#But then she vanished so either she faded into nothing or she's out there in the desert waiting to be found and cared for

[taoofshigeru]

What the Notes Didn't Say (Partitio Yellowil x Ori)

Partitio and Ori spend time in a room at Papp's house. (1100 words)

Giga-turbo Octopath Traveler 2 endgame spoilers ahead!

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Ochette had been nice enough to delay her journey home from Toto'haha for another week when Partitio came to her with the request.

"I need yer help to track someone down. Last anybody saw of them was the apothecary's hut in Crackridge."

She'd also been nice enough not to ask too many questions. Even though she knew.

He'd also been lucky enough to catch Castti before she she boarded her ship back to the Eastern Continent. And a good thing. The hunch that the person he was looking for would need treatment proved to be right on the money.

Papp, thankfully, had been willing to let him and the apothecary in carrying a girl in a bloodied shirt and scrivener's cap without asking questions. His dad knew enough to trust him.

And that's where he had been for the past four days, by her bedside whenever Castti wasn't seeing to her treatment. "The desert climate can be especially harsh for those with wounds that severe. We're lucky Ochette found her when she did."

"But she's not dyin', is she?" Partitio chewed on a stick of cinnamon, a nervous habit he had picked up lately.

"I've done what I can, and the apothecary who treated the initial knife wound was skilled." Castti's expression was neutral. "It was a deep wound and a near-fatal amount of blood loss. If all goes well, she'll wake up and be fine. However, I do insist she be watched at all times. The commotion from the other day has settled down, but there's still no telling how she'll react to the situation when she wakes up. And stable condition doesn't mean she can just walk right out of here. She'll need to get plenty of bed rest."

"Thank ye, Castti." Partito scratched his chin, staring down at Ori's unconscious body on the bed. "I know yer best is the best there is. Nothin' left to do now but wait."

Castti was out shopping for herbs when her patient first showed signs of stirring.

…

Ori's eyelids began to flutter. Which was weird, since she was deceased. Why was the cold, nocturnal abyss of death so dazzlingly bright? And scorchingly, sizzlingly hot and tingly? The first thing she saw was a familiar face, a man in a wide-brimmed hat with a smile. That uniquely warm, special, one-of-a-kind smile that always seemed to buzz around in the back of her head like a mosquito with a drum set.

At least, it had before she had spilled her own blood to extinguish the sacred flame. She had been supposed to spill all of it. So why was it daytime. Unless…

"Ah… Partitio…?" This was bad. An atrocious, abominable turn of events!

Her attempts to leap backwards and out of bed were thwarted by the fact that every muscle below her neck didn't seem to want to do more than continue resting on the creaky box-spring mattress.

"Heheh, mornin' Ori." He clasped his hands together. "Gonna want to settle down, though. Castti says ya shouldn't be walkin' around for another week or three."

She blushed, not knowing how to respond. "Oh, gods, this is embarrassing. Am I going to have to write my own headline? 'Wayward Scrivener Waylaid in Desert'? Oh, no, that'll never sell. Maybe if-"

"-Whoa there, newsie." The smile went off his face. Which meant the honest merchant was about to hit on a less chipper topic. "Let's lay that actin' aside here." He pulled out a sheaf of papers from the pocket of his worn yellow overcoat. Even old and battle-worn as it was, it still looked drastically dashing on the dapper deal-maker. "Good to see yer still with us. You should know, I've read yer notes. Didn't try to, but they were lyin' all over the place and somebody had to put 'em back in order."

"Or no, shoot. That's a lie." He lifted up his hat and sheepishly scratched the back of his head. This man had access to a naturally adorable depth of charm, a level of which Ori's fake plucky scrivener persona had only scratched the surface of. "I wanted to know why."

"Partitio…" She had been afraid, terrified before. When watching her village be slaughtered before her eyes. When Harvey's arrogance had threatened their whole gods-damned plan. When the point of her knife had first pierced her own stomach. "You read… You read my notes?" This was different. And somehow substantially worse.

"Yeah. Thing is, they didn't tell me why. Not really." He stared her in the eye. Face close, intense. "You see, I have a talent for judgin' people. Seein' what they're all about. I feel like I know you. These notes tell me what you did. But they don't tell me why you tore 'em out of yer notebook, scattered in a trail on the way to that extinguished brazier. Osvald went through 'em right quick and they helped him put a lotta stuff together. Why would someone who spent years working for that and guardin' information tighter'n any lockbox give up the game like that?"

"They don't tell me why ya helped me out when I was tryin' to get that mall up and runnin'. And they sure as gods don't tell me what you're feeling now." His eyes were pure, shining beads. An ocean of sympathy she had no right to be swimming in. "Can I ask ya that?"

She was frozen. This was utterly, unconditionally unexpected. "I… I…" Her voice cracked. "I'm so scared." Why was she crying? She'd been in scuffles, had interviews that went way worse than this. What did she have to cry over?

"I see." He nodded slightly. "I don't understand what you did. I don't. But I want to know. But more'n any of that, I wanna forgive ya'. Now, ya lil' pen wizard, what is it you want?"

"I… sob" She was breaking. She had already perished, once, but now the walls inside her, walls she had built up for decades, walls her brother had taught her to keep perfectly maintained, were crumbling. She wanted, she really wanted, "I want to…live. I want to be alive, but… But I've done a terrible thing. So many horrible things so many people. Is, is it okay for me to want that?" It was wrong, she had to be wrong. And he was going to laugh at her. But she had about as much luck stopping as she would have had catching a greased octopuff with her bare hands. "I wanna LIVE! WhaaaAHHH!!" Bawling was something she could never recall doing before today. Odd.

"That's it. That's all right, now." And then he was putting his arms around her, lifting her up slightly. "So long as you wanna live, I'm in yer corner."

She cried, screamed it out in his arms until her throat was sore, until there were no more words. At some point, she fell back to sleep, and could dimly feel him lowering her back down onto the creaky old mattress. The last thing she felt before drifting off, exhausted but very much alive, was the grip of his palm on hers.

~End~

Part 2 here

[imwetforyourmom]

whats wrong baby?

(if this does not fulfill your need please dont be afriad to tell me to re write it!!)

summary:

warnings: oral (male receiving), praising, stress, little bit of angst, kissing, swearing, sub!matt, fuck idk

hope you like lovely @luvsturns

alrighty, lets see what you’ve all been waiting for

~

matt huffed as he struggled with getting his keys and unlocking the door to his home. his hands fiddled with the keys, searching for the house key.

once he had found the desiganted key he attempted to put it in the keyhole, he missed quite a few times and groaned in frustration.

he stopped his movements and threw his head back.

his brothers had been annoying him all day, constantly yelling and arguing. and it didnt help that y/n was moody this morning when he had left, she hadnt gotten the desirable amount of sleep and was quite cranky.

he positioned his hand so now it was definitely going to stick the key in the keyhole. once he had finally unlocked the door a sigh of relief came out of his mouth as he pushed the door open.

he took the keys out of the door, then shut it behind him and took off his shoes. he hung his keys on the rack near the door, then grabbed out his phone and started aimlessly scrolling.

y/n heard the door open and squealed jn excitement, she hadnt seen her boyfriend since this morning and she started a stupid argument before he left, so she felt quite bad and was looking forward to making it up to him.

she hurriedly got off the bed and walked quickly out of their bedroom and towards the living room, once matt was in her lane of eyesight she immediately greeted him “matty!” she exclaimed.

matt sighed and didnt look up from his phone, not even acknowledging the girl whom had a big grin on her face infront of him.

“matt?” she tried once again, again he didnt break contact with his phone and responded to her with an ‘mhm’ sound.

“matt.” her tone of excitement quickly faded aswell as her grin. she touched his arm to gain his attention, matt huffed and looked up from his phone.

“what y/n.” he groaned, clearly annoyed. he yanked his arm away from her grasp, y/n furrowed her eyebrows and scoffed.

“whats your problem?” she said, staring into his eyes. all her guilt from earlier suddenly vanishing.

“oh my gosh! nothings wrong y/n! just stop bugging me!” he raised his voice a tad, not yelling, but also not talking in an inside voice. matt threw his hands to his sides in annoyance.

y/n stared at him, looking all over his face for signs of either annoyance or pure stress.

his hair was ruffled and messy, bags under his eyes, his eyes droopy and skin a light pale.

“whats wrong baby?” her tone of voice was soft and gentle, understanding that matt was probably stressed and extremely tired.

by the change in her voice matt immediately felt bad and melted, her voice calm and soothing.

“my day was just really fuckin bad and im really tired- and stressed.” he spoke, his voice softening and his body relaxing.

“thats okay sweetheart,” she smiled warmly at him, she opened her arms, inviting him in for a hug. which he quickly did and wrapped his arms around her, immediately feeling at ease, but still slightly tense.

y/n could feel how tense matt was still, and smirked to herself, knowing he needed some other way of comfort.

she hugged him, before whispering in his ear “do you need more help of some sort?”, her hot breath hitting his neck and sending shivers down his spine.

he nodded his head and pulled away from the hug, then grabbed her hand and walked to their shared bedroom.

he opened the door and led her inside, then he quickly shut the door behind them and locked it.

y/n immediately took advantage of the situation, how she was infront of matt whilst he closes and locks the door.

she lightly pressed him into the door and interlocked their lips. matts eyes widened at her sudden dominance but quickly obliged and kissed her back, closing his eyes as he got more into the moment.

she ran her hands down his body, one going up to hold his neck as her other one found its home on his hip.

this weirdly turned matt on, his dick going hard and poking at y/ns thigh.

y/n obviously felt the poking, she smiled through the kiss before she moved her hand from his hip to palming him through his pants.

matt gasped at the sudden movement but quickly groaned and moaned right after. he pulled away from her lips and breathed heavily, throwing his head back he moaned out a small “y/n..”

she moved her hand away from him, he groaned at the sudden loss of contact before she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the bed.

she sat him down on the edge of the bed, then she sat on her knees in between his legs. she gave him no time to adjust to what had just happened before she was already running her hands up and down his thighs, crotch and waistband.

matt looked down at her and felt a red pile onto his cheeks, she looked so fucking good from this angle, her eyes filled with nothing but lust, her lips pink and plump from their previous kissing.

she moved her hand so now her fingertips were just barely under his pants waistband, she looked up at him, silently asking if this was okay.

he nodded and sucked in a breath once her cold fingers pulled down his pants and boxers, he lifted his hips up to make it easier.

she pulled his boxers down to his mid thighs, watching as his erection sprung out and hit his stomach, pre cum already leaking from the tip.

y/ns eyes widened as she scanned down his length, as if she hadnt literally seen his dick maybe a few days ago.

“fuck..” she muttered, taking notice how long he was and debating how much she could fit in her mouth.

“stop looking at it that way.” matt spoke up, suddenly feeling slightly insecure of how much she was just staring at his dick.

she looked up at him, then back down at his dick. she leaned up and forward some and opened her mouth, letting a trail of saliva slip from her tongue and onto the tip of his dick.

matt watched her actions attentively.

she used her palm to spread the spit down his length, immediately earning a whimper and groan from matt.

once she had it spread down his cock and on her hand she stopped her hand at the base of his cock and began pumping slowly, slowly gaining speed.

matt groaned and muttered out a “fuck”. he squeezed his eyes shut and threw his head back.

y/n took notice of this and grabbed his chin with her availabe hand, she moved it so now it was up properly and he was now looking at her. “look at me.” she spoke sternly.

matt felt his cock throb, he opened his mouth with his lips slightly parted and his eyes droopy.

“atta boy..” she praised, before finally leaning her head down and giving him what his body craved for.

she wrapped her warm and wet mouth onto the head of his cock, she swirled her tongue around the tip, adding pressure into the swirling under his head.

a deep breath left matts mouth aswell as a moan as she poked her tongue into the slit of his dick.

“y/n..- mmff- fuck-“ his speech was slurred and incoherent.

y/n slid her mouth further down his cock, before her nose hit his pelvis, deepthroating him.

matts mouth drops even more as a trail of moans and groans leaves his lips, “fuck, fuck, fuck..” he muttered, trying to keep his eyes trained on y/ns bobbing head, but finding it increasingly difficult as the pleasure he was receiving was becoming stronger.

y/n felt tears pool at her waterline as his dick continously hit the back of her throat. she gagged and coughed around him, but kept bobbing her head up and down his length, knowing this was definitely relieving some of the stress matt was feeling earlier.

matts hands went from his sides to the back of her head, entangling his fingers in the roots of her hair. he wasnt pushing on her head, just simply holding his hand there as in some sort of way to either comfort y/n, or to fulfill his aching desire to touch her.

y/ns hands found there way to his balls and massaged and played with them. (idk im a virgin help)

matt moaned out loudly from the sudden intense of pleasure he was experiencing.

she continued her actions, knowing this was driving matt closer to his high.

“fuc-!” matt groaned out, feeling his dick twitch in y/ns mouth, y/n knew almost immediately that he was close and she needed to either speed it up or make it 10x better somehow.

“im- fuck- ‘m close,” matts voice was shaky and breaking quite often. y/n hummed in respone, as she couldn’t speak even if she wanted too. her hum sent vibrations through matts body, only giving him more ectasy unintentionally.

this, this sent matt over the edge. his orgasm hit him like a truck, his vision having white specs of white and tears lightly swelling at his eyes.

matt let out incoherent sentences, as in a way to let y/n know he was cumming to the best of his abilities.

y/n kept bobbing her head, but quickly stopped and sucked all of what she could before matt whimpered and attempted to pull her off him by the grip he had on her hair. his sensitivity increasing by each movement she made.

y/n pulled off him with a ‘pop’ sound leaving her mouth. she wiped her chin of the spit that leaked from her mouth not too long ago. she stuck her tongue out and opened her mouth to show matt she swallowed all his cum.

matts eyelids suddenly felt heavy, he thumbs uped her before lazily and sloppily pulling his boxers and pants back up.

he patted the bed next to him, inviting y/n to lay by him, which she gladly took and laid down on the bed. she laid on her back, knowing what matt wanted.

matt sighed in content and laid his head into her boobs. he felt at peace and relaxed more into her, loving the way her breasts were like his own personal pillows. he mumbled a small and muffled “thank you” to y/n.

y/n smiled and started playing with his hair, lightly tugging and twirling his hair around her fingers. playing with it peacefully as matt fell to sleep, peacefully on her breasts.

1847 words.

taglist:

@luverboychris

[strangemaleswaps]

Strange Job Swap

“Oh it's beautiful!” exclaimed the customer waiting in line. I handed her a nicely decorated cake for her son's birthday.

“It's no big deal. Just doing my job.” I acted like it was no big deal, but really I was gladly accepting the praise!

“This is perfect though. Have you considered being an artist?” she replied with a slightly more serious look.

“Yes I have actually…but the job market is tough.”

“Aww you'll get there eventually! Don't give up! Well anyway, you made my day so for that, thank you!”

“You're welcome.” I was a bit sad though, because she was right; I SHOULD be an artist. I recently earned my bachelor's degree, but yet I was still stuck in this dumb hick town, working as a grocery store cake decorator. I may have been good at what I do but I wouldn't want to do it forever!

At least my co-workers are pretty decent, especially my fellow bakery buddies, Chase, Amber, and Domingo. Amber was cool and didn't take anyone’s shit, which is why I loved seeing her because I didn't have much confidence when dealing with unruly customers. Domingo was very sweet, and even though he didn't speak very good English, he's hella good at his job. And Chase, well…he's hot! His bleach blond hair somehow always caught the light at a perfect angle. I don't know how I even kept my focus when he's working next to me.

At the end of my shift, I clocked out, and decided to buy a couple groceries like I normally did. I scanned everything at the self-checkout, put the receipt into one of my bags, and started walking towards the exit. The store had 2 exits on either side of the front, but I only took one because the other had a certain asshole at it - Richard.

The greeter position was removed a long time ago, but they bring it back for employees that have been injured or are too old, so that they can keep their jobs. Now this old guy named Richard had surgery a long time ago and became the greeter while he recovered. But yet he never went back to his old position.

He always stays at one specific entrance, and the reason I hated him so much was because he's racist. Part of his job has him checking customers’ receipts to make sure they didn't steal anything, which seems pretty unnecessary when you have those anti-theft machines at the exit. But I've seen him. The only people he checks the receipts for are minorities. It's not a subtle thing either; he’s super friendly, greeting and saying goodbye to all the white people passing but when it comes to someone who's not, his demeanor suddenly changes. 

My luck must've run out today, because I found the sliding glass doors at my usual exit were broken and currently being fixed. The area was blocked off by a barricade, and I knew there was only one other way to leave. I headed over to the other exit, and there Richard was, waving goodbye to a white mother and her toddler. He was wearing his typical gray uniform shirt that was clearly too small, because you could see his gut and nipples trying to poke through. Gross.

I moved through the aisle, trying not to draw attention to myself, but it was all for nothing because right on cue, Richard walked up to me and gave a great big (and so obviously fake) smile.

“Hello sir, can I see your receipt please?”

“Richard, it's me, Marco. I work in the bakery. You've seen me a million times before.” His smile suddenly faded, and his eyes narrowed, as if every ounce of happiness in his body just vanished.

“That's no excuse. How do I know you aren't stealing?”

“Because I want to keep my job?”

“Don't backtalk to me. You seem awfully suspicious today.” He then reached for his walkie talkie and started to page a manager. I really was able to walk out with no repercussions because I truly didn't steal anything, but there's a chance he would page the Asset Protection lady, who was almost as awful.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Nobody answered him. Thank god.

“Am I free to go now?” I said happily. The anger returned to his face.

“Just don't let me catch you stealing again. Or there'll be consequences!”

“Yeah…suuuure.” I walked out the door, into my car, and back home. I can't believe some people honestly. I was so sick of this town! I needed to move away real soon.

When I got home my dog, Kenny, was excited to greet me as usual so I let him outside to do his business while I got into my running clothes, prepping for a run. As I let Kenny back in, I went to check the mail and found a weird envelope in between the bills and spam. I opened it up and it was a letter addressed “to whom it may concern”. I threw it away without a second thought but Kenny suddenly ran up to the trash can, took it out, and placed it back in front of me.

“You really want me to read this, don't you boy?” I said cheerily as I patted him on the head.

“To whom it may concern,

Are you struggling with your current job? Unhappy with the life you have? Well I have just the cure for that! We are now selling happiness inducing coins for only $1 with free shipping! One flip of this coin will guarantee you will soon get a job you love! Get it fast before it all runs out! Just follow the link on the back of this letter if you are interested.” - VV

I wondered who or what VV was supposed to be, and $1 with free shipping sounds too good to be true, so this seemed like a scam. I also wasn't a superstitious person,  but for some reason my gut was telling me that this was a good idea. Kenny seemed to think so too as he was wagging his tail under the table and I read. I followed the link listed on the back of the page, typing in each random letter and number combination into my phone and ordered the lucky coin. I went to bed that night feeling a little more hopeful.

The next day at work was just like the previous day, only the door was fixed so I didn't have to walk out the exit Richard was standing at. We did make eye contact though, and he shot me a dirty look. I got home to find that the package had already arrived, which was awfully quick. I cut open the box and inside was a golden coin with a picture of a brain on it. The other side had a picture of a person with their arms spread wide. It was a really weird design. I read the instructions.

How to use:

Flip the coin

No matter what side it lands on, you'll be guaranteed happiness in your new job!

It sounded so lame, but I followed the instructions anyway. I flipped the coin the air, and slapped it on the back of my other hand. Tails. Nothing happened. I guess it was just $1 so it wasn't a huge waste of my time. It's pretty cool looking so maybe I could display it on my dresser or something.

I felt especially tired the rest of the night, but I was fine because I had a day off tomorrow. I was gonna go to the park with Kenny, as well as do a few errands. I was just glad I had time away from my job.

The next morning my alarm went off for some reason. I must've accidently set it by mistake. The weirder thing was Kenny wasn't there. Normally at the sound of my alarm, he comes running from wherever he was sleeping, and jumps on the bed to get me up. But there was nothing. When I started to truly wake up and become more alert, I realized that my alarm was set to the default or something. Instead of my usual calming piano, it was an annoying ringing. I opened my eyes to see what was happening. My vision was blurry, but I could tell I wasn't in my own room.

What happened? Did someone kidnap me? The alarm clock wasn't even on a phone, but rather it was an actual alarm clock. I had no idea what was going on, but I reached over to turn it off so I could think. I'm certain I must've been kidnapped somehow but why? And why would they set an alarm clock? I couldn't see but felt around the nightstand for a clue and found a pair of glasses. When I tried them on, just like that, my vision returned to normal. I had perfect vision before! Why did I suddenly need glasses? I reached up to scratch my head and found my hairline was incredibly receded. I was balding! I looked down with my now clear vision to find an even worse fact. I was chubby!

I sat up and stared at the foreign gut and two large man tits, as well as numerous graying chest hairs. I ran my hands through the hair, pinching them to make sure they were real. I pinched the tits as well, and felt sensations I've never felt before as they wobbled when I let go. I ran my hands through my face and felt a mustache and double chin, and began feeling nauseous at the thought of what I actually looked like. I didn't see a mirror in the room so I walked out the door trying to find a bathroom. The fat jiggled all around as I ran.

I got to the bathroom and nearly puked on the spot when I saw who I was. Richard. Oh god no. Of all people, I had to look like this racist bastard? I stared at myself and grazed my hands along my face. Suddenly I felt angry and started pinching it instead, as if I was doing the same thing to the real Richard, but denial didn't help; that was my face and it hurt. I touched his mustache and pinched it, as if it would come off. 

Just then I heard the doorbell ring. I didn't want to interact with anybody looking like this but until I figured out how to fix it, I knew I had to pretend to be Richard. I answered the door to find the mailman.

“Howdy Rich! Woah uh.” He stared at my chest. I forgot I was still shirtless. Having this much fat hanging from my body was almost like answering the door naked. “I see you've lost some weight!” he said, obviously lying.

“Oh uh, thanks.” I replied, trying to imitate Richard’s voice, which was pretty easy considering I've mocked him before.

“Well anyway, not much today; just a letter.” He handed me a letter with a purple stamp on it.

“Well uh see you tomorrow!” The mailman went on his way and I closed the door. I opened the letter and found a note similar to the lucky coin advertisement.

To whom it may concern,

Good morning! I trust that your lucky coin worked well? Welcome to your new life! As promised, you now have a job that you love. Unhappy with the results? Just flip the coin once again, and make sure it lands on what it landed on before! If not, however, your fate is sealed. Best Wishes! - VV, Venefica Viola

Shit. They're not lying though. Richard did love his job. And since I was in his body, I now had that job! But who is this Venefica Viola? It sounded like Latin somehow. I walked back to the bedroom to find Richard’s phone. Luckily he didn't have any lock screen pin so I could easily get in. I searched for a translator, dodging the random pop up ads that were everywhere on his phone and looked up Venefica Viola.

Violet Witch. So magic is involved somehow. I needed to get my coin back so I could undo this! It must still be at my own house. Shit! I just realized why the alarm clock went off. Richard worked today! He had perfect attendance and never uses his PTO, so not going in was gonna look suspicious. I glanced at the clock and realized I only had 20 minutes. 

Even though I'd love to see Richard be humiliated by going to work in his underwear, I decided that it wasn't worth attracting attention so I looked through his clothes to put on a work uniform. I found a pair of boxers and accidently flashed myself when I completely forgot I didn't have my own dick either. It was all wrinkly, but honestly a lot bigger than I thought. No. I was not about to get horny over Richard's dick! I found what he normally wore to work and put the rest on. I found tucking the shirt was more difficult than usual, as I had to pull it over my belly.

I guess I could make this work…for now. I hated to admit it, but Richard wasn't all that bad looking. It was his personality and habits that made him so repulsive, but now that I was in control of him, he didn't look all that bad. Maybe I could even turn things around for now and do something nice for the people I know he hates. I grabbed the car keys on the nearby table, and drove to work.

I walked in the store, put Richard's nametag on, and clocked in. I nearly started walking to the bakery area but stopped myself. I guess I'm really going to have to be a greeter for a day. This feels humiliating. I made my way to the front entrance and just stood there, waiting for customers to enter or exit.

Soon enough customers began arriving and I tried my best to act like Richard, though one customer asked if I was all right because I guess I overdid it. I didn't ask any customers to show their receipts though, because I might as well take advantage of being a greeter. I noticed Domingo at the checkout and when he bagged up his groceries, he approached me first instead of the door. He hastily grabbed his receipt and started showing it to me. I wasn't about to let this happen.

“No no it's ok. You don't have to show me the receipt anymore.”

“No?” He looked shocked.

“Checking receipts is stupid anyway. I don't need to do it anymore.”

“Really? I can go?”

“Yep! Have a good day.” It was unnerving seeing him so scared at the sight of me, but he smiled like normally did as he put the receipt back in the bag and walked out.

As I moved towards the break room to take my break, I noticed someone who looked awfully familiar walk through the door. It was…me! I mean Richard. It must've been; if I was in his body, he must've been in mine. It became more obvious by the way he was walking, taking big steps as if he was used to having his gut swinging around…like mine was now. God I hated this. I had to talk to him to sort things out. He smirked as I approached.

“Hey!”

“Oh it's you. I mean me. I mean,” he paused for a second and rounded his mouth into an even bigger smile, which looked uncanny with my face. “The old me.”

“What do you mean ‘the old you’”?

“Well seeing as I'm much younger now, while you're much older, I think the term is appropriate.”

“Well yeah, but not for long. I'm going to switch us back.”

“Oh no you're not! I may have preferred being white, but I’m enjoying youth again! Oh, and don't worry. I saw that coin thing and that letter this morning, and I made sure it would never see the light of day again. You got that…Richard?” 

He called me that in the same mocking tone that I always use to call him. I can't believe this!

“Y-you can't do this! I had a future!”

“That's my future now old man. You know maybe I could be a model with these looks. Maybe make one of those, what do you kids call it? OnlyFans?”

God no, I'm an artist, not a pornstar. He can't do this!

“The greeter is a real fun job, Richard. Enjoy it. You're hired!”

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monster Hunt: Nanny Knockthrice

A series of chilling disappearances has brought your party to the edge of the mist-haunted Greyspear Forest, as well as face to face with an enemy as ancient and enduring as the stones beneath your feet

Spoken of only in hushed voices, those who live on the edge of the wood tell of a terrible figure, cruel as the harshest winter, bent with age and the weight of the bulging sack she carries. They know no name for her besides the one handed down from elders, and that she appears at the door to each homestead once a year on the same moonless night to knock three times. Terrible fates are said to befall those who answer, so the locals keep to a tradition known as Opfernoct: laying out gifts for their unwelcome guest, keeping their homes dark and quiet until dawn.

Adventure Hooks:

The party venture into the village only to see one of the nearby houses with its roof partially torn off. Asking questions results in flimsy excuses and reproachful looks from strangers, until the truth comes out: A bookish boy named Verner was apparently snatched out of his home on the recent Opfernoct having snuck a candle to read in bed. His parents, who got the boy the book for his birthday have been shamed for not keeping a better leash on their child and kept from talking to the meddlesome party for fear their actions would bring even further reprocussions.

After impressing the local nobles with their adventurous antics, the party are invited to the marquess’s hunting lodge, an event sure to be filled with revelry and rife with opportunities to court both patronage and attractive strangers. Flouting local customs, the marquis has decided to keep her estate lit through ….  Ensuring the party will go on without interruption.  What a surprise then when a thunderous knock sounds at the door, only for a giant arm to shove through the entryway and snatch up a gaggle of guests (some the party despise, some they were quite getting on with) and drag them off into the night.

Recommended Reading: Check out my write up connecting giants & the feywild, which this draws heavily from.

Background: The legend of Nanny Knockthrice begins when the first woodsman sought to make a home within the boundaries of the primeval forest. The moment his axe had sunk into the trunk of a tree, an old woman stepped from the woods and demanded that a price be paid, for these were her lands and her trees, and the woodsman . The woodsman replied that he had nothing to pay the old woman with save the tools of his trade and the clothes on his back, and he would surely die without either. If she could defer payment for a year, until his labour had built his house and filled his larder, he'd gladly let her take her pick of rewards then. The old woman assented, vanishing into the forest just as soon as she'd appeared. Like any deal with the fey the weight of the bargain could not be understood until the woman returned a year later to take her pick of what the woodsman had filled his home with over the past year... snapping his new wife off the threshhold when she came to answer the door.

Challenges & Complications:

More than just her size, impossible strength, or her ability to fade in and out of the mist, the greatest threat Nanny Knockthrice presents is that she takes hostages and is not above using them as bargaining chips against meddling heroes. She will break the limbs of her victims in full view of the party to warn them against interfering, or lob them into freezing water to slow down her pursuers. When threats fail, it's time to open her bag of tricks, which can contain anything from a raging storm, captured feywild beasts, or even the animated bones of her previous tributes. She's liable to use these surprises in between uprooting entire pine trees to use as clubs, or throwing heroes like walnuts into the next valley over.

Stalking Knockthrice may prove the better option of rescuing her victims, but will require the party to venture into the feywild, passing through a veil of mist to a wilderness even more wild and foreboding than they left behind. Getting back might likewise prove an issue, and may require them to strike their own deal with a powerful fey to get home

Nanny's lair is a tumbledown stone cottage the size of a fortress known as the keening keep. Built into the top and side of a clearcut hillstead, it surveys the surrounding woodland like an owl looking for prey. The keep originally belonged to a tribe of batlike fey known as the gloamwing courterie, who now reluctantly act as the giant's servants after their forebearer swore an inverse deal to the woodsman: letting her store her tribute in their keep for a year save for the one night she must heap it on her back and wander the mortal world. While some gloamwings are loyal to Nanny, others resent being banished to the rafters of their ancesteral home, or having to share the darkened corners with all the morose mortals Knockthrice keeps like maltreated pets. The party may be able to strike a deal, keeping in mind the bats are all as sinister as any unseelie fae and might betray them at any point just to keep things interesting.

If the party pays attention when stories are shared around the fire, they might notice a loophole in the deal struck by the woodsman: namely that Knockthrice was not allowed to take either his tools, or his clothes. In the way of fairytales, tricking the giant into accepting either of these will break the cure, though the party might need to be clever about it. The woodsman's clothes are buried with him out back of the ruins of the cabin the party will keep stumbling across in their feywild wanderings. His axe was handed down to his extended family after he died of heartbreak, and could be anywhere by now... such as hanging over the mantle of a noble's hunting lodge, buried in an innocuous tree, or in the back of a creepy peddler's cart.

Art

[somnambulic-thing]

Hi Sweetheart

Eddie Munson x gn!reader E 18+ || ao3

1.8k

This is a follow-up to Smoke and Cherry Pop Rocks taking place exactly one year after their first night together.

There is a 400ish word blurb preceding this that isn’t totally necessary to read, but will give a little more context and make this pull on your insides a little more.

CW ||demi!bi!Eddie, Roadie!Eddie, letter format: Eddie pov, angst, intense heartache, regrets, grief, mentions of sex with other people (no cheating), self-exploration, painful introspection, growing pains||

Hi Sweetheart

Do you know what day it is? Do you remember?

I’m watching the sun’s descent while having a smoke and I remember everything. 

It’s been a year now, one full fucking year, and the memories of you still haunt me I remember every little thing from the moment you walked out of the sinking sun like straight out of my daydreams.

It felt like the ground was shaking beneath me but I think it was just my heart dropping through my ass at the sight of you.

I never told you that I had been thinking about you that very moment, asking myself what the fuck I did wrong to make you say goodbye to me like that. With so much determination.

And I am not just talking graduation day, oooh no, I’m talking all the fucking time. Every time we hung out after I fixed your bike, when you left, you left me with something that felt like a small break-up. Like the end of something that never had a chance to really be something.

And I just couldn’t figure out why. Nothing made sense and the idea of asking scared the shit out of me because you never gave me the feeling of not being good enough and I was afraid to be proven wrong about that.    

So I was lying there on the deck in a nice warm pool of self-pity, rewinding the moment you vanished from my sight for the last time but in my mind, I pressed stop right before you could get away. And through the power of my imagination, you spun around and came back to me but before daydream-Eddie could say anything to daydream-you, real-you appeared out of fucking nowhere.

Felt a little like fate, if I’m totally honest.

And you know what? Instead of rejoicing with delight that I somehow managed to conjure you up out of dry, dusty air, I was terrified. Because I had enough of your goodbyes, all I thought I could take. Because in my mind, there was no scenario that wouldn’t end with me, alone in bed with a rock for a stomach after you left again.

Wondering why you just didn’t fucking want me when I was so sure we had something between us. (and oh wasn’t I right about that?)

Fuck.

And then you ramble and ramble, confusing the shit out of me before you ask me for a kiss?

Fuuuuck.

So yeah, I remember all of it. Remember the look on your face after that first kiss, so sweet and hot and in awe from k i s s i n g ME. I could feel my heart crawl up my throat with the intent of crawling down yours, using that moment to vanish between your pretty parted lips so that you had no way of walking away from me again. I remember feeling so high.

Fuck.

This sunset looks the same as ours, by the way. Just another cosmic cruelty. 

Because now, when I watch a sunset like this, I either get sad or hard. Right now, there’s a bit of both going on. Who am I kidding? Why hold back? It’s not like I’m actually going to send this letter. It’s another one for ‘the box’. I’m so fucking sad right now, sweetheart. Heartbroken, actually.

Because you won’t leave my mind. Your fingertips won’t leave my skin. I try to remember your voice all the time so it won’t fade from my memory the way your smell has left me. Replay the way you say my name when I make you laugh or cry or moan.

I called a girl by your name last month. Was sure she was going to slap me but the pity in her eyes when she put her clothes back on did the trick just as well.

I don’t think I’m particularly made for that one-night stand business. Am more of a ‘books, drugs and rock'n'roll’ guy. My crew says, it’s because I am still sulking about you, because I am idolizing you, turning you into a goddess and maybe they are right, I don’t fucking know, never been so in love before, have I?

But it doesn’t feel like they are right. 

I can’t describe it, really. It’s not like it’s bad or disgusting or whatever (the sex, I mean, in case that wasn’t clear) it just feels. Not right.

Yeah yeah I am so not sending this one, so I might as well…

Felix suggested (I told you about Felix on the phone, remember? We started the roadie adventure at the same time. He's hilarious.) I might swing the other way. He also offered himself to test that theory a few weeks ago and he’s cute and a good guy, so turns out I might swing both ways and it was kinda nice, no it was nice, but it still didn’t feel right.

So Felix suggested to stop thinking about it for a while and clear my head.

As this document and all the others recently tucked away in ‘the box’ can testify, it’s not going too well.

I hate thinking about you with other people and I hate thinking that there’s a possibility that you’re as miserable about this as I am but I also can’t stand the thought that you’re not thinking about me anymore. That you don’t miss me.

Can still hear you cry through the shitty sticky plastic receiver of that gas station pay phone and I hate that the last time I heard your voice it sounded so hollow and so small. Like I was calling you from Saturn and fuck me if it didn’t feel that way too.

And that is the whole gigantic fucking problem, isn’t it? That I’m not ready to come back to earth. That I love being on a new planet every other day with all those strange fucking aliens where I belong more than I ever did in the town I grew up in. I’m not reliable right now and no matter how much you told me it was okay that I called two days late or whatever it was I had to disappoint you with. It wasn’t. Wasn’t okay at all.

I’m glad you admitted as much when I called you to say goodbye.

It’s been seven months, one week and five days since that day. But it feels like forever. Remember I told you one day on the road can feel like three?

So much has happened in that year, so many new loud, bright, wild memories and still… You haven’t faded yet against any of them. I am blessed and cursed with the most vivid visions of you, just have to close my eyes to see you climbing on top of me, naked and sweaty and glorious. I just wish I could feel your palms on my chest pushing me back into the mattress. Your nails leaving little marks and

Fucking stop it, Eddie!!! Gonna end up crying with a boner…

Don’t want you to think it’s just about the fucking. It’s not. It’s just… with the date and all.

Fuck. We could have celebrated one year today.

I am playing with the thought of calling you, to ask you to try this long-distance thing (this constantly shifting distance thing) again. I almost called you before I picked up the pen. Am still thinking about calling you. Maybe after I am done getting all the fucking whining out of my system. I hope that’ll be soon, my hand is already cramping.

But it’s been months. More than half a year. I can’t just fucking call you like that, can I?

Wayne told me your mom told him you’ve been seeing someone.

He didn’t tell me more, despite me begging, despite knowing that I knew he knew more because I know that man and can tell when he’s trying to protect me.

What kind of a fucking asshole does it make me that I want to call you anyway? More, even?

That kind of asshole that found solace in the vision of knocking on your door one day, when I’m done with the circus, setting sun in my back and that stupid smile on my face you find so irresistible for reasons I can not comprehend.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

I just want to talk to you, wanna know how you are, what you're up to and

fuck I miss you.

I miss you and you're seeing someone and my chest aches like my heart did crawl down your throat a year ago and now has to watch you fuck a stranger being with someone else and I fucking did this to myself. And to you. To us.

And I want to take it back. I want you back. I want the privilege to call you at weird fucking times to have access to your thoughts again and tell you mine because there is so much left to say and make plans and make you horny and 

I want to know

I thought of taking time off. Pulling a: I was in town and thought we could catch up. But I bet you'd know the truth as soon as the lie leaves my mouth. I’d like to think I could play it cool when seeing you again, you know, but the way I feel right now, it would be a miracle if I could suppress the urge to just launch myself at you.

I want to know if the guy you're seeing treats you right and feed him to a Fell Beast if he doesn't. Piece by agonizing piece.

How long has this been going on? Long enough to push out memories of me? Or were those already faded when you met him? Do you compare him to me sometimes and am I doing good?

You know, there are whole days where I don’t think about you. I had a full month where I was sure I was getting over it, when we transitioned between bands and I had to get used to a different drill, different equipment, new people and all that every-day-roadie-shit.

Some days I want to smack my head to get you out of there. Smack it real hard to make sure that nothing stays behind so that you can’t slowly grow back into the cracks of my mind like weeds until I can’t see where I’m going.

I really only had you for two weeks and I am acting like we were married for two decades.

But what an outlook…

Sweetheart, is there a word for grieving things I never had?

The sun is gone now, by the way. I think I should leave my hiding spot and go back to my crew before they send a search party.

I bet you’d like the guys.

If I still want to call you tomorrow, I will.

general taglist:

@bettyfrommars @deathbecomesthem @songforeddiemunson @potthealien2423 @raccoonboywrites

@jo-harrington @lunatictardis @skrzydlak @slutforstabbings @eddieslooneymoonie

@chaoticgood-munson @storiesbyrhi @mrsjellymunson @the-unforgivenn @aphroditesbaby1616

@fracturedarkness @allthingsjoeq

interested people tags:

@howdidyouallgetinmyroom @tlclick73

[wordslostforever]

Couples Therapy

Ch. 1 "Work with me"

Pairing: Wanda/fem!reader

Summary: When your marriage with Wanda starts to fall apart, you both decide to have a last chance by going to a professional, for your son's sake, and your own.

Warnings: 16+! Established relationship, Angst, mentions of cheating, mention of Vision, implied sex (not smut), arguments, cursing, gaslighting, mentions of divorce. 

A/N: Honestly, this is the first Wanda fanfiction I’ve ever written, and I hope I did somewhat okay, plus a little warning, I made up everything about couples therapy, apologies in advance.

Also, my first language is not english, so I’m sorry for any grammatical mistake.

Word count: 2.9k

You don't remember the last time everything with Wanda seemed fine, right. 

Little by little, your marriage was becoming untenable with the constant fights and stupid arguments about things that weren't an issue at all, it was as if you didn't know each other, as if your wife didn't know you anymore.

Little by little, the love you once had was vanishing into thin air like smoke in the wind. You tried wearily to pick up those pieces, but they slipped from your hands.

"I never asked you to give up everything for me."

Everything was falling like leaves in autumn, from the ground you tried to grab the dying leaves that changed color.

"I never said you did, Wanda. I gave up everything for you because I wanted to, because I love you. If you brought that up, it's because you resent yourself for it."

So green, so full of life, the leaves turned brown, dry and empty.

"You're unbelievable. I resent myself for what? For making you stay? You're so unbelievable, so damn egocentric and narcissistic" Wanda paused at her words, red eyes crystallized with tears. Her lip quivered as she glared angrily at you, so angry at your straight posture and frown. "I don't even know how I got with you in the first place, you are so full of yourself that I don't know if I fit there with you."

Those eyes looked at you with nothing but resentment, and the love that was hidden in them, faded amidst all those thoughts.

"Jesus Christ!" you said, offended, as you tried to not let out a louder scream. Wanda looked at you indifferently with a raised eyebrow. Your heart was breaking at her gaze, wondering if you would ever see the love you once possessed. "If you want to go and fuck Vision, you should have done it long ago then! Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my time on you either as you seem so fond on thinking that I suck and I'm not worth your fucking time."

"And you brought that again, what the hell is your problem with me and Vision?"

"The problem is that you screwed him all over and I had to forgive you, I had to forgive your crap all the time, but when it comes to me doing something wrong, for once, you're at my neck annoying the crap out of me."

"I can't- You keep making me feel guilty about it, we said- You said you were over it. I'm over it, that's why I stopped apologizing."

"I was never over it, you made me get over it with your shitty apologies and excuses. Fuck! You even made me feel guilty about it." Maybe those were the words that ended what little patience your wife had, maybe your simple words broke what little was left of your marriage. "'Oh, Y/n, We have children together, Tommy and Billy will be broken, we can't do that to them' So full of crap, you're so full of crap."

Tired, it was all too exhausting for you, for her, the words coming out of a part you both didn't know existed.

"Get out." Wanda said ending the conversation, and you laughed indignantly. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at you, firm, letting you know she meant it this time. "Get out! Leave!"

"And there you go running." At that you turned around grabbing your jacket from the couch roughly, and shook your head. "Again. You're unbelievable."

"Screw you, y/n."

With that you walked out of the house, closing the door delicately trying to calm the rage gathering in your chest. Wanda, on the other hand, burst into tears, frustrated tears covering her cheeks. It wasn't until a sound came from the staircase that she wiped the drops from her face with her palm, trying to fake a smile.

"Where's momma y/n, mom?" The little boy looked at Wanda in confusion, one of his hands gently scratching his eyes as a yawn escaped his mouth.

"She had to work, honey, just go to bed. Is Tommy awake too?" Wanda asked softly, watching him nod. Her heart broke at the images of her children listening to the fight. "Go to bed, I'll go with you in a few minutes, okay? I have to turn the lights off."

You didn't know what happened, how it happened. You loved Wanda as much as she loved you, but from one moment to the next, days passed from fight to fight and everything fell apart. Maybe it wasn't so abrupt, maybe you should have seen it coming after everything that happened between you.

One of the things that you loved most in the world was slipping through your fingers and you had no idea how to fix it... You had no idea if you wanted to fix it.

You spent the night out at Natasha's house, your best friend and co-worker. Tired, you couldn't sleep and when it was time to get out of bed it was almost an impossible mission, but you still did it, and with a forced smile you went to work.

You needed the distraction, work until your brain couldn’t remember the reason why your heart felt tight and broken inside your chest.

“No, what do you mean by that?”

“I mean, maybe if you try to listen to her and put yourself in her shoes, there may be a way for you two to stop fighting.” You gave your best friend an inexpressive look, making her roll her eyes in annoyance. You sighed, fixing your gaze on your plate with salad, rethinking the point Natasha brought up.

“That’s all I have done since that day, I have listened to her. The problem is not me, it’s her. She is the one fighting, she is the one that complains about everything I do. At this point, I think she just hates me.” You said with a grimace, meeting Natasha features, who resembled your expression. “What?”

You turned around in your chair as soon as Natasha pointed with her head at the door of the restaurant. Your eyes fixed on the figure of your wife, who looked around trying to find you, making you bite the inside of your cheek with irritation. 

Wanda found your eyes and she walked to you. 

Instinctively your eyes roamed through her body, looking how the red dress she was wearing hugged her curves. 

"Wanda." You said her name as soon as she approached you with dark circles under her eyes, but you didn't change the serious look you were giving her. "What are you doing here?"

"Can we talk?"

You bit your tongue trying to hold back the words of rejection that threatened to come out and nodded. With a regretful look at Natasha, you got up from the table grabbing your jacket.

You and Wanda walked out of the restaurant in silence and all the way to the small park nearby. You sat down on one of the benches with Wanda next to you. Your gaze remained fixed on the scenery and the people passing by, feeling Wanda's gaze on you, however, you didn't look at her, you didn't want to, knowing perfectly well that all the anger you felt would vanish in those green eyes.

"The kids are asking for you," The mention of your children made you turn your gaze to her and lock your eyes together. Wanda let out a shaky sigh before swallowing the ball that formed in her throat. "And I don't know if they are buying the work excuse anymore, Y/n, they are asking if you are leaving the house."

"I'll pick them up today and we'll go out. We can discuss what to tell them about us now."

"So, you're moving out? Are we done forever this time?" Wanda winced in pain in her place, hands shaking. You looked at her with your head tilted, feeling your chest constrict as her eyes moved from yours closing.

"Isn't that what you want?" Your eyes met Wanda's again, and you sighed when she shook her head. "Then, what do you want?"

"I want to keep loving you."

"I want that too, but this, my love," Your gaze softened at her and you gripped her clenched fist gently as you opened it. Wanda looked at you intently, melting at the nickname, and opening her hand letting it intertwine with yours. "this is not working anymore, you know we aren't."

“Do you want to divorce?”

"What choice do we have? All we do is fight, Wanda." You saw a tear come out of Wanda's eye and you wiped it away with your finger, trying not to cry. "We have a beautiful family and wonderful children, but our marriage is so broken. You're not happy anymore and neither am I."

"We can try to be happy, we can make it work, we always do. Why should we stop now?"

"Because maybe it's too late. Maybe we're too far apart."

"Do you love me?"

"Of course I do."

"Then let's try one last time." Wanda said, placing her hand on your cheek. You closed your eyes feeling the touch and the warmth her hand transmitted. "I want to be with you, Y/n, I want to fix this."

"I want to be with you too." You moved closer to her, your forehead meeting hers delicately as her thumb brushed your lip. Your hands traveled to her waist squeezing gently as you felt her body tremble at the sadness and despair building up in her.

"Please work with me." You felt the warm air of her breath as Wanda whispered the words above your lips as closed her eyes.

"I always will."

*___________________*

After washing your hands, you looked in the mirror one last time, running one of your hands over the dark circles under your eyes and pinching the top of your nose with irritation. Leaving the bathroom, you walked down a long hallway, if you didn’t know what the place was, you would have assumed it was a hotel, but it wasn’t one.

Couples therapy.

How ridiculous. You knew you were doing it for Wanda more than for yourself, you knew the last thing you wanted to do was talk about your marital problems to a complete stranger who would start judging your every decision. You didn't need this, you didn't, but Wanda did, so once again you decided to put aside what you wanted to do for her.

Wanda seemed excited, you would even say happy to be there when the two of you met in front of the office door. She smiled at you and you forced a smile.

"I left the kids with Pietro and Monica."

"Are they back together?" You asked confused as you opened the door and made way for Wanda to enter, before walking in yourself.

"They never broke up, they just took some time apart." Wanda answered, before greeting the woman sitting on a couch, which happened to be across from a longer couch. "Hello."

"Welcome, you must be Wanda Maximoff. Please, take a seat." Wanda sat down on the couch and patted her side looking at you encouragingly. You sighed defeatedly before sitting down as well.

"She is-" Wanda started, but you cut her off with a polite smile toward the woman who nodded while writing something down in her notebook.

"I'm her wife."

"Y/n Maximoff?"

"Oh no, uhm." You stopped in your place clearing your throat at the situation, you knew the last name issue had been a problem between you and Wanda in the past. "I didn't take her last name, it's just Y/L/N."

"We decided after a couple of talks that we didn't want to change them." Wanda explained and you had to bite your tongue to hold the words that formed in your mouth.

The therapist tilted her head and settled back in her seat, looking intently at your actions making you feel self conscious. Wanda looked at you with narrowed and steady eyes, and you scratched your neck tensely before you heard the therapist's voice.

"Why don't we start now then? Y/n, you were about to say something about what Wanda said, but you held the words" You sighed as the therapist looked at you encouragingly. "You can talk here, this is a space where you two can talk freely, say what you really want."

"It's nothing really, it doesn't matter."

"No, I want to hear it." You looked at Wanda incredulously, irritated at the condescending tone she used.

"You decided that we shouldn't change our last name."

"No, we both did, you agreed."

"Because you made me agree, you barely let me say anything."

"Well, it's not my fault that you can't express your mind."

"You don't let me do it. You always overstep on what I say or turn it into something totally different from what I meant." The look in Wanda's eyes made you sigh tiredly, shaking your head in denial. Your gaze softened as you looked back at her, having no energy to fight. "I wanted your last name."

"Fine, then, let's change it."

"No, it's too late. We have been married for eleven years, it wouldn't make sense now."

Wanda rolled her eyes in irritation before crossing her arms in front of her chest and falling silent, turning her attention back to the therapist who seemed to be listening intently to the conversation. You, on the other hand, clenched your fists in frustration looking back at the therapist.

"I see, maybe we should start with the beginning. What do you think is the problem here? I want both of you to be really honest about this."

You snorted at the question before you felt a soft smack to your side from Wanda scolding you for your behavior. You clenched your jaw for a second, then settled back into place and feigned a smile.

“I don’t know, there are many things that could be or… maybe there’s none and this is useless.”

“Why do you think this is useless, Y/n?”

“Don’t you see it, isn’t that supposed to be your job? Figure out what’s wrong?”

“Don’t be rude.” Wanda scolded you, and you frowned. “She is trying to help.”

“I just don’t want to waste my time on this, you know, I’m not even sure if this will work.”

“We could just try.” Wanda said angrily, scoffing when you shook your head. “Just answer the damn question, Y/n.”

“You answer it then because I can think of a million reasons why everything is wrong.”

“So, there are millions of things that I do wrong?”

“I didn’t even say your name, why do you keep doing that? This is not only about you, it’s about us.”

And so the session continued until the hour was up. The truth is that you were tired, tired of the fights and the useless progress you had made. Wanda assured you that it was only the first session and with that you stayed quiet for the rest of the way home after picking up your kids.

Dinner passed as normal, you and Wanda, Billy and Tommy at the table eating and living like a completely perfect family. That wasn't a problem for you, pretending everything was fine with Wanda in front of your kids, pretending the fights behind closed doors didn't exist. That wasn't the problem. The problem came when you had to go to your room and close the door, at that moment the perfect facade of the perfect marriage fell from your hands.

Again, it was back to the same thing, the meaningless fights, the condescending tones. All that was killing you slowly, so slowly that you thought it didn't exist, but the tiredness would come, the headaches, the pain in your chest that prevented you from breathing. The sadness that invaded your being completely.

“You said you’ll work with me.” Wanda said while she took her clothes off, and you stopped in place, dropping the shirt you were trying to get off. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying, okay? I’m trying.”

“It doesn’t seem like you are.”

“Really, Wanda? Now?” You bit the inside of your cheek looking at her as she pulled the oversized shirt down her body, falling closer to her knees. You took off your pants before shaking your head and taking off your shirt. “I’m tired, just please, don’t start.”

“I’m not trying to pick a fight,” Wanda said once you had your pajamas on, and turned to her. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking at you. “I want us to work.”

You tilted your head towards her as you saw tears falling from her eyes. You approached her gently, kneeling down in front of her as you grabbed the hand that was on her thigh, and giving her a small kiss on the knuckles. Wanda looked up at you, wiping away the tears with her other hand and calmly grabbing your neck, nuzzling you.

That was the first time in months that you saw the love in her eyes, the love that was hidden in between the anger in those fights, the love that you thought no longer existed.

“I love you.'' You released the words naturally, softly, and before standing up, you left a short kiss on her thigh. “I will always love you.”

“I love you too, y/n” Wanda opened her legs to grab you from the waist, pulling you close to her. You smirked when your eyes locked together, watching her eyes darkened slightly and her cheeks take a soft pink color.

Your hands went to her neck after, and a sigh came from your lips when her hands slipped inside your shirt.

You at least had to try, for her and for the love that you had.

[storiesofsvu]

Alex Blake SFW Alphabet

Alex Blake x reader warnings: none really, some sexual situations talked about. SURPRISE! Two things in one day! a WIN. I thought maybe sitting down and doing some headcanons from templates might help get the ball rolling on creativity so you might see a few more things like this pop out this week! <3

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Alex is relatively affectionate, especially around friends or in private. She wants to make sure her friends and partner know that they are cared about and just how much. She doesn’t shy away from a squeeze on the hand, hugs or quick kisses in public. At home with you she’s very touchy, a hand on you as often as possible, curled up on the couch with you while she reads and you watch tv. She also shows her affection by picking up little treats for you whenever she’s out during the day. Whether it’s a candy bar added to the grocery order, or a post card from a city the BAU has visited recently, she loves having something to give to you when she gets home.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

First and foremost, she’s loyal. Once she knows you, and trusts you, trusts her gut that you are a friend, she’s always going to have your back and make sure to help you with whatever it is you might need. I like to think that she’s a pretty friendly person and isn’t afraid of striking up conversations with strangers in public. She’s someone that has lots of ‘regular’s’ that she runs into during her errand running and the like, ya know what I mean?

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Hear me out: Alex is the biggest snuggler. She adores it, especially after a long day of either teaching or profiling. It’s quiet, soft, tender, the easiest way to show affection without having to move and it literally releases endorphins to make everyone feel better. She loves being sprawled on the couch and having you slotted between her legs, either propped up on her chest while you read together, or curled around her so she can play with your hair. At night she loves being tangled up in your limbs in bed, simply holding each other as you fall asleep.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Alex has been there done that. And she kinda always thought that was it for her, she’d had her love, had her marriage and now was married to the job. Until she meets you and realizes that there’s room for more than one great love in each life. She doesn’t particularly want to get married again, knowing all the extra ordeals that go along with that, but she’ll happily commit to a life partner, and lbh, if a ring and a party make you happy, she’ll definitely go for it.

I like to think Alex is a very clean person. Like, not overly wiping down every surface with Lysol constantly, but her apartment is always clean and tidy. There is almost always a coffee mug on the coffee table in some level of half drunk, but that’s about it. Her dishes are dealt with right away, things don’t get left out, everything has a home and is almost always in it. You do often tease her about her “clutter” being the pile of books that somehow seems to move from room to room (and they’re always all together in said stack, it’s never one or two moving around). Cooking wise she’s good. Nothing extravagant. She knows the basics and usually sticks with that. Though she also does really enjoy finding a new recipe to experiment with at least once a month.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

(I’m ngl. Part of me really wants to say she would like, just ghost and disappear without continuing communication. Cause.. she literally hates conflict, vanishes on her family and peaced out on the BAU without an actual goodbye.. LOL)

BUT, our girl has more respect for that when it comes to people she’s romantically interested in, even if that has faded. It’s going to be quick, a rip the band-aid off situation and she’ll likely do it at your place so that it’s private and she can leave quickly once it’s done and you have some privacy to grieve alone.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

One of these days I’ll remember that this is down here and not cover it under D, LOL. So, as stated, she doesn’t necessarily care for marriage again, but if she was to find love again she’s fully committed to it and will love you for the rest of her life. She *might* consider marriage if it’s an absolute dealbreaker for you, but it’s usually something she’ll bring up on the first date or so, so you both know from the start and the likelihood of her running into it down the road when she’s fully in love and invested isn’t as likely.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Listen, when this bitch isn’t dealing with unsubs, she is the most gentle fucking soul on earth. She is Mother. She is tender, loving, caring and just so sweet. Her touch is always soft, fingers trailing across your skin, drawing patterns on it while she listens to you tell stories. She’s generally pretty gentle and tender in the bedroom as well, she prefers to praise, overstimulate or edge, teasing with her words rather than physical pain. If you ask she might experiment a little bit more into that pool but she doesn’t like to inflict pain.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Alex is a hugger, even if it’s just a small, quick one to say hello/goodbye while she drops a kiss to the top of your head. If she’s been gone for a while she yearns for a longer, deeper one, truly sinking into the embrace, wrapping herself tightly around you as she tucks her head into the crook of your neck. Her hugs are always full of love and affection and a way to kinda say what’s on her mind without actually having to say anything. Like, you literally cannot tell me she doesn’t give amazing hugs.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

For a linguist, she’s not great with words when it comes to feelings/conveying things properly in relationships (both romantic, and platonic). So she’s gonna show you that she loves you before she actually says it. She also knows that other ways of showing love can mean more than the simple words of saying it, it shows that she actually really means it rather than just throwing the phrase around a lot. So she’s not someone who does say it a lot, she prefers to keep it for the moments when it really does mean a lot, or the extremely private, intimate moments in the dark as you’re falling asleep together.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Alex is another one of those insecure jealousy types. She’s confident in herself and in your relationship, but you are a little bit younger, and she can be more introverted. So sometimes seeing you out with your friends flitting around like a social butterfly she wishes that she could be more like that, or more social, especially when it comes to your group of people. She’s not one to make a scene about it, but there has been more than one occasion where she’ll approach you, press a soft kiss to your cheek and say she’s going home, feign an excuse of being tired or not feeling great and *insist* that you stay out and have a good time.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Her kisses are soft, tender, and only for you. They can definitely be fiery in the right situation, but she uses kisses as a primary way to express her love. She loves to kiss the top of your head, your cheek, the tip of your nose, the back of your hand, and of course your lips. When she wants to make you absolutely melt, she’ll wrap herself around you from behind and trail kisses up and down your neck until you’re putty in her hands and practically dragging her into the bedroom.

She loves you kisses no matter where you kiss her. There’s something about the little grin on your face before you leave a kiss anywhere on her body that absolutely gives her butterflies and makes her blush, even to this day. Alex has a particularly soft spot for the way you’ll kiss her inner thighs before going down on her.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Loaded question my dude.

Alex is incredibly good with kids. She loves being around them and will happily spend an afternoon running around the yard with JJ’s boys, even “suffering” through cleaning up, bath time and adores reading them bedtime stories. She’ll always offer up babysitting services for her friends and absolutely adores getting to be “Auntie Alex” but it always leaves her drained and full of a sense of missing out, especially as she watches her friends’ kids growing up and hitting milestones and she simply yearns for getting to see her own son do the same.

And to follow up with that; no she doesn’t want to have any other kids. Of her own or adopted. She knows that she would be absolutely terrified from the moment of conception that everything was going to go wrong again. She knows she would be a helicopter parent and be obsessively overprotective and every time the kid so much as coughed her mind would go straight to the worst case scenario and she knows she can’t handle that.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Her mornings are relaxed, both work mornings and weekend mornings. The only difference is having to say goodbye on workdays (and getting up a little earlier). There’s the morning paper, followed by the morning crossword, coffee of course and breakfast.

On the weekends those things generally all still happen in bed, or curled up on the couch with a couple of fuzzy blankets while you enjoy the quiet of the morning, the sun getting brighter, birds chirping outside and each other’s company.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Nights are fun, a little more spirited, more laughter and fun sprinkled in there as you wind down from the day, likely accompanied by a glass of wine or two. Dinner is likely cooked together, even if together means one of you cooking while the other sits on the counter and keeps them company. There’s music playing through the house, stories of your days/weeks told and plenty of stolen kisses while you’re waiting for a pot to boil or timer to go off.

Evenings are spent either on the couch or out in the back yard on the fancy furniture, lounging together while you read, watch tv, or catch up on work. Alex adores the nights that you scoop up one of her books of poetry and climb into her lap so she can read to you while playing with your hair.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Homegirl keeps a lot pretty tight lipped. There’s a lot she’s going to keep to herself and it’s going to have to actually be asked specifically to her before she’ll bring it up. She’ll mention that she was married before, she likely still has a decent relationship with James so that comes up pretty quick. But otherwise it’s a little thing here, a little thing there and there’s likely still some things you don’t know about her when you’ve been together for years.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

She’s got the patience of a fucking god. Alex doesn’t do angry, she can do frustrated, or annoyed, but she really doesn’t get that angry often. And if she does she’s going to bottle it up and save it for work when she can/needs to take it out on an unsub. If the two of you get into it and things are starting to explode into something where things might be said that you don’t really mean, she’s always the one to hit pause, put a pin in it and the two of you both walk away and cool down so you can sit down and discuss the actual issue at hand later on.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

With her brain?!?

Of fucking course she’s remembering like, 98% of the things that you tell her, hell, even the things you don’t tell her. She’s just got a way. She caught the way your eyes lit up at the sight of a molten lava cake being taken to a table when you were out to dinner and the next time you were having a rough day she ordered one delivered. She borrowed your phone once when hers was dead to use your Spotify and discovered which artist you had on repeat 24/7 and of course got tickets to their concert for your birthday. You always stole a particular sweater of hers on cold days and you felt bad, giving it back after a day cause it was so cozy and she needed to be warm too so she bought it in five other colours for both of you to share.

R = Remember (What is their favourite moment in your relationship?)

The moment that she knew she was in love with you. It was something small, domestic, just quietly and intimately sharing the same space for hours on end. Maybe the first full weekend you hadn’t left her apartment and seeing you move through her space with no issues, making yourself at home and she knew that she liked her home a hell of a lot better with you in it.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Alex is the perfect amount of protective. She knows you can take care of yourself and never wants to be overbearing, so she lets you live your life when you’re apart. However she is the one to always make sure you’re attentive when you’re alone at night, that your car door is locked as soon as you’re in it, if your apartment doesn’t have a security system when you meet you better bet that she’ll make you install one. She insists that anytime you’re out with your friends you call her to come pick you up when you’ve had too much to drink. If you’re out together and she can sense that you’re uncomfortable because of the idiot hitting on you, she’s gonna wrap an arm around your waist, press a kiss to your cheek and get you outta there as quickly as she can.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?) Regular dates not so much, but if she’s been out of town for a while she makes sure to plan something nice, it’s never anything crazy or over the top, but an excuse for you to dress up a little bit so she can take you out for a nice dinner. Anniversaries are always sentimental for Alex, there’s flowers, time spent together likely at home with a homecooked or take out dinner before the night is spent in the bedroom. Gifts for big days are always similar, they’re things that you’ve talked about loving, or something that’s rare, hard to find, something you mentioned in passing a couple of times that she happened to come across. Or homemade presents, ones made with love instead of bought with money.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Overworking FOR SURE. It’s pretty often that you have to wander into the home office well past midnight and drag her to bed. She’ll argue that she ‘only has one thing left to do’ but will thank you beyond belief in the morning. She also has a tendency to work through her meals, something that only got worse once she was at the BAU, so you’ll always make sure she has lunch packed, and if she’s teaching you’ll swing by to have lunch with her.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Alex isn’t overly concerned. She’s always professionally put together, makes sure she looks good in that sense, but make up isn’t something she delves into too much, and she’s never going to think about going under the knife for beauty things, she’s just going to hope she ages gracefully.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Hmmm….. No. I think that she would be fine. She’s always been a pretty independent person; she spent a lot of time apart from James and she never had too much of a problem with it. She doesn’t need a partner to feel secure and like she’s a whole person, she’s all that on her own. She’d also thought she was going to be single forever post divorce and had no issues with that, meeting someone new was just a happy coincidence.

X = Xtra (A random head canon for them.)

I can’t think of anything totally random so you’re getting something canon related. Her and Strauss were in the academy together and they definitely fucked or were in some kind of relationship that obviously didn’t end well. She also had a little crush on JJ, whether she realized it or not.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

She’s not a fan of dumb people, and we’re not talking like, college dropouts, she’s fine if you didn’t go to post secondary school. We’re talking plain logic, street smarts. If someone has zero interests and thus nothing to ever educate themselves on, she’s not into it. (like, this could be some insanely smart thing that like, Reid is into, or it could be something like different strains of weed, she does not care, just use your brain for something). Even worse than that to her is people who *play* dumb. She’s got zero patience when it comes to that.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

Has a nightly routine that she sticks to every night, no matter what. If she’s on the road, up late, whatever, she absolutely always has to brush teeth, wash her face, apply some minimal skin care, turn down the lights and read at least a small chapter before she can go to bed. She likes to keep routine and normalcy and this really helps with that.

___________

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[midnightsun-if]

I CANNOT believe no one has asked the classic: how would the ROs react to the MC dying in their arms?

The wind whistles a mournful tune throughout the battlefield— blood glitters like rubies underneath the fading light of day, scorched earth a darkened husk in the places magic had gotten a bit too out of hand, and the steady breeze brings with it the scent of death.

None of that mattered to the singular figure knelt in the middle of the growing carnage; the battle all but forgotten in the face of what has happened. There couldn’t be anything more important than stopping the blood from escaping— tense fingers pressed into a gaping wound that they desperately avoid looking directly at.

They knew you were gone, or close to it, but they couldn’t tear themself from your side. Couldn’t even comprehend leaving you. Not now. Not ever.

Koda: “E-Everything is going to be okay,” he mutters, tears running down his face in complete contrast to his words. Whiskey brown eyes, normally filled with so much warmth, continuously flash amber as he fights to control himself, to control his bear that desperately wants to rip the person who did this to shreds. “You’re going to be fine and then I’m going to take you to meet Pola, okay?” He tugs you closer into his arms, pressing a brief kiss to you forehead. “We’re going to be one big family. Like we’ve talked about and I can’t have that without you. So you gotta be okay.”

Scarlett: Obsidian black nearly eclipses the viridescent green of her gaze, a snarl bares sharpened fangs completely, while dirt streaks across fair skin. She hunches over your body, muscles tight in her protective stance, while she desperately tries to think of what she could do. With each moment that went by, with every second she wasted, her mate, her heart, was vanishing right before her eyes. “Just hold on a little longer, my love. Just a little bit longer.” Scarlett wasn’t above begging now— she’d kneel before anyone, grovel before any god, if it meant keeping you with her. She could feel venom pooling in her mouth, her need to rip everyone, ally or not, to shreds that got too close overwhelming her, but she remains steadily by your side. “You promised me forever,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead, desperately trying to ignore how cold it has become. “Please do not make that a lie. Please do not leave me in a world without you.”

Cyrus/Cyra: Their head whips back and forth frantically, hands shakily pressing down into your side as they simultaneously pull you closer. “Why aren’t they working?” They gasp, golden tears falling from their eyes and into your wound. “Why aren’t you getting better? Why am I not strong enough to save you?” Their lips press against your temple, crimson beginning to make a home within their gaze. “You can’t leave me. We still have so many things to do, to see, I—” A painful breath erupts from their lips in the form of a sharp sob, more tears falling down their face and uselessly to you. “I can’t lose you. I can’t be the ruler I’m meant to be unless you’re by my side. I need you. Please.”

Quinn: A rumbling snarl begins to build deeply within their chest, clawed hands, as they couldn’t stop their wolf from beginning to peak out, press firmly against your side. The scent of your blood, even if it wasn’t truly yours, causes nausea to roil within their stomach, their heart lurching at the sight of your slackening face. They know their only a small breakdown from shifting completely, from causing a rampage that only death would stop, but they take a deep breath, pulling you against their chest in a gentle hold. “I’m here, sweetheart.” Tears drop onto your cheeks, your unresponsive gaze locked with their own. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? So you better not either? Not when we have so many adventures left.”

Caden: They could feel your life force waning, could feel the pain ravaging your soul, and they want nothing more than to take it away, to lead you to a place that you’d be able to rest, that you’d be able to find peace, but they weren’t ready to say goodbye to you yet. Even if it was selfish, even if it meant you’d never forgive them, they couldn’t let you go. They’d be able to see you, but it’d never be for long, and they’d never be able to stay, as it wasn’t in the cards for what they were. The moment your soul passed on, the moment you left their grasp, all they would have is their memories, the phantom touch of your hands, and the faint echoes of the warmth you offered them after so long of being stuck in the cold. “I’m not ready,” they murmur, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. “I’m not ready to say goodbye. I’m not ready to be cold again.”

Sloane: A mournful howl rips from their chest, their wolf taking control instantly as they shrink within themself. They know that you were gone, they’ve seen the waxy quality on skin before, have seen the listless expression before, and knows exactly where it leads, they know that you’re already past a point of return— even if they’d do anything to get you back. A furred body gently curls around you, a muzzle, with teeth that could tear through flesh like it’s paper, softly shifts your arm to wrap around their neck, and they nuzzle into your chest. Great heaving breaths wrack their body, their tail thrashes against the ground in agony, but they press closer, trying to give you the warmth that your body is now lacking. You’re my pack. My family. They press impossibly closer. Please don’t leave me all alone.

Blake: “H-Hey,” they chide, trying their best to ignore the tears steadily slipping down their cheeks, as they gently maneuver you onto their lap. “We’re not gonna do this, okay? This is not where we’re going to say goodbye. You know that I’m the one that demanded to die first, and I made you swear you’d abide by that.” They choke out a laugh, although it’s more aligned to a gasping sob. “We wouldn’t want you to be an oath-breaker, right?” At your lack of a response to their joke more tears slips from violet eyes, their head bowing over your body. Hands desperately grasping at whatever they could hold as they latch onto you, gently rocking your body back and forth within their arms. “You taught me so much. You taught me what it means to have a friend, to know what unconditional love feels like, and I can never repay you. I don’t know what my life will be like without you. I don’t want to know what my life will be like without beside me. I—” They choke out another sob. “Please don’t go where I can’t follow.”

Reginald/Regina: They shake their head, shock working its way down their body. “This shouldn’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” They press their hands firmly into your side, multi-colored eyes flashing with barely concealed panic. “I’m the one that’s supposed to die first, remember? I’m the silly human in all of this. You’re the big bad vampire. You—” They stop, breathing out a sharp gasp, leaning down to press their forehead against yours. “You can’t be dying. You can’t leave me before I’ve even had the chance to have you. Before we’ve had the opportunity to be together fully. You’re going to be okay, alright? I’m not going to accept anything else. You’re going to be okay.” They tug you firmly against their body, hating how malleable you were to their touch. You have to be okay.

[brnesblogposts]

love lost.

pairing: loki x gn reader

warnings: angst

(repost from my old blog because i’m moving to this account !!)

reposts appreciated :)

—————————————-

Loki watched as his friends turned into nothing before his eyes, the fear behind theirs would stay with him forever. Mobius, OB, B-15, Sylvie, Casey.. all turned into what can only be described as spaghetti. Then just as he thought it couldn’t get any worse. You. He turned around to see you were still standing there, eyes wide with fear at what you’d just witnessed, Loki rushed to your side tears in his eyes and hands cupping your face as if to check you were really still with them.

“Loki..” the words got stuck in your throat as shock overtook your body and Loki pulled you into a hug, rocking you back and forth in a soothing manner.

“How are you still here?” Loki was confused as she had just seen all of her friends vanish but you remained. The last two people in the universe it would seem. “I’m so glad you’re still here” Loki shakily said while kissing the top of your head.

“What do we do??” You were panicked “Are you gonna leave me too? I don’t wanna be alone Loki” crying again you clutched onto him as if that would stop him from disappearing. Losing Loki would be like your heart stopping, there is nothing worse you could think of than losing him.

“I’ll never leave you, my darling. As long as you don’t leave me either” He’s stroking the back of your head now “We will figure this out, together.” Loki stands back and puts his hands on your shoulders to look at your face as if he wanted to remember every last detail, just in case.

You did the same, neither of you looking away from each other for a few minutes.

You felt funny all of a sudden.

“Darling?” Loki’s voice was distant yet you could see him right in front of you.

You felt your body disappearing from beneath you, looking down your legs were the spaghetti you had just seen your friends turn into, oh no. Your eyes looked back up right into Loki’s he was still clutching your shoulders as if doing so would keep you with him, as if him not letting go would keep you from being taken from him.

“No, no.” He whispered under their breath as you started to disappear. They didn’t want to be alone again, they didn’t know how to live without you. You were Loki’s lifeline you were their heart and soul and the core of their very being.

“Loki..” Your soul staring into the gods eyes until you were no more, Loki’s hands simply clutching the air where your shoulders had been.

She fell to her knees. Head down in defeat, sobs racking out of their body.

“No” He cried.

He looked around him, nothing, nobody. He was the only one who remained and he didn’t know how to live or breathe without you.

— time skip—

Loki would spend years and years trying to find a way to get them all back, to get you back. He would eventually drive himself to insanity and hallucinate your presence often finding himself talking to you only to realise you weren’t there, nobody was. He was all alone in the universe as if he was being punished for all that he did when he was on Earth and Asgard, for the tormenting of his brother, the death of his mother, the battle of 2012 and everything else. Maybe he deserved to be alone, maybe the universe was punishing him indefinitely.

Loki hadn’t moved, hadn’t been taken anywhere. He remained where he’d last seen his friends, some part of him hoping they’d come back, that some day he’d wake up and find you next to him. They talk about hell being a firey place if torture but Loki was in hell already, hell was life without you, hell was knowing there was probably something he could do to get his family back but not having the ability to, without OB’s brains and everyone else’s assets.

Destined to a life of loneliness. The only company being a small photo of you that had faded over the millennia, your smile barely visible but Loki found himself looking at it constantly and smiling and crying, begging whatever did this to him that he was sorry and that he just wanted you back.

He’d lost everything when he lost you.

_______________________________

[astrobei]

anonymous prompt: “this isn’t byler but do you think you could write some hopper trying to achieve some step-son stepfather bonding time with a reluctant Will?”

As it turns out, in some weird subversion of all of Jim Hopper’s expectations, teenage girls are a hundred times easier to figure out than teenage boys.

El had been a bit of a blank slate at first. She liked Eggo waffles and daytime TV and when Jim put his records on, she didn’t complain. Maybe she just didn’t know that there were other types of music out there, but as far he was concerned, there wasn’t much worth knowing about that wasn’t Jimi Hendrix anyway.

And then things started falling into place a little. El liked Eggo waffles, but she liked them most with the kinds of toppings on top that he wasn’t supposed to technically be eating anymore– whipped cream and candy and enough sugar to induce a heart attack twenty years early.

She liked the daytime TV just fine, but she liked it better when he watched it with her, telling her what all the unfamiliar words meant. Word of the day, he’d said as a joke, when she’d asked what infatuated meant. The irony of that wouldn’t hit him for another year or so.

She liked Jimi Hendrix okay, but he suspects that she actually just liked watching him dance around to the records more than she did any guitar riff, no matter how captivating they might have been. He doesn’t blame her. He’d never claimed to be a good dancer, but he sure could be an entertaining one.

So this is where he stands, currently. Teenage girls are fine. Teenage boys are, actually, a mystery beyond comprehension.

Or maybe it’s just Joyce Byers’ teenage boys that are hard to figure out.

Yeah. That’s probably it.

Jim’s sure he hasn’t been like this when he was younger. He’d been very straightforward about his interests: his dad’s vinyl collection of 50’s rock ‘n roll, the chocolate milkshakes at the local diner, and cutting class to smoke with Joyce Byers under the east wing stairs.

Some of these more so than others, maybe, but they’d been very simple interests all the same. Nicking Marlboros from his dad’s jacket pocket when he wasn’t looking, then slipping them into Joyce’s waiting fingers as she slid into the stairwell next to him. He’s pretty sure his dad knew where the cigarettes had been going, and he’s also pretty sure he didn’t care.

“What are you smiling about?”

Seventeen-year-old Joyce vanishes in a puff of stale smoke, and suddenly, she’s here in front of him again. The real thing this time, not a hazy, memory-worn apparition– faded cotton shirt, plaid flannel pajama pants. Smiling down at him, holding a pan of scrambled eggs in one hand and a spatula in the other.

Jim raises his eyebrows. “Nothing.” He shakes his head as she spoons eggs onto his plate. “I just– I haven’t seen you smoke in a while.”

Joyce huffs out a small laugh as she slides into the chair next to him. It’s early, barely seven in the morning. The kids don’t usually get up until well into the midmorning on summer days like this, so early mornings are for them and them alone. “I’m trying not to. El doesn’t like the smell.”

“Oh. She told you?”

“Will did.”

“Ah.” He takes a careful sip of his coffee. “What about Will? He doesn’t mind it?”

He can’t see Joyce’s mouth behind her mug, but her eyes are definitely smiling. “He doesn’t like it either. He just stopped saying so after a while.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him.”

Joyce laughs again, this time as she squirts a generous dollop of ketchup on her plate. “What, you didn’t kick the habit when you were locked up?”

“Oh, no,” Jim chuckles. “No way. I thought I would, for a while, but– it’s true, you know, what they say about cigarettes being worth as much as gold in there.”

“Really?”

They don’t talk about Russia much– at least not out here. Not in the morning, not after a good night’s sleep, not in the kitchen, where things are supposed to be happy and warm and filled with light. This isn’t the place for it– for things that are dark and cold and desolate, for monsters or funerals or death.

He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says instead, “listen, I was thinking.”

“Oh, yeah? About what?”

“I was thinking, maybe,” he starts, speaking more into the inside of his mug than to Joyce, now. “Maybe I’ll take Will out for the day. Do something together.”

If Joyce is surprised at all, it doesn’t show. “Yeah? To where?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admits, and she gives him an amused look. “I wanted to ask you first.”

Now she looks surprised. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Jim shrugs, “he’s your kid! I didn’t want to cross any boundaries, or–” He trails off at the look on her face. “What?”

Joyce ducks her head, smiling softly. “No, that– that’s sweet, Hop. If he’s okay with it, then I’d love for you two to do something together.”

“Really? You think he would?”

“I–” Joyce starts, and then gets a contemplative look on her face. “You know he adores you, right?”

“Please,” Jim snorts, “he’s a sixteen year old boy. He doesn’t adore anybody.”

“Except–”

“We don’t talk about Wheeler before noon, Joyce,” Jim interrupts, and then Joyce is throwing her head back in another laugh. It’s a nice look, Jim thinks, maybe not as privately as he’d like. He’s sure she can tell exactly what’s on his mind.

“Okay! Sorry! But yes, of course. Go have a day out, just the two of you.”

“Okay,” he agrees, then takes a sip of coffee. “Okay. Sounds good.”

—-

The issue here is that given Joyce Byers’ infamous overprotectiveness, he’d thought acquiring her blessing to have a bit of adoptive father-adoptive son bonding would have been the hard part. And now he’s standing in front of Will’s room, hand raised to knock, feeling just about as jittery as he had when he had to give the Wheeler kid the shovel talk. 

Both times.

Now or never, Jim, he thinks, because for all of his bravery fighting monsters and Russians and that time he broke his own ankle and ran through miles of snow on foot, this doesn’t compare. This is Will. This is Joyce’s kid. And he doesn’t know why that makes him so nervous, but it does.

You can do it. It’s just a teenage boy.

He sighs, and raises his fist.

“Yeah?” Will’s voice is faint from behind the door. “Come in.”

“Hey,” Jim says, and then steels himself, gathering every remaining bit of courage in his body to say, “you got a minute to talk?”

Will raises his eyebrows. “Sure,” he says. It’s wary, cautious. He sits up further, from where he’d been reclining back on his pillows. “What’s up?”

It doesn’t take a genius to see that he’s on edge. Jim supposes maybe this is a bit out of the blue, so he tries to relax, tries to make sure his body language reads I come in peace. “What are you reading?” he tries, nodding towards the book in Will’s hands.

“Um.” Will turns it over, looks at the cover like he has to remind himself. “It’s Slaughterhouse Five. Jonathan gave it to me,” he says slowly.

Jim lets out a low whistle. “Damn. That’s impressive, kid. Is it any good?”

Will shrugs. “It’s okay so far. I just started though.”

Jim doesn’t know enough about Slaughterhouse Five to keep this conversation going with any merit, so he figures maybe he should just cut to the chase. “Hey, listen,” he starts, and Will’s eyebrows creep a little farther up his forehead. “I was thinking of spending a day out. Go for a drive, grab some lunch. You want to tag along?”

“Oh,” Will says. “Um.” He holds up his book. “I was thinking of getting ahead on this, actually.”

Jim Hopper has braved Russian prisons, secret labs, an underground dimension, his own faked death, and being stood up by Joyce Byers. This is fine.

“Okay,” he says, “that’s fine. No worries.”

“Sorry,” Will adds for good measure, still half-upright on his bed and looking very much like he does not want to be having this conversation.

“Seriously,” Jim says, already backing out into the hallway. “It’s okay. Have fun with the book, kid.”

—-

“He hates me, Joyce.”

Joyce shoots him a look as she climbs into the passenger seat of the car. “He does not hate you, Hop. Maybe you just caught him off guard.”

Jim groans, putting the car in reverse. “I knocked before I went in!”

“Jim.”

“What?”

Joyce pulls the cigarette out of his mouth and drops it into the ashtray. “Please don’t smoke in the car,” she chides. And then, “Well, what did you say to him?”

“I asked him about his book, and then if he wanted to tag along with me while I–”

“Okay, I’d say that caught him off guard a little.”

“How?” Jim exclaims, and then Joyce laughs.

“I don’t know! Will’s just– he needs a second, okay, Hop? Don’t take it personally. I promise he does not hate you.”

“Okay,” he grumbles, as they turn the corner past the high school. “One more shot, and then I’m accepting the fact that both your kids hate me.”

“Jonathan doesn’t hate you either,” Joyce says, but she looks like she’s fighting back a smile. “He just– he doesn’t show affection like that.”

“They hate me,” he repeats, accelerating down the backroad. “They both hate me.”

—-

Attempt #2 goes better. Somewhat.

“Hey,” Jim says as he walks through the door the next evening. Will is curled up on the couch, sketchbook open on his lap. He looks up as the door opens, startling slightly, then relaxes.

“Oh. Hey, Hop.”

Hey, Hop, he thinks. That’s better than Hello, Chief.

“Is your mom home?”

Will shakes his head and looks back down. “She’s at the Wheelers’. She’s having, um. Wine night. With Mike’s mom.”

“Oh, okay.” Jim pauses. “Hey,” he starts, and Will looks back up. “Listen, I don’t suppose you want to watch a movie or something tonight?”

Will blinks. “A movie?”

You’ve come back from the dead, Jim, he thinks. This is just a sixteen year old boy. He shrugs. “Yeah, you know, everyone’s out for the evening. Thought we could make a night of it, just us two.”

“Um.”

“You can pick,” Jim offers, tossing his hat on the kitchen table. “I won’t judge your taste, I promise.”

Will’s lips twitch upwards at the corners, ever so slightly. “I have good taste,” he protests, and Jim shrugs, like sure! Okay! “But I can’t today. Um. Sorry.”

“Oh. Big plans tonight?”

“Actually,” Will starts, pursing his lips. “Mike and I are grabbing dinner soon.”

Oh. Oh. Okay. It’s a bit of a low blow, getting passed over for the Wheeler kid, but it’s fine. Jim can roll with the punches. “Huh. Anywhere good?”

Will shrugs, but he looks like he’s on the verge of a smile. “Just the diner on Main Street.”

“Oh, the diner,” Jim laughs, pulling out a chair. “I used to go there every day when I was your age, actually. Best milkshakes on this side of Indiana.”

“Yeah?” Will puts his pencil down. “What was your order?”

“Ham and cheese. And a chocolate milkshake,” he answers immediately. He dreamt about those milkshakes, thought about them during long, cold nights behind bars, nothing but prison-grade gruel to fill his stomach. Comfort food. The kind of memory you hold on to longer than you’d expect.

“I get ham and cheese too,” Will says, and then he looks a bit surprised at himself, like this was something he didn’t mean to say. “Except I get, um. I get strawberry instead.”

Jim pretends to think it over. “Strawberry’s good,” he admits, “but not good enough.”

“Hey!” Will says, laughing. “Come on. Chocolate is so boring.”

That feels like a win, even if it’s a small one. He’s smiling before he realizes it. Making light banter over milkshake flavors shouldn’t be this exciting, not for someone like him, not for someone who’s been through what he has, but–

“You need a ride?” Jim holds up his car keys, still clutched in one hand. “I can drop you off.”

The smile fades slightly from Will’s face. “Oh, um. Mike’s picking me up, actually. In, like, ten minutes?”

“Wheeler can drive?”

“He got his license last month,” Will says, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. Jim’s first instinct is to protest– something about that’s not safe, and I don’t know if that’s the best idea, but he bites his tongue.

If Mike Wheeler can kill monsters, he can drive a car just fine. Probably.

“Okay,” he says at last, standing up and grabbing his hat. “Have fun, kid. Tell Wheeler to drive safe. Five under the speed limit. It’s my buddies on patrol tonight, remember.”

Will looks like he simultaneously wants to laugh and groan. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Hop. I’ll tell him.”

“Have a milkshake for me,” Jim says, then slinks off to his room.

Okay. That could’ve gone worse.

—-

“Okay, I don’t think he hates me.”

Joyce gives him a look like see? “I told you he doesn’t hate you,” she says, reaching across him for the olive oil. “What did you say this time?”

“Something about watching a movie,” Jim says. “I was– God, okay, Joyce, can you take over the onions for me?”

Joyce laughs, and says, teasing, “Broke your way out of a prison but chopping onions is too much?”

“This is why I don’t cook,” he says, then makes his way over to the record player in the corner of the living room. “I’ll take over music duty.”

“Sure,” Joyce calls. “You don’t cook because of onions.”

Steely Dan crackles to life as he turns around. “Oh, yeah,” he grins, “this is it. This is the good stuff.”

“Jim,” Joyce laughs. “What– are you supposed to be dancing?”

Hey, he’s said it before. He’s not the best dancer, but he’s definitely an entertaining one. “Times are hard,” Jim croons along, and Joyce’s laughter grows. “You���re afraid to pay the fee–”

“You’re awful,” Joyce shakes her head, even as Jim grabs a hold of her hands. “And– Hop, my hands are all onion-y.”

He ignores her. “When you need a little bit of lovin’–”

“Ew,” comes a voice from the hallway, and Jim turns around.

“Hey, hon,” Joyce says absentmindedly, dropping his hands and wiping hers on the towel. Onion, she mouths at him. “What’s going on?”

Will shoots him a bit of a strange look. “Sorry. I was just wondering when dinner was going to be.”

“Twenty minutes?” Jim offers, then grins. “Thirty if your mom tries to put me back on onion duty.”

Will crinkles up his nose and turns in the direction of the living room. “What are you playing?”

“I don’t wanna do your dirty work,” Jim belts out in response. Joyce and Will stare, identical dumbfounded expressions on their faces. “Steely Dan?” Jim offers.

Nothing. Apparently he’s dating into a family with zero taste.

“Sorry,” Joyce shrugs. “It’s cute, though!”

Cute! He squints in Will’s direction. “You too?”

Will mirrors Joyce’s shrug. “Sorry. It’s not really my thing.”

“Oh? What’s your thing, then?”

Will stands up a bit straighter. “I don’t know,” he says. “Um. I like The Cure. Stuff like that.”

“The Cure,” Jim muses. “That band, you got the, uh. You’ve got records of theirs, right?”

“Yeah,” Will smiles, then moves forward to sit down at the table. “Jonathan gave me some of his older ones when he left for college so I started, uh. I started collecting them.”

Okay. Okay, he can work with this.

Over Will’s shoulder, Joyce shoots him an impressed look and a thumbs up. You got this, she mouths, and then, aloud: “Hey, I just remembered, guys, I’ve got to go deal with the laundry. Just a second.”

Will frowns. “The laundry isn’t going right now.”

“Okay, then I’ve got to run a load. Be right back,” Joyce says, and then she flashes him another thumbs up and she’s gone, off down the hall.

There’s a moment of silence. Will looks around the kitchen– at the pasta boiling on the stove, the dishes in the sink, the wooden grain of the table. “Okay,” he says after a moment, “I think I should–”

“Hey,” Jim blurts out, “why don’t you, uh. Why don’t you bring one of your records out? You can have a turn.”

Will stops, halfway out of his seat. When he speaks, it’s quiet, a little pleased. “Yeah?” 

Jim nods, spreads his hands out. “Show me what you got.”

Will comes back a couple minutes later with a record in his hands. “Um,” he starts, “so this is their newest one, they released it a couple months ago.”

The red of the cover looks vaguely familiar. Jim’s sure he’s seen this one around in the record shops, something like that. “Very interesting,” he says, as Will drops the needle carefully onto it. “This is, uh–”

He knows the band, of course. He’s not that out of touch. But Will’s mouth twitches as he says, “The Cure,” and then, “um. This is one of my favorites so far.”

Jim doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the guitar. Drums, coming in steady and insistent. He lets out a low whistle. “Alright, wow. Didn’t take you for a rock fan, kid.”

To his surprise, Will smiles. A real smile. “Yeah,” he says, standing awkwardly by the record player. “Jonathan got me into them when I was younger. Um. I guess he liked stuff that had loud guitar and drums and stuff so, you know, I also– I like that stuff too.”

“Loud guitar,” Jim snorts. “Yeah, that sounds like your brother.”

“My dad– um,” Will says, hesitantly. “Lonnie. He hated loud music. The drums and the– I think that’s why Jonathan listened to it so much.”

Right, Jim thinks. Lonnie Byers, an infamously giant piece of work. That checks out. And then, another smaller voice pipes up with You’re the chief of police, Jim. You can get away with–

“Oh, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,” the song croons, “your tongue’s like poison–“

Will’s eyes widen. “Um,” he says, fiddling with the player. “Um, actually, let’s– I like this other song too, so–”

Jim bites back a laugh. “I like it,” he says, which isn’t a lie. It could grow on him. “The guitar. It’s nice.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Jim nods, and then, as the second song starts to pick up– “Will.”

“Hm?”

“Is this a love song?” he grins. “Your second favorite is also a love song?”

“I– no,” Will splutters, immediately turning a brilliant scarlet. “‘Just Like Heaven’ is not a–”

“–I kissed her face and kissed her–”

“Lots of kissing in these songs,” he points out, and Will groans.

“Oh my God, it’s not–! The album is literally called Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me–”

Jim grins. Teenage boys are complicated, maybe, but you can count on them all getting flustered the same way. “I’m just teasing, kid. Could you go get your mom, please, because this sauce is about to burn and I don’t trust myself with it.”

“I wouldn’t trust her with it either,” Will mutters, even as he peers around the corner into the hall. “Mom?”

If Joyce hears him laughing, then– whatever. Jim gets a pass. It was for a good cause.

[fuqsketti]

hi! hope youre doing well, may i request mike wheeler x reader where the reader plays with mike's hair :)

fireworks || mike wheeler

A/N tysm for the request! ik this might not be exactly what you had in mind but i hope you enjoy either way! <3

unedited

fluff fluff fluff

Despite how easy they stayed in touch, Y/n always found it difficult to be apart from her boyfriend.

After all the strange happenings, Y/n left Hawkins because her mother didn't want her to be part in any more of it.

Mike would give her a call whenever he had the chance, write her a ton of letters, sends her presents in the mail but it just wasn’t the same as getting to see him everyday, getting to hug him and kiss him, feeling those fireworks only Mike wheeler could give her.

She prayed he still felt those fireworks.

On very few occasions her mother would let mike visit her.

She had always thought those friends of yours from Hawkins were a bad influence, especially after the star court incident.

This time however, after months of begging, your mom finally caved and let YOU visit HIM in Hawkins.

To say Y/n was excited was an understatement, she got to see all her old friends and got to stay at her boyfriends house.

Nothing could make her fall break any better.

After that exhausting flight, all she wanted to do was collapse into her boyfriend's arms and get to smell his sweet cologne again.

As soon as her flight landed she rushed to the gate, scanning the crowd for her boyfriend.

And then she saw him.

Holding a sign that said ‘Y/N’ with nicely drawn flowers and hearts- Will must’ve helped him out with it.

He saw her the same time she saw him, throwing the sign aside and rushing towards her- She met him halfway and embraced him in a bear hug as he swept her off her feet, spinning her around a few times as he was just so excited that she was here.

Once they finished their little love fest he put her back down smiling at her warmly.

She then had the chance to look at him closely.

He had changed much since she last saw his face about a year ago; any baby fat had completely vanished, and he now had sharp cheekbones and jawline, thick eyebrows, and faint undereye bags.

But his mullet was the only thing that caused her to gasp.

“Oh wow.” Y/n chuckled as she started to play with the long hairs from the back of his head.

He sighed in content, he’d missed her touch.

“What?” He asked, his smile still not fading.

“Your hair.” She whispered, raking her hands through his long black hair.

He was so lucky, his hair was so thick and healthy- it made her jealous.

“O-Oh,” He nodded then seemed a bit insecure

“Do you like it?” He asked almost shyly.

“Y-Yeah.” She stuttered out, grabbing his face to make him turn his head- so she could see the full cut.

“It really suits you Mike.”

“You think so?“ He blushed, grabbing her hand away from his face so he could look at her again.

“I really do.” She nodded, her fingers combing through his black hair again, a gesture he seemed to enjoy more this time now that he knew she liked it.

“You look badass.”

Mike grinned; the word "badass" had never been used to describe him, but god did he love that she used it.

“Like one of those satan worshippers you see on the news.” She teased then laughed, He laughed along his hands finding their way to her hips.

“Oh wow- just the look I was going for.” He chuckled pulling her close to him.

“You really know how to compliment me.”

She took her hands away from his hair and put them around his neck, smiling up at him.

“I take pride in my ability.”

He sighed,

“You’re such a dork.” he whispered while staring down at her lips.

“A dork that you wanna kiss so bad right now.” She teased, although she was looking at his too.

“You’re right.” He murmured before moving in, kissing her.

Oh yeah. those fireworks are still there.

[lets-try-some-writing]

It would be cool to see the kids as sparklings Au like grown up or a time skip, of them fully grown into their frames and like roles, maybe Jack now a full medic apprentice and does his best to help.

I've actually been wanting to do something along these lines for a while. Here you go anon. Apologies for taking a billion years to get to this. I stewed on this request for far longer than required.

═════════════════

Through hell and high water, the battle was finally won. The Decepticons were scattered without their leader who abandoned the cause. Cybertron was restored at the sacrifice of a Prime, and the team were left to not only rebuild their shattered world, but also to raise the sparklings their commander left behind.

It was not an easy task by any means.

With so much to do and so little time, the sparklings largely fell to Bumblebee and Smokescreen to tend to. Ratchet was their official guardian, but with him needing to work on establishing government and training new medics, there simply wasn't enough Groons in a cycle for him to offer the sparklings the attention they needed. Arcee was entirely focused on working to establish law and order, Bulkhead and Wheeljack were devoted to getting refugees back to Cybertron, and Ultra Magnus was wrapped up in politics. Knockout did what he could considering he tended to the sparklings for a time was was rather attached. Even still, most of their care went to their elder siblings.

It was a struggle for the two younglings to take up the roles of Caretaker in place of their Sire and Ratchet. Rafael was simply inconsolable without Optimus and often wept bitterly, especially without Soundwave there either. Often Rafael cried himself into recharge, even making himself sick a few times with his refusal to consume energon. However given time and careful tending on Bumblebee's part, Rafael calmed and grew to be attached to his elder brother to try and fill the void. As years passed he remained with Bumblebee, never straying far from him for fear of losing what little family he had left.

Miko was a beast who refused to calm after Optimus's passing. First she did nothing but cry, although she did consume energon. Then she moved onto raging and throwing a fit, demanding her Sire be returned to her. Often her lashing out in anger led to her damaging her thrusters and wings as she fought bitterly to be released from Smokescreen's desperate hold. She continued with her wrathful behavior for years, never fully letting go until at last she was taken to receive therapy from a kind mech called Rung. After a while working with him, her anger faded away into simple sorrow, an emotion that she learned to allow to vanish with time and by spending time with Smokescreen.

Jack was a different story when it came to his reaction to the loss of his Sire. He was older than his younger siblings and he was able to understand the reasoning behind his Sire's passing. He knew that Optimus did what he did out of love and a desire to see their world restored. He knew that Optimus would have never left him and his siblings behind if there was any other choice, but that didn't stop the ache that came from his Sire being gone from hurting bitterly. He struggled to keep calm, not lashing out like Miko, but growing protective of what he had left to an unhealthy degree. He too was taken to Rung after his attempt to preserve his remaining ties led him to try and beat a mech half to death. And much like his sister, with time his pains faded into something more controlable.

Their memories returned to them with time, never fully settling but able to be recalled nonetheless. Rafael found himself uncaring of whatever ties he had while he was human. A small part of him missed the skies of Earth and the forests, but he was content to go wherever Bumblebee did. Miko too did not find much attachment in her human past and focused more on allowing her Cybertronian side to wash away her time as organic. Only Jack came to care for what he left behind, and thus only he took regular visits back to Earth to visit his human mother up until her dying day. Even then he still came back as often as he could to sit by her grave and lament the time they lost while also telling her of all he'd become.

Time passed, the sparklings changed, and before long they were grown enough to set out on their own paths. They were still bound together as Atlas, but rarely did they allow themselves to become one. Rafael remained with Bumblebee even when he was a youngling and fully capable of setting out on his own. He devoted himself to being the best aid he could be, using his outlier ability to read minds to be of as much assistance as possible to his brother. He grew to be highly intelligent and often handled communications and planning for Bumblebee when his brother came to Earth to complete his Decepticon recapture mission. The minicon refused to leave his brother alone, not after losing both his Sire to the Well and his secondary caretaker to the shadow zone. He was clingy and he knew it, but he found he simply did not care.

Miko left her family as soon as she was old enough. While yes it did pain her to leave Smokescreen who had taken to being the Caretaker she lacked, she needed to get away, to grow. Thus she chased after her human dream of becoming a true wrecker now that the option was viable. She joined up with the wreckers as soon as her wings were strong enough and began going out on missions the moment her training was complete. She joined a small group of fliers and did her best to leave the pains of her difficult family life behind. For the most part, it worked. She found companionship amongst the wreckers and reconnected with Bulkhead and Wheeljack, quickly finding her place in their group as their aerial backup. She was content, if still upset at times due to her lost Sire. Sometimes she found herself wandering back to Smokescreen on dark cycles where it hurt too much, but other than that, she was happy to serve and explore the skies. It was a far better life than the one she had as a human.

Jack was slow to leave his family and argued at length with Miko when she made her intention to leave clear. He refused to leave those he knew, too terrified to forget or to lose them to tread too far away. Thus with no other idea what to do, Smokescreen and Bumblebee reintroduced Jack to his sparklinghood passion in medicine. To hopefully force him out of his shell, they sent him to Ratchet. Jack was of course not initially very pleased, mainly since thinking on his sparklinghood dream only brought back memories of his Sire. But Ratchet was a tough teacher and kept Jack from thinking too hard by keeping him constantly moving. The elder medic had Jack studying throughout the entire day and hustling with supplies and tools whenever he wasn't. There was no time to brood in the ER, and thus by the time Jack was ready to graduate and become a fully fledged medic, the ache had largely worn off. He went on to serve directly under Ratchet as an apprentice and was happy to have a familiar face around.

Their lives were by no means easy without their Sire, but the sparklings grew, and they moved on. Given years they reconnected with the team, they forged new relationships, and by the time all three were fully grown, they were willing to move on. Miko found a potential partner in one of her fellow wreckers, Jack was getting ready to claim the title of Doctor, and Rafael was set to begin working in the Archives as a clerk until he could find a new post serving under a mech willing to host a minicon cassette. The team were kind to them, and they were happy.

Then a miracle happened.

It was such a quiet cycle when the team and the now fully grown sparklings gathered to celebrate Cybertron's restoration once more. They were happily discussing their activities when suddenly they felt a faint tug in their sparks, a call they had nearly forgotten after so very long. They froze, looking to each other in fear and concern thinking that perhaps one of their brothers was the one calling when a new mech entered the scene.

Their memories were faint after so long, but none of the three could ever forget those loving optics and that smile that always welcomed them home. Broad red shoulders, a towering form, and a comforting embrace that shielded them from all fear and suffering. It was him, their Sire. Optimus was back, and as he held his arms open for all of them, the former sparklings did not hesitate to leap into his embrace, all three weeping as their bonds reestablished and they felt nothing but love.

"I am here now my little lights. I am sorry I had to leave you for so long"

[wist-eri]

an entire blog post dedicated to Haru Allegro, her forte, and her dynamics with the rest of the NDA cast

will contain implied spoilers for the main game. hopefully nothing that’s too spoiler-y though, so read at your own risk i guess??

————————

how Haru’s forte works:

as i’ve disclosed before, Haru’s forte is soundproofing. meaning, she can select a space and configure it so:

anyone outside of that space would not be able to hear anything within that space, or:

anyone inside of that space would not be able to hear anything outside that space

or both.

in visuals, it looks like a faint, glowing line that either hovers around the space where her forte is activated, or makes a line around the interior of a room where her forte is activated. depends on what space she uses.

the line vanishes after a few seconds. when deactivating, it reappears again only to “break away” and fade out.

other than that, it’s pretty straightforward.

————————

Haru doesn’t have many opportunities to use her forte in an investigation setting; technically, she could use it for stealth or for eavesdropping, but those are for very rare cases.

which actually leads me into my next point: her main job is freelance arbitration. she really only takes cases if the WDO assigns them to her. though, with the assistance of her forte and her general expertise in negotiation, she’s very talented at her job and has gained a lot of recognition within the field.

not only that, if she’s genuinely investigating a case, she can sometimes take advantage of her connections to gather more information.

————————

alright, now that i have that set aside, here’s her dynamic with each individual member of the NDA:

Yuma Kokohead - they’re on good terms with each other, and are always willing to [talk to / exchange information with] each other on a daily basis. Haru finds herself surprised by Yuma a couple of times, both with his amount of intelligence and how often he gets into trouble. like, how.

while Yakou tells Yuma the most about Amaterasu Corporation, Haru is the one that provides the most information / background context about the WDO. interestingly enough, she seems to know more about the inner workings of the organization than the average member—for example, the process for scouting other detectives, the examinations during the training period, and much more.

though for some reason, Haru has never disclosed any information about her personal experience with the WDO—especially how she got recruited. but that should be the least of our worries, we have Kanai Ward’s greatest mystery to solve!

fun fact: Haru has tried to assist Yuma with his (disastrous) cooking once. But after realizing the only thing she could really help with was telling him when a shrimp was perfectly cooked, she decided to not get into that territory again. it’s not even like she likes shrimp that much; why is it the only thing she can work with, though? some sort of curse? (/j)

————————

Fubuki Clockford: at first, Haru was a little worried since Fubuki seemed a little naive and almost too optimistic to be a detective. however, she slowly turned to appreciating this optimism; it was definitely a nice turn from the professional atmosphere that naturally comes with her arbitration work.

meanwhile, Fubuki has somewhat designated Haru as her “detective-adventuring sidekick,” and often takes her on random trips around the city. though Haru usually has no idea where the hell Fubuki is about to take her, she ends up going anyways. besides, she honestly likes Kanai Ward’s scenery; it wouldn’t hurt to see it.

fun fact: Fubuki will end up saving Haru’s life at one point. :)

————————

Vivia Twilight: really not much to say here as it’s basically just Vivia being Vivia™️ and Haru being Haru™️. but it’s safe to say they definitely don’t mind each other’s presence. Haru surprisingly appreciates the aura of calm that Vivia gives off, and sometimes just sits close by if they find each other alone in the agency. on the other hand, Vivia finds Haru a bit chaotic at times (especially with a character i’ll be getting to in a few moments), but personally doesn’t mind it too much, thinking of it as an added accent to the “peace and quiet” of the NDA.

also, Haru sometimes understands Vivia’s metaphors. they seem to be very specific ones though

fun fact: Vivia once saw Haru dying her hair while in spectral projection form, and dropped in a hint about it when they were talking about a case later that day. Haru got really defensive about it for some reason

————————

Halara Nightmare: Haru was slightly intimidated by Halara upon introduction; to her, they seemed to be a “no-nonsense” type person (though not like she hasn’t worked with those types of people before). but over a few days, Haru begins to notice their level of sympathy and care for others, which changes her opinion of them. meanwhile, Halara finds Haru a bit dense at times—but is always surprised by how quickly she pieces certain methods/tricks together the moment she clears her original misconceptions. though, Haru’s still slightly trailing behind Halara in her processing speed.

(yakou’s probably even further behind somewhere in the back /j)

fun fact: one time, Halara asked for a relatively large sum of money for one menial task (probably like 20k shien) when they were solving a case together, and Haru almost paid on the spot as if it was nothing. Halara was taken back for a moment, especially since Haru seemed so nonchalant about it (she wasn’t). eventually they sighed and gave Haru a 75% discount.

————————

Desuhiko Thunderbolt: okay, this is their entire dynamic:

story over. thank you for coming to my tedtalk

but yeah—Desuhiko and Haru have unrivaled amounts of “argumentative sibling” energy towards each other. in this storyline i decided to tone down Desuhiko’s behavior towards women a tiny bit, in exchange for upgrading his superstar complex—which worked perfectly. Desuhiko grabs at any attempt to pull out his electric bass and start playing, but Haru has to mute him to prevent him from blasting music throughout the entire agency.

they constantly banter any time they’re in the same space. Desuhiko is often the first to begin raising his voice during their arguments. but it takes a while for Haru to get to that point; she often sticks to small (and very blunt) retorts for most of the time. at times, their arguments escalate to full-on competitions—though surprisingly, both of them are relatively smart and don’t do anything that would cause serious harm.

but past their argumentative banter, Desuhiko and Haru are actually the closest compared to the other pairings i talked about. one is usually the first to notice when the other seems off.

(this may be foreshadowing)

and as the narrative develops, we see the bond between them strengthen (though they still won’t stop arguing). if the game were in japanese Desuhiko would start calling Haru “aibou” (which is partner,, but like,, with a more familial connotation in some contexts??) by the end of the story. but they still won’t stop arguing :)

fun fact: Haru actually still keeps one of Desuhiko’s voice changers after they had an entire unhinged competition about “who can act like Yakou in front of Yuma for longer” (which stemmed from an entire conversation between the two that i may talk about at one point 😭). she uses it to scare Desuhiko from time to time

————————

okay, finally:

Yakou Furio: despite being “superior” and “subordinate” in work terms, they seem to be pretty close with each other (in more of a familial context). at first, Haru genuinely wonders how the hell this guy got certified by the WDO, but soon notices his emotional intelligence / empathy and goes “oh. yeah that makes sense” (even when it comes to Haru, who’s a talented negotiator and supposedly knows how to act in a way that satisfies both parties, it’s hard to really grip that emotional aspect for her and being able to understand how others truly feel. Yakou does this as if it’s second nature; which is quite unique for a detective and something Haru really appreciates). (i have evidence for this. i swear)

Haru sometimes works at the agency until late with Yakou (+ other coworkers); and after a long day, sometimes they all just throw everything and head to the bar together.

though, the outing is really just a few hours of Yakou complaining about his subordinates while drunk.

she can still tell that Yakou really cares about the other detectives, though. i mean, although she doesn’t actually listen to his advice and goes on to directly run into the Peacekeepers regardless, the chief has assisted Haru in more ways than one.

fun fact: Yakou is somewhat confused with Haru’s food preference, especially with how much it contrasts with her appearance. in fact, they had an entire moment where Haru admitted she didn’t like meat buns in general because the buns were always too sweet for her and Yakou was just like “????? what is going on with your tongue”

• • •

also, another fun fact.

…they’re narrative foils.

——————

oh my god that was a lot of info. whoops. sorry

but yeah uhhh that’s it from me for now—my inbox is open if you want to ask and/or theorize about her 🫠

[dearheart42regenerated]

gritting my teeth and sharing this in the tag in hopes that it'll help me manifest actually FINISHING this fic.......

--

“I’m still not buying this!” Chuck popped out from the passenger’s side and leaned over the door, pointing an accusing finger at her. “How do you really know about Mutt?” he demanded.

Capri blinked and frowned, giving him a once-over as she crossed her arms. “How do you know about Mutt, Goldilocks?”

Texas cracked up at the nickname, slapping Dutch on the back. “Goldilocks! That’s a good one, hahaha…” 

“The name’s Chuck, for your information,” huffed Goldilocks, “and I’ve been hanging with Mikey since elementary school. Where have you been his whole life?”

“Elementary school, huh?” Something bitter flickered in her eyes. “That must’ve been nice…”

Mike tried to calm his friend, slightly taken aback by how riled up he was. “Easy, Chuckles, let’s just–”

“No! I’m not gonna sit back and let some random stranger put you through this all over again, dude! It’s not okay!”

“Look, I appreciate it, but–”

“All she has is a story about your bobblehead. That’s not actual proof she’s your sister!”

“He’s right.” Dutch’s eyes were wary. “Anyone could make up a childhood memory like that. How do we know Kane isn’t paying this one off like he did with your fake dad?”

“Let’s at least hear her out first, guys,” said Julie, exasperated. “You can’t demand ‘real proof’ and then not give her a chance at all! Maybe she–”

“I still say she’s an evil clone!” Texas declared.

The arguing devolved into chaos, everyone speaking over each other to the point where nothing coherent could be heard anymore.

“Heartwarming reunion over, I guess,” Capri muttered, unfastening her thigh holster. She pulled out a laser pistol and fired two blasts into the air. “EVERYONE. SHUT UP.”

Everyone shut up.

She sighed and holstered the gun, glaring at nobody in particular. “Sweet baby gumdrops. Okay. FIRST of all…” She turned to Mike. “You don’t need to take my word for it. I wouldn’t take my word for it, either.” Her com-screen popped up, glowing fiery orange. She scrolled, selected a file with the words “CAPRI C. GENETIC PROFILE” hovering above it, and flicked it over to him. “There you go. The DNA can speak for itself.”

Mike took it but barely glanced at it, still looking at her as if she were a hologram herself – something that could disappear any second. Chuck just stared at the unopened file from the other side of the car, unable to hide his own curiosity.

“Secondly. Goldilocks.”

He jumped and straightened his posture with a gulp. (Texas snickered.)

Her boots thumped in the silence as she strode towards him, cold annoyance in her voice. “For your information, I wasn’t talking about Mutt to prove I’m Mike’s sister. I brought it up to find out if he’s my brother.” She fished in one of her pockets and pulled out a well-worn photograph, dangling it in front of his nose. “There could be any number of ‘Mike Chiltons’ running around and I haven’t been here in a while. I wanted to be sure.” 

“Whoa,” he murmured, one hand reaching for it. 

Capri snatched it away, eyes hard as steel, and walked back around to Mike. Her expression softened when she handed the photo to him. “I am sure, now.”

It showed a little girl with messy hair and an even messier t-shirt – face scrunched up in a grin, one front tooth missing – and a wide-eyed baby dangling in her arms like a kidnapped puppy, clutching Mutt in small chubby hands, attempting to shove the top of its bobbing head in his mouth. The colors were faded, the edges bent and torn; but the happiness captured in it was so vibrant it made his chest ache. 

Any doubts he had left vanished, replaced by dizzying questions he couldn’t find words for. He had a sister. This was real. (What happened?)

“Thirdly!” said Capri, giving the other Burners a smile that bordered on a snarl. “I’m so very sorry if I’m being rude here, it's just that I spent the last seventy-two hours hopping city-to-colony and crossing a gazillion miles of mutants, raiders, boiling heatwaves and radiation pits to get back to Motorcity. Totally for funsies, of course. It's not like I’ve been trying to track down the only family I have left or anything.” 

Everyone shifted uncomfortably.

“Point being, I’ve had a long flippin’ day! So how about you nosy little ferrets take that file I just sent, run the DNA test, confirm I’m actually not a lying scumbag, and then y’all can decide on how to torture me next. What do you think?” she growled, shooting “Goldilocks” an incinerating look. “That sound alright to you? Chuck?”

Chuck all but melted into a whimpering puddle of terror and compliance, stammering out a vaguely affirmative reply as he stumbled over to where the unopened file still hovered.

“Great! Glad we could get that sorted out.” 

Everything in her demeanor dripped with spite…but Mike was beginning to notice the dark circles under her eyes, the heaviness in her shoulders. How many miles had she really crossed to get here? How many hours had she spent combing the dark labyrinth of Motorcity to find him? (Based on nothing but a hope that it might be him?)

And then they had all assumed the worst of her. 

Capri must be exhausted.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She stormed off towards her motorcycle. “I’m gonna check my bike for damage and maybe also secretly plot to sell out your leader to the guy who destroyed my whole childhood. Holler if you need me.”

[cecilysass]

Pause (4/11)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 4: The Clothes I Died In

Scully sleeps exceptionally well in Mulder’s mysterious new bed.

So well that by the time she wakes up and sits up, bright white fingers of light are reaching across the room. Each finger is shot through with the glitter of swirling dust motes. This room needs to be cleaned, and badly.

Lifting her head and looking over the laundry and books scattered across the room, she finds herself again looking for the woman’s green sweater, the one lying on his bed yesterday. She wonders what Mulder did with it. It had vanished last night after he changed the sheets, and she imagines he must have stuffed it hastily into some drawer. Why did he hide it? Who does the sweater belong to?

She closes her eyes again. Mulder’s bed is comfortable. His sheets are soft and high quality, probably very expensive. It seems a significant step up from sleeping on the couch, and she can’t help but wonder what would have caused such a change. Cracking her eyes open, Scully trails her fingers over the smooth gray pillowcase.

Last night, before sleeping, she had burrowed her nose into the pillow experimentally after all. His distinctive scent wasn’t there; the sheets he’d put on the bed were too clean. She had simply turned over, feeling needy and ashamed.

His clock says 9:36, rather late for her usual sleep habits, at least in her apparently out-of-date memory. She leans her head back and forth side to side to stretch her neck and listens for a moment for any sounds in the rest of the apartment, but it seems quiet.

She contemplates getting up and taking a shower, but she’s discouraged by not having any clean clothes to change into. Right now she is wearing an old faded Quantico tee of Mulder’s, but she isn’t sure how many more items of clean clothing she can find in his apartment, much less those that can be sensibly worn by her.

She flops back down onto the pillow, closing her eyes again for a moment. As long as she stays here, she doesn’t have to go out there and face the reality of the situation. She doesn’t even know how to talk to a Mulder who doesn’t think she’s Scully. Or to encounter a world that has accumulated three additional years she can’t remember.

From his living room she hears the distant sound of a knock at the door. Scully sits up like a shot.

She hears the metallic clicks of Mulder unlocking and unlatching.

Who could it be? Who would he be letting in? She feels the sense of nauseating vertigo again, a little knife’s edge of fear that he might have betrayed her and called someone to take her away, to apprehend her as an impostor. She doesn’t hear anything clearly right away, and then she hears voices, speaking quietly.

“…very confused, very upset. The memory gap I told you about. But no, I don’t think she’s lying.” Mulder’s voice, hushed.

“Well, I want to see her. Right now. I’ll know if it’s her.”

It’s a whisper, but Scully recognizes it. Her mother’s voice. She clenches the comforter tightly, trying to hold back her full reaction. She wants to hear what they say.

“Maggie— I just don’t want you to… you have to remember this is very possibly not real. A convincing illusion. I don’t want it to be… painful.”

“I’m not a delicate flower, Fox.”

“I know, I know. It’s just it’s… so goddamn…” His voice drops down into a mumble and Scully can’t hear.

“Oh Fox,” her mother’s voice says, intense. “You aren’t a delicate flower either. You’re going to be okay, no matter what, you understand?”

More mumbling. “… And it will be just like it starts all over… I just don’t know if I can…” His voice is so broken.

“No. Nonsense.” Maggie says something else quietly that Scully can’t hear.

“She doesn’t know…” His voice drops away again. “…nothing about that last year, nothing about—”

“I understand, Fox.”

“…not really her.”

“You need to let me see her.”

Scully is already scrambling out of bed, sick with anxiety. She looks around for her jeans from yesterday to pull on under Mulder’s tee-shirt, and is just pulling them on when she hears him knock on the bedroom door.

“Hey,” he says through the door. “Are you awake? Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” she says, rapidly finger combing her hair, although she’s never before worried about looking especially polished with theses two people closest to her in the world.

He steps in the door, closing it behind him, and she notices that although he has on his pajamas pants and a tee-shirt, it doesn’t look like he’s slept much at all since last night. His face looks more haggard, not less, and the eggplant-colored half moons under his eyes more pronounced.

His eyes fall on her clothes. His jaw sets.

“What?” she says, looking down. “Oh, I borrowed your shirt. I had nothing to sleep in.”

“I noticed,” he says shortly.

���I’m sorry,” she says, taken aback by his reaction. “I don’t have any clothes.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s fine.” He rubs the back of his neck with a low sigh. “Your mom is already here. I called her this morning—I thought it better be me that broke the news. It’s kind of a shock. She’s eager to see you. Are you ready to talk to her?”

Scully nods, her forehead creased. She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

He regards her. “You’re nervous.”

“Of course,” Scully replies pointedly, her voice lowered. “I want her to believe it’s me. It will hurt if she doesn’t.”

Her eyes land on his face in time to see the shadow move over his features, and she regrets saying it. She doesn’t understand the full story yet, why he is so convinced she is dead. But she can hear the raw suffering in his voice as he talks to her mom. Whatever he has been through, maybe she should tread more carefully.

“Yeah,” he says with no expression. “Well, let’s go see what she says.”

Every muscle in Scully’s body tenses as she comes out of Mulder’s bedroom. Her mother sits straight and expectantly on the edge of his couch, and hops up right away when Scully walks out.

“Mom,” Scully says, her voice very small.

Her mother’s hair has more streaks of gray. She wears silver earrings Scully has never seen before, but the silver locket around her neck is recognizable: it’s one Scully bought her a few years back for Christmas.

Maggie Scully’s hand is clasped tight over her mouth, her knuckles white. Her eyes are saucer wide, fixed on Scully’s face.

“Hi, Mom,” Scully tries again, stepping forward.

Her mother makes a stifled sound. She’d told Mulder she wasn’t a delicate flower, but she looks fragile, like she is made of fine bone china.

“I know you’re shocked,” Scully says. She wants to come across as calm, as certain, but her smarting eyes are already betraying her. “I just can’t explain any of this rationally, except to say I’m somehow here. Alive.” She wipes the beginning of tears away impatiently.

Maggie, her hand still pressed over her mouth, takes a step towards her, her eyes now rapidly moving up and down Scully’s body as though she is taking in every detail.

In the background Mulder paces back and forth like an animal in a cage.

“It’s just hard to prove I’m myself,” Scully continues, her voice unnaturally high. “Do you want to ask me any questions? I can answer questions about when I was little if you want. About San Diego. About Charlie. About Melissa.”

Maggie removes her hand from her mouth now and blinks, her eyes wet.

“Please ask me anything,” Scully says. “I want to show you that I’m—”

She stops when Maggie reaches out and touches her shoulder, her fingers making contact through the fabric of Mulder’s tee shirt.

“It’s all right,” her mother says. Her voice is gentle. “It’s all right.”

Fear chills Scully. “What do you mean, Mom?”

“I see you, Dana,” her mother says. “I know it’s you.”

Her arms stretch outwards, and she folds Scully into a compressed embrace, so tight Scully can barely breathe. At first Scully is too shocked to let herself relax, still too taut with anxiety. But then she feels her muscles relaxing, her body sinking into her mother’ familiar arms.

This shouldn’t feel so good, Scully thinks. It’s so simple, the most basic of human interactions. Being known.

“Oh Mom,” Scully whispers. “Oh thank God.”

“That’s my line,” Maggie says, laughing a little, her voice muffled in Scully’s hair. “It’s a miracle. That’s the only possible explanation.” She pulls back to look at Scully again, pushing strands of hair away from her daughter’s face, her eyes wet.

“I hate not understanding what’s happened,” Scully tells her in frustration.

Her mother smiles rapturously at her, cupping her face in her hands, holding her cheeks so firmly she will probably leave handprints.

“I’m sure you do,” Maggie says, her voice thick. “But — we've thought for all this time that we’d lost you. This is just so wonderful. It’s … unbelievable.”

Scully remembers, then, about Mulder, who is now standing in the doorway to the room watching, gripping the door frame above with his hands, his expression tense and tight.

He sees her looking at him, and he smiles a small, closed-lip smile.

“Unbelievable,” he repeats. His tone of voice gives very little away.

***

Scully doesn’t observe it out loud, but she notices that Maggie stands at Mulder’s stove making scrambled eggs as though she has done it many times. She has brought the ingredients for breakfast with her, correctly assuming he will have nothing, but she sets to work in his kitchen like it is second nature.

In Scully’s memory, her mother has been to Mulder’s apartment maybe 2-3 times for visits of very limited duration — to pick Scully up when she was sick, to drop off something Scully needed before a trip out of town. Maggie has never, in her recollection, been in his kitchen.

Mulder and her mother have seemingly become much closer since her supposed death. That idea unnerves Scully, and she isn’t sure why.

“You cleaned up, Fox,” Maggie had exclaimed as she started setting out ingredients. “All the dishes are washed.”

Mulder, sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands, had looked up and given Scully, standing in the kitchen doorway, a quick, significant look.

“I washed them last night,” she’d admitted to her mother, strangely guilty. “I was anxious and needed something to occupy myself.”

“Must have been quite a job,” Maggie had said in wonder. “But it looks so much tidier.”

“Yeah,” Mulder had said. “It does.” He rose to join Scully and Maggie in the kitchen, barely looking at her as he walked past. He’d eyed the counters of the kitchen warily, like it was a room that had been ransacked.

Now, as Maggie euphorically updates Scully on family news while moving around making toast and frying bacon, Mulder and Scully watch her, standing awkwardly side by side with cups of coffee in their hands.

“Tara has been talking about bringing Matty and the baby out here for a visit,” Maggie says, lifting slices of bacon from the pan to a plate covered with a paper towel. “I wonder if now they would consider coming sooner rather than later. I know they’ll be over the moon when they hear you’re back.”

Scully hears something that sounds like a tiny sigh coming from Mulder. It stokes a hot flare of anger in her. It’s one thing for him not to accept that it’s her; it’s another for him to begrudge her mother’s acceptance, her family’s joy.

Maggie doesn’t seem to hear him at all. “Do you mind cheese in your eggs, Fox? I know Dana likes it.”

“Cheese sounds good,” Mulder says dully.

“Bill might be able to get some leave and come, too,” Maggie continues, pushing the spatula around the pan. “It would be so good for him if he could. You have to understand—it was just so hard on him. The funeral, I mean.”

“Hard on Bill?” Scully says, more disbelief than she intends.

“Yes,” Maggie says. “Oh, he didn’t behave very well. Very poorly, in fact.” She turns and her eyes briefly fall on Mulder, who is looking intently away, his face stone. “But it was hard on your brother.”

Scully nods slowly, absorbing that information. There are so many questions she wants to ask here that she hardly knows where to start. There is so much that is strange about this. But it seems logical to start in the most obvious place.

“How did I die? What were the circumstances?”

She senses an uncomfortable shift in Mulder’s body adjacent to her. Her mother is facing away, dividing scrambled eggs between three plates, each crowned with buttered toast and several slices of bacon. No one responds for a moment.

Maggie turns around with heaping plates, handing one to Scully and one to Mulder.

“Let’s sit and discuss it,” Maggie says.

Sitting at Mulder’s dining room table requires pushing aside some of his piles of mail and papers, but they manage to clear a place for their plates. Mulder sits across from Scully and Maggie sits next to her with her own plate and cup of coffee.

Maggie’s eyes flash up expectantly to Mulder’s, holding a few seconds. He just stares back, his face a closed door.

Maggie turns to Scully, squeezes her arm.

“It was a Friday,” Maggie says, after a moment. “You had taken off work that morning. We had breakfast together, the two of us. Bagels at my house. We went to get our toenails done. A pedicure. We—we hadn’t seen each other in a while, and we were catching up…on everything. It was nice.”

Her mother’s voice is calm, but Scully notices that her hand, as she lifts her coffee cup to take a sip, is shaking slightly. She doesn’t even want to look at Mulder across the table. In her peripheral vision she sees his head angled downward.

“You were leaving my house to drive over here. You and Fox… had somewhere to be in the afternoon.” Maggie’s voice wavers a little now, too. “You were worried about being back in time.”

Abruptly, Mulder stands up, his chair scooting back with a screech.

“Fox,” Maggie says soothingly. “Fox, it’s okay. She’s right here. Eat breakfast.”

“Your car was hit,” Mulder says gruffly. “By a driver who had started the weekend early and ran a red light.”

“And you’re sure it was—” Scully begins.

“It was your car.” Mulder’s voice is short. He sounds almost angry. “There was a body to ID. It wasn’t especially recognizable, but … you had on the clothes you’d been wearing. Your cross necklace.”

Scully hasn’t thought of her necklace. She reaches up to feel for it around her neck, but she feels only bare skin. “I’m not wearing my necklace now,” she whispers. She’s troubled by this realization, that she hasn’t noticed her necklace’s absence.

“Yep. I noticed that,” Mulder says flatly. He sits back down, picking up the piece of toast and taking a determined bite.

“So possibly someone was faking her death, Fox?” Maggie asks. “Wanting you to think she was dead? Trying to convince you with the necklace?”

If that is true, thinks Scully, then where have I been since? Who kidnapped me? Who has been keeping me? Why have they returned me now? What has become of my memory?

Mulder shrugs a shoulder, taking another bite of toast. “I guess that’s a possibility,” he says. “But something more messed up than that is happening here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her clothes.” He swallows his mouthful. “She showed up yesterday in the same clothes.”

“The same clothes as what?” Scully says sharply.

“The pink tee-shirt, the jeans. The sandals,” Mulder says. He slows down his bites, looking down at his plate. “It’s what you were wearing that morning. When you went out with your mom. When I went to ID you.”

Scully puts down her fork. “Oh.” She looks at her lap, at the jeans she is wearing. She imagines Mulder going to identify her body, the body that wasn’t especially recognizable. That idea makes her want to throw up. “The clothes I died in.”

“You didn’t die,” Maggie says firmly. “You’re here.”

“Wearing the same clothes,” she says. “After a year has passed. That’s disturbing—like someone is intentionally sending a message.”

She isn’t sure why she keeps looking up at Mulder when she knows it will be painful. His coldness is like a small, sharp knife continually rooting into her side.

“Exactly,” he says.

“You think I could be a clone? Like the Samanthas?” Scully says, somehow keeping her voice steady and professional. “That’s your theory?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don't really have a theory. But something is wrong here—with this situation, with you.”

Another little rotation of the knife. Scully wills her face not to react.

“Fox,” her mother says, her voice very soft and pleading. “Fox.”

“Why does your memory stop in 1998?“ He seems to be lost in thought. “That seems significant. If someone were trying to … recreate Scully for whatever purpose. Why wouldn’t they recreate her memory until closer to the day she died?”

Maggie’s lips purse, and she sips her coffee with a tiny scowl. Scully can tell she doesn’t like this doubt being cast on the reality of her daughter’s miracle resurrection. Mulder doesn’t notice, staring at his food pensively.

“What happened immediately after I was stung by the bee?” Scully asks.

Mulder looks startled. “You were infected by a virus. Kidnapped. Taken to Antarctica. I found you there in an alien craft, gave you the vaccine, we escaped before it flew off.”

Scully frowns, overwhelmed by the epic, unbelievable scale of this story. By the casual way he describes the drastic steps he took to save her. She glances at her mother, who seems unperturbed. Perhaps she’s heard this whole elaborate tale before.

“Wait.” He tilts his head. “But that could be it. That’s when they last had easy access to you. They could have had an opportunity to tap into your memories then. They could have extracted them somehow— made some kind of back up, which they could… reinstall into another model.”

The twist of the little dagger again and again, deeper and deeper. The volume of her heart increases, until she hears it thumping in her ears like she is in active danger, like the dagger could hit her heart.

“Fox,” protests Maggie again, more firmly this time.

“That could be why you only remember up until that moment,” he continues. “It���s all of Scully’s memories they had access to.”

Her hurt makes her feel venomous. Mean-spirited. “Or maybe,” she says in a careful tone, “it was a decoy Dana Scully you rescued from Antarctica. Maybe it has been a clone of me with you these past few years, and I’m actually the original.”

Those words find their target. Direct hit. His face twitches, then shuts down all reaction again, but she can see a crease in between his eyes. She knows he is seriously considering the possibility of what she’s said, and that he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it at all.

“In any case, I’ll go home with my mom after breakfast, Mulder,” Scully says frostily. “I think it would be best. It obviously bothers you to have me here.”

He looks up, and she sees something like surprise and sadness in those familiar green eyes. As though he hasn’t really realized how horribly he is behaving. That quickly hardens into resignation.

“I don’t think you can do that.” He rubs his temples with his thumbs. “We don’t understand enough here. You could be… there could be something dangerous at play here. I think you should stay here for the time being. And limit going out.”

Scully again feels tears spring to her eyes. “Am I under guard?”

“No,” he says. “Nothing like that. This is about being careful until we understand more.”

“And how exactly will we understand more?“

“We’ll run a DNA test. It won’t tell us much if you’re a clone, but maybe there are other genetic indications we can look for. We can have the rental car checked out.”

Scully nods bitterly. She doesn’t like the idea of being a prisoner in Mulder’s apartment, having to come face to face with his painful aloofness. But at very least she needs him as a partner, as an ally in looking for answers.

“Was there anything else on you yesterday that might give us more information? In your pockets? On your body? Anything that could be construed as a message?” Mulder asks.

She shakes her head. “I had my keys with me. Were those found on my body?”

Mulder and Maggie exchange looks. “As a matter of fact, no,” Mulder says. “We were told they were lost with the car.”

“I had no holster, no ID,” she says.

“You weren’t armed when you left that day,” Mulder says. “You had the day off. You had a purse, but it was returned to us.”

“I do have a cut on my left hand. I suppose it could be some kind of defensive wound, although it’s in an awkward location.” She extends her hand to show him the thin red line.

Mulder, sitting across from her, squints at the cut. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s on the inside of your hand, closest to you. Hard to view it as a defensive wound.”

Suddenly Maggie’s hand clamps over her wrist. With wide eyes she lifts Scully’s hand closer to her face to examine it. “It’s a cut from a bread knife,” she says softly.

“How could you know that, Mom?”

“Because I saw you do it.” Maggie shakes her head disbelievingly, still staring at the hand. “I swear I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“That morning, the morning you died, you were cutting your bagel at my house, holding it with your left hand and slicing with your right. We were talking, and you cut yourself. It bled… you told me bagel cutting injuries were surprisingly common in emergency rooms.”

Scully pulls her hand back to look at it with her pathologist’s eyes. It is in the right place for a bagel slicing injury, and it is the right size to have been produced by a bread knife.

“But it can’t be the same cut,” Scully says. “After a year? Anything that minor would have healed long ago. That’s not possible.”

Mulder doesn’t move, staring at her hand.

“Let me see your toenails,” Maggie says sharply. “Show me.”

Scully withdraws her feet from under Mulder’s table to the floor in front of her mother, sitting next to her.

“I noticed before that they’re painted some kind of pink,” Scully says. “It’s not something I feel like I would pick out.”

“The color is Ballet Slipper,” her mother whispers. She leans down and touches Scully’s foot lightly with her fingertip. “You did pick it out. You picked the color out for both of us when we got our toenails done that morning at the spa. It matches your shirt. And our toenails matched… but mine are long gone, of course.”

“You’re sure it’s the same color?” Scully says.

“I’m sure,” Maggie says. “I had ample time to contemplate it after you died.”

Scully feels her stomach become unsettled again—thinking of her mother looking at her pale pink toenails, remembering her dead daughter and their matching pedicures. And yet her daughter isn’t dead, and my pedicure is apparently still perfectly preserved a year later.

Her own hands begin to creep over her jeans, her face, her hair, as though she could somehow feel by touch what was true and authentic about her own body. “I don’t understand,” she says. “How could these things be unchanged after so long?”

When she looks to Mulder, he has locked eyes with her mother with an intense expression on his face she doesn’t understand.

“Fox,” her mother says urgently. “You have to—"

“No.” His voice is low and absolute. “No.”

Scully watches her mother’s mouth set into a line. She knows the look well. Whatever they’re talking about, Maggie has made her decision.

“You get some time,” her mother says. “But then …” She raises her eyebrows. “I’ll give you some time, Fox. But this is not all up to you.”

Scully’s eyes bounce back and forth between them. “Time for what?”

They don’t answer, still holding one another’s stare.

“What’s not up to him?” Scully says, her voice rising.

Maggie looks at her, new lines visible around her eyes. Her face transforms quickly into a smile. “Time to accept you being who you obviously are,” she says. “It’s not up to him to decide.”

“I’m trying,” Mulder says creakily, his eyes still on Maggie.

Scully takes a slow breath. Something is off here. And she hates it. She hates the feeling that there is important information she doesn’t know—that there are secrets her mother and Mulder, of all people, would conspire to keep from her. Her mood, already bleak, sours further.

“Oh Dana,” her mother says. She rises from her chair and puts her arms around Scully again, holding Scully’s head tight to her. “Please don’t worry about any of this too much. The important thing is that you’re here with us again. Try to focus on that.”

“I know, Mom,” Scully says, her cheek pressed against her mother’s abdomen. She doesn’t say what she is thinking, which is that she herself wasn’t aware of being gone at all, so being back isn’t the same giant relief for her that it is for her mother.

Her mom releases her to gaze at her face again. “We’ll convince Fox. You’ll see.”

Mulder says nothing, moodily pushing his eggs around with his fork.

“He’s been through a lot,” whispers Maggie, like he’s not right there, like he can’t hear her. “It’s natural he is going to be hesitant.”

Again Scully has mutinous, angry thoughts: You’ve been through a lot, too, Mom, and you had no trouble accepting me. And Mulder is someone who routinely accepts killer cockroaches and reincarnation and murder motivated by astrological phenomena.

“I’m sure,” Scully says coolly, looking down at her own plate. She decides to change the subject to something more practical. “Mom, do you know if I have any clothes left anywhere? I have nothing to change into.”

“I’m afraid we gave away most of your things,” Maggie says, distraught. “I may have a few boxes left. But I could also pick you up a few things from the store today. Would that be helpful?”

“I’d appreciate it,” Scully says. “Just basics. Something to sleep in, a few changes of clothes, underwear. I could use basic toiletries, too.”

“I’ll go right after we do breakfast dishes. Size 4, right?” her mother says. “32B?”

Scully’s eyes flash to Mulder again, instinctively self-conscious about announcing her bra size in front of him. But he doesn’t react to hearing it at all or even seem to process what she’s said. He stares at his plate, still idly moving his fork back and forth.

“Well,” Scully says. She lowers her voice to speak to her mother. “I think I’ve been gaining a bit in my more recent life, because these jeans are slightly small. Maybe size up everything a little, or look for something loose-fitting.”

She’s unprepared for the awkward silence that follows that seemingly benign statement. Maggie just blinks at her, then clears her throat. “Oh,” she says. “Of course, Dana. I think I can handle that.”

Across the table Mulder is now looking up, his eyes like burning coals. He tosses back and forth in his seat.

“I’m going out for a bit,” he announces suddenly.

Scully watches in astonishment as he stands abruptly, his chair scraping backwards. He clomps across the apartment, picks up his keys, and walks out the door without another word.

[yandere--stuck]

Oh please please pplleeaassee do Yandere Cupcakes!Pinkie Pie headcanons!! :D

Sorry this took so long, I hope you like 'em! ^^

---

🧁Nopony knew why, but for some reason, ponies seemed to be vanishing from thin air. No reason for them to have left, no mention of a move, no clues as to where they had gone. Nothing. But, there was no reason to suspect foul play, either. I mean, this was Equestria, for pony's sake! Stuff like that just didn't happen here. At least, that's what everyone thought until Rainbow Dash went missing. Friend to many, aspiring future Wonderbolt, known far and wide for her speed and precision, the Element of Loyalty… It was impossible for someone like that to just vanish. The loss was felt far and wide and, needless to say, everybody in town was paranoid. You included.

🎉 Thankfully, though, Pinkie Pie was always there to try to cheer everybody up. She put up a brave front, but everyone could tell she was fighting against the pain. After all, Pinkie was friends with everyone in Ponyville! And she and Rainbow were so close… She was always at the forefront of search parties, going out all night just for a sign. And then, the next day, she'd throw an open-invite party with freshly baked cupcakes to lift morale. You felt honored to know someone so compassionate.

🧁 Slowly, more ponies disappeared. Never too many and never in a close proximity of time, just enough time for new ponies to move to town to fill their place, only to strike again once the hurt had started to fade. And in this time, you really grew close with Pinkie. You'd been friends before this, of course, (Everyone was friends with Pinkie), but never as close as the Elements were with each other. You'd stay down at Sugarcube Corner most of the day and help Pinkie in the kitchen, talking together for hours and hours. She seemed really interested in what you were passionate about, asking you about everything you liked in great detail and… Pulling out a pen and paper to write down? And you thought Pinkie was affectionate before, but now you could barely go a minute without Pinkie giving you a hug or just wrap a hoof around you.

🎉 Some nights, you'd have sleepovers together! It was a lot safer than sleeping alone, and a lot more fun! And Pinkie really opened up to you then, seeming to no longer feel the need to perform and be the funniest pony in the room. She hugged you, mane even deflating a bit as she confessed to you how stressed out and worried she was, how she hoped everything would work out okay. And despite how it hurt to know your friend was in distress, you also couldn't help but feel giddy. Pinkie trusted you enough to open up to you like this! It never lasted long, though, and soon she'd be joking and dancing and zooming around the room. As you laughed at her antics, you thought about how lucky you were to have a friend like Pinkie Pie. You didn't know what you'd do without her… Good thing no ponies ever went missing the nights you stayed over.

🧁 But, on one occasion, Pinkie seemed even more excited than usual. She was especially eager for you to try a new batch of cupcakes she had made especially for you, and how could you resist? As always, the cake base was light and fluffy and the frosting creamy and sweet, with just a hint of something else - whatever Pinkie calmed to her secret ingredient that made them so good. You were excited to have another fun night with your friend, but soon found yourself feeling… Extremely tired. Too tired to keep your eyes open, in fact. And your friend is just so sweet and doting as she leads you to bed.

🎉 You woke somewhere dark and cold. Your limbs ache and your head swims as you look around, your dizzy, blurry vision only just able to make out that they were strapped down by your sides. You squirmed and writhed but to no avail. You were stuck. Where- where were you? Where was everybody? 

"Ah! Yay! You're finally awake!" A familiar voice sang. 

And Pinkie Pie stepped into view. Your eyes bugged out as your foggy mind began to clear and process what was happening - and what she was wearing. A dress made up of different cutie marks, marks belonging to the many ponies who'd gone missing. Broken, lifeless wings sewn into the back of her dress. And a necklace of multicolored sawed-off horns that clicked together as the mare bounced in delight. This… It couldn't be true! This had to be a nightmare!

🧁 She explained that it was all her work. Everypony going missing? It was sad, yeah, but sometimes you gotta do the hard thing in order to do what's right! How else would she be able to make such crazy good cupcakes? As the pieces fall into place in your mind, Pinkie continues her explanation. Your number had finally come up - but don't worry! She loved you way too much to let you now! Pinkie had instead promised herself that when your number came up, she'd finally confess her true feelings to you and take you all for herself! Now, life could be a party forever and ever. And don't worry about anypony finding you and taking you away from her. Who'd expect an Element of Harmony and Ponyville's premier party pony to do something like this? And she'd had Sugarcube Corners basement soundproofed for a long time now, and it's not like the Cakes ever came down here. You'd be together with her forever…