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autisticlancemcclain · 5 months

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“This your place?” Keith asked, panting.

His host raised his eyebrow, pushing open the door.

“No,” he deadpanned, “this is my annoying neighbour’s house. He’s on holidays. I’m staying here and using all his things to take revenge for hours of small talk.”

“Oh,” Keith replied, impressed. “Cool.” He’ll have to do that next time Lance is on a solo mission.

“No, I’m – I’m kidding, Paladin.”

“Oh,” Keith repeated, disappointed. “Less cool.”

“Just – get in the house.”

Keith didn’t argue. He followed his host into the small building, nodded as he was pointed to a guest room, and passed out the second his head hit the straw-stuffed pillow.

— — —

When Keith woke, it was dark outside. A scarred face was looming over his, and he bit back a scream, hand flying for his knife on reflex.

“Peace, Paladin,” said Ares, holding up a hand. “I startled you. I did not mean to. It’s time for the feast.

Keith slumped. His heart slowed from its jackrabbit pace. “Yeah. Yeah, man, thanks. I’ll be right out.”

His host nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Keith took one minute to calm himself, closing his eyes and counting his breaths. Once sixty seconds passed, he stood, glancing down at his armour.

That was…fine, right?

They always wore their armour to diplomacy missions. Well, mostly because Keith threw a massive hissy fit the second Coran attempted to force him into the worst, most restrictive suit he’d ever seen. His armour was battered, unpolished, and honestly kind of rank, but it wasn’t like he had many other options. He held out his helmet, inspecting himself in the reflection of his visor.

Shiro would tell him to brush his hair.

Too bad he didn’t have a hairbrush.

He walked out of his room, shrugging. His host was waiting for him by the small hearth in the middle of the house, standing as Keith approached.

“Shall we make our leave?”

“Sure.”

He followed his host back out of the little house. They walk in silence. Keith’s feet begin to hurt by the five minute mark – he has no idea how long he slept, but it was not long enough, and exhaustion still pulled at his frame.

Dryope had mentioned food, though. And something like a party, but one lucky thing about Ares – he doesn’t seem to be much of a partier, either, so hopefully Keith could ditch that bright and early and go right back to sleep.

They walked along the same hills Keith’s host had led them down earlier, only this time they were going up, so it was worse. Thankfully, though, the walk was just barely shorter – they weren’t walking back to the beach, but to the hearth, the big fire pit Keith noticed walking in. All the houses they passed were empty, not even a light by the window.

“Is everyone at the – party, thing, whatever?” Keith panted.

Ares eyed him briefly, not pausing his stride. “Look for yourself.”

They crested the top of the hill, and Keith’s jaw dropped.

The hearth was blazing. The flame burned so brightly and hugely that Keith was half-convinced it was out of control. Surrounding it in hundreds of chattering groups was every single Aegian, tall and wide and small, smiling and laughing. As he watched, an Aegian called something in a language Keith couldn’t understand, and immediately dozens of the tree-warriors rushed up to join hands in a big ring around the fire, twirling and dancing as the watching Aegians chanted and sang.

Keith’s first thought was, Aren’t these guys made of wood?

His second thought was, This looks like a hippie commune. Time to ditch.

Unfortunately Ares caught him before he could go right back the way they can, spinning him around and shoving him down the hill.

“Real hospitable,” Keith grumbled.

His host seemed, as much as such a scary person could look, amused. “On you go, Paladin.”

Keith stomped on. He probably could take Ares in a fight, at least normally, but he was exhausted and injured and weak. Plus, if he was the reason behind yet another failed diplomatic mission, Lance would gleefully hold it over his head for weeks, and Shiro would be disappointed if Keith finally killed him. Plus, Allura would be upset with him, and having Allura upset with you kind of feels like taking a kitten that loves and trusts you and drop kicking it into the sun. Very quickly, you realise that you are the scum of the Earth and the worst person alive. It’s generally just something you should avoid.

As he trudged down the hill, he quickly recognised three familiar suits of armour. They were kind of hard to miss – even as scuffed as they were, they glinted in the light of the massive fire, shining like a bunch of precious stones. Pidge, sulking somewhere near a table of desserts; Hunk, chatting with his host; and Shiro, speaking with the Aegian leader like the tryhard little teacher’s pet he was. Coran stuck out, too, in his bright blue Altean uniform that was somehow pristine even though Keith watched him get flung at a wall and shocked by a bare wire from the broken control centre back on the dead castle.

All the Aegians wore some kind of bedsheet, or their Tinkerbell clothes. Interestingly, the dryads were not the only Aegians present – there were others who looked a little more human, although they had plenty of strange features that reminded Keith they were not. A group of laughing girls looked like they were made from the bottom of a pool in the sunlight, skin shifting with dappled light. Several guys walked around with half a donkey hanging out of their drawers. Keith spotted some honest-to-God centaurs. One girl appeared to be made out of blowing, spinning wind.

Hundreds of eyes seemed to follow Keith as he joined the crowd, glancing at him and then back at their friends, whispering to themselves. Keith shrunk into himself, letting his hair fall in front of his eyes – no one looked mad, or angry, or cruel, but no one looked exactly welcoming, either. Ares had disappeared at some point, not that he was what Keith would consider a friendly face.

Keith needed to find someone he knew, stat.

His first instinct was Pidge – the two of them usually slunked in some corner together whenever they were forced (often at gunpoint, thanks, Lance) to some stupid party. They had a running game called How Many People Can We Convince That Barking Is A Polite Human Greeting Before Shiro Finds Out. So far their score was 135-149, Pidge in the lead. (Keith very much intended to catch up.) But before he could make it over to where she was hiding, a group of water-girls descended upon her like a pack of piranhas, giggling and shouting something about braiding and eye makeup. Keith decided he would rather chew off his right hand than put himself anywhere near that, and did an abrupt 180 in search of Hunk.

Unfortunately, the big guy was still preoccupied. His host – Elijah (or something, Keith would be reminded of his real name eventually) – was showing him some kind of metal box that opened to a bunch of intricately placed gears and bobbles and wires. Hunk was staring at it like the Holy Grail. Not even Keith’s best pleading eyes and sad orphan story would convince him to babysit Keith and glare at anyone who attempted to socialise. Another dead end.

Keith sighed. That really only left –

“Hey, squirt!”

Keith went bright red, cringing with his whole entire body. He loved his brother, he really, truly did, but Shiro was as out of depth as he was at stuff like this and tended to overcompensate by being affectionate. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, except he had a bad case of Foot In Mouth Disease and knew Keith at his most embarrassing early teenage emo.

So.

“Hey, Shiro,” he said stiffly, trying not to die inside as the man pressed a smacking kiss right in the centre of his forehead.

A tall, handsome guy somewhere to their left raised his eyebrows, smiling with amusement. Keith thought he could die. Sometimes, he thought his brother was secretly a forty-six year old suburban mom of three.

“We missed you!” cried his embarrassing brother. He was so genuine about it, it was hard not to smile back at him. “You took so long getting here!”

“My host’s place is at the farthest corner of the city,” Keith explained. “Had to hike here. Thought I was gonna bite it by mile six.”

Shiro snorted. “Drama queen.”

“Yeah, yeah. You try hiking after getting shaken around like a bobblehead. I bet your place is, like, twenty feet away from here.”

“Pretty much,” Shiro agreed, smile turning into more of a smirk. He attempted to dig his knuckles into Keith’s skull, but Keith was well used to his brand of crap and squirmed away at the last second. “Akeso’s sorta the main healer around here – at least I think? They’re not much of a talker – so they live in this building that’s attached to the infirmary. One of the big buildings in the inner circle.”

He pointed to one of the more rectangular buildings Keith had seen on the way in, with a much smaller, rounder building attached to it like one of those suction fish on a shark. It was hard to make out many details in the dark, fire’s light only able to stretch so far, but it looked pretty infirmary-ish.

“Hunk’s staying near the forges. He loves it, you should talk to him about it. He’s all cute and excited, you know that look he gets. Elatreus is impressed with him, practically made him an assistant.”

Elatreus! That’s the host’s name. And Keith absolutely knew what look Shiro’s talking about – the wide brown eyes, clasped hands, talking a mile a minute. He smiled softly. Nothing better for the soul like watching an ecstatic Hunk.

“That’s good. Glad he’s happy.”

“Yep. And Pidge is in a regular house like you, little more in-city. Next to some kind of trap shop? I don’t totally get it. Apparently Dysnomia needs a lot of supplies. Pidge was being all sketch about it.”

“That’s not super reassuring.”

“It is not!” Shiro agreed. He led Keith to one of the many tables laid out, absolutely covered in food. Keith realised he was ravenous, piling up a plate at least a foot high with meats and breads and foods he couldn’t even identify, but that smelt positively godly. At Shiro’s raised eyebrow, he rolled his eyes and selected a single vegetable.

“Make sure you toss some in the fire,” Shiro advised.

Keith squinted at him. “I’m…not gonna do that, thanks.”

“No, no, you have to.”

He pointed to the edge of the fire, where, sure enough, some Aegians were scraping the edge of their plates into the flames.

Keith wrinkled his nose. “The hell are they burning their food for? What a waste!”

Shiro shrugged, stepping into the line. “Akeso said it’s an old tradition, something that their ancestors felt protected them and gave them good will and peace. No one really wants to mess with that mojo, so. Portion of the food is sacrificed.”

Keith would be less pressed about it if the food didn’t look and smell so good. Scraping perfectly good food into fire felt like spending hours polishing a sword only to scratch it three seconds later – effort for no reason. When it was their turn, though, Keith did as the custom dictated. He’d learned enough about questioning weird traditions.

He held eye contact with Shiro and flicked his one vegetable into the flames. Delightfully, his brother’s eye twitched, like he was considering shoving Keith into them. Suddenly, this custom was Keith’s favourite he’d ever been forced to partake in.

By the time they finally sat somewhere to eat, Keith was so hungry he was ready to eat his fingers along with the food. He inhaled his food for a good five or six minutes, ignoring Shiro’s attempts first at conversation, then at slowing him down.

“Christ, kid,” he said, voice tinged with either horror or awe. Maybe both. “Eating like I never fed you in your life.”

“You haven’t,” Keith replied around a rib of some kind. “Adam fed me. You made ash of everything you touched.”

Shiro’s expression soured. He poked sullenly at some kind of leaf. (Serves him right for trying to be some kinda health freak now that he’s in charge. Keith once watched him eat an entire Costco sheet cake at three in the morning, and that had been his first and only meal of the day. Keith enjoyed bringing it up every time Shiro preached about the benefits of salad and watching him just start screeching to drown Keith out. Good times.)

“I didn’t turn everything to ash, you ungrateful brat. I made muffins that one time!”

You microwaved an already cooked muffin, Keith thought, wisely choosing to eat some kind of rice dish instead of bringing it up. And it tasted like erasers afterr. So.

“Sure, Shiro.”

Shiro nodded, satisfied. He picked up the leaf, sprinkled with some…orange thing, maybe, Keith couldn’t tell exactly, and took a delicate bite. He looked less satisfied.

“So,” he said, setting down his plate like he was looking for an excuse not to eat it. He looked at Keith expectantly. “You must want an update on Allura.”

Keith blinked. “Oh, shoot, yeah. I didn’t see her. She good?”

“Yeah, from what we can tell. When we got to the infirmary, Akeso stitched up my knee, then we –”

“You had a knee injury?” Keith interrupted. “You should have said something!”

Shiro smiled gently. “I got it treated, dork.” He bumped their shoulders together, trying to ease Keith’s upset expression. “I’m fine, okay? If Akeso didn’t bring it up, I would have. Promise. It wasn’t too bad, anyway, I swear.”

Keith frowned harder. He had noticed Shiro shifting slightly when they were first confronted by Dryope and her army, but Shiro had walked away without limping, so he’d allowed himself to stop worrying. A stupid mistake, and one he should know better than making. He knows his stupidly self-sacrificial brother.

“Keith, seriously,” Shiro assured. He leaned down, unlatching his thigh and knee braces, then pulled back the rip in his undersuit. Keith wasn’t comforted by the size of the rip – nor the placement of it – but the wound didn’t look too bad, and was stitched neatly. Some kind of salve was spread all over it, under the clear wound dressing. As he watched, the wound seemed to contract, shrinking ever so slightly.

“Healing magic,” Shiro explained, putting his armour back. He patted Keith’s shoulder. “Akeso is super practiced at it. They stitched me up but warned that overdoing magic healing is as bad as cheating death, so it’ll still take a couple weeks to heal fully. Just won’t hurt so bad and might heal a little faster than with just stitches.”

“That why Allura is still out?” Keith clarified, finally letting go of the tension in his shoulders. Shiro looked relieved. “No speedy magic?”

Shiro nodded. “Exactly. After Akeso stitched me up we went to go visit Rhea, check on Allura. She’s tucked in this massive bed-nest thing, snoring away. She’s fine. Just super drained and needs all the rest she can. She’s in good hands.”

Relief punches out of Keith like a physical force. It’s one thing if his friends are injured, a whole other if they’re unconscious – but with Shiro’s assurance as well as Coran’s confidence earlier, he can relax. The two of them can read people like no one else on the ship – except maybe Lance. She’ll be fine.

“Speaking of Lance,” Keith said.

“No one brought up Lance except your own brain,” Shiro responded patiently. That infernal smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth.

Keith went red, barrelling right on. “Where is he? This stuff is right up his alley, I figured he’d be out twirling until he passes out in the punch or something.”

Shiro frowned, looking at him funny. “He is? He’s been over –”

Just then, the music that had been playing in the background changed – there was a collective inhale, then all the instruments played something at once. Keith didn’t know much about music, but the something felt intentional, deeply so. A song was beginning, rather than endless background music.

Excited murmuring moved in waves throughout the gathered Aegians. People started shifting. High above everything else, loud and excited, rang a disbelieving laugh – a very familiar laugh.

Keith whipped his head up, roll dropping from his hand and bouncing into the dirt. At the edge of the crowd, lit softly by the orange golden flames, was Lance – but it was no wonder Keith had missed him before. He wasn’t wearing his armour.

He was wearing a dress!

Well, not really a dress. One of those ancient Greek toga things, that looks like a droopy bedsheet. Keith had noticed it on several – almost all, in fact – of the Aegians; a draped, white garment, cinched in the waist, pinned at the shoulders. It hadn’t looked anything special on them.

Lance, though, wore it like it had been made for him. Maybe it had. Most Aegians wore the toga-thing pinned at both shoulders, but Lance’s was only gathered at one, the rest of it falling artfully on his chest, looking dangerously like it was about to fall off. The cinched golden rope acting as a belt made his waist look downright tiny, like someone could pick him up around his middle and throw him, or something. It wasn’t crazy short, or anything, but Lance surely didn’t wear it down to his toes, like some others did. A pair of simple brown sandals wrapped all the way up his calves.

There were actual freaking laurels in his hair, along with what Keith could only assume were gold threads, wrapped around a few tiny, careful braids. A golden bracelet wrapped around his bicep, contrasting with his many Earth-made bracelets and anklets, and his plastic blue Moana watch that he never took off.

“He looks ridiculous!” Keith cried.

Shiro tried poorly not to laugh. “I think he looks nice!”

“He looks like a freaking Roman statue!”

The music started to swell, and Lance reached out to grab an offered hand, and suddenly Keith’s blood went cold.

“What is he doing all over Lance,” he hissed.

Shiro raised his eyebrows. “His…host?”

“Hosting immoral thoughts, maybe!” Keith protested. Shiro choked on his drink. “Look at his damn hand! Gripping Lance’s waist like there’s a magnet involved! What’s he want, to pick Lance up like a prize and show him around, or something? What a creep!”

But Lance wasn’t scowling, or even using his polite I-hate-you-and-can’t-wait-to-talk-crap-about-you-to-my-friends smile. He was just smiling, and concentrating hard on his feet, wrapping his own hands all over Mr. Creep. As the music got more complicated, they started dancing.

“What’s your deal with Peithos?” Shiro questioned. “What’s he –”

Keith ignored him. “And they have some kinda dance prepared? He’s supposed to be helping Lance recover, not teaching him a dance! How long have we been here for?”

Shiro finally sighed, giving up on his questioning. He watched the dancing duo, although with significantly less (zero) animosity than Keith.

“‘Bout ten hours? Give or take.”

“Ten ho – ten hours,” Keith said, stumbling over his words. He tore his eyes away and stared at his brother, alarmed. “We’ve been here ten whole hours? I thought it was, like, three!”

Shiro nodded, taking a long sip out of his cup. “Yep. Surprised the heck outta me, too. Went for a nap after checking on Allura, and boom, sun’s down, Akeso’s waking me up, and my leg hardly hurts anymore. Exhausted sleep is sleep, man, I feel you. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran knocked out, too. Only Lance stayed up. That’s why he’s not in armour. And why he knows this dance, apparently.” He nudged Keith’s shoulder, expression suddenly much more solemn. “You know how he is with sleep.”

Keith softened. He turned back to the blue paladin with a sigh, watching the half-Aegian twirl him around. The music got faster and faster and the man grabbed Lance around the waist and lifted him, twirling them both like it was easy as pie. Lance threw his head back and laughed, cheeks flushed and nose squinted like it does when he’s really laughing.

“Yeah, I know. Still, though. I don’t trust that guy. Too friendly. And Lance is too comfortable.”

“That’s fair.” Shiro was staring at him, too. “I don’t really trust many people here, actually. I think Rhea is trustworthy. And Elatreus. The other people, I can’t say yet. But Dryope…”

He turned to glance at the leader, who watched the festivities over the rim of an ornate glass. She sat on a carved rock, her father next to her. The rock-seat to her right was left empty. Keith could guess who it was for.

“There’s something they’re not telling us,” Keith finished, nodding. “Agreed.”

He turned back to look at Lance and Peithos. The song had ended, but they were still standing close to the fire, bent close. Lance was gesturing like crazy, smile lighting up his face. Peithos was intently watching his every move.

“We’ll keep an eye on them,” Shiro promised. His smile was small and reassuring. Keith glanced at the half-Aegian, then back at his brother, nodding slowly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think we should.”

After the weird dance, the party started to die down. People slowly started to head out, first in singles, then in couples, then in large swathes. Pidge was one of the first to make her getaway. Keith looked around for his host, but couldn’t manage to land his eyes on him. He hoped he hadn’t already left – he had no clue how to get back to his guest room in the dark, and wasn’t super pumped about sleeping on the ground if it came to that.

“You know where the house is?” Keith overheard Peithos murmur, so close to Lance there wasn’t a place they weren’t touching.

Lance grinned up at him. “Yep! I’ll meet you there, don’t worry about me. Go do what you need to do.”

The half-Aegian smiled gratefully at him, then rushed off.

Some host, Keith thought bitterly.

His glare was apparently pretty pungent, because now that Lance’s distraction was gone, he looked over quickly. He brightened, jogging over.

“Keith! Hey! I haven’t seen you all night.”

“Yeah, wonder why,” muttered Keith sullenly.

“I hope you –” Lance frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Keith repeated, mocking. He rolled his eyes. Unfortunately he still managed to notice the expression on Lance’s face – wounded, not mad. He faltered.

That wasn’t how their arguments were supposed to go. “You know what it means,” he insisted, but it sounded unconfident even to his own ears.

“I really, really don’t. I looked for you earlier, I couldn’t find you when everyone else –”

“You looked?” Keith asked incredulously. “I couldn’t’ve pried your eyes away from Tall, Dark, and Handsome if I plucked them out of your head!”

Lance’s already-present flush exploded out of control, so bright Keith could see it even in the dying embers of the hearth. “I wasn’t – he’s not – you’re not – what are you talking about!” he finally managed, tripping over his words in a way he usually didn’t. “Peithos and I were just – were just – we were only dancing! He taught me the Spring Dance, earlier, when he was showing – showing – me the wildflower fields, and –”

Keith narrowed his eyes. He realised for the first time that Lance was swaying, slightly, and even as he talked himself out of his embarrassment, the red didn’t totally fade from his face, staying high on his cheeks.

“– I don’t know what your problem is, I swear, every time I have fun you live to ruin it. Gods, can’t I even have – have – have one thing, I just –”

He kept tripping over his words, like his tongue wasn’t working with him. Keith frowned harder.

“Lance, are you – drunk?”

“What? No!”

That Lance said clearly. He whirled on Keith with a new layer of clarity in his eyes, dark like pits and absolutely flashing in fury.

“You think,” he seethed, stepping forward, “that I am so freaking irresponsible, so absolutely stupid and idiotic, that I would get intoxi – intoxish – intoxicat –”

He couldn’t even say the words. Keith stared at him in alarm, because he raised a good point – Lance liked to pretend, but he really wasn’t irresponsible like that. Keith had never heard him swear. He went to bed at the same time every night. As far as he knew, he’d never actually touched a drop of alcohol in his life – it would be out of character for him to get wasted at a diplomatic mission, late at night, when they were separated and wary.

Something was not right.

“Lance, I think you should maybe –”

“Gods, you ruin – you ruin everything.” Lance blinked, hard, then glared at Keith, shoving off the steadying hand Keith had placed on his elbow and stumbling backwards. He held his gaze for several moments, absolutely glowering, and then – to Keith’s great horror – his brown eyes watered. Tears built up faster than he could wipe them away, tracing a line down his cheek. Keith staggered backwards.

“I hate you sometimes,” he said, and ran off.

Keith watched him go, aftertaste of the delicious food turning sour in his mouth.

— — —

all art by @jiveyuncle!!

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appeypie · 1 year

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refs for my skyward sword prequel thing that ive been thinkin about for a whileee...

most of the details are in my head but there's a little bit about them on my artfight page ^_^

#ss prequelverse #au #ghirahim #demise #skyward sword #the legend of zelda #loz ss #loz #honestly i think the master sword should be a little smaller. i think its even smaller in the game #but you get the gist #he has sword upgrades like fi #and like how the mastersword changes slightly in appearance from game to game..#he has the ability to slightly change over time too ^^#(into something a little easier for me to draw LOLOLLOL)#also in MY opinion this is less of an au and more of like. pre canon #like all of my normal ghirahim fanart/hcs have this as a backstory if that makes sense

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navy-leader · 7 months

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Decided to call this AU Heaven's Underpass so thatll b the tag i use 2 include these designs in 👍

#navy arts #technically it does have a timeline and some sorta story but thats awnestly mainly for shipping reasons LOL #besides it roughly canon compliant. it doesnt at the end but thats bc i wrote it pre-ava6. swagever we can have diff timelines for this au #animation vs animator #ava ships #ava the chosen one #ava the dark lord #ava victim #avm purple #animation vs minecraft #darkle #heaven's underpass #the name came to me in a dream

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trivalentlinks · 2 years

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since i have been coming up with increasingly niche and unhinged e/q meet-cute concepts lately here’s another:

(warning: temporary character death, mention of child death, references to torture, mention of suicide-adjacent themes)

So it’s about five years pre-canon, while Moreau is at the peak of his power, with Eliot a steady presence by his side, and things are only looking up for him.

Quinn, on the other hand, is not having such a great time. See, he took a job in Egypt that should have been a slam dunk, but what he didn’t know was that he was actually working against a Moreau subsidiary group that was a lot better funded and better connected than he thought.

So Quinn is stuck handcuffed to a chair in a warehouse, held hostage by people who are far more competent than artifact smugglers have any right to be, and he’s resigned himself to a slow, unpleasant death, when suddenly a Mysterious Woman appears out of nowhere.

It turns out, she’s here to offer him a job. She wants him to remove Eliot Spencer from Damien Moreau’s side. She’s not in a huge rush: she’ll give him six months to do it.

She asks Quinn if he can do this and he’s like “Oh, yes, absolutely, I’m definitely the one for this job.”

[This is partly because he thinks that if he takes this job, she’ll at least help him get out of his current predicament (that’s basic manners, right?).

But it’s mostly because he’s an arrogant 25-year-old who really thinks he can take out Damien Moreau’s right-hand man even though last time he went up against a Moreau subsidiary (a week ago) he ended up getting captured and still has no good exit.]

When she smiles at him and offers a hand to shake on the deal, he's about to ask her what he's meant to do with that when he realizes that his right hand seems to have slipped out of the handcuffs, which is a bit weird. When did that happen?

His thumb is dislocated (had it been that way before and he just hadn’t noticed? He's sufficiently fucked up that it's possible, though it seems unlikely), but he quickly uses his mouth to reset his dislocated thumb and shakes on the deal.

After shaking on it, the Mysterious Woman turns around to leave, her heels clicking lightly on the warehouse floor.

"Wait, you're just leaving me here?"

She turns around and raises an eyebrow at him. "Why? Do you need help getting out?"

He glares at her.

"Aisha has a false pocket. Front left. That's how she accesses her hidden knife. Omar has injured his right hand, which he usually uses to draw his gun. It'll take him two seconds to remember to draw with his left."

"That's all you're giving me?"

"If that's not enough, then you must not be the man I thought you were," she says with a smirk before sauntering out.

Which is rude. More than fair, but rude.

In the end, though, it is enough for Quinn to get out and eventually make his way back to his safe-house in Rome.

Once there, he starts to wonder what exactly happened. Was the Mysterious Woman even real? He has never had such a vivid hallucination before, but he was very fucked up (roughed up, drugged, sleep deprived, and dehydrated).

She did give him some good intel that helped his escape, but then again, it was all the kind of info that he would have figured out himself if he weren’t so out of it, so. Could still have been his subconscious mind.

He asks around his contacts a bit (as much as he can without giving the impression that he’s gone round the bend) and finds that nobody’s heard of anyone like her, and who in their right mind would try to go up against Damien Moreau?

After concluding that she was probably a hallucination (which is disturbing, he’ll have to make sure never to fall into that kind of state again), Quinn decides to go on with his life.

Three months later, after a successful job in Chelyabinsk (one shot, through a brick wall, in the dark, after waiting an hour in 20 below freezing temperatures), Quinn goes back to his hotel room and finds the Mysterious Woman, sitting on the armrest of the plush hotel chair, looking like she owns the place and asking him if he’s made any progress on the job.

So, uh, oops. Turns out she was real, and now he has three months to remove Eliot Spencer.

That’s fine, though, Quinn is feeling like he’s on top of the world now, he can totally take down Eliot Spencer.

This turns out much, much harder than expected. Even getting any intel at all about Spencer's whereabouts turns out to be unfairly tricky.

After working his way through Moreau lackeys of various stripes, Quinn finally manages to get close enough to see Spencer at the docks of the Port of Mombasa. Unfortunately, Spencer sees him first, and by the time Quinn's aimed his weapon, Spencer has put a bullet in his chest.

Quinn is pretty sure that the shot he fired hit Spencer, too, but by then Spencer has put another bullet right through his heart, so he doesn't quite have the time to find out.

His last thought is that there are worse ways to die than in a gunfight with Eliot Spencer.

When Quinn wakes up, everything hurts. Also, he's drugged, sleep deprived, dehydrated, and handcuffed to a chair in a familiar warehouse in Cairo.

He's not too surprised to hear the clicking of stilettos against the warehouse floor and to look up to see the now-familiar Woman.

"You didn't think you could get out of our deal by getting yourself killed, did you?" She asks with a raised eyebrow. "Remove Spencer from Moreau’s side. You have six months."

The second time around, Quinn starts the hunt earlier, and manages to sneak up on Spencer at close enough range that the latter doesn't get a chance to draw his gun.

It's too close range for Quinn to use a gun, either, though.

Murdered by Eliot Spencer with his bare hands turns out to be a much less pleasant death.

This time, when Quinn wakes up in the warehouse again, the Woman isn't there. She must have figured he knew what he needed to do by then.

The third time around, he tries to make use of some of the things he knows from his previous run-throughs.

This goes very badly for him.

Left to die after being worked over repeatedly by an Eliot Spencer who's intent on figuring out where Quinn got his Intel on Moreau's organization is not a pretty way to go at all.

Quinn decides to make the fourth run-through about intel collection only.

He survives the six months that time. In those six months, he learns quite a lot about Eliot Spencer.

Not habits or preferences. Spencer doesn’t have those, other than the standard ones of a competent professional. It figures. Habits and preferences could often be turned into weaknesses, so of course, Spencer wouldn’t have those. That would be too easy.

The biggest thing is the depth of Spencer’s loyalty. Spencer would do anything for Moreau. It makes Quinn a little wistful. He’s dealt in that kind of loyalty before. He learned the hard way that it wasn’t for him.

(Quinn doesn’t think it’s for Spencer, either. Sometimes it seems like the things Spencer does for Moreau are killing him inside. But Quinn’s not here to judge.)

Another thing he notices is the accent. Somehow, improbably, unbelievably, despite everything he’s done, Eliot Spencer still speaks homicide with an accent. Quinn couldn’t believe it the first time he saw it. After two more incidents, though, it’s undeniable.

In theory, this should be a weakness. Quinn had known people who couldn’t shake their accents, even after years. They didn’t survive long. (”We all call it an accent, but you know what it actually is, right? It’s being human,” a friend had screamed at him through tears when they were thirteen. She didn’t make it to her fifteenth birthday.)

And yet Quinn knows, as much as he knows anything, that somehow, for Spencer, the accent isn’t a weakness.

It’s unfair, really. That’s the thought on Quinn’s mind as he drifts off to sleep before waking up six months earlier in a damn warehouse.

The fifth run-through, Quinn infiltrates Moreau’s organization. This goes remarkably well. By the times he’s six months in, he’s working a job directly under Eliot Spencer. (It helps that he knows from previous run-throughs exactly what he needs to do to get promoted as quickly as possible.)

Quinn doesn’t lose track of time, exactly. He knows precisely when his deadline to get rid of Eliot Spencer is.

He does get a little distracted, though. Who could blame him? Working with Eliot Spencer is incredible. He’s learning so much, and hey, it’s not like he’s in that much of a rush. If this iteration he doesn’t kill Eliot in time, there’s always the next one. He can just call it another intel-gathering round.

(And if that doesn’t explain how bereft he feels when he’s pulled back six months into the past, well. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, anyway.)

The sixth run-through, he manages to start working with Eliot much earlier.

It’s a good run-through.

The first time he spars with Eliot happens in this one. The first time Eliot smiles at him and calls him a show-off after he takes Eliot down with a perfect flying scissor sweep. (It’s a fair criticism, but hey. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.)

It’s also the one where he gets to know Eliot’s sense of humour, the way his lip twitches and he ducks his head sometimes when he’s trying to hide a smile.

This one was just for intel, too.

On the seventh run-through, Quinn finds out that Eliot has surprisingly strong opinions about proper julienne technique for someone who refuses to do any cooking himself. This will need more investigation.

On the ninth run-through, he actually manages to goad Eliot into making dinner for him. It’s a waste, Quinn muses, for this kind of talent to go so unused.

On the twelfth run-through, Eliot admits to Quinn, on a late-night stake-out, that he’s not entirely sure that Quinn is real.

“It’s just... sometimes it feels like you were custom made by G-d for me,” Eliot says.

“That’s surprisingly romantic of you,” Quinn says.

“Not like that,” Eliot growls, glaring at Quinn. “I just meant that you remind me what it’s like to feel alive. You do it so easily, like you were made for it.”

“You do realize that that’s even more romantic, right?”

“Or maybe you were just sent to kill me,” Eliot says with a roll of his eyes.

Quinn freezes for a moment, just for a fraction of a second before he remembers to snort at the joke and keep a light tone as he says, “Maybe I was.”

Eliot catches the way Quinn paused, though. He narrows his eyes. "Wait, what was that? I know you aren't actually here to kill me, because you’ve passed up at least half a dozen good opportunities to do it."

Quinn swallows. "I was offered a job to kill you once, some time ago," he admits.

"Why'd you turn it down?"

"Who'd be crazy enough to take a job like that?"

Eliot smiles at that, as Quinn intended, but Quinn can't shake the off feeling the conversation had put in him.

The next morning, he cuts the run-through short.

The thirteenth run-through Quinn tries to kill Damien Moreau. The job was to remove Eliot from Damien's side, and that should count, right?

He fails. For all the times that Eliot has trusted Quinn with his life, he would never trust him with Damien's.

Well, it has been a while since Quinn has been killed by Eliot Spencer.

The fourteenth run-through, Quinn does manage to take out Damien Moreau.

His resulting death at Eliot's hand is slow and brutal, but he does console himself with the thought that at least this one will be permanent.

It isn't.

The Woman appears again, this time.

"You wanted him removed from Damien's side, I removed him from Damien's side! That should have counted," Quinn rages at her.

"If you think Spencer's loyalty would have died with Moreau, then you must not understand either of them."

On the fifteenth iteration, Quinn relives all of his favourite moments.

His favourite jobs that he shared with Eliot. The exhilarating ones when they worked together like a well-oiled machine, and the quiet ones where he saw the softer parts of Eliot that the latter usually kept hidden.

The time he goaded Eliot into cooking for him. The time they destroyed the kitchen when they tried to cook together.

The time he found just the right song and the right mood to get Eliot to sing along to the radio on the drive back to the airport after a nice, clean job in Krakow.

(He doesn't relive the time Eliot told him with palpable guilt and shame about the man who had taught him to use his knife to create rather than destroy. The man who had tried to save him from himself.)

He relives all his favourite moments and tries to carve the memories into stone.

The sixteenth iteration, he kills Eliot Spencer at the first opportunity. (Before Spencer comes to like or trust him. Before he would see it as any kind of betrayal.)

As soon as it’s done, without even checking whether he got paid, Quinn calls the agents he’s worked with until he finds one who offers him a job that he can start immediately. It’s a long one that looks like it will be dangerous and difficult. Exactly what he needs.

He only makes it one day into the job, though. That first night, he goes to bed only to wake up back in that damned warehouse again.

“What the fuck?” Quinn yells out, when he sees the Woman casually leaning against the wall. “I did exactly what you fucking wanted this time!”

“I said remove him from Moreau's side. I didn’t say to do this by killing him.”

“You... didn’t say not to,” Quinn says, furrowing his brow.

“That’s fair,” the Woman acknowledges with a tilt of her head. “It’s the same to me anyway, so if that’s how you want to play it, fine. Just close your eyes and count down from 10, and you’ll wake up back on that job you lined up looking for that monkey. I won’t save you from Moreau trying to hunt you down for killing his right hand man, though.”

She takes a step forward and bends down to look at Quinn at eye level. “Is that how you want to play this?”

"... What choice do I have?”

“You can’t think of any other way to do this job?”

Quinn thinks of all the moments he shared with Eliot, the happy ones and the more painful ones. He thinks about the guilt in Eliot’s eyes as he told him about Toby. He thinks about Eliot admitting late one night that Quinn made him feel alive. He remembers Eliot inadvertently reminding him of what his job was (what he thought his job was?).

“Well?” The Woman asks. “Can you think of another way you’d rather do this job?”

Quinn smiles up at her. “Absolutely.”

This will be interesting.

[End]

Edit: Now on AO3 here! If you liked it, I’d really appreciate a kudos/comment there <3

#eliot spencer #mr. quinn #alternate e/q meet-cute concept #it's possible that i don't actually know what the word 'meet-cute' means #given the warnings i had to attach to this one #not gonna tag this one 'leverage prompts' because even i have to admit it's not a prompt at this point #pre-canon au

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angstflavoured · 2 months

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Alright, here we fucking go 🗣 starting off with the Wheatley backstory infodump. I'll do each core individually first and then explain all their relationships at Aperture after 😁

Growing up, Wheatley lived in a SMALLL small town somewhere smackdab in the depths of England. The population was only a few hundred, so he only knew a handful of people his whole life. There weren't too many options of who to choose to know and be friends with. His home life was pretty unremarkable--Christain parents who weren't too religious, went to church on Sundays. Put Wheatley through Sunday school. He got decent grades, parents loved him well enough, if just a tad neglectful, but nothing awful.

He was freakishly tall from the start, very lanky and scrawny. Knowing so few people and not having a lot of friends, he ended up fairly sheltered. He never knew a lot of conflict or struggle, though people did pick on him for being stranger than most.

As he got older, he tried reallyyy hard to follow trends and be stylish. He wanted to date, but it was hard when there were so few girls in town and everyone knew each other basically since birth. With his upbringing, he was a bit of an asshole 😭 pretty misogynistic and sexist and entitled. Overall he was just a pretty big loser, and not a very nice one at that.

Finally near the end of highschool, he became friends a girl named Millie. She had a really hard time making friends too, and ended up getting close with Wheatley more so just due to lack of options and loneliness. Wheatley wasn't interested in her romantically because he insisted he could do better, and joked about this pretty vocally to her--things about her boring personality and her weight. Despite his attitude, they stayed best friends even after school ended.

Despite Wheatley being very insistent he would never get with her, as they matured, she got in a lot better shape and became a lot more social. She blended in better with crowds and made a lot more friends, looking and feeling a lot happier. Wheatley, despite trying 5 times as hard, could never do the same. He stayed with her still as his only real friend, though she didn't invite him out much because he made people uncomfortable.

Somewhere along the way in Wheatley's mind, he convinced himself that him and Millie were actually already sort of dating and acted as such even though she clearly wasn't interested and they never properly talked about it.

Then one day, she finally landed herself an actual boyfriend and Wheatley BLEWWW up at her. They got in a huge fight and Wheatley called her all sorts of horrible things, told her how she'd led him on for years and dragged him along and this was all her fault and she was an awful person--and Wheatley wholeheartedly believed every word.

It was after then that he decided he needed to start completely over if he wanted to get anywhere. He was going to move to ✨America✨, land of dreams and American Women. And American women LOVED a man with an accent.

It wasn't a year later that he left everyone he knew behind and fled the country. He could hardly hold a job back home, only managing to stay at where he was because his mother knew the manager. In America, it was no easy feat. He was constantly getting fired for being generally unlikable and being bad at most things. On top of that, it was even harder to blend in with people over here. No one wanted to talk to him for more than a few days, and he was more lonely than ever. Unfortunately, he didn't have the money to fly back home even if he wanted to. He was stranded here and forced to make the best of it.

Eventually, he decided that it was kind of over. He was just about to hit 40 and was VERY well still a virgin and hadn't even ever properly dated anyone, if anything was going to happen it would've happened already. Not to mention he couldn't even land a decent friend. Trying so hard to fit in was getting exhausting. He needed to just buckle down and get a job and swear off women for the rest of his life if he wanted to get anywhere. Ultimate incel grindset arc 😑😑

That's when he landed his job at Aperture. It was nearly impossible to get fired from and had more than enough hours. He started dressing like himself, stopped shaving, stopped trying so hard to find anyone to bring into his life. Though deep down, he still has a deep, carnal desire to be liked and known by someone.

#portal 2 #portal #wheatley portal 2 #wheatley #human au #sorta ig #pre canon #aperture #aperture science #lore #lore dump #omggggggg

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missbluesunflowersstuff · 3 months

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"Dick was an abusive brother to Jason" "Dick was aggressive with Jason" "Dick gave Robin to Damian" "Damian stole the Robin mantle" my brother in Batman, no one of those words are in the bible! Wtf are you into about?

#i understand when people made funny dark or yandere headcanons or aus it's nice being creative #and create new things with the guys in your head but pls for the love of batman don't use your personal headcanon as original material #and i say this as someone who love do headcanon #alfred is the one who give the robin to damian #dick was and STILL is a good brother to jason and the others #dick was never aggressive or abusive with robin!jason #dick was mand with bruce cuz bruce was irresponsible but dick like jason #the pre crise dick grayson wanted to adopt jason todd (and later he also wanted to adopt damian)#so for the fuck sake don't act like your personal and fav au is canon to justification of your demonization #batfamily #dc comics #dick grayson #jason todd #damian wayne #bruce wayne #tim drake #batfam headcanons #batfam #stephanie brown

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aheckinmess · 2 months

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All's Well That Friends Well (Dad Nanami)

(Part 2 of Season of Serendipity.)

Read on AO3.

Tags: Dad Nanami, Child Yuji, Original Child Character(s), Ryomen Sukuna, Nanami Kento, Yuji Itadori, Besu Sukuna, Parental Nanami, Dad Sukuna, Soft Sukuna, Protective Sukuna, Canon Divergence - AU, Sukuna Has a Daughter, Yuji is Nanami's Son, I Merged Two of My Series, Because I Thought it Would Be Adorable, Yuji Itadori is a Ray of Sunshine, OC Has Trouble Making Friends, But Yuji Sure Doesn't, Going to Pre-K for the First Time

Word Count: 1,025 words

Summary: Yuji goes to Pre-K for the first time; Nanami worries he'll have trouble adjusting, but Yuji is a little ball of positive energy. Needless to say, he makes friends.

While Yuji was an extroverted child by nature, Nanami still thought he might need time to adjust to preschool. So when Yuji easily waved goodbye as Nanami dropped him off for his first day at Pre-K, it soothed some of the paternal worry.

“Otouchan, how long is school?” Yuji wrapped his arms around Nanami’s neck and squeezed. “Is it very long?”

“You’ll be here for a few hours, Yuji-kun. But I’ll be back. You’ll be having so much fun you won’t even miss me.” He promised, kissing the young boy’s forehead. “If you need anything, just ask the teacher for help, okay? Remember how we practiced and…?”

“Raise my hand!” Yuji smiled.

“That’s my boy.” Nanami ruffled his hair and stood up. “Have a good day, Yuji-kun. And have some fun.”

“Okay!”

. . . . .

Yuji Itadori made having fun his mission. From the moment he stepped foot into the classroom, he curiously trotted around the room asking question…after question…after question.

“What about that? Why do you have that?” He asked Ms. Chotto, pointing at the hundredth object his little eyes had landed on.

“Yuji, honey,” Ms. Chotto laughed. “You’re such a curious little thing, aren’t you? Those are my plants and I keep them on the top shelf so none of my students accidentally eat them. They can hurt your tummy.”

“Then why do you have them?”

“I’m keeping them here for a little bit until I can find a space for them at home.” She explained, turning away to separate two girls from fighting over a doll. “Go find someone else to play with, Yuji, okay? I have to help some of the other children right now.”

Yuji pouted but did as he was told. Pre-K proved to be one of the most fascinating places he’d ever been! He’d already spoken to just about everyone in the classroom, when the door opened to reveal another little girl.

What surprised Yuji wasn’t how tightly she clung to her father, but her hair. Pink! Just like his!

As soon as Ms. Chotto got the pink-haired girl detached from her father, Yuji stood patiently to the side. He watched her hide in Ms. Chotto’s legs until she peeked out at him.

“Hi! I’m Yuji!” He beamed.

Her wide, brown eyes looked up at Ms. Chotto and then back at him.

“I’m Besu.” She whispered. In fact, Yuji barely heard her.

“You sure are quiet.” He said bluntly. When she seemed embarrassed by that, Yuji pointed towards a pile of blocks on the rug up front. “You wanna go play blocks?”

Ms. Chotto muttered something into Besu’s ear. Besu whined back at her, but Ms. Chotto delicately coaxed her in Yuji’s direction. Yuji led the way over to the blocks and Besu sat by him silently.

“I like to build castles. What do you wanna build?” Yuji asked as he got to work. A triangular orange block looked perfect to fit on top of his green stack.

Besu shrugged her shoulders as she grabbed a few square pieces to fit together. Yuji gave her time to give it a specific shape, but when he still couldn’t tell what it was by the third row, he spoke up.

“What is that?”

Once again, Besu shrugged. Yuji huffed, feeling disappointed. He’d expected her to be just like him since she’d looked so similar. But she barely even talked! Sensing this, Besu cleared her throat.

“I just like putting them together. But now I’m making a watermelon.” She explained, picking off a few blue pieces and replacing them when red and green.

“My dad put watermelon in my lunchbox! Wanna see?” Yuji stood before she answered.

“I don’t think we’re sposed to do that.” She glanced at Ms. Chotto and then Yuji’s lunchbox. “You could get in trouble.”

“Nuh-uh. It’s my lunchbox!” Yuji said matter-of-factly.

But when he went to grab it, Ms. Chotto put a hand on his shoulder.

“Yuji-san, it’s not time for lunch yet.”

“Can’t I show Besu my lunch?” Yuji frowned.

“Why don’t you show her when it’s lunchtime? That way you can both show each other what you have.” Ms. Chotto offered.

“Okay!” Yuji agreed, before toddling over to Besu. “Hey, Besu! Let’s wait until lunch and then I can see what you packed, too!”

“Father made me stew.”

“Oh, boy! Will you share?”

“...well, okay.”

. . . . .

While Nanami waited outside the classroom as kids shuffled inside, a man with wild pink hair waited with him. He couldn’t help but stare. Just like Yuji’s, and that’s not common. I wonder if he’s of any relation.

“You waiting on your brat, too?” Sukuna quirked a brow and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“I’m waiting for my son, yes.” Nanami answered. “It was his first day.”

“Mine too. You have any trouble dropping him off?”

“I thought I might, but he didn’t seem upset. He’s more outgoing, though, so I wasn’t too surprised.”

“I had to pry my daughter from me.” Sukuna scoffed, shaking his head with a smile.

“Ah, she must be a daddy’s girl, then. Does she have you wrapped around her finger yet?” Nanami normally wasn’t one for small talk, but the conversation helped him remain patient as he watched through the window while the teacher struggled to wrangle a boy into his bookbag.

“Absolutely not!” Sukuna huffed, but he turned his head away. “That is…I don’t give her everything she wants.”

Nanami couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Don’t worry. I’m the same with my son. He’s my first.”

“My daughter is my first, too.”

And then the floodgates unleashed. More parents began filing down the sidewalk towards the portable classroom, but Yuji and Besu were the first at the door. Both of them raced and planted themselves directly into their father’s arms.

“Otouchan! You won’t believe it! That girl looks like me!” Yuji turned to Besu to see her the most animated she’d been all day, jabbering on to her father with bright brown eyes. “She’s real quiet though…like Fushi-kun.”

“I see. Did you have fun, then?”

“Yeah! I made a best friend!”

And Nanami smiled when Yuji turned to Besu, waving goodbye as Sukuna carried her away.

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