play you something on his guitar… 

Stupid subconsciousness

____________________________________________________

thank you so much for reading!

if you want to read more of my works they are here

[aspectedstar]

[Info updated as of Patch 5.55]

Name: Listelle Viyrel

Unsundered Name: Ephine

Gender: Female

Age: 21 in ARR, 26 in EW

Race: Raen Au Ra

Relationship: Official with an untempered Elidibus, but still lowkey that not a lot of people know of their status.

Family: Biological family is unknown. Her adoptive Miqo'te parents she keeps in contact with. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn and Elidibus are her main sources of 'support' these days.

Orientation: Bisexual / Demisexual

Nameday: 16th Sun of the 4th Umbral Moon [August 16th]

Abilities/Talents: Archery, Botany, Cooking, Able to speak multiple languages [thanks Echo], Healing, Reading.

Job: Former conjurer turned White Mage; Archer/Bard; Adventurer; A Scion of the Seventh Dawn; Botanist whenever help is needed.

Appearance description: A pale-skinned Raen Au Ra that stands at 4 fulms and 9 ilms. Listelle has dark blue, shoulder-length hair with bangs that naturally curls at the ends. Black highlights are added into the mix and always reapplied whenever they start to fade. Sometimes, puts up her hair in high side-ponytail that has a braid embedded around the back of her head. Has side bangs that hang from her face with this hairstyle as well. She has heterochromia eyes with her left being a pale blue, while her right is a bright purple. Listelle is slightly muscular, but also petite. Her body has vanilla scales peppering her body here and there. Mostly can be seen on her face; Her horns a slightly curled, but go backwards only a bit from her face. The tail she has a few spikes here and there, but it's thin. Mostly spiking at the end of it. Usually wearing a pair of reading glasses, because her eyesight isn't 100%.

Unique features (scars, tattoos, etc.): Multiple scars across her body from battles over the years. The biggest one was from the first meeting with Zenos, where he ended up nailing her in the abdomen badly. The scar is a jagged line in sideways line that covers a good portion of her middle to lower back. Listelle is very self-conscious about this particular one; Doesn't like wearing gear that shows off that part of her body.

Personal Beliefs (religious or otherwise): Fully believed in the Mothercrystal and the Twelve, but has changed since the events of SB into ShB. Mostly because of what Elidibus and Emet-Selch had told her. Still believes in a sense of one's wrongdoing will bite them in the ass later in life.

Residence: Medium house plot on the beach in Shirogane, Hingashi. Amaurot on the First.

Birthplace: Somewhere in the Black Shroud.

Dreams: When the world is done being saved, which is almost never; Wanting to have a peaceful life with Elidibus as much as possible; Hoping that one day more White Mages can be sanctioned by the Padaji; Maybe one day have children, but that's not as important.

Fears: Dying when the world needs her the most; Seeing close friends and family die in front of her again and again; Injured to the point she can't fulfill her duties as Warrior of Light; Losing any of her senses.

Introverted / Extroverted / Ambiverted (bold what applies)

How do they handle stress?: When in front of people, she tries her best not to show she's bothered. There are ways for others to know she's about to hit her limit. Listelle is known to pace around a room, fidget with her hands, and get teary-eyed, but the latter is hard to see. Only ways she can combat it is behind closed doors, or out in the wilderness when no one is around. Going out into nature to find plants or hit trees with her axe is one way. Another way is to basically beat her frustrations out in cooking or baking foodstuffs. Resting under trees when only one can hear naturalistic sounds.

What’s the state of their living quarters? (messy, clean, etc.): That depends. Usually, it's a disorganized mess. Much to Elidibus's dismay, she can usually find things easier than him. If he ever tried to clean her home, she'd yell at him on not being able to find anything. It's not completely trashed, but enough to know someone lives here. As the Warrior of Light, she doesn't get enough time to do homely chores. So, it's mostly left go for weeks at a time.

How do they handle meeting new people?: Listelle usually is kind and friendly to people she meets. Though, it depends overall on the new person (or group)'s attitude, body language, voice tone, and facial expressions. If they come off rude and negative, she is more reluctant to be as nice back. However, since she is not the diplomatic person, she usually leaves all the table-talking to her fellow Scions. Will chime in with a few words, if asked. It all depends on the situation and people involved.

When facing certain doom, what’s their outlook?: It's...questionable. Try to keep a stoic facade, but inside she would be screaming. Or, she'd probably look at like this: Why not going out with a huge bang of glory, and take her foe(s) with her? As a healer, she understands death, but is afraid to die at the wrong time. Regardless, she will tackle it the best she can.

What do they do to relax?: Reading any books she has in her shelves. Have Elidibus tell her stories of the world before it was Sundered. Cooking and baking when she has the time. Gardening, when she has time, yet again. Sitting under trees listening to nature. Go to the beach when no one is around. Stargazing with Elidibus at night.

What’s their favorite outfit?: Her 'civilian' clothes with the Azem constellation crystal as a necklace pictured blow.

Traumas: It's been several over the last few years of becoming the Warrior of Light. From being a healer, she has had a hard time accepting she can't save everyone. The loss of Haurchefant hit her physically hard. He saw Listelle as herself, not just the 'hero' or a weapon to be used by the city-states. Still goes to visit his grave in Coerthas when she can. Seeing the turmoil Garlemald had done to Ala Mhigo and Doma's regions. Zenos yae Galvus, because he reminds her of herself at certain times. How they can relate, as much as the Raen wishes not to admit it. The entire events of Shadowbringers with fighting for another world to holding in the light corruption. Her aether is still a mess, even after Ardbert had joined his soul with hers. Ending Emet-Selch's life, even when she understood his plight and ideals. Having to fight and kill Elidibus; The ONE PERSON that understood and had true affection for her. Yet, he was tempered by Zodiark, so they were forced into battle. It still haunts her to this day that she may lose Elidibus forever.

About them as of current story patch: As of Patch 5.5, Listelle is struggling on what to make of seeing that being surrounded in light. Being told the Final Days is coming--which is no doubt with Fandaniel and Zenos--and the entire world is on her shoulders. This is stressing her out to no end, even with Elidibus trying to keep her calm. He is her main anchor to keep her grounded currently. With the possibility of going to Sharlayan, she is not happy. Possibly having to keep the untempered Ascian unseen, depending. For now, she is stressed and pacing about what to do.

History: Listelle was found outside the doors of a Miqo'te couple living in the Black Shroud. Only a single note saying: "I cannot care for her; I'm possibly dead by the time you read this. Her name is Listelle; Please raise her well". The baby was an Au Ra Raen female, but they had no idea if there was such a family nearby. Living mostly in an isolated area, they didn't get many visitors. Just some adventurers, botanists, conjurers, or miners that came through the area. Despite this, they willingly took the baby in. They had issues trying to concieve their own child, so Listelle would fill the void. The void of trying to have a child, which they had now.

The Raen would come to know her parents as Sizha Vebei, her mother, and Rehzih'li Vebei, her father. They lived in a small cabin in the Southern part of the Shroud. Away from settlements like Camp Tranquil and Quarrymill, they kept to themselves for the most part. They raised their adoptive child as good as any adoptive parents could. With the times that Rehzih'li would go to Gridania for work and supplies, he would ask around about Listelle's family. He usually came up empty handed as per usual. This went on for years, until the Seventh Umbral Calamity hit Eorzea.

Listelle was 16 summers old when Bahamut broke free of Dalamud to reign terror from the heavens. The Black Shroud went up in flames in several areas. Thankfully, herself and her parents survived, but lost their home to the flames. The family was devastated, but then they decided to move on to a battered up Gridania as other refugees. They would have to make a new life within the city-state.

To the five years leading up to ARR, Listelle practiced conjury within the Stillglade Fane. Her parents had taken up other odd jobs to support themselves and their daughter, so Listelle had decided to do the same. With people becoming adventurers, the Raen decided to do the same. With her aetherpool higher than most, she fit right in with the Conjurers' Guild. Even with weird looks, the Au Ra flourished under their guidance and care. She would learn how to properly harness healing magics, as well as learn to borrow from the very Elementals of the Twelveswood.

Eventually, Listelle would become more involved with restoration efforts to help Gridania. Only her efforts would soon become widespread. Widespread enough for a certain organization to recruit her to their cause..

Feelings towards others: (add or remove as relevant)

- Elidibus – Her official partner, who she had a rocky relationship for years. However, it changed much after his defeat by her hand on top of the Crystal Tower in the First. She loves the Ascian dearly and would do anything for him. He had been there as well for her during some stressful times, despite him being under Zodiark's influence. They confide in each other constantly, and is a major support pillar for Listelle.

- Emet-Selch [Hades] – Despite their brief interactions, Listelle came to understand more about the Ascians. Even if it was a hard pill to swallow, the brief details Elidibus mentioned to her started to make sense. Like pieces to the puzzle was finally coming together. She would indulge and ask him a lot of the Ascians' history, the Old World, and the like. As much as her comrades didn't like their Warrior of Light conversating with their worst enemy, she ignored them...sometimes. She was upset to end his life when they couldn't come to some sort of understanding. She still has sobbing fits over Hades' demises, because of the fact of the Azem constellation crystal she has. It was even hinted that he knew of something going on between her and the Emissary at the time. Listelle always denied it, but there was a twinkle in those golden eyes that he knew of something.

- Feo Ul - As much as Listelle appreciates them, she can't deal with their sudden mood swings. The Fae being the Fae, she can't understand the times she gets yelled at for not summoning them. Being called cruel and heartless by Feo Ul made her uneasy around the pixie. Just over the course of the Shadowbringers, she saw the good in the King of Faeries. They became the next Titania, yet, they still treated Listelle as their most precious mortal. After all, they WERE connected by a pact! Feo Ul was another pillar during her struggle to contain the light corruption within her. The constant affection and support helped keep the heroine to move forward.

- Alphinaud – Meeting him the first time made her want to rethink her choices. However, with his constant presence helping her with 'official talks', she has been grateful for him. He has come a long way and has grown. Listelle hates meetings, and groans anytime Alphinaud tells her she has to go. Because she is the hero, she has to go, despite her wild protests.

- Alisaie – It took a bit for them to grow on one another. Alisaie understands when Listelle has her moments. Moments she wants to hide, but also treats the Raen like an actual person. Not just the hero, not just the Warrior of Light. Listelle finds herself getting teased when Alisaie fawns over her, depending if she's down or upset about something. Mostly by Y'shtola though.

- Y'shtola – Their relationship is...weird at best. Y'shtola and herself have their moments when they get into arguments. However, she knows the Miqo'te woman wants the best for her. During the events of Shadowbringers, she was worried over Listelle's state of taking in the Lightwardens' corrupted aether. Y'shtola and Ryne were there for her as they journeyed to Emet-Selch's domain. Full of Light, the heroine had a hard time doing basic tasks at times. Due to this, Listelle appreciates her. Just doesn't like when she teases her about Alisaie and G'raha's constant admiration of her.

- Thancred – Saw him as a flirtatious man who she didn't want to deal with at all. He even made comments about her 'beauty' on several occasions to get under her skin. However, as the years went by, she began to learn he was a lot more. Mostly learned this during her time on the First with the others and Ryne. Just the interactions between him and Ryne made her heart ache for them both. Including when they had to go back to the Source.

- Urianger – This Elezen made her want to rip her hair out most of the time. Just the way he spoke, his mannerisms made her so confused. Had to get the other Scions to repeat what he said to her many, many times. Still not fond of his secrecy behind her back on the few times. However, she does understand it's a necessary evil, yet she hasn't completely forgiven him yet. Though, she does appreciate any vital information he can provide her.

- Tataru - Oh sweet Tataru...Listelle loves the receptionist to death. Another person who treats her like she's a normal person. However, how she manages to get things done makes Listelle double think herself. Like the time the Lalafell wanted her precise measurements to get her outfits made. Just the way Tataru brings up results is quite...scary. The heroine watches herself whenever she's around the Lalafell woman.

- Minfilia - The first person to understand she had the power of the Echo. All those years of not understanding random visions she had when she was a child. She learned more from Minfilia over the course of the years. Only to be upset when she disappeared, then find out she was connected to Hydaelyn. She looked up the Hyur and she still misses her from time to time.

- Papalymo - The duo of 'Yda' and Papalymo made her giggle at times. There were times she didn't quite understand the relationship between the two. She got along with the Lalafell fine. That is, until he sacrificed himself to contain the newly born primal at Baelsar's Wall. She wanted to stay behind and help him, but alas, was forced to flee with the others. She still thinks about him from time to time, hoping he's watching over them from afar.

- Lyse - Wasn't sure how to feel about her until after the whole incident at Baelsar's Wall. She had come to understand Lyse as someone who wanted to fight for her homeland. As they journeyed over Gyr Abania and Othard, she had come to see the woman in a new light. With how she handles matters in Ala Mhigo with Raubhan at her side, she hopes the city-state flourishes under their care.

- Gaius – Rivalry since taking on the Ultima Weapon. However, with tackling the Weapon Project, she put aside her dislike for him. In order to stop these machines of death, she would work alongside him. Listelle began to see him in a new light as the Weapons consumed most of the orphans he saved back then. With only Allie left and the Weapons done with, she hopes Gaius can find some sort of peace.

- Nero – Despite him working at the Garlond Ironworks now, she still finds him quite annoying. Though, she has to admit he has helped her on several occasions when Cid couldn't. So, she'd tolerate the man at best.

- Cid – Thankfully to the Garlean many times over. With his few interventions to save her from certain doom, to helping her take down Omega. The accomplishments and shit they've seen and done is enough for a novel or two....or several. She gets along with him fairly well.

- Haurchefant – The Elezen man from House Fortemps and Camp Dragonhead. It was no wonder the silver-haired male admired her from the start. Even wanting to rush in to stop her from taking on Shiva. Never do anything reckless again! He had said to her, which she had meekly agreed to. When fleeing from the bloody Ul'dah banquet, he was a pillar of strength during that time. With most of the Scions gone, she blamed herself for their loss. Alas, Haurchefant wouldn't have none of it. Always cheering her up with hot chocolate and word of encouragement. However, when he died in her arms saving her from a pillar of light...Listelle was devastated. She was depressed for a long time, and still is when she thinks about it. Still blames herself for his death, even if he wanted her to smile. "A smile better suits a hero"; A statement she won't forget easily.

- Aymeric – The first meeting with him..she wasn't impressed. She had heard Ishgardians were uptight and unwelcoming. As much as he sounded polite, she didn't trust him off the bat. However, as time went on, she began to realize he was much more than. Even inviting her to a dinner after Nidhogg's defeat, which she enjoyed. Just his question about what she wanted for herself? She knew not the answer to that at the time. Regardless, the Raen goes to visit him when she can.

- Estinien – This dragoon is so stiff was Listelle's first thought. She didn't exactly like him off the bat. However, the journey across Dravania opened him up to her. She did try her best to understand him, but it was hard. As the years went by, she had come to know he had paid respects to Yysale, which she appreciates. Even the time when she collapsed in the Ghimlyt Dark, trying to persuade Zenos/Elidibus to stop this madness. Estinien had rescued her, which opened her up to that he was more good than she thought. Now with him joining the Scions, more opportunities to know him better have opened.

- G’raha – Annoying scholar to deal with when looking for the damn aethersand. Made it a game, then she promptly yelled at him for making her run around more than she had to. Investigating the Crystal Tower together, she did appreciate his work. When he locked himself away in the tower, she was a bit sad to see him go. Listelle did understand why he had to do it though. During the events of Shadowbringers, she had her suspicions on who the Crystal Exarch was. She couldn't completely confirm who it was, until she was being consumed by Light Corruption. Despite all this, she scolded him greatly after winning the fight against Emet-Selch. She knew he had a deep admiration for her, but only saw him as a friend. Regardless, their friendship is still healthy and blossoming.

- Other Warrior of Lights - Appreciates their hard work and resilience to keep the fight going. No matter what, as long as there is a light, they can still prevail.

[Character sheet made by @lizzy-dotharl. Template taken from @earthlystar.]

[painless-innit-colourful]

‘Weeping Headstones - Prologue’

The beginning of a Doctor Who AU I’ll never finish: Tommy and Tubbo are all set to hang out and go stargazing when- Well, they never can get a bit of peace, can they? Feat. some suspicious statues in the shape of Weeping Angels...

It promises to be a beautiful starry night. That’s what Foolish apparently told Tubbo earlier that day as he hung around Snowchester. Tommy doesn’t know how he knows that or how far he trusts it to be true, but if he’s right, he’s glad Tubbo’ll be here to spend it with him. It’s been a good week or so since they’ve had the chance to go stargazing; between bad weather, Tubbo’s responsibilities in Snowchester, Tommy’s new hotel project and yesterday’s nuke test, they’ve both been rather busy lately.

Just the thought of it makes him clear his throat on reflex, and it brings a smile to his lips. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t have radiation poisoning. Like, eighty percent. Okay, maybe he should’ve been more careful, but since he and Tubbo emerged from Dream’s creepy-ass vault with their lives Tommy’s been feeling rather indestructible. Not to bring Hamilton back into it, but he couldn’t seem to die. Besides, they had medicine, he hadn’t been accidentally hit by a nuke, and Dream was in the prison. Nothing could possibly pose him any threat right now.

As if to immediately prove him wrong, there’s a sharp ‘TWANG’ from only a few feet behind him, accompanied by a sharp whistle of air. Tommy’s reflexes from fighting a dozen wars and never knowing who to trust kick in, and he sinks down on the bench as an arrow sails through the empty space where his head just was. He has no armour and only a random sword on him: on the other hand, it’s just a skeleton. He draws his sword, dropping to one knee using the bench as a shield. The skeleton stands on the path outside his house, nocking another arrow on its bow. Tommy takes advantage of that brief moment, vaulting the side of the bench to run at the skeleton. He lands one hit on the wretched thing’s shoulder when he hears a familiar hiss from behind him to the right. He lets out a cry of surprise and swings in a wide arc, striking the creeper that had also snuck up on him and sending it back a couple metres or so. He scrambles back in the direction of L’Manberg, watching as the creeper shuffles forward and the skeleton fires a lazy shot to the side of it.

“You okay?” Tubbo sticks his head out of Tommy’s doorway, obviously alerted by Tommy’s surprised squeaking. “Nothing I can’t handle.” He says quickly, darting forward and delivering a second strike to the creeper, sending it reeling back again. Tubbo appears to disregard his statement, levelling a loaded crossbow at the skeleton and pinging a bolt off its skull. It makes a dull thudding sound and leaves a sizable dent. Tubbo reloads again, but the skeleton shoots first. Tommy doesn’t even need to dodge, as the arrow sticks in the creeper with a sound like someone stepping on a stick of TNT - don’t ask how he knows what that sounds like. There’s another hollow thud as Tubbo cracks another bolt off the skeleton’s body, and the magic holding its bones together disintegrates along with its form.

“We can call that one a team effort.” Tubbo shoots him a wink and goes to retreat back inside when he’s stopped by a small gasp from Tommy. He turns back, “What is it?” The blonde boy is sifting delicately through the pile of ash left by the creeper, revealing a round of black shellac like a palaeontologist uncovering a precious fossil. Neither boy can suppress the grin that forms. “Which is it?” Tubbo asks, and Tommy lifts up the disc to show the red centre. “Blocks again.” He leans back and gets to his feet. “You want it?”

“Sure.” Tommy passes it to Tubbo with a gentleness reserved only for discs and injured friends, and Tubbo gives him a genuine smile as he goes to put it in his ender chest. As he carefully puts it away, a warm feeling spreads through him. Contentment. He keeps an ear out for any more Tommy mishaps.

The boy in question is currently messing with the jukebox, resetting Cat since it had stopped playing since his encounter with the skeleton-creeper duo. The familiar synth melody begins to play, and Tommy’s about to recline back on his bench when he hears a series of small crashing noises, like someone’s dropped a frying pan down a flight of stairs. Furthermore, the noise came from the opposite direction to his house. He looks in the direction of the downtown SMP but sees nothing- No, wait.

Sticking just above the footpath is the top of a head. Someone’s crouched on the Prime Path stairs up to his house, and they’re watching him. Tommy maintains eye contact while getting up, going for a staring contest to psyche them out, whoever they are; he hasn’t figured that part out yet. They’ve got grey hair and a very stony gaze that turns his stomach over, but apart from that, he can’t make out anything since their body is out of his sightline. He makes his way over, head whirling with thoughts. Is this the apparently infamous Addison Rae??

Tubbo’s communicator buzzes unexpectedly. He yanks the microphone down to his mouth with two fingers, hands full of cr*p from Tommy’s chests. “Tubbooooo…” From the sound of Tommy’s voice, he’s making a regretful face and has just done something stupid. “On a scale of one to started a war, how bad is it?” A loud sigh is transmitted through the headphones in regrettably crisp quality. “Different scale. This is like that time I mistook a scarecrow for an attractive woman.” Tubbo sniggers. “What happened?”

“I feel like a foolish man, Tubbo.” “What did you do?” “I thought someone was watching me from the stairs, right? But it’s just this creepy-ass statue.” He plows through Tubbo’s giggles, kicking the statue with his foot in irritation. Part of its arm goes with it. “I’m being trolled with an oversized garden gnome.” “Weird. What’s it look like?” “It’s- It kinda looks like it belongs in a graveyard actually. It’s an angel, but its hands are on the stairs and everything, like it crawled up here to get me.” “Ah yes, angels. The most terrifying of monsters.” “I’m gonna ask Foolish if there’s a family relation-” “Oh god don’t-” “Or if I can kick it off the stairs like the other one. There’s a broken one down there.” He relayed, peering down at a pile of grey limbs and ash on the ground far below.

“I say pay it no mind. I’m nearly done.” Tubbo passes on, dumping an armful of saplings into a corner of the appropriate chest, inventively named ‘nature sh*t’. “How long does it take to find drugs in my chests? If it’s that hard, we have a serious problem, and not just with your eyesight.” Tommy complains, putting on a show of frustrated gestures to no one as he makes his way back to the bench. He flops down, ignoring the acute feeling of being watched sourcing from the statue on the stairs. “Tommy, looking in your chests is like trying to find the button in Pogtopia.” The blonde boy sits up straight, his back cracking in several places. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tommy can hear the smile in Tubbo’s voice the next time he speaks. “Lot of stuff that looks about right, but none of it actually does what you want it to.”

Tubbo hears the beginning of a reply masked with an undignified splutter, and he’s about to shoot something back first when the scream rips the sarky comment out of his mouth. He sprints up Tommy’s stairs and throws himself out the door, crossbow levelled… But there’s nothing there. Also, there’s no Tommy.

Panic starts to rise. He scours the immediate area, peering over the edge of the hill, along the path towards the hotel, all the way to the stairs down to L’Manberg, checking the houses opposite Tommy’s and down the stairs where Tommy said the angel statue was. And while there’s a broken pile of stone far below as he described… Whatever Tommy saw on the stairs is gone. 

There’s no time to worry about that.  “Tommy!”  His thoughts race. What could’ve happened?  The wind starts to pick up, and it brings a whirring sound only just obscured by the dying strains of Cat.  “Tommy?! C’mon man, this isn’t funny!”  It can’t have been a mob, there was nothing there. There’s no one else in the area; even so, Tubbo loads his crossbow and keeps it handy. He hasn’t been killed: there’s no blood and no body.

Could Dream have escaped the prison?

The thought sends a chill through him, rivalled only by a frigid Snowchester morning. Tommy hasn’t told him, properly, about his exile yet. There’s still a lot of leftover feelings involved for both of them. Even so, it’s plain to see: Dream hurt Tommy in ways neither of them had dealt with before: ways they should never have to deal with. If Dream were to get out of Pandora’s Vault and then go for Tommy before anyone could warn them…

Tubbo has his phone out and is halfway through typing Sam’s number when a small noise behind him causes his danger sense to start blaring like a nuclear siren. He turns, standing near Tommy’s door again, just in time to see a figure pass overheard, leaping from the roof of Tommy’s house and landing ahead of him. The figure makes a beeline for the bench, or more accurately the jukebox, and Tubbo watches dumbfounded as the figure lifts Cat from where it’s playing with practised ease and places it into their coat. The mystery thief is facing the wrong way for Tubbo to see their face, but he does take note of the pink hair tied back in a small ponytail, the ruby-red, fur-lined cloak and the sturdy boots leaving tread marks in the grass before they hop over the edge of the hill. He runs forward to perhaps get a shot in as they escape, only to be met with an empty landscape and the beginnings of a very pretty sunset.

He drops his phone to his side, jaw slack and nerves shaking. Someone’s trolling him and Tommy by moving an angel statue around. Then Tommy suddenly vanishes with a scream. And the icing on the absolute disaster cake: a possibly very powerful enemy’s just made off with one of the discs.

“Oh, f*ck me.”

[jungkookiebus]

Stargazing | kth

Genre: fluff x nonidol!au x established relationship x professor!taehyung Pairing: astrophysicist!taehyung x reader Rating: E for everyone! Word Count: 1.8k Summary: High up in the mountains, in a small village, there lives two young lovers; one is an astrophysicist, the other a dutiful plant mom and writer. On a special night, with a special supermoon, Taehyung, wants to picnic and watch it travel across the sky. With fireflies lighting the waves of grass, you settle among its drifting blades as Taehyung shares his passion of space and the wonder it holds.  Author’s note: This is a sensory drabble with a little more dialogue, but I don’t think it takes away from the comfort it’s supposed to portray. Plus, I fucking love space. 

“I’ll take you there one day.”

Taehyung’s slim finger partially covered your view of the moon for a moment. Tonight, there was a supermoon and he was adamant on taking you out for a night picnic. With a basket slung under his arm (you may have teased him a little for it) and his other arm intertwined with yours, he led you up the path shortly before moonrise. Your small village was nestled in the mountains, away from the busy life of the city the both of you had been used to up until a year ago. The both of you decided your lives weren’t fulfilled enough, sold most of your belongings, and moved to the mountains and you hadn’t looked back since. Fireflies danced among the trees and the ferns that grew beneath them. The sound of soft dirt beneath your feet sounded softly in the night, as if you walked on air. A cool breeze blew through the trees and it almost sounded as if waves were crashing on a shore. The night was filled with the sounds of crickets, cicadas, predatory night birds, and the winds coming down from the mountains. Sticks snapped beneath your feet every now and again. The clearing was one you visited often. The tall grass swayed gently in the breeze and the moon cresting over the trees cast it in a muted blue that made it seem like waves at dawn.

Now, the both of you were laid on the blanket on your backs, watching as the moon traveled slowly across the sky. The sky was dotted with thousands of stars that only highlighted the moon even more.

“To the moon?”

“Mhmm.”

You looked at him out of the corner of your eye. His hands rested on his stomach and you looked at his profile. From here, you could see the reflection of the stars in his eyes and you wished you could look at them head on without blocking the view. But for now, you were satisfied with seeing them as if standing at the edge of a clear pool. His eyes shone in the night. He never liked his brown eyes, but you thought they were the brightest eyes you had ever seen. Even his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he slowly blinked. His soft, dark hair haloed his head and soft curls fell across his forehead. You looked back towards the sky. The moon was almost too bright to look at for very long, but you were fascinated by the amount of detail you could see. Craters stood out in stark contrast from the white ashy surface, streaks of darker gray the only other proof that something had hit it.

“That’d be nice.”

He hummed as the wind pick up again. You laid in the middle of the field, blanket tamping down the grass where you sat, but the rest still stood tall around you as if you laid in an enchanted pool. It dipped down low, tickling at your legs so you scooted a little closer to Taehyung. He instinctively moved his arm so that you could tuck under, head resting on his shoulder. Fireflies were continuing to come out by the hundreds, dancing among the grass and the trees further beyond the field. An owl flew overhead once and a bat or two would skitter across your vision jauntily.

“What constellations are out tonight?”

In all honesty, you just wanted to hear him talk. You weren’t sure what it was. Maybe his voice was at just the right decibel. You were positive his voice could be taken and made into a binaural beat that would put the listener to sleep instantly or relax their tired soul. Whatever ailed you, his voice soothed the ache.

“Well, I see Capricorn and Aquarius. Oh, and Pavo is right over the trees…”

He trailed off, knowing he tended to get carried away. After all, the other reason you had moved here was for the observatory. Taehyung was a professor of astrophysics and when he decided to move, still made a living doing research for the university and published regularly.

“Tell me more about stars,” you said almost dreamily. You really did just want to watch the sky while he talked.

And talk he did. As you gazed out into the starry night you tried to imagine what he was describing. He was always so good at turning space into a story that you weren’t surprised he was the most popular professor at University. You tried to imagine that you had vision that could see beyond this earth and into the heavens above as he spoke. You traveled through various clouds of dust as his voice rumbled beneath you, guiding you through the galaxy. Then there was almost a storm, a turbulence within the cloud as the gas and dust began to collapse in on itself. You imagined the warmth on your face, contrasted sharply with the freezing temperatures of space, as the core heated. Taehyung waved his hand towards the sky as he spoke, gesturing to it in general as he continued his description.

“…protostars. It’s at the heart of these cores that someday become the star…”

You could practically see the brightness behind your eyelids as you closed your eyes, using the light of the moon to further your daydream.

“It kind of just gathers dust, but not all of it becomes a star. They could become asteroids or even planets.”

You loved his passion and it warmed you against the cold around you. You held onto him a little tighter as the temperature dropped. The moon was beginning to dip behind you, almost directly overhead now. The soft skin of his jaw was pressed to your forehead and when he talked it moved gently against your skin. The crickets were still just as loud, and the fireflies were having a dance all their own in the moonlight; they were the bioluminescence to this grassy ocean. An owl hooted behind you, nestled amongst the dark branches of the trees at the edge of the clearing.

“And when they die, they leave so many beautiful things behind.”

You let your fingers brush gently along his sweater as you nestled a little closer, sighing deeply as he continued to speak in his soft baritone.

“Their death are sad fates, but it’s amazing how long they get to live. They can be one of the oldest things in the universe, having lived for billions of years and we’re just here in the blink of an eye.”

He was always fascinated with life and life outside of himself. His fascination with the stars had started in an early age and traveled with him for the rest of his life. He reached for the old Tecsun hand crank radio he always kept by his side “just in case”. Taehyung without the radio wasn’t Taehyung. He had set it perfectly, just by memory, to the perfect station at peak clarity. Miles away, and up in the mountains a little higher than you were now sat a large radio tower with a small, white building at its base. On this night it was playing Ella Fitzgerald and The Andrews Sisters. The music floated softly on the air and the fireflies seemed to sway in time to the lilting beat.

“In a supernova the core collapses and explodes. These insane nuclear reactions happen, and the core literally creates iron, ____, now the star has taken all the nuclear energy it can and the star can no longer support its own mass and the iron core collapses.”

Taehyung is animated now, body shifting a little beneath you, but not enough to make you uncomfortable. You still fit comfortably under his arm and his warm hand never left the outside of your elbow. He was using his other hand to explain what he was saying, even though you weren’t looking. Every now and again, you’d open your eyes to see what shadows the moon was casting on his face now. Now that it was dropping behind you, his soft cheekbones were highlighted, and they cast shadows down his cheeks. The dip beneath his bottom lip was dark as night. His eyes, however, still reflected the stars. From this angle, you could watch both as his eyes searched the stars with rapt fascination. He seemed to always be looking for something different, something new. They moved from side to side and sometimes more upwards, exposing only the whites and they shined brilliantly, making you think of his dying stars and how you were made of them.

“In seconds, and imagine this please,” he didn’t need to ask you twice, you were too enraptured in his voice to ignore the words, “the core goes from roughly 5,000 miles across to just about a dozen.”

You inhaled in fascination at the fact. You truly were surprised because Taehyung seemed to always have something new for you to learn, even after all these years.

“It’s almost like one of those strange time travel objects villains always seem to get in superhero movies. Things backfire and then suddenly everything is collapsing in on itself and the whole world is out of control. It’s kinda like that. The outer layers collapse, along with the core. They rebound with the release of energy and literally explode outwards. The amount of energy they release is beyond imagination.”

He spread all his fingers across the sky, palm to the stars he talked so lovingly about. The stars still shined by the hundreds, some brighter than others, and some you had to squint to see. His hand moved like a strange black creature moving across the sky, but you watched his graceful fingers move, pointing out things he was talking about and what it would look like there.

“From days to weeks, a supernova can outshine a galaxy. The subatomic particles are the array of colors you see, but they occur once every hundred years. About 25 or so are discovered a year in other galaxies, but they can’t be seen without a telescope.”

Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Cocktail’ played quietly next to him on the blanket, making the moment that much more surreal. You wanted to create a bubble around this moment and stay in it, or revisit whenever you wanted. His hand, gentle on your arm and, despite your sweater, made your heart flutter a little every time he tightened his grip after being relaxed for a while. In turn, your grip on his sweater would tighten the slightest. He sighed now, resting in his explanation, as his hand settled on your hand. He held your fingers gently under his and his warmth was welcome.

“Thank you for doing this with me,” he whispered.

“I could do this forever.” You sighed contentedly; eyes closed as you listened to the music.

“I want that with you. Two lovers side by side together, two stars in the sky, dying out brilliantly in the end. Stargazing.”

And with the whisper of a kiss to your forehead, curls spilling across your skin, the two of you connected like twin stars, did just that.

Stargazed.

[sylvain-writes]

Guarded Hearts and Safe Houses (Leonardo x Reader) Chapter 5/9

Rated: T

Gender Neutral Reader, canon typical violence/injury, light angst, strangers to lovers, supportive family

for @melodiousmelodrama

As expected, your parents welcome the turtles into their apartment, offering them a safe space for as long as necessary. Their only concern is for the wellbeing of their new friends.

“Just for the day,” Leo tells your family, and his brothers look up, none protesting but clearly confused. “I have a place,” Leo explains. “It’s not set up or anything. We have a lot of work to do. Donnie, you’ll need help bringing stuff your stuff up from the sewers and we’ll have to abandon the van for a while-”

“Whaddaya mean, ya have a place?” Raphael sits forward, leaning onto his knees where he sits at Gram’s feet helping her roll cakes of yarn.

“An abandoned subway station. It’s not perfect, but it’s ours.”

Donatello rubs his chin. “Subway?”

“Are there trains?” Mikey’s open expression is full of wonder and hope.

“Yeah. There’s a car for each of us. No more bunk sharing or falling all over each other, fighting for space. But, the place needs some work.”

"Oh." Mikey's enthusiasm wavers as he spares half a glance toward Raphael, but he smiles up at Leo. "That's cool, bro!"

"Yeah, Leo." Donatello adds from the kitchen. "Sounds  great."

Leo tries not to take their drop in enthusiasm personally. But after all the work he’s putting in - searching for a place, fixing it up - even this slight rejection hurts. "Look, I wish we could get an apartment and play house with all this fancy stuff too, alright? But don't get used to it. This isn't our life. It's never going to be. The subway's gonna be good for us. You'll see."

" 'Course it is, man. You always know what's best." Raphael sounds sincere, but Leo turns in a huff as if his brothers had turned up their snouts at his announcement.

"I'll show you to a room where you can get some rest," you say gently. The whirlwind of the past 36 hours must have him exhausted. You could use some sleep as well.

Leo thanks you for access to the shower and for the bed, your bed, your room. And he turns himself in.

You call out of work and get a few hours of sleep before restlessness kicks in. You're not used to sleeping during the day. When you wake up, the guys are in various states of unrest as well.

Leo still hasn't come out.

Donnie announces, "He's asleep," and his brothers don't question it. But you raise an eyebrow at his quick assessment. "I compared his breathing against known patterns. It helps to know the difference between Leo asleep, Leo meditating, and Leo pretending to do either."

"Didn't take him for one to play pretend."

“He keeps his secrets," Raphael says, his tone a bit bitter. There's a history there, you think. "But he's always got his reasons. Thinks he knows what's best for us." Raphael shrugs, as if coming to a conclusion he's come to before. "He usually does."

No one is surprised when Leo sleeps through the day. And no one blames him. But when the pizza delivery fills the apartment with the smell of hot tomato sauce and melted cheese, they all expect him to show at the table. He doesn't, and even Mikey can't make his "More for me, then" sound free of his worry.

"Is he gonna be alright? If we leave him?" You want to go to him. You barely know Leo, but he's let you see him vulnerable before. You think maybe his vulnerability is one of the things his brothers know he hides. Maybe he doesn't realize they see. Anyway, you don't want to force him.

"Sensei usually knows what to do."

"Splinter-” you nod along “-have you heard from him? Is he coming?"

Donatello shakes his head, but doesn't seem concerned. "His last transmission noted his safety. He'll contact us again soon."

You pick olives off your pizza and line them up as you think aloud. "Until then, you'll help Leo with the station?"

Raphael piles three slices onto his plate, before lifting a fourth from the box straight to his mouth. "We go where Leo goes. He found us a spider-infested death trap to live in… we'll go."

An olive slips off the rim of your plate. "How did you know it was spider-infested?"

"Ya came in before covered in cobwebs and shit. But whatever. Sewer wasn't no palace either." There’s no embarrassment or judgment in Raph’s tone. Leo should be here, hearing his brothers support his decision.

"He seems really excited about it. I mean… hopeful, y'know?"

"Yeah." Donatello passes you his slices of mushrooms and you pass them on to Mikey who gobbles them up with gusto. "We never said we didn't like the idea. It's just not home, that's all."

You can sympathize. "We moved around a lot when I was younger. Always trying to find a better placement for mom. A safer community for me to grow up in. It wasnt the house that made it home. It was having my family around."

"Yeah, yeah,” Raph grumbles. “Real Hallmark life changing stuff. But he's not worried about keeping us together, remember? We each get a car to ourselves. He's splittin us up."

Mikey goes quiet, stops eating, drops his hands into his lap.

You don’t know what to do, what to say, to make this better. You think, if they would just talk to Leo about this, it could all be straightened out. But the rest of the meal is silent. It seems the brothers don’t even feel up to talking to each other.

When Leo emerges from the room, he announces it's time to go. "We have to patrol. They tried to hit us where it hurts. But we're resilient. And we’re not going to let the Krang take our city.”

You narrow your eyes at Leo and wonder if he’s ignoring the strain on his brothers - or if he just can’t see it. You wonder if he can read the loss in their eyes, if he can understand that ordering them to brush themselves off and push through another night of patrol might not be in their best interest right now.

Leo stands taller. “I said, we’re moving out. Let’s go.”

Donatello is the first to stand from the table. He grabs his pack from behind the couch and waits by the window while Leo opens it and climbs into the night. Raphael knocks Mikey’s shoulder and jerks his head toward their brothers as if to say, “We better head out too.”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t stay longer.” You look at their plates of half eaten food and wonder why Leo hadn’t at least let them finish.

“Forget about it,” Raph says with half a frown. “We knew it wouldn’t last.”

“Yeah, right,” Mikey agrees, heading for the fire escape. “We don’t belong in some fancy place like this. But I really like how the carpets match the drapes.”

The observation awards him a smack on the arm.

“What? What’d I say?”

“Kids,” Raphael chuckles, embarrassed for everyone in the room. “He doesn’t know what he’s talkin’ about. Excuse us.” He ushers Mikey out and refuses to explain innuendo to his little brother. “Thanks for all the, uh… thanks.”

Mikey looks back at your family before he leaves. “I really do like the-” his compliment becomes a shout of surprise as Raphael tears him away from the window and to the roof.

Over the next few nights, you get rather used to seeing turtles on the roof. The Krang’s forces are growing in number, but as they continue to remain in hiding, everything feels like speculation. And so, the turtles rotate watch on your building. It makes stargazing more interesting. Especially on nights when Donatello is around. Raphael is kind of a mess. Always on high alert and rarely interested in standing still long enough to enjoy something as simple and amazing as the moon and stars. But Donatello is full of knowledge about the cosmos.

Some nights you and Donnie discuss the possibility of life on other planets. It seems like Donnie enjoys the distraction, until you realize he’s talking about the likelihood of alien attacks.

Mikey has a special interest in astrology, which surprises and delights you to no end. He loves telling you his brothers’ horoscopes and making connections within their lives to prove how absolutely on point astrology is.

Finally, you ask, “How do you know when your birthdays are? I mean, weren’t you all exposed to the mutagen at the same time?”

Mikey explains, “It’s all in the stars. I didn’t choose our birthdays. Our birthdays chose us.” And points to the astrological chart in his lap as if it held the answers to the universe, which, if he were to argue the point, it did.

You just nodded, letting him have his way.

Leo doesn’t patrol your roof. Not once. Not, like, ever. And you’ve looked for him. You’ve asked about him. But the most you’ve ever gotten is a weird sigh from Raphael and some grumbling about Leo cleaning up his own messes.

After two weeks, you drop the subject of Leo completely. If he doesn’t want to see you, then you definitely don’t want to see him.

“How is the new place coming along?”

Mikey rocks from side to side on the edge of the building where the two of you have been tearing up bits of dying leaves and let them float on the wind. “I got my own room.”

Through the corner of your eye, you catch Mikey worrying his bottom lip and decide to wait for him to say more before responding.

“I’m right between Donnie and Raph. It’s pretty cool. I got a bed. And, uh, my music and stuff is all set up. But Raph took half the comic books. Donnie said I can borrow the textbooks anytime I want but…”

“What was your set up like before?”

“Huh?”

“At the Lair. Did you each have your own room?”

“Oh. No. Well, Leo did. He and Donnie had their own. Raphie and I shared,” Mikey’s voice got quieter as he spoke.

“What was it like, rooming with Raph?”

“It sucked. He smells bad after workouts and his cologne smells worse. And he says I snore. And he always moved my stuff and used my headphones without asking.”

“And you miss him.”

“And I miss- Hey…”

“It’s OK to miss him.” You pass Mikey a new leaf to tear. “I bet he misses you, too.”

“I bet he misses my headphones. For sure. He’s always breaking his.”

“He ever break your stuff?”

“Nah. Never. I wasn’t scared he was gonna break ‘em. I just didn’t want them smelling like Fierce by Abercrombie & Fitch.”

You laugh at that and Mikey loosens up a bit. “You share a wall with Raph, right?”

Mikey shrugs. “Kinda. Like a window.”

You lean back on your hands for support and look up at the sky with a smile. “I have an idea.”

[immortalghostkami]

Like the Sun and the Moon

Chapter 6: Sweet Dreams and Waking Nightmares

Chapter Index

Walking down the road, Makoto silently kept pace with Inosuke as they headed to the next town. Asuka flew ahead of them, keeping a keen eye on Inosuke. 

Crossing her arms and quirking her head, Makoto pondered on their next mission. Young women have been going missing or acting weird after working for the town’s landowner. If the demon was where she thought it’d be, then the duo found themselves in a predicament. 

“Oi, Makataro,” Inosuke suddenly called, snapping her out of her thoughts.

“Yes?” she answered as Asuka flew back to her.

Giggling slightly as he landed on her arm, she rubbed the top of his head as he glared daggers at the other boy.

“The sun’s gonna go down soon,” he said, not even noticing the crow’s death stare. 

“Oh,” Makoto blinked, not realizing the time. How long had she been lost in thought?

Tilting her head, she hummed. They were nowhere close to town yet, and she wasn’t too keen on traveling at night. It’d be more beneficial if they just kept moving, but traveling in the dark made her a little uneasy.

“Inosuke, would you be alright if we camp out for the night?” she asked, turning to him. 

“I don’t care, I sleep outside all the time!” he proudly proclaimed. 

“Well, that’s reassuring. I don’t really sleep outdoors, so I’ll be looking to you for help,” she laughed, only boosting Inosuke’s ego.

After finding a nearby stream, the two settled down by a tree. Gathering firewood, Makoto thanked Inosuke for the help. Laughing at how excited he seemed to be, she had him help her create a fire as the sun sunk into the horizon. 

“We should cook that bird,” Inosuke grinned, staring at the crow perched in the tree above.

“We’re not cooking Asuka,” Makoto sighed, sitting down in front of the fire.

Grumbling in response, Inosuke sat next to her, watching her burn some incense before pulling out a bag of goods. Opening it, it held all sorts of raw vegetables, plants, and other assortments of food.

“When did you get those?” Inosuke questioned, picking up a small yam.

“Just before we left town. Since we’re traveling together now, I thought it’d be a good idea to stock up a little more,” she explained.

 Grabbing a large, tightly wrapped bamboo leaf, Makoto unwrapped it to reveal four rice balls.

“They’re not much, but they’ll do until we make it to the next town over,” she hummed, taking half before handing the rest to Inosuke.

Lifting up his mask, Inosuke grinned as he took the other two. Wasting no time, he dug into them, enjoying the salty and sour flavor.

Sighing at the mess he made, Makoto simply turned back to the food. Picking up a few sticks, she skewered some of the vegetables before roasting them.

Watching the fire crackle, it was warm as they ate. 

The moon was making its way across the sky as it cast shadows on the earth below.

Wiping his mouth clean with the back of his hand, Inosuke could still lightly taste the plum from the rice as he licked his lips.

“Here, you can have this one too,” Makoto offered, smiling at him as she held up her other rice ball.

Watching Inosuke happily dig into the extra food, Makoto turned back to her half-eaten rice ball. She had been a little worried that she’d be eating alone after becoming a demon slayer, but with Inosuke by her side, it brought her solace. Even if he was a little feral at times, she had always believed food tasted better with others.

Leaning back against the trunk of the tree, Makoto’s eyes wandered the starry sky above. Against the dark night sky, they twinked softly next to each other. 

It was beautiful. 

On nights like these, Makoto’s mind couldn’t help but wonder. She remembered the bamboo forest she grew up in and sneaking out with her siblings to go stargazing. They would make up constellations, and when they returned home their mother would pretend to have not noticed them missing.

She remembered her time during the spring festival under the big sakura tree… 

The sky was littered with stars that night too, with a waning moon high that sat high in the sky. 

The air felt cool against her skin when she snuck away from her parents. She giggled as she made her way towards the giant sakura tree that sat just outside of town. Although the other sakura trees were indeed beautiful, she knew that that one would be the most beautiful of all.

Standing under the flowering tree, her eyes sparkled. The way the moon caused the budding flowers to glow was haunting to look at. Draping them in its gentle light, she couldn’t look away. Almost like a spotlight was pointed solely on the tree.

Pulling out the shakuhachi her father had given her, she brought it to her lips before carefully playing a note. The hollow sound filling the air and echoing around her.

“What are you doing?” a familiar voice called out to her.

Pausing in her song, Makoto didn’t bother to turn around. She didn’t need to, to know who he already was.  

“I’m playing for the flowers,” she simply replied, thinking of the next song to try.

“Why?”

“Because I want to see them bloom,” she explained.

“That’s not going to work.” 

“Why not?” she snapped back.

“Because that’s not how plants work?” he chuckled. 

“Then how do I get them to bloom?” 

“You just have to wait.”

“But I am!” she pouted.

“You have to wait longer, it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Puffing out her cheeks his words only made her more upset.

The silence between them was quickly replaced by crickets as they stood there, under the giant sakura tree. The moon high above them bathing its soft light on the two.

“You know Makoto, I just realized something.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” she grumbled. 

“Your hair makes you look like the sakura tree, it’s really pretty,”

Spinning around-

Makoto suddenly snapped her eyes open as she woke up in a cold sweat. Breathing heavy, her heart was pounding painfully against her chest. Her limbs felt almost numb as her mind tried to process what had just happened.

Eyes darting, she found Asuka asleep in the tree above and Inosuke snoring away next to her. The fire they sat in front of was burning low and the moon was high in the sky.

Running a hand through her hair, she watched as the dying flames flickered in front of her. The image of that boy's smiling face from that night surfacing to the front of her mind. 

Letting out a low, shaky breath, Makoto tried to calm her racing heart. 

When did she even fall asleep?

Sitting quietly, her eyes bore into the flickering flames as she tried to calm her nerves. The silence was deafening and the air was suffocating the longer she sat, waiting. 

Waiting… waiting for what exactly? She didn’t know.

Picking up her sword, Makoto placed two yams into the fire’s embers before sneaking off. Putting enough distance between her and the camp, she didn’t want to accidentally wake anyone up.

Drawing her sword, she tightly gripped the hilt of her blade. Taking a deep breath, she swung it. Over and over again, she swung, trying to distract herself from her own mind.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again, not when her dreams were going to be full of memories of the dead.

No matter how hard or vigorous she trained however, she was unable to shake the unease in the pit of her stomach. 

It was nights like these that she found to be the hardest of all. 

Waking up from a nightmare might shake someone to the core, but being reminded of the happy times?

Stumbling forwards, Makoto’s blade harshly pierced the ground below her. Tugging and pulling on it, she tried to pull it out only to find it stuck. A low hiss slipped past her lips as she glared at it, almost wishing it would get set on fire.

Clenching her shaking fits, she practically ripped it out of the earth, causing her to fumble back. Involuntarily falling back, Makoto couldn’t bring herself to pick herself back up.

Watching the night sky, her fingers trembled as her lungs burned from more than just training. Her head felt light and her throat was tight. It was getting hard to breath as she laid in the grass. 

Mindlessly watching the stars above, her vision blurred as unwanted memories flooded her mind. Her dream replayed in front of her on repeat. 

Taking a shaky breath, she dried her tears, only for them to be replaced by new ones.

How? She couldn’t understand.

How was someone supposed to handle dreams like that? How were you supposed to deal with being reminded that all those happy times, the smiles, the laughs, all of it was now gone! 

What was she now supposed to do knowing that the ones she loved most were gone?

Waking up with a yawn, Inosuke smelt something good drifting in the air. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he found Makoto already awake. 

“Good morning Inosuke, I grilled some fish and roasted a yam if you’re hungry,” she smiled at him.

While eating breakfast, Inosuke noted something odd about Makoto. She looked a little sweaty and the tip of her nose was the slightest shade of pink. Her eyes also looked heavier and darker than normal as well.

Noticing him staring at her, Makoto asked, “Is everything alright?”

Inosuke was silent for a minute, before nodding his head and pointing to the roasting fish.

“I wanna eat that one too.”

Sighing a laugh, she handed the finished fish to him, the smallest of smiles pulling at the corners of her lips.

Taking a large bite of it, Inosuke decided he wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t care enough and pushed it to the back of his mind. After all, if something was wrong, he was sure Makoto would have said something.

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

[fandima-moved-read-pinned]

Would it be awesome to see you do all 100 asks? Yes. Will you do them? We shall see.

Wanna bet 

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? - More cereal than milk! 

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?- No, actually. I hate the cold ^^' And if there's cold air on my cheeks then it's on my nose and that's no good 

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? - Usually a post it note! Not very random, but it's normally what I have on hand. 

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? - Depends on my mood! Sometimes I'll take my coffee black, other times ill add a fricc ton of creamer, whipped cream, and sugar. Also sometimes I mix coffee with hot chocolate and it's amazing. 

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? - Very. 

6: do you keep plants? - Always. I still have the carnations from Valentines Day (which surprisingly haven't died yet) 

7: do you name your plants? - Nope. 

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? - just a mechanical pencil or a graphite pencil. They usually end up being sketches. But if I like how it looks I'll go over them in pen. 

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? - Yes and no? I'd do it more often but I don't want anyone to hear me. Especially my mom. 

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? - Side, always facing the wall. 

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? - The only one I can think of off the top of my head is *slap slap slap* *jumps out window*. No I will not explain. 

12: what’s your favorite planet? - Pluto! Or Make Make. Make Make used to be my favorite because me and my brother would pronounce it wrong on purpose. But Pluto is ver pretty. 

13: what’s something that made you smile today? - seeing my brother's reaction to his birthday present from me! I made a little felt monkey with bushy eyebrows (I needle felted it) 

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? - Probably very messy. But also it would constantly smell like food! 

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! - Mars is shrinking. It is Smol. 

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? - Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp! It's what I usually ordered at Olive Garden until I found out that it was expensive and was probably stressing out my parents. 

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? - Don't laugh okay but pink! I want to dye the bottom half of my hair bright freaking pink. Like hot pink. 

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. - That time I slapped a guy twice for picking me up. That guy was my best friend. He picked me up from behind and I sorta whipped around and slapped him. The first time he didn't put me down, he just laughed. So I slapped him again. He got the hint. 

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?- I don't. I tried a while back, but I figured it would be easier just to talk to people about my issues instead of writing them down. 

20: what’s your favorite eye color? - Green. Or dark brown. 

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. - Not sure what this means, sorry. I've got this pencil pouch that has a tree print on it that I've used for a few years now even though it has a hole it it. Does that count? 

22: are you a morning person? - No. I wake up at 5:30 am on weekdays and usually don't get out of bed until I have ten minutes to get ready and leave. 

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? - Stay in my room and draw! Although I don't have lazy days. Every time my mom comes upstairs I immediately start cleaning because if I don't she'll yell at me for being lazy. 

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? - Yes. Take a look at who sent this ask. Also my other two online friends! One of them I spam with worms on a string and the other I just know I can trust and I don't know why. 

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? - the only place I've broken into is my own house. I had to climb the backyard fence to go through the back door because me and my brother forgot our keys. 

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? - My plain black tennis shoes. I need to get new ones because these ones are old and barely fit but every time I mention it, it's like I never said a word. 

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? - Candy Cane! 

28: sunrise or sunset? - Sunset! I get to see the sun setting behind the Rocky Mountains and it's really pretty. 

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? - exist 

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? - Yes. I'd rather not talk about it. 

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. - socks can burn in hell for all I care. I hate socks. I only wear them if I have to (like while wearing shoes) 

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. - I remember being at a sleepover a few days before I moved (this was in South Korea) and I woke up at 3:34 am (yes I remember the time don't ask why) because one of my friends was playing Megalovania on the keyboard. Then she turned around and asked who the hell took her pretzels. They were under her pillow. 

33: what’s your fave pastry? - c w a s o a n t (with jelly inside!) 

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? - I still have this stuffed animal now (I have all of my stuffed animals. I haven't brought myself to get rid of them). It's a little pink blanket with a bunny head named Squeek. Not Squeak. I didn't know how to spell that. 

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? - No. I don't have any. 

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? - https://youtu.be/7TqLXIBG-6g   not a band but still

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? - Messy! It may sound strange, but I can't find anything when it's clean. It also feels empty unless I've got stuff all over the floor. 

38: tell us about your pet peeves! - When I tell remind someone of the rules and they say "okay" and continue breaking them. Like we aren't supposed to put pans in the dishwasher because it ruins the pans. Yet my brother always puts them in there. I remind him and take it out, and he says "okay" and puts it back. I also hate it when I ask someone to stop doing something (usually when it's making me nervous or upset) and they ask "WhY?" in a really annoying tone and keep doing it. I ALSO hate it when I'm in charge and yet no one listens to me. 

I also don't like it when no one says thank you. It makes it seem like they don't appreciate me. 

39: what color do you wear the most? - Grey. I want to wear colorful clothes but the last time we went clothes shopping and I asked for pastel colors, I walked out of the store with grey, light grey, brown, and dark blue clothes. 

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? - I have a locket that I made for my seventh birthday. It has little charms in it (a rose, my first initial, a heart key, and a birthday cake) and it's gold. I love it and I don't know why. 

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? - There's a book series that I don't remember the name of but it's about a girl who is forcibly turned into a siren by three other sirens. She has to eat human hearts to live. It's kinda gorey, kinda romantic, lots of action. I love it. 

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! - Unfortunately no, I usually get coffee at a gas station ^^' 

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? - My dog Freyja! Whenever I take out trash, she comes with, and when the sky is clear I like to point out the starts with her before we go back inside. She's very sweet. But I can't stargaze for more than a minute. 

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? - Last year I went on a trip to Florida to stay with my grandparents for a week. I remember waking up one morning with a beautiful view of the ocean and the sound of waves crashing onto the shore. My grandparents have an apartment of sorts that faces the Atlantic and you can literally go down the stairs and go swim in the ocean if you want to, it's like a two minute walk, not even. I love the ocean and the sound of waves and seagulls is always calming to me. But my house is very loud and there's no peace here. 

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? - Yes. When I have a bad feeling about something, I address it. It's not always true, but I don't want to risk anything. 

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. - Sorry, I don't know many puns. I guess I'm just not a pun-ny person. 

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? - fucking macaroni with bread crumsb that shit is nasty af 

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? - Storms, especially tornados. Now my biggest fear is death. Whether I'm the one dying or its someone I care about. 

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? - Not really, I don't have money to buy anything ^^' Even when I do have money, I spend it on art stuff. That reminds me that I need to fix my radio. 

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? - Fabric. I have so much and I don't even use it. But when I see a nice fabric, I get it (if I have money). 

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? - 'Old Timer Rock and Roll' (probably not the name of it) always reminds me of my dad. One day we were driving in his Jeep, just us two, and I mentioned that I wasn't a fan of the music on the radio. We ended up compromising and that song was the first one on the radio station that we switched to. 

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? - I am unfortunately not up to date with the memes. Although the ones where it's like "you've mc-ed your last Donald" or "you've ratted your last tatouille" always make me exhale aggressively. 

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? - None of the above! I've been wanting to watch Heather's though. I just never get around to doing it. 

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? - My brother. Not the same one from before. 

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? - nothing, sorry. I'm not very dramatic. 

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? - when they pour their heart out about a certain subject that they love. I know a lot of people tend to bottle up their opinions but when someone trusts me aniugh to tell me all about it, it's just sorta nice. 

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? - I just sorta spaced out for the first have then did a little dance for the rest of it. I love the line "I see a little silhouetto of a man" and it's more upbeat and the music just makes me dance a little 

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? - bold of you to assume I have a group of friends 

59: what’s your favorite myth? - There's this one I heard as a kid that involves a faceless girl on the side of a highway who tries to steal faces. 

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? - I can't think of any off the top of my head, but poetry is nice! 

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? - I don't really remember. I try to only give gifts that are meaningful. 

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? - nope! I usually drink milk! 

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? - I usually leave my music to its own devices, but all the books are organized by series and genre. 

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? - Blue! Just any other afternoon sky. 

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? - My older brother. We don't get to talk much. 

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? - Colorful, with a few white flowers! 

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? - Those are usually the days that I don't feel anything. 

68: what’s winter like where you live? - The weather is all over the place. A little snow, then the next day, it's like 60°F. Not even joking. It snowed Friday and Saturday was warm. 

69: what are your favorite board games? - Monopoly and Battleship! 

70: have you ever used a ouija board? - No, but I really want to. But my dad won't let me. 

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? - I don't really drink tea, sorry! 

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? - Nope. I'll forget it anyway. I usually set alarms for certain things but then I don't do it. 

73: what are some of your worst habits? - Biting the inside of my cheek and scratching/pinching my arm when I'm nervous. 

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. - kind, a good listener, talented, and understanding 

75: tell us about your pets! - We have four dogs. There's Emrys (the dog I've posted pictures of before), Cirilla (a husky German Shepard mix, very sweet), Cayde-6 (a Rottweiler mix I think, super energetic, loud, and steals food off the counter even when someone is watching), and Freyja (a German Shepard mix, puppy, also very sweet! She knows the phrase 'give hugs' and she always comes with me to take out the trash for whatever reason). I also have a Guinea Pig (who I want to get a friend for because she's lonely, but my parents keep saying no) names Neo. 

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? - Working on my Someconsious series, cleaning, and probably checking in with some friends. 

77: pink or yellow lemonade? - Pink 

78: are you in the minion hateclub or Fan club? - Hate club. I don't like them. They're just annoying and bright and their language is stupid to me. 

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? - One of my exes surprised me with a cars and roses out of nowhere. It wasn't Valentines Day, it wasn't my birthday, he just went out of his way to do something nice for me when I was having a rough week. 

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? - They're a sort of off white. I want to paint them light lavender or pale blue but my parents have only painted the living room and refuse to paint anywhere else for whatever reason. I know we can afford paint, I know we have time. They just stopped caring. 

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. - Not sure what it means by abstract, but I'll try. Her eyes are similar to the bottom of a small river. The brown in the middle with green rings on the edges remind me of a river I used to go fishing in back in Oklahoma. 

82: are/were you good in school? - I'm okay. I have all A's and B's, but I have easy subjects that aren't very hard. 

83: what’s some of your favorite album art? - I don't really listen to albums, my music taste is mostly individual songs. Even then I don't really pay attention to the art. 

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? - I want to get a quote of sort on my ankle. Something in another language so I can tell them it means something mysterious and deep when in reality it's the description of a toaster oven that hasn't been cleaned since 1995.

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? - I read a few webcomics if that counts! I like Castle Swimmer a lot! Gay fish bapeys are best fish bapeys. 

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? - I don't know what those are, sorry 

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? - The Princess Bride and the Last Unicorn. But I'm biased because they're both a part of my childhood. 

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? - not in particular! 

89: are you close to your parents? - I'm only close with my dad. My stepmom can go fuck herself. She just told us that's she'll be making a schedule for the next two weeks because there won't be school. One of the weeks was spring break anyway! We aren't missing much! 

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. - I like Palm Beach in Florida! It's fairly quiet, right next to the ocean, and filled with retired people who are all really nice. 

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? - Nowhere, we don't travel much. I really want to go to Florida again though. 

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? - I don't add cheese at all! It sort of ruins the texture for me. Especially the grated sprinkle cheese stuff l. I hate now it feels. 

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? - I just keep my hair down. I don't like it in any other way. 

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? - My brother. His birthday is today! 

95: what are your plans for this weekend? - cry a lot cry some more lose feelings for a few hours draw watch YouTube art videos then try not to yell at my mom like I did last week

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? - I just get it over with so I can do whatever needs to be done. Or I schedule it for when I'm not going to be using it. 

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? - INFP-T/Mediator, Scorpio, and Hufflepuff 

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?- A few weeks ago. And no, I did not enjoy it considering I was supposed to be working on an important project that day. 

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. - Where We Started, If You're Going Through Hell, and We Like to Numb (a mix of We Like to Party and Numb) 

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? - Future. In five years I plan on being in college and I want to see what I should be prepared for and if my interests have changed. 

This took me at least an hour and a half. Thank you though! I 

[irntony-blog]

Little Black Box

@writer-grace I hope I didn’t disappoint!

Hello! this is my first time writing with tony and I hope you’ll enjoy! Please reblog if you did and feedback is ALWAYS grately appreciated.

summary: When Y/n’s mother passed away she left something special for her daughter, and little did she know that it was going to turn her entire world upside down.

Y/n was brilliant. Some would even call her a genius. At the age of seventeen she had accomplished more than most people do in a lifetime. From hacking into NASA’s database at twelve years old with the simple reasoning that she wanted to cover her walls in rocket drawings, or getting accepted into the most prestigious school in the country only to graduate two years early.

Other than being clever, Y/n had other qualities that made her stick out from the crowd. She was calm, collected, and didn’t utter a word without considering the consequences of her actions. She was thoughtful, ingenious and innovative. Her long list of accomplishments had put her name on the map and made her a brilliant resource for many companies, even the army. The many zeros that were added to the paychecks she was offered, would have made a normal person get on their knees and beg for a chance. But she was different, she didn’t care about the money anymore. She wanted a family, wanted to feel loved, and she had made that her next mission.

She was sixteen when her mom passed away. After years of illnesses and treatments that made her turn to dust before her eyes, she had passed away.

Her mother was a runaway, who left her parents house in the 80’s with the man that was going to be her father. Not long after, he had left her. Unaware of the cell that was turning into a human inside of her.

Her mother had raised her on her own, working late shifts to put food on the table for the both of them, and Y/n was only eleven when she got her first job. She loved, and cared about her mother and hated to see her struggling.

She would watch from her room as she cried during the night she thought she was asleep. How she would talk to herself, trying to find a way to make the ends meet. When Y/n’s success started paying the bills instead, there was no talking about quitting. She hated being in the spotlight, on magazine covers or on talk shows, but she did it anyways. She could see the pure happiness that radiated from her mother when she would pick up a newspaper and point to the picture of her daughter. Y/n felt it was her duty, trying to pay back the sacrifices she made for her. And when she passed away, it was like Y/n lost the passion to keep doing what she did.

She didn’t leave much behind when she left, the apartment in the neighborhood with the nosy neighbors, a few gold bracelets with unique patterns on the back and a little black box. It was about the size of her hand and on top someone had glued a fee diamonds to it. Covered in a black velvet, it was soft to the touch. She had avoided opening it, thinking that it was going to be so final. The final realization that he mother was in fact, gone. But now she grabbed the small box and sat down.

She pulled her feet up into the rocking chair where she was sitting, the one her mother used to sit in all day when she was sick. Carefully, she opened the lid her eyes wandered over the insides. There was a note, messily folded together and slightly yellow, signaling that it had been laying there for a while. And a small keychain of a glass heart.

Y/n couldn’t help but furrow her brows, confused to the meaning behind the items. She lifted out the paper and unfolded it. It was a letter, to her. It was dated back to 2014, when her mom first got diagnosed.

“Dear Y/n.

I’m sitting here and watching you work. You are only thirteen years old, yet you have been able to solve equations that even the most educated mathematicians consider a mystery. You look so happy, and so concentrated, and that is all I ever want for you.

Your happiness is all that matters and that is why i’m writing you this letter. To read when i’m gone.

I want to thank you for making my life so meaningful with your existence, and I could never ask for a more perfect daughter. You showed a new side of the world, one where there was no worries about putting food on the table or paying the bills. I am sorry I couldn’t provide you with a better childhood, that you couldn’t be a child for as long as you wanted. Instead you had to grow up so quickly.

Now when you are reading this , i’m gone. I know there is a lot of things going through your mind right now but know that no feelings are less worthy or silly. I hope you’re staying strong, eating enough and getting enough sleep. But now I need you to do something for me.

I need you to find your father”

Her body froze as her eyes went over the sentence over and over again. She didn’t know much about her father, only thing her mother would tell her when she was younger. About how he was a rich businessman who was extremely intelligent, much like herself. She told her about the times they went stargazing and when they went skinny dipping and almost got caught.

She had always wondered what her father would be like. When she was younger she would draw pictures of him, trying to make her own image of him.

Y/n never felt angry against him, or the fact that he left. Many wondered how and why, but it just wasn’t her. She found it useless to carry around anger, an unnecessary weight only making her sink deeper into the ground.

But now her mother, the one who kept her from seeing her father for all these years, wanted her to find him.

She returned her eyes to the paper and read the last part.

“His name is Tony Stark, and he doesn’t know about you. He doesn’t know that I got pregnant so please go easy on him. The two if you are so much alike, that I think you will find great happiness in getting to know him. And that is all I want for you. So please honey, find your father. Get to know him. You need someone and I can’t stand the thought of you being alone.

I love you and I will never stop.

Momma”

A tear was making its way down her cheeks at the words. She felt a slight resistance about finding the man but it was over trumped by her mothers need. So she folded the small note and put it back into the box, and instead grabbed her laptop.

She did what everyone does when they want information about something - she googled. Y/n had only written “to” before his name came up in the suggestions. She raised an eyebrow at it, realizing that her father seemed to be a big deal. Her dark hair fell into her eyes as she scrolled down his Wikipedia page, and she quickly tugged it behind her ear.

Tony Stark was certainly a man with many different sides to him. He had a lot of opinions, and wasn’t afraid to shut down reporters and paparazzis. Tony had a company, Stark Industries, that had started of as a weapon manufacturer that his father started, but after an incident in 2008 the company that seemed to no longer be the case.

He was a part of something called the “Avengers” , and after further investigation she found out that it was a group of extraordinary people, superheroes. She rolled her eyes at the word. There was no such thing as superheroes, people who defy gravity and and the laws of physics. It just wasn’t possible for a human being to stop a car going at 40 miles an hour or turn into a green giant.

Y/n slammed her computer shut and rested her face in her arms, she let out a tired sigh and  felt her body aching. Her stomach was screaming for food and she made her way to the kitchen as if she was running on autopilot. Settling on cereal and a sandwich she sat down on the cold kitchen chairs. It sent a shiver down her spine and she pulled the sweatshirt further down her underarms.

It was a lot to take in. Two hours ago she was an orphan, with both parents gone, and now all of a sudden she had a father. Not any father, a billionaire genius who was also a superhero in his free time. It was like something taken out from a book, or a really bad movie.

But she knew that she had to do it, she had to meet him. It was her mother’s dying wish that she would meet her father. And that’s why she booked a flight ticket to New York already to the next day.

-

The airport was crowded, everywhere there were people either hurrying to their gate, saying goodbye to their lovedones or men in fancy suits talking loudly on the phone. She had a firm grip on the suitcase she was dragging after her, containing all of her most important belongings. Her backpack was filled to the rim with her computer and books to keep her entertained during the five hours she was going to be locked up into a metal box ten thousand feet up in the air.

She went through security, and after having to unpack her entire backpack and receiving some looks from the guards who thought she was taking to long, she was finally boarding the plane that was going to take her to something she never in a million years would have imagined. Her father.

As she got herself comfortable in her first class seat, the suits were boarding. They looked at her with distaste present in their faces, before sitting down in business class. She was used to it, people forming opinions about her without having anything to support it, and had eventually learned to just accept it and move on.

She got her computer out and started writing a little on her paper, but it didn’t take long until her eyelids were too heavy for her to support, and eventually she fell into a deep sleep.

Y/n was woken up by the other passengers grabbing their luggage and she realized that she had been sleeping the entire flight there. She shot out of her seat and did the same, thanking the flight attendants as she got of.

She managed to catch a taxi in the crowded street and she already felt like she didn’t belong here. The big city with the crowded streets and polluted air was nothing for her.

The cab driver stared at her for a second before starting the car and beginning the ride to her destination. The only thing passing her by as she stared out of the window were buildings and there were stores, offices and different companies filing them out. It was magnificent, really, to see. Large buildings standing tall up in the air, and she couldn’t help but admire the complicated structure and advanced architecture of them.

Y/n soon reached her hotel where she quickly took a shower, trying to get rid of the airplane smell that seemed to stick to her entire body.

And only an hour later she stood in front of the Avengers building.

Y/n glanced up and let her eyes wander over the huge creation. It was modernly designed and had a large “A” on the front.

She had managed to sneak in the robust gates that closed the building of from the rest of the world, and until now, it had been smooth sailing.

She took a deep breath and opened the heavy glass doors where she was met by a tall, muscular body guard. He had a plug in his ear and held his hands steadily in front of his body. As he saw her get in he was quick to block her way, holding out a hand to say stop.

“Do you have a meeting booked?” His voice was deep and slightly intimidating. Y/n shook her head lightly.

“No but I really need to speak to Mr. Stark”

The bodyguard rolled his eyes before pointing to the exit.

“No appointments, no entry”

“No you see I rea-“

“Goodbye miss”

She sighed and was just about to speak again as a strong hand wrapped around her upper arm. The bodyguard was dragging her out of the building. She protested and was just about to give up as she saw him.

He was walking with a few people, some she recognized as members of the ‘Avengers’.

“Mr Stark!”

The call shut him and the other people up and he looked confused to where the noise was coming from. The guard tightened his grip on her arm and she winced in pain as he started pushing her out.

“I really need to talk to you!”

Tony Stark excused himself from the group and made his way to her. A nod at the guard made him let go of her arm and she rubbed it gently while shooting an angry look his way.

“What” Tony said, voice monotone. The dark sunglasses he was wearing covered his eyes up and she looked where she thought his eyes were.

“I need to talk to you. It’s important”

Tony sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Look kiddo. If I had a dollar everytime someone said they needed to tell me something ‘important’, I would already have bought the sun”

Y/n grunted in frustration at the cocky man so full of himself.

“Well, this is really important and you might not want to talk about it here” she said and held her hands out, meaning the tens of people roaming around in front if them. Tony looked at her for a second, not being used to people not respecting him and not obeying every word he said.  But there was something about this young girl that made him nod slightly and show her to his office. It was on the highest floor, with a beautiful view. The room was big, and painted in a simple white color, giving it a classy look while still being so easily decorated.

Y/n’s eyes wandered over the room before sitting down on the chair in front of his desk.

Tony leaned forward on his elbows, staring at her intensely before grabbing his phone and pulling up a small hologram.

“FRIDAY, who is this young lady?”

Y/n was sitting speechless in her chair, completely in awe of his advanced technology. Suddenly there was a woman's voice speaking from a place she couldn’t put her finger on.

“Y/n Carter, born on January 20th 2001. Y/n is from Arizona where she has lived her entire life. No record about a father but her mother recently passed away”

Tony sent her a pitiful look at the last part before closing his phone and putting in back down on the table in front of him. Y/n ignored his look and kept the serious look on her face. Tony leaned back into his chair, removing his sunglasses and placing them in the front pocket of his black blazer.

“So, Miss Carter, what was the important thing that you just had to talk to me about?”

Y/n cleared her throat and straightened out the fabric of her black shirt showing of the little white logo of the school she attended.

“I’m your daughter”

Tony exhaled deeply before nodding slightly. Not believing her.

“You’re the third one this week. I’ve had my fun with different women through the years, but not that many”

Y/n rolled her eyes as she searched through her bag, only to find the little keyring. She placed it on the desk and Tony’s eyes widened as he gently grabbed it and examined it carefully.

“You gave that to my mother the summer ‘99. You had a picnic next to a waterfall and you ended up getting married in Las Vegas”

Tony’s eyes flickered to the girl and back to the keychain, vague memories of the day coming back to him. The girl still had the cold stone face she had had since she first sat down in the chair across him, giving nothing away about her feelings to the situation.

“My mother’s dying wish was for me to find you. She told me every day how much I reminded her of you and she wanted me to get to know you”

The man traced the lines on the aged accessory before looking up to meet her eyes. He saw her swallow thickly, and he felt his heartbeat raise. Everything she said was true, and he couldn’t help but give the idea of them being related by blood, a quick thought.

Quickly, he grabbed her finger and placed it on a cold metal surface. She let out a surprised gasp but held her hand still.

“FRIDAY, run a DNA test, search for parental match”

“I found two matches. One Mary Carter and the other one is you Mr Stark”

Y/n stared with slight panic in her eyes at her father, meeting his eyes that reflected the same, but ten times worse. He was sitting as frozen in his chair as the panic was growing on his face, he was clearly overwhelmed.

“I- I” he started, but soon closed his mouth again.

Placing his hands over his forehead and resting his elbows on the glass surface, he exhaled deeply.

“Fuck… why- why didn’t she tell me?”

he said after a while, looking up at Y/n with red eyes.

“Honestly?” her voice was stable, taking both herself and her father with great shock.

“I have no idea. And I am so, so, so, mad at her for it. She robbed me of getting to know the other part of my dna and she robbed you of the same. But there is no point in being angry at her anymore. Because she is, you know, dead.”

Tony was surprised over the teenagers calm ways, and somehow that calmed him down too.

They sat in silence for a good half an hour before there was a knock on the door.

“What?” Ton said, voice laced in annoyance.

A blonde, muscular man with broad shoulders opened the door. With him he had a whiteboard on wheels as he rolled into the room. She recognized him as Steve, Steven, something.

Steve, or Steven, eyed her up and down with a frown on his face.

“Bruce had some equations he couldn’t solve so he thought you could give it a shot” he rambled before his eyes returned to Y/n.

“Who is this?”

Tony sent Steve a death stare, and if looks could kill, he would be six feet under.

“Apparently she’s my seventeen year old daughter I didn’t know I had”

Steve’s jaw landed on the floor under him as he was taken back by his sentence.

“Wow”

Y/n nodded slightly.

“Yes, wow”

Her eyes wandered to the whiteboard where said equation was written in a messy handwriting. Without thinking, she got out of her chair and walked closer to it. Feeling the burning stare of the two men, she picked up the marker and quickly solved it. As she turned around, Tony’s jaw had joined Steve’s on the ground, and she saw something sparkle in his dark eyes.

“What did you just do?” He spoke.

Y/n shrugged her shoulders and started writing out the advanced equation, something that a normal seventeen year old should not be able to solve within the blink of an eye.

“Okay, so you see here?” She pointed with the marker.

“This is where it went wrong. He ignored the subtotal of the last parentheses and multiplied it with the wrong one” she scribbled on the board, where the areas of white were slowly covered up with the black marker.

“And that- that is to the power of this one-“

Steve watched the girl work and his eyes went to Tony, who sat as under a spell watching his daughter solve equations not even the Bruce Banner could.

“And that is why the total is wrong with approximately two million three hundred sixty five thousand seven hundred twenty four”

She plopped the lid back onto the marker and admired her work as she sat down in the white chair again.

“So anyways-“

“Where did you learn that?” Tony interrupted.

Y/n shrugged her shoulders.

“I just have it in me. I have been solving equations since I was four. And that was fifth grade mathematics”

“Holy shit, Stark. She’s just like you” Steve muttered.

“Language” Tony mocked, gaining a annoyed grunt from the hundred year old who closed the door behind him with a loud bang.

“Tell me more”

Y/n sucked lightly on her bottom lip as she stared explaining to him how she had proved a professor wrong and gotten thrown out of class, or the way she graduated one of America's toughest schools two years early to the way she made the money in the household and felt like she owe it to her mom. Tony felt the bad conscience sting and he gave her a soft smile.

“You know, I wouldn’t have let you live like that if I, well, knew you existed”

Y/n sent him a little smile back, the first time she had shown any emotion at all since she first arrived.

“I know”

The longer Tony let his eyes rest on the young woman, the more similarities the found between them. Her sharp mind fascinated him, and he would be lying if he said he had not been thinking about what it would be like to have a child. Suddenly he stood up, buttoning up the last button on his blazer.

“There is someone I would like you to meet” he said, looking down at her as he placed the sunglasses over his eyes again.

“If you don’t mind, that is”

[millennial-star-gazer]

Grey Days( reuploadfrom dragon-shield-maiden account)

Grey Days

Vera's May Prompt Challenge 2018 Prompt(s)9when on dragon-shieldmaiden): "Don't leave me! (Sort of implied in an angsty sense of the word) Genres: Romance, Fantasy, Friendship/Family, Angst/Drama Hurt/Comfort, Tragedy(due to this being from Natsu's/E.N.D's Perspective), Gothic fiction, and Poetry

Characters: Natsu/E.N.D, Lucy , Gray, Diamara, Igneel and Zeref Pairing: Nalu/Endlu (Natsu x Lucy/ E.n.d Natsu x Lucy)

Rating: K+-T for some violence, references to death, mature and dark themes. Reader Discretion is advised for those younger than 12 or 13 years and/or anyone who may not at the level of development (maturity) to handle such heavy subject matter . Side note: Please use your own judgement and proceed with caution before deciding to read If uncertain as to whether you're comfortable with such themes.

Summary: Without his most precious star and father's light, the demon of hellfire is lost—all days perpetually gray. For the loss of his beloved really does drive the heart mad. A retelling of the events surrounding Natsu's/E.n.d's transformation (chapters 503-505) from his perspective in poem form. Title taken from the song of the same name by Chelsea Wolfe. Originally  For Vera's May Prompt Challenge and  Nalu angst week 2018 on previous accounts . Nalu/Endlu

A/N: Hey guys, it's your girl Millennial Stargazer (formerly known as twishadowhunter/ comsicdragonqizard/dragon-shield-maiden/star-crossed-dragon! I'm finally back under a new name (on fanfiction and tumblr as millennial-star-gazer) after months of forced hiatus due to personal extenuating circumstances (which can be explained via private message for those who already don't know why) This time it's an reupload of an installment in the wonderful universe of Fairytail—an angsty gothic little ditty retelling the events of chapters 503-505 and other related chapters mostly from Natsu/E.n.d's perspective which was originally as an entry for Vera's May Prompt Challenge and for Nalu angst week 2018 on my previous dragon-shield-maiden account (tumblr). As you may know, the title is taken from the evocative song of the same name by the lovely Chelsea Wolfe which has heavily inspired the poem.

Yes, I know there's been a lot of poems on my profiles, though I do also write other kinds of non-poetry works if my ongoing fics Tantric Flames and the Draconic Demon -soon to be reuploaded by the way- among others are anything to go by). Also partially by Within Temptation's The Heart of Everything plus the musical body of works from Peter Grundy (Bury My Heart) Brunuhville (River of Tears), Nights Amore (This Dreadful Emptiness , That Which is Called Void, Twisted Goa: Lone Deranger , and A Billion Stars Will Die Today) and Adrian Von Ziegler (Ashes, Twisted, Heaven's Touch, One, My Everything, Ethello-iel and Even in Death) who are all incredibly talented composers in their own right that you should check out! (The songs can be found by by clicking on the song titles or via google. Also see below for "Grey Days" if on Tumblr)

Anyway, I don't think y'all need me warning you that spoilers are present when it's already pretty apparent. Without further ado, here's the poem. Don't forget to let me know what you think by leaving a leaving comment/review. (Links to everything below, sidebar and bio if on tumblr plus Fanfiction profile). Enjoy!

Disclaimer: As you all know by now Fairytail does not belong to me, but the most honourable Hiro-sensei instead, for whom without this labour of love wouldn't be possible.

Read More Here:

1. Grey Days

A. Tumblr Version

B. Fanfiction (Click Here:) (or here:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13112482/1/Grey-Days-Reupload-from-dragon-shield-maiden)

2.  The Rest  Of My Writing 

A.  Master Fic Rec Post(Click Here:) (or herehttps://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/179665258923/master-fic-rec-post:) 

B.  Fanfiction  Profile (Click Here): (or here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/11384058/)

More to follow.  Links can also be found in bio and  top blog parts (if on desktop)

"Grey and holy You said it was the first time Like the morphine You take it all away Pretend it's okay The grey days" (Chelsea Wolfe: Grey Days)

“A lifeless lover was the high mountains” Where we tried to reach the stars The moon, the ways beyond It was the purest love of all”

(Draconian: Pale Tortured Blue)

“If all else perished, 

and he remained, 

I should still continue to be;

 and if all else remained, 

and he were annihilated,

 the universe would turn to a mighty stranger

(Heathcliff: Wuthering Heights)

"Natsu!" The screams of his celestial maiden Oh how, they call to the dragon of fire through the darkness piercing the shadows of his subconscious Severing the ties that bind

His eyes open The Gods of Time themselves defied Damaria decimated in the blast Scorch and crimson stains through tattered remnants of fabric on skin All within the blink of an eye

Natsu's attempts to rouse the motionless angel in his arms fail when she does not stir Scarlet tears a ghastly sight No single heartbeat , nor breath of life he can hear Vital signs so pined for falls on deaf ears The perceived second loss of the brilliant star in his universe drives him over the edge enough to fully awaken the infernal power within

Flashes of the two's life together before the demon's very eyes River of tears flowing like cascading rain A grief-stricken kiss of on the zodiac wielder's forehead of farewell A piece of his soul here now dying right along with her Oh how the agony of her absence cuts right down to to the bone Soulmates , would-be lovers torn asunder The great divide all together just too much for the demon of black flames’ unholy, forlorn, heart to bear How could it not be when the iridescent light of a billion stars was blotted out from the midnight sky? Never to shine again

Oh, how the cursed fates are cruel

"Zeref, where is Zeref?" The name of the fire demon's accursed brother spilling from his lips over and like a non-nonsensical mantra as if he's a deranged mad man Onward the song of Igneel trudges Any with prying eyes from afar

may just see infernal darkness incarnate annihilate all

those who block his path fall at his feet in firey wake Driven by bloodthirsty instinct to obliterate the creator

Forward E.N.D marches on the hunt in search of his so-called dear brother Eye for an eye Tooth for tooth Raging thirst for the other's blood All in all vengeance apparent

The thought of meeting his inevitable demise just barely crosses the prince of hell's mind yet he cares not For without his the light of his father and  most dear  com he is lost, all days perpetually gray No tomorrow in sight Totality of his desolate existence an infinite void Devoid of meaning just the same

Reunited they all will at least be in the the golden fields of Avalon after his spirit departs

Just Lucy wait, Natsu tells himself in his arms she soon will be on the other side when he crosses the threshold Watching over those so precious together Instead of her buried along with his heart six feet underground Side by side at last Apart nevermore

A figure, there standing in the distance the son of Igneel finally catches a glimpse Is it the one he's been searching for? No, just the ice devil slayer himself Former brothers in arms , comrades in life Mortal foes now, team mates no longer Infernal hellfire and ice will clash A rift far too vast to mend Shattered remnants of a fraternal bond beyond repair All for naught Natsu's goal of sanguinary retribution clear Purging the world of the one who started it all Even it means cutting down almost any who stand in his way The loss of etherious's beloved really does drive the heart mad Delerium not overcome

Oh, but little does the demon know that his most

precious star lives

If only he could see how she still breathes Alive and well

Alas he does not

All is not lost

In the end, who alone will stop the volatile discord? Who alone will be brave enough to be up to the task? Oh, who alone will stop the clash?

Fic tag squad: @writer-appreciation  @nunnatheinsanegerbil @mautrino @rougescribe @goddesofimortality  @phoenix-before-the-flame  @nalufever  @petri808 @thecelestialchick  @nalu-natic

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed! Just a few housekeeping notes in terms of clarification and reminders.

1. "Scarlet Tears" is one of the literary metaphors used in poem alluding to the blood stains under Lucy's eyes after Diarma attempted to scratch them out-unsuccessfully I might add (Thank God lol). The whole bit about regarding the stars being blotted out overall symbolizes Natsu's/E.N'D grief who feels that the world—or his world at least— has become that much less brighter without one of his best friend's light. Not to mention his existence ceasing to have meaning in the wake of so much loss—especially just one year after Igneel's death. Yes, he loves and cares for his other friends a great deal—especially Happy-, but losing them (with a few exceptions like said cat ) isn't quite the same as losing Lucy to death— at least not to the point as being as soulcrushing. I am by no means trying to downplay how much he values others in life—just offering my take since naturally the loss of someone is only futher magnified based on the nature of the relationship and how close you were which is no different for our favourite dragonslayer. In the end, Natsu/e.n.d ultimately would much rather be with Lucy and Igneel in the afterlife watching over their other friends in the afterlife than be without the former in the realm of the living—once he's had a chance to destroy Zeref with his bare hands (most likely using fire and whatever else he has at his disposal—Natsu I mean.) Just so you know ?.

2. To anyone who were following my other works on previous accounts , The Draconic Demon Within is a semi-au Nalu/Endlu fic in which it follows the original timeline of events from the manga and anime up until chapter 478 or so where Natsu saves Lucy from certain death by intercepting Jacob's attack just in the nick of time. After his brutal defeat is where the plot of TDDW deviates. In this fic, the original Team Natsu(Natsu, Lucy, Happy) soon gets word that the Tartaros has remerged with resurrected members and forged an alliance with the Alvarez empire they've (save a few such as Brandish)— all while overthrowing Zeref in the process now that they've gained total independence.

Natsu and Lucy are then lured to Tartaro's new base of operations (in part because said dragonslayer wasn't about to let his girl go barging in alone what with her being one of the people he's most protective of for obvious reasons and all) where they subsequently learn from Tempester that his (Natsu's) life is no longer tied to his brothers —which comes as a shock to you know who that it was mind you—; all this before an incantation is recited from a particular tome to fully awaken the demonic aspect of Natsu's identity from within now that the seal is broken. Pretty sure you guys know the rest for which the rest of the plot unfold as more chapters are posted. Just thought you guys should know in case anyone had any questions about the original timeline of the Fairytail series fits in with TDDW. I'll be sure to post this within the bottom A/N notes in the one chapters in the process of revison of said fic. Side note: I hope to start reposting while also uploading new chapters for both this fic, Tantric Flames and others in the works ASAP.

All right y'all, that's it for now. Be sure to let me you know what you think by leaving a review/comment and don't forget to give the rest of my writing a read once posted/. (Corresponding links above in this post, in sidebar and bio if on tumblr. Also on my Fanfiction profile)! Many thanks once again to all who've been supporting me thus far (including my friends/mutuals, followers and readers)! Until next time—take care!

[pftones3482]

Clearer

Commission for @kyoshira7. Under a cut for a very long commission lol. It didn’t quite end how I wanted, but I was reaching the end of what I could do. 

~

Sometimes Sam wondered what his life might have been like if he had been born as a woman.  

He knew that he didn't want to become one; he had thought about that for a while, considered the idea that he might be transgender, and had dismissed it early on. It was always an option, in the back of his mind, but it wasn't really what he wanted.  

He just wondered, sometimes. When he caught women crossing the streets at night to avoid him, when women shielded their daughters from him as they walked past one another on the sidewalk. He wondered what it might be like to not be the center of fear for some of the women in the world.  

It angered him, a bit. He'd admit that. He had done nothing to warrant the fear of these women but be born a male. It wasn't fair for him. But it wasn't fair for them to feel that way either, and Sam recognized this.  

He did his best to appear non-threatening, to smile politely, keep his hands down when he spoke, going against his natural instinct to gesture and speak at the same time. It seemed to work, but there was always the stiffness in the shoulders of the women he spoke to, the protective hands on their children's shoulders when they asked, most times begrudgingly, for directions.  

He didn't think living as a woman would be easier. Sam knew that. He had a few female coworkers at his software firm, some higher up than him, and even the ones who knew more and had worked for the firm longer got belittled by coworkers and customers alike.  

Sam wanted the experience, though. Wanted the chance to live as a woman, to see what they went through, in the hopes that maybe he could make it easier for some of them. He wanted to have a kid, not possible without a partner of his own, wanted to feel the connection to someone he had carried himself.  

Okay, so maybe he had considered the idea of being transgender more than once. But it still didn't feel right to him.  

Sam sighed and unlocked the door to his house, stepping into the air-conditioned entryway and kicking his shoes off onto the rug. The door clicked behind him, locking automatically, and he set his keys on the hook that was nailed to the wall before trudging to the kitchen.  

His housekeeper, Moira, had left him a note on the fridge to let him know that the plumber was coming in the morning for the downstairs powder room. There was a smiley face drawn next to her name, and Sam let out a chuckle at the sight of it. Moira was too adorable for her own good, and a great housekeeper to boot.  

He tossed the note into the trash under the seat and pulled open the fridge, leaning in and grabbing a beer and sandwich fixings. He kicked the door shut and settled everything onto the marble countertops, popping open the mayo and mustard and reaching into the bread box, where Moira had stored a fresh loaf of Italian bread.  

It crunched under the knife as he sliced it, slow, methodical, setting two thick slices down on a plate before returning the loaf to the box and shutting it. Making a sandwich was probably the most mechanical set of movements in the universe, Sam mused as he slathered the bread in the dressings and then topped it with turkey and American cheese. It was the same action every time, the back and forth of the knife, the setting of the meat and the cheese to get the perfect amount in every bite. Nothing was different about it, except perhaps the type of meat on it.  

He put the ingredients back in the fridge and took his snack to the back deck, settling onto his reclining chair and kicking back to look at the fading sun.  

It had been a long day at work, and Sam was honestly ready to give up. He didn't feel as if his life was going anywhere, didn't feel as if he was succeeding in the ways he was meant to. He sighed and took a forlorn bite from his sandwich, munching thoughtfully as the sky darkened.  

If anything, he wanted some kind of experience that just...made him appreciate the other side a bit more. Nothing extreme. A day in the life of a different gender.  

He puffed his cheeks out and leaned back in his seat, setting his food down on the side table and staring up at the heavens. He wasn't sure how long he stared, watching as the sky darkened from blue to deep orange and red to navy to full, inky black, but eventually instead of clouds he was star gazing, picking out the pin-pricks of light as they jumped to life.  

Sam's eyes caught sight of one-star drifting across the sky, not as fast as he might have thought a shooting star would move, and he sat up in excitement, tracking it's path across the sky.  

He hadn't seen a shooting star since he was a kid, sitting on the roof of his parent's garage with binoculars in hand. He had made a wish to get the new Batman comics for his birthday. Oddly, he had. He had brushed it off years later as his parents overhearing his eager wish, but now Sam stood up and leaned against his porch railing, clutching his drink in his hand and staring up at the star. It was nearly on the horizon, and Sam remembered the myth he had been told that, if he didn't wish before the star was out of sight, it wouldn't come true.  

"What the hell," he muttered to himself.  

He shut his eyes and wished silently. For something different in his life, for understanding about what it was like to have been born differently, if only for a bit.  

When nothing happened after a minute had ticked by, he opened his eyes with a small chuckle, shaking his head. Foolish, really, to believe in childish things. It never got anyone anywhere in any real-life situation.  

Sam let out a huff, downed the remainder of his beer, and then took the empty can and the remains of his sandwich inside, tossing them into their respective recycling and garbage cans before setting the plate into the dishwasher and closing the door with his foot.  

He went through the monotony of bed preparation with his wish in the back of his mind, brushing his teeth and then spitting into the sink and staring at his reflection for several long minutes, noting the weary bags under his eyes, the stubble on his face, the way his hair was starting to grow out from its buzz cut.  

If he was in a movie, Sam supposed that he would have some intellectual, revolutionary inner monologue, but all he could think about was how wonderful bed sounded.  

He pushed off of the sink and left the bathroom, collapsing into bed without bothering to remove his clothes. For some reason, he was suddenly exhausted. Sure, he had been tired when he got home from work, but it hadn't been nearly this bad.  

Must have been the stargazing, Sam reasoned with himself as he curled up into the blankets and snuggled into the silk sheets under him. That always made him sleepy when he was a kid. That plus the beer...totally the reason.  

He fell asleep clinging to his pillow.  

~~

"Mommy?"

Sam groaned and rubbed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into the sockets as hard as he could muster. Where was the tiny voice coming from? And what was that blaring noise?  

"Mommy, th'alarms goin' off."  

"What?" Sam managed to croak.  

His voice was...way higher than it usually was in the morning, like if Pat Benetar and Ariana Grande had a baby. That weird combination between alto and soprano. And why was Moira calling him "Mommy?"  

"Th'alarm," the voice said again, and Sam realized slowly that it was not a woman's voice, but a child's. "It's been going off for like, a whole hour. Are you late?"

Work.  

Sam bolted upright in bed, flinging the blankets off and faintly registering that the blankets were not the soft silk he had fallen asleep on, but rather a soft lavender cotton. He frowned down at the sheets and....why were they blurry?  

Why was everything blurry, actually?

"Mommy?"

Sam turned slowly to the child next to him – and yes, they were indeed a child – and squinted down at the form. "I can't...see," he said slowly, his voice still too high for his own comfort. Was this some weird dream?

"Oh!" the child said gleefully.  

They leaned over to the table at Sam's right – he didn't have a bedside table there – and plucked something off the top, handing it over with a bright smile that Sam could only make out because of the number of teeth being used. "Here you go! I'll make breakfast!"

The kid bolted before Sam could say otherwise, leaving him to open up what were definitely glasses and slide them onto his face. Sam had never needed glasses in his life, and he blinked rapidly when he put them on, everything suddenly becoming crystal clear.  

His bed was no longer a king, but rather a full. The blankets were older and purple and cotton, but clean. They smelled like flowers. The room was small, more of a closet than a room, and a dresser sat tucked into a corner, overflowing with folded clothes on top – the clear time of someone with no time on their hands to put things away.  

As Sam slid out of bed, his gaze still sliding around the room, he stumbled, his feet hitting the ground sooner than he was prepared for. He yelped, catching himself on the bed, and looked down to see if perhaps he had tripped on something.  

Oh.  

Oh.  

He was wearing a baggy t-shirt and boxers, but even he could see (and feel, now that it was registering in his head) the presence of weight on his upper chest.  

Her upper chest.  

Sam bolted to the bedroom door, furiously looking down the small, carpeted hallway and spotting what was definitely a bathroom at the head of the staircase. Sam was in the space in two seconds flat, gripping to the mirror and staring with wide eyes at the image presented.  

Disheveled blonde hair, hints of brown at the roots that suggested dye, tangled into a sloppy bun at the nape of the neck and falling out from a night of restless sleeping. Clear cleavage under the t-shirt, a mess of tie-dyed colors that could only be the work of a toddler. The eyes were rimmed with a soft darkness, the only part of the body Sam could say was the same, and they glinted a dark brown color.  

"What the fuck?" Sam muttered. Then, louder: "What the FUCK?"

Before he – she – could process anything further, a piercing beeping sound registered from down the stairs, and Sam spun to the door, staring down the steps and then pattering down them quickly, trying to ignore the tugging of the excess weight on her chest.  

When Sam skidded into the kitchen, he – she – found it filling with smoke, the small child that had woken her up frantically blowing on the burning toaster.  

Like, literally burning. The toaster was on fire.  

Sam's eyes flickered around the kitchen, some instinct dragging her to the cupboards under the sink, and she pulled out the fire extinguisher that was there, aiming it at the toaster and squeezing the handle.  

Foam shot out from the nozzle, dousing the toaster and the child next to it, and for a moment the pair stood in silence, the screeching fire alarm still going off. Sam put down the extinguisher slowly and then glanced up, finding the alarm mounted over a door that appeared to lead into a backyard.  

On habit, Sam stretched up to turn it off, finding with irritation that she was now several inches too short to just hit the button. Instead, she had to drag a chair over from a table in the corner, clamber up, and smack her thumb into the button.  

When she climbed back down and turned around, the child was in tears. "I'm sorry, M-Mommy," he whimpered, clutching to the front of his shirt and wringing the hem with his fists. "I didn't m-mean to. I j-just w-wanted-"

Something about the look of the kid broke Sam's heart, and she knelt to the floor in front of him, reaching out and awkwardly squeezing a shoulder. "It's okay," she found herself saying. "Everything is fine now."

The child sniffled pathetically and then bolted from the kitchen, leaving Sam to wobble into a sitting position on the floor.  

Okay, so he...she. He was a she. Right? That seemed to be the consensus, between the new body and the child calling him – her – Mommy. Sam was a woman, and a woman with a child to boot.  

The next question Sam had was why.  

Why was he a woman? How did he turn back? What had happened?  

The phone was ringing.  

Sam pulled him-herself off the ground, clinging to the wall, and rounded the corner into what was obviously the living room to find a land line (who the fuck still had land lines?) going nuts in the corner.  

The caller ID rang up as some law firm that Sam had never heard of before, and she answered with trepidation, gnawing on a thumbnail as she dragged the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"CHARLOTTE. Where the HELL are you?" demanded an angry male voice on the other end of the line. "You're an hour late, and we need to go over this case!"

"I...there was a fire at home," Sam (was he Charlotte now?) managed, eyeing the foamy mess in the kitchen. "Sorry."  

There was a long pause, and then a deep sigh. "You and Blake all right, at least?"

"Who's-?" The kid. "Yeah, we're all right. He's a little freaked out, though. Don't know if I'll be able to make it in today."  

Yet another long pause echoed in Sam's ear and she gnawed on her lower lip, lifting her gaze to the ceiling and crossing her fingers. Finally, the man gave a long groan. "Yeah, okay. Fine. I'll give the case to Johnson. See you Monday."  

That's right, Sam mused as she hung up the phone. It was Friday, meaning that she had the whole weekend to figure out what the hell was going on.  

"You did wish for this, you dunce," Sam muttered under her breath.  

A small thud came from upstairs and she glanced at the ceiling again, shoulders slumping. The kid – Blake, she recalled – had seemed pretty freaked out.  

"Parental instincts, don't fail me now," Sam muttered, huffing and moving back to the stairs. She climbed slowly, eyeing the family photos on the wall.  

The very first one was the girl whose body Sam was inhabiting, Charlotte, at what seemed to be a rather young age. She was holding onto a baby in the picture, Blake, Sam assumed, and two older people were on either side of her, most likely her mother and father. No sign of a husband or wife, and the bed Sam had woken up in was pretty small, so Charlotte didn't appear to have any kind of permanent partner.  

The rest of the photos were pictures of Blake throughout the years, in the bathtub, holding onto Grandma's fingers and toddling towards the camera, eyes squinted up in delight. His hair was a dark brown, eyes darker, and his skin tone was a lightly tanned color, the same tone as Charlotte's. He had a freckle under his nose, Sam noted.  

It was easy to find Blake's room; aside from Charlotte's room and the bathroom, it was the only other door in the hallway, and it was decorated with superheroes.  

Sam knocked with two knuckles, feeling nervous all of a sudden. "Uhh...Blake? You okay bud?"

"Go 'way."

His voice was muffled, and Sam pushed open the door slowly, squinting into the dark room. Blake was flopped face down onto a car shaped bed, pudgy fingers curled into his pillow. Sam stepped into the room slowly, shutting the door behind him, and hesitated before stepping over to the bed and squatting. "You okay?"  

"You're mad at me."  

Sam blinked in surprise. "What? No I'm not."  

"Yes you are. I did a bad thing."

Sam settled onto her knees and reached a tentative hand out, setting it on Blake's back. "I'm not mad. Promise. I was just...a little scared."  

Blake peeked up at that, brown eyes watery and lower lip puffed out. "Why?"  

"Well," Sam said slowly, lifting his gaze up to avoid the probing eyes of the toddler. "There was a fire. So that's scary. But you were next to the fire, and that was scarier, because you could have gotten hurt."  

"But I'm a big boy, you said so," Blake protested.  

"Yes," Sam admitted, sitting back on her haunches. "But fire is still pretty dangerous. So we shouldn't touch it or play with it."  

Blake nodded sagely and then sat up, shoving a fist against his eye and rubbing furiously. "Kay. Do you have to go to work now?"  

"Nah, I'm taking the day off," Sam declared, giving the kid a warm smile. "Thought it would be more fun to hang out here."

"So Miss Patsy isn't coming over to watch me?" Blake inquired.  

"Who?"

Blake frowned, his eyes glittering. "Miss Patsy. The neighbor."

Shit.  

"Where's my cell phone, Blake? Do you remember seeing it? I can't seem to find it."  

Blake bobbed his head and slid from the mattress, hopping to the floor in his socked feet and pattering out of the room. Sam rose and followed him back to the bedroom she had woken up in, watching as he trotted to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer, dragging out a phone. "Here it is!"  

It was a flip phone. An honest to god flip phone. With the size of the house and the way Blake's room was furnished, Sam thought that Charlotte would have at least a basic smartphone, even if not a great one. Sam hadn't used a flip phone since 2007.  

She took it gingerly and opened the cover, eyeing the lit screen on the inside. There was one missed call, sure enough, from a "Patsy Bennet" that Sam assumed was the neighbor in question.  

She pressed the green phone button to call back, lifting the device to her ear and listening as it rang once, twice, and then -  

"Charlotte, thank goodness. We saw smoke from the kitchen, are you and Blake all right?"  

Sam blinked at the chipper voice and glanced down at Blake, who was staring intently at his fingers like he was in the midst of an epiphany. "Uh...yeah. Are you still able to watch Blake for an hour or two? I need to uh...I need to run to work, sort a few things out, and then they're giving me the rest of the day off."  

"Really? Wow. You must really have freaked them out if they're doing that. Yeah, bring him over. Patrick is waiting for him to come play. See you in five?"

"Sure."

"Okie doke!"

The dial tone rang in Sam's ear and she turned to Blake, who was staring up at her in amazement. "D'you know we have ten fingers AND ten toes, Mommy?"

Sam managed a grin. "I sure did, buddy. Come on. We need to get ready to go see Miss Patsy."  

~~  

Wrangling a toddler was much more of a challenge than Sam had anticipated. Sam was able to get dressed in thirty seconds flat, though that might have had something to do with how much she was trying to avoid looking at Charlotte's body while changing. But Blake was another challenge all together.  

For one thing, Blake had a surprisingly short attention span and, just when Sam would be getting ready to tie a shoe or help put on a shirt, he would bolt for something in the room and start to play with it.  

For another, Blake seemed intent on learning how to do everything step-by-step. Which in and of itself wasn't a bad thing, it was good for him to learn how to tie his own shoes, but Sam was kind of having an internal crisis.  

"Blake, seriously, I told Miss Patsy I'd be over in five minutes almost fifteen minutes ago, you can show me that stuff when you get back," Sam finally groaned in exasperation when Blake had come bounding over with yet another art project.  

Blake didn't seem to take offense, merely beamed and said, "Okay Mommy!" and then bounced to put away the item before heading for the stairs.  

"Finally," Sam muttered.  

They got out the door, Sam finding a set of keys next to it, and Sam let Blake lead the way over the small stepping stones in the tiny front yard that led to the neighbor's yard, blocked off by a short fence.  

A woman was sitting on her front porch step holding a mug of what smelled like coffee, watching with a grin as who Sam assumed was her son Patrick went bouncing across the yard after a ball. A tee was set up in the corner, and he was holding a plastic bat.  

"Mommy can I go play?" Blake pleaded.  

"That's what we're here for," Sam said, voice monotone.  

Blake stared at her for a long moment, his lip puffing out after a lapse of silence. "Mommy, you have to say goodbye."  

"What?"  

"Our special goodbye!" Blake whined, tugging on Sam's hand. "Pleeeeaasssse?"  

Sam was at a loss. She had no idea what Blake wanted, or where to even begin, and she knelt in the grass slowly, dew seeping into her jeans. "Uh...how about you start?"  

"That's not how it goes though!" Blake whimpered.  

His eyes were getting glassy again, and Sam was about to panic, when the woman – Patsy – called out, her voice tinged with a sickly sweet Southern accent. "Hey! Charlotte! Come here for a second!"

"Sorry sweetie, I gotta go."  

Sam bolted, feeling a coil of guilt in her stomach, but she moved rapidly towards Patsy, plastering a smile on her face. "What's up?"

"You sure the house and everything is all right from the fire?" Patsy asked, her eyes filled with concern.  

Sam nodded. "Oh yeah. Fire extinguisher worked, and I unplugged the toaster."

"All that smoke was from the toaster?" Patsy yelped in disbelief.  

"It sort of caught on fire," Sam admitted.  

"How?"

Sam shifted on her feet, suddenly aware of how the next part would sound. "Um...I wasn't fully awake and Blake was trying to make breakfast for me."

"Jesus."

Patsy looked disappointed, and Sam winced. Apparently, Charlotte was not nearly as clumsy as he was. She was.

It was getting easier to think in feminine terms for himself, but Sam was struggling. He had to keep correcting his own brain, because if he started referring to himself as "he" while he was trapped in a woman's body, he was going to go insane.

Ah, fuck, he – she – was doing it again.  

"Yeah, well...thanks again for watching him while I run in to work," Sam managed.  

Patsy looked up from where she had been watching the boys play. "Of course, dear. I'll keep an eye out for Scott, too."  

Sam had no idea who Scott was, but she played it safe, giving a weak smile and an, "Okay, thanks."  

Sam left the yard before Patsy could answer back, booking it to the old Impala sitting in the driveway and sinking into the worn driver's seat.  

What the fuck was going on? Who was she? Where was she?

Sam hadn't seen any kind of computer in the house, but Charlotte had to have one. Though even if she did, Sam wouldn't know the password to turn it on.

There had to be a library nearby, so Sam put the keys into the ignition, turned, cringed when the car spluttered, and then backed slowly out of the driveway.  

She went left down the road, staying cautious until she saw a speed limit sign. Eventually she came to the end of the road, hesitating before making another left on a whim.  

It took nearly eight minutes, but Sam finally maneuvered out of the neighborhood and onto a set of busier roads, one named Elm street (so helpful) and the other Winchester avenue (slightly better). She found herself maneuvering the streets, circling the district until she spotted the familiar sign that featured a person holding a book, directing her towards the right.  

The library was easy to find after that, and she parked and went in with light trepidation, the doors whooshing open in her face and guiding her into a relatively small lobby.  

Stairs led upwards to the right, and slightly behind her was an elevator. A sign on the wall listed each level, the first as the lobby, the second as the adult floor, the third the children's, and the fourth the city archives.  

After a moment of thought, Sam shifted her shoulders, cringing under the feeling of bra straps digging into her skin, and started climbing the stairs.  

They were steep, and it didn't help that the summer heat made them muggy as well, leading her to have to pause at the top of the landing and take a breath, heart racing. Sam nearly put a hand over her heart until she remembered that she probably should be keeping her hands down at all times.  

The second-floor door creaked as she pressed it open, and Sam winced, poking her head in. Seeing that it was totally dead – everyone was probably at work, now that she thought about it – Sam stepped inside, shoving her hands awkwardly into her jeans pockets and glancing around.  

It was split up on the floor, the left-half filled to the brim with books and the other half with books lining the walls and plush chairs scattered along. Sam headed in that direction, breathing out a sigh of relief when she found the computers lining the other parts of the walls, dividers between them. Only one person was there, at the far end, an older man who looked like he'd rather be doing anything other than be there.  

There was a librarian sitting behind the desk, jotting something down on paper, and Sam opted not to bother him, instead sinking down into the closest swivel chair and toggling the mouse on the screen.  

A box popped up, asking for her library card number, and Sam cursed in her head, moving to dig through the purse that she had grabbed on the way out the door.  

It was cluttered with a million different things – crayons, tissues, a small first aid kit, a checkbook, a paperback novel, and, way at the bottom, a fuchsia wallet.  

Sam pulled it out and unzipped it, flipping open the sides and beginning to thumb through the card holders, bypassing the million store discount cards and finding the library card tucked away behind a Starbuck's gift card.  

She typed in the number as it appeared on the card and breathed a soft sigh of relief when the screen lit up with the pre-programmed internet browser, leading her to Google.  

From that point, Sam didn't really know where to go. What did she look for first? Body switching stories? Nearby spell casters?

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for just another moment before she did the only thing that made sense.  

Where am I?

She clicked Enter, and the tiny button in the top of the screen asked to know her location. She hit yes instantly and the browser flickered, pulling up the library address moments later.  

Montana. She was in Montana.

That certainly explained the Southern-ish accent Patsy had, but it didn't explain why Charlotte herself didn't.  

Montana was...how far was Montana from Philadelphia, actually? She typed it in carefully, making sure to get the town name right, and clicked search again.  

2,000 miles. 32 hours by car. 195 by bike.  

Sam cussed softly and thumped her head into her hand, staring at the screen. Her job was going to be wondering where she was, what she was doing, she was going to be fired. Unless...

Sam sat straight up and logged off the computer, bolting from her chair and back into the stairwell, flying down the steps and stopping in the lobby, whipping out her phone and dialing her own cellphone number from memory.  

The line rang several times and Sam paced the entry, gnawing on a thumb. Finally, after four rings, there was a confused, "Hello?"  

That was her – his – voice speaking to her. "Um...is this...is this Charlotte, by any chance?" Sam squeaked.  

A long pause, and then a whispered, "Holy shit," came through the line.  

Sam managed a weak chuckle. "Hi."  

Charlotte, who was in his – her? - body, laughed, though it sounded forced. "Hi, Sam. That's...that's your name, right? Jesus Christ, I got yelled at by a strange woman this morning for not being up in time to go to work and – oh my god is Blake okay, is he-?"

"Blake is fine," Sam got out, sinking down onto a random chair in the lobby and leaning her head into her hand. Her heart was pounding. "He's with uh...with Patsy. I hope that's okay."  

"Yeah," Charlotte breathed. It was weird to hear Sam's voice coming out of the speaker. "Yeah, that's the normal arrangement. Looks like you have more figured out than I do."  

"My housekeeper's name is Moira," Sam found herself saying, shoulders relaxing from their tensed position as she talked about the less confusing parts of life. "She's really great. She probably won't look at you weird if you ask odd questions."  

"Noted. Um...Patsy is a bit nosier? But Blake is really smart, if you need help with something just ask him."  

"He seems like a smart kid," Sam said, realizing that she was already very fond of the kid.  

She could hear Charlotte's smile in his next words. "Yeah, he is. He...he'll be okay with you, right?"

Sam frowned, the nervousness coming through the line loud and clear. "Of course. Seriously, I love kids. They're great. I actually..."

She huffed and glanced away, eyebrows furrowing. "I actually made a stupid wish last night, that I wanted to...you know, have kids, see what it was like to...to be a mom. As dumb as that sounds."  

There was hesitation in her voice, but also a challenge, like Sam expected Charlotte to fight her. Instead, Charlotte seemed to gasp. "That's...pretty much what I wished for last night. Except I wanted...I wanted to be able to just exist, be seen as me, not just...a female lawyer."

Sam frowned, gears twisting in her head. "So...we both made wishes last night. Mine was on a shooting star-"

"Same. Sam, you're not really suggesting...?"

"What other explanation is there, Charlotte?"  

There was a long silence, and then Charlotte breathed out. "So what do we do then? I don't know about you, but I made that wish in the moment. I...as good looking as you are, Sam, I do not want to spend the rest of my life in a man's body."  

"Fair point. Ditto goes for you," Sam admitted, shifting her weight in the chair. "Like, you're beautiful, and Blake is great, but this is...not very comfortable for me. Plus I'm sure you want your son back."  

"Of course," Charlotte murmured.  

Sam frowned, tapping her fingers on her knees. "Well...if we changed by wishing on a shooting star, what if we do it the same way?"

"How do you mean?"  

"What if we find another shooting star and just...wish to be back to normal?"

Charlotte hummed, and there was a clattering sound in the background. Sam winced, and Charlotte chuckled nervously. "Sorry," she grumbled. "Your hair dryer is...really confusing."  

"Green button for cold air, red for hot," Sam said instantly, before freezing. "Wait, did you...shower?"  

"...yes?"

Sam squawked and Charlotte stammered in her ear. "I'm sorry, but you just...damn, Sam, when was the last time you really showered? You did not smell good. Jesus, I didn't look or touch anything if that's what you're freaking about. Hell, I'm sure you've taken a fair gander at me."  

There was bitterness in his voice, and Sam instantly got defensive. "Excuse you, I didn't fucking look at anything. I saw that I had boobs and freaked. I'm not an asshole, Charlotte. I got dressed without looking – by the way, bras fucking suck – and I haven't even taken a piss yet. Jesus."  

She scowled and almost considered hanging up the phone, but Charlotte spoke before she could. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm just really used to..."

"Guys being douchebags, right?" Sam muttered.  

"Yeah," Charlotte admitted, his voice apologetic. "My ex is...not a good guy. Watch out for him."  

Sam frowned, eyebrows crinkling, and she sat up in her seat. "Scott?"  

"Yeah, how did you-?"

"Patsy mentioned him, when I dropped Blake off. I...you don't want him near him?"  

"No. He's not abusive," Charlotte explained slowly. "At least, not physically. But...I won a settlement a while back, a pretty large amount, and 90 percent of it went into Blake's college fund. The rest of it is in my savings, but he feels like he's entitled to it, for being Blake's father."

"So you don't have to have this shitty flip phone?"  

"Seriously, that's all you got out of this?"

"No," Sam said with a roll of his eyes. "I'll keep him away from Blake, promise."  

"Thank you," Charlotte said, voice filled with relief. "Um...so back to this shooting star business...what if it only works because we wish at the same time? Like what if you see a star and I don't, or vice versa?"

"Good point," Sam muttered. Her nails dug into her jeans, and she paused while the older male patron from upstairs passed her, giving her a brief once over before leaving the building. "Well...fly out here."

"What?"

"I've got plenty of extra funds that you could easily take a flight out here. Plus, then you could see Blake."

Charlotte hesitated, and Sam could almost hear him thinking. "Are...are you sure?"  

"Yeah. Have Moira take off work for you."  

"Oh...okay. Speaking of work...I'm assuming you didn't go in today."  

"Yeah," Sam said, nodding. Her legs were starting to cramp, so she stood and walked towards the door, holding the phone to her ear.  

"The case...went to Johnson?"  

"Yeah."  

"Fuck."

Sam froze, guilt coiling in his stomach. "That's not a good thing, is it?"

"No, no, it's not your fault, you would have been useless anyway, it's just...we're both up for the same promotion. Ugh. Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get Moira to call off for you for a week, buy a plane ticket, and fly out there. You call in, say that you're sick or that Blake is sick, and offer to take all the cases home in order to work on them. I'll do the cases for you, and we can...figure this out."  

Sam nodded. It was the first solid plan she'd heard since waking up that morning. "Okay. Okay, that works."

The doors whooshed open, letting her out, and Sam glanced up in time to catch the old guy from inside leering at her. He caught her eye, winked, made a lude gesture with his closed fist and tongue, and Sam quickened her pace, rage filling her core. "I'm gonna fucking murder him."

"Who?"

She had forgotten that Charlotte was still on the line. "Uh...I'm at the library. This gross old guy. I'm going to deck him."

"No."

"What?"

"You can't," Charlotte said, his voice filled with regret. "Being an attorney means that if you get into legal trouble, I could lose credibility. Or my job. Or my license. Being a woman means that if you punch him, he punches back, and it doesn't end well for you. Ignore him and walk away."

"Walk away? He just made like...a sucking gesture at me!"

"It happens. Walk away, Sam."

Sam did as Charlotte asked, sliding into her seat and slamming the door shut. "Jesus fuck."

"Sucks, doesn't it?"  

Sam took a deep breath and her shoulders slumped. She leaned back against the seat. "Yeah. Yeah, it does. Okay. Um, I don't know how charged your phone is, so I’m...hopefully I can find my way back to your house."

"All of my login codes are taped to the inside of the bedside drawer," Charlotte informed her.

Sam found himself smiling. "Mine are taped under my desk."  

"Thanks. Give...give Blake a hug for me, okay? I'll text when I'm about to fly out."  

"Will do. Bye, Charlotte."

"Bye, Sam."  

~~

She found the house again after only a few mishaps, pulling into the driveway and shutting the car off, taking a deep breath and dragging her hands down her face. Jesus fucking Christ, what had she gotten herself into? It was just a wish, how was she supposed to know that it would actually come true?  

Sam kept trying to tell herself that it was all a dream, but when she got out of the car, the sun burned the car under her touch, the gravel under her feet got in her shoes and stung, the rose bushes at the edge of Patsy's yard prickled her skin. She would have woken up now if she was in a dream, would have had some kind of weird addition to everything, like the sky turning purple or Benedict Cumberbatch crawling out of the house windows.  

It wasn't a dream.  

She had to keep telling herself that as she climbed Patsy's porch steps, shifting from foot to foot as she pressed the doorbell.  

The door opened a moment later and Patsy looked at her, befuddled. "Since when do you ring the doorbell?" she demanded incredulously.  

"Uh...sorry. Was a little lost in thought, not thinking," Sam fumbled, shooting her a sheepish smile.  

Patsy tilted her head, and now that Sam wasn't quite so confused about who she was or what the hell was going on, she could better appreciate Charlotte's next-door neighbor.  

She was plump around the middle, and yet she was tall, which Sam found an endearing combination. Her hair, an ashy blonde color, was drawn back into a loose braid that fell over her shoulder. She was wearing jeans and a floral blouse, and there was paint covering her hands. Her feet were bare, and her eyes glittered a deep green color in the sun. There was a pair of glasses resting on top of her head, which Sam also found kind of cute, and a smattering of light freckles along her nose and cheeks.  

“Are you coming in?” Patsy asked. “The boys are finger painting.”

That explained the hands. Sam shifted. “Um...sure.”  

Sam followed Patsy inside, taking in the interior of the house. It was laid out much the same way as Charlotte’s, with low ceilings and wide rooms. The front door led into the living room, with a staircase off to the left. Patsy crossed through the living room, picking her way over scattered toys, and Sam took her time following, eyeing the pictures on the wall.  

Similar to Charlotte, there were a lot of photos of her son on the walls. But unlike Charlotte, Patsy clearly had good relationships with Patrick’s father, given that he was in the majority of the photos.  

That thought made Sam a little sad, though she couldn’t quite place why.  

Her train of thought was lost when her foot caught on a toy train and she squawked, flailing to the floor with a thud and a groan. Patsy was at her side in moments, eyes wide. “Oh gosh, are you okay?” she breathed.  

“Fine, fine,” Sam grumbled, allowing Patsy to grab her by the hand. “I just...trip when I get distracted.”

“What distracted you?”

Sam frowned and nodded to the family photo as they stood up, twisting her lips up. “Just that picture,” she explained.  

Patsy’s face slumped a bit, and Sam lifted an eyebrow in confusion. She didn’t notice. “Oh. Yeah. It’s...coming up on a year now. Patrick’s been kinda sad lately. Blake helps a lot, so it’s nice to have him over.”  

Sam really didn’t have a good response to that, seeing as she had no idea what Patsy was talking about. She settled for wrapping a hesitant arm around her shoulders and giving her a side hug. Women did side hugs, right?

Patsy leaned into it and sighed, so at the very least Sam had gotten that right. She found herself speaking again. “Let’s go see the boys, mm?”

Patsy nodded and Sam let her lead the way through the living room and into the dining room, where the boys were sitting around the table. It was covered in newspapers, and they were absolutely covered in paint. Blake was in the midst of flinging a glob of paint onto his piece of paper, which was dripping with reds and blues, when he saw the adults in the doorway.  

“Mommy!” he squealed, flinging his hands up.  

Sam watched in mild horror as the paint left his fingers and splattered into the ceiling, leaving a dripping blue mass on the otherwise pristine white paint. Sam looked at Patsy slowly, who had a hand over her mouth, and breathed out a weak, “Sorry.”  

“It’s okay,” Patsy said after a moment, tearing her eyes away from the ceiling and turning to look at Sam. “Uh...I shouldn’t have left them alone.”  

“Blake, apologize to Miss Patsy please,” Sam said, making her voice stern.  

Blake at least had the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry, Miss Patsy.”  

“It’s okay, buddy,” Patsy said, her voice warm. “Your mommy is here to pick you up, do you need help out of your smock?”

His smock was merely a large white t-shirt, or at least, what had once been a white t-shirt, and Blake squirmed out of it easily, handing it back to Patsy and then waving a cheerful goodbye to Patrick, who was eyeing the paint with a look in his eye that was too hungry for Sam’s comfort. She ushered Blake out of the house, eyeing the photos again on the way out but making sure not to trip again, and across the lawn to Charlotte’s house.  

As she approached the porch, she caught sight of a larger man peeking through the windows of the house, one hand shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun and the other hand knocking on the panes. “Charlotte! I know you’re home, your car is here!”

Blake had stopped when Sam did, and his hand tightened. “Mommy, is that-?”

Charlotte’s warning rang in Sam’s ears and she scooped Blake up onto her hip without thinking, immediately turning around and quick stepping to Patsy’s house.  

She had only made it several steps before there was a gleeful yell and footsteps behind her. Sam’s heart rate spiked and her forehead beaded with sweat, and she suddenly realized -  

She was terrified.  

Sam had never been scared of another man in her life. Well, maybe except for her father, but it was a healthy fear, the kind of fear that kept her from doing pot and drinking before it was legal.  

This, though.  

The palm sweating, finger trembling fear that coursed through her, the terror that she wouldn’t get out of this encounter alive, the absolute dread at the fact that Blake was in her arms and wasn’t fighting, wasn’t speaking, was instead burying his nose into her neck.  

It was a terror that Sam had never felt in her existence.  

She suddenly understood why women crossed the street at night.  

“You taking the day off work?” the raspy voice behind her droned.  

Sam took a breath and turned around, her grip tightening on Blake. “None of your business,” she snapped, but her voice shook.  

The guy, who Sam just knew was Scott, smirked at the sound. “Playing hooky, eh?”

He was lean but tall, with clear build to his upper body. A pack of cigarettes poked from his shirt pocket, and he had a ragged beard and mustache. His hair was unkempt and greasy, slicked back into a weak bun on top of his head. The jeans he wore were tattered, the shoes more so, and he smelled like tobacco and body odor. Sam could practically taste it on her tongue.  

“Just leave,” Sam bit off.  

Her grip was almost too tight on Blake, but she refused to let him go, to let him look up. Scott scowled and shoved his hands in his pockets. That didn’t reassure her.  

“Look, ‘m just here to ask if you could loan me like...fifty bucks. Y’know I don’t want more than that.”  

“Except if I give it to you you’ll keep coming back,” Sam spat, her entire body trembling with rage. “That money is for Blake’s college fund.”  

“Hell, the boy is four years old! He ain’t going to college for more than a decade. What’s fifty bucks gonna hurt?”

“She said no.”  

Sam almost groaned in relief at the sound of Patsy’s voice. The woman stood on her porch, phone in hand, and her eyes were narrowed. “Don’t make me call my sister again.”  

Sam had no idea who her sister was, but it seemed to piss Scott off. His eyes glinted with anger and he took a step back. “Y’all are bitches. Can’t even help a boy’s father out.”  

“You are not his father,” Patsy spat. “You’re a fucking dick is what you are.”  

Sam winced, clinging closer to Blake and lifting a hand to cover his ears. He didn’t seem to be listening much, though. Sam could feel the dampness on her shirt where the tears were leaking in, and it pissed her off.

“Get off my property, Scott,” Patsy threatened. “Or my sister and the whole fucking police department will be on your ass the rest of your life.”

“Fuck both of you,” Scott snapped.  

He flipped them off and left the yard, and Sam heard a vague sound that reminded her of someone kicking a car. That explained the beat-up appearance of the Impala, at least.  

Footsteps behind her, and then Patsy was at her side, a gentle hand on her elbow and the other hand running it’s fingers through Blake’s hair. “Want me to call my sister?”

“It’s okay,” Sam stammered out. She loosened her grip on Blake just enough that he could shift in her grasp. “Thank you.”  

“Of course, love. Call me if he comes back, mm’k?”

“I will.”  

Sam crossed the yard again and went up the porch to Charlotte’s house, unlocking the door and then shutting and re-locking it behind her. She sat down on the couch, let go of Blake fully, and suddenly realized just how badly she was shaking. “You okay?” she found herself asking Blake.

Blake bobbed his head, looking up at her with wide, teary eyes. “You said the bad guy wouldn’t come back.”

Sam winced at the crack in his words and she brushed his hair from his face in what she hoped was a soothing manner. “I’m sorry. Sometimes bad people don’t know when to stay away. Here. How about you go change into something without paint all over it, and then we can spend the day...watching cartoons and eating popcorn?”  

Blake stared at her. “Popcorn for lunch?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay!”  

All worries gone, he bolted up the stairs and Sam sighed, pulling out her cell and lifting Charlotte’s - or rather, her – contact from the recent calls history. She put it into a text and for a moment couldn’t remember how to type on a flip phone.  

The habit came back pretty quickly though, and she managed to send out a somewhat coherent text.  

Saw Scott. Blake is fine. When r u coming?

The phone buzzed in her hand a moment later and Sam answered the phone, glancing to the stairs. “Hi, Charlotte.”  

“Blake’s okay?” was his immediate question.  

“Yes,” Sam said, nodding even though Charlotte couldn’t see it. “Patsy got rid of him by threatening to call...her sister?”  

Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. “Her sister is the chief of police. Good. To answer your question, I’ve booked the soonest flight. I’ll actually be out there tonight. If you could...pick me up? Is that weird?”

“Maybe a little,” Sam admitted with a weak chuckle. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll look up how to get to the airport and everything. You doing okay?”

“Yeah. Moira seems...suspicious. And your boss was surprisingly chill with you taking like a week off.”  

“He’s a chill guy.”  

“Seems like.”

They lapsed into awkward silence, until a small thump from upstairs brought Sam back into focus. “What happened with Patsy’s husband?”  

“What?” That clearly hadn’t been what Charlotte was expecting.  

“Her husband. She got all teary eyed, said Patrick was upset and stuff.”

“Oh. He uh...he was in the military, and he got killed in combat around this time last year. It’s been pretty hard for them.”

Sam wilted a bit at that declaration. “That’s awful.”  

“She doesn’t like to be reminded of it.”  

“Mommy, I’m reeeeaadddddyyyyyy!”

Sam snorted and shook her head. “All right. When does the flight get in tonight?”

“It said around 8. So...I guess I’ll see you then?” Charlotte asked.  

“You’ll see yourself then,” Sam teased.  

“Right. Jesus Christ, this is so weird.”

“Preaching to the choir.”

~~

The directions to the airport fluttered on Sam’s lap. It had taken her almost ten minutes to figure out how to do up Blake’s car seat, and now she was sitting in the pickup lane at the airport, scouring the crowds for – well, her own face.  

It was a trippy experience to say the least, and Sam already had whiplash. In less than 24 hours she had gone from a simple man to a single mother of a toddler who was a fucking lawyer across the country.  

Some warbled voice filtered across the loudspeaker outside, one that Sam couldn’t understand, and she glanced up in time to see herself – himself? -  step out of the exit, her old duffle bag clutched in hand.  

He was looking around, a bit anxious, and Sam had to cringe at the outfit Charlotte had elected to put on. Khakis and plaid? Really?  

Sam hesitated and then beeped twice, watching as he turned towards the sound and slumped in relief. He rushed forwards, pulled open the passenger side door, and froze.  

“Sorry,” he breathed after a minute, managing a weak smile. He tossed the duffle onto the floor and slid into the car. “That was...just a little freaky.”  

Sam hadn’t taken her eyes off him. “Trust me, I know.”  

Charlotte glanced back at Blake, who had drifted off in his car seat, and visibly relaxed. ”He’s okay.”  

“I told you he would be,” Sam grumbled, pulling into traffic.  

Charlotte huffed and looked forward. “I know. Sorry.”  

“S’okay.”  

They lapsed into silence for a moment, until finally Charlotte squirmed. “It’s faster to take Mapleton.”  

“Okay.”  

Sam switched lanes and turned left, easing the car onto the smaller road and then sighing. “Look, this won’t end well if we’re awkward with each other. Especially because Blake will probably pick up on it and ask us five thousand questions. So...how should we go about the next few days?”  

Charlotte hummed, pulling out Sam’s smart phone and squinting at it. “I don’t know how you use this thing,” he admitted. “But...when we get back, we could look up the star patterns, see how that goes.”

“Works for me,” Sam decided.  

“Right here.”  

They got back with minimal effort, Sam unbuckling Blake while Charlotte shifted behind her. When Sam lifted him into her arms, Charlotte frowned. “Why can’t-?”

“How would he feel if he woke up in the arms of a stranger?”

Charlotte sighed and shook his head. “Right, you’re right. I’m sorry.”  

“Stop apologizing,” Sam said quietly as she opened the door and stepped aside, letting Charlotte pass. “He’s your kid, you’re allowed to be worried about him. You have a lot more to be worried about than I do.”

“Moira seems to care about you a lot, though,” Charlotte whispered, dropping his bag at the edge of the couch. “She’s a good person.”  

“Yeah, she is,” Sam said, her voice fond.  

Blake shifted in her grasp, blinking blearily at Charlotte. “Mommy, who’s’at?” he grumbled, rubbing at his eye with a fist.  

“That’s...Sam,” Sam said, eyes shooting to Charlotte with a weak grin. “He’s gonna be staying with us for a little while. He’s working on some stuff here.”  

“Mm’k,” Blake yawned. “Can I go to bed now?”

Charlotte chuckled, voice low. “You must be really tuckered out if you’re asking to go to bed.”

“Me n Mommy watched a whole buncha movies today.”

“Did you now?” Charlotte said, his tone indicating that he didn’t like that.  

Sam winced. “Yup. Let’s get you to bed, buddy.”  

~~

When she returned to the main floor, she found Charlotte in the kitchen, holding the burned toaster in hand. “What the hell happened?” he demanded. “I wasn’t even gone for 24 hours!”

Sam scowled. “To be fair, it’s been a pretty fucked up day. If it wasn’t for Patsy I would have decked your ex.”  

Charlotte slumped, putting the toaster down. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that. He thinks that because he’s Blake’s father he’s entitled to everything that I have. Patsy is a real blessing sometimes.”

“Yeah. She’s pretty great.”  

Sam hadn’t realized that her voice was fond when she said it, but when Charlotte leaned over, an eyebrow quirked on his face, she froze. “What?”  

“Don’t you go getting a crush on my friend. All I know about you is that you respond to catcalling with violence and that you somehow caught my toaster on fire.”

Sam spluttered out a protest, but Charlotte wasn’t listening. “I’ll take the couch, so that way-”

“It’s your bed.”  

Charlotte glanced up, an eyebrow raised, and Sam gave a weak smile. “I’ll...I’ll take the couch. It’s okay.”  

“What about Blake?”  

“It’ll be okay. Seriously, go ahead.”  

Charlotte eyed her slowly and then tilted his head. “All right. Keep an eye out on your weather app for any potential meteor showers or anything, though.”

“Will do.”  

~~

Over the next week, Charlotte and Sam put their full efforts into researching falling and shooting stars. Sam went into the law firm dressed in a scarf and fake sneezing into her hand, picked up the cases that Charlotte asked for, and brought them back. He worked on those during the day while Sam ran errands, dropped Blake off at Patsy’s, and researched.  

The more Sam got to know Patsy, the more she had to admit that Charlotte might be right.  

The first clue was when Patsy “met” Charlotte for the first time. Sam saw the once over she gave him, saw the quirk in her lips, and envy settled low in her gut.  

Envy. That this woman was ogling HERSELF.  

The second clue was when Sam caught herself smiling as the woman giggled at a joke she had made, her stomach fluttering a bit as Patsy covered her mouth to cover her laughter. It was a shame, really; she had such a lovely laugh.  

The revelation that she genuinely found Patsy attractive and funny and wonderful came almost five days after Charlotte had gotten back.

Blake had become very attached to him, calling him “Uncle Sam” whenever they were together. Sam could tell that it hurt Charlotte a little, that he was struggling not to do the cutesy things with Blake that he’d like to be doing, and that made her work harder to find the right time to switch back.  

To hopefully switch back.  

Because really, they didn’t know if their plan would work. Didn’t know if it was all a fluke, if they would ever truly be themselves again.  

Hell, sometimes Sam still expected to wake up from a dream.  

The sixth night after Charlotte had gotten back, after they had put Blake to sleep, they were researching once more. Sam had convinced Charlotte to dip into the savings just a little bit and buy a smartphone to replace the old flip phone, and he had consented upon realizing that it wasn’t actually as expensive as he thought it was.  

At least, when he stayed away from Apple it wasn’t.  

Around 9:30, Charlotte sat up and slapped Sam on the shoulder. “There’s a meteor shower around 3 am tonight.”  

“What?”  

Charlotte looked up, eyes glinting, and Sam started grinning. “Are you serious?”

“Yes!”

They both whooped and high fived.  

They had gotten much closer over the last few days. Charlotte had stopped worrying that Sam would be a bad influence on or hurt Blake in any way. He had seen how good she was with him, and slowly his fears had dissipated. Sam had confided in Charlotte about the fear that she had felt when Scott had confronted her and Blake, and Charlotte had guided her through that fear, made her feel better about the whole situation.  

Packing up their equipment, Sam suddenly realized how much she was going to miss both of them. Charlotte and Blake had become like family she never really had.  

Sure, her parents were still alive. But she never saw them, and she was an only child. Charlotte had become what she suspected a sister was like, Blake like a nephew, and Sam wasn’t sure she was really ready to give that all up.  

Not to mention, Patsy and Patrick.

Though she hadn’t gotten to know Patrick quite as well, he was a great, empathetic kid. And Patsy herself was an amazing, tough woman. Leaving them would be almost as hard, if not harder, than leaving Charlotte and Blake. 

“Sam?”  

She looked at Charlotte, eyes wide, and blinked. “Yeah?”  

Charlotte frowned, his fingers tightening on the back of his chair. “You okay? You seem a bit lost there.”  

“I...was just thinking about how I don’t really want to leave.”  

Charlotte looked taken aback, and then slowly he smiled. “I don’t think Blake really wants you to go either. He really likes you. Or at least, my version of you. Plus Patsy has been eyeing you all over the place.”  

“She has?”  

“Geez, have you not been wearing my glasses? Hell yeah she has.”  

Sam flushed and looked at the floor, eyebrows furrowing. Charlotte took the silence as invitation to keep speaking. “I mean...there is a house for sale down the street. It’s certainly not as fancy as yours, but you definitely have the money to drop on it. And I’m sure Moira would love to get out of Philly.”  

Sam whipped her head up. “Really?”  

“Oh yeah. I can tell she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t seem like a city girl.”  

Sam hummed, a smile twitching on her lips, and Charlotte put a hand on her shoulder. “Just think about it, eh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

~~  

3 am came too quickly. They were outside at 2:30, just in case, sitting on the front porch steps and staring out into the skyline.  

Living in a big city her whole life, Sam had never really had the chance to truly appreciate the stars. Now, out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, Montana, the city pollution was low, and the town that Charlotte lived in didn’t have much light pollution.  

The sky was littered with stars, glittering and flickering along the skyline. Sam had seen the usual constellations of course; the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, Orions Belt. But out here, she couldn’t see those, could see constellations that she had never seen before, ones that she couldn’t even name.  

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured out loud, flushing after she realized she had spoken.  

Charlotte, who was cupping a mug of coffee in his hands, tossed her a small smile. “Isn’t it? I was only in Philly one day, but...damn, how do you stand the noise?”  

“I just...grew up with it,” Sam said with a shrug. “It’s never really something I realized I could live without.”  

“Mmm.”  

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, staring up at the stars.  

“Why did you make the wish?” Charlotte asked suddenly. “To be a woman, I mean. A mother, specifically.”  

Sam fidgeted, taping her fingers against her arms. “I...I thought it might be better. Mentally, somehow. I wanted a kid of my own, but I didn’t have that opportunity. I just wanted to know...how you felt, I guess.”

Charlotte hummed thoughtfully, and Sam shot him a look. “What about you?”  

“Truthfully?”  

Sam nodded.

“I wanted to stop being treated like a pair of tits and more like the lawyer I actually am. And I...raising Blake is tough. He’s an amazing kid, but sometimes there’s only so much you can handle.”  

“I get that,” Sam said softly.  

“I miss him, though,” Charlotte murmured, taking a sip of his coffee. “My boy. I also...dicks are really uncomfortable.”

Sam chuckled, clapping a hand over her mouth. “I could say the same about boobs,” she said with a laugh.

Charlotte grinned and shook his head. “All women agree with you on that, trust me.”  

Silence again, eyes turning back to the sky, and Sam’s breath hitched. “There,” she whispered, pointing.  

A single star, or more likely, a comet, streaked across the sky, and the duo looked at one another.  

They closed their eyes, wishes unspoken, and after a long minute, opened them ago, still the same.  

“It didn’t work,” Charlotte said sadly.  

“Not yet,” Sam remembered. “We fell asleep the first time, right?”

“Right.”  

They stood, regarded each other, and then went inside to go to bed.  

~~

Sam passed out on the couch and woke up in bed, staring at the ceiling with perfectly clear vision. For a moment, he thought he had fallen asleep with Charlotte’s glasses.  

And then he felt the soothing comfort of his old flannel pajama pants, the lack of awkward weight on his chest, and he sat up, lifting a hand to his face to find morning stubble scratching at his fingers.

“Shit,” he muttered, and it was his terrible, stinky morning voice he was speaking with.  

He whooped and leapt out of bed, sprinting down the hall and flying down the stairs to find Charlotte sitting up on the couch, staring at her hands with a small smile on her face. She looked up at him and gave him a thumbs up and he tilted his head, running for the door.  

“Where are you going?” Charlotte demanded, voice baffled.  

“I’m a dude and Patsy is straight!” he shouted back at her.  

Her laughter followed him out the door and he darted across the yard, cursing at the cold dew on his bare feet and pattering up Patsy’s front stoop quickly.  

He was breathless as he hit the doorbell, and she answered a moment later, eyes tired, a robe on, and a coffee mug in hand. Her eyes glazed over him once, twice, and she lifted a brow.  

Sam was suddenly very aware that he was only wearing a tank top. “Uh...morning.”

“You’re not wearing shoes,” Patsy noted, a hint of laughter in her voice.  

Sam smiled sheepishly. “I uh...I know. I just...had the urge to come over here.”

“Why’s that?”  

“Would you maybe...like to go to dinner? I know we don’t know each other really well, but I feel like I’ve gotten to know you this week, and you’re an amazing woman.”  

Patsy’s lips quirked upwards. “Aren’t you going back home, soon?”  

“Maybe. I don’t know. It depends on your answer,” Sam said. He still hadn’t quite caught his breath.  

Patsy leaned against the doorjamb and lifted her coffee to her lips. “Yeah,” she decided finally. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”  

Sam whooped, kissed her on the cheek without hesitating, and sprinted back to Charlotte’s house.  

He had to call Moira. They were buying a house in Montana.  

[killashilla]

Hold Onto This Chapter 1: Better than Schedules

Link to AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11658675/chapters/26232894 

Allura looked up at the dashing young man as he spoke, barely processing a word he was saying.

Everything had happened so quickly—she remembered clambering out of the royal airship with her cousin Lance onto the Garrison grounds before being ushered into the school and immediately bombarded by dozens of clamoring students.

Allura barely had time to take in the rusty red sands of the Arizona desert, or the prestigious, bright gleam of the Academy’s great foyer before being thrown into a blur of introductions, unfamiliar names, handshakes, and ecstatic young girls marveling over her hair.

Then, just as swiftly as they had been herded in, she had been separated from Lance and sent off for a tour, each with their own student ambassador.

And now she was here, in a long and empty corridor, arm-in-arm with this particularly tall, handsome stranger. He had approached her with eyes that searched hers in earnest and a warm smile that made her weak in the knees.

“You must be Princess Allura,” He had said, offering her his elbow, “Call me Shiro.”

Shiro.

She was trying to concentrate but her thoughts kept floating back to his muscled arm under her hand and the shapes his lips formed as he spoke.

“Princess? Is everything okay?” Shiro stepped out of her reach to look her in the eye.

“Oh, stars, I’m so sorry,” Allura paled, “I got… distracted, what were you saying?”

He laughed (great, even his laugh is adorable) , “Nothing interesting, apparently. Don’t apologize, I’m not exactly thrilled by the scheduling system, either.” Suddenly, Shiro leaned down to whisper in her ear conspiratorially, “You know what, let me show you something else. Schedules can wait.”

He grabbed her hand and they were off, Allura’s mind still reeling from his voice low in her ear, his breath tickling her hair, his lips mere inches from her skin…

Get ahold of yourself!

“They gave me your file. You’re into astronomy, right?” He asked as they rounded a corner.

“Yes, I love learning about the stars.” That’s it, short answers. Be professional. But when she could feel him waiting for more, expectant and open and kind. To hell with professionalism. “It helps me feel at home in the universe, knowing the names and stories of the constellations. I suppose if I’m going to be an interstellar diplomat one day, I’d want to feel at home no matter how far I go.”

Shiro stopped short at this, and his thumb brushed lightly against the back of her hand, “I know exactly how you feel.”

Quiznak, this boy will be the death of me.

Allura had read his file, too. An aspiring deep space pilot with the brains and the talent to make it big, Takashi Shirogane was the golden boy of the Garrison: top of his class, captain of the varsity football team, and already a faculty favorite for admission to the illustrious Voltron University. She had been fully prepared to meet a cocky, brown-nosing jock but this “Shiro” was one pleasant surprise after another.

They continued down one last corridor until they reached a pair of old, rusted double-doors. Shiro glanced around to check that the coast was clear, then rammed the doors with a powerful shoulder so that they wedged open with a metallic screech.

“Fuck.” He hissed, “Let’s hope nobody heard that. We’re not supposed to be here without an instructor,”

Looks like Golden Boy has a rebellious streak.

Shiro took her by the hand again and led her through the entrance as he flicked a switch on the side panel. The room, which had at first looked to be a dark and cluttered auditorium, suddenly became illuminated by a hologram of stars shining from the massive glass-domed ceiling. A lush indoor garden surrounded them, and Allura stared in awe at the constellations hovering above her and the way their reflections danced on the leaves.

“This is the old observatory. We built a new one in the simulation wing a few years back, so this place was repurposed as the botany lab. Cooler than schedules, huh?” Shiro grinned.

“It’s…absolutely incredible…” She breathed.

Shiro laid down to get a full view of the hologram and motioned for her to join him on the floor.

This is way, way better than schedules…

- - -

Shiro had been hesitant at first about this so-called “Crown Princess Allura”. Princesses were haughty, stuck-up, privileged beyond normalcy. He had braced himself for a royal brat. Still, he had held out hope for the girl from the student files—the Altean King Alfor was known for his benevolence and fortitude, surely his daughter couldn’t be all bad. And she loves astronomy—which could signify anything from intellect to literal airheadedness— but Shiro clung to that speck of common interest. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right?

But then, all of his doubts fell away the moment he laid eyes on her. Of course she was a princess, it was the only title that did her justice. Everything around her seemed to glow, from her hair, to the crescents on her cheekbones, to her piercing blue eyes—even her laugh made the room seem brighter. He froze in the middle of the packed Garrison foyer and watched as she greeted the students crowding around her.

A tall, lanky boy—her cousin Lance, he realized—stood at her side and teased her every so often, posing for selfies with Allura and the younger girls, pinching her cheek or bumping her hip whenever someone paid her a lavish compliment.

Shiro came to his senses when Keith shoved at his unmoving form “Get a move on, Shiro, what are you doing?”. He was fine, nothing out of the ordinary, he was just about to meet the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. And of course he was dressed like an idiot, in his formal Academy uniform with the stupid goddamn tie and the stupid goddamn jacket from freshman year that definitely didn’t fit him anymore. Keith was practically propelling him forward now, grumbling and muttering his last protests against the tour they had to give to the exchange kids.

And then her eyes met his and he couldn’t help but break out into the biggest, dumbest smile. Damn. I’m a goner.

He still felt that glow, deep in his chest as she laid beside him on the floor of the observatory some hours later. The goddamn too-tight jacket was serving as a makeshift pillow and the stars of Ursa Major and Minor twinkled above them (Mother Klanmüirl and Cub, Allura had called them) and sometime during their stargazing she had shifted so that her head now rested on his outstretched arm.

Conversation with her was so easy, so natural. She was quick to interject with a witty comment and teased him at every opportunity, and soon they were laughing with the genuine warmth of old friends. When the topic veered into more personal territory, he listened with rapt attention to her stories of Altea: its culture, its peoples, and of the responsibilities that weighed heavily on her heart.

“I’ve been training for years as a galactic diplomat—a real explorer—but one day I’ll have to forget that dream and devote my life to governing my people. I’m so scared that I won’t be able to do it, that I won’t be good enough.”

Her words hung heavily in the air. Shiro didn’t have the courage to tell her: No, you’re perfect. You’re beautiful and intelligent and strong and anyone would be lucky to call you their Queen.

Instead, he offered some stories of his own—stories he had never told of the family he had left behind in Tokyo, of his twin brother and the garden out back where they had first stargazed as children.

“Just like this?” Allura gestured to the greenery around them and the stars above.

Shiro nodded, “Just like this.” Even though Ryou was the farthest possible thing from a gorgeous alien princess.

After a comfortable silence, Allura poked him in the chest, “So. Why is the Garrison’s future valedictorian breaking into abandoned lab rooms? Is this a regular occurrence for you?”

He laughed sheepishly, “Yeah, sort of. Out there, they expect me to have all of the answers; I’m supposed to be the best in my classes, and lead my teammates, and help the younger pilots train. Not that I don’t love it, but—”

“I understand. You need to get away from it all sometimes.” She felt him nod. “I’m grateful that you’re letting me in on your secret hideout.”

“Of course, Princess. What kind of tour would this be if I didn’t show you the best parts of the Academy?”

“Please, Shiro, you can just call me Allura.” Am I being too forward? Something like this was unprecedented. Even Lance had to refer to her as “the Princess” at their old school. But this was Arizona, where there was no monarchy or planetary rivalries or—

“Okay. Allura.” Well. That was simple.

“Any fears?” She asked quickly, the sound of her name in his voice still echoing like ripples on still water.  

“Oh, plenty,” Shiro chuckled, “Dying young, dying alone, dying without having done anything with my life—“

“That’s a lot of dying.”

“You didn’t let me tell you my worst fear: I’m deathly afraid of princesses.”

She scoffed and he had to bite his cheek to contain his grin.

“Yep, Altean ones in particular.” Shiro continued. “They’re the absolute worst. So scary. Especially when they’ve got you pinned to the ground in a dark room.” He was laughing now at her faux-pouting expression.

“You’re right, Shiro,” Her voice held a new note of mischief. He felt her hand slide across his torso and he froze, heart threatening to pound out of his chest. “You never know when a princess might…strike!”

And then Allura grabbed ahold of his tie, that stupid goddamn tie, jerking him onto his side, and her face was suddenly very, very close to his.

He could tell she hadn’t thought this through, her crystal blue eyes were wide with surprise at her own boldness and her breath hitched between them.

Neither of them were really thinking anymore.

Almost by instinct, the arm that had been resting behind her shoulders dropped down to snake around her waist and he was pressing his lips to hers.

It was a stolen kiss. A stupid, reckless, hormonal, teenaged impulse. Shiro half expected her to pull away and slap him for being so presumptuous but instead, she pressed closer to him and deepened the kiss as her eyes slid shut.

It was rushed, feverish, almost desperate, but it felt so goddamn right. Her teeth scraped against his and her fingertips ran blazing trails up Shiro’s shoulders, his neck, through his hair. Their tongues rolled together in a heady, panting mess. The warm glow in his chest pulsed and grew until he was ablaze in light. He was so utterly consumed by the taste of her that he almost missed the sound of steel-toed boots coming down the hall.

[wheaterz]

Testing Maintenance: Chapter 21

This could not have been more typical.

“You know...” Virgil began with a sigh. “I'm not sure you're familiar with Murphy's Law. Do you know Murphy's Law?”

Mel shook her head. The red-haired woman looked pretty fed up.

“Its the concept that if something can go wrong it will go wrong. I think that about sums our luck up pretty well, right?”

She agreed with him wholeheartedly.

They were stranded. Virgil and Mel were currently bumming around on top of the car, Mel laying on her back on the roof while Virgil sat on the engine hood looking out over the miles of land that they had not, and apparently would not, cover. After a miraculous three full hours of driving they had run out of gas. Some of it Virgil suspected was on fumes alone and he also suspected that the fuel they had used may not have been your average gasoline. There was no possible way they would have been able to make three hours on what they'd found alone if Aperture hadn't messed with it, but eventually their car couldn't take it anymore and slowed to a stop. Nothing else was wrong with it. The engine was fine. The tires were fine. The brakes were fine. They had just run out of gas.

The sun had fully set and it was completely dark out now. Crickets could be heard chirping on the side of the road and at one point there had been coyotes howling in the far distance, something that had made Virgil jump initially until Mel explained to him what they had been. They sounded less like animals and more like screaming banshees, in his opinion. Virgil had really thought that by now they would have found something. Anything. This mission that they had been so passionate about and really felt they were making progress in had come to a total halt and they were both downtrodden for it. This had been the worst possible scenario.

Virgil and Mel each wanted to ask the other what they would do next, but neither spoke up because they knew the other did not have a clue. They might as well have been on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. No, that would have even been better than this. Islands provided their own resources. Humans weren't birds, she couldn't just eat the seeds off of the crops for the rest of her life. Mel thought that they would have maybe seen a car. If they stayed put another vehicle could come their way, but then she thought about how this road led to a dead end. If there were humans still around other than inside Aperture they would have put up a sign saying that this highway lead absolutely nowhere. She remembered that the land Aperture was built on was private property and absolutely confidential, but three hours should have given them more than enough space between the labs and civilization. What had happened up here? Every farm house they passed looked rundown and abandoned, so they hadn't bothered stopping to see if anyone was still living inside. They all looked as hopeless as her barn had been.

So it was just the two people. A human and a robot, and a car full of limited supplies for the one half of them that couldn't just live off of sitting under the sun for a few minutes.

“This is awful.” Virgil grumbled, his arms rested on top if his knees and digging his chin into them. He didn't want to feel like the better option would have been for Mel to stay in Aperture, but the urge to was surfacing again. He would never say it out loud, and he suspected he didn't need to. Mel was an intelligent individual, despite some of her odd quirks, and she would have been going over every possible solution in her head. What a good puzzle solver, but there was no puzzle out here for her. Just wheat. The one time Virgil was able to leave the laboratories and the only thing they'd been able to see was basically just dying grass that you could make bread out of. Figures.

Mel wrote him a note and arched her arm backwards and down the window for him to grab whenever he noticed it. He was usually prepared to grab a note from her whenever he heard the pen scribbling. It was dark out but he could read perfectly well with the illumination of his own eyes and   pseudo night vision installed in his head.

I have to walk. There's no other way around this.

“Yeah... Yeah, I know.” Virgil felt something catch in his throat that made his voice raspy. Things he knew weren't there and may have just been memories. “There's no going back from here. We've driven too far. I mean, we must be half way across Michigan by now. We may not even be IN Michigan anymore. We might have just wandered into a different state entirely and what is humanity's obsession with wheat?!”

This is nothing. You should see Kansas.

“I feel like I already have. There's no way this is normal. I've seen pictures of Michigan. Isn't there a lake or something around here we should have hit? Aren't there cities we should have been passing? Mountains? At the very least we should have seen something else growing. Where is everyone?!”

Maybe some of it is barley and oats too.

“Yeah, very funny...” Virgil ran his hands through his hair, knocking his goggles askew. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his knees, trying to calm down. He felt Mel give him a pat on the shoulder from above, but with how quick it had she clearly wanted his attention. When Virgil looked over at her the human pointed upwards. He followed her finger to the sky and his eyes hung on the millions of little twinkling lights above them. The moon was only on the horizon and was a dim orange, meaning that it left the center of the sky as dark as it could be with the milky way at its brightest potential. Virgil had seen pictures of space. There were the planets in Nigel's testing track, and he was aware of those. He was aware of how they were giant compared to Earth, but he was once again taken by the sheer scale he found himself under. Its one thing to look at photos, it was another to see a star that he clearly new to be Jupiter and to see how small it was from the distance that was between them. He could see Venus, as well, and she was the second brightest thing in the night sky next to the moon.

Mel lay back against the car roof with her hands folded on her stomach. She let out a long, calming breath of air and was smiling. Despite the reality of survival slipping away from the human's grasp, she was being mellow and it really was something Virgil still could not get a clear concept of. He followed her lead, though, and he lay back to look up at the sky. Hopefully he wasn't heavy enough to break the car window, but it seemed to hold him up okay. A meteor flashed across the sky and burnt away in the atmosphere within a second and Virgil's eyes widened. “Oh... that's pretty neat. It does this every night?”

Mel nodded.

“I can see why you wanted to get back up here so badly. I'm just sorry this hasn't been working out.”

I'm not giving up. We can try again tomorrow.

“Right...” Virgil tried to imagine it, but to him it was all very illogical. Nearly impossible. No, just impossible. She was recovering from surgery. This was something that should absolutely, under no circumstances, be happening. All of that work up until now and the pay off seemed to be that Mel was going to just perish on the side of the road somewhere. If that happened, in an odd, slanted reality Aperture had won. The facility kept Mel under lock and key and released her into a post-apocalyptic world. What a sick joke. She seemed to be steadfast and fearless through it all, so he had to wonder.

“Are you scared?”

He didn't have to wait long for Mel to reply.

I've been scared since you woke me up.

“You sure hide it well.” Virgil wished he had that same kind of restraint. “I have to admit, though. I know that situation right now is a little tense, but its kind of nice not having to worry about constant danger. I mean even when it was just me alone in my repair room there was a threat of the area shifting or that I'd fall off my rail again. Here we're just... is there a word for what we're doing right now?”

Stargazing.

He laughed, feeling stupid for asking. “Oh, right. That makes sense, doesn't it? But look at what I mean. I'm about to do something that is absolutely insane.” Virgil sat forward, cupped his hands around his mouth, and at the top of his voice byte he shouted into the night air. “GLADOS! IS! AN! INGRATE!”

There wasn't even an echo to answer him back with how flat the land was and he turned around to grin triumphantly at Mel. “Eh? See that? Couldn't get away with that inside Aperture's walls, could you? She can't hear us. She can't see us. She can't touch us. Same with the Mainframe now, I suppose.” He still hadn't decided if they were one and the same.

Mel had started applauding from where she lay for his performance. The woman stared back up at the stars, taking a breath of the cold night air but coughed a little at how dry it had been and it hurt her lungs. She'd gotten too used to Aperture's musty, recycled air already. She shivered at how chilly it had gotten, rubbing her hands against her arm to tame the goose bumps she'd gained. Still, she could have fallen asleep there staring up at the sky. On many nights in her barn she had done just that. Then she remembered the night that she was pulled into Aperture by Atlas and P-body. She had been stargazing over a rising moon just like this, though it had been a few days and it was no longer full. A sad thought struck her when she gazed at the moon, now growing paler in color the higher it reached for the sky. She handed her thoughts down to Virgil.

I wanted to see humans make it to space, but I missed it.

Virgil scratched at the hair on the back of his neck as he read the note. That was truly something to feel down about missing. “Yeah, by only a few years. NASA launched a rocket to go to the moon in... in...” He thought about it a moment and searched his files. There used to be a way that he could pull it up, but the data was no longer in there and he frowned. “Uh, sorry. I guess I don't have that information. In any case, you guys made it up there.”

The clouds from earlier that had dotted the sky were piling on heavier the more time passed, the wind picking up and sending some to block the sky out. The moon on the horizon was the first to disappear, now only a faint halo of light behind the thick clumps of water. It was a minor detail, but it bothered Virgil that he didn't have all of his files on hand and it felt like a chunk of his brain had been stored away somewhere completely different from his head. It was not at all a comfortable feeling and he shivered at how empty it felt. Where there was supposed to be a year on the moon landing was just a blank slate.

Mel lightly tapped the Maintenance Core and handed him one last note for the evening.

I'm going to get some sleep. Good night, Virgil.

“Oh, okay.” Virgil blinked, being pulled out of his thoughts and grinning at her as she sat up and slid off the roof of the car and to the ground. “Night, Mel.”

He had no need for sleep, so it was going to be a very long night. Virgil watched the human crawl back into the car and attempt to make herself a comfortable sleeping space between the two chairs, but the inside of the car was rather cramped and wasn't suited for lounging. Mel took her boots off and placed them in the back where the food was and tried to stretch her legs from the passenger seat to the driver's side.

Humans needed a warm and comfortable space in order to get rest, right? Virgil checked the temperature. Approximately 6 degrees Celsius and on the other side of the scale 42 degrees Fahrenheit. That was cold, right? Virgil sat up and turned around to look in through the window at her. He deftly tapped the glass. “Hey, Mel? I can't tell, but is it cold in there? Do you want my jacket?”

She looked up at him and nodded, mouthing a 'thank you' in response. Virgil started to slip his jacket off, the vest underneath covered fully in tropical floral patterns with long, white sleeves with a few holes in them. Virgil frowned at how out of shape they looked when compared to his jacket and just decided to roll them up to his elbows so they wouldn't get caught on anything. As he was moving his jacket off, one of the pink sticky notes from the pocket fell out. He was quick to react and grabbed it out of the air. Realizing he should probably grab the other one, he stuffed the first of the notes into the pocket of his pants and searched his jacket for the other.

He read the second note off before putting it away and rolled his eyes. Oh, right. This one was the 'dumb' note. He wondered why he even hung onto this one other than he was being passive aggressive towards Mel at the time. However, as he looked at the pink sticky note a thought struck him, one that should have been clear to him much sooner than now. Virgil got off the hood of the car and went around to the passenger window where Mel was trying to get comfortable and handed her his jacket. “Here you go. Sorry about any oil stains on it.”

She didn't mind and was just happy to have something to wrap around her shoulders and arms as she drifted off. Virgil walked away and paced around the road for a bit while she fell asleep. His thoughts ran away from him and went in all kinds of crazy directions. He thought about things along the lines of 'this is ludicrous' and 'I'm out of my processor'. It was funny that when he did not have company he could talk to himself for hours, but now that he had someone else with him and she was sleeping he knew very well to keep his big trap shut. So many things had gone wrong that he was only asking for disaster at this point. While Virgil was stressing, Mel had fallen asleep, unaware of her friend's inner turmoil just beyond the car. When he'd done a good ten minutes of pacing, Virgil walked back to the window to see if Mel was still awake. She was not, so it was now or never.

Virgil planted the sticky note on the car wheel with Mel's hand writing. The stunt he was about to pull would make him an enormous hypocrite, but he was at least getting a better understanding of Mel's thought process when she'd initially made the note. He stood in front of the car, the long run of black tar stretching through bare fields into the sky. Fields that had crickets, crows, coyotes and possibly other things starting with C that they had not yet seen that could have been hiding from them. Crocodiles? No, those needed water, didn't they? He was pretty sure they were on the wrong part of the map for those, anyway, but he couldn't find that file either. This was beginning to get mildly annoying.

“Oh boy...” He attempted to psyche himself up for the long walk he was about to take. “Okay, here we go. Just going to put one foot in front of the other and not look back. See if there's something over that rise. That's not too far, right? Mel, she just keeps going and going. She doesn't stop and she's got muscles. Those get tired. I don't have muscles and I don't get tired so it should all just be...fine. It'll all be fine.”

So much for trying not to talk to one's self so the human didn't wake up. Thankfully, Mel had been sleeping like a stone and it gave Virgil the perfect gate to start heading off without a single word out of her in protest. Because she would have been against this, and for probably a very good reasons. He just didn't want to think about what those reasons were.

Virgil shook himself out, squared himself up, stiffened his chin, and walked.

At first, being alone on the road wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. It was not much different from his management rail. Back in Aperture he could go for very long periods of time without speaking to anyone and did nothing but ride along his rail, following it wherever it decided he should go while he searched for parts for his workshop. The basic concept was there. He was alone, walking a straight line to a location, it was dark, and he was searching for something. Even though there was a clock that told him the time at all hours, and was 100% accurate to his region, Virgil had no real concept of how it passed. That was how it used to be, anyway. He had grown so used to having Mel to talk to over the past few days that a task he was usually able to do without a hindrance now seemed to be taking ages. He could have started talking to himself again, but he didn't feel like it.

The coyotes started howling again, but they no longer bothered him and he realized that even if they wanted to attack him his assist droid body was made of metal and wouldn't have been fun for them to digest. If Virgil was able to look up anything on them at all he would have known that they did not normally attack people and were hardly bigger than a small house dog, but in his current state of mind he could not pull the information up. He wondered if he was losing his mind, and realized that may as well have been it. Some of what made him so intelligent was that he had access to all kinds of information fed to him and the other cores throughout Aperture whenever they needed it, and he was one of the few that new how to utilize it correctly, or even cared to. He had to ask himself if what was happening was dangerous, and decided that it wasn't. It was just embarrassing. He'd be more scatterbrained than usual.

Hours had passed and the crickets chirping began to die. The clouds had fully rolled in and completely covered the sky, turning from black to a blue-gray the closer the morning came. Virgil would stop every now and then to do a 360 turn around, making sure that he wasn't being followed or if he'd missed catching any other forms of life. He'd been startled by a flock of black birds that flew out of the field from right beside him and he jumped away with a shout, taking the hint to keep walking. The wind had picked up and was knocking his hair around, sweeping it to the side and managing to get a shiver out of Virgil by how strange it felt, rather than the temperature. It would not be the strangest sensation, however. When the morning had lightened up and turned the world around him silver with low clouds, a light spray of water showered down.

Virgil stopped dead in his tracks, raising his arms over his head and shielding himself from the light drizzle that was coming down and protesting loudly. “Oh come ON!”

He was waterproof, as long as he wasn't absolutely submerged, but having soggy clothes was still terrible. The android had been walking for hours and was fed up with this new mishap, kicking a stone clear off the road and upsetting some birds in the field to go flying away. He raised his head to the sky and yelled at it. He'd gotten into the habit of yelling at astronomical, mighty forces of power recently and it was one he didn't seem ready to break out of any time soon.

“There anything else you want to throw at me?! I can stand it! Try me! Just try it! You want to fight me, nature? I'll win! There's nothing you could give that I can't take! I have a human stuck in a car in the middle of nowhere with waning rations but SURE! Lets make water fall from the sky on ol' Virgil and make it even harder on him to find help! Right! It’s not like I was keeping an eye out for air crafts or anything useful like that!”

He grit his teeth, then flinched when he got a droplet in his eye. He grumbled something nasty under his breath and grabbed a hold of his goggles, pulling them down over his eyes so that he wasn't getting at least part of his face rained on. He was just about ready to continue his walk, but the sensation of the water had been tingly and he stayed in one place to focus on it. In his anger he had failed to realize that this was water that was falling out of the sky at him without any other resource. The sky didn't just spring a leak from a pipe or anything structural like that. It was simply just coming out of the clouds. Virgil blinked a few times as he slowly calmed down and continued to stare at it.

“Huh.”

There was a flash somewhere in the distance and he looked up. Far away over the flat fields where the mist obscured the horizon and you could see the dark underbellies of storm clouds, bright light pulsed and flickered for a fleeting moment and disappeared. Virgil stood by to see if it would happen again, but the follow up was a low, faint rumble. As fascinating as he considered his first real experience with thunder and lightning, Virgil decided that this was not the place to be stopping. “Oop. Time to go.”

He quickened his pace. Actually, come to think of it, what exactly was stopping him from just running? Absolutely nothing, he'd try that.

-----

Mel would have slept longer if she had been somewhere comfortable. Unfortunately, the combination of light coming in through the windows and the thinly cushioned seats of the mobile sardine can didn't beg for a five star rating in luxury. The woman had been very stiff sitting up and the first thing she did was stretch the soreness away. Mel was all for having herself a good breakfast, bag up the food into an old backpack she'd found in the car, and then get straight to their hike away from the broken down vehicle. She patted her hands against the jacket she had used for a blanket and smiled, ready to give it back to its owner. Mel was about to get out of the car when she realized it had been lightly drizzling since at least the early morning hours and had to wonder why it was Virgil had not retreated inside. In fact, it was a miracle he hadn't woken her up about it, especially since she could hear a trace of thunder in the distance.

Using the jacket over her head as a shield from the rain, Mel opened the car door and went out to see if he was walking around outside to check on the weather, but after doing a full circle around the car there was no trace of him. Feeling panic raise a knot in her injured stomach, Mel looked around the inside of the car again to see if he'd somehow managed to squeeze into the back, but she had no luck finding him there either. It wasn't until she'd done looked back into the car that she caught a glance at the pink piece of paper pasted to the steering wheel. It had been one of her's, and obviously worn from being folded and stuffed somewhere. She read the text in her handwriting and remembered Virgil had pocketed it. She assumed it was because she had said something that amused him, but this was far from funny anymore.

'I'll go. You stay.'

Mel dropped the note on the damp ground and threw the jacket back into the car through the open window. She circled around a few more times, looking for any sign of Virgil in the fields or if he'd made some kind of imprint in the wheat. When she didn't see him on the road Mel climbed onto the car and stood up on the roof, scanning the horizon for however further of a scope that little extra height had given her. She didn't see him on the highway anywhere. He was just gone.

A hand went to Mel's stomach, a sharp pain causing her to grip the fabric of her jumpsuit. Her knuckles turned white at how tightly she held the suit between her fingers and she doubled over. Despite the deep belief that it would not work, Mel opened her mouth and attempted to call him. She forced air from her lungs and through her throat, moving her lips to form Virgil's name but the only sound out of her were some gasps and a choked up, strain of a whimper. She eventually stopped when she'd tried calling so hard that she'd gagged, folding into herself and sinking to sit on top of the roof. She hugged her arms around her waist.

Any number of things could happen, and every one of them occurred to her in that moment. They raced through her head in flashes of horrible imagery from the android finding himself hopelessly lost to fully breaking down and not being able to function. She thought about how she had gone to sleep the night before in the company of one of the few things she still had as a constant and how he'd walked away. Had things been different between them, she would have suspected he went back the other way towards Aperture. She knew this wasn't true, even though she hoped that had been the case. She felt he might have had a better chance if he just retraced his steps and found his way back. She knew, though, that he'd gone forward and was looking for help on her behalf.

What could she do? He could have taken off the moment she was asleep, giving him hours of an advantage ahead of her and he did not grow tired. And he'd asked her to stay there. What if he found help and she wandered off where he couldn't find her? Either way she thought about it, his condition would remain unknown to her unless they got really lucky. Mel felt the cold spray against her back, but she stayed huddled on the roof of the car until she'd started to shake violently. She wiped the moister from her brow, droplets collecting on her eyelashes. She wasn't helping anything to stay out there and catch a cold, so she reluctantly slid back off the roof and into the passenger's seat of the car. Mel rolled the windows up and curled folded under the warmth of the jacket that had been left behind. She'd have some food and she would look out at the rain, but all she could do for now was wait and hope that everything was going to be okay.

Time passed, and so did the storm. Mel was relieved that it had never rained too hard or that the lightning had gotten too close. She didn't know how Virgil would have fared walking around in full downpour. She wondered if he could act as a lightning rod, and she added the possibility to her list of worries. The day went by without a glimpse of the android, hours passing over her with the sun until the sky could be seen through the clouds again. The sky turned pink with the setting sun and the darkness of night returned, only Mel did not feel like going out and watching the stars like the night before. She felt like she may not enjoy it the same way that she used to ever again after having one night to show it to someone that had never seen the sky before. She had been isolated before, and as much as it had bothered her then, she knew that anyone she cared about was already long gone. The situation had shifted so that she had something to actually lose this time.

Mel had her dinner and threw the can of tuna out of the car window and onto the pavement, hearing it clatter and startle an animal in the field close by. She sat up to see over the rim of the window, watching two glowing, green eyes catch the moonlight and disappear. She guessed it to be a fox out hunting field mice. She starting to get sleepy again, realizing it was most likely drawing close to the same time that she'd gone to bed the night before. She didn't want to sleep. It didn't feel right to, but she had nothing else to do but sit there and feel horrible.  Eventually, whether Mel had wanted to or not, she drifted off in the tiny, car sized haven in the center of the wilderness full of food and warmth, if not the most comfortable seats. Time had passed by so slowly that day and she felt ill. As much as she had not wanted to fall asleep, her body was relieved for all of the extra rest it was finally being rewarded with after so much physical turmoil and she slipped into it deep.

Another day went by without a word from Virgil, and the day after had been just as uneventful. Mel had nothing to occupy her time with other than getting out to walk around and stretch when the Gremlin became too cramped for her to sit in any longer. She had to restrain herself from eating too much of the canned food and had limited herself to two per day. One in the morning and one in the evening. At one point Mel tried walking a distance until she got a raised view in the surrounding land, but it made no difference. There wasn't anything to see. When she'd returned to the car she passed some more of her time by plucking a few stocks of wheat and took the seeds out to throw on the road for a couple of mourning doves that had dropped in for a rest. When they'd lost interest in being fed any longer, Mel slid back into the car once again and started drawing on her sticky notes, pasting her doodles up along the inside of the car as decoration. Drawings of things she'd remembered from her childhood, such as animals at the zoo or more current characters like the robots she had seen going through Aperture. She drew the singing turrets, adding little music notes up beside them. When she decided that was enough wasted paper for one afternoon Mel did a whole great amount of nothing at all.

She almost preferred being harassed by mordant, murderous machines over this.

Again, night fell for the third time since they had escaped without much of anything happening. The cans of food she'd brought were already half gone and she began to wonder if she had made the right decision by leaving a few back in Aperture. It seemed to be more of an emotional decision rather than actually using her brain. Her head probably would have told her that this scenario was a possibility and to take everything you can. All the cans that you can. Like background noise that one may only pay attention to selectively, the worry she held for Virgil came back and disrupted any peace she may have formed for herself over the past few hours. The woman lay back and folded her arm over her eyes, evening out her breathing and calming her nerves, but with shallow success.

“We've got this.”

She repeated those words to herself a few times, spinning them through her head and making the effort to believe them. They got this. Against all odds, this was only just another bump in the road for two very stubborn people. Mel had no other choice but to eventually fall asleep, again with the fear of isolation to disturb her dreams. Through the darkness she could feel the draft whistling through Aperture's greatly spacious areas like the testing droid repair station that hung over a pit into the center of the earth and the loud hum of factory machines building cubes, turrets, and whatever else the facility called for. She saw the burning red glow of the robots that had been shut down by the mainframe and how the darkness was thick enough to suffocate.

Mel opened her eyes. The dim light of dawn was the first thing to welcome and comfort her, and the woman relaxed, tightening the jacket over her shoulders from the freezing, crisp air coming in through cracks in the car's sides. When Mel closed her eyes to try and fall back asleep for a couple more hours, she realized that the hum of Aperture that had been in her dreams was something she was currently hearing while she was awake as well. There was the distinct, grated churning of an engine and Mel sat up to look out over the road from the window shield. Coming down the highway towards her car was a faded blue pickup truck with chipped paint and rust along the edges. It looked to be in no better shape than Mel's car, but it was running and coming right towards her.

The red-head flung the car door open and stepped out onto the road, waving her arms into the air to flag the truck down. From where she stood she began to make out a shape past the window of the vehicle. The driver was a woman, but she seemed to be the only visible passenger. However, once they were close enough, a figure leaned over the side from the back of the truck, his spikey head of brown hair whipping around in the breeze as he waved at her excitedly. Virgil cupped a hand to the side of his mouth and hollered at Mel as they came down the road. He looked so very proud of himself. “Hey, Mel! Look what I found!”

Mel was overjoyed. She stood by, only just barely managing to wait for the truck to slow down and come to a stop. The driver remained in her truck once it was parked, but Virgil jumped out of the back to meet Mel on the road the second they had stopped and the whole car rocked under his weight as he bounced off of it. Mel, barefoot on a road that was damp and chilled from the morning condensation, ran straight for Virgil and flung her arms around him in the tightest hug she could physically give him. Virgil had nearly been knocked over at the velocity she'd taken in just that small distance, but he straightened himself out and returned the gesture. “I know I said I was going to stop scaring you. Sorry about this.”

He was going to be sorry. Mel quickly let go of him, frowning furiously at the robot, and despite having hands too soft and frail to really do anything to his plated robot body, she began to whale on him. Virgil shrank away from her, surprised by the sudden switch in attitude and brought his arm up to protect himself. “Ow! OW! I can feel that you know—OW! Okay, okay! I said I'm sorry! Look, I got a truck and everything so it worked, didn't it? Ouch! Quit hitting me!”

The woman in the truck watched them curiously, leaning silently against the front wheel to observe them from the car window, but did not bother to get out of the truck to interrupt their moment.

Mel stopped, if only because her hands were starting to get sore, but her eyes were red with stress and water was collecting along the bottom lids. She'd been trying to stay mad at him with a stiff lip, but it quivered and broke the illusion that she was as angry as she wanted to let on. It was exactly like when he'd dropped off his rail to get away from Atlas and P-body, only that time he had been a pathetic, beaten up ball of metal and it felt wrong giving him a good smack. Here he was alive, happy, and perfectly stable. She could be as mad at him as she wanted to be and not feel bad about it. The woman took up a note.

That was stupid of you!

“I'm not going to even try arguing that.” Virgil's mouth pulled into a wry, lopsided frown. “It was completely stupid. I even got rained on. And boring. It was tremendously boring. But look!” He held an arm out in the direction of the truck, the woman in the driver's seat waving at them when she realized she was being addressed. “I found a town not too far from here! Its not much, but its a town. Everything's a little worn out and I might have tried, um... I might have tried stealing this truck.”

Mel raised perplexed brow at him and pointed to the running vehicle.

“Yeah. That one. I tried to hijack it to bring it out here, but then got caught by the owner—that nice lady over there in the front seat, yes. Her. She was ready to toss me up and down the place until I explained our situation and she was surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing, considering how insane it must sound from an outsider's point of view. She offered to drive me out here to get you, on the condition that I ride in the back, and even got some extra gas packed for our car.”

Why didn't you just ask someone to begin with?

“Um...” Virgil looked behind him at the truck, the lady in the driver's seat still very patiently waiting for them while they spoke. “I got a little nervous. I mean, look at me. I have visible joints, a broken eye, and what looks to be a headlight in the cavity of my chest from a human's perspective. I'm clearly suspicious.”

Mel shrugged, but nodded. She could agree with that. He was deceptively human in many ways, but not enough to warrant immediate trust.

“Hey, why don't you two get acquainted while I fill the Gremlin up. You still have my jacket, right?” Virgil thumbed over his shoulder at the human in the truck and jogged up behind the running vehicle to climb into the back and grab for the canisters of gas they had brought. He was going to have to make a couple of trips, but once they were beside the car, Virgil leaned into the passenger window and grabbed his jacket out of the seat to slip back on. He felt weird walking around without it. It was nice to have pockets to stuff his hands into when he wasn't doing anything with them, and it had driven him crazy the whole walk.

Mel watched Virgil make himself busy, and while he was filling the Gremlin up she glanced at the woman at the front of the truck. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore a denim jacket over a black shirt. Mel walked up to the window of the passenger door to look in at her, not yet bold enough to approach the driver's side. She observed the other woman like she'd been a whole other species and Mel subconsciously checked for glowing eyes or the same seams that Virgil had around the neck and his wrists. She hadn't meant to be cautious, but the woman didn't seem to take any offense to it. They looked to be about the same age, or physically, at least. Mel believed herself to be a perfectly aged bottle of wine by now.

The driver then spoke up, her tone even and diligent. The woman had a stern, steeliness about her eyes that commanded attention, partnered in contrast with the warm understanding in her voice. “Can you talk?”

Mel was a little startled by the question. She shook her head.

“But you used to be able to, right?”

Mel nodded.

“Its fine, then. We'll get you fixed up once we're back. Are you injured anywhere else?”

The red-head's hand went to her stomach where the bullet had been. Though it had been removed and the wound had healed up for the most part, she still had a stabbing pain from her core if she moved around too much, so she nodded. She'd also noticed that she'd earned herself a slight limp when she walked, but she hoped that it was only temporary.

The woman in the truck kept her hands to the wheel, her slate gray eyes shifting from Mel to the window in front of her and she nodded out over the road at Virgil. “It's done filling the car.”

Mel was a little thrown off by the pronoun used for the android, at first, but when she realized she had been talking about Virgil she looked over to see that he had finished emptying the last of the gas into the Gremlin. Now that her head had cleared and she could think straight, Mel found it strange that they needed to fill the gas tank at all. It would have been more efficient to simply ride in the truck with the other human and abandon the other car altogether rather than riding along behind her. Mel studied her friend, her fingers curling into an anxious fist and relaxed again when she decided to approach him. As she walked she took a note from the thinning cube in her pocket.

Virgil closed off the clasp over the gas tank and smiled up at Mel as if nothing in the world was wrong. However, his enthusiasm thinned when he saw that she was not sharing the same energetic high that he was. “Is... something wrong? I know that other human seems a little cold, but...”

Are you leaving?

Virgil had been avoiding the subject so that they could share this victory. They had finally triumphed and it should be cause for celebration. It wasn't meant to last, though, and he knew he'd be the cause of it. She stood before him, her eyes demanding a straight answer out of the core. He wouldn't side step her. He was once able to beat around negative details when she had been in Aperture her first time through, but it seemed that it was no longer part of is nature. At least not with her.

“I had a lot of time to think while I was walking. As amazing as this place is and as happy for you as I am that you finally made it here, its not for me. I've lost a chunk of myself leaving Aperture behind. I have files that I can no longer access, just as an example. That's not even an important detail, but it made me realize how out of place I am. I'm just not... I'm not supposed to be out here, Mel. I need to be back there where I can do what I was made for. I don't expect you to understand why, because I don't fully get it either.”

Mel looked as if she would melt where she stood. Every feature of her sunk and her bright blue eyes shaded over. She reached out and grabbed for his hand hurriedly and tugged at it in the direction of the truck desperately. When he didn't budge she pulled another note out on him. He didn't stop her like he had before and let her get it out the best way she could.

I can help you live here. We can work through it.

“Mel...”

He fell silent again since the woman was already on to her next note.

You don't have to go back there.

“Mel.”

We worked so hard.

You can find purpose out here.

You deserve this just as much as I do.

I can't lose anyone else. Please, don't do this.

“Melanie.”

She had already been half way through her next protest, but the mention of her full name caused her to freeze up. Mel's hands quaked and they dropped the pen and paper. Virgil reached out for her and drew her in, wrapping his arms around the human and keeping her close. She slowly raised her hands and returned the embrace, feeling as though she had been tricked into thinking that her heart could not break anymore, but this had hurt too much. She wanted to ask him to stay with her own words and question his reasoning, but if all she could offer were small pieces of paper with writing than she could barely get an argument out. She wasn't sure that if she could speak he'd be any easier to convince. The only thing she could do to keep him longer was to stay like that.

“I'm sorry...” The ghost sensation had returned. That pressure that built up in his chest and to his forehead that he could not relieve. On pure reflex he ran a thumb under his cheek from where his head was bowed over Mel's shoulder, and in doing so he realized what it was that was bothering him. However, his cheek had been dry when he'd checked. “I have no excuses, but I am sorry. I'm going to be fine but you're going to be great. You get to leave and conquer. You... heheh. You're getting me worked up. I didn't even think that was possible.”

He pulled back, wiping his hands under his eyes again but they remained dry. He laughed at how ridiculous he must have looked. “We're a pretty good team, right? We shut down AEGIS and faced off against GLADOS head on. We beat the Mainframe, which is basically like fighting Aperture itself. Not bad for a simple Maintenance Core.”

She shook her head. He'd gotten her to smile again, if only briefly. As Mel had smiled, though, his own disappeared. This could very well be the last time they ever saw each other and he didn't want her to leave with just a few frail pieces of paper and a pen. Virgil patted himself down, searching for something he could offer her. He remembered waking up to seeing his friend had taken his goggles off in order to put them on herself and he reached for his head for them. “Uh, here. You can have these. They look better on you, anyway. Just something of me to... to keep with you. Its not all of me but its something.”

Mel accepted the goggles, running her thumb over the lens fondly. She fixed them over her bun so that they rested on top of her head in the same way Virgil wore them when they weren't being utilized. Mel mouthed to him 'thank you' and leaned forward to plant a kiss on his cheek before pulling him in for one last hug. Virgil was a little dazed by the kiss he'd gotten. It had been a new sensation, but not at all a bad one. It didn't stop him from returning the hug.

“Take care of yourself, Mel.”

Neither of them wanted to let go, but Mel was still aware there was a very kind person waiting on them to bring her back to the town. When she separated herself from Virgil, Mel held onto his hands and bobbed them up and down, giving him one last, misty smile. There were so many things she wanted to say to him. There was so much she'd wanted to share and talk about, but they had never been given the opportunity to talk like normal people. Mel couldn't, at the very least, and it had made the short time they'd spent together even briefer. When she'd collapsed and Virgil had found her food, Mel had been perfectly content with just getting to talk with him. No danger, or any good reason to run from it up until GLaDOS intervened. They just spoke for the longest time in the isolation of that ruined lobby deep in the depths of the earth. She picked up her pen from the floor, and instead of writing on the paper she used the palm of her left hand, holding it up to him with the blue ink smudging slightly, but the message was clear.

See you later, Virgil.

“Heheh... Yeah, see ya.”

She felt good about being able to return the goodbye this time, whether she could speak or not. Virgil waved to her as the human turned around to head for the truck. She opened the passenger door and situated herself into the front seat, the woman beside her reminding her to fasten her seat belt. The android stood on the road, waving until the truck had backed up and turned around, his last glimpse of Mel seen through the rear view mirror on the side and she was still waving back to him until he was too small for her to make out his face. He watched them go for a long time. The sun had finally come up over the horizon, drastically changing the sky from pink to orange and setting the fields on fire with color.

“She's out.” Virgil mumbled to himself. “She is out...Good job, Mel. Hopefully, you'll get to enjoy it this time around.” He'd never felt so conflicted, a mass of remorse and relief at odds with one another, but above it all was fulfillment. He was allowed to feel good about it, as well as sorry. Perhaps, bittersweet was the word he'd been searching for. He'd really been out of his own head, recently. It was time to head back home now that their Champion had been escorted out of the stadium.

This was a triumph.