#a slaughter of children and children of children but even two teenagers running away and escaping with an infant is a blessing

[princessnijireiki]

anyway my most spiciest political take right now is so many people are showing how easy it is to lash out when they are feeling helpless, or to believe in a villain they can defeat on a smaller scale than the way the bigger wheels of the world are grinding beyond our reach, because they want to be able to do something, anything, even though that can be propaganda in and of itself, and it makes you lose track of the power of kindness and aid and support in our hands that we can do.

I think the biggest thing people can do is log off, not offline entirely, but log off the platforms where people are screaming at each other just because things feel so fraught that they have to scream and having a target lulls you into feeling like it is productive, and reach out to whoever it is you DO want to help, and ask them what you can do. financially, volunteering, labor, prayer, therapy, buying phone cards, whatever.

it's not as emotionally cathartic as feeding into your own self righteous indignation by fighting strangers on the internet, it won't lie to you and tell you that you're singlehandedly making somebody across the world bulletproof or neutralizing somebody's weapon, but it is better, because it will be the truth that you need to hear, and agency over not the smallness of your limitations, but the actual span of your reach and your capability to help beyond wishing to be superhuman and hating yourself for not being that.

[firehcart]

𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 + 𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒. — this list will continue to be added to pending what media i consume / what muses follow me. generally i will be happy to add to this list even if your verse is not written on here, so please don't hesitate to reach out. the only verses i will not write in include aging down/up characters, and hp.

note for general fantasy verses : unless there is a specific verse plotted, i am happy to mostly prescribe to a canon where our own continents/countries co-exist within the same world for crossovers and alliances.

modern.

born into a very wealthy family, aelin's upbringing was blessed, with her parents joint CEOs of a company responsible for vast technological developments ( terrasen inc. ). at eight years old she witnesses her parents murdered via a hit arranged by her biological aunt maeve, who stood to inherit the company until aelin turned eighteen years old. barely managing to escape with her own life, she was rendered homeless and on the streets until she was found by arobynn hamel, who had made a shelter for homeless children under the guise of a gentle heart. over time, he used this influence over the children to encourage them to commit crimes on his behalf - first small scale thievery, and eventually training them to murder.

continuing in this life until reaching teenage years, falling in love with one of the other boys living there ( sam cortland ), aelin and sam had tentatively plotted to run away when ordered on one last mission where sam did not survive. aelin was found by police with his corpse and arrested for his murder, presumably set up by arobynn.

most plots in this verse will begin after aelin's release from jail one year later, when new evidence proved her innocence - she is living in a luxurious apartment purchased with her earnings from her crimes, and struggling to reintegrate into society. note, in this verse, her primary name is celaena sardothien.

a court of thorns and roses.

this verse exists in two forms - parallel worlds, where we embrace the canon of aelin falling through worlds and interacting with this world as an au one to her own ( which requires some sort of crossover basis plotting ), or neighbouring continents. in the latter, efforts to maintain political peace and a tentative alliance would see either aelin travelling to the night court, or members of the night court travelling to terrasen as emissary. this verse would be post koa.

crescent city.

essentially runs off the same premise as modern verse in relation to her childhood and being offered shelter by arobynn hamel, with the notable exception that aelin is half-fae and works as a bounty hunter post her time in prison, and is very much equipped to slaughter.

note: this verse was heavily au plotted with @stareternals / @ehlane in a world where feyre was aelin's roommate. taking the drop with aelin as both enforcer and anchor to bring feyre back.

a song of ice and fire.

born and inherited from one of the original families in old valyria, who fled after the doom, aelin was orphaned at a young age after her parents were murdered and her home ransacked. found by the faceless men within the free city of braavos, aelin was trained within their arts of assassination. after freeing a large amount of slaves within essos out of sympathy, whilst she had been tasked a high scale murder, the faceless man cast her out - she was promptly captured and forced into the fighting pits in meereen. note, in this verse, she has no dragon affinity despite her valyrian background, only a particular potency for fire.

house of the dragon.

much like her asoiaf verse, aelin was born and inherited from an old valyrian bloodline, but her parents were murdered when she was only a child. taken to be sold to the highest bidder, aelin made her escape and found her way to the faceless men, to be trained within their arts and make a name for herself. making a name for herself within westeros ( living within kings landing ), she becomes one of the most sought after assassins in the city.

fourth wing.

gryphon bonded, aelin agrees to go undercover within basgiath to provide intel on a base level to the other side. deliberately falling under the radar and unable to bond a dragon, she is "forced" to repeat her first year, using whatever opportunity she can to feed information back to the other side. displays a rare and powerful gift from her gryphon, one not witnessed by the other fliers before - fire proficiency, usually reserved for dragons and their riders.

bridgerton.

orphaned at a young age, aelin has been raised as the ward of the wealthy arobynn hamel, a man well known to offer his home to orphaned women in exchange for the financial benefit of marrying them into wealthy and powerful families when they come of age. finally of age for the marriage mart, new to the ton after their relocation from northern ireland, aelin is desperate to find a good match before arobynn decides to propose to her himself.

dungeons & dragons / bg3.

coming.

[daandyli0n]

you know, the more i think about it, the more i can’t help but think about the Final Control Room from td!Wilbur’s perspective

(warnings: implied daddy issues, basically, mentioned stalking, war, drugs, graphically described death/murder (especially child death/murder), self-hatred, and guilt)

imagine this:

you’ve finally moved close to where your family (which contains a pair of teenagers that you consider siblings and your adult son), believing that you’re going to be able to make a name for yourself, one separate from your father’s. you feel as though your whole life, you’ve been stuck in his shadow. and you hope this place can change that.

(it will, but some days you wonder if it was ever worth it. all the trauma, the death, the loss...you constantly find yourself asking: Was it ever worth it?)

you get told by your son that your brother was getting stalked by the admin for what is ultimately a minor reason. you’re shocked, angry. and why wouldn’t you be?

you just got told that your brother got stalked.

by the admin, no less.

he’s only sixteen.

now, maybe this was where you made your mistake; not directly confronting the man himself and deciding to be petty.

your brother never truly questions why you decide to start a drug van. but s**t hits the fan way quicker and harder than you ever expected it to.

and soon, it’s not just a drug van anymore. it’s a country. a home.

you see yourself having a legacy of your own now. you can kill two birds with one stone: a legacy away from your father and a desperate way to protect your family.

everything is perfect.

until it isn’t.

maybe it’s because you were stupid, that you didn’t see the signs sooner. you and your family are lured into a small, dark box, led by someone you would consider a friend. your brother sets it in motion, albeit unintentionally. he presses a button in the center of the room.

and then all hell breaks loose.

the next thing you know, you’re pinned against the wall, and the terrified, pained screams of your family break out around you, and you feel yourself yelling too, but everything goes too fast.

the scene before you, however, is burned into your memory:

your brother, the one who pressed the button, trying to run away, only for the admin (because the universe hates all of you, apparently) to swing at him, sending your brother to the ground. you can see the blood seeping through his uniform. he doesn’t get up again.

your other brother with a sword sticking through his heart. his screams are cut short. the sword sticking out of his chest is covered in his blood. his eyes are still wide in terror.

your son backed into a corner, begging for his life. his desperate pleas are ignored, and a sword is driven through his chest. his screams, too, are cut short.

your two teenaged brothers (dear Primes, they’re children. and they were practically slaughtered mercilessly) and your son lay dead in front of you. you don’t think you’ll ever get the screaming out of your head.

you aren’t able to break free, to help them. but eventually, you feel a sharp pain in the side of your neck, and everything goes dark.

at least you don’t have to look at that anymore.

you decide that maybe you should all give up. sure, maybe you won’t go down as the man who dared go against a server admin and create a country against his wishes, but at least you’ll go down as the man who was crazy enough to try.

but then your brother demands a duel. against the admin.

well f**k.

you beg him not to. he doesn’t listen.

you’re the one that counts him up to his death, silently praying to the Primes that they’ll have mercy on you just this once. as you reach ten, they both shoot their bows.

you scream in anguish as your brother’s corpse falls into the water, an arrow lodged in his throat.

(somehow, by some miracle, it didn’t hit his voice box. maybe they heard you, to some degree)

you still get your independence, somehow. your brother offers up his discs for your independence.

but even the celebration feels hollow, even as you scream at the admin (“YOOOOOOOO SUCK IT, GREEN BOYYYYY!!”), it all feels unbearably hollow.

because even as you outwardly blame that traitor, inwardly, you can’t help but feel like this is your fault.

you should’ve been more careful.

you should’ve noticed what they were doing.

should’ve gotten out of that guys grip.

should’ve saved your family.

you feel like you were stupid for trusting them, for not asking questions. stupid for not saving all of them. stupid for letting them die.

so you throw yourself into work, so you won’t have to think about it. your brothers try to go back into their lives normally (as if that’s even truly possible). they wear bandanas now, and you know the reason why one of them is wearing it.

a therapist brings themself to your country, claiming they want to help. they’re an avian, a duck-hybrid, you believe. they seem happy, carefree. they have a bright look in their eyes. their name is Quackity. 

you turn them away. the last time you trusted someone outside of your family ended with the four of you slaughtered in a tiny, dark box. what proof is there that it’s not gonna happen again?

they seem surprised, and pissed off, and they walk away, for now. you feel like you could’ve made a better choice in this situation, but, well....

apparently, you’ve never really been one to make good decisions that will end well for you, now have you?

[lebenspurpur]

headcannons that just make sense

|Michael|

⇝ Michael loves children. He wouldn't want any himself but he enjoys watching them since Michael loves their natural lively imagination.

⇝ He loves candy, especially gummies and candy corn.

⇝ Michael enjoys reading. He is a quiet person and very intelligent. Reading is one of his favorite hobbies to gain knowledge.

⇝ Michael definitely broke through the floor in the old Myer's house before.

⇝ Michael likes cats, surprisingly. He doesn't understand the idea of pets but cats are so independent and quiet. He tries to copy their moves a lot.

⇝ This man literally doesn't have an ounce of social intelligence. Small talk with him would be so uncomfortable and awkward. He doesn't know how it works.

|Vincent|

⇝ Vincent is stronger than Bo.

⇝ He secretly despises the mask. His mom technically made it for him to make Vincent understand that he looks like a freak. He wishes he'd be more confident and could live without it.

⇝ Vincent loves Bo with all his heart even if he's a narcissistic asshole.

⇝ Vincent is scared for Lester a lot. Since he's younger Vincent wants to protect him.

⇝ Vincent wants to learn an instrument. Piano would be his favorite but violins are a close second place.

⇝ Vincent secretly adores being with both of his brothers, even if one bullies him and the other one reeks.

⇝ Vincent doesn't like his father. They never had a close relationship.

⇝ The things Vincent has done for the aesthetic of them... God..

|Bo|

⇝ Bo would actually sacrifice himself for both of his brothers.

⇝ He feels bad about treating Vincent like he does but his pride is too big for him to apologize.

⇝ Bo doesn't actually know how to repair cars but he's learning.

⇝ Bo wishes he could draw like Vincent.

⇝ He is very lonely sometimes, alcohol is his best friend in these times. He's high-key alcoholic.

⇝ Bo was the child in elementary school that brought a knife to class.

⇝ He had a teacher that realized his abuse and subsequent aggression. She protected him and he saw her like a mother.

⇝ Bo sometimes wants to leave Ambrose and just discover what lays beyond his beloved America.

|Lester|

⇝ Lester loves Halloween, he makes the twins go trick or treating with him. Since nobody opens the door (what a surprise), he buys candy himself and places filled bowls all over town.

⇝ Lester has a very close relationship with Vincent. He stands up for him when Bo gets too harsh.

⇝ As a child he used to sleep in Vincent's bed when he had a nightmare.

⇝ Lester believes in true love which is absolutely adorable.

⇝ Lester has had emotional deep talks with his dog, Jonesy.

⇝ Lester was the child that actually loved his parents, he misses them a lot.

⇝ He used to run to the forest and looked for fairies and goblins as a child.

⇝ Lester likes to watch Vincent draw, it calms him when he's stressed.

|Otis|

⇝ Otis would never tell them but he loves his adoptive family, the Firefly family, so much.

⇝ He's sure that if they hadn't found him he'd be dead by now. Either because of drugs or suicide.

⇝ Otis secretly wants a dog.

⇝ He is very intelligent and if he tries he can actually be impressive when it comes to stating his opinions and beliefs.

⇝ Otis daydreams daily how his life would've worked out if he was "normal".

⇝ He overthinks his actions a lot. He doesn't feel bad about them but he analyzes the mistakes so they won't happen again.

|Baby|

⇝ Baby has had days where she just laid in bed and cried. She isn't always as happy as everyone believes.

⇝ Baby was very insecure about her body as a teenager. The other girls bullied her which led to quickly decreasing confidence.

⇝ Baby is very glad to have Otis as a brother, he's her ultimate idol.

⇝ Baby is scared by horror movies. She's not squeamish but she gets scared easily, especially when the subject's demons or supernatural horror.

⇝ Baby fell in love with a girl in her school once. Unfortunately it was a bully of hers.

⇝ Baby forced Otis multiple times to go and buy pads for her.

|Billy|

⇝ Billy is a little geek and we all know it.

⇝ Definitely a gamer though back in his time, video games just started developing.

⇝ Billy has comfort characters without knowing what that means.

⇝ He has thought about making out with Stu before.

⇝ Billy is a very emotional person even if he doesn't show it in public. The only one who has seen the emotional side is Stu.

⇝ Billy wants to dress more alternative but that'd ruin his "perfect disguise". He'd love some leather boots and dark eyeliner.

|Stu|

⇝ Stu is sure that he's bisexual though he hasn't outed himself yet. His closet is made out of glass let's not lie here.

⇝ Stu is actually a very empathetic character which is why Billy loves him so much.

⇝ Stu loves everything that involves rollercoasters, he's an adrenaline junkie.

⇝ He either has ADHD or ADD.

⇝ He is actually pretty tolerant with a lot of stuff. He'd definitely wear nail paint and a skirt, sure. He's all against toxic masculinity.

⇝ His room is so fucking messy.

|Brahms|

⇝ Brahms has porn magazines hidden in the walls.

⇝ Brahms really likes gardening. He's a huge fan of planting his own stuff.

⇝ He is terrified of wild animals. This man is literally scared of wolves even though that's the last thing that'd attack him.

⇝ Brahms doesn't like fire all that much. He usually sits far away from it.

⇝ If he had a camera he'd totally take creepy stalker pictures through the walls.

⇝ He knows how to cook, surprisingly. Though he himself lives off of toast and tea.

⇝ He isn't stupid but his intelligence mainly bases on literature. He couldn't solve a simple equation yet he knows "Romeo and Juliet" like he wrote it.

⇝ Brahms hates sports. Especially running. He will throw himself on the ground after two minutes and whine.

|Josef|

⇝ Josef either lives vegan or vegetarian.

⇝ He wishes he had a pet. He'd love a cat or a dog.

⇝ Josef actually loved his parents even if they didn't have a close relationship. They passed away which is why he has so much money.

⇝ Bisexual king. I mean come on, he wanted to seduce Aaron as well as Sara.

⇝ He knows a lot about healthy eating. Fresh vegetables as well as fruit are a must in his house.

⇝ He doesn't actually have a house, he rents apartments or tiny houses for a few months and then leaves again.

⇝ He wanted to study medicine when he was a teenager. His grades were good enough as well.

|Thomas|

⇝ Thomas loves animals a lot. He wishes he wouldn't have to slaughter them sometimes but at the time he didn't have a choice.

⇝ While he despises school he loves gaining knowledge. If it wasn't for the bullies he'd gone back to school.

⇝ He hums lullabies to himself while he works.

⇝ He has thought about killing Hoyt yet he knows that he isn't allowed to kill family.

⇝ Tommy never had the chance to understand what's so wrong about cannibalism. He kind of gets it though.

⇝ Thomas has a huge artisanal intelligence. He can craft very well, as well as repair things.

⇝ He makes little dolls and toys when he's not busy.

⇝ He too wishes he had a pet with fur so he could pet it.

⇝ He has stamina like an ox. Thomas is probably able to run for hours.

[jasontoddiefor]

AU in which Rob Lucci didn’t cut it as a CP agent—

You didn’t live as long as Shanks without learning how to assess the strengths and potential of the strangers you meet.

To be fair, in most Blues it was enough to think the older and taller the more dangerous, but the Grand Line had plenty of terrifyingly strong children. Luffy was certainly stronger than you’d expect, but he was still a kid and harmless.

The same could not be said about his tall guardian. He followed Luffy like a shadow and, while the people of Foosha seemed oblivious to it, the teenager was ready to slaughter anyone in his vicinity at all times.

Even with Luffy hanging from his shoulders, chatting away about his day.

“Hey, Makino,” Shanks said, leaning forward on the counter. “What’s the kid’s deal?”

“Hm? Oh, you mean Lucci?”

“Yeah, he’s...” Lethal.

“Sweet, isn’t he?” Makino replied. “He was a bit shy when Garp brought him here first, but he’s changed a lot since.”

Shy wasn’t exactly the adjective Shanks was thinking off, but he supposed the boy was reserved enough for it.

“Garp brought him here?”

“Yes, it’s a sad story really. Lucci enlisted young in the marines. I don’t know what exactly happened, but a mission apparently gave him a lot of grief. He’s been stationed here for two years now, looking after Luffy. He does a great job with him.”

Lucci watched Luffy like a hawk, ever far from him like he was preparing to run. As far as Shanks knew, that weren’t the kind of instincts installed in regular marine recruits. They also tended to be so young they got sent on any missions—

“Did Garp state what unit he was from?”

Makino paused to think for a while. “Something started with Z— no, C! Cee...”

Would Garp— Oh, Seas, what a stupid question. This was Monkey D. Garp.

“CP?”

Makino’s face lit up. “Yes! That was it!”

Shanks turned around briefly to Lucci settling in the corner of the bar, Luffy thrown across his stomach, eyes slowly falling close.

Cipher Pol, as a rule, did not retire their recruits. They either succeeded or they died. There was no in between, no space where one of their teenage agents could be babysitting in East Blue for years.

And yet here they were.

“Does he ever leave?”

Makino shook her head. “No, but he still writes reports to Garp about Luffy’s development and sends them off every month.”

Every month, huh? They should probably leave Dawn soon then.

Shanks grinned and downed the content of his glass. He should have come to East Blue years ago.

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Fathering a Phantom ch2

I just wanna Talk, I swear

Here we have the chapter 2 for that fic from earlier! Once again, here ya go @five-rivers @floralflowerpower and @uwuplasmiusuwu

“Cole I’m going to murder someone,” was the first thing that Toby said to his husband upon arriving once more in their temporary sanctuary. Cole paused mid throw of his javelin, electric sparks crackling up the polearm, and turned to look at his husband. Toby’s wings were ablaze, his nails sharpened into claws, and his eyes a colorful storm, as though he couldn’t decide what to turn into for maximum lethality. Cole set down his javelin and wrapped around Toby in a hug.

“Who are you planning to murder, sunshine? And should I join in? I haven’t gotten into a good fight since we got here, which is a shame.” Cole coalesced from a mass of clouds into something a bit closer to his original body when Toby relaxed in his embrace, running his fingers through shimmering feathers made of embers. “You really do look like a star like this, by the way.”

“There was, I think, a war forged around here who fired a bunch of rockets at a child! You know that liminal kid I told you about?”

“Oh right, we’re rare in this realm, huh?” Cole’s face scrunched up in confusion and he arched a brow. “I thought the liminal around here beat up the tyrant ruling the place when he woke up?”

“I didn’t exactly ask about what must’ve sucked when I half blew up the metalhead.” Toby flew over to the couch and flopped face first into it. “Now I gotta track him down.”

“Why only half? Sounds like someone you’d take out in one go if you had the drop on em.”

“Well, do you wanna traumatize a kid of unknown cultural origins? He’s so small, and his friends were clearly still living humans. I dunno if he’s seen someone die before, let alone a ghost getting Ended. If I recall, committing murder is a bad way to start a friendship with a child.”

Cole snorted and gave Toby a pat on the shoulder. “Alright, fair, Sildar didn’t like me much after that rescue. But hey, now you can put that on your to do list! Murder, the answer to most problems.” Toby laughed, phasing through the couch when Cole sat on him. “There he is, my giggly celestial chandelier.”

“Do you even remember what a chandelier is? I know you broke like three of them over someone’s head, but I forget whose head.” Toby put out the flames in his feathers and stretched, satisfied when his spine popped a few times. “It’s nice to still be able to do that.”

“I’ll be honest, being a cloud has made the sound of your joints popping kinda gross to me. It sounds like you’ve still got a flesh and blood body.” Cole sat up, scratching his head. “Do you still have a humanoid body? With like, meat and bones and stuff?”

“Probably, yeah. We’ll see, cause if so that’ll come in handy with helping out this liminal kid. Said his name is Danny Phantom.” Toby paused, the feeling of his feather being torn an odd and upsetting one. “Speaking of whom, I should go meet up with them. Think you can find this ‘Skulker’ guy while I educate some kids?”

Cole kissed Toby on the cheek and gave him a thumbs up. “Will do! I can’t promise there’ll be much left of him afterward though, I’m not a fan of idiots who attack kids.” Toby smiled and in a flash of light and beat of wings, he was gone. Cole nodded to himself and grabbed his maul, crackling with electric arcs, and opened up the door to their temporary Sanctuary. “Now then, who the fuck is Skulker?”

After having a small debate about where they couldn’t go and why, team Phantom finally ended up at the indoor roller rink that was partially destroyed by a giant ghost crab a while ago, and sat down at a table that Danny cleared of debris with an ectoblast or three. “Ok guys, I think this is a good enough place to call him up.”

“Are we sure it’s a good idea to call him at all?” Sam held up the feather she’d kept in her pocket, turning it about to watch the golden flame dance. “He took down Skulker pretty fast and it usually takes you a good half hour to do that, Danny.”

“Skulker specializes in attacking Danny is all, Sam. We’ve got the weapons to handle pretty much any ghost we normally deal with, and Danny took down the king of ghosts. I’m pretty sure he can handle anyone else.”

“Plus, Toby wrecked Skulker pretty bad. If he wanted to fight, I’m pretty sure he would’ve started a fight.” Danny condensed his ectoblasts into one ball of ectoplasma and stretched it out into a pole. “Imagine all the cool stuff he could show us!”

“Alright, if you say so.” Sam snapped the feather in half, surprised by how easy it was to do, and grabbed her ecto-pistol. For a moment, there was silence. Then the sound of wingbeats filled the room and Toby appeared above the rink as though landing from a long flight.

“That’s a spell I’m not used to casting frequently in a day. Heyo kids!” Toby waved, tucking his wings by his sides while walking closer. “Sorry for the delay, I was talking to my husband. So, names again just to be sure: Sam, Tucker, and Danny, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. What do you mean spell, exactly? Do ghosts have magic ontop of the other ghost powers now?” Tucker spun the lipstick laser around in his fingers, remembering Desiree’s magic and Freakshow’s staff.

“Anyone who can do magic keeps the ability in death, usually. I’m not dead though, I’m Deathless.” He spread his wings and spun around, thumbs pointing to his chest. “I was born awesome like this, and so was Cole. But, based on your faces you weren’t born like this?”

“No,” Sam said, gesturing at Danny. “This is a recent thing, it’s been since about…” Sam paused, her gaze landing on the wall behind Toby. “March of last year, so 14 months.”

“Yeah, god, we’ve been doing this for over a year now, haven’t we?” Tucker, who had held up a camera to record everything Toby was saying, slumped a bit in his seat and sighed. “Feels like it’s been like this forever and like it happened yesterday.”

Toby stared at them all like they’d each grown extra limbs in odd places – Danny even checked to make sure he hadn’t done that while feeling both old and young at the same time due to how little time had actually passed – before zipping over to Danny and holding his hands just over the teen’s face. “Oh my gods, you’re a baby.”

“I am a teenager, thank you.” Danny gently pulled Toby’s hands away from his face, a brow raised. “What, is 14 infantile to angels, feather man?”

“You’re only 14 months dead, Danny, that makes you a baby ghost.” Sam snorted and Tucker covered his mouth to try and hide his laughter. A snap of Toby’s fingers and flowers began growing in Tucker’s hat, and seeds appeared above Sam, growing into flowers as they fell all over her. “If you’ve had regular interactions with that metal head, no wonder your aura’s all aggro.”

“Skulker’s not exactly the worst of the ghosts we’ve had to fight over the months,” Danny said.

“Oh yeah, that’d have to be either Walker, Spectra, or Vlad. It’s really a toss up between Spectra and Vlad, if you ask me.”

“Vlad wants to kill Danny’s dad because he sees his mom as a trophy that was stolen from him, while Spectra tried to kill Jazz just to depress an entire school so she could feed on the misery to look young.” Sam brushed away the flowers and weighed two in her hands. “Yeah, those around the same level of grossly evil.”

Toby’s wings ignited at some point while Sam was talking, and the sunlight streaming in from the hole in the roof grew somewhat brighter. He reached into a bag he had strapped to his waist and pulled out a book and a pen, his smile all teeth. “Tell me, please, a list of all the adult ghosts who have attacked you children? I’d like to have a discussion with each of them.”

“If we give you their names,” Danny said before Tucker could answer, “do you promise not to go slaughtering them all? I don’t need to know ghostly body language at all to know that flaming wings come from a place of anger and imminent violence.”

“When did you read a thesaurus, Danny?”

“Sam, I’m insulted: I know tri-syllabic words. I can even say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

“I promise not to slaughter all of the ghosts you inform me hurt you in the past few months, yes. Names?” When Tucker listed off names, Toby wrote them down with an inhuman speed, and Danny exchanged a look with Sam, worried about how exactly that deal might be loopholed around. “Right,” Toby chirped while slamming his book shut, “I’m here to answer some questions of yours, not just ramble about myself and assemble a… list of people to talk to. Got any?”

“So many that I don’t even know where to start.”

[shotofire]

A Life Saver

•LEVI ACKERMAN x READER

•Overview: Levi saves you, someone he barely knew, from certain death

•Warnings: mentions of death, gore description, cursing, near death experience, bit of angst, very brief mention of sex

•Season: season one range with a few altercations

-

At first, you didn’t want to become a scout. The thought of putting your life on the line wasn’t appealing, and it really just scared the hell out of you. Serving in the military police was a path you chose to go down. It was what you wanted for awhile then things started to not feel right.

The scouts were putting other lives before their own and you began to admire their bravery. Even when things looked like there was no light on the other side they pushed through. They proved that even mass death can result in a small victory that gave the people hope, something to help the nation push forward.

After serving in the military police for many years you decided it was time to step down. You wanted to become a scout, you wanted to help make a change. Your comrades thought you were absolutely insane, and they begged you to not make the choice. You refused, and soon you joined the scouts.

Mission after mission you survived and killed titans. You lost friends way too often, and the hurt and loneliness that came with the job would make anyone break. You’d been broken from the inside out in ways you’d never imagined. At the end of the day, you knew it was for the greater good.

The hope for a change only became greater when a boy showed up with the abilities of a titan. You knew to have such strength on your side was promising, and you saw light at the end of the extremely dark tunnel.

You’d served many long heart wrenching years by the time hope like that had shown up, and it only pushed you to keep going. You longed to live in a world without titans. All you wanted was to run free in field and see new things.

Today was a normal day, but that’s how any bad day starts. You’d woke up early to watch the sunrise with your close, and pretty much last friend, Molly. She was the best person you’d ever met and had been by your side for years. You had never admired anyone more than her.

“You know that titan kid is only fifteen, isn’t that insane?” She says before taking a sip of the coffee you had made her.

Your eyebrows raise at her words, “Wait really?”

The women laughs a bit at your shocked reaction then nods her head. She sets her coffee on the blanket you two are sitting on then leans back onto her hands, staring up at the sky that swirls with colors of orange and pink.

“To have this kind of hope is the best feeling i’ve had in years,” she says, “this is going to unlock so many closed doors we don’t know about. I think that finally we’re going to get some answers about how the hell the world turned into this mess.”

The smile on her face was full of such joy. She truly was excited for the future, you’d never seen someone actually look forward to what is lying ahead. A few days ago everyone thought titans would rein for hundreds of more years. Then all of the sudden that perspective has changed and no one knows what is going to come next.

“Yeah, I hope the future is bright,” you whispered.

You lay down to stare up at the sky, and Molly follows your movements. The two of you lay there in silence, thinking of a peaceful world where so much fear and death does not exist. You turn your head to look at your bestfriend to find her eyes are already on you.

“Our futures are bright, (y/n),” she says with a smile, “We’re going to live in cute little houses by the ocean!”

You can’t help but smile and roll your eyes at her. She always brought up this big body of water she’d read about in an illegal book when she was a teenager. The women could go on an on about it, as if she’d seen it before herself.

“If the ocean is even real,” you say with a smirk.

She scoffs at you before rolling her eyes harder than you just had, “Of course it’s real!”

You two spend the next hour talking about what you’d do or who you’d be doing if life were different. Molly wished for a family, to fall in love. She’d talked about it many times before but she refused to bring children into a world like this. You felt similar, expect children weren’t really on your radar. You longed to fall in love and grow old with someone.

But everyday brought death and destruction. You didn’t want to fall madly in love and then watch your whole world crumble as a titan took them away from you. The pain you had from your friends screaming your name as monsters had them in their grip was already too much to bare.

Heavy footsteps came in your direction at high speed, and soon you could hear heavy breathing along with it. You and Molly sat up quickly and saw one of your comrades running at you with pure fear in their eyes.

“Wall rose has been compromised!” They scream, voice laced with panic.

Molly’s eyes widen right as yours do. The feeling of uncertainty course through your veins almost instantly. You’ll never get used to the way your stomach drops when you hear things like that. Who could ever get used to that? Knowing you’re about to watch more people die would make anyone feel this way.

Before you know it you’re running to get your uniform on and strap on your gear. No one saw this coming. Then again, how the hell would they see this coming? You scramble to find you gear and you panic as it’s no where to be found.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You yell as the panic begins to set in.

Hands grab each of your shoulders to hold you still, and that’s when you see Molly’s worried eyes. She looks at you with concern. The last mission had both of you on edge more than ever before. Both of you lost someone dear, someone who was close to you as you were to each other. Knowing that today you could lose Molly was making your mind and body think like a mad man.

“You gear is with my stuff, remember? You didn’t want to lose it so you asked me to hold onto it,” she reminds you.

The sweet women pulls you into a tight hug, and you can feel her body trembling. The two of you had no time for this, people were probably already being slaughtered. Right as you begin to think this a scream rips through the air, one that makes you two grip one another tighter.

“We’re going to fight and we’re going to survive,” she says sternly, “do you hear me? Don’t you dare die on me (y/n).”

You nod into her chest as tears begin to form in your eyes. So much could change in an instant and you wished time could freeze so you could hug your bestfriend forever. But reality was sinking in and you knew you had titans to kill and lives to save.

The hug was short lived, and soon you were faced with the destruction held within wall rose. Titans stomped around mindlessly, some with those creepy smiles that you absolutely hated.

Your blades cut through nape after nape and your head was starting to spin. Somewhere along the way you lost Molly, which had never happened before. You hated not having her around. The constant fear of not knowing what position she could possibly be in made you sick to your stomach.

You flew through the air at a high speed, trying to get leverage on the abnormal that was chasing after you. It’s mouth hung open as it’s disgusting blood drenched touched dripped into the buildings below. You’d never faced an abnormal and didn’t expect it to dodge your attack minutes ago.

Sure you were extremely skilled but it’s hard to work your way around a fast moving titan. It’s arms flew in the air behind it, the beast was an odd sight. You’d never witnessed a titan act so strangely before.

You’d been observing the monster too closely, but only for a few seconds. But as any soldier knows, a few moments can cost you your entire life. You turned your attention back infront of you but you didn’t have time to react before you slammed into a chimney. Out of all things that could’ve contributed to your death it just had to be a damn chimney.

The impact made your vision blur and you couldn’t even really feel the pain. The sun beamed down on you as your body layed limp on the rooftop. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, and you wished you could fly up there with the birds and be free.

The abnormals hand picked you off the home as if you were nothing, only a small ant compared to it. It’s eyes were completely lifeless as it stared at you with hunger.

“Don’t you dare die on me (y/n)!”

Molly’s words rang through your mind but you couldn’t move. The injury to your head made you feel as if you were in a dream. There was no sense of reality right now, you couldn’t even comprehend that you were about to reach your end.

In a way you knew, reality wasn’t too far off. But you couldn’t find the energy to fight back. It had all been drained from you as the battle continued, and the final blow left you motionless.

You closed your eyes hoping somehow that’d stop you from feeling the coming pain. Every part of you didn’t want to die. Molly’s dreams about living by the ocean had become yours as well even if you wouldn’t admit it. The thought of leaving her with no body brought tears to your eyes.

That’s when you tried to move with the little energy left in your body, but it was no use. The tears began to stream down your face and the fear began to set in. Fear like this had never been within you, it was a brand new feeling. You guess certain death does that to you.

“No!” You say as loud as you can, “Someone please help me!”

Knowing this is what so many of the people you loved had to experience broke your heart. It was already bad enough to know they were gone and you couldn’t have saved them. But this was so much worse, they died with such fear. Fear that almost paralyzed you.

The sound of blades ripping through skin filled your ears. The titans grip on you loosened, then let go completely. You felt yourself falling, but you kept your eyes closed. Fear had already made its way to every inch of your body and you couldn’t move even more than before.

Right before you slammed to the ground below strong arms caught you. A grunt slipped past the unknown persons lips at the impact of your body. They carried you into a near by tavern that was deserted of people, then set you on one of the tables.

“Hey,” the deep voice said, “c’mon now I know you aren’t dead, don’t go out like this.”

Your eyes fluttered open to see the dangerously handsome man in your face. He was awfully close, you could feel his breath on your nose. His eyes were wide with concern.

“Captain Levi?” You asked followed by a gut wrenching cough. Blood splattered onto your lips and you groaned.

He couldn’t have been the one who saved you, right? You’d only talked to Levi a handful of times, and all were him giving you orders. You’d never had a desire to talk to him even if you found him incredibly attractive.

You’d admired the man for years as well. He has lost as many people as you, maybe more. He had already been on the scouts for many years before you joined. The man had watched the passion you held as you killed titans at alarming speed. He knew exactly who you were and what you had to offer, that’s why he saved you.

He smiled softly at you, not even enough for you to notice. For a second he thought you wouldn’t wake up and he’d be carrying a lifeless body back to medical. You cough a bit more before sitting up. A gasp slips past your lips and pain shoots through your body.

“Holy shit that fucking hurts,” you curse.

You see the fresh blood on your hands and wonder if it’s yours. The pounding in your head only increases as you move. The room felt like it was spinning and you may vomit any second.

“Do I need to take you to medical?” He asks with concern in his voice.

Your vision looks at the raven haired man and your memory starts to come back. One second you were flying through the air and then stupidly slammed into a chimney. And that damned titan was about to feast on you, what a bitch. Then you realized Levi was the one who stopped you from your near death.

“Why did you save me?” You ask without answering him first.

He sighs at your question. He had only moved that fast to save someone a handful of times. It just felt right to save you. He was there, you were there, he couldn’t just let you die. It wasn’t too far out of reach, he had already been headed in your direction.

“Because you’re strong and the scouts need you,” he answers, “now tell me if I need to take you to medical.”

His features were stern and it made your stomach flip a bit. If there weren’t titans outside and pain wasn’t consuming your body you may have thrown out a stupid flirtatious remark due to your bubbly personality. But this wasn’t the time and place no matter how good the captain looked right now.

“I just need a minute,” you said softly as you pushed your weight off the table.

You hissed in pain before stretching your body. The bones in your body crack loudly and you let out a low grunt at the feeling. The pounding in your head began to simmer and you took deep breaths.

“Thank you captain Levi,” you said, “my friend would’ve personally brought me back to just kill me herself.”

He chuckled a bit at your remark and you couldn’t even recall captain Levi smiling let alone chuckling. This whole situation was weird and unrealistic to you. Maybe you were already dead and this was your afterlife. A hot guy saves you and later you two will go to bone town, sounds pretty fun.

“I literally ran into a chimney,” you grumbled.

Levi’s eyes squinted at your words in confusion, “You what?”

“I didn’t get caught by a titan while trying to kill it heroically. I wasn’t paying attention for like three seconds and slammed into a damn chimney, not too sure the scouts really need me,” you say.

He shakes his head at your words and was becoming annoyed by your self doubt.

“I know, I saw,” he says and your cheek almost immediately turn red, “and I still saved you cause I thought you were worth it.”

You couldn’t get words out after what he said. You only stared at him in shock. He saw you make a foul out of yourself but yet still risked his life to save you. Levi truly was an interesting man.

“Well then, thank you again,” you say, “maybe I should thank you in a different way.” You wiggle your eyebrows then let out a laugh into your palm as his face falls at your words.

“Holy shit i’m kidding, please don’t make me do laps for that. Jokes make me feel better,” you still were holding back laughter at the face Levi made. You never thought you’d make the captain flustered like that.

“Uh,” his cheeks redden, “We need to get back out there. It’s starting to get worse, are you sure you’re okay (y/n).”

You take a deep breath before nodding your head. The two of you immediately begin to speed walk towards the open door of the tavern.

“I’m going to need you to follow me. The titans are huddled in the west and help is needed there,” he orders you and you respond with a yes captain, which always makes you cringe.

“Oh and by the way,” he says with a smirk, “that other way of thanking me is always welcome.”

This time he leaves you flustered. He heads west and you stand there for a few seconds before you remember you’re supposed to be following him. His remark might have you slamming into another chimney.

After fighting for hours many people had been successfully moved to wall sina. Some titans still mindlessly walked around within the walls of rose, but atleast many people were saved. There was still a great heartfelt loss that day.

When you got back to base your heart was pounding in your ears. All you could think about was Molly and if she was okay. You hadn’t seen her since you two got separated during the hell bent events. Your eyes scanned frantically through the base, searching for her everywhere.

Your mind went to the worst place possible and you begin to panic. She had to be okay, she was all you had. You needed her more than anyone else. If she’s gone you might as well let a titan eat you during your next mission. Molly kept you alive, and kept you fighting.

“(y/n)?” You hear a familiar deep voice ask.

You spin on your heals and are met with the same deep brown eyes that saved you earlier today. Levi looked upset, face a bit fallen. That’s when your heart sank to your stomach. Did he know where Molly was? Or if she had even made it back?

“Follow me,” he says without any other detail.

He starts walking and you immediately follow as your heart races. At this point you wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear it. Your eyes scan to a sign that says medical as Levi opens the door below it.

You’re led to a the back of the room and you gasp at the sight. On the bed layed Molly with bandages covering many parts of her body. Your eyes fill with tears at the safe shes in, this was too much.

“She’s going to be okay, and the nurse told me she should be up soon,” he says.

You nod your head at his words before reaching to hold Molly’s hand, it was cold as ice.

“Can you please get her a blanket,” you state, it wasn’t even a question. It was more like you weren’t letting go of her hand, more like you couldn’t.

Levi nods and fetches her a couple blankets. He covers her for you and you thank him. The tears still run down your face, but you had already stopped wiping them away. It was no use because they just kept coming harder and harder as you looked at your bestfriend.

“Thank you Levi, I would’ve gone crazy looking for her back there,” you smile through the hurt.

He only hums in response to your words, letting silence fill the air. His hand comes to rest on your shoulder and his fingers move slightly to give you some comfort. It truly was a nice feeling to have someone with you right now, you might think too hard if he wasn’t here.

“I’ll give you some space-“ “no,” You cut him off, “please don’t go.”

Levi sees the hurt in your eyes. He could tell you needed someone right now even if he wasn’t much of a comforting person.

“okay,” he whispers.

He then pulls up a chair next to yours and sits with you for the next few hours in silence. It was somewhat nice, for both of you. Molly begins to stir in her sleep and your perk up. Her eyes flutter open and the first thing she sees is you and she smiles.

“We’ll look at that,” she smiles, “you’re just obsessed with me aren’t you (y/n).”

You laugh through happy tears forming in your eyes. She takes a deep breath and tries to stretch her body but the pain to still too much. She feels your grip on her hand and she squeezes at yours.

“You didn’t think i’d go out that easily did you,” she asks with a smirk on her chapped lips.

“Not for a second,” you said back almost immediately.

She lets out a small laugh at your words. For a second she did think she was going to die as a titan smacked her body mid-air, but that’s all she can remember. It was that, and then she wakes up in medical confused as hell. But seeing you made her know she definitely was okay. Her eyes scan to the figure next to you to see captain Levi. You’d told her before that you’d totally jump his bones if he let you.

“Did you screw the captain while I was out?” she asks playfully.

You and Levi’s breath hitch at her words and she can’t help but let out a laugh. It hurt her chest to laugh that hard but it also in a way made her feel better.

“Really Molly? You were just half dead a few minutes ago and that’s what you wanted to say?” You couldn’t help but laugh along with her. You’d rather her make you and the captain flustered than her be dead.

Levi couldn’t help but smile widely, but he put his head down to hide it. That day you and Levi developed a liking for each other, and both of you couldn’t remember the last time you felt this way.

The lives you each led was going to make it hard, but feelings are strong.

After an hour or so of talking to Molly she fell back asleep for some well needed rest. Levi walked with you down the hall back to your room, making small talk that was hard to even keep going.

“Thank you again Levi,” you look at him with sparkling eyes, “I’m pretty sure anyone else besides Molly would’ve let me be titan desert.”

“Of course, I would never let you be titan desert,” he mumbles the last part. He’d never heard someone refer to themselves as titan desert before, it almost made him laugh.

You stop at your door and look at his with an adoring gaze. He truly was nice looking, and incredibly brave. You wanted to be just like him, you wanted to be even stronger than him one day.

Before you could think you were leaning in to kiss his cheek. His eyes widen and his face heats up. The action rendered him speechess and he watched as your reached for the handle and opened the door before slipping in your room without another word.

He stayed in the hallway for a few seconds staring at where you just stood.

“Shit,” he whispered.

That only sparked his feelings for you further, and he knew this was the beginning of something he’d been avoiding his whole life.

Love.

[linkspooky]

Gojo and Mahito

Nanami and Gojo share several parallels as pointed out by Nanami in Chapter 22 of Jujutsu Kaisen. A connection between the two of them that’s developed to the point where we see Mahito steal a technique from Gojo (domain expansion activation for only a few microseconds) in the latest chapter. More on the parallels of Gojo and Mahito, because for both of them there’s more than meets the eye. 

1. Children with Too Much Power

Mahito parallels Gojo, but more specifically I believe he has the most in common with teenage Gojo we see in Hidden inventory. Especially on two key points. Both of them had immense strength that they hadn’t quite figured out yet.

Teenage Gojo, who was still figuring out the infinity and could not yet quite make the universe bend at the snap of his finger tips. In his introductory arc when Mahito was fighting Nanami, he was like a child figuring out how to use his body for the first time. 

Everything he does in that arc is out of a childish sense of curiosity. He gets to close to Junpei, to observe what will happen from prolonged interaction with a human. He toys around a long time with fighting Nanami because he’s still figuring out how his curse technique works. 

Unlike the other curses who seem to already exist knowing what they are, or have existed for years already long enough to figure themselves out, Mahito is actively learning about himself when he fights Nanami. 

Just like Gojo, being pushed to the brink of death by an incredibly powerful enemy, only seems to make Mahito bounce back stronger. Mahito and Gojo parallel each other in their comparison to Nanami. Simply put, Nanami is the most mature character in the series, he’s the role model for a normal, decent adult. 

While Gojo will drag children to battlefields, or take big bets with their lives, Nanami acts much more responsibility, with respect to the fact that Yuji is a child whose emotional well being he’s nurturing. 

Nanami is introduced to us as the opposite of Gojo, someone mature while Gojo is immature. He even says that he doesn’t respect him in the least bit. Gojo’s powerful, but he’s not grown up. Nanami even explains this quite logically, people don’t grow up by fighting bad guys, or getting stronger. People grow up by accumulating experiences. 

Gojo and Mahito are all powerful in ways that Nanami will never be, while at the same time they act like children. Especially teenage Gojo, but even adult Gojo doesn’t really like to get along well with other people, and decides everything based on his own emtoions and perspective. In other words both Gojo and Mahito have a tendency to be egocentric. 

Egocentric. 

thinking only of oneself, without regard for the feelings or desires of others; self-centered. 

2. The World Through Their Eyes

Mahito and Gojo are characters who appear childish and frivolous on the surface, but if you plunge their depths they have a deeper understanding of themselves and their desires than most ofther characters in the series. They might not get other people, but that’s not their priority either. In classic Jungian symbolism, shallow water belies greater depths. 

Gojo and Mahito are both extremely well thought characters, capable of immense amounts of self reflection. (Probably too much self reflection in Gojo’s case, he just loves looking at himself in the mirror a little too much how vain.) It not only shows in how much of themselves they have figured out but also their jujutsu. I think it’s safe to say that there is some resemblance between the infinity, and Mahito’s idle transifguration. Their Jujutsu makes them both privvy to the world that no one else can see. It’s unknown what Gojo can see with the six eyes exactly, but considering the limitless. 

You can infer that he’s capable of seeing much greater sensory perception than the normal person. Mahito doesn’t have the six eyes, but because his jujutsu is about altering the form of the soul, he has the unique ability to see the shape of the soul inside of the body.

Mahito can see through people’s bodies, and see down to their souls. However, his perceptiveness has caused him to give up on the idea that people have any individuality at all, that they have “hearts” you know like, thoughts and feelings and stuff. Which is why all humans are pretty much interchangable to him. Mahito can’t see life separate as him from having any particular value. 

Both of their cursed techniques create distance between themselves and others. Though in opposite ways. Gojo’s cursed technique is based around the idea that nothing can reach him, because it will always slow down in the infinite space between them. Mahito is able to completely change the shape of whatever he wants with one touch. 

However, at the same time this resembles how they both interact with other people. Mahito sees people as nothing more than toys to play with and experiment in developing his jujutsu technique on. He even is literally pictured in an official color illustration as destroying Junpei, Nobara, and Nanami as torn up dolls. They were just toys that he got bored with and threw away. 

Gojo can sometimes even share this tendency, not to mercilessly kill and slaughter of course not, but to be so far away from other people, and too busy perceiving the infinity that he can’t get caught up in ordinary lives. Remember, Mahito, Jogo and Hanami’s plan was to shake up Gojo with the sheer amount of people he would have to save in Shibuya, and it just... didn’t work. 

Gojo just isn’t that shaken up by the people he can’t save. He’s not Geto. He’s not Yuji. Of course he cares enough to try and minimize the damage, he could have just used unlimited domain to end the situation at the cost of everybody gathered, but he made a decision to try to balance between everybody’s lives, protecting his own, and exorcising the curses. 

Mahito and Gojo are both extremely distant from other people, but because of that they have a unique understanding of themlseves. Mahito’s domain expansion is called “Self Embodiment of Perfection.” When Gojo figures out reverse Jutsushiki he quotes the budha when he reached enlightenment. 

They are extremely isolated characters who have others plumbed the depths of themselves. Gojo’s goal is to be the best version of himself he can be, to push himself into being the strongest. Their individual will is so strong they want to impose it on the world around them. Gojo wants to reset the jujutsu world, Mahito wants a world of curses. 

They both encourage the other people around them to also think deeper about themselves, and how to evaluate themselves. Gojo tells Mahito to stop repressing himself for the sake of others. To try to be stronger individually instead of more of a team player. Instead of judging those around you, look inwardly. 

Mahito is furious that Yuji doesn’t evaluate himself, doesn’t think deeply about his own motivations. That’s what he criticizes Yuji for constantly, he doesn’t think for himself, he runs blindly into fights. Mahito calls their fight a clash of truth. Yuji has to know his own self, and know his belifs and know why his beliefs are better than Mahito’s if he wants to face him. 

Mahito and Gojo are both always looking inside of themselves, and that’s why their depths go much further than their seemingly shallow surface. If I were to make one last comparison between the two of them, I would say that the reason Mahito imitates Gojo is because his end goal is to become enlightened. What Mahito wants, is to be true to his nature, the truest embodiment of a curse in the series. He wants to reach an enlightenment like Gojo has where he has himself, his role in the world, completely and totally figured out. Where he embodies his own idealized sense of perfection. 

Which is why he imitates Gojo, the strongest. Though his is the opposite path, like a reflection of a mirror. If Gojo uses his power to be the model, the embodiment of a jujutsu sorcerer who exorcises curses to save human lives, then Mahito chooses to be the embodiment of a curse that plagues humans.

Mahito and Gojo both see through things, they can see what everybody else can’t, however they differ in how they use those perceptions. Gojo tethers himself to responsibility to other people, because he finds meaning in doing that, he thinks there’s a point in protecting and nurturing the weak because eventually he’ll be able to find strong comrades. Mahito however, believes in the opposite of camraderie. He can see through other people, so he acts like they’re not even there. Gojo is a character who while his tendency is to try do everything on his own, is currently waiting rescue from the strong comrades he focused so hard into training. While Mahito will most likely end up alone. 

[cooliogirl101]

When they meet, Hashirama is a 18-year-old boy who’s known as an idealist fool with dreams bigger than himself and Hisana is a 15-year-old civilian girl with a cranky, elderly donkey as her only companion.

“No, no, no, not again,” Hisana groaned as she woke up to see that Carrot had-- once again-- chewed through her ropes and was now chomping away at some flowers further down the road. “Goddammit, get back here, you stupid donkey!”

At the sight of Hisana running towards her, Carrot took off at a fairly impressive speed, considering she was 22 years old and had arthritis. Not for the first time, Hisana considered just letting her go-- but then, that wouldn’t do. There were wolves out there (probably), just waiting to make a meal out of some poor old donkey, and Carrot was pretty slow when she wasn’t making Hisana’s life difficult. She wouldn’t survive.

The sound of muffled laughter caught Hisana’s attention and she looked up to see a teenage boy perched in a tree (where had he even come from??), one hand covering his mouth in a very poor attempt at hiding his amusement.

“Need some help?” He offered, eyes glinting with humor as he took in Hisana’s sorry attempt at chasing down her donkey.

Hisana briefly considered turning him down to try and preserve what remained of her dignity, then glanced back at Carrot’s departing figure and promptly decided it was too early in the morning for things like personal pride and chasing down donkeys.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, only a little grudgingly. The stranger’s lips quirked up and he disappeared in a swirl of leaves, only to reappear holding Carrot’s reins a second later.

Hisana blinked. So he was a shinobi. Alrighty, then.

“Here you go,” the stranger said cheerfully, a grumpy donkey trotting behind him.

Scowling, Hisana marched up to Carrot and swatted her lightly on the head.

“Do that again and I’ll make donkey skewers out of you, don’t think I won’t,” she threatened. Carrot nudged at her, nosing around for something to eat, and Hisana sighed, wrapping her arms around Carrot’s neck in a hug before turning to the stranger.

“Thank you. Really,” she said, giving him a faint smile. “You saved me ten minutes of chasing after her.”

“No need to thank me! It was no trouble at all, honestly,” the stranger laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was glad to help.”

Hisana studied him for a moment. She didn’t think he was acting, exactly, but there was something almost scripted about the way he spoke, his posture, his expressions, every movement carefully telegraphed. Like he was taking care to appear as harmless as possible.

It didn’t take a genius to realize why. This may have been her first time encountering a shinobi in person, but she’d heard more than enough stories.

They’re killers, Hisana, plain and simple. People without honor, who slaughter children, innocents, each other-- whoever they’re paid to slaughter-- without hesitation or remorse. Monsters in every sense of the word.

“Hey, um,” she said slowly. “Have you eaten?”

“I beg your pardon?” The shinobi asked, startled.

“I asked if you’d had breakfast yet,” Hisana repeated. “If not, would you care for something to eat? I can offer you--” She paused to mentally take stock of her food inventory. “--leftover meat buns, half an apple, and some vaguely sketchy berries.”

The shinobi coughed.

“Vaguely sketchy berries?” He asked, lips twitching. Hisana shrugged.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure they’re harmless. I’ve been snacking on them for days and I haven’t died yet, which is a good sign.” She smiled at him. “So, breakfast?”

“Yeah,” the shinobi said quietly, after a pause. There was a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, almost like he was waiting for her to withdraw her invitation. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

~~

“I’m Hisana, by the way.”

“Hashirama. It’s very nice to meet you, Hisana.”

~~

Hashirama ended up staying for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then for another two days past that. Shinobi, it turned out, made for very good hunters, something Hisana discovered very quickly into their acquaintance.

“Hashirama,” she said, staring at the struggling rabbit in Hashirama’s hand. “This is the fifth rabbit you’ve brought me. I appreciate the thought, but--” She gestured helplessly in the general direction of the rabbit. “--it’s really too much.”

“It’s okay, you can save it for later!” His expression fell. “Unless you’re tired of rabbits? Wait no, of course you’d be tired of rabbits, I should have thought of that. I can get you something else instead? Maybe a pheasant? I think I saw some pheasants around here.”

Hisana studied him for a moment.

“Hashirama,” she said abruptly. “Why did you decide to travel with me?”

“What do you mean?” Hashirama asked, brow furrowed.

“I mean that I’m well-aware I’m slowing you down. Don’t deny it, you can’t tell me that your maximum speed is that of a twenty-something year-old donkey,” she said, exasperated. “I’m not the best at cooking, and we’ve already established that you’re a far better of a hunter than I am. So why stay? Why travel with me when it’d be easier for you to travel alone?”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“You knew I was a shinobi and invited me to stay anyway,” he said finally, voice soft. He wasn’t quite meeting her eyes. “And besides, I like talking to you.”

Hisana swallowed, caught off guard.

“And I like talking to you,” she replied quietly. “I didn’t invite you along because I wanted your protection, or someone to hunt for me, or anything like that, Hashirama, I did so because I have fun spending time with you. If you like catching rabbits or whatever, that’s fine. But don’t feel like you have to do so for my sake, or that you need to-- to prove something to me.”

Hashirama let out a slightly shaky laugh.

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m not very used to this,” he admitted. “You know, you’re the first civilian I’ve spent time with outside of a mission?”

“Well, you’re the first shinobi I’ve ever met,” she replied. He looked at her, surprised.

“Seriously? But you weren’t scared at all!” He exclaimed.

“Well, that’s on you,” she scoffed. “You weren’t very frightening.”

“Or maybe you’re just not very easy to scare,” he answered.

“If that helps your ego, sure,” Hisana grinned.

She reached down to stroke Carrot’s neck.

“So tell me, what was it like, growing up as a shinobi?

When Hashirama hesitated, she added, “You can lie about all the classified parts. It’s not like I would know, anyway.”

Hashirama laughed, shaking his head.

“Alright, then,” he said, smiling. “But I’m warning you, it’s really not as interesting as you’re probably imagining. I grew up in a large ninja clan, and--”

Bonus:

“Care to explain why you came back from your mission three days late?” Tobirama asked flatly. “Half the clan thought you’d died.”

Hashirama smiled, a slightly dreamy look in his eyes. Tobirama didn’t like it at all.

“Just took a detour, that’s all.”

The next time they meet, several years later, Hashirama is the newly appointed leader of his clan and Hisana has built a name for herself as a wandering clan-less healer (she listens for rumors of recent battles/bandit attacks/shinobi disputes and goes wherever there’s recent bloodshed. In doing so, she creates quite a few connections and ends up building the shinobi world’s largest, most detailed information network completely by accident).

[staysaneathome]

That Day (Evening)

(The Entity-Swap kid fic WIP that now has a fourth part. Warnings for continued endangerment of children and high levels of pining)

The park is quite a bit further from where they lost the teenager in the hijab than Jon initially thought.

It’s almost funny, how two or three miles doesn’t sound like a very long way to run-walk. Just two or three, the small number making it sound doable, like they should be able to get there in a matter of minutes.

It’s less funny when they’ve been walking for over half an hour and Melanie won’t stop whining about how her legs are tired.

”Carry me.” She demands imperiously.

“No.” Replies Jon, flatly. “Last time I did that, you scratched me really badly. My shoulder and face still hurt.”

”They do not.” Melanie says, as if her denial is enough to undo all the damage. “And I won’t scratch this time. Carry me?”

”No. It’s not even much further to walk.”

”Uuuuugh, you said that last time!” She complains. “It’s been for-eeeee-veeer! Can we at least get some juice or a Freddo Frog or something?”

”With what money?” Jon asks archly.  That buys him maybe half a minute of blessed, blessed silence.

“Wait. You don’t have money?” Melanie asks with a frankly insulting level of incredulity. “But aren’t you like, an adult? Adults have money!”

”I’m twelve!” He sputters, gesturing to himself. “Do I look like I have any money?”

There’s a moment of silence as Melanie eyes him up and down. “I thought you were just ugly.” She says dismissively. “Wait. If you aren’t an adult, can I be in charge?”

”No!” He snaps indignantly. “I’m still the oldest.”

”That’s dumb.” Melanie complains. “You’re dumb. And ugly.”

”And older than you.” Jon reminds her smugly. He’s been with her for long enough by now that he knows when to dodge out of the way when she tries to pinch him.

It’s a relief when the park finally comes into view.

It’s an even bigger one when he catches sight of Martin sitting on the balance beam, looking around patiently.

It lifts a weight off Jon’s shoulders that he didn’t even know was there when Martin catches sight of him and his face breaks out in a grin, like the sun rising.  Then Martin’s face rapidly falls, and he’s sprinting over to them, looking like he’s seen a ghost.

Jon has a fleeting fear that the teenager in the hijab or the searcher are right behind them, poised and waiting for him to turn around to strike.

Martin slows, huffing and puffing as his hands reach out towards him, shaking slightly. “Jon! Jon, oh my gosh, what—what happened to, to your arm, to your face?!”

Ah, Jon thinks, as Martin cups his less-savaged cheek gently and tilts his head. Was that all he was frightened of?

”It’s nothing.” He says gruffly, trying not to think about how weird-hot-odd it feels to have Martin worry about some little scratches like this, fighting the urge to fidget. “Just doing, um. Doing what I had to.”

Martin’s eyes are big and liquid and sad, and he frowns, opening his mouth—

“Liar. You didn’t say it was ‘nothing’ when you wouldn’t carry me.” A sour voice interrupts.

Jon startles and Martin whips his hand away so fast it feel like a burn, both of them turning to stare down at where the interruption came from. Melanie is starfished on her back on the grass, glaring up at them moodily, one sweaty hand still clutching Jon’s. The Watcher informs Jon that her clothes will have grass stains on them when she gets up. Jon tries to inform the Watcher that he doesn’t care, but is ignored, as usual.

Melanie eyes Martin critically. “Are you his friend then?”

Martin straightens up, his usual smile on his face. “Erm, um—yes! Yes, yes I am Jon’s friend! Mar-Martin Blackwood! Um, hello! And, and you are?”

Melanie pulls her sweaty hand out of Jon’s grip and holds it out to Martin, sitting up. “M Melanie King. Jon kidnapped me and we’re friends now too.”

Martin’s smile freezes as he processes that sentence. His eyes dart between Jon and Melanie. “Ah. Um.”

”I did not.” Jon protests. “You were being kidnapped by a searcher, and I saved you.”

”Didn’t do a very good job of it.” Melanie mutters, pulling up grass by the roots and dropping it on his shoes.

Jon retreats with a disgusted noise, trying to shake it out where it’s fallen through the holes of his too-big trainers. ”Stop that! And-and we’ve just met, we’re not friends!”

There’s a moment of silence.

Melanie’s eyes start to water.  She begins making an awful noise that makes some part of Jon’s brain he hadn’t even known existed freeze up and go “Oh no”.

He exchanges a brief terrified glance with Martin, who reaches out. “Oh, no, no, no, oh please—”

Melanie wails, the sheer force of the noise making Jon stumble backwards.

“Melanie, shh!” He hisses, darting glances around at few parkgoers who are stopping to stare, “You’re making people—”

”NO!” She bellows, swiping out at him with a poorly aimed claw, tears and snot running down her face in rivulets. “I HAE-HATE YOU! I HATE THI-I-IS! I HATE THAT EVERYTHIN' SO ANNOYING, ALL, ALL THE TIME, AND IT DOESN'T STO-O-OP!! I HATE MY FRIENDS NOT, NOT LIKING ME ANYMORE! I HATE MY DADDY GETTIN' SAD 'CAUSE OF ME! I JUS' WAN' IT TO STOP! I WAN’ MY FRIENDS BACK!! I WANNA GO HOME!!”

The little girl curls in on herself, the bright green grass stains on the back of her sparkly top shaking with her as she continues to sob like her little heart is breaking.

Jon has no idea what to do to fix this, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly at his sides. He has no idea how she was touched by the Slaughter (though the Watcher croons for him to question her, to learn, to Ask—), and even if he did, it’s not as though he could make it just go away, as if a mark like this could be removed with a bit of scrubbing. This isn’t something that can just be pulled out of her, like a loose tooth. It’s part of her now, wedged deep inside like the Forsaken is in Martin, and the Watcher is in Jon.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t Know—

“I-I’ll be your friend!” Martin babbles frantically.

Jon stares at him, feeling suddenly, irrationally betrayed.

Melanie gulps and sniffles, peering up at him through red-rimmed eyes. “…you promise?”

”Cross my heart and hope to die.” Martin smiles, holding out a small, ragged tissue. “C’mon now, can you give me a big dragon blow into this?”

She gives him a Look, like she knows he’s trying to make her laugh and is cross with him for it, but does as he says, making a noise that’s a bit like a honk.

“Good job!” Martin praises, while Jon crosses his arms and tries to make his face not frown like he wants to. This is stupid. You can't be friends with somebody you’ve just met, you don’t Know them, it’s silly. Childish. Plus Martin’s his friend. Melanie has no right to come along and-and steal him like this. Martin looks up and catches sight of Jon’s face. His smile dims a bit and his colors go paler, more faded, which makes Jon’s tummy squirm uncomfortably.

Still, he keeps babbling, “I-I’m really happy to be your friend, and Jon’s friend too! I don’t have many friends at home, so this is. This is nice. To be friends with you two. It makes me happy. Do you have superpowers too? Like how I can go invisible, and Jon can make people tell him stuff and Know things?”

Melanie shrugs, tearing up the tissue in her hands. “Dunno. Making people get into fights, or something. Invisibility’s cool, I guess. But getting people to tell you stuff isn’t a superpower. That’s just asking questions. It’s dumb.”

“No it’s not!” Jon bristles indignantly, all his focus on the little friend-thief. “Asking questions can be dangerous. Especially when you can’t stop yourself from answering them. How’d you think the searcher was going to eat up your life?”

“W-well, a brain sucker monster like her wouldn’t need to ask questions, would they? They’d just bite your ugly head off and know everything anyway.” She argues back, little chest puffed out and tears all but forgotten. “If all that creepy lady was going to do is ask questions, I could take her. I just wouldn’t open my mouth. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

Jon barely notices Martin going wide-eyed and near translucent out of the corner of his eye as he opens his mouth to prove exactly why Melanie is wrong.

But he freezes up when he hears a soft, deep voice behind him. “Oh, really? Care to put that to the test?”

The searcher smiles down at the three of them.

Her eyes are empty and something hungry looks out from them.

”Come, little ones.” She coos, one hand outstretched. “Come home with me. Come back to the Collection. You’ll want for nothing, never hungry, never cold, never tired, never lonely, never angry. And you’ll hear such interesting stories. We’ve missed you, my prized Recorder. I’ve missed you so much.”

Jon feels frozen, pinned like a bird in the eyes of a snake, a part of him that he never wanted to know existed clamoring at him to take it, take her hand, you need the stories, you need—

A large, warm, soft hand grabs his, and yanks him back into the fog.

Jon yelps, though it feels like his yell is swallowed up in the crushing, inescapable isolation that now surrounds him. He sees Melanie, but it’s like she’s miles away, her shouting and directionless anger losing teeth as it dawns on her how utterly, utterly alone they both are. They aren’t friends. They can’t rely on each other. They’ll lose sight of each other and perish here, unremarkable and unremarked on and alone.

”C’mon!” A familiar, kind voice comes through the fog, shocking Jon back to his senses. “We’ve got to go! This way!”

His hand is being held. Of course it is. How could he forget? He and Melanie are holding Martin’s hands, as the barely visible boy tugs them through the eddies of fog, away from the searcher.

They run through the dreamlike realm of the Forsaken in a weird, birdlike configuration.

Martin had grabbed the hand which was closest to him on Jon, while Jon was still facing the searcher, locked into her gaze. The result is that his arm is drawn almost painfully across his body as they run, his sweaty palm clutching Martin’s tight, sure that if he even loosens his grip enough to change to a more comfortable position, he’ll be lost forever in the fog.

Melanie is stumbling along on Martin’s other side, her legs weak and shaky, almost skipping at some points to try and keep up with the pace Martin is setting, glancing back every so often. Tears are running down her face almost absentmindedly.

For a moment, as they pass through the darkening trees and get further and further away from the playground, Jon thinks they might actually make it. They might actually escape the searcher and live to fight another day.

”Stop.”

Jon feels his legs lock up, all his muscles seizing together as though cramped. The burning sensation of being Watched sears itself into the back of his neck, the entirety of him Known and Seen and Exposed.

He faintly hears Martin and Melanie scream as though they’re being peeled open and pinned down for study as he crashes face first into the mossy earth beneath them.

The searcher takes her time strolling up to them, forcing Jon to listen to his friends’ pained whimpers where they’ve fallen. Martin’s face scraped viciously from the bark of the tree in from of them, and Melanie unable to even inch off of where a root is digging into her stomach.

That’s how he knows it’s the man looking through her eyes, delighting in their distress.

”No,” He can hear Martin choke out, “No, st-stop it, st-stay away fr—!”

”Look at you.” The searcher coos in a tone that has never been her own. “All banged up and bruised. Do you enjoy this, Jon? Do you enjoy hurting your friends?”

Jon wants to scream, to cry, to yell that of course not, of course he doesn’t, he’d never want to, but it feels like his throat is closed up. It’s all he can do to suck in shaky breaths through his nose as the searcher gets closer and closer.

“Kill you,” He can faintly hear Melanie wheeze. Jon’s honestly at a loss for whether she’s speaking to the searcher or to him. “Swear, I-I swear, kill you, I’ll—”

“Come now.” The searcher says pleasantly. “That’s enough games. Time to come back now, children, Recorder. Time to come back to the Collection.”

He can see her hand reaching down for him.

A dark blur slams into the searcher.

Jon hears several short screams, what sounds incongruously like a growl and then a loud, wet, puncturing noise.

His limbs release from the rictus they’ve been forced into.

The burning sensation of being Watched fades to the ever-present prickle on the back of his neck.

Jon jerks his head up with a punched out gasp, reaching for the others, pulling them behind him even as he turns to See what is happening, what’s going on.

There’s a lady kneeling over the searcher’s limp, lifeless body.

She’s got combat boots and a hoodie that’s slipped down from her shoulders to bunch around her elbows. A small burst of scar tissue, almost like a flower, is visible and hidden again as she shifts, more animal than human in her movements. It reminds Jon of a nature documentary he watched with his grandmother once, a mountain lion stalking forward lithely to devour its prey.  There’s the same intent, hungry stare in her eyes that Jon vaguely recalls the mountain lion having as she draws up to her full height and pins the three children huddled at the base of the tree under her gaze. There’s a penknife in her hand that’s dripping with the searcher’s blood.

He hears Martin suck in a frightened whine behind him, fog spilling out to pool around Jon’s ankles. Melanie’s breathing so fast she sounds like she’s a mere moment away from hyperventilation.

They can’t escape like this. Not from a killer touched by the Hunt. Not without a distraction of some kind.

Jon’s mouth is opening before his brain can process what an awful idea this is. “How did you get that—”

He doesn’t even see her move.

All he knows is the breath is punched out of his lungs and his feet are dangling uselessly as the Hunter slams him into another tree, a snarl on her lips. The bloody penknife is pressed hard into the thin skin of his throat.

”So you’re one of them, hm?” The Hunter snarls, the burr of her Welsh accent mixing with a growl that almost drowns out Martin’s frantic cries of “JON!” A tiny part of his brain that isn’t frantically trying to stay as still as possible notes that she’s got Melanie’s sparkly hair bobble stretched around one wrist.

“I wonder.” The Hunter says, with fake casualness. “What’d be the best way to make sure you can’t ask any more of them pesky questions that hurt people, hm? The tongue? Or the voicebox?”

”DAISY, STOP!”

It’s like magic.

The Hunt slides away under the young woman’s skin like someone’s pulled a blanket over it. Not gone, the shape of it still plainly visible, but softened, gentled by the cover’s drapes and folds. The arm that’s holding Jon up trembles, ever so slightly, and the penknife is finally, finally pulled away, even if only by a few centimeters.  Jon’s breath hitches in his chest and he has to blink away tears.

As she twists around to face the teenager in the hijab, Jon’s given a clear view of one of her ears, which has begun to flush pink, for some reason.

”Basira.” There’s barely concealed excitement in her voice that is very confusing right now. “Hi. I, uh. I was in the area, and I, uh. Noticed you were having some trouble. So I found those kids that, that you were looking for.”

”That’s. Nice? But, Daisy, I need you to put him down now.” The teenager in the hijab is holding her hands out placatingly. “That boy’s not dangerous, not like Rayner. I wanted to ask him some questions.”

The teenager in the hoodie scoffs, but does as she asks, tucking the penknife away and lowering Jon to the ground. “If you say so. Just don’t let him ask you any—they’re tricky, Eye types like this.”

Jon feels his legs go wobbly the moment his feet touch earth. He slumps, breath wheezing out of him, heart racing like he’s running from the searcher all over again.

”JON!” Martin’s arms curve under his, pulling him forward into a tight, warm, soft hug. “Oh, oh god, I-I’m so sorry, ah-are you okay?! Did she hurt you?”

Jon can only grip feebly back, burying his head into Martin’s increasingly saturated shoulder as it feels like he shakes apart.

Part of his brain that isn’t focused on clutching onto Martin like he’s a lifejacket and swallowing compulsively to remind himself that he’s alright, he’s whole, faintly registers the sound of something smacking flesh, and the Hunter going “Ow!” “That’s what you get!” Comes Melanie’s shrill reply. “Don’t you ever touch him again, okay, you big, big, stupid, bullying, ugly—!”

”Okay, that’s enough of that.” The teenager in the hijab—Basira? says. “Break it up, you two.”

There’s the distant sound of dried leaves and tree detritus crunching underfoot, and then Martin’s breath hitches. Jon tightens his grip, preparing to twist him away from whatever’s threatening them now.

”Hey, easy, easy.” Basira’s voice comes from a lot closer. “I’m sorry about Daisy, but she’s very…passionate about stopping monsters. Like the one chasing you three. That was a monster, wasn’t it?”

“Y-yeah.” Martin stutters. “She was going to hurt Jon. Just like she did.”

Jon stiffens at the sound of the warning growl, but Martin doesn’t let go of him, even though Jon can feel his heart racing in his chest. A peek shows that Martin’s staring down the teenager in the hijab with a wobbly lower lip, but eyes set hard.

”And she’s very sorry about that.” Basira demurs. “It was all a big misunderstanding, wasn’t it Daisy?”

There’s a moment, and a decidedly grumpy, “Yes.”

“There we go.” There’s a rustle, and Jon withdraws his head from the safety of Martin to see that she’s pulled out a small leather-bound notebook and a pencil. “Now, could I ask you both some questions? About the whole,”

She makes an all-encompassing gesture to them and the cold fog of the Forsaken coiling around them.

”Our superpowers?” Martin blinks. “Why? Do you have them too?”

The teenager shakes her head. “No. I’m ah, uninvolved in a lot of this. But then a boy I was babysitting got kidnapped by shadow monsters, and I met Daisy while trying to rescue him, so ‘forewarned is forearmed’ and all that. And since I’m under strict orders not to go to the Orsinov Institute—”

”I told you,” The hunter—Daisy—interrupts. “That place is dangerous. They say they research stuff, but something ain’t right there. You’d walk in, and something else would waltz out in your place.”

Jon can’t help his curiosity. “H-how—?”  It feels like his vocal cords dry up under the glare the Hunter pins him with. Thin ice, she mouths at him.

”Yes, thank you, Daisy.” Basira cuts in, shifting so she breaks the line of sight between the Hunter and Jon. “So, as I am banned from ever setting foot in the one reputable center for the study of the supernatural in this country, I have to do my own research piecemeal from subjects in the field.”

Martin and Melanie are giving her blank looks.  “She wants to ask us about the Watcher, the Forsaken and the Slaughter and what we can do.” Jon translates.

Martin nods with a little ‘oh’. Melanie just looks even more confused.

”I just want my Daddy. I wanna go home.” Her voice breaks on the last word.

Basira’s face softens at that.

”Y-yeah.” Martin says, shifting from one foot to the other. “A-and I need to get my train back. My, my mum’s probably worried about me…”

Jon can’t quite help the way his arms tighten at that, though he loosens them quickly. It’s only natural. The sun’s practically gone down, after all. Whether Jon desperately wants him to stay has no import on the matter at hand.

“Right.” Basira scribbles down something in her notebook, then tears the paper out and then tears that into three strips. “This is my mobile number, and email address. You can contact me using either of these to talk about…superpower things.”

”And I’ll find you if you try to vanish, easy as anything.” Daisy adds with a toothy grin. “So don’t.”

”Daisy.”  The hunter holds up her hands. There’s dark red blood on the one that held the knife. “I’m joking, Basira, joking.”

Jon, despite how much he doesn’t want to, detaches from Martin. “I, I don’t have a phone. Or a computer.”

Basira hums, her head tilted to the side. “You know Angel of Islington? Near where you two got on the bus earlier?”

Jon nods as she goes on. “I can be found around there most days. Just drop by if you feel like sharing any of the things you’ve seen so far. And who knows? Maybe I’ll have some stories for you too.”

Something leaps in Jon’s stomach.

Still, the way the Hunter’s gone tense puts him on edge, so he makes himself say, “Only-only little ones. Not, not big stories.”

The teenager in the hijab nods impassively.  She claps her hands together. “Well, that’s enough excitement for one day, I think. Let’s see about finding your parents and getting you all home, shall we?”

Daisy nods, stepping close. Her ears are still red in the fading evening light. “I’ll come with you.”

Basira gives her an unimpressed look and a snort. “And then who’ll deal with that?”

They all turn to stare at the searcher’s body.  Martin shivers and grabs his hand, squeezing gently. Jon almost jumps when he feels something small and warm press close to his other side, before he looks down and sees Melanie’s leaf-and-twig-filled hair. The other sparkly bobble is almost falling out too.

Daisy’s eyebrows draw together and she lets out a small growl. “Ugh, fine. But just, um. Call me, maybe, next time? If you’re gonna go chasing after weird things.”

Basira smiles, playing with the edge of her hijab for some reason. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jon glances back as she ushers the three of them out of the park, shoulder and throat and everything else aching and feeling like he imagines an orange must do after the juice is squeezed out of it. The hunter’s eyes shine in the looming dark as they go, shifting from something that Jon wants to call friendliness to a more animalistic bent as she crouches over the body of the searcher, and the two of them disappear into the trees and the twilight.

[modgirlyreposts-revamped]

Millie headcanons!!

- I see her as having more of a gothic lolita/almost Victorian gothic style tbh? Basically she dresses like Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice. However I love throwing in more mall goth aspects too. Fancy black dress, messy looking makeup, demonia boots, Victorian mourning jewellery, and spiked choker & bracelets kinda thing you get me?

- Bullied kid with comorbid probably undiagnosed ADHD and depression type beat

- I imagine ITP takes place in like, early or maybe mid 2010s. I've seen on this blog once or twice the idea of Millie being around the pizzaplex and i love that idea but I always saw her as like, a closer to classic Freddy Fazbear's kid.

- Her family is pretty well off. That's why she can actually afford to dress the way she does (yeah I'm jealous what of it)

- She likes horror a Lot. It's something of a hyperfixation of hers, but it leaves her grandpa quite concerned because My Granddaughter Has Been Holed Up In Her Room Watching Horror Movies All Day Is She Mentally Stable

- I know in canon she was only going to stay with her grandpa while her parents were away but I got the vibes that her grandpa basically helped raise her. (In my own weird au where millie and sarah like, band together with the other protags to investigate freddy fazbears and specifically the bite of 83 and shit she just full on lives with him lol)

- She's intimidating as Fuck when she gets mad.

- Her hair is not naturally black (not sure what color it Is tho, maybe blonde??), but she dyes it (I also imagine she likes to throw in some purple streaks or a black to purple ombre sometimes)

- She has like 3 piercings on each ear. The second set no one knew she was getting until she came back home from going out to do so. She was banned from getting piercings as a punishment so the third one was also a secret no one in the family noticed for like months.

- She would love FNaF. I feel like she'd make "man behind the slaughter" jokes. Is that old? Me and my sister still do it.

- She is absolutely awful with kids, but they love her. She goes out to the park with a black umbrella to brood dramatically in the shade and from the playground she just hears "Millie!!" And then a small crowd of children runs up asking if she'll play with them. She always gives in and agrees to play in the end. She can never even remember their names or anything but they see the sad girl in all black and immediately know She's Friend. She would die for them.

- Oswald is her surrogate brother and ok now that I'm thinking abt millie in the pizzaplex era Gregory would be too 100%.

- She likes chocolate. She gives me the vibes of someone who just, chocolate everything. Her grandpa buys chocolate chips for baking and Millie eats them all.

- As a kid she cried a lot and didnt know how to/was too afraid to stand up for herself. She has a lot of repressed anger from those years and tends to dramatically overreact as a result (I'm not projecting what do you mean)

[TW for implied abuse for the next three]

- OK BOUNCING OFF THAT ONE HC THAT DYLAN HAS DID AS SOMEONE WHO MAYBE HAS IT MYSELF I LOVE THAT. I have an Idea for how it would've formed which is that his familial situation is Very Not Good. Anyways I think, he has probably abt 10 ish alters, Millie would get along with most of his alters. I think Dylan would have multiple persecutor alters which r alters who formed from trauma who harm the body or other alters to try and protect them. Millie actually gets along surprisingly well with one of them.

- On another note w/ Dylan tho Millie's grandpa meets Dylan, finds out just a little bit abt his family and basically tells him like "my home is your home, if you're not safe there, you're always welcome here" so <3 he likes to spend basically all his time at Millie's grandpa's house and he doesnt say it but he worries hes like is your home really that bad do I need to call CPS?

- Millie's parents come home at the end of the year and are like well what'd we miss? And her grandpa's like look at my new grandson Dylan :) Dylan come out and say hi!! And out comes a teenage boy with bright red hair, a bunch of piercings (also a scar on one ear), wearing spiky platform boots, spiked bracelets and choker like Millie's (but in white w/ black spikes) and patched black jeans, wiping Pop Tart crumbs off a My Chemical Romance shirt and he just looks up at them totally nonchalantly and goes "Heyo" and walks off and they're like MAURICE WHAT THE HELL?!? WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THIS KID?!?! JUVIE?!!?!??

- Millie's grandpa doesn't Know Dylan has DID 100%- Dylan hasn't told him and doesn't plan to- but he notices major changes in personality from time to time and catches Millie, Sarah or Brooke calling him different names occasionally. That plus his vague knowledge of what goes down at Dylan's house, he's sorta put the dots together on his own, but he hasn't said anything yet.

- Ok so like, I love the idea of Brooke having like a pastel/bubblegum-bitch aesthetic. One time Brooke dressed Millie up in a pastel goth style (and Dylan gave her a scene/emo style) and at the time she was like it's so BRIGHT it's so SOFT WHAT but shes been thinking about that ever since and occasionally while shopping she'll pick out a pair of cutesy/pastel earrings or a neon accented choker or something like that.

- Brooke introduces Millie and Dylan to Marina. Millie introduces Brooke to MCR (or something, idk, for as much of a goth as I am I mostly listen to Penelope Scott). Dylan introduces them both to FaLiLV (a Japanese band). Brooke does not like their taste in music.

- Millie's idea of calming down is laying on her bed and listening to screamo.

This took me an hour and a half I'm sorry

ADHAKFJHSJKJHKDSSJFD I LOVE THESE-

The one about Millie being terrible with children but them loving her anyway, is so accurate to my Millie as well. She can take care of a child about as well as she can take care of herself (not much at all-), but her cousins absolutely love when she babysits them, and Gregory looks up to her as a role model (Millie's just like "thanks, but reconsider!" lol)

And the one with Millie's grandpa practically adopting Dylan, I swear ur trying to kill me with wholesomeness, I love them sm. In my AU if Dylan was having issues with his family and Millie's grandpa found out, he'd just calmly stand up and walk into the garage, coming back with a baseball bat. He'd calmly tell Millie and the others that he's just going to have a "talk" with Dylan's parents, while Millie knowing damn well just what he means by that starts chasing after him telling him not to do this, Dylan not far behind.

Dylan's parents would just hear someone pounding on their door, and when they answer there's just an extremely tired and pissed off 60 something year old man on their doorstep, and two teens attempting to hold him back, all while Millie's grandpa is shouting a load of expletives at them.

The whole time Dylan is just panicking, and is all like "M-Mr. Fitzsimmons, you don't have to do this!", whereas Millie knows that her grandfather will not calm down until someone is at least hospitalized.

[colehasapen]

(ONE SHOT) we can turn it into gold dust  STAR WARS

Jangobi Week Day 2 - Time Travel

A03

When Ben had first woken up in the past, he’d had nowhere to go. He hadn’t known where he was, what he was doing, or what he  would  do, he hadn’t even been aware that he  was in the past at first. He had still been shaking with adrenaline from his battle against - against Vader. Bone weary from the grief of losing his family, from the ache of the betrayal of his men, he hadn’t been sure of anything, but the fact that he’d had two children in his arms that needed protection and that he was no longer on Bail’s ship. No longer standing beside his Grandmaster and the body of one of his dearest friends.

At first, he hadn’t even realized that he was over a decade younger than he had been only months before, all he’d known was that he was immensely grateful for the peculiarities of Stewjoni biology, because he’d had two very hungry newborns to feed before he could truly wonder about what had happened.

He’d disguised himself as a farmer, hiding his and Anakins’ lightsabers, stealing some clothing from an abandoned homestead, and that had been when he’d truly gotten his first good look at his face, and he’d nearly retched in his shock. The face staring back at him had been fresh with young, a face round with immaturity and smattered with freckles Ben hadn’t worn since he was a Padawan, free of the beard he had once worn. He barely looked out of his teens, like he should still be following his Master around on missions and attending lessons in the Temple. He had stood them, bare as the day he had been born, for a long time, just staring at his reflection in the broken glass until one of the twins started wailing to be fed and Ben had forced himself to move.

Luke and Leia needed him, so he couldn’t let himself crumble.

Ben had forced himself to keep moving, because he had two orphaned infants who needed him for everything. Without him, they’d have no food, no warmth, no care - so he’d kept moving forward, looking to the Force for guidance. The lack of slimy Darkness around him had been a shock at first, had made him realize how  used to it he had become over the years, and it wasn’t only all from the two supernovas that he carried around with him, one strapped to his chest, the other to his back, as they’d worked their way through the countryside of a snow-covered planet that Ben didn’t recognize.

It had been beautiful, at least, seeing the sun glinting off of ice crystals and snow capped trees, white dusted on the undergrowth like a layer of powdered sugar on those donuts he remembered Garen enjoying a little too much when they had been children. He had spent too long confined to the war front and Coruscant, unable to see the beauty of nature like he could on the unknown planet he had found himself on.

The peace hadn’t lasted.

Urged on by the Force, Ben had kept walking, and eventually he’d found himself stumbling upon a camp of armoured Mandalorians - who had all seemed equally as surprised to see him as he was to see them. It had been a tense stand-off, staring down the business end of almost a hundred blasters, until Luke had started fussing under his coat, uneasy with the emotions being broadcasted into the Force and hungry once more.

The sights and sounds of a fussy baby had been the sign that the Mando’ade had needed, and Ben had found himself immediately ushered further into the camp by protective and worried warriors. They’d been utterly delighted when both children had been unveiled, like seeing a second infant was the most precious thing they’d all ever seen. He’d found himself and the twins herded to the tent at the very center of the camp, the most well-defended position with the best insulation and heating, private enough to let him breastfeed in peace. Eventually, a medic had come to him, carrying a scanner and leading a younger  verd laden with blankets and pillows behind xem. Blood work had been done, a medical profile created, and none of them had even blinked an eye when neither Luke or Leias’ genetics matched his own.

To them, he was Ben Tano, twenty years old, just another refugee who had gotten in over his head, who had taken in two orphans who had needed care and comfort.  Baar’ur Nawara had been knowledgeable and well-trained, and perhaps Ben shouldn’t have been as surprised as he had been that the Twi’Lek had known the specifics of Stewjoni biology, considering that Mandalorians had once been known to take in beings regardless of species, as long as they swore the  resol’nare.

Eventually, their leader had returned from scouting, had swept into the tent and into Ben’s life, and then there he had stayed.

It was then, shirtless under one of the blankets offered to him, cradling the twins in his arms as they’d fed, that the truth of his situation had truly sunk in, because when the buy’ce had come off, Ben had found himself staring into a hauntingly familiar face, one he had spent the last three years of his life surrounded by at all sides. Jango Fett, young enough that he could have been mistaken as one of his clones, dressed in  beskar’gam painted in a way that Ben had never seen, dark hair curling around a face unlined by years of hatred and suffering, had stared back at him. Barely out of his teenaged years himself, Jango Fett had proven himself to be a completely different person than the man Ben had met in his own time, the one that had consigned millions of his own children to a life of slavery and death. This was a Jango Fett who was still Mand’alor, still a leader among his people, one who had not yet been given the name of Jedi Killer - and Ben had made sure that he never would.

Somehow, he had been thrown decades into the past, in a body young enough that he could be mistake for a teenager, on Galidraan before the slaughter of the True Mandalorians, before the Mandalorian Civil War had truly spun out of control and Death Watch gained the amount of traction Ben had once known them to have. He’d been thrown into a past before Jango had given himself over to a life of vengeance, before the clones had even been created, and Ben had made sure it would never happen.

He mourned for the friends he lost by meddling; mourned good, strong Cody, kind Waxer and Boil, cheerful Wooley, and so many more that had been lost. He mourned for his 212th, who had betrayed him for reasons Ben doubted he’d ever know, for Rex and the 501st, for all of the clones who would never get to live. By making sure the True Mandalorians didn’t die on Galidraan, Ben had ensured that they’d never live, he had changed the course of history and everything he had known.

He had nowhere to go, no home to go back to - there was already an Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Temple, and even the thought of returning made him think of the bodies of his family on the floor, of smoke rising above the spires and fear staining the walls like blood. So when Jango had offered him a place with the True Mandalorians, among people he hadn’t known in his own time, he had accepted.

He had accepted, had become a Mandalorian, and, eventually, he became the  Be’alor as well.

An arm slides across his waist, pulling him closer against a warm, broad chest, and Ben feels lips press against the back of his neck, hot breath ruffling the shaggy copper hair there. “It’s too early to be thinking,  Mesh’la.” His husband murmurs, his end of their Force bond buzzing groggily, and Ben hums, enjoying the pleasant tingle of human contact, melting into Jango’s embrace as a large hand splays across the faint bump of his abdomen. “What’s wrong,  riduur? Is the  ikaad bothering you?”

“Just thinking,  cyar’ika.” He soothes, pulling away just enough that he can roll over to face his husband, letting the other man tuck his head under his chin, dark curls brushing against the clean shaven skin there, hand moving back to the ever-growing baby bump. This late in the night cycle, it’s just the two of them in the  Mand’alor’s suite, far too early as it is for even energetic five year olds to be running around. The Keldabe palace is a fortress, impenetrable and safe, and it lets Ben relax, allowing him to be sure that his  ade are safe. “It’s been five years.” He muses, almost amazed by the fact, playing absently with Jango’s soft hair.

Jango purrs deep in his chest as his nails drag over his scalp, a genetic hold over from the nonhuman ancestors Ben had never known he’d had - but maybe he shouldn’t have been too surprised to learn, considering how pack-minded the clones had been. “Best five years of my life.” The man rumbles sleepily, nuzzling against Ben’s collarbone. “I might just like your Force-shit after all. It gave me you.” Then, when Ben’s mouth opens to say something appropriately witty, still unsure what to do with the love and care aimed towards him to this day, Jango silences him with a sweet kiss that tastes like morning breath and makes both of them screw up their faces in exaggerated disgust.

“Urg.” Ben says dramatically, like some great insult had been given to him, flopping over onto his back and ignoring the faint roll of nausea that follows when the baby makes their displeasure known. Jango follows like a limpet, burying his face in Ben’s stomach and rubbing his cheek against the delightfully soft fabric of his sleep shirt as he stretches his arms across him like another blanket. “So  uncivilized.”

“You love me.” Jango grins at him, soft with sleep and his cheek resting against the bump of their growing child, dark eyes shimmering with so much love that Ben wants to cry sometimes.

He doesn’t know what he ever could have done to deserve this sweet happiness.

“Unfortunately.” Ben teases, reaching out to ruffle his hair again, and Jango melts into his touch, purrs kicking up once more. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to marry you and accepted Myles’ proposal instead.”

“Betrayal.” Jango grumps, voice thickening once more as sleep creeps towards him once again, “My own brother, betraying me. I should have him hanged.”

He can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up in response, “You wouldn’t.” He says playfully, dodging the half-hearted swat that lands on his pillow instead, leaving Jango’s wrist to rest against his mouth, and Ben nips at it teasingly. “You love Myles too much.”

“Lies and slander.”

Ben laughs again, the weight of his past long forgotten in the face of his husband’s warmth, and he gently kisses the pulse point he can feel beating against his lips. “Go back to sleep, Jan’ika. We have a few hours yet until your court needs us.”

“Our  court.” Jango mumbles, surrendering to the gentle Force suggestion Ben had lined his words with. “You got half of it when you agreed to marry me.” His breath evens as he slips back to sleep, filling the room and the Force with foggy contentment and gentle love, and Ben smiles.

“Of course.” He teases his sleeping husband, unable to not get the last word even as he finds himself being pulled back to his dreams. “How dare I forget that.”

Taglist: @a-mediocre-succulent @yellowisharo @spoofymcgee @roseofalderaan @everything-or-anything @bellablue42  

[horrorslashergirl]

Chromeskull becoming infatuated with the reader so he stalks her and leaves special gifts on her doorsteps. 😊

Your girl here has a habit of getting writing ideas when buying lace lingerie and high brand perfume. Yes, because I bask into a little luxury...and Chromeskull.

Here you have a piece of some big-bad-killer-skull-daddy .

Chromeskull x Reader- Dating tips from Chromeskull

You attracted weirdos, that was your own opinion about yourself and you had a huge list of examples to attest to this said theory.

First, it was a guy in high-school who used to have a stash of playboy magazines. Nothing weird, only that he used to keep it in his backpack all the time with him. You even heard he masturbated in the school toilet. Gross. Just no.

Then there was a guy named Darwin that gave you love letters, only said love letters were always theories about how you resembled cartoon characters, not to mention the guy had a habit of spitting all the time when he talked.

Last, now in college, a pervert who always smelled of cheese and was a vegan. No, you weren't judgemental, but he always eats with his hands and tried to show his theories about eating meat is evil down your throat. You had enough to say the last.

Dating has never been your top game and being in college, you hoped you would find a decent guy, but your expectations weren't meet. Guys who were decent enough always scrambled away once they found out you weren't a dizzy bimbo who only giggled at every comment they made.

This is how you ended up on a Friday night at home, drinking some wine and watching serial killers documentaries, while your classmates were probably at a party, snorting cocaine and fucking into dirty bathroom stalls.

Yeah...Not exactly something you would look forward too.

Now, you weren't a prude, but giving head to a guy in a place that had probably STD all over the walls wasn't exactly appealing to say the last.

If only you could find a decent guy that would, at last, have the decency to wash before going on a date and who wouldn't choke on his own spit when laughing.

You were ready to get yourself a refill of wine when your doorbell rang, making you furrow your brows in confusion.

You sure weren't expecting anyone, but knowing some of your friends they sure would stumble to your house when drunk because they couldn't find their cellphones or keys.

Putting on your fluffy bunny slippers, you marched up to the front door and looked through the hole to see who it was. You learned from murderous documentaries that you shouldn't open the door at night if you don't know who it is.

None.

So, you opened it, looking from left to right to see if you could spot anyone, but no such luck. Probably some children messing around.

You were ready to close the door when your eyes looked down to see a white envelope on the welcome matt. Crouching down you grasped it and looked one more time left to right, hoping to spot the person who left it.

The silence of the night and chilly September night made you shiver a little, so you moved back inside to the couch and opened the envelope to see it was a letter, so you started reading it:

My dear little piggy,

Ever since the first time I meet you, I must say I always wondered how you would look in red, dripping down your body, your kissable lips into an 'o' shape, your nails dragging down my back as your flesh envelopes my knife.

Aren't you scared, so alone?

Your eyes widened at the twisted words on the white sheet, and the fact that the only sign at the bottom of the letter was a scribbled skull made it all the more unnerving.

That's the moment when you felt like you were being watched, your paranoid mind making you feel anxious.

If only you looked out the window you would see the ominous and out of the scenario black Bentley on the other side of the road.

In the past three months, things haven't been any decreasing either, because from twisted letters it all went to gifts if you could even call them that. Yes, they were gifts, but what made them unsettling was how the coincidence went.

You went out shopping one day and saw your favorite perfume, but didn't have the money to buy it. Imagine the surprise that after two days a velvet pink box sat in front of your door with the expensive perfume.

Then one time you saw a beautiful dress from Chanel that you were oh so tempted to buy, but rent and food were more important, then later that night you received it and it was your size. That was just disturbing.

This continued for months and from anxious to went to curious and intrigued. It was insane, but none in your life put so much thought in spoiling you, despite not knowing who this person is.

To put it simply you were basked into luxurious gifts and cards for shopping.

You felt special.

-----------------------------

It came to no surprise that Chromeskull was always chasing piggies, but this time it was you that he was chasing after; not the usual slaughtering piggy way, but more like spoiling a little kitten who was you.

It was pretty comic to see a 40-year-old man chasing after a girl that has half his age, but what can you say? Jesse has always liked them young and fresh, no wonder he gave off big-bad-killer-daddy vibes.

He loved to see your appreciation for his gifts and attention towards you, despite it not being direct, but his self-consciousness after he lost his face made it almost impossible to get woman willingly.

Paying piggies to suck him off didn't count.

He wanted someone who was willing to go full length into a relationship with him, someone who he could have a good time, from conversations to mind-blowing sex.

That's why he chose you.

It all started with an unpredictable meeting.

Yes, you have meet Jesse, but you didn't know it.

How?

You were shopping and because you were in such a hurry to catch the bus, you run into him while you looked down at your phone, your head meeting his chest.

The way you looked up at him at that time almost made him want to stop you. Your wide eyes, not of fear or disgust, maybe it was surprising because he knew very well how a displeased face looks like, your pouty lips and slightly pink cheeks of embarrassment were so appealing.

"I-I'm so sorry, sir!"

That was the only thing you said before sprinting away and that was also the moment when he knew he wanted you and what Jesse Cromeans wants, he gets.

In the past months, he made sure you weren't lacking in anything and he was even more so pleased when you accepted all the gifts, seeing you wear the clothes he gave you made him feel like he owned you.

Normally, Jesse was the ever so most confident person you could meet, but now he felt like his shy teenage self, looking at you from a few feet away as you were grocery shopping.

He wanted to approach you. Badly, but how could he? His face and his muteness didn't help.

You were at the liquor part, looking over bottles with furrowed brows, not knowing what to get, until a pale hand gripped a bottle of expensive scotch from the top shelf, the forearms fully tattooed.

You looked behind you to see a tall and bald man, dressed in all black, the fully tattooed forearms been on display from how his sleeves were rolled up.

'This one is the finest scotch from here if you want to drink something more refined.' an electronic voice spoke from his phone that he held in the other hand.

You were to say so surprisedly by this man's approach.

"Oh...You're mute? I know ASL, so there's no need to type on the phone if it's easier for you." you quickly said, making the man grin.

Did you know ASL? How could he miss that? You were full of surprises.

'That's good. I hate to use the electronic reader all the time.' he signed, his grin never leaving his scarred lips.

'I'm Jesse.' he signed and you introduced yourself, shaking his bigger hand.

"I would love to try this scotch, but donating my kidney for glass doesn't sound too appealing." you said with a dry chuckle.

Dark sense of humor. Good. Check.

'How about I buy it and you go out on a date with me? Sounds like a deal?' he signed and you arched an eyebrow, a lop-sided smile on your face.

That was the moment Jesse felt nervous, despite not showing. He could already imagine you laughing at him, for thinking that a cute girl like you would go out with someone like him.

"Sure."

What? His brown eye widened a little and you giggled at his shocked expression.

"You don't have to buy me a 2,500$ bottle of scotch to go on a date with me." you said, making him silently chuckle.

'Do you want a ride?' he asked, signing and you grinned, nodding.

----------------------------

Yes, that was the start of an interesting relationship. At first, it had ups and downs because of the age-gap and the hateful comments, that made Jesse want to murder all the people that even dared to question his relationship with you.

Imagine the surprise when one time you punched one guy for calling Jesse 'old-sugar-daddy' and you 'nasty-gold-digger'.

That was another aspect of you that he learned that you had and started to love it a lot; you were a feisty little thing and protective of him.

You always took care of his ego, assuring him that he was perfect just how he is and it made Jesse's heart swell with things he almost forgot existed.

To put it simply, you completed each other....In all ways.

-------------------------

Your hair was splayed in a mess on the black silk pillows, one hand fisting the bedsheets and the other rubbing the bald scalp of your lover who had your red lace panties pulled aside and his tongue wiggling inside your heat, making your toes curl.

"Fuck.......Jesse......I-If you don't stop...I-I'm gonna squirt." you breathed out, chest heaving and nipples hard from all the pleasure that was jolting up your spine.

The man between your legs stopped, giving your clit a flick with his tongue, his body moving up on top of you, scarred lips meeting plush ones, kissing with you such vigor you sometimes couldn't keep up.

He broke the kiss, looking down at you, so perfect on his bed.

'I'm going to wreck your world.' he signed with a dark smirk and you couldn't help but smile, your hand coming to cup his cheek, your thumb brushing over his scars.

"Please do, Chromeskull." you whispered, looking up at him from under your eyelashes.

Jesse grinned, pulling you into another passionate kiss, taking your breath away.

[cherryquitecontrary]

Elvira Casimiro

Decided to do a character bio for @arcana-echoes​ and because I haven’t made one since I first made this blog oops

Art by the talented @joeyhazell-art​​

Full Name — Elvira Casimiro

Meaning of name — Elvira: “foreign and true”; Casimiro: “peaceful”

Family — Ignacio Casimiro (Father; deceased), Camila Casimiro (Mother; deceased), Marina Valeriano (Aunt; deceased)

Nicknames — Evie, Starlight (by family & Asra)

Favourite meal — Pozole

Favourite drink — Honey lemon tea

Favourite flower — Marigold

Birthday — August 8

Age — 26

Height — 5′ 4″

Gender — Female; she/her pronouns

Romantic/Sexual orientation — Bisexual/ Biromantic

MBTI: ISFJ

Zodiac — 

Sun: Leo

Moon: Virgo

Patron Arcana — 

Major: Judgement

Upright: Judgement, rebirth, inner calling, absolution

Reversed:  Self-doubt, inner critic, ignoring the call

Minor:  Queen of Swords

Upright:  Independent, unbiased judgement, clear boundaries, direct communication

Reversed:  Overly-emotional, easily influenced, bitchy, cold-hearted

Familiar: Luna the Xoloitzcuintle

Appearance 

Plague-Era and Present Elvira (sans white hair) created via Artbreeder

Height: 5’ 4”

Hair: black, thick and wavy (2c hair type), white at temples post-resurrection, about mid-back length

Hair style: parted to the left, typically worn down

Eyes: emerald 

Build: slim, but wider at the hips, toned arms and legs (from climbing things)

Distinguishing features: strong nose, full eyebrows, full lips, birthmark under left eye

Skin tone: Honey Tan

Typical outfit: black dresses paired with a well-loved fringe shawl made of burgundy fabric, barefoot if she can help it

Languages spoken —  Venterran, Vesuvian, knows some Vesuvian sign language

Hobbies — reading novels and poetry, tending to her many exotic plants, playing the guitar. singing, dancing, telling stories

Love Interests — Asra, Nadia, & Julian

Background — UNDER THE CUT

Childhood —

Elvira was born to Ignacio and Camila Casimiro on a small farm in the Venterre countryside. The small family was not wealthy and did not have the help of immediate or extended family. Ignacio was orphaned young and Camila had no contact with her parents or her older sister Marina. However, they were a very close and loving family unit. Elvira’s parents worked their land and managed farm animals, selling the products of their labor to survive. Camila was also a seamstress, and would make and repair clothes for the people in the nearby village. When Elvira was young, her father was in an accident on his way to a village further away to sell produce. He died and left Camila and Elvira to fend for themselves. Camila grew depressed when her husband died, but she tried to hide it from her daughter and continue to manage the farm without him. It became difficult to manage a young child, a farm, and herself as she grew sick from an illness she didn’t know she had at the time. Slowly, her health grew fragile, and many of the farm chores that couldn’t be supplemented by young Elvira went undone. The crops went unplanted, the farm animals were slaughtered for food. Eventually, food became scarce and Elvira had to steal from the surrounding farms for survival. She spent much of those years tending to a bedridden Camila. At the end of her days, Camila wrote a letter to her estranged sister Marina, letting her know that she was dying and leaving her little girl behind, and sent it to the last known place she knew her sister to be: Vesuvia. When Elvira was 15, Camila passed away, not knowing what would happen to her daughter. 

A couple of days after Camila’s passing, a woman dressed in black came to what was left of the Casimiro farm. She was tall, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a striking resemblance to Camila. She told Elvira that her name was Marina, and that she was her mother’s sister. Showing her Camila’s letter, she informed the young girl that she was to come and live with her in Vesuvia, upon her mother’s request. Initially, Elvira refused. The years of struggling and watching her mother slowly die had hardened the girl. She didn’t trust her aunt, who was a stranger to her, nor did she want to leave behind everything she’d ever known. Eventually, she came around and left Venterre with Marina to live with her in Vesuvia. Initially, living with each other was not easy for the two women. Marina had spent her adult life living alone and she had no children, so she frankly didn’t know what to do with a teenager. Elvira was also wary of her estranged aunt, unsure of how to react to her and her new living arrangement. However, the two eventually grew close and changed each other for the better. They were both guarded people, traumatized by their pasts. But, they made each other open up. Marina became Elvira’s mentor and taught her everything she knew about magic- from potions, to spells, to fortune telling. Elvira adopted many things from Marina, like her fashion sense and her love of worldly topics- like romantic poetry and foreign languages. Eventually, Elvira befriended a young orphan named Asra that she had met a couple of times during the Masquerade and Marina took him in too. The three of them lived in happy bliss until the Plague came to Vesuvia.

The Plague —

At the start of the Plague, Marina dedicated herself to the research effort at the palace, leaving Asra and Elvira to run the shop. After months of working tirelessly to find a cure, Marina caught the Plague and died, never having the chance to say goodbye to her wards. After this devastating loss, Elvira and Asra started debating on whether or not they should stay in Vesuvia. Asra wanted to leave, but Elvira wanted to stay and finish the work that her aunt had started by any means necessary. After a huge fight tore the two of them apart, Asra left Vesuvia and Elvira offered her help to Doctor Julian Devorak as his assistant. The two worked closely together during the plague and managed to find comfort in each other while the Plague grew worse and worse (NOTE: this manifests as a romantic relationship only in Julian’s route). Eventually, Elvira, too, fell sick and died of the Plague. She passed away alone in her home, and was found with forget-me-nots tucked into the bodice of her dress and a book of poetry in her hand.

Resurrection —

When Elvira was resurrected by Asra, she had lost all memory, along with the ability to speak, read, and generally care for herself. She spent many tireless months with her former-friend-turned-mentor relearning how to perform essential tasks and how to perform magic again. While she regained some aspects of her former self- like remembering how to play certain songs on her guitar and how to care for her plants- she was no doubt different. There was only one physical difference: the hair at her temples grew out white as snow (Asra quietly remembers this as the way that Marina’s hair used to look). Personally, she had become a person Asra hardly recognized. She had guarded her heart, shut the world out like she did when she was a child and rarely ever ventured out of the shop alone. Elvira had also become fixated on regaining her memories. Even though Asra had to stop trying to help her access her memories through magic, she still had an aching in her heart to know who she was. 

When Asra left on his first trip without her, she had to learn how to tend to her own needs. Her first time venturing outside of the shop, she found a small dog shivering in the cool night air out behind the shop. The dog was still a puppy and was scrawny. She initially avoided the dog, not knowing what to do or how to take care of it. But, the dog stepped closer and seemed to be illuminated by a moonbeam. Elvira took this as a sign to bring the dog in. She named her Luna and decided to keep her as a pet after she felt a connection with her. When Asra came back, he told her that Luna was likely her familiar, and the two have been inseparable ever since.

Presently, Elvira still runs the shop and lives with Asra and Luna. She is now fiercely independent and has taken more of a partnership role when it came to running the household and the shop. She is still guarded and tends to keep other people at arm’s length by nature. But, she is learning to be more open to others and new experiences.  

[ghostsofmemories]

INSECT POISON: UPDATE 3

okay so first things first: I rearranged some things so what was previously chapter 11 is now going to be referred to as chapter 12, which is so long that it’s the only chapter this update will cover! it clocks in around 6.5k after cutting it down with editing. I’m eventually going to split it into two or three different chapters, but because all the events take place in the same day and were meant to be in one chapter, it’s easier to cover them all in one update and not include the chapters that’ve been written since then, all but one of which are pretty short.

content warnings (some of these are pretty heavy): sexual assault, death and cemeteries, possible hallucinations, toxicity/manipulation, instability

anyway, on with the update!

chapter 12 (formerly 11): quivering lip

this chapter surrounds adult Robert’s trip to visit his sister’s grave in the town he grew up while having a mental breakdown, the woman he meets there, and the interaction they have at her house that leaves him feeling even worse than when he started off.

some select excerpts from the beginning:

All this town knew how to do was rot. Robert realized this upon coming back for the first time in years—nothing was beautiful, nothing was alive, and nothing here was worth coming back to visit.

As he made his way through the empty parking lot, going slow in an effort to remember where Ramona’s grave was, he was struck with another bout of feverish anxiety. The baby was going to be his, and all his genes matched his sister’s, even when held up to the light. Would she grow up to look like her namesake, too? Would he have to watch a carbon copy of his dead sister, his greatest secret, grow up and put her hair in braids and ask for help with her math homework? He could already see it. Freckles and deep brown eyes and dark red hair, soft smile from her mother, talkative and hyper. Everything Amanda convinced herself Ramona used to be. He would be raising a eulogy, a little memorial. Ramona Bennett-Blanchard, in loving memory of Ramona Diane Bennett. Robert had force back vomit at the mere thought of it.

not him being totally wrong about what his daughter’s going to be like I’m-

He made sure no one else was around before sitting cross-legged in front of Ramona’s headstone. The feeling of fever left him just enough to give him hope this might help. “It’s been awhile,” he said, snaking his fingers through the grass around him. Dry, yellow, half-dead already. At least the sky was cloudy. The earth here needed some rain. “It’s miserable out here. Cold and stale.” 

There was no reply, of course. The breeze replaced the need for one: skimming the sweat on his forehead and the back of his neck, smoothing him over. He felt like a child, here, thumbing weeds and talking to no one—like a schoolboy being forced to apologize. He made himself smaller, tried to conserve his heat against early November’s faltering autumn. He couldn’t picture himself leaving until his patience ran out, and desperation gifted him with heaps of it.

okay here’s the part where he talks to “Ramona” (she’s either a ghost or a hallucination and you don’t know because neither do I <3)

And there she was. Ragged bangs hanging over thin eyebrows, hair straight greasy and down to her waist, overalls covered in grass stains. Everything about her was juvenile and smelled of stale lake water. She sat on top of her stone, looked straight ahead, as if Robert was irrelevant to her situation. The dead version of Ramona was the same as the old one in looks as well as attitude—she’d been pulled fresh out of a memory, right out of their fifteenth birthday.

“You’re so…” Robert paused, looking up in awe at  his sister, vulnerable as he could manage, tired as he was. “Young. And here.”

“You’re old and here.” She said, looking at him, now. He wasn’t sure why he expected her to look older, or if he’d expected to see her at all, but whatever his expectations were, they’d been slaughtered by her stare—cold and violent. No different than when they were both children and alive.

and oops here have some of the manipulation that made me realize some things in earlier parts of the book need to change:

Robert stood up and walked after her, realizing the ground was seeping and mossy and wet all around them. It hadn’t been before, he was sure of it. As he walked, the landscape meshed itself from dying town to young forest, and he was distracted by it, having to close his eyes when he wanted to speak. “How do you know about my daughter?” Robert asked, his socks getting wet beneath his canvas shoes, not standing well against the moist, newly swamping ground.

“Because I can know anything I want to, as long as you knew it first. I’m a part of you.” Robert stopped walking, and Ramona looked back at him. “You still can’t think about two things at the same time? How old did you say you were?”

“You can’t be a part of me. You’re a ghost. You’re dead.” He said, shutting his eyes again. Shutting his vision out didn’t seem to do anything. The landscape was in his head as much as it was around him. 

“How is that more feasible than me being a part of you?”

“But you said you hadn’t been in my house. You said you weren’t following me.” He kept blinking, waiting for it to be dark just once. He tried putting his hands over his eyes, which seemed to work, but made him feel childish, all of a sudden. He didn’t know what to do with himself, with his body. He had trouble convincing himself he was inside of it at all.

“Like I’ve never lied to you before. Of course I’ve been there. I’m in your head all the time. You didn’t have to come here to talk to me.” Ramona laughed and started walking again. The laugh kicked Robert in the gut. It was old, rotting. He couldn’t be imagining this, could he? That was so her. She seemed almost more vivid than she had when she was alive—she was a memory playing out around him, but everything in it was raw, fresh out of the slaughterhouse. 

a little internal monologue excerpt after ghost-Ramona says something about Robert killing her:

No one, himself included, had ever said it out loud before. He’d spent countless nights as a teenager practicing what he’d say if someone ever accused him, and he’d imagine confessional scenes before he went to sleep, or therapy sessions where he’d admit what he’d done and then disappear and change his name. But it was all in his head, just lips moving with nothing but breath coming out. He couldn’t afford to be overheard by anyone, for even the walls and the ceilings and the mirrors to know what he’d done. When he heard it come from someone else, he became a child caught drawing on the walls. The stages of grief hit one after another, each one knocking the wind out of him, but reaching acceptance was as impossible as catching a bird—he could run and lunge and sneak quietly up behind it, but all the bird had to do was go up.

and that’s that for that scene! now it’s time to meet Agnes! don’t get your hopes up about her :)

“Sir?” 

He jumped awake and stumbled backward. There was a young woman, maybe a teenager, standing a few feet away from him, too nervous to get closer. She wore a brown jacket that went down to her knees, probably belonging to her father or bought for a couple dollars at a thrift store. Her hair reminded him of something that fluttered or floated, cut off at her shoulders and so brown it was nearly black, but swaying around her face at even the slightest breeze or movement.

“Sir, do you need help?” She asked, taking another step toward him. She was braver now that she saw how exhausted he was, how red his eyes were, how he coughed so hard that he nearly fell back on the ground. “It’s cold out here, and it’s been raining for awhile now. I think you’ve been out here for too long.”

“It’s raining?” He asked, and made an attempt at directing his attention to his surroundings, though the woman—or girl—seemed to have an extra dimension in comparison to the things around her, like she was a deer shaking in a forest. More rich. More colorful. Just more. But there was still a graveyard, still grass, the mossy swamp and Ramona were both gone. For some reason, this is what he expected. To become the madman who fell asleep in front of a headstone, who didn’t wake up even when it started raining. “I don’t know you.”

What he meant to say was are you from around here? and then because I’m from here. I used to be from here. And I don’t know you. It was nothing unfamiliar for his mouth to cut off the first half of his sentences.

you guys I promise I did not mean to start feeling bad for this guy and now I have to change his whole backstory to make it make sense someone help me

“I’m Agnes, and I don’t know you, either.” Agnes crouched down to be level with Robert, like she was kneeling over an injured animal or talking a toddler down from a tantrum. He supposed he was both. “Would you like some help?” She stuck her hand out, and when he reached out to take it, his blood, frozen, thawed a bit. Her hand was too warm and gripped his too tightly. 

She hoisted him up, though she was much smaller than him, probably a lot lighter. “What do you need?” She asked, taking a polite step back. Her eyes were level with his throat, but she turned her head up, eyes darting around different parts of his face. His nose. The blood on his lower lip (if prompted, he wouldn’t have known where it came from). His eyelashes, tangled from sleeping face down over his arm but mostly dry when put up next to the rest of him.

Eventually, he and Agnes were in his car. He couldn’t remember, exactly, what conversation had lead them there, but he was almost sure she was afraid to leave him alone, that she had assumed he lived in town, and that he had probably lied about where he was from or where he was headed or why he was at the graveyard in the first place.

“Are you feeling alright?” She asked, bouncing her knee, looking up at him from her place in the passenger seat. He remembered how wet he was, that he was probably soaking the car and the seat and that he’d have to clean it all up later. 

He realized, then, that Agnes had too much faith in him. The girl saw a man, most likely older than her, who’d fallen asleep crying at the grave of someone he most likely loved, and decided he was most likely a good person who was grieving, who was most likely unstable in a self-isolating way, in a no one will ever understand way, in a million ways he wasn’t. 

“No,” he said, knowing he had waiting too long to answer and there was nothing else he could say that she would believe. He sighed, tried to remember where he was supposed to be driving. “But I’m sure I will be.”

“I hope so.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” he said, and let his subconscious drive for him. He remembered that he was supposed to be headed to Luther Street, that she lived at the end of it, that he told her he only lived a block away from there and he’d said he’d let her make him a cup of coffee and change his clothes, that they had a tub of her brother’s old clothes that were supposed to go to goodwill that would probably fit him.

“What?” Her eyebrows tied themselves into knots, knitted themselves into something sloppier. “Why not?”

yes I am going to continue oversharing excerpts from this chapter. I spent three months writing it and I think I deserve to indulge

“Because I’ve done a lot of bad things,” he said, and his heartbeat quickened in a way that was unfamiliar. Like someone walked in right after he broke something. “I’ll feel fine, eventually, but I don’t deserve it.” This was not something stated as a way to tear pity from the throat of the small animal beside him, it was a simple fact. This naive girl thought he was something worth saving, trusted him enough to get into his car and let him drive. He was a liar, a murderer, evaded her attempts to learn his name (but would hand it over anyway when she got into his car and saw his nametag from work).

“No one is irredeemable,” she said, looking out the window and making a small noise of understanding, something like huh but only in a hum, her lips never parting. “It’s snowing. It hasn’t snowed since the day before Thanksgiving.”

She was the sort of girl who loved winter, but mostly for the spring that followed. She was the sort of girl who would suffer through the death of everything colorful just for the satisfaction of watching all of it come back to life.

“I am,” he said, and he turned onto Luther, a street of smaller houses, where some of the locals couldn’t afford garbage service and tossed their trash into the back of their trucks until they had the extra cash to bring it to the dump. This was where most the stray cats of the neighborhood called home. 

“What makes you so different?” and then a boney finger pointed to a blue-gray house on the right side of the road, a double wide trailer with a car in the driveway that was hoisted up on a jack. “That one.”

“I guess it’s because I’m still not sorry.”

“I think,” Agnes said, looking at him, though he couldn’t look back for more than a second at a time, trying to find a way to park in Agnes’ slender driveway, “that you are. You just don’t know it yet.”

“You have too much faith,” Robert said, turning the car off. He pulled the key out a little too harshly, and was compelled to look at it, to make sure he hadn’t broken it, but he knew better. The key wasn’t broken, half of it still wedged into the ignition, rendering the car and key useless. To check that his key was still in one piece would only further cement his impression as being crazy.

That’s what Agnes had to have thought. There was nothing else for her to think. There was no other option for men who fell asleep in graveyards, who called themselves bad people with no repentance, who checked to make sure their keys weren’t broken when they turned their cars off. 

“I think I have the right amount.”

don’t get too attached to Agnes btw (spoiler alert: she doesn’t die (a little unfortunate imo)).

She was already frustrated with him, the stranger. Robert, his ID had said. Robert Bennett. Agnes came from a family of helpers and saviors, and Robert didn’t want to be saved. 

Still, there were ways around such things. She would make him want it.

ew ew ew EW

He decided to wash his face in the bathroom sink before he buttoned the shirt up the middle, the warm water a refreshing change from the rain’s cold that seemed to have set into his bones, decided to stay there until it got warm enough to start decaying. He scrubbed with his hands, then with his fingernails, until he could feel his skin shedding. When he stood up straight again, he saw Ramona’s face—all covered in red, just like his, hair dark red and still damp because the towel could only hold so much. He slammed himself back against the wall, which was only a step away. In the kitchen, Agnes froze over the sink, the coffee pot overflowing in her hand, wetting her hand up to her wrist. 

“Are you alright?” She asked. A moment had passed with no other sound to follow the crash, and there was nothing to do but ask. It felt like an invasion of privacy to do anything else, anything more.

Robert closed his eyes and took a moment to learn how to breathe again, then how to speak. “I’m alright,” he said, and if he was in his own house, no one would have heard him. The walls here were thin, though, and Agnes shook off the interruption to start the coffee maker.

When he was ready to open his eyes again, the reflection in the mirror hadn’t changed. It wasn’t Ramona. It never was. He just looked more like her than usual, that’s all. It was seeing her that had refreshed the image in his mind, gave his idea of her face more clarity, that’s all. 

He sat on the lid of the toilet and held his head in his hands, for a moment, but didn’t let himself cry. There was no reason to, she wasn’t here this time. He hadn’t seen her.

and then some of their coffee scene:

“Oh, that’s terrible. I’m sorry. If you want to talk about it, you can, but you don’t have to.”

He was speaking before he had the sense to stop himself. “I won’t get too far into it,” he said, reaching for his cup of coffee. He had no plans to drink it, but now that it had cool enough to just warm his hands, he was thankful that it kept him busy, “but she drowned. In the lake. It was a long time ago.” Indeed, emptying his troubles out to a stranger was soothing, but Robert wasn’t known for his conversation skills. He wanted to let something else slip out—the sight of Ramona out of the corners of his eyes, seeing her at the graveyard and waking up to this gentle woman. Or girl. She was younger than him, he was almost sure, but she could be anywhere from seventeen to twenty-seven.

“Oh, I think I heard about that. Ruby Bennett? My older cousin was close with her. Well, she says she was. She exaggerates sometimes, but they knew each other at least. Martha’s my cousin’s name. I guess if you and Ruby were twins you would have graduated with her.”

“Ramona,” Robert corrected, and set his cup down. The name Martha was familiar to him, but not enough to distract from his sudden, unexpected defensiveness. He moved himself to the edge of the chair, frowning, already feeling the toll of the cheap furniture on his back. The furniture in his apartment was cheap, too, but it was a sort of cheap he was used to. Thrift-store-miracle cheap, not mass produced for $8 a piece cheap. “Her name was Ramona.”

“Oh, sorry. Ramona,” Agnes ran her finger down the short pile of unopened mail, averted her eyes, embarrassed by the nature of her mistake. Her accidental disrespect of a dead girl.

this next part is where the big content warning comes in, if you’re sensitive to sexual assault (it doesn’t follow through all the way but it’s definitely implied) probably don’t read this excerpt or the one that follows, they’re both pretty heavy

Not much later, Agnes was swiping a kiss in the hallway, walking Robert to her bedroom, breath hot and vision blurry. He was unsure how or when they got there, but it was something like this:

Robert, finishing his coffee out of obligation, hoping the caffeine would soothe his headache and give him the energy to drive home soon. He stood up, took the two or three steps to the sink to rinse the cup out.

Agnes, following his movements faster than he could make them. “Let me get that,” she offered, and took the cup from his hand, set his and hers down in the sink, stared up at him with dark eyes and deep red cheeks. 

They were three inches apart. Robert opened his mouth, took a step back (Agnes mirrored it, of course, before he’d processed that he’d moved at all), closed his mouth. Opened it again. A toddler trying to speak, a fish pushing air to the water’s surface, a drowning man. 

Several more seconds of staring, then Agnes’ hand on his shoulder, then her lips on his, then the half-walk, half-kiss through the kitchen and down the hallway. Robert felt as though he might doze off, might fall over, might start crying again. He didn’t understand what he was doing enough to stop. Agnes kept kissing him while she fumbled with the loose doorknob, kept kissing him while she shoved the door open. It had been awhile, but she wasn’t completely without experience. She moved like liquid, so fast and fluid that Robert could hardly inhale, let alone speak. Did she think she could baptize him like this? By holding him under? She started unbuttoning his shirt, slid it off his shoulders, let it fall off the unmade bed and onto the carpet.

 It wasn’t until he realized that she was undoing his jeans that Robert pulled away. Pushed away. Did both at once. Agnes’ eyes flitted open, and she frowned. “What was that about?” Her hair framed her face in a way that made her look young, innocent (and it was still difficult to believe that she wasn’t either of them). She was sitting on the bed and he stood as far from it as he could. It was a twin size and still took up most of the room. He was only a step away from it and backed against the wall.

“No. No, I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t have- I can’t do anything like that. I didn’t mean for that to happen, I-” He already knew his whole face was red and his hands would shake the second he thought too hard about them. “Agnes, I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well. I need to go home.” His apologies were as sincere as they were unnecessary. This wasn’t what he wanted. He knew he wasn’t a good man, but he wasn’t his father. His marriage was what tied everything together, the only reason he’d ever had to regret his past. It was what kept him grounded, even if that wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted for himself. Amanda was the only promise he’d ever kept, the only thing he’d ever paid faith to.

yeah so after this there’s a really awkward dialogue that needs some work so I’m just going to pretend it doesn’t exist for now, just take the end of this neverending hell chapter :) this excerpt is a bit disorganized and messy but so is Robert and so am I so it’s fine.

Leaving his hometown, dizzy and sick to his stomach a forcing his eyes to stay open for the entire fifty-six minute drive, there was a dull knife of guilt pushing at Robert’s gut, trying to cut him open. Why didn’t he stop her sooner? Had he just cheated on his wife? Where did he go from here?

He kept his eyes away from the roadside when he passed his childhood home on the way out of town. His mother wouldn’t miss his visit, and he was likely better off without it. He understood this better than he understood most things, and yet he had to stop himself from turning around, from finding himself on her doorstep, from knocking on the door and falling into her arms the second it opened. He longed for the comfort of any mother but the one the one who’d raised him. Was that an evil thing to think? Would his mother hate him if she knew he’d driven past her?

It didn’t matter. man does what he has to do sometimes, and if that made him evil, he could live with that. Sometimes, a man has to drive past his mother’s house. And sometimes, he has to stop someone from ending his life in a lake by the forest, watch the bubbles float to the top until they don’t, wait a little bit longer to make sure. And sometimes, he has to come home and tell his wife he wasn’t feeling well and had gone to the doctor and was told that he needed to rest for awhile pick up some tylenol if it didn’t get any better, tell her he’d sleep on the couch so he wouldn’t get her sick,  question all night if he would tell her the truth tomorrow or not just to disappear off to work before she was up in the morning and leave a note on the fridge that he was feeling better and that he loved her.

Maybe he did. He couldn’t imagine a world where he’d be so afraid of losing something that he didn’t love. This constant exchange of fear and comfort really couldn’t be anything else.

okay yeah that’s it! hopefully soon I’ll update on the shorter chapters I’ve written since this one, but one of them needs to be re-written entirely since I’m changing so many things about Ramona’s character.

writing this chapter was a bit of a catharsis for me, and also made me realize some changes that need to be made to the backstory/early narrative because Robert’s character ended up evolving into less of a bad person and more  morally gray, the kind of character you can relate to but sometimes in ways that scare you a little bit. I hope you enjoyed this update! I spent way too long working on it and even longer writing the chapter. I’m finally getting back in the swing of writing post-covid and post-going back to school for the first time in two months, so hopefully no other large life-altering events happen because I’m having a pretty good time writing this book.

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[captain-tch]

Extinction Event

You are a captain in the Scouts when a strange phenomenon means that the sun never rises again.

Note: this is inspired by the events of the game, Final Fantasy XV. Its such a great game and I highly recommend it if you're looking for something new.

The morning the sun hid from the world, everything changed. No one knew what had caused it, or why the sun dipped far below the horizon to never be seen again. But one thing was for sure - the world just got a lot more dangerous.

During the Age of the Sun, living a forever night would be a dream come true. The titans used to be immobile during the night. No one could understand why. But it didn't matter for long. Because the fuckers evolved over time, starting to torment the walls in the deepest darkness.

At first, people hoped. They prayed and believed this was only a temporary phenomenon, eagerly waiting for the next time the sunlight would kiss their skin. It was all in vain. The sun never rose again.

Panic set out within the walls. Titans banged on the walls day and night, the moon feeding their desire for blood. Many soldiers died protecting the walls. Many died in vain. Your home, along with many others, was trampled beneath the feet of the monsters. The bones of your family laid there too. That was why you stood on top of the very wall that both protected and caged you from the outside.

The only wall left.

Wall Sina was once a bustle of life. Luxury that once oozed from every crevice now reeked of desperation. People laughed in those streets once. You couldn't remember the last time you heard it. Children wandered the streets, puffy eyes and light fingers.

You sighed, turning yourself away from the mess below, staring lifelessly at the titans on the other side instead. In the dark you could only make out their shapes. Their towering figures were enough to make your heart race.

"It's getting worse down there." Your team mate Anna noted, glancing down at the titans beating at the walls. You strained your ears to hear her over the constant explosion of cannons. "The deterrents aren't working."

Fear struck close to your heart. As quickly as you felt the feeling, you clenched your jaw, looking out over the wall solemnly. You could barely see beyond the wall, torches lit all along it, casting a dim light on the monsters below. Even without the light to guide you, you could imagine the barren land, lush with green. In the distance, you could picture the pines that provided you safety. A long time ago, the Scouts were out there, trying to reclaim land. Now they could barely cope protecting the land they had.

You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. Being a Captain was no easy job before the Darkness came, and now it was ten times harder. Sometimes you wished you could curl up into a ball and sleep for a million years. After being in the Scouts for over ten years you thought you had seen it all. Having joined the 104th cadet corps as a young teenager, you believed yourself to have long been desensitised to the horrors that came with the job. Then the darkness fell and you were back at step one.

Its in this moment that your thoughts turn to Jean. A warmth blossomed in your chest as you imagined his disarming smile, and his strong arms. How you wish he could wrap them around you now and hide you from the world.

"We're doing all we can do."

Anna shook her head, nodding. "I know. But its starting to feel like its never going to be enough."

You laughed humourlessly. "What do you suggest we do?"

"Fuck this all off and live while we can."

You pondered it for a moment. You could try and forget about the impending doom that threatened the security of the walls. You could spend time with Jean, finish that book you've been dying to read, maybe even drink yourself into oblivion. The thought of not having the future of humanity on your shoulders was luxury enough.

But all of the blood spilled...

And in a flash, that fantasy rippled away. Too many people were gone for you to brush away your duty.

All you could do was offer Anna a small smile, eyes distant. "Tempting."

"Yeah, me too." Sometimes it was strange how Anna could read your mind; she always seemed to be on the same wavelength as you.

The canons stopped for a brief moment, giving your ears a moments reprieve.

You almost wished it hadn't.

Because the moment silence fell, so did the wall.

*

You were fucked. To be honest, that felt like a complete understatement for the horror surrounding you, but its the closest you could get.

The titans had broken through the wall. Your entire team was dead - including Anna. Her blood was staining your clothes. She had dived off the wall to stop you from falling. By the time you had landed on the ground you only had a searing pain spreading through your shoulder and she was dead.

You barely had time to take in your surroundings, slicing titans wherever you could. Subconsciously though, you saw how the streets were drowning in bodies, body parts scattered. A child's shoe discarded on the pavement.

Flying through the air, you hurtled to your next destination, slicing open the neck of a titan with ease. You had no chance to think about your next move, already advancing on your next target. The agony in your shoulder was at the back of your mind, the urge to survive overpowering the tear jerking feeling.

You had stopped trying to save people today. All attempts had been in vain. Their screams would be scarred into your brain forever.

If you lived long enough to remember.

"Y/N!" A familiar voice cut through the slaughter.

You stopped in your tracks, perching on the side of a building. Frantically you searched everywhere for that voice. Your rock. Your best friend. Your love.

"Jean?"

"Y/N!"

His voice was nearer now. You scrambled to the top of the building, eyes desperately catching on to a familiar shape flying in your direction. Tears swelled in your eyes.

He was alive. He was okay.

For the first time in a very long time, you felt like you could breathe. It didn't matter that the air stank of death, clogging your lungs, or that a metallic taste lingered in your mouth. You could breathe. A smile touched your lips.

Unable to wait any longer, you started to run along the roof, desperate to be close to him. You wanted to clutch him close to your chest and breathe in his scent. You wanted him to draw patterns on your back, just the way he always did when you were upset.

You wanted to kiss him.

You leaped over the edge of the roof, tilting your hips as you directed your gear to follow you. You were launched over the gap, soaring over the next roof and landing without breaking a stride.

Jean was matching your pace, his gear sending him zooming closer to you.

Finally.

You landed on the same roof as him, hands instinctively gripping your knees, desperately sucking in breath. Jean was on you before you could stand straight, holding you tight and squeezing as if his life depended on it.

You clenched your eyes shut, wrapping your arms around him with a mirrored ferocity. Everything fell still. Time froze as you two held each other, anchoring the other in a world without gravity.

He pushed you away from him gently, eyes darting over your form. His gaze found the blood soaking your clothes, hands following to try and staunch the blood from an invisible would.

You swallowed thickly, curling your hands around his. "Its not mine."

"I'm sorry." He cupped your cheek, spreading blood. "This is it, isn't it? This is our extinction event."

You didn't want to admit it but you knew it was true. The air wasn't filled with as many screams as it was before. You knew it was because there weren't many people left.

Wordlessly you shook your head, lacing your fingers through his hair. "I wish we had more time."

You pulled your forehead to his, closing your eyes. This was your happy place. With him. Some of the happiest memories you had were with him. Sitting in the mess hall, flicking mashed potato at him. Resting your head on his chest as you read to him, his fingers lazily working through your hair. Escaping from the barracks in the middle of the night to go skinny dipping.

The thought of not being able to make any more happy memories hit you harder than any loss.

But like all great things, it doesn't last forever.

Beneath your feet, the building shook. Both of you were thrown off balance, stumbling to regain your grip. Without thinking your hands flung out, reaching for Jean. His fingers slipped between yours, holding you tight and pulling you upright.

"We have company."

Spinning around, you saw the thirteen metre titan staring intently at you. It was close enough that you could make out it's details in the dark, a demonic smile painted on its face, blood and skin wedged in its teeth. Red stained its chin.

You were its next target.

Unsheathing your blades, you ready yourself to pounce.

"Y/N!"

You cry out as you're knocked to the ground. Your head smacked harshly against the cobbles, stars appearing in your vision. You're so out of it you barely hear Jean screaming your name, or feel the abnormal titans grip.

The abnormal tightens its grip. Involuntarily, you screeched, your ribs crunching and sending waves of pain through your body. It keeps squeezing, squeezing and squeezing until - pop.

Blood spilled out of your mouth. Wetness stains your cheeks - whether its blood or tears you're not sure.

The sound of wires zipping greeted your ears. A battle cry ripped through the air. The titans grip loosened and now you're falling -

Falling -

Falling -

A pair of strong arms gently wrapped around you. You recognised Jean instantly by his ashy smell. Even with all of the pain you're in, you muster a smile.

"My knight in shining armour," you croaked, trying to lift an arm to stroke his cheek. The agony tore through you fast enough for you to drop it.

Jean stopped moving, landing in a derelict street. The sounds of fighting were distant. You were alone.

He tried to lay you on the floor; your hysteric cries stopped him. Instead he cradled you in his arms, moving to sit himself down. You grunted, clinging to him with a tight grip.

"I'm so sorry Y/N," Jean whispered, moving a strand of hair away from your face. His touch lingered for a moment, his eyes searching your pain stricken ones. "I'm so sorry you didn't get to see the sun again."

You give him a weak smile - a feeble attempt to mask your pain. Your vision was darkening, your anxiety rising. You had so much to say, so much to still do.

But you had no time.

"You are my sun."