#I guess technically mind horror?

[ursa-tan]

Metamorphosis

No ship, just fluff!

Requested: No

When Howdy closes the Bugdega unexpectedly, all of his neighbours are extremely worried. The reader is a puppet in this, ever so slightly shorter than Frank and Eddie, who are both ~4 feet tall.

I'm getting fics out so fast because I broke my phone and have nothing else to do until I can get it fixed - then I can go back to doom-scrolling TikTok

Word count: 3,455 Reading time: ~12 mins

TW: None

Somehow, Julie had managed to drag you into helping her out with a party she was planning. Really, she had dragged everyone into it. Drag was the wrong word actually, you (much like everyone else) had volunteered yourself and then got assigned a job. The job in question? You were to bake a cake - or cupcakes, or anything you wanted really, but you had decided to bake a cake. Normally it's something Poppy would've done, but Julie had asked her to help with something else, so you were stuck on baking duty.

You had made the decision to get Wally to help you. He was an artist after all, how hard could baking be? And at the very least, you could get him to decorate the cake and keep you company while you baked it.

"Wally!" You shout, standing outside of Home. He had promised to be out at 11:30 am sharp and it's currently 11:45. You could all see the clock tower from your respective homes, so he had no excuse to be late.

A loud creak and banging of a door sounds from inside Home, closely followed by the sound of Wally's voice. It's too muffled for you to make out anything, but you can hear that it sounds relatively impatient. The sounds are then quickly followed up by what sounds like Wally running and nearly falling down the stairs. It’s a sound that makes you wince slightly.

The door whips open, although it’s obvious Wally wasn’t the one to open it. He’s still standing a little way away, signature cardigan half on as he tries to do his shoes up.

“What happened to ‘11:30 sharp’ huh?” You ask, hands on your hips as you stare down at him.

“Sorry neighbour, something came up,” He mumbled, fully pulling his shoes on and finally exiting Home.

"Ok, well, I take that its all sorted now?" You ask, looking down at him as you begin the short walk towards Howdy's Place. You make sure to take smaller steps so he can stay by your side. Its not like you're that much taller than Wally, just enough so that you have to slow down ever so slightly.

"Yes, all sorted," He smiles, not looking up at you. He keeps pace with a little effort, having to walk slightly faster than usual.

The both of you chat pleasantly as you walk. It's the same thing that happens every time on the short walk. A pleasant little chat where you and Wally catch up on each others life. What is usual, however, is everyone crowded outside of the bugdega, chattering in hushed voices.

"Is everyone ok?" You ask, concerned as you come to a stop between Eddie and Barnaby. Wally slips in next to you.

"Howdy hasn't been seen since yesterday," Eddie mumbles, toying with Frank's fingers as he does, "He hasn't even called anyone, were all a bit worried."

Frank nods, humming in agreement with their husband. "Poppy tried calling him this morning, but he wouldn't pick up."

You look down at the ground for a moment, catching Wally's eyes as he tilts his head to look up at you. There's a look of curiosity in those deep black pits, one of concern too. It drives you forwards, taking the largest steps you can without seeing strange until you reach the door. 

Realistically you know its impolite and completely improper, but you have to try it - so you place your hand gently on the handle and give the door a small push. It doesn't budge at all. You push again, hoping the door is just stuck in its frame for whatever reason, but again it doesn't budge.

"It's locked," You mumble, not turning around. No one answers, you're not sure if its because they had already tried or if they're ashamed for not having tried it. There isn't time to wait for an answer - not in your mind at least. Howdy never shuts the bugdega, ever, especially not without saying something to someone.

You press your face against the window, cupping your hands round your eyes. It gives you a slightly better view into the darkened space behind them. You look for the faint white glow of the fridge, but you can't find it. The fridge has been turned off - or maybe not turned back on after it turned itself off? Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Howdy is responsible, he wouldn't let his stock go bad, even if he was sick! Something in your gut is sitting horribly wrong.

"Did anyone notice the fridge isn't on?" You turn yourself back to the group, all of whom look up at you when you speak.

"It isn't?" Barnaby asks back, walking up to join you by the window, also pressing his face against it for a moment before pulling away. "You're right, it isn't..." He trails off, looking down at you in concern.

"Does anyone know what we should do?" It's Eddie's turn to speak up again, still messing with Frank's hand - this time smoothing his thumb over the wedding ring.

"Maybe we can take turns sitting outside and waiting for Howdy to come out?" Julie, who had been seemingly deep in thought up until this point, looks up at her best friend and their husband.

"We have to do something more than that," You say, once again turning back to look into the darkened Bugdega. Something is telling you that Howdy needs to be checked on.

"You can't get in, the door's locked, darling." This time, it's Sally's turn to speak up, as she approaches the door. She easily ushers you and Barnaby out of the way, head held high as she speaks in a quiet yet clear voice, shooing you both away.

No one speaks as she leans forwards, resting her cupped hands against the glass door to help her look inside. You're sure she quickly comes to the same conclusion as you, as she leans away and looks back towards the crowd. Surprisingly, she doesn't speak, only solemnly shaking her head and walking away to stand by Poppy.

Quiet chatter breaks out amongst the group once again, everyone seeming to break off into their own conversations as you collectively try and figure out how to get into the Bugdega.

You feel a soft tug on the back of your jumper just as you're about to say something to Barnaby. It's Wally, except he's not looking at you - another unusual thing to add to the list of the many things that have happened today. He's looking up at one of the windows on the second floor of the Bugdega, which is cracked open ever so slightly.

"Right," You mumble, patting Wally's shoulder. You know exactly what he's suggesting, even if he hasn't said it

Ideally, you'd want Howdy for this job. Even if he isn't the tallest neighbour, he does have very lanky arms and you know that you could easily reach the window if you stood on his hands. But he isn't here, so your next best bet is Barnaby.

"hey, Barn?" You ask, tilting your head away from the window and towards the massive blue dog beside you.

"Yeah, kid?" He breaks his eyes away from the Bugdega's door, looking at you. You can tell he's trying his best to hide his concern for the missing caterpillar.

"You think you could lift me up high enough to get into that window up there?" You once again look towards the window, pointing up at it.

"If you think you can squeeze in there," His words strike you, making you re-think your plan. The gap is pretty small, and even if you're one of the smallest neighbours, you doubt if you can squeeze in through a gap that small. "Maybe Wally could fit?"

The smaller puppets look up at the mention of his name, eyes moving slowly between you and the larger puppet. He doesn't seem to have heard Barnaby's proposition.

"You think you can fit through there Wally?" You ask, looking down at the little puppet.

He seems to hesitate for a second, looking up at the open window and thinking before looking back to you and Barnaby. He seems to be a little concerned.

"I'll follow you in," You say, smiling, placing a hand on his shoulder and keeping him close, "I just need you to get in there and open the window. Then we can look for Howdy together, promise."

"Ok neighbour, I'll do it." Wally nods, now waiting for Barnaby to pick him up.

"Right, up we go then." As Barnaby picks him up, the rest of your neighbours turn to face them. Wally is standing on Barnaby's hands, just about managing to reach the windowsill when Barnaby stands up on his tiptoes. You can see that it takes a lot of effort for them both to get Wally up there - the Bugdega is a massively tall building, and Wally has to hook his fingertips into the window to pull himself up.

"Ok kiddo, your turn," Barnaby mumbles, turning towards you and scooping you up next. It takes you a moment to get steady on his hands, but by the time you're as far up as he can get you, Wally has fully pushed the window open and is leaning out to grab your hands. 

As soon as he can, Wally is gripping your wrists and pulling you up. He might not be very strong, but with the combination of being anchored at the windowsill by the waist and Barnaby giving you a final push from underneath, you manage to tumble into the window.

"Are we sure that's a good idea?" You can faintly hear Eddie ask from down below, probably feeling like breaking into Howdy's place isn't a great idea.

"It'll be ok Eddie." You hear Frank's vice next, comforting his husband. It's nice to know they always stick together.

"Ok Wally... Time to find Howdy," You mumble, standing up from where you were on the floor. Wally just nods, standing up and taking your hand. He seems a bit uneasy, and if you're honest, so are you. 

All of the curtains inside are drawn, including the one in front of the window you just crawled through. Everything is also eerily quiet. You can't hear a single sound from anywhere inside the building, bar the soft tapping of the curtain as it flutters in the wind still coming from the open window.

You reach out and take Wally's hand, pulling him until his body is pressed into yours. The same something that told you Howdy needed to be checked on is also now telling you that you shouldn't check alone. 

"Maybe we should check his bedroom?" Wally asks, looking up at you. His voice is still monotone but has lost that sleepy quality it usually has to it.

"Yeah... Seems like the right choice..." You mumble in response, beginning the slow search of Howdy's flat.

Much to your surprise, you don't find anything at all. There are no traces of Howdy anywhere you look. His bed is made, the kitchen is clean, and his bathroom sink is dry. As far as you can tell, it looks like Howdy kinda just... stopped existing.

"I think we should check the actual Bugdega... There's gotta be some evidence of him down there..." It's the first time either of you has said anything since you agreed with Wally on checking the bedroom. It feels wrong to break the near silence of the flat.

"Ok... I'm following," Wally murmurs, obviously not wanting to go first.

You have to move carefully down the stairs as you only have one of your hands to help support you. Wally is gripping tightly onto your hand as you both descend straight into the stock room. The smaller puppet is partially hiding behind you when you both step onto the cold concrete floor. You can hear the sound of your feet meeting the hard surface echo out.

"Howdy's in here..." Wally's voice is muffled as he hides his face in your back.

You hate to admit it, but you know he's right. Howdy is somewhere in the stock room - even if you can't hear him breathing or moving about, you know he's somewhere in here.

"Howdy?..." You call out, hesitant to make any noise in the near-silent room.

Wally continues to hide behind you as both of you explore the Bugdega's storage room. He seems to be trying to keep his face pressed into your back as you both explore. You can't blame him - if you had someone braver than you here, you'd probably hide your face in them... Probably Frank. Frank would think about this logically.

"Hey, Wally... Maybe we should find the keys and open the door to let everyo- AHHHH!" You interrupt yourself with a scream, loud enough to pierce the absolute silence of the storeroom.

Wally peaks out from behind you and promptly gasps in horror, probably already prepared for the sight due to your scream. You can hear someone pounding on the door faintly and the sound of someone else shouting in panic. You think you can vaguely make out the sound of Frank telling Barnaby to pick him up and help him through the window that you left open. But none of that matters.

In front of you is a massive cocoon. It's bigger than any of your friends and looks horrifically sticky in whatever light is keeping the storeroom from being pitch black. You hate to think about it, but you're pretty sure something inside it is moving. You reach forwards to touch it, despite it looking to be covered in some sort of goo, only to be tugged back by Wally.

"That looks like a cocoon," He mumbles, continuing to tug you backwards and away from it, "We should talk to Frank, they know a lot about bugs..."

"Ok, let's get Frank..." You're relieved that Wally brought it up, you don't want to be along in here any longer.

You both rush to find the keys and open the front door. Everyone seems to fret over how panicked the both of you look, especially Poppy. But you don't have time for that, not as you rush Frank in and towards where you found the cocoon. Wally doesn't know what to say, but you're convinced that whatever is in there ate your friend and shopkeeper.

Frank gets as close to it as he can without touching it, circling around it and inspecting it. They seem to reach a conclusion after a few minutes. They stand up and walk back towards you, wally and the neighbours who are now crowded behind you and murmuring quietly. Apart from Eddie, who is waiting outside because he hates bugs.

"I think you're right (Y/n), Howdy is in the chrysalis," They speak with clarity, standing up straight and puffing his chest out slightly, "I think Howdy is pupating."

"And... What does that mean for the big guy?" It's Barnaby's turn to speak now. It doesn't seem like anyone else can find the words, to be fair.

"He's becoming a butterfly!" Frank practically shouts, excitement evident. "O-Or a moth, of course! He could always be a moth."

"How long will it take? This whole," Barnaby pauses a moment to gesture to the chrysalis, "thing."

"Well, it can vary. Some species only take a few days to pupate and emerge, some take weeks or even months! And some even take years! I- We know nothing about what kind of butterfly- or moth! - Howdy is rather large, he could-"

"Frank. How long."

"O-Oh, uh, hmm. My best guess would be around a month, but i could be entirely wrong."

"Let's work with that then," Barnaby huffs, putting one hand on his lower back and one on his head. He lets out a long sigh and closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again, "Someone needs to run the Bugdega while howdy is out of commission, we can't go a month without it."

"I can do that," You pipe up, smiling kind of nervously.

"Ok then kiddo. You sure you can manage that?" He's looking down at you like he doesn't think you can do it. You're determined to prove him wrong.

"Yes, I'm sure." You're not actually sure. Howdy is a lot bigger than you, has 4 arms, 4 legs and significantly more energy than you. But you have to try now, you said you'd do it.

And try you do. For the first week, it seems pretty easy. Very few things need restocking, and everything that does need to be restocked is light and easy to carry. You have to use a ladder to reach some of the shelves on account of them being built for someone who easily doubles your height and them some. But you manage. You run the bugdega.

However, as time goes on and the days roll by, the work gets progressively harder and harder. There's always something to do to keep the place in tip-top shape. You find that you barely have time to stop and eat, only ever managing quick snacks and things that you don't really need to cook. You also find that you're taking unwanted naps while tucked under the counter between customers due to staying up late to keep everything running smoothly.

On the upside, the apron makes you look cute. Even if Poppy had to make a custom one for you so you weren't tripping over the extra fabric.

"You look rough, kiddo," Barnaby chuckles to himself as he walks in, ringing the bell above the door and startling you from your half-snooze.

You jump up from where you were slouched on the counter, causing you to topple off the stool you had been sitting on and onto the floor. Barnaby pads towards you, leaning over the counter and chuckling when he looks down at the mess you've become.

"Have a nice trip? Don't forget to send me a postcard!"

"How does Howdy always have the energy to laugh at your jokes?... I'm utterly exhausted..." You pull an arm over your face, placing it so that the crook of your elbow rests over your nose.

"I'm just hilarious, that's all," The dog reaches over the counter and offers you a hand. You take it, albeit reluctantly, and allow him to pull you back to your feet, "funniest pooch around!"

"Normally I'd agree... But I'm not sure when the last time I got a full night's sleep was."

"Looks like never, if I'm honest," Barnaby doesn't stop when you're on your feet, keeping a hold of your hand and easily lifting you until you're sat on the counter, "If I'm being nice? Maybe about a week ago."

He chuckles as you lean forwards, your face buried in his chest fluff. His breathing nearly lulls you back to sleep immediately. It would've if it weren't for the familiar voice from behind you.

"Uniform looks good on you (Y/n), maybe I should hire you full-time."

It's Howdy, he's back and now significantly different. For one, he's not wearing a shirt, for another, he has a massive pair of butterfly wings coming from his back. Although those aren't the only things. He looks fluffier. Taller too. His limbs - from what you can see at least - fade into a darker, more forest green as they reach his hands. His antennae are also longer and curl around more, practically creating a small spiral. He also seems to be taller, on account of him ducking under the stockroom's door to get into the actual bugdega.

"You're back!" You call, scrambling off the counter with what energy you have and rush towards him. You stand on your tiptoes and hug him, burying your face into his fluffy belly.

"(Y/n)? You ok?"

"I tried running the bugdega while you were out. I couldn't do it." Your voice is muffled against Howdy's stomach as you hug him. You don't want to let go. Not only is your friend back, but now you get to go home and sleep properly for the first time in about a month and a half.

"I think you did a splendid job, the bugdega looks great." Howdy places a hand on your back, allowing you to rest against him for a moment.

Slowly, everything returns to normal. Sure, Frank won't leave Howdy alone unless Eddie physically drags them away. And yeah, Howdy has to have all of his clothes altered to fit his new stature. But over all, everything returns to normal, now with a slightly taller and prettier shopkeeper.

[angeltannis]

i'll probably make a proper post about it in the morning but I skipped ahead on my Watchathon list to check out The VVitch and um. i actually didn't really like it lmao

[fiepige]

why work on your fic when you can just make shitty art of one of the scenes in paint instead?

look I told you it was shitty okay? lol at least it's out of my system now so I can go back to actually writing this stuff- hopefully it'll turn out better when written down than when drawn...

[imreszekeres]

My sims house is permanently just Ash + The Big Three (And Pierce) tm tm tm

Like here we have three characters that mean so much to me I would strongly consider taking great personal risks for At Least two of the three considering those two have a form of sentience inside my mind. and then theres dear rat boy who I made as a joke in 2017 and haven’t been able to stop wanting to blow since :/

[royaltozaki]

I know this request is soo Y/n-ish but if ever you can read this, please make a fic including Momo and Sana where they are fighting over y/n which is me but I prefer Momo more huehuehueheu thank yah love lotss!!

if i die young

synopsis: you're saved by someone at work that you haven't met before and you quickly become close. your roommate isn't too fond of this though.

warnings: mostly fluff but gets vvv angsty towards the end, mentions of death, implied sex, cursing, cheating but not really if you think about it, heavy grief themes, trying so hard to not giveaway the story in the warnings

w/c: 8.4k

a/n: GIGGLE im pretty sure this is not what anon had in mind but i struggled soooo much w this prompt bcs I CANT DO THAT TO MY BABY SANA but i got this wonderful idea while in the shower to punish anon for sending me this prompt that i agonised over for a literal month that does technically fulfil the requirements 😋 enjoy the read mwahaha (and sorry for any plot holes that may come up- come yell at me in asks i have sm love for this fic and id love to yap abt it if anyone notices anything silly)

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

"y/n right?"

you look up, smiling at the woman who's hovering over your desk at work, nodding in acknowledgement.

"i think the boss was asking for you."

you widen your eyes in embarrassment, scrambling up and grabbing the relevant files, "oh shit i'm so sorry i totally forgot! i'll be there in just a second!"

the woman giggles, "it's okay. i told her my dogs ate all of your work."

you pause, looking at her in horror, "i-i- you what?"

"trust me. she's met my dogs. she'll believe it. your meeting with her has been postponed to next week. i'm momo by the way." she smiles, holding out a hand expectantly.

you're still a little in shock, but you take it, noting the way her hands are soft against yours, she must moisturise. "o-oh. t-thanks i guess..."

momo grins, "see you around y/n."

and then she's off, aloof to her surroundings, you think it's kind of adorable.

you sit back at your desk, still a little flabbergasted at your interaction with the strange girl from work.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

"sana! i'm home!" you kick off your shoes, placing them in their allocated slot on your shoe rack.

"kitchen!"

you frown, immediately worried when you hear that word. sana's notorious for her clumsy nature. when you first moved in together, it was essentially an unspoken rule that she was not allowed in the kitchen without supervision.

you quickly take off your coat, rushing into the kitchen.

nothing seemed to be off when you walked in, nothing burning, no alarms ringing, no funky smells that attacked your olfactory senses, you can only hope for the best.

"y/n!" sana's bright smile gives you immediate relief. you narrow your eyes, carefully stepping around the kitchen, looking for any signs of anything wrong.

"what are you doing?"

"making sure that everything is supposed to be where it's supposed to be and nothing is broken."

"why would anything be broken?"

once you're finished with your inspection, you turn to sana, zeroing in on her and grabbing her face with your hands, squeezing her cheeks together.

it's kind of adorable when she frowns, pouting and starting to protest, but you shush her, patting her down and inspecting her face to make sure she hasn't done anything to herself or hurt herself in any way.

"okay it seems like we're safe." you let her go but she immediately latches onto you, bringing you into a hug with an airy giggle.

"i'll forgive you for thinking i burnt down our kitchen."

you roll your eyes but return her hug, only breaking away when the doorbell rings.

"i'll get it. go clean up." sana smiles sweetly, patting your butt as she moves around you towards the door.

you roll your eyes, heading into your shared bedroom, taking off your work clothes and changing into a more comfortable set of sweats and an oversized t-shirt.

when you walk back out, you see sana's set up the dining table with takeaway.

"what's this?" you smile teasingly when you sit down.

"i wanted to cook but then i thought about the last time i wanted to cook and i decided to get takeaway for us instead." she grins, "see i'm responsible! can't believe you thought i'd try anything again after last time."

"i scraped some cheese off the ceiling the other day."

"aaaand now there's no more cheese on the ceiling! problem solved!"

you both laugh, and you help her set the table, opening the takeaway boxes and beaming at the smell of tteokbokki.

once you're both settled in across from each other, content with filling your mouths with fluffy rice cakes and spicy sauce, you talk through your days.

"there was this person i've never met before at work today."

"oh?"

"yeah she was a little strange, but she was really sweet. i had forgotten that i had a meeting with the boss today and she made up some excuse about how her dogs had messed with my work and apparently the boss believed it so now i don't have to get my deadline stuff done until next week."

"that's cute. did you get her name?"

"momo i think. sounds japanese, think you know her?"

"what because all japanese people in seoul know each other?"

"i didn't mean it like thattttt!"

sana giggles, "i know i know i'm just teasing. but no i don't know her. thinking about replacing me already y/n?"

you roll your eyes, picking out a fishcake with your chopsticks and popping it in your mouth, "just waiting for the lease to end so i can finally get rid of you actually."

sana feigns offense, "good luck finding someone else who wants to sleep next to your blanket stealing ass then."

"oh you didn't know? now that i'm working a real job i can actually afford to not have to share bedrooms anymore."

"why haven't you done it yet then?"

you blush, stabbing another rice cake.

sana laughs, bright and loud, "you looooooove sleeping with me admit it."

"absolutely not."

"you doooooo you do."

"eat your food sana."

sana's laughing and you can't help but smile. her laugh was always infectious, it was the surefire way to make your day better when you were feeling a little down in the dumps, she was the epitome happiness.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

it's a few days later when you bump into momo again.

normally you make your own food to bring for lunch but today, sana had woken up sick so you had spent the morning making sure she was okay and calling in sick for her at work.

so now you were stood in line at the cafeteria, wondering just what was taking the line so long to move, your break would probably be over by the time you got to the front of the line at the pace it was going.

"i'm sorry ma'am for the last time you can't pay for your food with vouchers to baskin & robbins! if you don't move along i'll have to call security so please-"

"no you don't understand! i was told that i could use these anywhere when i won them!"

you try peeking over the shoulders of annoyed corporate soldiers and you're surprised when you catch a familiar head of raven black hair at the front of the line.

you quickly push forward, excusing yourself as people look at you in irritation.

"momo!" you call out, shoving aside a 6 foot man with blue eyes that probably worked in the finance sector.

momo turns to you, looking a little frazzled with various coupons in her hands.

"hey! what's up?" you're a little breathless from pushing in line.

she pouts, turning back to the cashier who looks like he's about to start balding from stress. "apparently i can't use these vouchers that i won at drag bingo last week."

you grab the coupons and inspect the terms and conditions. "momo these are only allowed to be used at baskin & robbins."

"but they said i could use them anywhere!"

"at any branch sweetie. not literally anywhere."

"oh... i didn't bring my wallet." she frowns, pocketing her coupons again.

"it's okay i got it." you quickly pay the cashier who looks relieved to finally get the line moving again. you pick up her tray and gesture for her to follow you to an empty table.

"you didn't have to do that y/n!"

you shrug, sitting down and sliding her tray over to her. "it's no biggie. you kinda rescued me earlier in the week anyway. i hadn't actually finished all the work i needed to get done before showing the boss. i woulda come up with some shit excuse for not finishing it so you saved my ass."

"oh don't worry about that. mina and i have been good friends since our days in dance school together, she may be a scary boss but she's a real nerd outside of the workplace."

"oh? i didn't know boss myoi could dance!"

momo happily opens her sandwich, taking a bite and speaking with her mouth full, "you can actually find her on youtube. she was a pretty famous ballerina back in the day. woulda made it big if her parents didn't drag her back to run this company."

"and you?"

"what about me?"

"you dance?"

momo laughs, "yeah. i spend most of my spare time in the studio. unfortunately it doesn't really pay well. i was going to be evicted until mina was sweet enough to offer me a job here so i can afford my rent and continue doing what i love so i owe her a lot. oh speaking of- you weren't able to get any food! here-" she slides over her salad and soup.

"oh no no it's okay-"

"please just take it. it's not much anyway, i'll still have to come up with something to pay you back."

"you know what? those baskin & robbins vouchers. do you have anyone to go with?"

momo looks up at you from her sandwich in surprise, "no i don't."

"you free after work today?"

"i was just going to head into the studio but i could free that up."

"great. i'll see you in the lobby at 5 then. we can head to that store in gangnam, the one where you can taste test like all the flavours."

"really?!" momo's eyes brigten, "i've always wanted to do that but no-one's ever wanted to go with me."

"well perfect! sounds like a plan then!"

you grin at her excitement. you were always a little more than awkward, sana was the one who found it easy to go up to anyone on the street and befriend them. it was a little harder for you to make friends, you were lucky when sana found you interesting enough in your first year of college to strike up a conversation, and then find you interesting enough to keep coming back until you were inseparable and moved in together to save money on rent. you haven't really needed anyone else aside from sana since then, but momo was different, you felt an instant connection with her that you haven't felt since sana. she intrigued you, and you wanted to get to know her better.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

you're laughing at momo's face when she cringes in disgust.

"eugh what is that? that was disgusting!"

"i think it was like pikachu something something." you manage out between laughs.

"eugh pikachu guts and blood for sure. i never thought pikachu would taste like banana and vomit."

"i can't believe you just ate pikachu! he's such a little cutie surely he can't taste bad!"

"oh yeah? you try it-" she's spooning a bit of the vile yellow coloured ice cream and shoving it into your mouth while you're still vulnerable from laughing.

the first hit of banana on your tastebuds has you coughing immediately. and now it's momo's turn to laugh at you, it's a bright, almost wheeze-like sound, you think it's cute.

"okay yeah- we need to ban the killing of pikachu- this shit should not be served-"

"i'm glad you're on the save pikachu agenda as well then. but there's no way we are finishing that one."

"we don't have to. these were technically free anyway because of your amazing bingo skills after all."

she giggles, "okay but i'm still going to see if we can get replacement flavours. i wanted to try that gone with the wind flavour as well anyway."

you wish her luck as she slides out of the booth, bringing your tray of tester ice-creams with her towards the counter and waving down an employee.

you turn on your phone, scrolling to your messages to find sana's sent you a few unread texts.

bestest friend in the world🐿️💜: u coming home tn?

bestest friend in the world🐿️💜: don't ignore me y/nnnnn

bestest friend in the world🐿️💜: am i eating dinner on my own? 😞

bestest friend in the world🐿️💜: u better be safe idiot if ur not home by 10 i'm calling the police and filing a missing persons report

you laugh a little at her messages.

y/n: don't call the police! i'm fine! i'm just out with that coworker i told u about a few days ago. the one who saved my ass w my boss. i'll be home afterwards don't wait up!

momo's coming back before you can see sana's reply. you slide your phone back into your pocket, grinning at her, "what abomination have you brought back for us to try this time?"

momo places the new tray down, "i kinda forgot most of the names but at least the colour palette this time looks a little more edible."

"really? this neon green looks edible to you?"

"hey! a lotta green flavoured foods are edible! most vegetables, apples, green tea, mint... besides there's no way anything here will be worse than pikachu guts and blood."

you scrunch your nose a little when she slides in next to you, "i wouldn't want to try a vegetable flavoured ice cream anyway."

"you're just a hater." she's grinning when she spoons out a bright pink ice cream and pops it in her mouth.

you scoff, "am not!"

"suuuuuure. i actually know this place that does this incredible carrot ice cream. you can prove you're not a hater if you come and try it with me next week. there's a new branch opening on friday."

"alright. it's so on."

you spend the rest of the night laughing and poking fun at each other. you got along really well with momo, it felt so easy to connect with her. your levels of awkwardness rubbed off on each other perfectly. you enjoyed hanging out with her, and you're glad work seemed a lot less lonelier now.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

it ends up being really late by the time you get home. momo and you had decided to go for a round of karaoke after ice-cream and the mix of soju and trying to scream to reach the high note in twice's i can't stop me meant you had lost track of time. it was okay though because it was the weekend tomorrow so neither of you had work.

you slip off your shoes in the dark, careful not to make too much sound that could wake sana.

you're tiptoeing into the living room when the lamp light suddenly turns on, and sana's sitting on the couch with her arms crossed.

"you're alive."

you giggle a little at sana looking alike to an evil villain waiting for you to come home. she was much too happy-go-lucky to pull it off.

"what's funny?"

"noooothing."

she frowns, "are you drunk?"

"maaaayyybee."

sana stands up, walking past you and into the kitchen, you follow her like a lost puppy.

"drink this." she pushes a glass of water into your hand, watching you expectantly until you get the message and bring the cup to your lips.

"all of it."

you groan, gulping down the water, and cringing at the fullness you feel in your stomach from all the liquids sloshing around.

sana sighs, rubbing her forehead. "i was worried when you didn't return my texts y'know."

you frown now, realising sana was actually a little annoyed. "i'm sorry. i should've texted you i'd be home late."

she softens, always so forgiving, "it's okay. did you have fun?"

you grin dumbly, nodding, "momo's soooo funny."

"momo?"

"the coworker i was telling you about! she tried to-" you hiccup, "she tried to pay in the cafeteria today with baskin & robbin vouchers and held up pretty much the entire building. i paid instead and we went out and used the vouchers after work, theeeeeen we did karaoke!" you giggle, remembering the day you've had.

"oh..." she's frowning and you can't understand why so you poke her forehead, trying to undo the frown on her face.

"why are you sad?"

"i'm not."

"you're something."

sana rolls her eyes, grabbing your hands to stop playing with her face and leading you towards the bathroom. you're easily distracted, humming a silly tune that's come to mind while she sits you down on the toilet and starts wiping your makeup for the day off. it's a little more complicated when she tries to take your contacts out because you can't stop giggling and blinking but she manages in the end, making you rinse some mouthwash instead of brushing your teeth because she could tell you were falling into the sleepy stage of being drunk.

she's pulling you up and leading you towards your shared bedroom now, putting you to bed and then sliding in next to you, reaching to cover the blanket over the both of you.

you yawn, turning to face her and knock your foreheads together gently, but when you feel the wrinkles still there you open your eyes. "why are you still frowning?"

you can feel her immediately try and relax, "'m not."

"you were."

"ugh just go to sleep y/n. it's late and i'm tired." she's turning around and shuffling away from you which is weird because she was always the one who cuddled and latched onto you before bed.

you miss her warmth immediately, inching towards her and draping an arm over her midriff, entangling your legs and pushing your nose into her hair. "'m sorry."

she sighs against you, grabbing your hands and playing around with your fingers. "it's okay. just don't forget about me yeah?"

"how could i forget about you?"

"goodnight y/n."

you want to ask her more, but you can feel your eyes growing heavier, letting them drift shut, dreaming of ice-cream and cuddles.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

it became a regular thing.

momo and you would hang out after work every friday, she was quickly becoming one of your closest friends.

one night, when you're spread out on a picnic blanket on a hill a little bit away from the city, counting the stars, she asks you, "are you seeing anyone y/n?"

you look at her surprised, "no. why?"

"why aren't you seeing anyone? surely it's not because no one's asked you out before. you're gorgeous and fun to be around. is it because no one's been good enough?"

you blush a little at the compliments, turning to lay back down and stare at the sky, "i think i just haven't been ready for a long time."

"ready?"

"for a relationship. i told you about my best friend sana right?"

momo hums, coming up on her elbow to peer down at you while you try and make out the various constellations in the night.

"once i found her, it kinda felt like everything was okay, like i never really needed anything more. i know a lot of people centre their lives around romantic love and finding their soulmate and whatever, but i've never been like that. with sana, everything was enough. i felt like if i wished for anything more it might disrupt that."

"is sana seeing anyone?"

you chuckle a little, thinking to sana's past romantic escapades, "she's tried but nothing's really worked out. i think we feel the same in that way. that as long as we have each other we don't really need anyone else."

there's a contemplative silence for a bit while momo studies your face. you let her, comfortable enough with her that it doesn't feel awkward even when it is silent. you connect the stars in your head, smiling when you realise you've made out the capricornus constellation.

"what about me?"

the words are spoken softly into the night, you almost don't catch it, but fate would have it blown softly your way, tickling your ears with the question. "what do you mean?"

"you say you and sana don't need anyone else. how do you feel about me?"

you sit up a little then, leaning back on your elbows as you avert your gaze from the arrowhead-like collection of stars to eyes that shine just as bright. "you're different. you're the first person to come into my life since sana that i've felt... like we were meant to meet y'know? all that soulmate stuff and whatever may be cringey but it's nice to believe in. sometimes i think there are just people that i'm meant to meet, and people that i'm not. and fate brought me you."

momo's leaning forward, her eyes drifting down to your lips, her next few words come out in a whisper, "so if i did this..." her eyes flicker back up to yours, letting you pull away if you wanted to, but you find yourself fixed on her lips as well. so when she closes the distance between the two of you, pressing her lips against yours, just barely there, you sigh into her. the smallest brush of your lips together has you feeling light-headed and hazy, she breaks away from you all too quickly, eyes filled with wonder. you can see the reflection of the night sky in her eyes.

you smile softly at her, lips still tingly from the brief kiss.

"if i did that... would that feel like i've disturbed the equilibrium you've found with sana?"

you shake your head gently, "no. it feels just right actually."

when you lean in again, it does feel just right, like the stars have aligned for this one moment. like everything that's happened to you in life has lead you to this.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

someone else didn't feel that way.

she's sitting on the couch, up late again. it was becoming more and more often that she would find herself waiting up for y/n to come home.

she hears the telltale sign of the door unlocking and you stumbling in blindly, trying to adjust to the darkness of your apartment and slipping your shoes off to place carefully on the shoe rack next to sana's.

you're kind of expecting sana to be standing there waiting for you when you come back.

"hey sana. i'm home."

"late."

"yeah i was out with-"

"momo."

"yeah..." you rub your neck shyly, heading towards the kitchen to get a glass of water. she follows you wordlessly.

"is something going on between you and momo y/n?"

you raise an eyebrow, swallowing the water in your mouth before answering, "would it be a problem if there was?"

sana frowns, "no but... i just thought you'd tell me is all."

"i do tell you everything sana. every time i come home late i tell you what we've done. it feels like you don't really want to hear it most of the time though."

she pouts, "i do! i do want to know what's going on. i'm sorry i just... i told you i just don't want you to forget about me."

"and i won't sana. i could never forget you, i don't know why you worry about that." you step up to her, cupping a cheek and tilting it up so she's looking at you.

her eyes are slightly shiny and you suddenly feel terrible for making her wait up for you all these nights, "i just- ever since you started hanging out with her, i feel like you've had less time to spend with me. and i know! i knew eventually you'd find someone to spend the rest of your life with i just- i just didn't know it'd be like this and i wasn't prepared and i don't want to lose you yet-"

"woah! woah woah woah slow down! sweetie what? how long- how come you've never told me this before? i've always felt that- and i told momo this- but i've always felt that i never needed anyone else but you! i always thought that we were the ones that were going to spend the rest of our lives together, you're the only one i want to spend the rest of my life with. you'll never lose me sana i promise and momo- look just because i don't need anyone else in my life aside from you, doesn't mean it's that terrible if there is someone else that makes me happy right?"

"but- don't i make you happy?"

"oh baby you do, you do, you make me so happy." you brush a thumb across her cheek, "look how about i set up a meeting for you and momo to meet. it's about time anyway and i really think you'd get along really well if you got to know her."

she sniffles a little, thinking it over, before finally nodding albeit with slightl hesitance.

you grin, pulling her into a hug and she laughs against you, "you better be paying though."

you laugh as well, overjoyed your best friend was going to meet your... anyway, it didn't matter. sana was just happy to hold you and be close to you, letting her anxieties around you fade into the back of her mind.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

"i'm so sorry momo she promised she'd be here." you sigh in frustration, picking up your phone again to check if sana's replied to any of your messages or calls.

momo smiles kindly, "it's okay. she's probably just caught up in something. don't worry about it!"

"eugh yeah it's just really annoying because we already rescheduled this twice and now she's just not even showing up. wait... do you think something's happened to her? she's not normally bad with replies- oh god what if something's happened-"

"y/n! it's okay! she's probably just somewhere with bad reception right now. i'm sure she'll get back to you soon. should we order first? get your mind off things?"

you sigh, flipping your phone over, not wanting it to distract from the date you were now on with momo. she smiles gently, taking your hand and squeezing.

"yeah that sounds good. have you had a look at the menu yet?" you glance over at the waiter who had seated you, whispering to his coworkers with a sour look on his face, probably from the fact that the two of you have been sat here for almost 40 minutes and only picked at the starter breads and water.

the rest of dinner goes by smoothly. momo is able to distract you from your thoughts about sana and you're thankful for that. being with her was easy, fun. you don't think any of your previous relationships held a candle to momo, and you've only known each other for maybe a month or so.

dessert comes and she's telling you a funny story about how her dog boo had pooped on a guest dancer at her studio and he had to clean it up, only finding out afterwards that his name was also boo. she had apologised profusely and was very embarassed but he was nice about it and had jokingly offered to babysit her dogs anytime.

"speaking of my dogs, i was thinking... do you maybe want to... come over after dinner and meet them?" she's blushing, twirling her fork around and stabbing small pieces of the cheesecake in front of her, eyes avoiding yours.

you beam, "of course! i'd love to!"

"really?" she looks up at you in surprise.

"yeah! i gotta put a face to these little demon dogs you're always talking about."

she whines, "they're not that bad i swear!"

"you know i heard that pets actually take on characteristics of their owners..."

"... what's that supposed to mean?"

"nothing." you tease, pretending to go back to your food.

she kicks you under the table playfully, pouting. you laugh at her, finding her adorable, spooning some of your gelato up and offering it to her. her expression changes immediately when she opens her mouth, accepting the bite with a hum of satisfaction and a grin in thanks.

after dinner, you decide to walk back to momo's since she didn't live too far from the restaurant you had eaten at.

the night air is cool and refreshing, and you don't hesitate to slip your hand into momo's as you stroll along the streets. it's not too busy in this area so you can enjoy the little sounds of the creatures of the night scuttling around in the trees and on the ground. you glance over at momo who has a soft smile on her face, swinging your hands gently with each step, her face adorn with the subtle glimmer of the moon.

she catches you staring, and turns to you with a grin, "something on my face?"

you smile in return, "maaaybe something just-" you step forward, leaning in and hear her breath hitch just slightly when your eyes drop to her lips, you kiss her sweetly, 2 seconds maybe, and then you're breaking away, "there."

she's blushing, and you have a stupid grin on your face like the lovesick fool you are.

"romantic." she rolls her eyes at you, continuing your walk.

"i'll get you flowers next time."

"i'm allergic."

"chocolate then."

"i was joking i'm not allergic but now that you offered, i'll be expecting both."

"what?!"

she laughs, cackles really, her nose scrunches in the most adorable way, hand tightening around yours.

by the time you walk through the door of her apartment, you're a little tired but in the best way possible. the kind of tired where you know you're tired because you've just had the most fantastic day.

the dogs greet you at the door with excitement, panting, tongues out, jumping at momo's legs as soon as she enters. she laughs and bends down, petting them and cooing.

"so this one is dobby, he's a little shyer but he's a sweetheart once he warms up to you. and this little rascal is boo." she points out the two dogs and you bend down, reaching out a hand and letting them sniff you while momo stands up and takes off her jacket, placing it on the coat hanger.

"hiiii nice to meet you boys, i'm y/n, momo's..." you look up at momo, a little hesitant.

she raises an eyebrow at you, crouching down so she's eye level with you again, the dogs between the two of you, thrilled at the attention they're receiving. "girlfriend?"

you beam, giggling and leaning in to kiss her, "girlfriend."

she grins as well, standing up again and heading towards her kitchen, dobby follows her but boo continues to lick at your hand.

"want anything to drink girlfriend?" you can hear her teasing lilt from where you are.

"i'll have whatever you're having girlfriend."

“soy sauce okay then babe?”

your heart stutters at the term of endearment, completely disregarding her drink of choice. “i-i u-um y-yeah!”

you stand up and follow the sound of her laughter into the kitchen, boo pattering along behind you.

"i'm not sure if i want to kiss you if you're the type of person who drinks soy sauce y/n."

"what?! i don't do that!"

"not what i just heard."

you gape at her, but she giggles, coming up to you and planting a kiss on your lips. you can vaguely feel the wag of the dogs' tails at your feet, wondering what exactly their mom's doing letting someone else lick into her mouth.

she breaks away with a sly smirk, "still kissed you."

"uh huh-" you quickly reattach your lips, addicted to the taste of her, the way her lips move against yours, how she smells so close to you, the way her hands grip your shirt tightly, pulling you into her when you push her against the kitchen counter, trapping her against it.

it suddenly gets a lot more serious when she nips your bottom lip softly, and you let out an uncontrollable, but very real moan, and you have to break away painfully.

"my room?" momo breathes against you, your foreheads placed against each other's, sharing the same airspace.

you bite your lip, exactly where she had sunk her teeth into only seconds prior, watching the way she stalks your action like a hawk, "mhm."

and she surprises you when she picks you up easily by the thighs, and you yelp, wrapping your legs around hers and feeling her grin into the next kiss she lands on your lips, navigating her living room and into the bedroom, closing the door behind the both of you so her dogs wouldn't be privy to the sights of you coming apart under your new girlfriend's tongue.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

the next morning, momo kisses you awake with the smell of breakfast wafting into the bedroom. you blush at the sight of her only in an oversized tee, the marks on her thighs reminiscent of your activities the night prior. she doesn't fail to tease you at the red pigment blossoming on your cheeks, pointing out your own marks on your neck and chest.

you spend the morning cuddling on the couch, watching reruns of glee and feeding each other the waffles momo's made for breakfast, stealing kisses in between each bite, the dogs playing around on their own, sometimes hopping into your lap to nose at you or momo, asking for pets and pats.

you smile dreamily as you unlock your door, remembering your time with her, how she promised she'd buy a new toothbrush for you if you promised to come over again, which you did of course, that was obviously a given but you adored her asking.

you step inside finding it quiet. when you place your shoes next to sana's spot on the shoe rack, you realise she's still home when you thought she was meant to be working.

"sana?"

there's no response, so you drop of your things, entering your living room and finding she's nowhere to be found. you frown, heading towards the kitchen, then the bathroom, and finally your room with the door ajar. you peek inside and find a lump under the sheets, her blackout curtains still tightly shut.

you tiptoe inside, hovering over the bed and peeling back the duvet a little to see if she's still asleep.

you don't expect her to yelp, pulling the duvet back and burrowing deeper into the little nest she's made. you hear the telltale signs of her scrambling to cover up the fact that she was crying.

"w-what are you doing here?" her voice is croaky, shaky, you sit tenderly on the side of the bed.

"this is my home."

there's a sniffle, and then "people come home and sleep in their own beds. you didn't."

you sigh, trying not to get frustrated, "sana... you didn't turn up yesterday. and you never called me back or returned any of my texts."

"my grandma was sick."

"is she okay now?"

"y-yeah."

"was she really sick?"

"...no."

you hum, placing a hand gingerly on what you deduct to be her arm.

"i'm not mad."

"you shouldn't be."

you raise an eyebrow, "you stood us up."

"i had my reasons."

"and what were they?"

she sighs under the covers, then suddenly she's whipping them down and leaning into your space, planting her lips on yours.

you're stunned for a second, 2 seconds, and then she's pulling away, and burrowing back under the covers. you barely caught a glimpse of red cheeks and red eyes, your lips tingling from the press of her lips.

it's too late to pull her back out when you come to your senses, touching your fingers to your lips still in mild shock.

"i-i- s-sana i-"

she sighs exasperatedly, "is that reason enough?"

"w-why didn't you tell me?"

"because you were all over this new girl! you barely had time for me anymore!"

"what- that's not- how long have you felt this way sana?"

she groans, shuffling a little, "i don't know. i just know i didn't like it when you started seeing momo."

"so all that about not forgetting you..."

"well yeah... i think i've always liked you. i was just never threatened by someone else taking you away, even with all your past partners you've never- you've always come back to me."

you sigh frustratedly, running a hand through your hair trying to think what exactly this meant for you. "i'm with momo."

she scoffs, "i know."

"we slept together last night."

"... like in the same bed? yeah we sleep together too."

"no like- like slept together slept together."

there's silence for a bit, you can hear the breaths of the both of you, the wheels in her head turning.

"... you've slept with other people before right? what difference does this make?"

"i think i really like her sana."

she sits up then, hair a mess, skin blotchy, eye bags present, but her eyes are fierce. you're hit with a sudden wave of nostalgia. you really hadn't seen sana in so long. seen her smile, heard her laugh, ever since you started going out with momo she started acting weird and you knew why now, but she was right when she said you had pushed her away because of it, preferring to bask in the new romance momo offered you, avoiding dealing with the complicated feelings that arose when you thought about sana. you missed her.

"if this is you rejecting me just come out with it. stop beating around the bush and say it. say you don't love me like i love you."

"... you... you love me?"

she rolls her eyes impatiently, a crease forming between her eyebrows that you want to reach out and smooth out of habit, "yes."

"i-" you can feel tears welling up, you don't want to choose between your best friend and your new lover. you don't want to lose sana because of this.

sana notices because she notices everything about you, and her eyes soften, wanting to touch and comfort but resigning to fiddling with her fingers instead.

"just go." she says softly after you're unable to form words for the next minute.

"no but i-"

"i'm tired y/n. just go." she's turning around onto her side, preparing to lie down and curl up again, but in the spur of the moment, you grab her wrist, pulling her into you and kissing her again.

she lets out a sound of surprise, eyes widening, but lets you kiss her.

you're not even sure what you're doing, all you can think is you can't lose sana. not like this. not when the entire future you've planned out in your head includes her. not when she tastes like the saline of the tears streaming out of both of your eyes, that and a hint of something that was uniquely sana. not when you both still had so much life left to live together.

all of this remains in your mind when you follow her tear tracks, kissing her neck, her shoulders, down her chest. you can feel her still crying even when she sucks new marks into your skin, right next to the ones momo's left on you last night. the both of you don't know what this means, just that it's the end of something, and you were both going to make the most of it.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

"so how's sana been?"

"huh?"

"your best friend y/n. was everything okay after she wasn't able to make dinner last week? you haven't talked about her much since then."

"oh. yeah she's alright." you're not really sure if she was alright actually. you haven't seen her since the two of you slept together. you woke up to an empty bed, no note, but all of her things were still around so you know she hasn't run off to another country or anything.

"that's good. is there anything you wanna talk about?"

"what do you mean?"

"you've just been a little distant since last week. is it- do you regret- do you still want to be together?"

you look up from pushing your food around your plate, surprised at the vulnerability in momo's voice.

"no- i mean yes of course i still want to be together! i'm sorry i've been off i just-" you sigh dejectedly, "there's something i need to show you after work today."

"oh?"

"yeah... it's not... it's not anything you have to worry about, and i think it'll explain a lot, but it's also pretty heavy so i understand if you don't want to-"

you're cut off when she grabs your hand, squeezing it gently and smiling, "i'd love for you to show me. i'm just glad you're not breaking up with me one week into the relationship." she jokes a little, trying to lighten the mood, and you smile, grateful for her, but feeling your anxieties pile up knowing that you were about to reveal something to momo that no one else except sana knew. if you wanted this relationship to work though, you needed to do this. you couldn't start this relationship off on the wrong foot, you wanted to do this right.

♰˚☽˚｡⋆

your grip on momo's hand is tight, but she doesn't complain, squeezing back every few minutes to remind you that you weren't alone.

after work, you had driven both you and momo to your destination, a park a little out of the ways. the drive was quiet, momo didn't mind though, humming softly to the music on the radio and staring out the window, glancing back at you every so often. you parked, stepping out of the car, already doubting the decision of coming here.

there are a few other people in the park milling about. momo smiles politely at an old couple who break away from a hug to nod greetings at you. you barely notice them though, your tunnel vision and your thoughts becoming louder as you get closer.

you pull along momo who's holding a large bunch of flowers that you had stopped by at the florist on your drive to pick up.

you spot her then. avoiding eye contact as you get closer to her.

then you're standing in front of her.

"y/n."

momo lets out a little muted gasp behind you, but you squeeze her hand, focusing forward.

"sana."

"i see you've decided to forcefully make momo and i meet like this."

"i didn't have any other option."

"there's always another option y/n."

"not when it comes to you sana."

she tilts her head, "what is that supposed to mean?"

you shuffle your feet a little, "you know what it means."

she sighs, stepping closer and cupping your cheek. "why are you crying?"

you're surprised at her statement, the hand that's not holding momo's coming up to wipe hastily at your eyes.

sana's hand drops along with her face. "i thought you said you'd never forget me."

"and i never will sana."

"what's this then? it feels an awful lot like goodbye."

you can't contain the tears streaming down your cheeks, "i could never say goodbye to you sana."

sana's crying now too when she looks up, "don't then. don't say goodbye. say you'll pick me. say we'll stay together for the rest of our lives, like we promised when we were kids. say you love me y/n."

"i-i- i can't sana! i can't do that!"

"why not?"

"because- because i still have the rest of my life sana."

she sniffles, wiping at her eyes. how you wished you could see her smile just once more.

"i guess this is it then."

"no. no this isn't- i told you sana i'll never forget you. you'll always be with me. everything i do i'll always think about you, every new person i meet, every new life stage i enter, i'll think about you. i- i- i loved you sana."

then sana's in your arms, crying into your neck while you hold her, sobbing nearly hysterically, clutching onto everything, a film roll of memories playing behind your eyelids, of the first time you met, the first kiss you shared drunk at a college party, the times you'd piggy back sana from the library to your shared apartment after attempting to pull an all-nighter, the time you first signed your lease together, the time she squealed and brought you into a hug after you got your first job, insisting on a celebration, every single birthday, graduation, milestone, every single moment you've shared with her crosses your mind.

"i have to let you go now." you croak into her ear, voice still shaky and laden with emotion.

she's quiet for a bit, then she pulls back, eyes wet but smiling. she's smiling. oh god you've missed it. "i understand." she says against your lips, foreheads knocked against one another's. you close your eyes, committing to memory her smile, each line, each crease, you were never going to forget her.

when you blink your eyes open again, she's gone, the only evidence of her existence, the headstone reading:

in loving memory of

minatozaki sana

1996 - 2019

you don't even realise you're crouching in front of the headstone now, having let go of momo's hand long ago, until you hear a small rustle behind you and you look up to see momo offering the flower bouqet to you and crouhing down. you smile in gratitude, taking it from her and placing it under the letters of the headstone gently, rearranging to make sure it fit perfectly.

you speak up after a while, having left momo in the dark for long enough now. "it was a freak accident. she was coming home late after work because there was this kid in her class who's parents didn't come pick them up until way after school ended. she was in a rush because it was movie night. no matter how busy our lives got, we always had movie night, something that was stable when everything else in life wasn't i guess. didn't see the car coming. she died on the way to the hospital."

momo's quiet, placing a hand gently on your shoulder.

"i'm sorry i lied to you. i haven't- it's been five years since it happened, but i haven't fully moved on i guess. not until now. you know this is the first time i've visited her grave since the funeral?" you chuckle brokenly, feeling the tears well up again.

"and there's not even anything under here. she was cremated and her parents took her back to japan."

"that doesn't mean you can't still grieve here."

you sigh, "i know. and it's silly y'know? to think i'm still grieiving after 5 years. everyone else has moved on except me. i still- i still saw her everyday- in that way i wasn't lying to you. i just- after the accident and then the rush of the funeral, it all didn't feel real. i still felt like i was going home to sana, and to laughs and smiles and movie nights and cuddles. it didn't make sense y'know? i know death is natural and whatever but it doesn't make sense to me, how someone is here one second and then gone the next. i couldn't make sense of it. so i didn't. she was still alive to me. i still saw her everyday, still packed both our lunches, sent her off to work, took care of her when she was sick, i never got rid of any of her things because in my head she was still using them. she still has her place on the shoe rack at home, her clothes are still mixed in with mine, her expired skin products are still on the bathroom counter. i never- she's always been with me momo i-"

you start blubbering, words no longer making sense and you feel momo shuffling closer to you, wrapping her arm around you tentatively, and you turn and bury yourself into her, crying into the arms of someone physical. someone who was real, who was here in the present with you.

momo doesn't say anything, letting you cry, running her hand through your hair soothingly, letting you take as much time as you needed.

when your sobs subside the sun's setting. you sniffle into her, breathing in her scent, a new comfort to you.

"grief is a monster. not everyone gets out alive, and those that do might only survive in pieces. but it's a monster that can be conquered with time."

you chuckle a little into her. "where'd you get that from?"

"a book i read. summer bird blue. i can lend it to you if you want."

you hum, pulling away from her and wiping at your eyes, smiling softly, "i'd like that."

she smiles as well. "do you think she would’ve liked me?"

you turn back to the gravestone, the cold words etched in marble. "yeah. i think she would’ve loved you. i kept on telling her that y'know? in my head. you two would’ve gotten along famously."

"i'm glad." momo turns to the gravestone as well, "it's nice to finally meet you sana. i promise i'll take care of y/n. you don't have to give me the whole best friend speech about how you'll curse me for the rest of my life or anything. she's special, and i'm grateful you were such a good friend to her. she loved you a lot."

you sniffle, listening to momo talk to sana. when she's done, she looks back at you with a smile, her face illuminated with the golden-orange hues of the sunset.

"thank you momo."

"hmm?"

"remember how i was talking about soulmates? how i think there's people i was meant to meet and people i'm not? thank you. i think sana brought you into my life to help me get over this. i haven't- the last five years has just been me in my head, i've been on autopilot. you were the first person to change that. to make me feel like- like there was a little more brightness to life again."

momo's tearing up now as well, you'll learn that it's not very common that she cries. "i'm glad fate has led me to you then. and i hope you know this doesn't mean sana's gone. she'll always stay with you."

you look back to the tombstone longingly, "i know. i promised i'd never forget her. she will always stay with me."

momo leans into you again, and you rest your head on her shoulder, the cool breeze blowing against you softly, the sun setting behind you.

maybe momo was right. it took you five years, and it'll probably take you a lot longer, but you were going to get over this monster, and you were going to live out the rest of your life, like sana always wanted for you, not in-your-head-sana, the real sana that you're not afraid to admit is gone now, but will always stay in your mind, your heart, with your soul.

[inbabylontheywept]

"I will solve you if I must."

Arkinot knew what humans looked like. They were half his size, soft, pink, and easily bullied. He knew this because he’d spent the last two weeks terrifying a team of human diplomats sent to negotiate trade deals. It was something of a science to him at this point: Small but weak species sends in their diplomats, he spends a week or two terrifying them in close quarters, then he offers them some dogshit trade deals in exchange for getting to leave early. They take the deal, he gets richer, and in a manner of speaking, the universe becomes a better place. Being a coward was the kind of thing that really should be taxed, and he liked to think of his negotiation style as exactly that: A coward tax.

Still, that was far dominating his thoughts at the moment. The conundrum his brain was struggling to untangle was that he knew what a human looked like, and the thing in front of him was not a human. It wore human robes, but underneath the robes, it appeared to be a tank that someone had glued several monitors to. Maybe even an antennae of some kind. It was such a chaotic jumble that it was almost funny. The one part of it that really seemed to be going too far was the badge sewn into the front designating it as an official diplomat.

He stepped a few feet closer to inspect the possible art piece. He barely had begun to reach his hand forward to lift the tent sized robe when a mechanical claw pushed forward and clasped around his arm, painless but implacable.

“What the fuck-”

He didn’t hear the voice from the thing, nor did he hear it in his mind, as he’d felt with some of the telepathic races. The voice of this abomination felt like it was being physically projected directly inside his own ear, as if its mouth was just a fraction of a centimeter away from his ear drum.

“Arkinot.”

He threw up. The words weren’t loud but they seemed to have some kind of disproportionate effect on his balancing organs. The world was sent spinning and he could barely tell up from down. A second bolt of pain blossomed, this time from the back of his head. It took him a good moment to realize that he’d fallen flat on his back. He didn’t know a simple sound could cause so much damage.

And then it continued.

“You make threats you have no ability to back up. You will learn.”

Even with his senses scrambled, he could feel something cold and metallic pressed into his hand. He was too incoherent to guess what.

He wasn’t sure if the voice retracted from his ear out of pity, or because it knew that it had proved its point, but he was grateful to hear the rest of the message without feeling like someone was trying to jam stakes into his brain.

“A copy has already been sent to your high command. Your ‘diplomacy’ has already been bypassed. This is simply a personal education on the nature of human violence. Summon me when you understand.”

He rolled over to see the thing lurching down the hall. Even in his disoriented state, he could see something human in it, something imperceptibly satisfied with the message it had delivered. Part of him wondered if there was some small lump of flesh buried deep inside that horror, or if it was just mind made metal, an engram with form.

Perhaps sensing his gaze, it paused. It didn’t turn around, but he doubted that its vision was as limited as eyes were. The voice projected forward again, mercifully short of his ear, but still too close for comfort. He could almost imagine the hot breath of it bouncing off his face, mere millimeters away from his face.

“I will know when you are done. Do not make me find you.”

---

It had taken him half an hour to work up the will to pull himself up from his pool of stale vomit, and another ten minutes to stagger back to his cabin. He’d needed to lean against the wall for the entire walk back. He was genuinely concerned that his balance had been permanently damaged.

He did his first inspection of the object he’d been gifted. It was, technically, a data slate, but that was somewhat akin to calling a reactor a steam engine. The specs on it didn’t even make sense to him. What the hell was an exaHz? What was a Bekenstein limit? How could storage be at 137% of it? Couldn’t be much of a limit if it went over 100.

The device seemed to recognize it was being inspected and raised a query of its own.

User: Arkinot?

He nodded dumbly. The slate whirred for a few seconds, genuinely struggling to process what it was about to do.

And then it began.

---

Arkinot stumbled out of the room seventeen hours later. He wasn’t terrified. He’d run out of the emotional energy needed to feel fear after the first two hours of calm, methodical instruction presented to him by the dataslate.

He had learned about the nature of human violence. It was no hot blooded slaughter, no prayer of eternal vengeance. It was an industrial event to them, something to be mass produced until the market flooded over and peace became the new commodity of choice.

And they could do that. Easily. He’d seen blueprints for factories that built factories that built factories. Replicating swarms of mining bots.

The smallest time vs. production curve he’d seen was for their assault cruisers, and it was still a fourth order polynomial. If for some reason they needed to wage war for over a year, they could feasibly consume more than 30% of the mass of their first three industrial worlds.

And they had more than forty left in reserve.

He’d assume earlier that he was arguing from a position of strength because they didn’t have an active armada. He realized that the reason they hadn’t bothered was because they’d be able to produce one as large as his entire species fleet in under 48 hours.

His balance was back. He barely noticed. He followed the same path he had before, noticed in an offhanded way that the vomit had been cleaned. The human diplomat must have called that in. He certainly hadn’t.

He was now in the human section of the station, and while he could sense a wariness in the steps of the pink things around him, it was hardly the full blown fear he’d managed to instill just 24 hours before. They knew that they’d managed to summon a stronger predator than him.

He knew it too.

The door that he’d been summoned to was a repurposed garage. He supposed nothing else would fit someone so large. He knocked twice on the corrugated steel before it began to roll up.

The robes were gone. Still no visible flesh, but at least with all the machinery in sight he had a better idea of what he was looking at. He still didn't see any pink skin there, but he didn't have to when he could see rack after rack of eletroneural interfaces.

So there was a brain in there. A human brain. Probably very little else.

A faint twitch of its insectoid legs gave away its impatience. Ah. So it was waiting for him to speak.

“You didn’t need… Damn. How large was that presentation?”

The voice was almost offhanded in its response.

“208 yottabytes.”

Arkinot’s brain skipped over the scale of that number. It was absurdly massive. Apparently, everything that the humans really put their minds to turned absurdly massive.

“You didn’t need 208 yottabytes to say that you could kick our asses.”

The faint twitching gave away, replaced by an uncanny stillness. It wasn’t the frozen stiffness of a robot, it was the tense, rigid posture of someone showing a considerable amount of restraint.

“No. You certainly didn’t when you said that to us. What I needed 208 yottabytes for was showing you how I would ‘kick your asses.’ It is worth considering how much scarier that is than your empty words.”

There was a brief noise, like rustling through the speaker, and he realized that the machine had done the purely auditory equivalent of taking a breath. The action was somehow more unsettling than the purely mechanical affect he’d seen before. It made him realize just how close any of the other soft pink things running around the halls were to becoming something like this, something that could crush him with a thought.

His thoughts were interrupted by the man-machine’s closing words, tired but dangerous.

“Do not threaten our diplomats again. It is their job to be patient. It is my job to solve problems. I will solve you if I must.”

That same tired voice spoke again, millimeters from his ear.

“Now, don't let me detain you.”

He did what any sane sapient would do.

He ran.

[cupids-scream-queen]

A Little Murderess °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･❀*

❀ female!murderer!reader x poly!ghostface ❀

Part 4 // 1.7k words

-> Part 1 // -> Part 2 // -> Part 3

Warnings: stalking! Tame chapter, I know.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･❀*ੈ✩‧₊˚⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Summary: You've just moved to a new town after the death of your little brother and stepfather with your mother. You're not ashamed of what you do to cope with the deaths; especially when you make two new friends who you might have more in common with than you thought...

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･❀*ੈ✩‧₊˚⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Over the next two days, you got closer with the gang. You still couldn’t shake the feeling of Billy and Stu being somehow related to your strange phone calls, but until you had concrete proof, you weren’t going to say anything. Even if they were related to it, you wanted to make sure of it, and twist their minds around themselves just as they’ve done to you.

Out of the two of them, Stu was the one to get the closest to you. Despite his girlfriend being Right There, Stu would still make flirtatious comments towards you, and you’d try your best to deflect them as best you could. You didn’t want to risk Tatum or Sidney throwing you out of the group just because of a horny teenage boy named Stuart of all things.

Randy was also making comments, but you were more open to flirting back, even though you could see it visibly annoyed Stu and quite possibly even Billy. You didn’t care though, since they had girlfriends—it was their fault they weren’t single, after all. After a lot of pleading from the gang, you eventually traded phone numbers with them all—and you quickly found your time being invaded increasingly by Stu.

“Are you fond of Psycho for being bloody or for being a Hitchcock film?” He asked one night, and you had to suppress yourself from asking if the only thing that made a film ‘horror’ in his opinion was blood. Because you knew the answer was a yes.

“Hitchcock, if I’m being honest,” You answered, scribbling down your algebra homework. It didn’t have to be perfect, you reminded yourself. It just had to be good enough. “I don’t mind bloody films, but I just think most of the tropes are over-used.”

“Naw, they’re over-used in unique ways every time,” Stu asserted, and you laughed at him.

“They’re not! Every slasher has the same plot. Evil man in mask, gutted teenager, girl with tits, some other unrelated teenage girl that stops the evil man. Same thing, fifty-five gallons of fake blood per kill, unrealistic,” You ranted, and Stu giggled at your anger.

“And how many gallons of blood makes it realistic?” He questioned, and you could feel your face heat up. There was no way he’d know if you gave him the right answer.

“Technically one and a half gallons, since that’s all a human body can hold,” You said quietly. Stu was silent, before asking the million-dollar question.

“Why the fuck would a girl like you know a fact like that?”

“Why would you know that it’s a true statement, hmm?” You shot back playfully, before finally asking. “And how come you seem to know why I’d know that fact?”

“A lucky guess, pussycat,” He said quietly. You figured it was a clue. You had to defeat Ghostface, and Stu just moved up on the suspect list. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“Right,” You slowly said, and moved a few papers around on your desk. “Well, I’ve got to do algebra work, so…”

“You want me to leave you alone?” Stu finished, and you smiled.

“Yes. Good-bye, Stuart Little,” You said, and you finished your homework. An hour later, the phone rang. This time, you knew it wasn’t Stu.

“Hello Mystery Man,” You greeted, and the voice on the phone was exactly who you’d thought it would be.

“Hello, you alone tonight or is your mother there?”

“If you were properly stalking me, you’d know she’s passed out on the living room couch,” You joked, and Ghostface laughed.

“Have you any guesses as to who I am?”

“I have guesses on what two people you might be,” You slyly walked by your windows, smirking. “But you know, I won’t share them with you until I’m solid on them.”

“Two people? You’re a really strange detective. What makes you think there’s two of us?”

“The fact that I can hear two people breathing right now,” You deadpanned, and you could hear shuffling on the other end of the phone. “And the fact that every time you call me, it’s like you forgot what we talked about last time.”

“You’re a lot sharper than you let on, Y/N,” Ghostface purred, and you smiled at the praise. “It’d be a shame if you don’t defeat me.”

“Defeat you how? Do I just guess who you are and if it’s right, BINGO, I live, or do I have to kill you?” You finally asked the question that’s been weighing down on you. If Ghostface was who you suspected it to be, you knew you couldn’t kill them—it would hurt the friend group too much.

“Guess it right, and you live. It’s an easy game. If you don’t guess it right, SLASH, you’re dead and gutted like a fucking pig,�� Gutted. You smiled to yourself, realizing you just got another clue. “You have only a few more days left, you know. I’d start working on my theories a little more seriously than hanging out with Sidney or Tatum.”

“But not Billy or Stu, right?” You shot back, before hanging up the phone. Got ‘em.

•❃°•°❀°•°❃•

Billy and Stu looked at each other, right after you hung up.

“She knows, man,” Stu’s eyes were wide. “She knows.”

“She’s messing with us, there’s no way in hell she knows. She’s probably just saying random ass names to try and scare us,” Billy rationalized, but a tiny part of him was worried. Did you find out? It wasn’t like he talked to you much at all, but then he had a lightbulb moment. “Do you call her outside of trying to scare her?”

“A bit, yeah,” Stu admitted. “Just to try and find out more about her, y’know? She’s not gonna give every piece of information about herself to a psychopath on the phone threatening to kill her.”

“You’re a fucking moron, Stu,” Billy pinched the bridge of his nose. “She’s figured out the speech patterns.”

“There’s no way, the voice changer—”

“Only changes voices, not speech patterns!” Billy shouted, and Stu tried to make himself look smaller. “You can’t just talk to her like you normally would, asswipe! She figured it out because of slang!”

“No way she’s that observant,” Stu tried, but Billy cut him off. “She is, you dickrag! She’s a fucking murderer, she’s hella observant!” Billy was shaking with rage, and Stu put an arm around him, but Billy shook it off. “Don’t fucking touch me, not until we figure out how to deal with her. If she gets it right, what are we gonna do? We were banking on her not knowing.”

“I don’t think she’s going to care, Billy,” Stu pointed out, and he was right. You wouldn’t care, not really. You’d be amused at their attempt on you, sure, but you wouldn’t report them. You had too many of your own crimes to care about the crimes of two self-diagnosed psychopathic teenagers with a phone line. “If anything, she’d join in.”

“And three is the magic number?” Billy snorted. “This isn’t schoolhouse rock. Two, Stu, two! That’s all we need, and that’s all there ever will be. Two! We can’t have three Ghostfaces running around, slashing people left and right. Three is how people get caught. Three is how people start talking. Three is when people get left behind.”

“Are you two always in my bushes?” They looked up, to find you standing in front of their hiding spot. “I found out a while ago, dumbasses.”

“I told you she wouldn’t care,” Stu murmured, and you looked at him pointedly.

“I never said I didn’t care, but you’re not wrong. It’s a bit pathetic finding you two in my bushes in front of my house, that’s all,” You played with your familiar bowie knife. “Now, what am I going to do to defeat the magical and mystical Ghostface?”

“Not kill us?” Stu tried, and Billy hit him upside the head.

“No, not kill you,” You agreed, and you pointed the blade at Billy. “Tell me your plans. All of them. I’m going to join you two. You are smart, I’ll give you that. But not smart enough to properly kill without getting caught.”

“Hey, for your information, we killed—”

“Casey? I know. And her boyfriend, I can’t remember his name right now,” You twiddled with the blade. “And Sidney’s mother, right?”

“How—”

“I’m good with my head,” You smiled sweetly, and the two boys looked at you, awestruck. “No complaints with it yet.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Billy asked, and you nodded.

“I’m serious. Why, watching me kill wasn’t a good enough show for you? I knew someone was watching me, I’m not stupid. Your lack of faith is disturbing,” You grinned as the boys shuddered, and you knew you were hitting their confidence, hard.

“Fine. Fine! Come to Stu’s at midnight tomorrow night, we’ll explain,” Billy finally cracked, and you grinned.

“I’m not stupid. If you try to kill me—”

“You’ll kill us,” They answered simultaneously. “We heard you the first time.”

“Good! Well, goodnight boys! And I’d wash your jeans, that’s where my neighbor’s dog pisses,” You blew them a kiss, and skipped your way back into your house, where they could see you in the window of your bedroom. You flipped them off again, before closing your curtains with the familiar claw clip.

“What should we do?” Stu asked, and Billy looked at him.

“Use her as an asset, what else would we do?”

•❃°•°❀°•°❃•

You were proud of yourself, that was for sure. Though you didn’t entirely trust the two, you were fairly confident that they wouldn’t kill you. You knew too much, and you knew that they’d try to use you for whatever skills you had. It didn’t offend you as much as it annoyed you that you’re getting involved with crimes more elaborate than your own. You weren’t sure if it was wise of you, but you knew you wanted to get involved. To see what, exactly, the two idiots were planning. And how you could be of assistance.

Enjoy my writing? Please like, reblog, or follow me! The support is super encouraging, especially since I'm going to make this a longer fic and post nearly daily 💕

♡ Want tagged every time I upload? Just send me an ask 💕💕

-> Part 5

[connorsnothereeither]

So like, a while ago I did a little update on the Brink fics, and I figured it was worth giving a kinda sad update on my other Fable fics as well.

At this stage, there are no plans to continue or finish Your Skin Beneath My Teeth (the second book in the Blood series).

I know this is probably disappointing, because I know a lot of people really loved the Vampire AU. But from a personal writing level, I’m just sort of unhappy with the direction of the books, and I don’t have the time to commit to rewriting them. I’m not invested enough in my own story, and while that’s a shame, I don’t know if there’s much I can do without just giving myself time to stew on it.

There’s also a logistical side to things as well. Fable is coming to an end in less than a month. I feel like it’ll probably take me months to finish the Brink series still first, which are the fics I’m personally more passionate about. And at a certain point, I don’t want Fable to be the only thing that consumes my writing for the next year+. Not to mention the time I want to dedicate to other SMPs and creative projects I’m involved in, like Cantripped, Bound SMP, and Terramortis, with even more stuff in the works.

On top of all that like… I’m just a guy, ya know. I’m a full time student, work part-time most days of the week, commute between 2 major cities regularly, and I have other things that just deserve my time more.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in fandoms for years, I know it’s shitty when fics you enjoy never get an ending. But I hope that like, people get where I’m coming from with discontinuing it, I guess.

Besides, there is, technically, an ending for Blood. I’ve had the ending written since the end of the first book (it’s just getting there that’s the problem) and so if people would like, as some sort of closure for the story, I would be happy to release that here on Tumblr or on my Kofi or something. Maybe I’ll make a follow up post with a poll.

I might as well mention that there is likewise no plan to “finish” the Band AU, but since that was always a collection of one-shots, there was never really a plan or end for any of it. It was always kinda disjointed without an end in sight lol.

I’m not saying that I’m NEVER going to go back to these fics. Just that it’s unlikely. But who knows, maybe someday I’ll crawl out of the dirt to finish them-

If you did only follow my Fable fics for the Blood books though, I’m sure some elements of my other fan works might appeal to you, if you want to give them a go! The horror/contemplations of humanity are the key theme of Brink, and the mystery/thriller, high stakes political conflict mixed with interpersonal melodrama is the focus of Cascading Skies, my new Bound fic. And of course those and so many more things are just key elements to like all of my storytelling my canon characters lol. But if none of that ticks your boxes, it was great to have y’all along for the bloody vampire ride :D

Anyway this was me getting sappy about setting aside a project I worked really hard on lol. Sometimes you gotta do that and sometimes that’s okay, and that’s an attitude I struggle with but am getting better at. I know don’t owe y’all any kind of explanation for this, I could have just stopped and let it die, but I wanted to give one. More for me personally really; I needed to say something about it publicly to like… fully cement in my mind what I decided on a long time ago. Anyway, catch y’all later when I’m not incredibly tired, and hopefully with a more silly goofy post ✌️

[ectonurites]

Now that we’re halfway through it what are your thoughts on Kon’s solo?

I've been enjoying it! I think it's been fun so far—I do think that letting Kon have a story where he's out on his own just doing a classic little adventure like this rather than... something super tethered to the greater DCU/its continuity messes is refreshing after the last few years he's had.

Like I definitely don't want him isolated from all his friends in space forever or anything like that, but I think him getting to do this on his own right now is cool. I think the thing Porter seems to be going for with Kon 'chasing after the glory days'/trying to find some shred of his old life to cling onto (even if it's just a space imitation of it) is definitely interesting and like... makes enough sense to me for him and where he's at after The Everything.

I just gave this 'how Kon has changed across the eras' post of mine from a while back (fall 2021, so written shortly after the whole Suicide Squad Match Ordeal™) a re-read and something I was talking about at the end was how after all the experiences he's had he has looped back around to embracing aspects of his old self (that he'd been pushing away for a long time because of 2000's-era Trauma And Angst) and I think this current book is definitely like, playing with that.

What I was talking about in that post ended mostly after YJ 2019 though—his state of mind at that point being more or less 'okay I'm back now let's goooooo!!!!!' before The Horrors of realizing he came back to a world that really had moved on without him for years really set in. Like, he knew about that by the end of YJ 2019, but I think he needed to sit on it for a bit and see it firsthand... also even though I know the book was a mess and not well received, I think we should still acknowledge Dark Crisis: Young Justice—where he got a firsthand taste of the olden 90's 'I hadn't died yet, I hadn't disappeared yet, I hadn't been replaced yet' days in Mickey's dream world. After experiencing that and getting some reality checks from the rest of the team, he knows he can't seriously just go back, you can't go back to the past like that... but...

The new understanding of himself he'd achieved just before/while stuck on Gemworld—where we saw he was making active choices about who he's gonna be based on what he wants rather than Clark-based expectations or anyone else's input, and where he was rolling with the changes and circumstances that had been thrown at him—has been thrown SERIOUSLY out of whack!

So rather than it being that 'he's returning to aspects of who he used to be while incorporating the experience and maturity he's gained along the way over the years' situation from YJ 2019, it's started warping into 'he's regressing back to the safety of being the Metropolis Kid/his 90's era self just out in space this time so TECHNICALLY it's DIFFERENT'. Which I think is an interesting approach! And him acting completely and totally in denial of that being what he's doing (even though it's clear he knows damn well it is) is also totally in line with classic Kon—thinking back to the Young Justice (1998) #7 camping trip LMAO.

But like, the thing is, Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow #1 started with an editor's note clarifying it takes place before Action Comics #1051 which began the new family-focused era of the book... that Kon is very obviously present for.

So we already know he's gonna figure out that there is a place for him back on earth and that he doesn't need to completely regress and try to relive his past somewhere else, he can just be himself and carve out his own path at home and have a place within the family. We're not stuck guessing about what Kon's fate is gonna be after the fact—instead, this book gets to focus on this journey he's going through and we're along for the ride to see how he's gonna finally reach that conclusion! Which is fun!

Anyways, that was a lot of word dumping—Kon just gets me going man, you know he always does—but in conclusion: I'm enjoying the book overall, it has definitely kept me as a Kon fan engaged, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!

+ as much as ideologically I am opposed to DC Round Robin, I'm definitely (at this point anyways) glad that this book got to exist.

[labrxnth]

Prison Break- Part 7 (Leon Kennedy x Reader Series)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,

CW: Slight Body Horror, Death, Suicide, Death Island Spoilers (obv)

WC: 5718 (oooo baby)

Summary: You and Rebecca Chambers reunite with the rest of the group to end this thing once and for all.

A/N: This is the end of the Death Island content. I have a few more chapters in mind to end this fic so buckle up :^). also the final battle might be a shit show and chaotic to read, but I literally sat down and wrote it as I rewatched it, so it's pretty much 1:1. Sorry if its a jumbled mess I tried my best.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

The hallways were cold and isolating, a memory of the past creeping up to you as you and Rebecca ran down the hallway. Blue fluorescent lights blinked above the two of you and the concrete flooring did nothing but echo footsteps as the two of you proceeded deeper into the jail. 

According to Rebecca, you and her were going to meet up with Chris, Claire, and hopefully Jill. Leon was off on his own, doing God knows what. You had an inkling that he went after Maria, and you were wise enough to stay out of that fight. 

When Leon went off on his own for a fight, he meant business; punches weren’t held when it was a one-on-one fight. Maria signed a death waiver the second she ran off and had Leon trailing her. 

Seeing as though Dr. Antonio Taylor was dead, the two of you needed a win on this mission. You were filled in on everything that happened while you were out of it, Taylor died while Claire tried to keep him from bleeding out. He was helpful enough to give her a thumb stick with something on it. 

You hoped that the six of you would be lucky and it was a vaccine or something along those lines. But you were seldom lucky in this job. 

“So, you and Leon,” Rebecca trailed off. 

“Is running with me through an abandoned prison that boring?” You asked and chuckled. 

“Kinda,” Rebecca replied with a giggle. 

“Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. It’s new. As in, tonight new I guess,” You replied as the two of you made your way through another hallway. “For a prison, this place is a fucking workout to get through, Jesus Christ.” 

“We should be almost there. We’re headed to the shipment dock,” Rebecca said, sending you a soft smile and a thumbs up. 

The woman always knew how to make a room lighter with her smile and you missed that about her. Over the past year, the two of you had connected a bit, but not as much as her, Chris, and Leon. You didn’t want to intrude on their time together as friends, so you always made up an excuse to not go when you were invited. 

It wasn’t that you never wanted to go, it was genuinely because you thought you would be an intrusion on a private party. 

Their whole friend group intrigued you. Chris always seemed like a meat head to you, a meat head that knew his shit. He was always on and after being around Leon and going through a few missions, you knew why. It was hard to feel like you could relax in this job field. 

Claire seemed like someone that you would be friends with in elementary school, then stick together forever. She always amazed you with how she wasn’t afraid to get straight to the point no matter what or who was in her way. Leon had told you that she was 19 during Raccoon City and your jaw was on the floor. You had a lot of respect for Claire Redfield and she wanted you to feel included in everything the friend group did. 

Rebecca deserved so much more than she was recognized for. She’s done almost everything under the sun at the age she is. It honestly boggled your mind how her’s worked. On top of everything, she was just a sweetheart, humble and friendly.

Jill Valentine was still an enigma to you. Granted, Leon also just met her tonight so you had assumed that she wasn’t a party person. Given everything she’s gone through, you don’t blame her. You still technically hadn’t met her, being almost unconscious while she was in the same room as you. But maybe you would get to meet the enigma tonight. 

All in all, their friend group was impressive and heavily relied on each other to shoulder the experiences that they had gone through. The few times you had gone to their get togethers, you appreciated how present everyone was and how warm and welcoming they were. It felt like a family. 

Maybe after this mission, you would make it a point to go to more get togethers. 

“So, catch me up on what’s going on. I still have no fucking clue,” You said. It feels like everything happened while you were out. If you were feeling like this, you bet the Redfields were just as lost, being infected longer than you were. 

“We’re after Dylan Blake. He used Dr. Taylor’s findings to make a nanobot version of the 

T-virus,” Rebecca explained. 

“World ending again? Sounds like our kind of mission,” You grumbled. “We have to stop meeting like this, Rebecca,” You added, chuckling. 

The soles of your boots hit the floor over and over again, echoing through the cold hallways.

“Agreed,” She replied. The two of you got to the end of the hallway and found a bolt head door. You put your muscle to use and got it open, holding it open for Rebecca as she ran through and closing it behind you. 

Looking around, it seemed like a warehouse, almost like it didn’t belong in the prison. There were shipment boxes strewn around, forklifts, and other construction equipment. Your eyes darted to a catwalk where Jill and a man you hadn’t seen before, but could guess was Dylan Blake, were standing. 

Jill’s gun pointed at Dylan and they were talking, their conversation inaudible from your distance. Closer to you were the Redfields trying to get up to Jill. As you and Rebecca ran to catch up, you heard a vent get kicked out and looked up to see Leon running on the catwalks. 

He was running with the determination and confidence of someone that just won a battle; which you could assume he did considering Maria was nowhere to be found. His eyes locked with yours and he jumped down, scaling shipment boxes and he ran over to you. 

As he got closer, you could see a black eye and a bruise forming on a very broken nose. Red tainted his lips, blood pouring from said broken nose. His hands found your forearms as his eyes locked with yours. 

“Are you okay? How are you feeling?” He asked. 

You scoffed a bit. “How am I feeling? You look like someone took a bat to your face. What happened?” You asked, your hands meeting his face. 

As the two of you talked, you missed Dylan bringing his revolver up to his temple and pulling the trigger. His body staggered back, tripping and falling over the railing behind him and plummeting about 30 feet into the water below. 

All you two heard was the splash of his body hitting the water and your head whipped to where the sound came from. 

“We should…” Leon trailed off. 

“Talk later,” You finished for him. He nodded and ran with you towards the rest of the group. 

Jill was looking over the railing, searching for his body in case it popped back up. When she turned to talk to the group, your heart dropped. Looking between Leon and her, your brain was confused. Jill looked like her and Leon could be related, which did not help your eager heart. 

You didn’t know what you were expecting from hearing the stories of Jill Valentine, but it was not the woman who was in front of you. She had a bobbed side part, brown and a little darker than Leon’s. It was easy to tell that Leon’s hair was just a matured blonde that had faded to brown, but Jill’s was more a darker ashy brown. Her eyes were blue, a softer, yet piercing blue, like Leon’s. 

You would swear up and down that you didn’t have a type, but looking at Leon and Jill, you definitely did. Her whole demeanor read of a person much older than she looked; you made a mental note to ask her about her skin care regime later. She looked like she meant business and you had to remember that you were on a mission, not a meetup.

You could talk later, hopefully.

Jill’s mouth opened to say something, but the whole platform the six of you were on shook. A giant hand grabbed the railing and a monster rose from the water, giving all of you a good look at it. 

It would be hard to try and describe what it was, other than a man and nature made horror beyond all belief. Leon had shared stories with you about some of the things he fought before and he had a hard time explaining some things. His stories usually ended with him saying something like “You had to be there, I don’t know how to describe it” in reference to a mutated dinosaur or alligator. 

This world was fucked up and it fucked up your head some times. 

 Though you would’ve been lying if you said you weren’t a little jealous of him fighting a dinosaur. 

Now, you knew exactly what Leon meant when he said those things because the creature in front of you was beyond any means of description. It was like if a whale sprouted legs like Kamajī from Spirited Away. It had a face almost like a doll, but also nothing like a doll because it was a melted skull.

Again, it was hard for your brain to process how to describe it. 

The creatures roared, it’s ugly face opening and saliva going everywhere. 

“Dylan used the virus to fuse with a bioweapon,” Jill said, her eyes never leaving the thing. 

“Looks like we’re dealing with this first,” Chris huffed.

“Let’s do it,” Leon said, reloading his gun. 

It wasn’t hard for your brain to process the arm sweeping the platform. Jill and Chris cleared it with a jump, Leon used the railing behind you to use as a step launch, you and Rebecca dove under the arm, and Claire being her somehow jumped and spun over it. 

All of you easily cleared the arm, but scattered when it slammed down on the platform, causing the metal under your feet to crumble. 

Jill and Chris got flung onto one side, Claire and Rebecca flung to another, sliding off the platform. You blacked out for a second, only to come to feeling someone’s hand around your wrist, holding you up. Your eyes looked up to see Leon holding onto a support beam from under the platform, holding the two of you dangling in the air. 

Your head whipped to where the monster was and saw a crane next to it. Putting two and two together, your free arm raised up with your handgun, shooting the heavy metal hook off of the crane. It swung in the air, slamming into the monster and making it roar in pain. The metal hook got stuck in what would be the skull’s eye socket, blood spurting from the creature. 

The monster whipped its head back and forth, trying to get free of the hook. Metallic creaking filled the air as the crane started to fall towards Jill and Chris on the ground. 

Explosions went off on the right side of the monster and your eyes could make out Rebecca and Claire with rocket launchers on the ground. 

Looking up, you could see that Leon was straining, trying to keep the two of you up. 

“Drop me, I’ll land on the floor,” You said. His eyes met yours and you could tell he wasn’t mentally present. For some reason, he had the same look in his eyes when he remembered something from his past. Leon looked haunted, like he was reliving something from years ago. 

“Leon, it’s okay, it’s a 10 foot drop,” You said. 

His grip on your wrist tightened, his face scrunched up like he was fighting the memories from whatever he was going through. 

“Hey, Leon!” You said louder, your voice snapping him out of whatever trance he was just in. He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded, dropping you to the ground. 

As the two of you were getting down from the support beam, grenades were getting launched into the creature, its side erupting in flames on the impact. 

You rolled on impact, lessening the hurt to your ankles as the two of you landed. Leon stood up, helping you up and he ran his hand through his hair. Something he always did when he was stressed out a little too much without an outlet for it. 

“Sorry, just…” He trailed off. 

“Memories, I got it. Don’t worry about it,” You replied and patted his bicep supportingly. “We gotta keep our heads in the game though,” 

Leon nodded and looked around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an army truck with a gas tankard on the back of it. “That could put a dent in it,” He said and pointed to it.

Your eyes followed his and you nodded. “Good eye, let’s get that thing running,” You replied. The two of you took off running as you could hear chaos behind you. Multiple guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers all going off and hitting the monster, only to fail. 

Leon beat you to the driver’s seat, and instead of wasting time arguing, you sucked it up and got in the passenger seat. 

“If you're driving, I get a gun, fork it over, Pretty Boy,” You said and held out your hand to him. 

“You sure know how to treat me like a princess,” He grumbled and reached into his holster, handing you a lightning hawk magnum caliber handgun. 

“Where the shit did you find this?” You asked as he started up the jeep. 

“In the sewers. I was doing our job while you were asleep,” Leon said with a smirk. 

Your hand turned over the gun in admiration, checking the chamber to make sure it was fully loaded. When you process his words you scoffed. 

“I sure had a relaxing nap,” You replied sarcastically. 

Leon drove the truck forward a bit, then hit the breaks. Claire and Rebecca had run behind a concrete support bar and were catching their breath, evading an explosion. Leon parked the jeep and stood up. 

“Claire!” He yelled to get her attention. 

“What?” Claire responded, her and Rebecca’s eyes finding the two of you through the smoke and gunpowder. 

“You still have that password Taylor gave you?” He asked. 

Claire pat the pocket of her jacket. “Yeah, right here.”

“Take Rebecca and stop those drones, we’ll keep him busy!” Leon said. 

Claire and Rebecca were on their feet, nodding in agreement. As soon as the two of them took off, Rebecca turned back around to face the two of you. 

“Don’t die!” She said, then turned back around. 

It was unfortunate that the people in your life had to say that to you on a fairly regular basis. 

Leon got back in the tuck and put it into drive, driving past the two girls and towards the monster. 

“So uh, what’s the plan?” You asked. 

“Jump when I tell you to,” Leon replied, smirking a bit. 

“This is the last fucking time I get in a vehicle with you driving,” You sighed, watching the monster get closer and closer to the truck. 

About 30 feet before the truck collided with the creature, Leon nodded at you. “Now!” He barked. The two of you swung onto the roof and ran along the truck towards the back. Your ears picked up the sound of a grenade pin dropping and you turned to see a grenade in Leon’s hand. His spare hand grabbed your wrist and the two of you jumped when you reached the end of the truck. Leon threw the grenade behind the two of you and pulled you into his chest. He rolled so that he took the brunt of the impact of the concrete floor as the two of you hit it. 

Rolling a few times, the two of you ended up sprawled out on the floor. Leon still holding you close to his chest and you nestled between his body and the ground. The explosion came soon after, Leon’s shoulders hunching over as he flinched and the heat of the flames being felt by your legs. 

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Leon groaned. 

“I didn’t ask you to be my landing pad,” You chuckled back as the two of you recovered, getting to your feet. 

“A ‘thank you’ would suffice,” Leon said, dusting the soot off of his shirt. Your hands helped him, patting off the dust and debris. 

“Thank you,” You said in a dramatic sing-songy tone. “My hero.”

Leon chuckled and looked to your left, seeing a crate. “Let’s see if we can find any goodies,” He said and ran over, you following close behind him. 

The tankard did nothing but stall the creature for a few seconds, only making it angrier. 

“Tell me,” You said. “The missions you had before I joined the D.S.O., were they always like this?” You asked, looting the various crates with Leon. Your eyes searched for ammo or any new guns, the Lightning Hawk being lost in the tankard explosion.

“Actually, yeah. The Arias thing was actually pretty straightforward, more than I’mused to,” He replied as his fingers unlatched a crate. 

“You call almost getting squeezed to death ‘straightforward’? What is your life?” You asked. 

Leon smiled a bit, exhaling a laugh. He found an automatic rifle with a drum in one of the crates and started pocketing any ammo for it. Finding a rifle of your own, you followed him towards the monster, climbing over various storage crates and shipping boxes. 

The monster must’ve noticed the two of you and been angry about the tankard, because before you could even load rounds into it, a foot came crashing down onto the shipping container the two of you were on. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Leon get launched into the air as you fell towards the ground. 

Taking the blunt impact, you coughed out a groan and got to your feet. Maybe Leon was right about being too old for this shit, you certainly felt like you were getting too old for this shit. 

“Chris, Leon!” You heard Jill yell. Looking around, you couldn’t find Leon, until you looked up and saw him hanging from the rafters. You wondered how the fuck he got up there, then starting running towards Jill and Chris. 

“What’s that?” Chris asked, looking up at where Jill was. 

She was holding a big rail gun looking weapon on top of various shipping containers. “A plasma rifle,” She replied nonchalantly. “It heats up to 20,000 degrees, but it’s short range,” She added, struggling against the weight of the weapon, then kneeling down to get into a better position. 

As she knelt down, she lined up the plasma rifle, then looked over at Chris and you. “Can you get that thing any closer?” She asked. 

Chris scoffed and went to turn around. As he ran past you, you heard him mutter, “‘Can we get it closer’ she says.”

You ran up to Jill, jumping on top of the crates, and snagging another rifle as you made your way. Looking up to where Leon was, you saw him safely drop and slide down a broken catwalk, leading to an army jeep. 

Thanking whatever sick and twisted deity was watching over you, you were elated that you weren’t getting into another death trap with the man you loved. 

Jumping across more shipping containers, almost to Jill, your brain stopped working as it thought about the words you just used. 

Loved.

The man you love.

Shaking your head, willing yourself to stay in the present, you made your way over to Jill who was charging up the plasma gun. She nodded in acknowledgement to you. 

“I’m (Y/n), we haven’t met yet. I’m Leon’s field partner,” You said, aiming down your rifle’s sights and taking shots at the melted skull on the creature. 

“Jill,” She replied, staring at the plasma rifle’s meter. 

“Hell of a first introduction,” You added and smiled.

“It’s always a fucking shitshow, isn’t it?” Jill replied, chuckling. 

Looking towards the floor, you could see Leon haphazardly driving the army jeep and Chris stationed on the back of it at the artillery gun. The two were trying to lure the creature closer to you and Jill, guns blazing in the process. 

“Jesus Christ, you could not pay me enough to be in that Jeep,” You heard Jill mutter. 

“Agreed,” You replied, continuing to take shots at the monster, trying to focus on the same spots Chris was. 

Your ear picked up the sound of something charging and out of the corner of your eye, you could see electrical currents running through the gun. The monster had fallen right into the trap, surging towards you and Jill. 

“Time to light you up,” Jill said and smirked, aiming the plasma rifle at the monster. 

With the pull of the trigger, a white hot beam shot out from the gun, the force throwing both Jill and you back a few feet, your back hitting another shipping container. The creature roared and fell to the ground, its arm hitting the jeep Chris and Leon were in, sending the jeep flying. Chris and Leon went over the windshield and hit the ground as it flew in the air and hit the wall, crumpling. 

Through the sound of metal crashing and explosions dying, you could hear Leon’s voice. 

“Is that it?” He asked, exhaustion heavy in his voice. “Did we kill it?”

As the smoke and dust settled, you all could see the monster laying on the floor, seemingly defeated. As you went to help Jill up, you heard a splotching sound; the monster was back up again.  

Jill scurried back to the plasma rifle as the monster recovered slowly, its eye set on the two of you. In that moment, if you could’ve traded places with anyone else in the whole world you would’ve. 

“One… more… to finish ‘ya,” Jill said as she lugged the plasma rifle back into position. You helped her pull the rifle, lining it up to the creature, it being harder this time around with how exhausted and beat up the two of you were. 

The plasma rifle started charging up again, starting from 0%. The monster was 20 feet in front of you two, slowly closing in. 

“God damn it,” Jill said under her breath. You looked around, trying to see if you could see the rifle you had earlier, but it was lost in the various rubble and debris. “Come on, come on!” Jill said as the plasma rifle kept charging. The monster was about 10 feet from the two of you, it’s ugly face tracking you and Jill. 

“Jill…” You said, your hand on her shoulder. Electricity surged through the plasma rifle as it was nearing close to being fully charged. 

“Fuck!” Jill yelled as a giant foot crashed down on the shipping container, sending you and Jill flying through the air. 

Upon impact, you did what you knew to do and rolled, but you felt two familiar hands stop your inertia. Getting your bearings, you could see Leon at your side, helping you up as he simultaneously pulled a handgun from his vest. “You okay?” He asked urgently. 

“Couldn’t be better,” You replied, getting on your feet. Off to your side, you could see Chris helping Jill up, the monster making its way towards them. 

Leon ran over to them and fired shots into the creature’s skull, only for the bullets to appear to be doing nothing to it, just like before. 

Your eyes scanned the ground, for even the smallest handgun, only to remain unvictorious. 

The monster’s head got close to Jill, Chris, and Leon, only for it to stop in its tracks and turn around, seemingly uninterested in the three of them. 

Leon’s shoulders relaxed, bringing his gun down. “Huh?” He exhaled. Jill and Chris stared at the creature, ready for it to turn back around and decide that they were its dinner any second. 

The four of you watched it pull itself along the floor, headed towards the water. With squishing sounds, it left a trail of blood and what could be only described as snail juice behind it. 

Chris and Leon nodded at each other and made their way back to the jeep. Leon gently grabbed your bicep and dragged you with him, you relenting and getting in the passenger seat. Leon hopped in the driver’s seat and Chris manned the gun, just like minutes previous. 

“It’s headed for open water,” Leon said, starting up the jeep again. 

“Like hell it is," Chris said, reloading the artillery gun. 

The jeep took off on the opposite side of the docks from where the monster, and unfortunately enough, Jill were. Your eyes caught that she was running with a duffle bag slung over her shoulder, set on something. She managed to get in front of the monster, dodging its legs in the process. 

With a loud metal clanking sound, you also noticed that the gate was closing, no doubt thanks to Clarie and Rebecca. 

“What’s the plan?” You asked anxiously, eyes locked on the monster. 

“That’s for you to decide,” Leon said. 

“Me? You’re the one driving!” You replied, eyes widening at Leon. 

“Exactly! I’m the driver, you’re the planner,”

“The driver should know where the hell they’re going and what the hell they’re doing!”

“I know where we’re going,” Leon replied, a tinge defensively.

“Well there’s only one way to go! Forward!” You rolled your eyes. 

“Could you two stop bickering like an elderly couple? There’s a case back here with a rocket launcher, military grade,” Chris cut in. 

You and Leon stared at each other, then back at Chris. “That sounds like a great plan,” You said, smirking. 

Leon parked the jeep, then jumped out of it, and ran around to the back to take the case from Chris. 

Jill was still on the other side of the docks with the creature, now with a flare in her hand, yelling insults and exploits at the monster. You looked at her in awe, wondering and hoping you looked even half as badass as she did right now. 

Chris stood above Leon, watching him try to figure out how the rocket launcher worked, making your confidence in them waver slightly. 

“You know how to use this?” Chris asked. Your confidence halved. 

“It’s got a trigger doesn’t it?” Leon shrugged. Your confidence was abysmal. Leon instructed Chris to put the two halves of the rocket launcher together and started to line it up. 

“Hey, (y/n), help us line this thing up,” Chris said. The military level rocket launcher needed two people to man it, one facing forward, Leon, and one facing away, Chris. The person facing forward had the barrel obstructing their entire eyesight. 

You rushed over to the two men, standing right next to Leon. “Do you just need eyes, or help lifting the damn thing?” You asked. 

“Just eyes,” Leon and Chris both said at the same time. 

“Tell us where the bastard is,” Chris said. 

Your eyes panned over to the monster, then to the gate, seeing it lowering way slower than it should've been. An idea formed in your mind as you watched Jill dive into the water, the monster trailing after her. 

It was a long shot, and had to be timed perfectly, but you could see Jill and the creature underwater, making their way towards the gate. 

“Better idea, aim at the gate belt,” You said. “Leon-”

“Got it,” Leon said and got on his knees, his mind matching yours and your idea. Chris followed suit, the launcher resting on their shoulders. 

Telling them to aim a little higher, and having Leon lift it even higher than Chris, you lined them up to the best of your abilities. Your eyes went back underwater to track Jill as you directed the launcher to the right slightly. 

“Leon, I need you to fire as soon as I say it, not a second later,” You said. 

You watched as Jill got dragged by the creature underwater a few yards, then cut herself free. The monster didn’t care about her anymore, only seeking the open water. 

“Got it,” He replied, his voice strained from lifting the rocket launcher. 

The monster jumped out of the water, surging forward towards the gate. 

“Now!” You said. 

“Fire!” Leon said and pulled the trigger. Him and Chris got jolsted back at the recoil, then put the launcher down, watching the rocket hit the gate belt. With an explosion,the gate came crashing down, cutting the monster in half. 

“And that’s that,” Leon said, sighing. Chris stood up, rolling his shoulder blade and stretching. 

Jill resurfaced and swam over to the three of you, pulling herself up onto the concrete floor. Chris rushed over to help her up as she coughed up water and got her bearings. 

You heard footsteps approaching you and felt an elbow rest on your shoulder. You didn't even have to look to know who it was. 

“I’ve only been doing this for a few years, I don’t know how you all have done it for decades,” You sighed. 

“Honestly, I don’t know either,” Leon said, his exhaustion evident in his voice. “It helps that we’re all together. Saving the world sucks less ass when you have friends to do it with,” he added and chuckled. 

You looked up at him and noticed how bruised his nose was getting. “Did you reset that yet?” You asked and gestured to his nose. 

“No, why? Does it look that bad?” He asked, his eyebrows knitting together. 

“Yeah, it looks like you got hit with a metal pipe,” You said, your hand gently grabbing under his chin and turning his face over, checking for other wounds. 

“That’s actually not that far from the truth,” Leon replied and chuckled. 

“Maria got you good huh?” You asked, a teasing smile on your face. 

“Slammed my head into a railing three times, hurt like a bitch,” He said. 

Your eyebrows raised, surprised that someone was actually able to get a hit on Leon. Over the past few years, you learned that while it wasn’t rare for him to catch a fist, it was rare for it to happen more than once in succession. 

“She’s dead though, so it doesn’t really matter anymore,” Leon added and shrugged. 

You let go of his face, wanting to feel the stubble again as soon as you let go. “Sounds like she deserved it,” You replied and chuckled. 

“You’re such a people person,” Leon replied, chuckling as well. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

The six of you loaded onto the B.S.A.A. helicopter, courtesy of Chris and Jill, and buckled up, ready to go home. You and Leon had managed to get into contact with Hunnigan who was, understandably, distraught at losing contact with you two then Rebecca. 

Talking to her, you found out that Hunnigan actually helped Rebbecca with the vaccine and locating exactly where you all went missing. It was times like this that you remembered how cool and amazing your F.O.S. operator was. 

Looking out the window, you almost didn’t notice Leon taking the seat next to you. He sat down and looked at you for a few seconds, his expression unreadable, before speaking. 

“We need to talk when we get back,” He said quietly, so only the two of you could hear. 

Your eyes met his and you nodded, knowing exactly what conversation the two of you needed to have. The exact conversation that you had been putting off for years. 

“Yeah, we do,” You agreed. 

“We have a while before the helicopter reaches San Francisco, get some rest,” Leon said. 

“You too,” You replied, a hint of accusation in your voice. 

“I’ll sleep as soon as you do,” Leon chuckled, his hands up in surrender. 

The engine of the helicopter started up and the blades started turning. The six of you put on your headphones, the blades and the engine making it too loud to hear anyone else. As the helicopter took off, your eyes remained out the window, watching alcatraz slowly disappear. 

Your head leaned on Leon’s shoulder, you finding it to be the most comfortable pillow you had at the time. 

“Reminds me of New York City last year,” Rebecca said, her voice being picked up by all the headphones.

You, Chris, and Leon slightly smiled, remembering the mission to stop Arias. 

While waiting for the helicopter, you and Leon had gotten caught up to speed, being informed how Dylan Blake took over Arias’s crime syndicate and teamed up with Maria. He promised her revenge for Leon killing her father and they used Dr. Taylor’s research to engineer the nanobots responsible for spreading the strand of the T-virus that Dylan had. 

“If I hear Glen Arias’s name come out of someone new again, I’m slamming my head against the concrete,” You mumbled. 

“You’re getting grumpy, you need to sleep,” Leon said.

“Im 33, not a child,” You said, a frown on your face. “I don't ‘get grumpy’.” You added.

“You can say that all you want, still doesn’t change that you need to sleep,” He replied. 

“....fine…” You grumbled and shifted a bit, getting comfortable.

Rebecca giggled, her gaze locked on how your head was resting on Leon’s shoulder and a soft smile on her lips. A year ago, she clocked it, asking you about you and Leon, while killing time in the helicopter while the vaccine spread through NYC. Specifically asking if you two were in a relationship. At the time, you only blushed and tried to steer your conversation in a different direction, assuring her you two were just work partners. 

Now here she was, seeing the two of you act like you were the only people in the world. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

scrolling through various people's dracula daily tags on the bus because this book is all i want to think about right now i was reminded that seward is only 29 (with his own lunatic asylum!) - which struck me (a 34 year old) now in a way it didn't before i'd gotten to know him and the others, way back before most of the Plot had happened. jonathan's Baby's First Job energy and mina's excitement about her impending nuptials radiate off the page, but seward's diary is so self-serious and intense that i think mentally i'd automatically been picturing him as much older, even though he's a longtime bro of arthur and quincey. it makes his self-seriousness, and his near-worship of van helsing, more endearing to me now that i've corrected my image of him - and it REALLY gives an even better cast (read: more delightfully awkward) on the scene where he and mina talk diary-stuff to remember they're likely fairly close in age.

it also just made me appreciate that this is ultimately a novel about fairly young people / a text i can slot into my personal canon of Texts About Your Saturn Return, and makes me think also about both the fact that the character relationships center on two engagements (this is literally what your late twenties is), and about all the non-dracula-related death content that permeates the book, from the parents and parent-figures dying left and right to the old man in whitby's monologue about the deaths. none of these bright, healthy, life-loving twenty-somethings have yet had their lives warped by tragedy, and the thing is, that's pretty normal. having your first brush with tragedy involve an undead bloodsucker hunting you and your pals is not normal, but hitting something on the road to thirty that changes you from a person who has never lost anything that mattered to a person who has kind of is.

i dunno, there's something oddly sweet to me in thinking about that - about how dracula is a book about unspeakable horrors, and also a book about when you're in your late twenties and you thought this was the part of your life where things were settling down because everyone's getting engaged and you finished grad school and you're in an actual career now, and then your friend's mom has cancer and you don't know what to say because you've never had to say something about this before, and at the funeral it occurs to you that it may be a while before the next one but this is something you'll be doing for the rest of your life. at the beginning of the book, four of the characters - jonathan and mina, lucy and arthur - think they're a few months away from their happy endings, while a fifth, seward, our last major POV character, is contentedly speculating about how his fascinating new patient may afford him opportunities for major advances in his field. now, one of those happy endings is shattered brutally for good, while the other one has technically transpired but looks nothing like they'd imagined, and renfield is dead while thoughts of his career couldn't be further from seward's mind. this is all very late-twenties, to me: the time when it starts to really click inside you that there are no endings until the very end.

anyway. i guess what i'm saying is, bram stoker's 1897 gothic horror opus is actually a coming of age novel, and i for one would fucking kill for a modern adaptation that really leans into this aspect.

[raccoonface]

“New bodyguard… huh”

Y/n's POV

I just got accepted to be Jenna Ortega's bodyguard, and I was starting tomorrow. I had to get myself prepared to handle the paparazzi. Tomorrow was the Met Galla.

The next day

I am on my way to get Jenna, but I can't help but be nervous I don't know why but I just put that to the side.

I made it to Jenna's place and I am waiting for her to come out of her hotel. When she came out she looked beautiful.

I couldn't take my eyes off of her until her old bodyguard introduced me to her.

Jenna's POV

"Jenna."

"Yes Vince?"

"This is your new bodyguard, Y/n"

"Nice to meet you, Y/N."

"You as well Jenna"

I looked at her and she had sunglasses on with a full black outfit (whatever outfit, doesn't matter)

I thought she looked nice, and she drove me to the Met Galla

After the met galla

Y/n's POV

I have to get Jenna into the car without her getting jumped by one of her fans which should be easy since it's the after party of the met Galla

I got her and I'm bringing her inside the car with Enrique helping me

"You're Y/n right?" Enrique asked me I just nodded my head

"Wait... you're Enrique"

"Yup. I'm surprised you even know me  , I'm not usually the one being noticed"

"I know a lot of things"

"Don't know if I should be worried for Jenna or not"

"Don't worry she'll be fine on my watch"

"That's what I'm afraid of"

"Rude much"

"Alright you probably have to go Jenna doesn't like to wait"

"You're not coming with me?"

"No I got my own car to take care of"

"Alright, bye"

"Bye nice to meet you"

"Nice to meet you too"

After the convo I headed into the car to take Jenna home, when I was in the car I asked her how she was but then realized she fell asleep somehow

I was driving to her apartment building when I looked back at her and somewhat admired her without crashing the car.

I noticed how beautiful she was. How her hair complemented her face, don't get me started on her freckles

When I got to her apartment I got out and went to the back and had to wake her up

"Hey" I said while shaking her, all she did was mumble. I shook her a little harder and she woke up

"Hmm?"

"We're at your apartment"

"Okay" she said that then unbuckled. Once she did she looked at me and caught me staring at her

"Are you going to take me up to my apartment?"

"Uhm am I supposed to?"

"Yeah"

"Okay then"

Jenna's POV

I told Y/n that she was supposed to take me up to my apartment but technically you're not supposed to. But I did it anyways

We were walking into the elevator and I pressed which floor I was on. Then when we got off and to my door I unlocked it while she stood by.

"I guess I can go now that your alright"

"Wait... can you come in? Since your new I can tell you what you can and cannot do." I sort of mentally panicked after I said that because I have no idea what she could and couldn't do.

"I don't think that I should"

"It'll be quick, I promise."

"Fine"

Y/n's POV

I was so confused as to what had just happened, so much so I forgot what she was supposed to tell me.

"So what were you going to tell me again?"

"Uhm... for the first night as my bodyguard, you are supposed to sleep in my apartment to make sure I'm safe."

I looked at her skeptically but nodded my head in agreement with her.

"Alright so I'm sleeping on the couch I'm guessing"

"Uh sure if you want to... but I was wondering if you wanted to watch a movie before going to sleep"

It was only midnight so I agreed.

"Yeah, sure what movie?"

"Uh I was hoping you could pick"

"Okay how about (horror movie of your choice , if you can't pick then it's the shining)"

"Fine by me"

I took my sunglasses off and sat down on the couch while Jenna was I'm guessing getting snacks

She came back with snacks and took the remote and put the movie on.

"I hope you don't mind these types of snacks"

"No not at all"

We started watching the movie and when we finished it Jenna was fully cuddled on top of me, sleeping. I had no idea how we got here.

I tried moving a little but she started to wake up. So as quickly and carefully as I could I brought her to her room accidentally opening the bathroom door instead of her bedroom door at first.

She was still cuddled into me so I had to go into the bed with her and after we were both under the covers I practically passed out.

In the morning

I woke up with Jenna still asleep on me and I remember being told that after every met Galla Jenna gets a day off. So I just let her sleep.

She had a tv in her room so I turned it on low volume then put something on.

She started to wake up about Half an hour after I turned the tv on.

"Morning, Jen" I whispered into her ear

"No, shut up I'm not awake."

I just chuckled  and wiggled myself out of her grip then went to her kitchen and rummaged around to look at what I could make her for breakfast.

I ended up just making vegan pancakes for both of us she came out as I was making them

"Morning Jenna"

"Morning, Y/n"

She went up to the plate of already made pancakes and took one off the top and shoved it into her mouth.

I finished the pancakes then actually plated them and gave a plate to myself and one to Jenna. I went to sit down next to her as I grabbed the remote but she stole it from my hands

"My remote"

I chuckled and let her have it.

.. .. .. ..

After we were done eating breakfast we just sat there and watched the tv for the most part the only words that were spoken was us talking to the tv saying that the characters should do this or that.

Jenna's POV

I really want to talk to Y/n about last night, I wanted to tell her that I have grown feelings for her and I know it's only been like two days but I still want to tell her, but I don't know how to approach her.

I was walking into the kitchen to see Y/n washing the dishes from breakfast

"Hey..."

"Hey Jen, How's it going?"

"Good."

"Something bothering you?"

"Actually yeah, there is."

"Well you gonna tell me since we're already talking."

"Yeah uh-"

I got cut off by a phone loudly buzzing, and I went up to check my phone to see who it was...

It was my agent. With a photo of me and Y/n with my head on her shoulder watching tv...

—————————————————————————

Rewrote the entire story because I thought it was terrible before and sorry I haven't been posting a lot plus it took me about two months just to re write this and it's only about 1.3k words. I need requests so while I'm writing one more imagine send requests PLEASE 🙏

Words are up there dingus ^

Might make this into a story if you guys like it..?

(I have a Wattpad ‘obsessedforyou’ if you liked this)

[givehimthemedicine]

house arrest and boarded up homes

I was thinking about how the only times we ever see Vecna anywhere except at the Creel house (I mean literally in Vecna form) it's in visions, right? which he's conducting from the UD attic, really? can he leave the house?

so then I got thinking about all the "trapped at home" themes on ST and especially the boarded up exits in visions. far from a new revelation, there's not really gonna be anything "new" in this post - but I never realized how extensive it is (this isn't even attempting to be a complete roundup due to photo limit) or thought about what that means for him

OKAY Creelers, your homes are prisons... we got it... smth smth Karen trying to trap her kids at home and in turn being trapped there herself by allying with Brenner...

anyway onto the actual horror boards thing - not all Vecna visions have them.

Fred's visions, Chrissy's clock and bathroom visions, and Max's clock, mom and Billy visions do not have the boards imagery. those are also all the ones which happened outside of or not involving their homes, both in terms of the vision's setting and where the victim physically was while experiencing it.

but the visions set inside of homes got boards [and those are all also the ones experienced while inside of homes irl, though not necessarily those same homes] - the Cunningham house in Chrissy's final vision, the lab in Nancy's (not a house but was technically his home for most of his life, and is referred to as home by Brenner), and ofc Max's in the Creel house.

(honorable mention for Victor's war vision, which wasn't boarded up in the sense of the others, but it was both experienced from and set in a home, and there is some very similar blue-lit-boards imagery in the bombed house. I know there's some question as to who actually did this one but it sorta works)

and when we get to the actual Creel house, whoooboy do we go hard on the boards thing. both in the sense of the IRL house being all boarded up so that the kids have to pry plywood off that door to get in, and of the actual horror boards vision being so much more extensive than Chrissy's or Nancy's.

btw guess how many different boarded up exits Max encounters in her vision? 4. teehee get it

ok, any more homes/boards stuff outside of the st4 visions?

this is kinda Will trying to escape his house, the UD of it anyway. and depending in what way Will's UD experience was affected by what went on in the RU, consider the impys of Lonnie "repairing" that hole, from Will's pov. even if Will didn't literally get the horror boards treatment in there, as a result of this, still. Themes TM

and then much later we have Jon and Nancy boarding up the broken cabin window. yeah I know this is to stop bad guys getting in, not good guys getting out. but is it giving "horror boards but from the wrong pov" again? is this any support for the idea of the final scene being Will's Vecna vision?

and then of course there's the way that that cabin was El's former home, yet also very much a place she wanted to escape from - as was every other place El has ever called home, however briefly. in most cases the word "prison" actually does pop up eventually:

and then there's the mind lair being the fubar Creel house, and the fact that in no mind lair scenes do we ever see Vecna set foot outside of the bounds of the house, right?

in the Dear Billy vision, when it was Vecna in Max's head, he was able to chase her all around the graveyard when she ran. but when Max somehow got into his head, and then Kate Bushed it outta there, he just stood there looking grumpy and tried to stop her by making house parts fall on her, like he couldn't follow her.

[side note: if he HAD scored a direct hit, what then? send a vine out to drag her back? he stopped her that way before, why didn't he just do that again? can his vines not reach beyond the bounds of the mindscape house either?]

even the Piggyback moment where El comes-to and sees him carrying Max in (which. WHY?) he's already well within the house area.

thematically it makes sense that he would be trapped in his own mindscape. psychologically stuck in his trauma... prison of his own making type of thing.. etc etc

image limit. go on without me:

"they're still with me (taps head) in here"

Vecna getting trapped against one of those pillars in his own mindscape by El

boarded up doors imagery vs Flayed Billy and VecnaChrissysmom "open the goddamn door" (not to mention a trillion other instances of "open the door" and door imagery)

Victor telling the story of their home and his trauma from in an actual prison cell (nvm the whole Hopper prison plot)

Kali / Brenner / festering

Pennhurst "can't they just escape?" "they could, but the vast majority choose to be here"

leave your train station

and the only time I can think of that we see Vecna physically outside his house in the UD is when Nancy shoots him though the (boarded up) attic window, after which he disappears somehow. was whatever happened there (at least in part) a consequence of having gone out-of-bounds?

lab duels / if you leave your circle, you lose

Terry stuck reliving her trauma in her dream circle

you have already lost / no you have... etc etc

on first watch I figured he could do whatever and go wherever he wanted but chose to stay at home (like how Will hid at home in the UD)(actually ig I'm basing that on a lot of assumptions) but actually I don't see support for that unless I'm missing something huge.

anyway. just me rolling in the themes like a dog in poop 👍

[rakiah]

Hey hey! (^-^)/ How are you doing? Love your work btw, it's always for pretty and fluffy! (* >ω<) I just had a couple of questions, and the first one was: What are your tips for an aspiring comic artist? f(^ー^; I wanna draw some of my favorite scenes from my fanfics, and I thought it might look kinda cool if it was kinda comic/webtoon style? (-。-;) Like what's your I guess take on that and how one might do that? And what about panel style, placement, and size? Is that all up to the artist, or do they have a rhyme and reason? Sorry if this was too long. You don't have to answer btw. I thought I'd give it a shot since y'know. (*´～｀*) Anyways have a great day and keep of the good work! d=(^o^)=b See ya! (^_^)v

Hi!~

Pretty busy but fine and thank you! (//∇//)

That’s a big question and I’ll try to do my best! Explaining something that technic not in your native language can be uncertain so, I’m sorry in advance 🙏

First of all: Observe. Comics, doujins, mangas,… Just observe to learn how others do.

Comic is a narrative art so, the most important things in comic is the reading way aka the panels (the angles you choose), the speech bubbles and how you put them in your comic page. It’s really the first thing you have to put in your storyboard!

Texts in the speech bubbles are also veeeery important. Texts that are badly formatted is painful to read… Avoid doing cesura as often as possible and do nice text forms.

And please, if you choose a manga layout, do not put japanese speech bubbles, they’re really not suitable for western texts.

If you want to to a webtoon instead of a regular comic/manga, you have to thing your layout quite differently. Webtoons are more like storyboard for animation. Like a series of forceful scenes. Plus, you have to deal with the required format. I’m not pretty used to do some, I’m just working with a lot of them (I do the texts for them). I can recommend you Sweet Home (cw: horror, hikikomori) to see how the author use the long layout of the webtoon to skillfully instill the jump scares in their episodes!

A quick “how I do” to finish my blah-blah! ٩( ᐛ )و

First, I write my plot like a play (quick context for each act, full dialogues with stage directions) then storyboard. Tiny storyboard, I sketch 15 pages on an A4 page. Better global view. I can’t give specific advices on how to do panels (cause it’s something that just pops in my mind during my storyboard stage 💦) just keep in mind to diversify your angles especially during a talk between 2 characters. Don’t do a shot reverse shot, it’s just boring.

Then pages. I usually rework my storyboard at the sketch stage ‘cause I have a new eye on it lol

Also, don’t forget to think about the facing pages for the narration. You can do some fun page layout!

Tadaa! ✨

Hope it’ll help you and have fun with your comic! (о´∀`о)

[darkestprompts]

I really like the Duelist,, I don't have the game but I've seen a lot of people having fun playing her and I like her.

But for me, her character backstory is so booooriiing

She just did stuff because yes.

I like trying to analyze the characters reason to do something. The believes and values they have and how it weights on them.

-Why did this character did that? How? What made them choose this? How does it affect them and the people around them? -

And stuff like that I guess,,

But she has none of it. Nothing at all.

I was wondering your opinion on her backstory and if you had any headcanons or something that could give her some reason¿?

(Idk if I made myself understandable, I'm pretty confident on my english but I still have moments of doubt¿)

Saludos desde Chile/Greetings from Chile

🇨🇱

Saludos a todos mis hermanos de Latinoamérica!

Sahar, Sahar, Sahar... I'm still mulling over what I'd rather they had done with this character, so forgive me if this is rambly.

I'm disappointed that the Warlord is Reynauld's nemesis and not hers. It could have gone the way of her as a failed hero who tried to stop the invaders, emphasizing her lack of experience outside sports in spite of her technical excellence with the Warlord's raw brutality. That would be a very different character, more foolish and naive than morally questionable.

Now, I'm the first one to say that I'm all for women's wrongs. I love villainous women, morally gray women, unpleasant women. But to be blunt, Sahar feels like the MCU's idea of a badass female character circa 2012. She's PRETTY and PERFECT and KILLS MEN and DOESN'T CARE. Ok, but why is she like that? Does it make sense? Is her journey interesting? Is she allowed to have feelings like a normal person? Is she allowed to be complex and contradictory?

I like that Paracelsus missed the fundamentals of ethics in her pursuit of the refinement of medical science. I like that Audrey will soil her hands for her own survival and comfort. I like that Josephine will betray anyone who stands between her and her goals. I can understand their reasons even when they are morally wrong.

I can't understand why a top-level athlete suddenly lost her shit and decided to kill the person she loved, then run off to try to stab Cthulhu&Friends. It's not even that she is a robot, because a robot would presume some kind of logic.

The other character that suffers from a similar lack of structure in the way he is written is Damian. He used to be a man with extreme beliefs that made him dangerous and intolerant. But now you can't even figure out what he believes or stands for, they turned him into some CrAzEe guy, because masochism funee. It's lazy writing and it's not interesting.

If I were to stick close to what they gave us, I would try to ground the narrative. Alright, she got lost in a rush of bloodlust while fighting her man. Why is HE happy that she killed him? That's stupid. Make it so she loved that thrill, the moment of unbridled violence, but has to contend with the horror and fear in her lover's eyes as she killed him. Make her anxious to find that feeling again, but afraid that she has lost her mind. Let guilt and temptation tear her in the middle.

Or if you want her to simply be an unrepentant jackass, have her challenge a rival to a duel with the full intent of killing them, then be forced to run away when her scheme is revealed. She only regrets that she was discovered and that's fine.

[kivaember]

SLAPS DOWN SOME FREUD AND RUSTY STUFF. It's just Freud being a freak and Rusty being very alarmed and then very murderous towards him.

Guess you can call this one-sided freud/rusty on freud's side??? i'll leave it for the reader to decide. enjoy!

Arquebus work functions were absolute hell on earth.

It wasn't just the fact that Vespers were paraded around as products rather than employees, it was the fact that Rusty had to stand around and smile vapidly while he had far too many people who he fucking despised talk to him and shake his hand and ask far too many personal questions that weren't relevant to his augmentions or job description at all.

Well, no, technical lie. There were many questions about his augmentations, but they were rarely about their effectiveness in improving his piloting abilities and the like. They were normally things like "is it true that these augmentations extend your life?" or "Arquebus have been advertising the Gen Tens are something that can hit the domestic markets, that they improve the human body in all qualities, is that true?" or "So I hear that one of the biggest risks to augmentation surgery is erectile dysfunction, what do you do about that?" or "Is it true you have to be sterilised?? So you can't get girls pregnant, right?"

There was a reason behind such questions. With the Gen Tens finally out of the experimental stage (as in, they managed to get them to stop killing people) and being extensively field tested in multiple roles, Arquebus had boldly began an advertisement compaign encouraging the domestic sector to invest in augmenting their employees.

Gone were the days where augmentations only benefited soldiers and pilots! With the Gen Tens, the augmentation surgeries were so safe that they could be done far more cheaply than previous generations, and offered a slew of advantageous that would make you a very productive and long-lived worker! The military sector, while booming, was still very restrictive in terms of how many people you can augment until you start scraping the bottom of the poorest barrel, so now Arquebus turned their hungry gaze on the domestic sector.

Arquebus's many subsidaries were going to fall in line, but the executives still had many questions they wanted answers to when spinning up their own advertisement campaigns. What better way to get those answers than from the source? Hence the Vespers, trotted out like good little dogs, barking to the tune that Arquebus wanted, lying through their teeth, telling the corporate vultures what they wanted to hear, all while Rusty hoped they all did get augmented and died horribly from unexpected complications.

Would serve them right.

But it made these work functions an utter horror show for him. Draining. Exhausting. As the initial slew of questioning and socialising began to slow as the alcohol levels rose in everyone's bloodstreams, Rusty was grumpy, tired and had a pounding headache. He kept his smile up only by vividly imagining blowing everyone up with his mind.

"-so the sterility isn't universal?"

"It depends on what you mean by 'sterile'," Maeterlinck answered with a patience Rusty had long ran out of. It was him and her, fielding questions from Executive... Mike Mcfuckhands of Shit Company #69. By this point most people were very drunk, but somehow he and Maeterlinck got ambushed by the one half-way sober executive before they could successfully escape without notice.

(It was one of the few times that Rusty genuinely commiserated with his fellow Vespers. The look of utter despair they had shared had been emphatic.)

"Well, you know..." Mcfuckhands waved his wine glass a little carelessly. Rusty watched with dull eyes as wine spilled over the lip and onto the floor. "You don't need condoms to have some fun, if you know what I mean."

"Well, the augmentations won't protect you from STIs, of course," Maeterlinck said evenly. She was a stronger soldier than Rusty, that was for sure, keeping such a straight face and bland voice. "They'll mitigate the worst of the symptoms, but it won't grant you immunity."

"Oh, er, of course, of course, but, you won't get someone pregnant?"

"No."

save me, Rusty begged whatever deity or demon was listening, save me from this hell.

His prayers were, amazingly, answered almost immediately.

With a chiming tune that was out of place of their swanky surroundings, Rusty's phone began to trill. Leaping upon this opportunity like a starving dog on a bull carcass, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and stepped back.

"Sorry, gotta take this. Important call," he said, ignoring Maeterlinck's dagger stare of 'you cowardly traitor'.

Sorry, Maeterlinck. It was every man for himself out here.

Preparing for it to be a spam call trying to sell him some kind of gizmo or whatever, Rusty answered the call without checking the ID as he strode with purpose towards the ballroom's doors.

"You just saved me from a really painful conversation from some dumbass executive so I'll listen to whatever you're peddling," Rusty said. "What is it this time? A roomba that'll clean your apartment and then suck you off once it's done?"

"...haven't got one of those in my toolbox, but now you've got me interested, V.IV."

Rusty froze comically.

"C-Commander?" he half-squeaked, mortified when Freud started sniggering in that low, throaty way of his. "What- I thought you were a telemarketer! Why're you-"

Wait.

"...why're you calling me?" Rusty asked dumbly. Hesitantly, he started walking again, his confusion eclipsing his mortification. "Is V.II not picking up?"

"Why would I call Snail?"

Because you're the commander and he's your deputy bitch, Rusty did not say.

"To torment him," he said instead.

"...okay, fair," Freud conceded. "But I called you intentionally. You need to ditch that party and return to HQ."

"Is there an emergency deployment?" Rusty asked, easily slipping into business mode. He exited the ballroom, the music and chatter cutting off when the doors shut behind him. The entrance hallway was far quieter and cooller.

"Emergency deployment... eh, yeah, something like that..." Freud said vaguely. "Just hurry up to the hangar. I'll be waiting, V.IV."

He hung up without much as a goodbye, and Rusty pocketed his phone with a frown. He wondered what kind of mission this was, to have Freud directly calling him and circumventing Snail. It must be pretty bad. Maybe Balam had finally managed to reclaim Pluto from Arquebus? They'd been duking it out over that planetoid's chunked remains ever since it had blown up.

(Why had it blown up? Rusty had no idea. Any details pertaining to "Pluto's Cracking" were very vague and buried under impenetrable black ink. Must've been some UEG experiment that went horribly wrong, was Rusty's theory.)

But if it wasn't Pluto... Rusty couldn't think of anything else urgent enough to warrant Freud's calling him during a work function. Well, even if it was something as mundane as acting as his punching bag in simulated spars, it was leagues better than suffering stupid questions from equally moronic executives...

And Freud was a good excuse to hold up if Snail cottoned onto his early departure. Yes, whatever Freud wanted will be worth it.

-

Two hours later and standing outside of the London's city limits in STEEL HAZE, Rusty reassessed his earlier sentiments.

Upon arriving at the hangar after switching out his suit and tie for the Vesper flight suit, Freud had all but chivvied him into STEEL HAZE and ordered him to follow him to a set of coordinates outside of London's city limits. All flight clearances had been given for them to travel in flight configuration over the city, Freud assured, and Rusty, unsure but curious, did as he was told.

The coordinates led them both to a large stretch of absolute nowhere deep in the irradiated wastelands of Earth. The ground was rocky and uneven, large fissures gaping where the crust had split open with tremendous force, and so deep that not even STEEL HAZE's sensors could detect the bottom. A flashing alert for unsafe levels of radiation blinked at the bottom of his HUD, the value registering around 7Gy - potent enough to give him acute radiation poisoning if he opened his cockpit hatch. The sky as well was an unsettled shade of rust, the reddish brown dust that coated everything hazing the air due to the constant blistering winds.

It boggled the mind to think some humans did actually live out in these wastelands, somehow, and even more boggling that the Rejuvenated cities were functioning oases where it was easy to forget the state of the world beyond their towering walls.

Honestly, looking at the wasteland around him, Rusty couldn't help but feel relief that Rubicon wasn't this bad. Yeah, the climate was stuck in the middle of an ever deepening ice age in some parts, and majority of life had been rendered extinct... but the atmosphere was irradiated, plants still grew without aid, there was still rain and groundwater and other signs of defiant life. Earth didn't have that. Outside of its fake movie sets that were those cities, the whole planet was straight up dead.

Just completely, totally, utterly dead.

"Right, yeah, this'll do..." Freud hummed. "Some good cover, wide open space, far away enough that those Peacekeepers won't get involved..."

Ominous words.

"Hey, Commander?" Rusty said.

"Yeah?"

"Are you planning on murdering me out here or something?"

Freud didn't immediately answer. Slowly, LOCKSMITH swivelled around to face STEEL HAZE, but its weapons remained inactive and the Scudder rifle was pointing downwards towards the ground. Rusty still kept his finger close to his trigger, though, his implants ready to engage his FCS the second LOCKSMITH so much as twitched wrong.

"......is that what you're into?" Freud finally asked.

What. "What?"

"Hey, no judgement on my part. I get that there's a bit of excitement at consensual attempted murder-"

What???

"Uh- no? No??" Rusty stuttered, unsure on how Freud even made that bizarre leap of logic. "I'm not- that's not why I asked! You just-"

Freud cut him off with a horribly obnoxious laugh. "You're so easily flustered, V.IV! I'm just yanking your chain. I know you're a good little tamed wolf."

Rusty huffed, his face feeling uncomfortably hot. "With someone like you, it's hard to tell, commander. You've always had unique tastes."

"Ooooh, looks like this wolf's muzzle can slip loose," Freud purred. "Perfect. That'll make this more... fun."

STEEL HAZE's sensors picked up LOCKSMITH's weapon systems coming online. Functioning purely off instinct, Rusty activated his own and snapped STEEL HAZE's arm right up, its SAMPU machine gun aimed squarely at LOCKSMITH's Core - just as LOCKSMITH's Scudder rifle pointed at him.

"You didn't even blink," Freud murmured. "Good."

"I've always been quick on the draw, commander," Rusty said lightly, maintaining V.IV Rusty's confident, airy mein all while his mind raced frantically, trying to figure out if he had slipped up somewhere, if Freud had cottoned onto his true nature. Had he really called him out here to get rid of him? Well, least Freud offered him a fighting chance - better than being vanished by the Peacekeepers in the middle of the night.

"Yeah. Your reaction times in the sims were always somewhat impressive..."

LOCKSMITH started to sidestep. STEEL HAZE matched it. They began to circle each other.

"But sims are rarely indicative of a pilot's true skill," Freud said conversationally, like they weren't holding guns in each other's faces. "It's only when they're really under pressure that they show their true abilities."

"Is that what this is?" Rusty asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice. "You want to see me perform under pressure?"

"You half-ass your spars in the sims." Freud's voice went flat - almost cold. "You can clearly do better, but you don't. You pretend to be less skilled than you really are, and it really, really, really pisses me off. So this is what we're going to do."

With its free hand, LOCKSMITH gestured to their surroundings. "We're going to fight here and now. If you don't give me your all, I'm going to crack your cockpit open like an egg. What's the ambient radiation level right now? 7Gy?"

"Yeah," Rusty said flatly.

"Hm, that means you'd have about ten minutes before you start vomiting your guts out and your intestines try to escape your body through your asshole," Freud said, so matter-of-fact. "I think it'd take, what, a few hours before you start bleeding from every orifice?"

It'd be a horrible way to go. Rusty felt his pulse pick up a little. "Did Arquebus HQ authorise this 'test', commander?"

"I always ask for forgiveness than permission from HQ, and they always forgive me," Freud laughed, but there was something strangely bitter about it. "You can be replaced, anyways. Now."

LOCKSMITH's head tilted fractionally.

"Fight like the cornered wolf that you are, V.IV," Freud murmured. "Let me see those fangs of yours."

And before Rusty could respond, LOCKSMITH fired.

-

In the end, the decision was easy to make.

Though Rusty had told himself he'd try to conceal his true skill as much as possible, even at risk to himself, when his back was really pushed to the wall and he had to choose between dying and keeping his cover, or fighting back like a cornered animal desperate to live and blowing everything, Rusty didn't really have to think about it.

He fought back with everything he had. He bared those fangs. He pushed himself to his very limits, Freud matching him every step of the way, pushing him and pushing him, until their ammunition was spent and the generators were close to overheating, their battle tearing up new scars along the cracked earth and leaving chunks of of themselves behind.

The fight didn't end in a draw so much as they wordlessly came to a mutual halt several tens of metres apart. LOCKSMITH was missing an arm - a casualty to Rusty's laser slicer shearing the limb off at the shoulder - and parts of its armour was warped and dented from STEEL HAZE's plasma missiles eating through the military grade steel. The Scudder rifle had been tossed aside a while back, and LOCKSMITH's fingers on that hand were partially crushed from where it had slugged STEEL HAZE in the gut at full force. Rusty was still feeling the ache from that even now.

He wished he could say STEEL HAZE was in a better state, but the fact was the AC was barely functioning. Its right arm was useless - Freud's revenge for LOCKSMITH's dismembered arm - and STEEL HAZE's ablative armour was stripped down to nothing, revealing the dull, gunmetal grey base armour underneath, scorched and scratched from deflected rounds or glancing blows from the MORLEY grenade launcher. Rusty had sacrificed many of STEEL HAZE's functionality to defend the Core at all costs, knowing it would take only one minor breach of the Core block to have him dying from acute radiation poisoning.

If they continued to fight, Rusty would lose. That was cold, hard fact, and he was braced for it, braced for overloading his own generator and latching onto LOCKSMITH if need be, if only to drag Freud into his grave with him, but instead after a long, charged pause, LOCKSMITH's weapon systems deactivated.

Rusty kept STEEL HAZE's active.

"...that's more like it," Freud murmured. His voice had a distinct breathlessness to it that Rusty tried to ignore. "You were glorious, V.IV. Vicious, fast, and decisive. You almost killed me a few times, might've if luck had been on your side."

"You sound disappointed," Rusty gritted out, not bothering to pretend to be V.IV Rusty. "Don't tell me this was some fucking convoluted suicide attempt."

Freud laughed - no, cackled. "Suicide attempt? You still think you can beat me right now?"

Rusty swallowed down his pride, sensing a trap in Freud's breathless, wild voice. He clenched his jaw, bared his fangs in a snarl that Freud couldn't see but definitely hear as he growled: "Not right now. But one day."

"One day. One day, you might be able to." Freud inhaled deeply, and let it out slow. "Yeah, one day."

Rusty waited, his pulse still thumping like a drum in his ears, STEEL HAZE poised to lunge, teetering on a tripwire. After a long, long pause, where Freud audibly pulled himself back under control, folding back his wild, deranged true self into the far more socially acceptable lines of V.I Freud, Vesper, LOCKSMITH turned away.

"Well, I think we've been gone long enough. Come on, V.IV. Let's go back."

Freud didn't wait. He launched LOCKSMITH upwards and boosted back towards the city, the AC travelling at a much slower speed than its flight-configuration allowed. Its armour integrity was likely hanging on by a thread, much like STEEL HAZE's.

Rusty reluctantly followed him but kept his distance, still trying to figure out what the fuck that had been about. Freud had always been a bit of a mystery, but it turned out he was fucking insane and couldn't be trusted to be normal at all. Who the hell invited someone out into the middle of nowhere to goad them into a fight to the death?! What was wrong with this guy?!

i better be careful around him, Rusty thought agitatedly. Freud now knew his true skill - had known he'd been holding back for a long while, it seemed. Had he shared this information with anyone else? Was he onto Rusty, or was he so fucking nuts that he only cared about being cheated out of a good spar in the sims? Was Rusty going to be called out into the irradiated wastelands to fight him again? Should he complain to Snail about this?! Would Snail side with him out of his hatred for Freud, or with Freud out of his hatred for Rusty???

And more importantly...

...

Who was going to authorise STEEL HAZE's repairs... since this wasn't an official sortie, then... then this might come out of... Rusty's wages...

...

i'm definitely going to kill him, he decided, cold with an intense, deep fury, maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day, i'm going to fucking kill him.