#also on the BRIGHT side as a level capped hunter if the rest of the fellowship are being dicks

[rohirric-hunter]

I want to [do a thing] but I’m afraid of [plausible but not necessarily inevitable negative reaction from other people that I’ve blown up in my head as absolute based on exactly no evidence].

[darks-ink]

Got My Reasons

“Doing the right thing for the wrong reason doesn’t make it good!” His glow flickered wildly, coalescing and twirling like flames. His eyes burned bright like a jack-’o-lantern’s. “Just because you helped me doesn’t make you the better person!” “You practically served yourself up to us,” she retorted, her voice flat. “What else did you expect, a heavily injured ghost unconscious in the vehicle of ghost hunters?”

Prompt: After being seriously wounded in a fight, Danny collapses inside the Fenton GAV to recoup. When his parents are called to the ghost sighting a few minutes later, however, they don’t notice who they’ve brought along for the ride Prompt by: @sapphireswimming Word count: 7,625

[AO3] [FFN] [more Phic Phight fics]

Content warning: descriptions of serious injuries, kinda terrible medical practice. The usual. But it’s all okay in the end!

---

The GAV screeched to a sudden halt, Maddie already half out the door before it had stopped. The ghost on the road in front of them roared, baring oversized fangs at the vehicle.

She rushed around the car, pulling open the doors in the back with force. A weapon. That’s all she needed. A weapon, ASAP.

The thought distracted her enough that she stumbled, almost falling over something out of place in the GAV. She barely caught herself on one of the shelves, already turning to scold Jack, when she saw—

“Phantom,” she whispered, feeling her brain grind to a halt.

Because it was, without a doubt, Phantom. The ghost seemed to be severely injured, splattered in green ectoplasm. It dripped over Phantom’s side, staining the wall of the GAV that he leaned against. One hand was pressed loosely against his side, but the ghost’s eyes were closed, and he hadn’t responded to her tripping over him, either. Passed out? But that wasn’t possible, was it?

She bit her lip. The ghost outside was a bigger threat. Maddie knew she had to focus on that one, first. Phantom was clearly in no state to leave, but…

Her hand touched the familiar metal curve of a Fenton Thermos.

Without another thought, she uncapped the device. Phantom was dragged in without another movement, not even stirring in the slightest. This was a perfect opportunity to study him, and the Thermos would preserve him until the right time.

With that settled, Maddie turned to grab a gun. Jack needed her. Phantom would come later.

---

“Uh, Maddie?” Jack’s voice rang from the back of the car, and she paused. “Why is there ectoplasm splattered all over the inside of the GAV?”

She blinked for a moment before realization struck. “It’s Phantom!” she yelled back, already turning to walk back. “I found him seriously injured and passed out in the back of the van, but we had to go deal with that attacking ghost.”

Now next to her husband, she clambered inside. The Thermos was still where she had left it, and she grabbed it. Let’s not get that one confused with the others. “I caught him in this Thermos. Not sure how bad his injuries really are, but this way he would be stable until we could look at him.”

“Good thinking!” Jack grinned, climbing into the GAV next to her to stow their weapons. “Passed out, though?”

“He didn’t move, not even when I tripped on him.” She frowned at the Thermos in her hand. “It was… strange. He was completely unresponsive, but he was still together. Leaking ectoplasm, but only from his injuries. Not destabilized.”

“Odd,” her husband agreed, clicking the last gun into its place. “I guess we have our work cut out for us!”

“Indeed.” She turned the Thermos, slowly, gazing at the meter in its side. It was startlingly full, a measure not just of mass but also of a ghost’s strength. Considering that Phantom was the only one in the Thermos… “Why don’t you drive us back, honey?”

His excitement would turn him in an even more reckless driver than usual, she guessed, but… she didn’t want to risk Phantom escaping.

Briefly, she considered clipping the Thermos onto her belt, but no. It felt safer in her hands, even as she had to take one off of the device to climb into the passenger’s seat of the GAV.

Their drive back home was… well. It was certainly fast.

Before she knew it, Maddie was clambering out of the GAV with one hand, the Thermos clenched in her other. “I’ll go prep the lab. Jack, bring in the spent weaponry and the other ghost, please?”

“Gotcha!” He bounded away to the back of the GAV while Maddie walked to their front door, quickly unlocking it. The house was empty inside—Danny was off with his friends, and Jazz away to the library—but that had become rather common these days.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about either of them protesting their capture of Phantom. She didn’t understand it, the youth’s insistence that the ghost was good, but she certainly didn’t understand how her own children had fallen for Phantom’s tricks.

Well, it would be a problem no longer. Once she and Jack were done with their studies of Phantom, the ghost would no longer trick anybody.

Maddie left the Thermos on one of the mostly empty tables, quickly putting away the few things that were on it. She rolled a trolley over, paused. Rolled her eyes and emptied that, too.

By the time Jack had made it downstairs, their used weaponry stacked in a pile to the side—she made a quick mental note to make sure those were taken care of later—Maddie had finished preparing the table and the trolley. She had stalled out a large assortment of tools they might want or need for their inspection of Phantom.

There were no straps on the table—they had removed them due to the diversity in ghosts’ bodies—but she didn’t think they would need them, anyway. Phantom had been so weakened… He hadn’t even fought back when she’d tripped over him, when she’d captured him.

“Ready, Jack?” she asked, picking up the Thermos again. “We won’t know how he’ll act.”

“Ready,” her husband confirmed. He flexed his fingers, the metal ghost-proof gauntlets shifting with the movement. “I’ll hold him if he tries to escape.”

Maddie nodded, twisting the cap off of the Thermos. With a whir, it unloaded its contents, spitting Phantom onto the table.

The ghost groaned as he hit the surface, his limbs twitching slightly. He seemed slightly more awake than in the GAV, but not much. Didn’t even try to leave the table.

Ectoplasm gushed from several injuries all over Phantom’s body, the liquid spilling onto the table already.

“Not looking good, Phantom,” Jack commented, disengaging the gauntlets. Clearly they wouldn’t need them to restrain Phantom.

Phantom groaned again, a warble of sound that might’ve been intended as an answer. Definitely awake, then, but in poor condition.

She moved to roll him onto his back. Frowned at the deep slice in his side, right where the ribs would be on a human. The inside of the injury glimmered with fresh ectoplasm but it didn’t spill, not nearly as freely as she would’ve expected. No, the surface-level ectoplasm seemed… almost crystallized, a solid instead of a liquid.

Frowning, with one hand bracing Phantom, she reached in. The ectoplasm certainly felt solid under her probing finger.

Phantom groaned again, his left arm shifting slightly, like a weak attempt at batting her away.

“He seems to have some form of ectoplasmic bones,” she reported to Jack, finally rolling Phantom over all the way. The ghost twitched, his left hand wandering back to the slice. His eyes, he kept closed. “But his injuries are severe. He might destabilize before we finish our research.”

“That’d be a waste.” Jack frowned at the ghost on their table, too. “We’ll have to stabilize him. This is the first ghost with those kind of traits we’ve seen. We can’t risk losing him.”

That, at least, they agreed on. “We’ll need to close the injuries, stop him from losing too much ectoplasm. Can you get a needle and thread?” She looked back at Phantom, his complexion seeming to pale. “Fishing line if you can find it, but normal thread might be enough to tide him over for now.”

Phantom muttered something again, a whining noise that didn’t quite make it to words. It was odd. Maddie had been sure the ghost always spoke in perfect English, yet he seemed to be conversing in something else now. She was almost tempted to consider it a ghostly language of sorts, but why would such a thing exist? Ghosts weren’t intelligent enough for a society, let alone a language that drove such a thing.

“I found some fishing line, but not nearly enough for all his injuries.” Jack handed her the first aid kit, a sterile needle and clean thread, as well as a ball of tangled phase-proof wire. “… and I’ll have to untangle it first,” he added on, sheepishly.

“We’ll have to risk the normal thread.” She reached for the needle, then paused. Looked at Phantom. “It… His structure seems far more complicated than that of other ghosts. Should we see if he has a layer of skin underneath the jumpsuit? Stitching the two together might cause harm.”

Jack nodded, already grabbing Phantom’s right hand—the one not pressed against an injury. He hooked his fingers underneath the edge of Phantom’s white glove, carefully peeling it off.

As she had half expected, the glove came off entirely, damaged but not destabilizing even when removed from the ghost it belonged to. And underneath it, Phantom’s hand was… almost normal. The skin was the same cool tone as his face, a thousand small details she never would’ve expected a ghost to have, especially on a surface not usually exposed to sight.

“Let’s strip the rest, too,” Jack said, dropping the glove next to Phantom’s side. He reached for Phantom’s left hand, but hesitated. “The jumpsuit, at least. But, Maddie, what detail.”

“He’s unlike every other ghost we’ve tested so far,” she agreed. From this close, she could see the exquisite detail in Phantom’s clothing, too. A zipper hidden in the edge of his collar, which she tugged down to unzip the front of his suit. “And you couldn’t even tell from the way he acted! I wonder how many more are like this? Is it related to their strength?”

Phantom’s jumpsuit peeled apart to reveal a pale chest. Several smaller cuts littered his front, previously unnoticed due to the splatters of ectoplasm. The structure of it was, again, oddly detailed and human like.

Jack whistled, low. “What a scar, Mads! I wonder if it’s related to his death?”

“Why would he have scars of an event he doesn’t remember?” She zipped the jumpsuit down to his belt, working his right arm out of the sleeve. “I’d consider it more likely that it’s an old injury he got in a ghost fight. Maybe he kept it for intimidation purposes, to show that he won from a ghost with a certain level of power.”

“But then, why not show it off?” Jack asked, helping her by lifting Phantom up slightly. The ghost groaned, quietly, but didn’t try to stop them. “Why hide it under his suit?”

“He might’ve changed his appearance to appear more tame towards Amity Park’s citizens.” She rolled the right side of the jumpsuit down to Phantom’s hips, but that left the other side. “Jack, why don’t you keep pressure on that cut, and I’ll take off the rest of the jumpsuit?”

Her husband nodded, bustling over to press his hands against Phantom’s side. The ghost hissed, a strange warble and click to the sound, like a layer of audible static. His left hand batted at Jack’s hand, weakly, but it stilled quickly. The ghost went limp against the table.

“Did he pass out?” Jack asked, leaning over Phantom without taking his hands off of the injury. “Well, that’ll make our job easier, at least.”

She hummed as she peeled off Phantom’s left glove, slick with ectoplasm. His hand was sturdier than she would’ve expected of a ghost, a clear sign that his bone-like constructions extended into his hands. The skin was… surprisingly human-like, too cool but not as icy cold as ghosts usually were.

Maddie dropped the glove with the one already on the table, turning to lay down Phantom’s hand, when she noticed its appearance.

“Jack, look.” She held up the hand, her fingers tracing the extensive scarring. Its texture differed from the rest of the skin, rough and ragged like an actual scar. It seemed to originate in the palm, branching outwards from there, all the way down his wrist and into the cuff of his jumpsuit. It glowed, faintly, brightest at the palm. “Do you think it’s the same scar as on his chest?”

“Only one way to find out, huh?” Jack twisted his head to nod at Phantom’s face. “He has some kind of bruising on his throat, somehow. Green instead of purple, but you can’t mistake that kind of splotching.”

“At least we won’t have to worry about a crushed windpipe.” She twisted his arm out of the sleeve, feeling the bones in his shoulder shift with the movement. Definitely a human-like skeleton. How odd. “There we go. Definitely one large electrical scar, with the extremes in the palm of his hand and on his chest.”

Jack shifted his hands, allowing her to push the jumpsuit down to Phantom’s hips entirely. Now, they could see the ragged edges of the injury, the way it had torn Phantom’s… skin, for lack of better word, apart.

“Whoever, or whatever, he fought must’ve been something vicious,” Jack commented. Green ectoplasm continued to bubble up around his black gloves.

“Loathe as I am to say it, it was a good thing that Phantom dealt with it.” She looked over Phantom’s other injuries, but none seemed as threatening as the one on his side. “Something like this would’ve killed a human almost instantly.”

She picked up the needle, taking it out of its packaging. Using sterile tools might not be necessary, but Phantom was already defying what they knew of ghosts. Better not risk it.

“He must’ve caught it, at least,” Jack said as she threaded the needle. “If he was in the back of our GAV, the fight must’ve ended. Not sure where the Thermos went, though.”

Maddie gestured, and Jack shifted, pinching the injury closed instead of covering it up. She stuck the needle through, swiftly, but Phantom didn’t move.

“Definitely passed out,” she commented, moving to pinch the injury closed herself. “I’ve got this, Jack. Can you go look over the rest of his injuries?”

“Well, he has those bruises on his neck.” Jack paused, placing his fingers against the bare throat. “They seem… finger-like? Like someone tried to strangle him. A ghost my size, maybe?”

She threaded the needle through Phantom’s side again. “But why try to choke him out? That’d do nothing to him, he’s a ghost!”

“Maybe they were trying to snap his neck, instead?” Jack made an uncertain noise, moving up to Phantom’s head. “If he has something like bones, they gotta serve some purpose, right? So maybe breaking his spine would’ve disabled him, like with a human?”

“But as a ghost, his most important part is the core in his chest, not the brain.” She was making steady progress on Phantom’s side. The ghost still hadn’t stirred. He’d better not destabilize, not after all the effort they put into preserving him. “Unless he needs his head for some kind of offensive power, snapping his neck wouldn’t have done them any good.”

“There might not be any logic behind it, anyway,” Jack pointed out. “We’re talking about ghosts, after all. Maybe this wasn’t an attempt at strangling at all, but just the most convenient part for the other ghost to grab.”

He paused, gently probing Phantom’s head. “He definitely has some sort of skull, too. Very human-like, barely any flesh—or ectoplasm—over it. A cut on his temple, kind of deep. Looks like it bled badly, but it’s got some sort of crust over it, now.”

“Normal ectoplasm doesn’t crust… But normal ectoplasm also doesn’t form bone-like structures.” Halfway through the slice on his sides. The ribs still glinted crystalline against a backdrop of green so dark it appeared black. “No other injuries on his head?”

“None that I can see.” Jack hesitated, then ran his fingers through Phantom’s hair. The black of his gloves contrasted starkly against the white of Phantom’s hair. “There’s some dried ectoplasm in here, but I think it all came from that cut on his temple.”

“That’s good, at least. I’m not sure how his head injuries would compare to a human’s.” A few more stitches went into Phantom’s side. “None of the cuts on his chest seemed severe when I checked them out earlier, and I don’t think he has any on his arms, either.”

Jack hummed, walking past her to the other end of the table. “I’ll check out his legs, then.”

As she continued to stitch of Phantom’s side, Jack’s humming paused. His hands wrapped around Phantom’s left leg, gently probing the limb.

“I… think he has a broken leg,” Jack said, abruptly. “It feels like the bone-like structure doesn’t line up right. It’s not that way on the other leg.”

“We might have to set it, then.” Another stitch as she thought it over. “If his flesh injuries heal, his bones probably do as well. He probably doesn’t need his legs to walk, but having the bone grow wrong might stop him from forming his spectral tail.”

She paused, her hands stilling. “How does he form a spectral tail if he has bones?”

“I…” Jack halted too. “I honestly don’t know. He doesn’t move that thing like there’s any bones in it.”

“Maybe…” She continued her work again, pulling the needle through Phantom’s false flesh. “Maybe he can form and dissolve the crystal structures by will? To form bones and then make them go away when they’re a hindrance?”

“In which case we wouldn’t need to set his leg, because he can just reform it properly,” Jack pointed out. It was quiet for a moment as he, presumably, felt out the bones. “It feels like a clean break, at least. We can try waiting it out and offer him a splint if he needs it.”

“That might work.” She finished another stitch, looking over her work. Tied off the thread. “There, this should keep him stable for now. Let’s hope he doesn’t immediately rip it or phase it out when he wakes up.”

Which was baffling her, still. Ghosts don’t pass out; they don’t black out or sleep or go unconscious in any way. Even if Phantom had bones of some sort, what benefit could passing out give him?

“I’ll get a bucket and some cloth.” Jack had wandered off already, having finished his inspection. “We better clean all that ectoplasm off of him, make sure he’s not hiding anything more severe.”

She nodded, placing the needle back in its wrapper. It would have to be thrown out and replaced later; there was no sterilizing a needle so heavily stained with ectoplasm. Speaking of which…

Maddie stripped off her gloves, dropping them on a nearby table, and wandered over to the lab’s closet. It always paid to have a few jumpsuits on hand. One of the bins contained spare gloves, and she quickly pulled a clean pair on.

“I got the stuff!” Jack announced, bustling down the stairs. He had replaced his gloves with clean ones too, at some point. Hopefully before he left the lab and smeared ectoplasm on everything.

“Let’s get him cleaned up, then.” She took one of the cloths out of the water—warm, but not too hot—and pressed it against Phantom’s chest. The ghost made a soft noise, a staticky whine, his fingers twitching.

No further movement came.

They carefully cleaned the ectoplasm off of Phantom’s body; his scars seemed to glow even brighter when they were wet. As Jack finished cleaning off Phantom’s torso, Maddie moved over to his head.

Phantom still had his eyes closed, but they were no longer clenched as tightly. Thick globs of ectoplasm trailed down the side of his face, smeared through his hair.

Gently, she pressed the cloth against his head, just underneath the injury. If it had scabbed over, she didn’t want to reopen it. Phantom moaned, his eyes moving underneath the lids.

It wasn’t a sound, not a human one, but… Maddie could’ve sworn that Phantom called her ‘Mom’.

“Those noises are strange, aren’t they, Jack?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the not-word. Ghosts didn’t do parents; the concept of a mother should be completely foreign to Phantom. “I’ve never heard him speak anything but perfect English.”

“They’re so inhuman!” he agreed, as excited as ever. “The warbling, the almost static sound of them! It must be something lower than true speech, for Phantom to fall back into it when injured.”

Jack tapped on Phantom’s chest, right in the center of the glowing scar. “It’s almost like it comes from his core, sometimes, instead of his mouth. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“But why would ghosts have a basal language of their own?” She rubbed the ectoplasm stains off of Phantom’s cheek, the ghost’s nose twitching when she brushed too close past it. For just a brief moment, she could see green gums, sharp teeth. “They’re not sentient, not even like animals. Right? They would have no need to communicate with each other.”

“Well, if they can learn human languages, I don’t see why they couldn’t have their own.” He shrugged, coming closer to Phantom’s head as well. “They clearly have some form of intelligence, even if it’s limited. They can conceptualize and plan, after all.”

He lifted Phantom’s head, and she started cleaning the ectoplasm out of the ghost’s hair. It was odd, the texture of it just off. A little too slick, too smooth. Not heavy enough, as it seemed to stir even when neither of them touched it.

“I suppose you’re right,” she eventually said. Phantom’s head laid limply in Jack’s hand, the other braced under the ghost’s shoulders. “They must go out of their way to avoid using it around humans, then. I can’t think of a single ghost using it before, not even the animals.”

“It’s definitely weird,” Jack agreed. “And, I was thinking… It doesn’t seem the echo the same way as their voices either, does it?”

She paused, the wet cloth pressed against Phantom’s head. No. No, it certainly hadn’t. “Huh.”

“Maybe they do always speak in it,” Jack continued. “Maybe they just layer actual speech on top of it, usually. Maybe that’s what causes the echo? A voice from their core, for ghosts, and a voice from their throat?”

“I suppose it might be possible.” The clumps of green had mostly been washed out of Phantom’s hair, now, leaving just faint green stains. “I think this is as good as we’ll get it, Jack.”

He nodded, lowering Phantom’s head back onto the table. The ghost stirred again, a little, eyelids clenching and relaxing again. It sniffled, oddly enough, face contorting.

Maddie dropped the cloth back into the bucket of water. They’d definitely need to get rid of all that, too. Ugh. The disadvantages of working with ectoplasm.

Phantom warbled something again. His fingers twitched against the surface of the table.

“Look who’s waking up!” Jack grinned at her, from Phantom’s other side. “About time, Phantom!”

The ghost jerked, suddenly, like a full-body flinch. He hissed, a sound filled with static and pain.

And then he was sitting up, fingers clawing against the surface of the table.

“No you don’t!” she told him, pressing a hand against his chest. Pushed him back against the table. “You’re not tearing those stitches I just put into you.”

His eyes moved to stare at her, the green dull and glassy compared to their usual brightness. He frowned, warbling something at her.

‘why’ her mind told her it meant.

“Down, Phantom.” She pressed harder, and he collapsed back against the table. There was more tension in his body, now. In his false muscles.

Or were they false?

“We found you passed out in the GAV,” Jack explained, tone dropping into something comforting. “You looked close to destabilizing.”

Phantom’s eyes seemed to sharpen, finally, as they darted from her to Jack and back. His left hand wandered to his side.

“Don’t mess with those stitches,” she told him, sharply. He flinched, but dropped the hand. “We didn’t clean you up just so you can wreck all our hard work, you know?”

He licked his lips, tongue vivid green against his pale skin. “Why?” he croaked out, layered so thickly in static she could barely make out the word.

“Why?” she repeated, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Well, you were too interesting a subject to pass up, of course. None of the ghosts we’ve studied so far had bodies as complex as yours. What a waste it would be, to let you melt away like that!”

Phantom pressed flatter against the table. His hands wandered, like he was looking for something. “Now what?”

“Well, there’s no straps on this table, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Jack said, looking down at Phantom. The ghost stilled immediately. Huh. Odd. Why would he know to look for those? “For now, you appear weakened enough that there’s no risk of your escape, but you’re awake enough to answer some questions. Mads?”

“Sounds like a good start,” she agreed. This was probably the most pliable they would get Phantom. “Let’s start easy, shall we? Your leg is broken. Lower left. Do you want a splint for that?”

“I…” Phantom blinked, apparently caught off-guard by her question. “Um. I think I’ll be okay.”

She nodded, watching him carefully. His eyes seemed to brighten, slowly, becoming greener and greener by the second. Even his complexion seemed to gain some color back.

“Did you catch the ghost who roughed you up so badly?” Jack asked, crouching a little so he didn’t tower over Phantom as badly. “Wouldn’t want them to try the same on any humans, after all.”

“No, he’s… He’s not a concern anymore.” Phantom tried to push himself up again, but paused when she glared at him. “He’s… He only has it out for me. Doesn’t really care about the humans.”

Well, that was good, at least. “Is there any risk of him breaking in to chase you?”

“No, I took care of it.” Phantom shook his head, slowly, wobbling a little. “He needs his suit to be a real threat, and I destroyed that.”

A ghost wearing a suit? Something mechanical, then. Maybe like that annoying electric one, which controlled technology, but he didn’t seem all that interested in Phantom.

Must be an unknown ghost. That was… worrisome. The possibility that there was such a dangerous ghost out there that they knew nothing about, running loose in Amity Park.

Phantom seemed uncomfortable, pinned down flat against the table. She supposed that she and Jack were kind of looming over him.

“You can sit up, if you want, but be careful.” She tried to ease her posture, to soften her glare. Phantom was just a ghost, yes, but he was voluntarily giving them information. No point in shutting him down so soon.

The ghost nodded, sliding his hands underneath himself. Slowly, he pushed himself up. Cautiously. His face strained as he did so, briefly, hand sliding closer to the stitches in his side.

Curious. A pain reaction. Could be faked, of course, but it seemed… it seemed genuine. The barely-there hiss of static through his clenched teeth, layered over an almost physical sense of pain.

Maybe that was Phantom’s big trick all along. The ability to make others feel emotions. To somehow convey emotions and feelings that he, himself, did not feel.

“Do you want painkillers for that?” Jack asked, also watching the ghost grimace, hands hovering over the stitches. “Or, uh… Some ghost equivalent?”

Phantom’s eyes slid back to Jack, then Maddie, and back to Jack. “I… If you’ve got some. I need more than a human, though.”

“You want some water to help that go down?” Jack grabbed the first aid kit, digging through its contents for the painkillers. “Or food?”

“Um. Water would be nice. Food…” The oddly mundane sound of a growling stomach. Phantom flushed bright green. “I’d like food, yeah. Um. Thanks.”

Jack handed her the painkillers, already turning towards the stairs. “I’ll be right back with a glass and something to eat. Maddie, you figure out how much to give him.”

She turned the bottle in her hand, searching for the instructions. How did Phantom compare to a human? Was his metabolizing faster? Stronger? Did his ectoplasm somehow form organs, as well as bones? Some sort of non-crystallized solid?

“Um. I probably know how much I’ll need if you tell me what kind that is,” Phantom said, interrupting her train of thought. Her eyes snapped from the bottle to him. His shoulders were drawn up, tense.

“What?” she asked, still working through the sentence. “Oh, it’s… paracetamol. We don’t usually need painkillers for this sort of stuff.”

He nodded understandingly, and Maddie wondered how much of it he really did understand. His structure was definitely more complicated than that of most ghosts. He had bones, musculature, apparently even organs. Was it really that far-fetched to think that he might have something like nerves, too? That he might feel pain, or at least understand it?

“The teen portion, but up it by half, then.” He opened his hand, and only then seemed to realize that he wasn’t wearing his gloves, because he froze up. Stared down at his bare, heavily scarred hand. “Wh— Why am I not wearing my jumpsuit anymore?”

“We had to take it off to check your injuries.” She uncapped the bottle of painkillers, keeping Phantom in her peripherals. “And you seemed to have a structure underneath the jumpsuit, unlike most ghosts. We didn’t want to risk damage by sewing the two together.”

Phantom hummed at that. “I… thanks. I don’t think that that’d be good, yeah.”

“Well, it would be a shame to let you destabilize just like that, wouldn’t it?” She shook out a few pills into his hand. This was just… a study. An ordinary ghost wouldn’t have any desire for painkillers, and it definitely wouldn’t be able to process them. But would Phantom be any different?

“Yeah…” He made a face, hand curling closed around the painkillers like she might take them away again. “Well, thanks anyway, I suppose.”

Jack’s thudding footsteps sounded, and he appeared down the stairs. In one hand, he held a glass of water. In the other, a plate with a few sandwiches. “Sorry, we didn’t have anything quicker.”

He walked up closer, handing the glass to Phantom first. The ghost took it in his empty hand, fingers carefully wrapping around it, slick with condensation.

“Thanks.” The ghost raised the hand with pills to his mouth first, dropping them all in before chasing them with a big gulp of water. He made a face, following it with several smaller sips of water. “Eugh. That stuff never tastes good, does it?”

“It’s not supposed to taste good,” she pointed out, quirking an eyebrow. “You realize that, right?”

“Of course I do, I’m not an idiot.” He leaned backwards slightly, emptying the rest of the glass in one go. “Doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”

He handed the glass back to Jack, exchanging it for one of the sandwiches. Didn’t even try to grab the whole plate.

“Are you sure you don’t want more?” Jack asked, gesturing the plate at Phantom. “Those are some serious injuries to heal from.”

“Yeah, I guess, but…” Phantom shrugged, taking another bite of the sandwich before continuing. “It’s getting late. Wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite.”

Maddie could feel her eyebrow raising. “Dinner plans, Phantom?”

“I… uh.” His shoulders came up, suddenly, as he seemed to remember where he was. “Kinda, yeah…”

He took another bite of the sandwich, dropping his eyes down to his loosely folded legs.

Phantom looked like a scolded kid. It was the only thing she could think off. The way he curled up on himself, the tension in his shoulders. It just reminded her so, so much of Danny, whenever she scolded him.

Her heart stuttered in her chest, and she cursed herself. She couldn’t feel sorry for him. He was just a ghost! He was— he was doing it on purpose, to make her feel bad! To make them let him go!

The ghost continued eating in complete silence. His hair hung down over his face, barely moving anymore. The lines of his shoulders taught.

“Look, Phantom…” She paused, looking over at Jack. He shrugged back, looking equally unsure of himself. “We’re ghost hunters. We can’t just… let a ghost go.”

“Especially not one as fascinating as I am?” he sneered back, bitterly. He looked up, suddenly, venomous green meeting her eyes. “That’s all I am in the end, huh? No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I let myself get hurt just so no one else has to! In the end I’m just some ghost, to cut up and experiment on!”

She flinched back, involuntarily. The glow around his body, barely visible before, had flared out with his temper.

“It’s not like that,” Jack tried, feebly.

“No?” Phantom hissed back, the warble of static layered heavily over his voice once more. “Then what is this, huh?”

“We’re helping you.” She straightened her back, her fists balling automatically. “We’ve stitched you up, given you painkillers, fed you.”

“Because you didn’t want to lose me,” he countered. His lips curled, showing her once more those green gums and vicious teeth. Fangs. He’d had fangs all along, and she had never noticed until he bared them at her. “Because I was such a precious study object! And the painkillers, the food—”

He flung out an arm. “I bet that all that was just a test, to see if I was faking any of it! Could I really process food? Do painkillers really work on me? Wow!”

“Would you have preferred it if we hadn’t done any of that?” she snapped back. “That we’d left you smearing ectoplasm all over the place until you destabilized?”

“Doing the right thing for the wrong reason doesn’t make it good!” His glow flickered wildly, coalescing and twirling like flames. His eyes burned bright like a jack-’o-lantern’s. “Just because you helped me doesn’t make you the better person!”

“You are the one who broke into our vehicle.” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Getting into a shouting match would accomplish nothing. “You passed out in the back of the Ghost Assault Vehicle.”

That seemed to take all the wind out of his sails. Phantom spluttered, but his glow dimmed significantly already. “I— That’s not what we were talking about!”

“You practically served yourself up to us,” she continued, her voice flat. “What else did you expect, a heavily injured ghost unconscious in the vehicle of ghost hunters?”

His shoulders came up again, Phantom halfway through curling up in a ball. He muttered venomously, some ghost-speak noise again.

And, again, Maddie somehow understood exactly what he said.

‘parents,’ he had hissed, from the very center of his being. An almost sardonic tone to it, somehow.

“Look, Phantom,” Jack said, picking up Maddie’s slack. “We’re ghost hunters. Supposedly, so are you. We found a potentially dangerous ghost in our vehicle without our knowledge, and we made the decision to patch you up. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, what else would you have wanted us to do? What would you have done, in this situation?”

“I…” Phantom sighed, blowing the hair out of his face. “I would’ve patched them up, too. But I definitely wouldn’t have told them that I saved them just because they were so fascinating, because I wanted nothing more than to experiment on them.”

“Would you have rather had us lie to you?” Jack asked, bluntly. “Would you rather have had us tell you that we patched you up out of the goodness of our hearts?”

“I… no.” Phantom shook his head, wrapped his arms around his bare chest. The picture of uncertainty. “No, because I know you would’ve been lying. You’ve been hunting ghosts for research for ages. Me, especially. There’s no way you would’ve patched me up out of kindness.”

“So then what do you want from us?” Maddie asked, shoving her thoughts to the back of her mind for now. “You didn’t want us to let you dissipate in our van. You didn’t want us to lie about why we helped you, but you don’t want us to tell you truth about that, either. What option does that leave?”

Phantom gritted his teeth, his glow suddenly brightening and immediately dimming again. “I don’t know! I just— Can’t you just be nice! Couldn’t you just fix me up out of the goodness of your hearts and mean it?!”

His fingers clawed in his hair as he curled even further into a ball, only the broken leg staying in its place. His shoulders were taught with tension, shaking lightly.

It sounded like… like he was sniffling.

Crying?

She grimaced, turning to look at Jack. He, too, seemed completely thrown off by the display.

It was just…

It was so genuine.

The shaking of the shoulders, the soft sounds of muffled crying, the barely visible glint of tears, the hitch in his breath, the soft keening of his core.

The hitch of his breath?

Hesitantly, Jack reached out. Placed one of his hands on Phantom’s shoulders—so big it almost covered the entire area. “Shh, kiddo.”

Phantom shook harder, but didn’t try to throw off Jack’s hand. The hitching of his breath was clearly audible now.

And Maddie…

Maddie didn’t know what to do. She knew how to comfort kids, and her heart clenched, demanded she help this teen, too. This kid that reminded her so much of her Danny.

But she didn’t know what to do. Phantom was supposed to be just another ghost. An ectoplasmic abomination that had lied and faked its way into everyone’s hearts.

Not this.

Not a teen, warbling “mom” at a stranger who cleaned his wounds. Not a teen who had hidden in their car when he’d gotten too injured to get away, searching for something that reminded him of his parents. For someone who’d keep him safe like his parents would’ve, should’ve.

“Oh, Phantom,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair. It was soft, still wet where she’d cleaned it. Still stained faintly green from his own ectoplasm. “Oh, honey… Why have you hidden this for so long? You are so… so human.”

He keened again, shaking harder under their hands. And in the sound, she heard ‘love acceptance warmth caring’ and ‘not me not mine not for ghosts’.

And for once, Maddie Fenton ignored her curiosity to focus on the crying ghost in their lab.

“Shh,” she told him, soothingly combing her fingers through his messy hair. “It’ll be alright, Phantom. We… It was our mistake. We were wrong.”

“We were so wrong,” Jack chimed in, rubbing circles on Phantom’s back. “We… You’re just a kid. How long have you been dead, kiddo? How old are you really?”

Phantom sniffled, and, voice warbling with emotion, said, “Two years. I— Sixteen.”

“Oh, sweetie.” He was so human, so young. He could’ve been her own son. “We’ve been so wrong. We never should’ve shot at you, never should’ve threatened you.”

“We let our assumptions lead us,” Jack agreed, quiet. Soft. “Phantom, we’re so sorry. Hey, shh. It’ll be alright.”

The ghost, so human and yet not, shook his head. Only slightly, just enough that Maddie’s hand didn’t dislodge.

“We’ll make it alright,” Maddie promised him, instead. Fierce, sharp. Determined. “Let us make it up, Phantom. Let us pay for our mistakes.”

“Don’t wanna,” he mumbled back, so quiet she could barely hear him. “Lemme leave.”

“Of course you can,” Jack assured him, still rubbing circles on Phantom’s back. “We won’t stop you, kiddo. We just want you to be safe.”

Phantom sniffled again. Slowly turned his head, until a single vivid green eye looked up at Maddie.

It was ringed with red, green-tinted tears still tracking down over his cheek.

“Do you?” he asked. He sounded… shattered. The echo of ghost-speak behind his voice wavered like glass in a storm.

“You’re just some kid in way over your head.” Maddie let her hand drop from his head, instead trying to convey her genuineness through her gaze. “You’re… barely a teenager. No one can—no one should—blame you for any of the damages you’ve caused, trying to help.”

“You’ve tried so hard, despite your death,” Jack chimed in, his hand stilling too. “You’ve died, and you’re still so good.”

“You’re so good, Phantom. I wish you were one of ours.” Maddie reached forward, slowly, wiping the tears off of his cheek. “If you ever need us, for anything, please don’t hesitate to come by.”

“I—” Phantom’s voice crackled, and he sniffled again. Wiped his own hand past the other eye. “I don’t— I can’t—”

“Please just promise us that.” Jack let his hand slip off of Phantom’s back, placing it on the edge of the table instead. He, too, stared pleadingly at Phantom. “We won’t force you to do anything, kiddo, we’re just asking. Let us help.”

Maddie slid the stained gloves over towards Phantom. “Phantom, we obviously remind you of your parents.”

The ghost hunched up again, slightly. Green spread over his cheeks like a blush. She pushed on. “You called me Mom when I cleaned off your wounds. You hid in the GAV because you felt safe in it, because it reminded you of your parents. They’re obviously not here, because you’ve died or because they’ve died or because of some combination of those, but you’re still allowed to want that comfort. And we are willing to give you that. It’s the least we can do, to repay what we’ve done to you, what we’ve threatened you with.”

“I—” His breath hitched again. “I don’t… I’ll keep it in mind.”

Well, she supposed they could hardly push for more. She didn’t think she’d be so open to accepting help from them either, if she’d been in Phantom’s place.

“Please do,” she told him instead. Patted him on the right knee. “Whatever it is, whatever you’re struggling with. You’re always welcome at our place. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered back. He wiped over his face again. “I gotta… I gotta get going.”

“Dinner plans, right?” She stepped backwards to give him some space. “You’d better eat well, young man.”

Phantom grunted, a noise vaguely underlined with acceptance. He stuck his arms through his sleeves, carefully pulling the jumpsuit back up over his upper body.

“And be careful with your injuries.” Jack handed Phantom the gloves, having apparently scooped them off of the table at some point. “Those stitches in your side will need some time to heal before you take them out, and your broken leg… Well, you’d know better than us how it heals, but still.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” Phantom grumbled back, pulling on his gloves. He grimaced at the left one, more green than white with his spilled ectoplasm. It had dried, crackling uncomfortably as he moved his fingers. “Despite the evidence of the contrary.”

He pushed himself off of the table, suddenly. Maddie jerked forward automatically, but Phantom hovered above the ground, his leg held limply.

The ghost raised further up, until he floated at their eye level. “I… Thanks. For helping me. And… the apologies, I guess.”

“It was the least we could do,” she assured him, crossing her arms loosely. “Please, Phantom, come to us if you need anything.”

“I’ll… keep it in mind.” He shimmered, turning transparent. Then, suddenly, he dove upwards, and then he was gone.

“Well…” Jack cleared his throat. “That… That happened.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking at the empty table. It’s surface was stained green with Phantom’s ectoplasm, a small puddle left where he’d bled the worst. “God, Jack. What have we done?”

“Something we’ve learned from. Something we won’t ever do again.” He looked up, meeting her eyes. “That’s all we can do, Mads. Make amends to the best of our abilities.”

She nodded, slowly. “We’d better get working on cleaning the lab. We’ll need to go through all our research on ghosts, strip it down to the base observations. Start over from scratch.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a thumb over the edge of the stain on the table, absentmindedly. “But first, we should focus on our own kids, I think.”

Maddie paused. Turned to look at the clock. “Oh lord, you’re right. I’d better get started on dinner.”

“I’ll start on cleaning the lab.” Jack nodded at the stairs. “You go take care of the wonderful kids we already have, instead of worrying about Phantom.”

“Thanks, honey.” She pressed a kiss against his cheek, before turning to rush up the stairs.

He was right. They already had two wonderful kids. Worrying about Phantom would do them no good, not unless the ghost would accept their help.

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Maddie stared in the startled blue eyes of her son, the lingering sounds of the conversation she’d just cut short between him and his sister.

“Oh, kids, I’m so sorry. I’ll get started on dinner right away.”

“Something distracting in the lab?” Jazz asked, getting out of her chair. “Can I help?”

“If you could help me peel these potatoes, that’d be wonderful…” She passed a pan and a knife to Jazz. “And, yes, I suppose you could say as much.”

Danny laughed. She turned to look at him, at his cautious grin. “Must be something big.”

“Yeah,” she answered, watching him angle his head slightly. Letting his black hair slide down his face, parting just right for her to see a flash of dark red against pale skin. A scab on his temple, right where… right where Phantom had had a scab, too.

But… surely that couldn’t be?

No, it was just her mind playing things off.

Right?

[junie-bugg]

The Heartrender - Chapter Two: Embers

Hey everyone!

Here’s chapter two, in which a truce is struck, crude jokes are made, and we learn more of Peeta’s childhood.

You can read here on Tumblr or here on AO3 (I suggest reading on AO3 because I add a poem at the beginning of each chapter that I feel fits nicely with the story’s themes or the chapter’s plot.)

Big shoutout to my beta reader @nonbinarypeeta​. You da best music💕

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Relationship: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark

Tags: Enemies to Lovers, witch!Katniss, witch-hunter!Peeta, AU - Shipwrecked, AU - Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Explicit Sexual Content, Furs and Fires, Angst and Fluff and Smut, sexually experienced Katniss, virgin Peeta, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Loss of Virginity, Laughter During Sex, Blood and Injury, Imprisonment, Peeta has some prejudices to work out, Peeta also has an accent, Inspired by Six of Crows

Summary:

He hated her. He hated her for what she was: an abomination, a demon sent to tear at the fabric of the natural world. He hated her for making him want to laugh. He hated her for being so brazen and sensuous and everything the women of his country were never allowed to be. But mostly he hated her because he realized he didn’t hate her. Not even a little bit.

After a shipwreck has left an abducted witch and a member of the ominous Order bent on wiping out her kind stranded on the icy shores of an uninhabited land, the two must work together to survive or face tearing each other apart in the process.

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

ALSO, I made a map! Yes, I am that level of writer nerd. (If you look closely, there’s a little Hunger Game’s reference in there. Let me know if you see it, lmaooo.)

Chapter Two: Embers

His commander had gone into the city for the night, leaving the crew on standby at the docks. Their ship, lovingly named The Bloody Rose, needed tending and Peeta, an exhausted soldier running on three hours of sleep, needed a drink. He longed for a pint of proper ale. Not the bitter swill that the ship’s cook had distilled. 

A chilled autumn wind whistled through the harbor, jostling netted shrouds and furled sails. The white and blue flag of Sjorkden snapped proudly above the crow’s nest where Thomas Jaclin quietly kept watch. There was a muted hush about the night, as if the world were holding its breath in anticipation, knowing something was about to happen. At this point, with his chores done and nothing left for him to do except lose another round of cards or go off to bed, Peeta wished something would. 

He was nursing a cup of moonshine and chatting with his friend, Yasser Pjengo, when they heard the sounds of a scuffle. He and Yasser crossed the deck and looked down onto the dock that the ship was moored to. 

There, struggling to drag someone up the gangplank, was the commander. 

“Commander on deck!” Peeta announced with all the authority he could muster, hoping his voice carried down to the lower levels to rouse the men from their games. Peeta had only recently been promoted to lieutenant, and he was going to prove he deserved it. He felt a rush of pride swell within him when the crew emerged from their sleeping quarters, blinking both the mist of alcohol and the gleam of gambling from their eyes. 

Commander Snow was of medium height with a thick beard and hard blue eyes. Though the hairs at his temples were gray, the way he carried himself was young. He spoke softly but commanded the kind of respect that caused listeners to lean in and catch every word. He now dragged a young girl with him onto the ship. Her red dress was torn and low cut, revealing the hollow between her breasts. A few strands of hair had been pulled from a tar-black braid to hang limply in front of her face. She had a blooming bruise on her jaw and a cut above her eye but otherwise seemed unharmed. 

“Men! Say hello to our newest addition. From what I’ve seen so far, she’s sure to be a feisty one.”

Some of the crew had laughed and hooted, including Peeta, but the girl snarled as she twisted and spat in the commander’s face. In return he sent a heavy punch to her gut, causing her to whimper and double over in pain. 

“I have to warn you all. This here is no ordinary witch. She’s a Heartrender.” 

Peeta sucked in a breath and felt a chill pass through the assembled crew like a breeze passes through dead grass. 

“A Heartrender…” 

“One of her kind cursed my uncle. Turned his feet backward.” 

“I heard they could snap your neck with a flick of a finger.” 

“They don’t just stop hearts. They cut them out and eat them.” 

Peeta had heard of Krellian Heartrenders. The rarest of the witches, Heartrenders could use their magic to manipulate bodies: peel the flesh from bone, collapse lungs, knot intestines, burst eyes in their sockets. He could only imagine what she would unleash upon them if her hands weren’t locked into those metal hand caps. 

Snow cleared his throat to quiet the men. A hush fell over the deck. 

“I see you’ve all heard the stories. If you let her out of those shackles, we’re all dead. I want at least one guard on her at all times.” His eyes shifted to Peeta in the front row. “Mellark, you take the first watch. Gerholt will take over at midnight, then Dawson, then Pjengo. This will be a rotating schedule. You’ll all get a chance with her before this voyage is over.” He twisted her arm, throwing her into the semicircle that Peeta and the crew had formed around them. She collapsed onto her stomach, a wilted heap of red dress and chains. “Now get her out of my sight.” 

Peeta and a few others bent down to lift her up as the commander retired to his quarters, but she swung out her arms to ward them off. 

“Don’t touch me,” she spat in Krellian. 

“Get up and walk or I’ll drag you, witch. Your choice,” Peeta growled. His accent was thick, but he knew by the way her nostrils flared that she’d understood him.

She stayed crouched on the ground, her metal covered hands in her lap. 

Peeta’s anger erupted. 

“Fine,” he snapped. He wrenched her off the floor, threw her over his shoulder, and listened to her screams the entire way down to the brig. 

X

During their slumber, the witch had commandeered his arm. 

She lay sound asleep, his bicep propped under her cheek like a pillow. He only awoke when his hand had gone numb, the blood trapped, circling and pricking within his fingers like a swarm of wasps scrabbling to get out from under his skin. He watched the subtle rise and fall of her chest, the pulse that fluttered at her temple. She looked peaceful. Almost innocent. But he knew what she was really capable of. 

Her head smacked the ground with a dull thud when he took his arm back. 

“Ow!” 

The witch glared at him as he massaged the feeling back into his palm. She made it a point to rub the tender spot on her head dramatically so that he’d feel bad. 

It didn’t work. 

“Get up,” he rumbled. 

The witch turned over and curled in on herself. “Five more minutes.” 

He rose from the nest of furs, grabbing one and wrapping it around his waist to cover his nakedness, then moved to sweep the curtain out of the doorway. From the watery yellow sun high in the sky, he determined it was noon. 

“Get up,” he growled again, injecting more anger into his tone. “We need to keep moving.” 

“Why? We found shelter,” the furry lump on the ground said. 

“If we want to find civilization we’re going to have to move. We need to get home as soon as possible.”

She turned on her side and rested her head in her hand. Her eyes gleamed like freshly polished silver in the light pouring past the curtain. “You’re letting me go home?”

“I meant my home,” he corrected, allowing the curtain to fall and shrouding them in dusk-like darkness once more.

There was a tense moment where both knew the time to act was upon them. Either kill the other or let them live. Both were risks. If Peeta killed the Heartrender, he’d be left to fend for himself. There’d be no magic to keep his blood warm. But if he hesitated and let her live in the hopes that he could return her to Sjorkden and have her tried for witchcraft, there was a chance she’d kill him down the line. It would be so easy to reach out and crush her windpipe, deaden those bright eyes, neutralize the threat. She may have magic but she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. Peeta had height, strength, and military training on his side. He was arrogant enough to assume the odds were in his favor.

He thought she was thinking along the same lines because she eyed his muscles warily. He was broad-shouldered and obscenely muscular, the product of a decade doing hard physical training at the academy. She couldn’t crush his heart if he lashed out and stalled her hands first. He may be heavy but he was surprisingly quick. After all, he hadn’t become a witcher for nothing. 

She pursed her lips as if considering something. “I think we’d both sleep better at night if we made a truce.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Your word is as valuable as a campfire is to a fish.”

She scowled slightly, a deep line forming between her furrowed brows. “This isn’t a promise that I’ll never harm you, just as I know you won’t agree to never harm me. You are a witch hunter after all. Bloodshed is your life. But let’s make a pact that until we make it out of this, we help each other.” She paused a beat and looked away as if ashamed. “After that, all bets are off.”

Peeta had nodded, but this truce didn’t mean he trusted her to stick to it. In fact, it made him even more suspicious of her. What kind of demon agreed to the drawing out her own demise? He thought her gamble unwise and surmised she had some angle to play against him. He’d have to be especially careful from here on out.

 They faced away from each other and put their clothes on quietly. She still wore the red dress, the one from The Bloody Rose. It looked looser on her now, but the sleeves were elegant, poufed at the shoulders, and fitted down to the wrists. The skirt was still full, even after she had spent so much time sitting in her cell and thrashing about in the sea. She would have looked ready for a party if the dress wasn’t so dirty and torn. 

 She caught him watching her and winked. “Like what you see?” She twirled and the skirt flared like the petals of a blooming rose, twisting and shimmering in the low light. 

Peeta grunted as he did the last button on his dusky blue jacket. His undershirt was still damp against his skin. “It doesn’t fit you where it counts.” He gestured towards her breasts. 

 She had snorted then, happily surprised he was loosening up. 

They set out with empty hands, only having the clothes on their backs and the furs wrapped around their shoulders. The witch had taken a liking to the black one. She stroked it between her thumb and forefinger like a child would clutch to a blanket for comfort. 

The briny scent of the sea permeated the air and even so high up as they were on the cliffside, Peeta felt the fine spray of the waves collect on his cheeks. The constant rushing of wind blew his hair back and whipped the fur about his shoulders. 

They had been walking for hours when the witch asked, “What do you miss most about home?” 

Peeta wished they could just be quiet. 

“A bed to myself.” 

“Right,” the witch crowed wickedly. “I can feel how much you hate sleeping next to me. I felt it pressing into my hip last night.” 

Peeta’s cheeks flushed scarlet. He had never been with a woman. He was a member of the Order: chaste until he earned his talisman and won the right to choose a wife. For his service to the Order he’d be allowed the hand of a nobleman’s daughter. Pretty, young Sjorkden maidens with hair of palest gold and soft, supple bodies. Daughters of the nation raised in the ways of womanly charm and domestic knowledge, basket weaving and child-rearing, dancing and singing and carving. 

He had been dreaming of what his future wife would look like, what their first carnal encounters would entail, the holy honor in producing a child. As a father, a former witcher, and the husband to a woman with status, he would be granted an official seat on the council of Rjaka. His first solid foothold on the ladder of power. It was a lower rung, but it was a start. If only he could get back to his post and fulfill his service, then he would be given his freedom and permitted to marry. 

Those dreams, full of glory, sex, and fatherhood, were the source of his arousal and frustrations, not the witch’s soft skin against his body. Her deep complexion and ebony hair were not of Sjorkden. Her lips were too large, her nose too wide, her body too slender and bony. She looked as if she had spent years scrounging about for meals, with ribs and hips that protruded like sticks in a canvas bag. He liked rounded women with pillowy bosoms, not scrawny little birds. 

Or so he told himself. 

“Why do you say such lewd things?” 

“Because I can. And because I like when you turn red. It does wonders for that pale complexion of yours, valkrӕlla.” 

Valkrӕlla. 

Barbarian.

“You’re disgusting.”

“You like it,” she teased and continued walking, swaying her hips beneath the cloak of fur clasped at her throat and sweeping a glossy curtain of hair over her shoulder. Even here, in the permafrost fields of the tundra, she still smelled of moss and jasmine, as if the misty forests of Krell dwelled within her pores. 

Peeta scowled. He hated her. He hated her for what she was: an abomination, a demon sent to tear at the fabric of the natural world. He hated her for making him want to laugh. He hated her for being so brazen and sensuous and everything the women of his country were never allowed to be. But mostly he hated her because he realized he didn’t hate her. 

Not even a little bit. 

X

They walked in the hopes of finding a fishing village, or maybe a trading outpost, somewhere with an inn they could stay at. But as the day dragged on and the sun dipped precariously close to the sea, Peeta started losing hope. The witch stumbled behind him, making her way over embedded boulders and paling tufts of dead brush sticking out from the snowbanks. She squinted against the burning red sunset staining the landscape in bleeding color.

“Maybe we should head back,” she said, though they both knew this wasn’t an option. They were many hours from the whaling camp and turning around now meant they’d just be back at square one, with no food and no fire. 

 Peeta hadn’t been hungry last night, but his adrenaline had burned off, leaving his body weak and watery. He salivated at the thought of rosemary crusted mutton and boiled potatoes, buttered peas in ceramic crockery, honeyed mead, and angel cake with lemon filling. What he wouldn’t give to be back in the vast stone dining hall of the academy, laughing with Yasser through full mouths of meat and drink. After a feast, all the boys would tell stories in large circles or spar each other for prizes. Peeta had been one of the best hand-to-hand fighters among his peers and as such had accumulated a treasure trove of their makeshift awards. The wishbone of a chicken. A fork with a bent prong. A pearl someone had found in an oyster. When he had tired of winning, he would climb the stone steps to his dormitory and sleep dreamlessly on a goose down mattress. He’d wake to the rising sun and Yasser’s deep snores and know that he’d have a day of training ahead of him. Advanced lessons in combat, weapons handling and upkeep, survival skills, sailing, and instruction on foreign languages. He was a well oiled hunting machine, as he was raised to be by the masters. 

 But that was the past, a boyhood he would never return to. Peeta was a man now, and nobody was coming to instruct him. He was on his own. 

 Well, not entirely. He looked back at the witch. Her skin glowed deep bronze in the fading light and her dark hair whipped loosely about her angled face. She caught his eye and winked. 

 No, he thought grimly. I am not alone. 

X

Peeta had only been seasick once. It had been his first time on a ship, sailing from his birthplace to his new home. As the other boys “oohed” and “aahed” at the gray stone towers of the academy rising up from the mists, Peeta had vomited over the banister. 

The others had made fun of him for it. Groups targeted him in the corridors, tripping him or pulling on his hair. Others mocked him, knocked him down hard in training, and then pretended to retch dramatically as he struggled to his feet, fighting to hold back tears. They called him ‘Greenie’, for the color of his skin on that first voyage.

It was better than ‘runt’ but he still resented himself for it, ashamed he had shown weakness. He trained hard after that, alone if he had to. Classes would be over, dinner would be served in the great hall, but the masters would find him in the training rooms practicing his punches on a dummy, or throwing knives, or moving through his stances with a blade. The hours of solitude paid off, and once the students were old enough to compete for rank in the sparring circles, no one came close to Peeta’s brutal technique or raw ferocity. 

And after he broke Geoff Tonson’s leg, no one ever called him ‘Greenie’ again. 

Peeta climbed down into the bowels of the ship, feeling the slight sway of the ocean lapping against the hull as he descended. The Heartrender had been on board for two weeks now and hadn’t earned her sealegs. He shriveled his nose as he came upon her cell. The acrid scent of vomit filled the compartment.

“Time to switch?” Wilhelm asked from his seat in the corner. 

Peeta nodded. He hated guarding the Heartrender. She was in her own cell, isolated from the other witches he and the crew had captured. At least when you guarded the others you could eavesdrop on their conversations. It wasn’t much, but it was something. 

Wilhelm Larone, a fresh-faced recruit on his first-ever witcher voyage, rose and stretched languidly. He hadn’t been able to grow a full beard, but his top lip held some promising peach fuzz. “I thought a Heartrender would be more entertaining,” he said, his dark eyes sparkling as a thought occurred to him. “Hey!” He rattled her bars. “Lift up your dress.” 

The witch slumped in the corner, her skin waxy and coated in a film of sweat. Her hair was matted and oily. She blinked slowly at the wall and ignored Wilhelm’s racket. 

He sighed like a disappointed child at the zoo. “I thought the commander said she was feisty.”

“That was before she had vomit on her dress,” Peeta said dryly. 

The witch responded to Peeta’s voice, turning her head slightly to watch him between lanky strands of hair. A chill ran down Peeta’s spine at the intensity of her gaze. They hadn’t spoken since the first night when he had thrown her over his shoulder and dragged her into this very cell, but she remembered him. 

Peeta tore his eyes away. 

Wilhelm had placed his foot on the lowest step, moving to leave when she croaked: “Water.” 

“When was the last time she was fed?” Peeta asked. 

Wilhelm turned, a confused look on his face. “I don’t know. Ask the commander.” 

“At least get her a cup of water before you go to bed. We want to keep her alive for the trial.” 

Wilhelm smiled wickedly. “I have a better idea.” He jumped off the stairs and sauntered over to the Heartrender’s cell once more. “You thirsty, witch? Here, drink up.” 

Peeta watched in horror as Wilhelm unbuttoned his pants and began pissing through her cell bars. Wilhelm’s eyes, which Peeta thought were too far apart in his head, darted up to the older man’s face. “You owe me two gold pieces if I can get it in her mouth.” 

The witch made a strangled sound of disgust and tried to move away, but she was already in the corner. There was nowhere to go and her dress was soon soaked a deeper red. 

“That’s enough,” Peeta said, but Wilhelm’s stream only grew stronger. “I said that’s enough!” he barked and shoved Wilhelm away. 

In his surprise, Wilhelm sprayed the wall. “Damn, Mellark. It's a joke. Dawson’s right. You are no fun.” He shook the last drops of piss from his cock and then stuffed himself back into his pants. He turned to the witch and winked. “Maybe next time you can drink straight from the source. If you promise not to bite of course.” He then fixed his uniform and lumbered up the stairs. Peeta watched him and his half-mustache go. 

“Krą khiăh,” she whispered after the creaking of Wilhelm’s steps faded. 

Thank you.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Peeta snapped. “It was unsanitary, and your kind deserves hellfire, not some quiet death on a ship.”

Peeta spent the remainder of the night sitting on the chair in the corner, breathing in the scents of piss and vomit and misery. He hid his annoyance when the witch started sobbing. 

But the next time he reported for guard duty, he brought her a cup of water.

[majingojira]

Godzilla as a PC for D&D

Yes, you read that right.  I’ve figured it out.  It’s so simple that I had to share it.  Admittedly, it falls appart a little at 20, but this is damn solid otherwise. 

But there are some concessions.  Namely, to size.  Godzilla is many things, and most of them are huge. However, since he is a character first and foremost, he is going to need to interact with the rest of the cast, so the only giant size he’s going to get is through a magic item or potion. 

We’ll be following Tulok’s example for this one by and large, so we’re going to start out with our goals. 

1. Atomic Breath -- he’s going to need to project beams of “SCREW YOU!” energy at enemies. 

2. Juggernaut - Godzilla is very much a tank, and his stats should reflect that. 

3. Amphibious - Godzilla is equally at home in the water as he is on land. 

We’ll begin with the Standard Point Array. We’ll start with Dexterity (15).  Despite his size, Godzilla is quite agile for his size, so a smaller Godzilla would be quite agile, and while we aren’t dumping Strength, it’s not as important for the overall power of this build.  Following that is Wisdom (14).  Godzilla is a clever in the way Animals are clever.  Following that is Constitution (13).  Surviving thermonuclear detonation takes a lot.  Strength is next (12), I’d like it to be higher, but sacrifices have to occur somewhere. Charisma is next (10).  You work mostly through intimidation anyway. Our dump stat is Intelligence (8). Godzilla is not clever in the traditional sense of the word. 

So, the array looks like this:  Strength: 12 Dexterity: 15 Consitution: 13 Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 10 For race, go with Lizardfolk.  Lizardfolk have a +2 to Constitution (15) and +1 Wisdom (15).  They have a base speed of 30ft.  

They can Bite dealing 1d6 Slashing Damage.  The Hungry Jaws ability means they can take a bite as a Bonus Acton, and gain temporary Hit Points from it equal to their Constitution Modifier once every short rest.  Lizardfolk are also Cunning Artisans, making weapons from the carcasses of foes they defeat.  Godzilla ALMOST did this to Ebirah, so I say it tracks.  Lizardfolk can Hold their Breath for 15 Minutes at a time, and have a swim speed of 30ft. 

They also have Hunters Lore, allowing them to pick two skills from Animal Handling, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival. Go with Stealth and Perception.  

Lizardfolk also have Natural Armor, meaning their AC is 13 + Dexterity Modifier.   They also know how to speak Common and Draconic. 

For Background, Godzilla is a being from the deepest oceans, so Outlander is probably the best bet.  This nabs Athletics and Survival.  For Class, we’re going with Monk.  Godzilla doesn’t really use weapons that often, mostly relying on his fists to to do the fighting.  They gain two skills, grab Acrobatics and Athletics.  As a monk, he gets Unarmed Defense and Martial Arts. However, as of right now his Natural Armor is better than the bonus Unarmed Defense would provide and they don’t stack, so right now his AC is 15.  

Martial Arts allows him to deal 1d4 + his Dexterity or Strength bonus on unarmed strikes, and can make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action when he attack.  Godzilla lays down beatdowns like crazy.   

Second Level Monks gain Ki and Unarmored Movement.  Godzilla’s movement speed increases by +10, and this applies to his swimming speed as well, as long as he doesn’t have Armor or aren’t using a Shield. 

Ki is what fuels a Monk. At level 2 he has 2 Ki Points. He can use this to perform Flurry of Blows (1 Ki point to get 2 unarmed strikes as a Bonus Action), Patient Defense (1 Ki Point to Dodge as a bonus action), and Step of the Wind (1 Ki to Disengage or Dash as a Bonus Action).  The save for Ki effects is equal to 8 + the Proficiency Bonus + the Wisdom Modifier. 

3rd Level Monks gain Deflect Missiles, allowing Godzilla to use a Reaction to catch missiles, reducing ranged attacks by 1d10 + Dexterity Modifier + Monk Level.  If the damage is reduced to 0, and the missile is small enough, he can spend a Ki point to toss it right back at the foe and treat it as a Monk weapon. 

But also at this stage, he gets his Monastic Tradition.  Here, go with Sunsoul Monk.  Sunsoul Monks get Radiant Sun Bolt at 3rd level.  This hurls a searing bolt of radiant energy at a foe. This deals damage equal to the Monk’s Unarmed Strike damage.  They can spend 1 Ki point to attack with this beam twice as their action.  Flavor text that the beams are coming from his Mouth (or Back, or Tail) and we have his first type of Atomic Breath. 

4th level monks gain an Ability Score improvement.  Increase Dexterity and Wisdom by 1 each (making them 16). They also gain Slow Fall, allowing Godzilla to reduce any Falling damage they take by 5x his Monk level. 

5th level monks gain an Extra Attack, as well as Stunning Strike. Godzilla can spend 1 Ki point to force the target of his pummeling's to make a Constitution save or be stunned until the end of his next turn.  The die for their unarmed strikes (and Radiant Sun Bolts) increases to 1d6.  

6th level monks gain Ki-Empowered Strikes, meaning his fists are now magical to bypass resilience. Sunsoul Monks also gain Searing Arc Strike, allowing them to spend 2 Ki points (they have 6 at this point) to cast Burning Hands as a Bonus Action after taking the Attack Action.  For every Ki Point spent on the Searing Hands after that increases the spell’s level (and thus its damage di) by 1. So now we have our second “Breath Weapon” to flavor text.  The amount of Ki that can be spent on this ability in total is equal to 1/2 the Monk’s level.  They also get increase their Unarmored Movement to +15ft. 

7th level Monks get Evasion. Meaning on a successful Dexterity Save, they take no damage, and only half damage when they fail.  Flavor this as walking through the blasts and it should be good.  They also get Stillness of Mind, allowing Godzilla to spend an action to end the effects of Charmed or Frightened. 

8th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement.  Bump Dexterity (18) for better hits and better Evasiveness. 

9th level Monks get the ability to run along vertical surfaces and across liquids. If there were only things big enough for Godzilla to climb, he could totally do this on the regular.  Maybe. 

10th level Monks gain Purity of Body, making them immune to Ki and Poison.  Godzilla’s movement speed also increases to +20ft. 

11th level Monks have their Unarmed Strike damage raised to 1d8.  Sunsoul Monks also gain the Searing Sunburst, creating an orb of light that explodes over a 20ft radius dealing Radiant Damage.  It forces a Constitution save, the victims taking 2d6 Radiant Damage. This has a range of 150ft and simply costs an Acton.  Up to 3 Ki can be spent to increase the damage, each Ki adding 2d6 (meaning the biggest boom for this is 8d6).  And now we have all the breath weapons. 

12th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement. Cap Dexterity for the best hits and best AC you can get. 

13th level Monks get Tongue of the Sun and Moon, meaning they can talk to anyone. This includes other creatures as long as they understand a language. Which explains “Monster Talk” perfectly. 

14th level Monks have a +25 bonus to their movement speed and Diamond Soul.  They are now proficient in all saving throws and can spend 1 Ki to re-roll a failed save and take the second result. 

15th level Monks have Timeless Body, meaning they no longer age physically, and no longer need food or water. 

16th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement. Bump Wisdom (18) for better saves on your special attacks. 

17th level Monks bump their Unarmed Attack die up to 1d10, and gain their last monastic tradition feature.  This is the Sun Shield.  At will, they can become wreathed in luminous magical aura, shedding bright light in a 30ft radius, and dim light an additional 30ft.  This is turned on and off with a bonus action.  Even better, when hit with a melee attack when ‘glowing’, Godzilla can use a reaction to deal radiant damage to the creature equal to 5 + his Wisdom Modifier.  We now have the G-Pulse. 

18th level Monks have +30 movement speed as well as Empty Body.  for 4 Ki, Godzilla can now become Invisible for 1 Minute, as well as Resistant to all damage save Force damage.  For 8 Ki, he can now astral project.  Even Ghosts aren’t safe from Godzilla’s wrath. And he can disappear as needed when under heavy attack.  

19th level Monks have an Ability Score Improvement, or a feat. Get the Tough feat to fully represent how thick the King of Monsters is with 38 extra hit points. 

Our Capstone is the 20th level of Monk is Perfect Self.  When a Monk rolls Initiative and has no Ki remaining, he regains 4 Ki.  

So, what’s good and bad about this build? 

On the positives:  Mobility - Godzilla can move extremely fast on several different types of terrain.  

Magical Attacks - Meaning you get to bypass many resistances, and Radiant Damage is not resisted that often (except by holy things).  You also have Fire and 

Sticking Around - We have an AC of 19 with Evasion, as well as becoming Resistant to all damage (save Force) 1 minute.  The Invisibility is just a bonus perk. Throw in the Tough feat and we have 180 Hit Points on top of it, putting you in the range of front-line fighters.  Also, you’re a monk an utterly unique Backstory unrelated to monasteries! 

On the negative side, he’s dumb as a post. So he may know things and have ‘wisdom’ but who will listen to anything but a pummeling? 

The range is largely short, and Ki is an issue for long battles. 

Finally, socially, the character is awkward as hell.  No negative modifier, but he is a Lizardfolk.  

But you don’t play Godzilla to play someone eloquent and dashing.  Crush your enemies and remind them who the King of the Monsters really is. 

[hannahindie]

If I Could Start Again

Characters: Dean Winchester, Reader Word Count: 2,387 Warnings: A little angst. Just a touch. Some language and alcohol consumption, which shouldn’t really be a surprise. A/N: I wrote this for @meg-wayward-af’s Blues Challenge, and my prompt was Hurt by Johnny Cash. I’ve had this particular idea for awhile now, and when I got this song, I decided to combine the two. I think it turned out pretty well, and I hope you enjoy it!

Beta’d by @trexrambling, who is the most encouraging water bear on the planet. “I love this description on a level that runs deeper than the grand canyon.”

As always, tags are at the bottom. If you would like to be added, please let me know.

The bar is quiet, although that isn't unusual. We don't get many visitors here, and they never stick around for long. I take a deep breath and look at the clock. It says the same thing it has said for as long as I can remember; five ‘til midnight. Time doesn't really matter here, it's more of an aesthetic rather than an actual concept. It's quiet… No one has come in for awhile, and the jukebox sits silently, the records like blackened teeth in their neat rows, waiting for their time.

I wipe down the counter, though it doesn't really need it. The worn wood shines dully in the muted light from the frosted glass globes hanging just above it. Years of visitors have given it character; the tell tale signs of elbows as they leaned forlornly against it while they told me about their lives, their losses, unsure of where they were or how they got there. I already knew the story. I know everyone's story that passes through here. But that's the whole point of this place...for them to figure it out.

My eyes roam across the empty tables, and I feel a little sad. I know I shouldn't, but I've come to think of this place as a second chance for people, a way to start over. If there aren't any people, there aren't any second chances. Something about that is fundamentally sad, a bone crushing realization that either no one deserves it or there's no belief in people anymore. I grab a book from under the counter and settle onto my barstool, anticipating yet another quiet night.

That is, until I hear the quiet whirring of the jukebox as it comes alive, the arm clicking into place as it swings around and selects a record from the seemingly impossible amount of choices, then drops it softly onto the turntable. The needle scratches for a moment, cracking as it seeks purchase on the vinyl, then finally transitions into a low acoustic intro. My chest aches before the voice even starts, before I see who walks through the door. There's only one person this song would play for.

I hurt myself today To see if I still feel I focus on the pain The only thing that's real The needle tears a hole The old familiar sting Try to kill it all away But I remember everything

The door swings open, and footsteps cross the threshold, heavy boots against hardwood. Despite knowing who it is going to be, seeing him is still a shock. There are certain exceptions to the rule, and those exceptions never make it here. They have an entirely different path to take, one that doesn't involve sitting in a bar and talking about their feelings. I like to think of it as a VIP pass, no waiting, no fuss. Something is...off.

What have I become My sweetest friend Everyone I know goes away In the end And you could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt

He makes it to the bar and sits down, his arms folded on the counter. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow, “A little heavy for a bar, isn't it?”

I clear my throat, “What?”

He nods towards the jukebox, “The Man in Black. I'm surprised you have this on vinyl, though.”

I shrug, “It's better than the Nine Inch Nails version.”

He smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes, “Fair enough.” He’s looking at me, but it's more like through me as he searches the shelf for what he's looking for. I already know; his is a simple request, a hunter’s request, but he's getting the good stuff this time. I turn and grab a bottle of whiskey off the shelf above me, the highest shelf we've got, and I turn to see him looking at me with what appears to be amusement. “That’s gonna be a little pricey, isn't it?”

I shake my head, “Nope. It all costs the same.” I forego the ice and tip the bottle directly into the glass, then slide it across the smooth wood. He sips it slowly as the music plays on.

I wear this crown of thorns Upon my liar's chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair

He closes his eyes, and for a moment I allow myself to stare at him. I never expected to see him in person, much less this close up, and I find myself drawn to this sad, tired man who has given up seemingly everything. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes are deep, and I wonder what it would look like if he were to laugh. He hasn't shaved, and I'm tempted to reach out and trace his jawline, curious as to how rough his five o’clock shadow would feel against the soft pads of my fingers. I'm not accustomed to feeling things this strongly. Obviously, I was put here for a reason, my curiosity being a strong contender, but mainly I think it is because I have a strong connection with those that are outcast, different. But this is far more than that. The longer I stare at him, the more I wonder...why is he here? This was never his destiny, so why?

Beneath the stains of time The feelings disappear You are someone else I am still right here Slowly, his eyes open. The bright green is startling in the low light. They search mine, his brows knitting together as if he were thinking about something. “Why...how did I get here?”

There it is. The question they always ask, though I'm surprised he's asking. I thought he'd know. I tilt my head, “What were you doing before?” I avoid directly telling him; he’ll get there, and I imagine he’ll get there faster than most.

“I was with my brother, we were...we were on a job. We got separated, and then…” he trails off, but looks down and runs a palm across his stomach. “Aww, shit.” I smile gently at him, and he looks back up at me. It surprises me to see that he almost looks relieved. “Am I dead?”

“Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of dead. Are we talking dead dead, or Winchester dead?”

“I guess either...both...I don't know.” He throws back the rest of his whiskey and slides the glass back to me. He isn't upset, he isn't trying to barter or make a deal. He just watches me, his expression one of curiosity more than anything.

“You're not really either...yet. Not permanently, anyway.” I pour another glass and he takes it, but doesn't immediately drink. He just tilts his head and looks at me questioningly.

“What's that supposed to mean? What is this place?”

I grab a beer from the cooler and pop the cap, “Consider this a type of...in-between.”

“You mean I'm in the veil?”

“Nah, not quite.” I take a sip of beer and lean against the back counter, “This is the in-between of your life and the veil. It's not a common practice, but some people are afforded an extra stop. Those who are uncertain, or maybe deserve a second chance. There are many reasons; each person is different.”

He frowns, then takes a sip of his whiskey. He's silent for a moment as he slowly twirls the glass in his fingers, watching the reflection of the amber liquid that is being cast onto the bar.

“People who deserve a second chance, huh? What about a seventh, eighth chance? Anyone else get those?”

I shrug, “Not usually. But it's also not up to me. I'm just here to greet and help those that are unaware come to terms with their fate, and for those that are allowed to go back a chance to talk it out.” I take a swig of beer, savoring the earthy flavor.

He smirks, “What if I don't want to talk it out, huh? What if I just get up and walk out?”

I shrug again, “Dean Winchester not wanting to talk about feelings, color me surprised. As far as I'm concerned, you can walk out that door and not come back. But I think you need to decide if you truly want to go back. Do you?” He is silent, his eyes on his hands, and I suddenly realize why he's here. “You don't want to go back...you want to die.” I say it softly, mostly to myself, but he looks up, and I can see the tears trapped in his lashes.

“How do you know who I am, anyway? Are you an angel? What did you do to end up with this gig?” His voice is tight, but he manages to blink away his tears, and his air of carelessness returns.

“I’m not...I’m not an angel.” This is where it gets tricky; no one has ever asked me what I am, not even the hunters. I guess they're always so worried about themselves and their fate, my presence is just a side note that gets them on their way.

“Then what are you?” he asks quietly, his eyes on my mouth as I take another swallow of beer and lick the stray droplets from my bottom lip. I can't say anyone has ever looked at me like this, either.

“I'm a reaper.” And there it is, out in the open. I brace myself for his reaction. I know his past with reapers hasn't always been pleasant, and I'm assuming meeting yet another one under the guise of the friendly, neighborhood bartender is not high on the list either.

He just snorts in surprise and drinks the rest of his whiskey, “A reaper? You think you've seen it all, then you die and end up at Cheers with a reaper. Where's Diane?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?” I'm feeling a little ballsy now. The great Dean Winchester is more personable than I’ve always been led to believe. I walk around the end of the bar and hop up to sit on the counter next to him.

He looks at me with an eyebrow raised, “You still didn't say how you got stuck with a job like this.”

I lean back on my hands and cross my legs, “No other reaper wants to do it. They think what's dead should stay dead. They think it's a waste of time.”

“Don't you?”

“No, I don't. Humans are...they're amazing. They're full of faults, and conflict, but they keep trying. They keep loving and caring and protecting, and they try to be the best self they can. I've spoken to so many people who question that about themselves despite the good they've done. They question if they deserve to go back, or if they'd be a burden to whoever they're going back to. There's always the handful that beg to be sent back, but the behavior is usually the same.” I turn sideways and cross my legs under me so that I can look at him straight on. “But then there's you.”

He looks up at me then, the curiosity replaced with something else, “What about me?”

I sigh, “Do I really need to point it out?” He continues to look at me silently, which doesn't surprise me. “You aren't questioning it. You aren't torn. You truly believe that you don't deserve another chance and that you're more of a burden than anything else. You think the world is better off without you, that Sam will be better without you.” I break my own rule and reach out to lay my hand over his.

He looks down at where our hands are and shakes his head, “How do you know that? You just met me.”

I smile sadly, “Because you're Dean Winchester. It might be the first time you've been here, and I might not be high up on the list of reapers, but I hear things, I observe things. I can feel it.” I squeeze his hand and he looks up at me, and the desperation and sadness in his eyes is almost too much for even me to handle. How does one person hold that much inside and not implode?

“So, this is where you have a choice. You can stay here, make the decision to move on. You have that option. If you do decide to take that route, you'll leave behind a legacy, legends of the man who saved the world. Your brother will be lost without you, your friends will mourn...but life will go on. If you go back, you'll keep the world safe. And I know that isn't fair, but good things will happen for you too. You'll be with Sam, and Castiel...you'll be with your family. I can't choose for you, I can’t push you towards a specific end...well, I'm not supposed to. But Dean...there's a reason you ended up here. No one comes here when the decision is already made. If anyone knows that, it would be you. So what will it be?”

“I don't...I don't know. I'm just so tired. I'm tired of fighting, tired of letting people down...I'm tired of losing everyone. Sam needs to learn to live without me...we’re just crutches to each other. He's gotta learn to survive on his own.”

I nod, “Fair enough. But are those things reason enough to give up?”

Dean sighs, “No, they aren't.” He stands, and I reluctantly pull my hand back from his and turn so that my legs are dangling over the edge of the bar. “Thanks for the whiskey…” he trails off, and I realize I never told him my name.

“Y/N. It’s Y/N.”

He smiles, then leans in and brushes his lips against the corner of my mouth. “Thanks, Y/N. Maybe I'll see you around sometime.”

I laugh quietly, “I hope not, Winchester. I don't want to have this conversation again.” He chuckles and gives a small wave as he walks towards the door. He disappears through it as the jukebox fades out, and I wonder if I'll ever see him again.

If I could start again A million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way

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[marwritesgood]

Hallucinate | I. Lahey

Pairing ;  Isaac x Alpha!Reader

Timeframe ; S3E6 (Motel California)

Summary ; In which Isaac has difficulties trusting Y/n at first, due to her long-term friendship with Peter Hale. However, when he witnesses her hallucinations, it dawns on him that maybe they weren’t so different after all.

Warnings ; descriptions of an abusive father. death of a mother. suicide attempt.

A/N ; Day 2 of 31 Days of Christmas.

This imagine is also one of my darker ones, and the themes of it can be very harmful and triggering for victims of self inflicted abuse or domestic violence. These topics are very heavy and not for the faint-hearted, so please be very weary and take good care of yourself.

Alongside that, never hesitate to message me should you ever need someone to confide in, my inbox will always be open for anyone who needs a friend.

Peter Hale was trouble. That was a matter of fact not an opinion. Derek and I had been friends for as long as I could remember, so ultimately, a friendship soon blossomed between I and his uncle. It was strange, of course, having close friends who were more than 4 years older than me, but that was the effect those boys had on other people. Once they were in your lives, there was no way of kicking them out.

I had moved away in my Freshman year of High School, following the house fire that killed almost all of Derek’s family members. I begged my parents to let me stay with Derek, because I could’t bear the thought of leaving him to grieve all on his own, but to stay in Beacon Hills would have been equivalent to putting a bright red target of the backs of everyone I loved;

My parents thought that by moving away from our hometown, we would, ultimately, be escaping from the clutches of Kate Argent and her family. However, within a year of moving away, the hunters managed to catch up to us. I soon became very alone in the small town I was in. I became the notorious girl who was the walking embodiment of a jinx, because in what world does a house fire kill everyone except for one person?

So, as a result of the immense loneliness I experienced subsequent to going from having an overcrowded home to no home at all, when Derek called me to tell me that Peter was resurrected, courtesy of a redheaded banshee, I did not hesitate to use that as an excuse to move back home. 

Nothing too significant seemed to have changed when I returned to Beacon Hills. Sure, plenty of familiar faces were not so familiar anymore, and new people were brought into the town, plenty of which formed a pack together. I knew that, if I planned on sticking around, which I did, I needed to be on good terms with as many people as possible, and I managed to do so with lots of the people my age at Beacon Hills High. Scott Mccall. Lydia Martin. Stiles Stilinski. Hell, even the Argent girl was beginning to warm up to me. Everyone was friendly and somewhat welcoming towards me.

Except for Mr Isaac Lahey. 

“She should be on your list of suspect, Stiles,” I heard him mutter from the backseat of the bus, where he sat behind Scott and Stiles. He was completely oblivious to the fact that I, too, was a werewolf, an alpha for Pete’s sake, and that I could hear him clear as day. “I mean, she shows up out of nowhere, and even after being her for nearly a month, we still know nothing about her… Not to mention she’s friends with Peter. Anyone who’s friends with that guy should not be trusted.”

I rolled my eyes and tucked a strand of hair behind my right ear. Trust Isaac to be that one person who did everything he possibly could to convince people I was the bad guy. It didn’t matter where the conversation began, Isaac always managed to mention his skepticism about my true agenda. 

“Leave her alone, Isaac,” Scott said, sighing tiredly. “We shouldn’t judge her just because she’s friends with Peter. Maybe if you got over that you’d understand why the rest of us trust her. She’s not as terrible as you make her out to be, Isaac… Just give her chance.”

“She’s an alpha, Scott,” he reiterates, unfazed by anything Scott had to say to him. “Do you realize what that means? It means that she’s either your level of goodness or she killed someone to gain her status. And, judging by her poor choice in friends and frequent hostility, my money is on the latter.”

At this point, my blood has reached its boiling point, and Scott must have already sensed it, because when I abruptly stood up and turned around, he was already watching me, scared for what I was about to say to his tactless friend.

“I get it, Isaac,” I begin, glaring at him despite my face displaying almost no emotions. “Believe me, I get it. You don’t like me. You don’t trust me. You despise the fact that Peter is my friend and you’re frustrated with the fact that your friends still trust me in spite of all that. I don’t give a shit about a lot of things, like this stupid bus trip I’m being forced to go on, or your irrelevant uninformed opinion about me. What I do give a shit about, however, is blonde-haired, blue-eyed little betas talking about me like they know half the crap I have been though.”

“Y/n, I’m-” he says softly, his expression flooded with instant regret. I hesitated to stay angry at him, as it did seem like my message had been received, but the memory of my family re-entered my mind, and I couldn’t control the anger and frustration that came subsequently.

“- And you don’t, Isaac,” I yell angrily, forgetting that we were in a school bus full of nosy teenagers. “You don’t know a single thing about me. You don’t know the life I’ve had. The memories I’ve shared with Peter and Derek that have led me to be their friends for as long as I can remember. You don’t know how I became and Alpha. You do not know me, and you never will, so stop talking about me like you do, or so help me God I will take one of your pretty little scarves and shove it up your-”

Coach Finstock blew his whistle at at an deafening volume, before angrily pointing to my seat at the front of the bus. I turn around, after ensuring everyone had gone back to chatting amongst themselves, and I glare one last time at Isaac, but this time with my bright red eyes. 

“-and the last room goes to Y/n and…”

Coach holds up the final key and squints his eye as he attempts to read whatever he had written on the sheet of paper attached to his clipboard. The bus we were on had crashed, leaving us students in the middle of nowhere without any place to go except for the stingy motel just a few blocks away from the crash site. Coach sorted everyone into groups of two, according to gender, and my name was the last of girls to be read out.

“Looks like it’s just you, Y/n.”

“What’s new,” I mutter quietly to myself, as I marched up, snatched my key out of Coach Finstock’s hand and head straight towards my allocated room. I had no idea that Isaac had been keeping an eye for me and heard what I said under my breath. However, what he heard was what, thankfully lead him to check up on me later that night, and ultimately wake me up from my most terrifying recurring nightmare.

I took my jacket off and chucked it onto the second bed in the room I was given, before taking my shoes off and walking into the bathroom. I heard footsteps and chatter from McCall and his friends, but just assumed that whatever issue they had going on would be quickly resolved. 

I start to sing a tune to the last song I had been listening to on my phone, as I washed my face, ready to sleep away the overbearing exhaustion I felt. That was until the sound of my voice became overpowered by a loud ringing inside my head. Squeezing my eyes shut, I place my hands on opposite sides of my head to try and block out the sound, which works almost too quickly.

“What the fu-” I exclaim, before I am cut off instantly when I open my eyes ad see dead father standing in front of me, very much alive. We are still in the bathroom of my motel room, but he is glaring angrily at me the way he used to when he was alive.

“You are such a wimp,” he yelled, causing me to jump from having not heard the hostility only his voice is able to possess. “God, I can not believe I got stuck with a weak and pathetic excuse for a daughter. Are you a fucking moron or something?… Well?!  Answer me!”

“N- No,” I stutter, not knowing how to respond. How was he standing there? How could he be yelling at me the way he used to if he died?

“Sorry, sweetheart, but Derek or Peter won’t be here to save you anymore. Looks like you’re gonna have to stop hiding behind other people and finally toughen up… Now go and get the matchsticks you keep in your bag and lock the bathroom door when you come back.”

I felt like I had lost complete control of my body and of my consciousness, because I did. I didn’t say a single thing in response, but I instead just walked towards my backpack, grabbed the packet of matchsticks in the emergency pack I kept inside, walked back into the bathroom and I locked myself inside. 

My father stopped barking orders at me, but instead went back to yelling at me. It was at that moment that my body completely shut down, and I continued to do things without control. I opened the bathroom cabinet and found a bottle of hairspray, before looking into the cupboard below the sink only to find a bottle of gasoline. I unscrew the cap off of the bottle of gasoline, and I begin to pour its contents all over the bathroom floor. 

However, as I am about to pour the remaining gasoline onto my body, I hesitate when I hear a loud crash coming from the front door, and am able to identify the scent as Isaac’s. My father notices this, however, and his anger only grows.

“You are not about to give up on me, are you, young lady?… Are you?!”

“N-No, sir,” I stutter, grabbing the packet of matchsticks out of fear. 

“You are the reason your mother died. You are the reason I died in that house fire. What makes you think you deserve to continue living after what you did? I saw what you did, Y/n! I saw the way you killed her!”

By now, Isaac had already successfully busted down the door to my bathroom, but he was far too shocked to say anything, which lead me to forget that he was standing right there and focus on my father.

“Sh-She told me to,” I whimpered, holding a matchstick up, but not yet gaining enough strength to ignite it. “Mom told me to do it. She was already dying… She told me to do it t- to become an Alpha. She told me she couldn’t feel anything more, that I wouldn’t be hurting her.”

“Of course she told you that!” He yelled, moving closer to me so that his voice was even more deafening than it already was. “Only an idiot would believe her, so it makes sense that you did.”

“Y/n,” this time it is Isaac speaking to me, his voice soft and calming, which was a pleasant change to say the very least. “Put the matchbox down, alright… You don’t need to do this… You’re a good person, okay? You don’t have to do this,”

“No, Isaac,” I whisper, with tears streaming down my cheeks as I shook my head furiously. “I am a bad person. I killed my own mother. I stabbed her with my claws and I ended her life, I-I don’t-”

“Hey,” he said softly, as he took slow steps towards where I stood. “I know what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to have that kind of guilt. Believe me, I know… Okay, but, I need you to hear me when I say that you do not need to do this, okay? I know it’s hard and it’s lonely, but it gets better, okay?… And you’re not alone, alright? You have Peter and Derek. You have Scott and Stiles and… and you have me, Y/n. I promise you it will get better, but I need you to put the matchsticks down first, Okay?”

I don’t know how he managed to do it, but when my eyes scanned the room I couldn’t see my father anywhere. All I could see was a huge puddle of gasoline and a distressed tall blond standing opposite me with both his hands held up. Not only did I regain my sense of reality, but thanks to Isaac I also felt a little bit better, almost lighter, about being an orphan in Beacon Hills.

“Okay,” I reply in a whisper tone, before placing the matchstick and its box into Isaacs hand. 

I really hoped  things would get better.

[cupnoodle-queen]

CHASING SUNS: Epilogue

3,021 words

And we’ve come full circle! A massive THANK YOU to all my readers and followers who’ve kept with this crazy ride of a story. I love your feedback and comments, I’ve read all of them and live for your tag reactions. This won’t be the last of ‘Gladicam’ though; I have some fantastic one-shots and drabbles planned, so stay tuned for that. 

Tagging some of the best people ever and my moral support, @blindbae, @nifwrites, @themissimmortal

“What’s the score?”

“Cam: five, Iris: seven.”

Cam scoffed loudly and caught her breath, sheathing her swords behind her back. “Pffft, as if. You wouldn’t have downed that second one so quickly if I hadn’t helped.”

Beside her, Iris stuck her greatsword into the earth to free her hands and adjust her leather gloves. She reached over and impishly flicked Cam’s nose. “Nuh uh, I had it under control. You were trying to mess with my kill count!” 

“Oh, please,” Cam rolled her eyes and chuckled at the younger girl, pulling out her phone to snap the dead beasts but also to check the time. “Say, we got time for another. You up?”

“Are you crazy?!” Iris’s eyes widened as she gaped at her trainer and friend. “You’re getting married tomorrow, not many people who’d rather hunt the night before their big day.”

She had a point there. A good night’s rest was tempting to say the least. Decided, Cam pocketed her phone. “Fine, fine. Let’s head out.”

Six months had passed since Gladio proposed to Cam in the infirmary at Hunter HQ, and the time when they destroyed the first daemon nest. After that other nests began to turn up across Lucis, though varying in size and daemon spawn rate. The first one was the largest on record, having taken the better part of a week to destroy when a handful of seasoned hunters could dismantle a smaller nest in a day.

Hence was the reason for Cam and Gladio to put off the wedding until now. Things were only just starting to quell, the aftermath of the first nest also having drawn excess amounts of daemons to the surrounding area including Lestallum. It kept them busy, kept everyone busy, getting hitched being the last thing on their mind. Add to the mix Cam’s new job and training Iris, and she barely had enough time to herself anymore. Not like she was complaining.

Cam was given the position of gilmaster at Hunter HQ, Steph’s disappearance leaving the position vacant. Gladio and Cam never spoke about her passing, but her phoned ‘mysteriously’ turned up one day and Cam was immediately absolved of any involvement with the armory ransacking, including an official apology provided by the Marshal before he offered her the promotion. It was tedious work for the most part, dotting her i’s and crossing her t’s on a daily basis and ensuring payments for supply runs were both delivered and received.

That left her evenings free for training Iris, who was freshly recruited as an initiate. Gladio gave her her new set of tags with a proud smile on his face, though it took a bit of convincing; the current state of Lucis with the nests popping up meant they needed all the extra force they could offer, and Iris was one of few with the drive to fight back. 

Cam’s little condition to their marriage also gave him a good influential push in the right direction as well. Over time however, he’d caught on to just how quick of a learner she really was, how the fighting gene didn’t skip a generation. The day she graduated from short swords to a custom-albeit smaller than most-great sword, the shield shed a tear-

“Ahem,” Iris piped up from the passenger’s seat, buckling her seatbelt. “You listening?”

“Uhh,” Cam gaped. “Yes.” 

Iris gave her future sister in law a narrow look before blowing a raspberry at her. “You and Gladio are the same person sometimes, I swear.”

“Nah, less abs.”

“Not what I meant!” though the teenager couldn’t resist a giggle. She tossed her great sword in the back cab with little grace, ignoring Cam’s startled glare as it scratched the rear passenger’s side door. Looking for a quick distraction, Iris swayed the discussion to more pertinent events. “So, tomorrow. What’re you gonna wear?”

Cam frowned, looked down at her in-desperate-need-of-replacement leather armor and pants and shrugged. The sound that came from Iris’s mouth in response was a muffled groan and shriek combo package. “You’re kidding me. Cam you’ve got to have something nicer to wear than that.”

She mused over it for a moment, then shook her head. “Like I have time for dress up these days.”

“Well okay, fine.” Iris sighed. “Wish I knew where to find you a dress…”

But then a thought occurred to her, an idea that nearly fleeted from the unsettling prospect before she could consider it. Sighing, Cam turned the key in the ignition. “I know where to find one.”

After dropping Iris off in the city, Cam steeled herself for the familiar drive to the Duscae countryside. If not for the sickly darkness that continued to saturate the world, perhaps it would have been nostalgic to a certain degree. Instead her gut was churning, uncertain as to what awaited at her destination.

She drove over the crest of the hill she had hundreds of times, but instead of seeing the house that built her, her heart broke at the sight of her family home in rubble and ruins, partially caved-in walls that still held the familiar sky blue clapboard siding intact near the base before bending inwards from the iron giant’s blows. As Cam pulled into the driveway, passing the ripped fencing and disturbed patches of earth, she reconsidered if she was prepared for this both mentally and physically; in hindsight she should have come with a friend to prevent trapping herself in debris, but she was already too in over her head to resurface and try another day. With a deep breath, she put the truck into park and hopped out.

The place wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined; there was ample room to sidestep most of the mess, using the flashlight she’d pulled from the glove compartment to watch her footing over and around any obstacles. The place was obviously looted; the fridge was long since emptied and pantry though buckled inwards was barren of non-perishables, some furniture was gone, and the comfy sneakers Cam hoped were still around were nowhere to be seen.

No matter, she thought, if someone needed it all for the better, then.

She made her way over to the area where their bedroom was, glad to see her wardrobe was laying on it’s side but completely accessible beneath a toppled over support beam. Cam lifted the mess of drywall and made certain to not let anything collapse beneath her, feeling for any sudden shifts in stability, before opening the double doors to let her old clothes spill out. 

It was a disaster of mold, dust and dirt that had made its way in over the months, the fabrics stained and useless. Cam’s heart began to teeter, feeling defeated. It was foolish of her to believe anything could survive the elements and destruction. She sighed, prepared to close the wardrobe but then…

Something bright white and plastic caught Cam’s eye, tucked beneath layers of her destroyed clothing. Careful to not inhale the musty smell, she tossed pile after pile out of the wardrobe until it could be pulled free. 

Cam held her breath as she studied the white garment bag for damages and praised the Six when she found it to be in pristine condition. Being careful to not dirty the item inside, she allowed herself a peek and only that.

It was untouched, the exact same as the day she’d bought it with Nolan’s mother. 

Tears welled in her eyes and she clutched her wedding dress to her chest, silent sobs of appreciation and pure joy caught in her throat.

The following afternoon wedding preparations were well under way at the Scientia household. A very modest group of guests conglomerated in the living room of the small home, sharing refreshments and chatting about how a wedding was just the thing they needed in these dark days; something to give them pause, to remind them that not all hope is lost.

Cam was upstairs in Raine’s room, having just slipped the dress on and awaited assistance with the back clasp that she couldn’t reach herself. “Feels a bit big,” she suggested, shifting into place and pulling the garment straight and level.

“Hardly,” Raine replied, “I mean, sure there’s some give in the waist but nothing too crazy.” After connecting the last hook and eye closer, she stepped back and looked over the bride to be.

She couldn’t speak, unable to find the words to appropriately describe the beauty before her. Cam gave her an apprehensive look, cocking an eyebrow at her closest friend. “What?”

“You’re…” Raine began, her brown eyes threatening to spill tears at a moment’s notice. Unable to speak, she tugged Cam over to the full length mirror and let her see for herself.

She refused to believe the reflection was her own; Cam was a vision of steel and lace, the blush fabric making her olive skin glow from within. Cut close to her figure before cascading over her hips, airy fabric with a decorative floral lace overlay and cap sleeves tailored to her proportions though the plunging v-neck made her cheeks turn pink. She swallowed hard, trying not to cry and looked back over her shoulder at Raine. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

“Shut the fuck up and hug me, woman!” she pulled Cam into a warm embrace and the gesture was enough for a tear to spill over and into the blue-tinted ends of Raine’s hair. “You’re going to make them walk into walls. Please let Iggy touch the fabric, if you don’t mind,” she added, seating Cam down in front of the modest vanity that looked ancient. “I can’t believe that survived the wreckage.”

Cam was still taken aback at her reflection. “Neither can I…”

Raine brushed out her curls until they loosened into soft waves that waterfalled over Cam’s shoulders, tucking one side behind her ear and pinning it in place with a bobby pin. She didn’t own much for makeup, a scarce unnecessity in the world of ruin, but she darkened Cam’s already thick lash line and tidied up her brows. She held a bottle of foundation, gnawing on her lip. “Do you...want me to cover up the scars?”

“No, that’s okay,” Cam replied quietly with a whisper of a smile. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.” 

“I wouldn’t be here today without this fucker!”

Dave slung an arm around Gladio’s shoulders, a feat only possible due to him being seated. He continued his slightly-inebriated praise of the king’s shield. “Him and these fellows, including the Prince of Lucis himself came to my aid when I sprained my ankle. I was a sitting duck, and these fellas saved my neck.” 

The guests consisted of other hunters and some close friends; the Marshal helped Prompto with seating arrangements, Greyson was in the kitchen helping Ignis with appetizers and snacks while keeping everyone’s drink topped off. Iris was buzzing about the group, pitching in a helping hand wherever needed and antsy to welcome Cam into her tiny family.

Gladio tugged at the white dress shirt buttoned up to his neck, the full charcoal suit he wore a wedding gift from the best man and officiant, Ignis. He kept it a secret from everyone, intent on surprising the bride to be. Fine dresswear nearly impossible to find nowadays, the hunters in attendance donned new uniforms in an attempt to be more formal. Ignis was looking sharp as ever, a suit he’d left at Raine’s place from some time ago making an appearance again, the pewter grey and black dress shirt combination making him look like an editorial model. 

Dave sauntered off in search of something to fill his cup with and Ignis took his place next to Gladio on the sofa. “Nervous?”

Gladio scoffed dryly, unbuttoning the top three buttons of his dress shirt as it was making him uncomfortable. What Ignis doesn't know won’t hurt him, he mused. “A bit, yeah. Think I gotta walk it off, go splash my face with cold water or something.”

“Please keep the jacket dry,” Ignis requested, the hint of worry in his tone making Gladio roll his eyes as he rose and headed towards the stairs. He jotted a mental note though, as he had to admit; he pulled the suit off surprisingly well, even having been a touch too small for his liking. He took slow steps up the stairs, smoothing his hair back, hoping his facial hair looked alright... 

Gladio heard Raine and Cam’s idle chatter on the second floor and couldn’t help but notice the bedroom door was open a few inches. Though the age-old saying that it was bad luck in seeing the bride before she walked down the aisle resounded through his head, he couldn’t resist. He had to sneak a peek…

And he fell for her all over again. 

Cam was seated in front of the vanity, a vision of tenacious elegance as Raine made some last minute touchups to her hair, though Gladio thought her to be already perfect. His soulmate marking hummed delightfully, tingling warmth that spread throughout his entire body, and he was reminded just how incredibly lucky he was.

How irrevocably in love he was. 

Cam’s head turned a fraction and she caught his gaze in the mirror’s reflection. Her eyes lit up and a gentle, charming smile slowly spread across her lips. They shared a silent moment, Cam’s eyes flicking up and down in her reflection at the sight of Gladio dressed so handsomely. It took everything in her power to keep seated, to not spin around and jump into his arms…

Raine noticed Cam’s attention was elsewhere and before she could look where she was looking Gladio walked passed the room and out of sight. What’s up?” she asked, peeking out the gap in the door. 

“Oh, uhh,” Cam stuttered, cheeks flaring. “Just thinking is all.”

“Need a minute?” Raine was smoothing her floral dress in place, blue-tipped locks in her hand. “I’m going to get Iggy’s help with my braid. Ceremony starts in ten.”

She gave her a nod and Raine left the room. 

Cam stood, nervous as the gravity of today finally settled on her shoulders. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Already her palms were clammy and she grabbed fistfuls of the chiffon and tulle of her straight skirt, her thumbs rubbing the lace floral details as she finally opened her eyes.

Gladio was standing feet away from her near the door, having slipped in when Raine left. The suit he wore accented his built physique, the partially unbuttoned dress shirt teased her so tastefully. He looked positively smitten, a man with purpose and full heart, his eyes lidded and lips upturned.

They didn’t speak, Gladio not needing an invitation to take the two wide strides forward and wrapped his arms around her, joining them as one and Cam buried her face into his chest. The two of them stood locked in embrace for many moments, neither one willing to part from the other, making up for the lost time before they’d finally met, knowing a lifetime was ahead of them and yet it wouldn’t be enough. They’d gladly face whatever the world had to throw at them together, watch their other half assigned by the Astrals grow and age, learn and live and overcome.

Gladio exhaled and his warm breath washed over Cam’s hair. He spoke, so low she almost didn’t hear him. “I love you.” 

Cam pressed a kiss to the center of his chest. “I love you more.”

The ceremony was brief, neither of them desiring to drabble on about the other as both Cam and Gladio were not gifted with enthusiasm to talk for long. Raine and Iris stood proudly at Cam’s side while Prompto and Cor flanked Gladio as groomsmen, Ignis officiating the wedding with perfect prose and poetry. They shared short, meaningful vows that made everyone-even the Marshal himself-tear up. After the rings were exchanged with help from little Lucas as ringbearer, Gladio had all but picked Cam up to give her the most passionate kiss he could muster, eliciting several wolf-whistles from the group of hunters. 

Ignis and Greyson prepared some hors d'oeuvres for the reception and Raine dusted off her grandmother’s piano. Cam and Gladio shared an impromptu first dance as Ignis played a classical ballad, though they mostly just swayed in embrace as neither of them could dance to save their lives. As the party winded down and the bulk of the guests left, the newlyweds decided to get some air and strolled down to the overlook in the parkade. People were gawking at them, a sight for sore eyes as they walked hand in hand, looking like they strolled out of a romance novel, writing their own along the way.

They reached the overlook and Cam leaned on the stone half-wall next to the binoculars and Gladio wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You know,” she began, pressing back into him, “I almost didn’t come to market that day.”

“Oh?” Gladio responded, his fingers stroking the back of her hand. “Why’s that?”

“The forecast was poor. Weather called for rain, and lots of it.” Cam craned her neck back to kiss his cheek. “But then I was greeted to the most amazing sunrise, pinks and purples and yellows…” she trailed off, sighing. “It was a sign. Had to be.” 

Gladio chuckled airily, letting his hand skim around her waist. “You know that night we had to stay at the hotel cause the truck broke down?”

Cam smirked. “Yeah, I remember. What about it?”

“That night...I fell for you.”

Grinning, Cam swivelled in his hold and was prepared for his mouth, melding against his with perfection, every curve in his lips carved from stars just for hers. Certain it was becoming too much for public eye, Gladio hoisted her up and carried Cam bridal style towards the Leville. 

Though Eos was shrouded in darkness, for that fleeting moment they basked in the warmth and glow of pure sunlight.

[mitsunari]

I am trying not to overthink when it comes to my story featuring Otabek, but I find that it is incredibly difficult to avoid when it comes to figuring out plots and angles and build-up, etc etc. I think of things and sometimes i come up with blanks when I try to take it out of my head and write it down, or I start writing and too much builds up which causes me to freeze and struggle to get started. (This is even with notes/outlines.)

But now I present Chapter 4 of the untitled “Otabek Meets A Dragon AU”. This includes some more morning routine, a flashback to how Katsuki Yuuri and Otabek meet, more business regarding the star. The next chapter will probably be from Yuuri’s POV and it will have our first look of Fantasy Animals!

Otabek speaks Russian to the Aral Sea but he can speak other languages with the same effect or say nothing at all. To perform magic, intent is key. Speaking is one of many ways of directing the spirit’s power out, and it also forms a path/a connection) for a spirit (or spirits) to act. A silent Otabek miiight be the most dangerous. ;)

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS one - two - three

CHAPTER 4 - OTABEK THE NEXT MORNING

Dawn did not mean Otabek’s valley had sunshine, for the sun had far to travel in the morning to give his side of the mountains light. He awoke in the dark and saw to the goats and Karazhal’s food before his own. As usual, it was time to do the patrol.

He pulled his long black hair into a low ponytail, tugging his fur cap on to keep the chill away. While he ate, he wrapped the art box in cloth and placed it near his saddle and gear at the doorway. The cooker was quenched but the fireplace coals could stay. Otabek carefully looked over the house to make sure nothing was out of place before he stepped out.

Swinging his saddle over one shoulder and carrying the rest of his belongings in the other arm, Otabek whistled for Karazhal to let her know they were off. He dropped his things by the gate he opened. The black mare swung her head up in his direction, trotting over and sideways so he could dump the saddle onto her back. Otabek knelt to secure every belt, pad, and rope. The frame fitted flat against Otabek’s back in a bag, and the metal box of art supplies sat on its side next to the wooden frame. Otabek laid an animal skin cover over the bag’s opening, belting it down tight as it could go. With one hand on her pommel, he mounted his horse, pulling her reins so he could lock the paddock.

The usual scout around the fenceline proved to be secure. He had Karazhal jump the driveway gate instead of unlocking it too. Gently pulling the reins, he directed her uphill, going up a deer trail. When the hill flattened out, Otabek inhaled deeply, feeling the mountain wind rush across the plateau. He reached out with a gloved hand to pat Karazhal’s thick neck. She snorted fondly, earning a chuckle from him.

His eyes moved past the horse to the mountainous terrain. He watched the ground for sight of other things. They could be friend or foe, and Otabek did not want to outrace a pack of wolves. Then, he checked up in the trees, this time for hunters and their supplies, like their food tied up high to fool bears or the perches built to hold snipers. The latter was rare. Hunting outside of the season was reported to the rangers by falcon. To date, he’d only found four dead while scouting. Otabek had never killed a man. Nature was not as merciful as Otabek.

At his land’s highest ridge, the grass became stone and crevice. Otabek stayed especially careful here. Karazhal’s hooves dislodged pebbles with each footprint. Suddenly, a gray shape whirled backward, dragging a half-eaten goat with it; Otabek could only glimpse the snow leopard--or “barys” as he knew it in Kazakh--before it darted into a den in the steep mountainside. He encouraged the mare to quicken over the ridge before they met any more predators.

He stood on the mountain edge using the antelope paths. The sun greeted him harshly, blinding Otabek with light across snow peaks and Big Almaty’s ice. He pulled his hat brim down, then paused, braving the sunlight for a chance to see that star even in daytime. Otabek wished he hadn’t broken his sunglasses, but whatever, he used his hand to shield what he could.

At the edge of their world, Yuuri’s new star shone just as it had last night. Otabek spotted an eagle wheeling around, and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he reached with the spirit of animals. His head jerked back as the connection was met. Otabek lowered it toward his saddle pommel, remembering to breath carefully, especially in this thin air.

“Batir,” the eagle acknowledged him with the Kazakh word ‘hero’. “I see you.”

“And I, you,” Otabek responded with a respectful tone. Karazhal continued to tread carefully, as Otabek had considerably loosened his grip on the reins. “What else is to be seen?”

“Hare, I see. Silver fox, I see.” The eagle descended casually. “I could not fly over your large nests. Stink!” An annoyed squawk echoed from the bird.

“Our nests do not have feathers in them. We have many fires burning for warm nests,” Otabek said. It wasn’t his first time explaining cities.

“Gah!” The eagle clearly thought humans were crazy...utilizing a disaster for their nests! Shaking its head, it changed the subject, “Ah, Batir, I see the spotted ones together many nights!”

The snow leopards? “We passed one with prey earlier. Should I be worried?”

The eagle cocked its head, searching the ground in a broad sweep over Karazhal’s position. “I see none now. “ Suddenly, Otabek could feel a surge of killing instinct through him at the same time the eagle stooped and dove down to the ground. The predator might not have seen more snow leopards, but it’d certainly seen prey. Otabek shuddered from his hips up to his head, stretching his shoulders back until the illusionary feeling of feathers growing out of him went away. Sucking in a sharp breath, Otabek’s eyes opened, snapping out of the spiritual connection. The eagle was gone.

His mare pushed on relentlessly on drifts of hard-packed snow. Five times, Otabek dismounted and led her on foot across the terrain. The tall evergreens sang with the mountain wind, accompanied by birds and deer. Otabek hummed to himself to the beat of stones crunching underfoot. When he’d first been chosen, hearing nature wherever he went had been difficult to get used to, but over the years, it had become more bearable, almost natural now. Otabek hummed more than he sang--if he contributed at all--but this time he sang to keep his feet steady on the mountain, focusing on it instead of the edge.

“There was a field in my old town Where we always played hand in hand. The wind was gently touching the grass. We were so young, so fearless.”

As the Kazakh words finished slipping through his teeth, Otabek got back into the saddle, riding the steep pathway around the bowl. The ride took hours, long enough for the sun to fill the valley once he’d trotted through the last pass. Standing 2735m above sea level, the valley with Big Almaty Lake was a painting in itself, coated with glossy white snow contrasting greatly with the dark gray mountains and dark green trees. Ice partially covered the pale blue water which barely reached 8 C even on the hottest days. With its white roofs, the Observatory did not stand out much in the snow.

Karazhal picked up the pace at her master’s command. Otabek descended to another flat ridge and followed it for several kilometers, then urged her up some rocks up to the parking lot. He saw lots of tracks in the snow, mostly from trucks and cars pulling into parking spaces, but not as from tourists in this season. He urged his mare up to a green-roofed building with one large garage door open. As Otabek trotted by, horse hooves clapping loudly on concrete at the garage’s entrance instead of snow, he pulled up on a dark-haired man wearing a bright red coat decorated with golden threads. Phichit Chulanont, to Otabek’s surprise, had his arms were full with sandbags and salt bags. Otabek raised his eyebrows at the sight of him away from the computers just to carry salt.

“AH! Otabek!” Phichit called enthusiastically. “Welcome back!”

Otabek returned the greeting with a casual nod. “She’s good here?” He reached out to pat Karazhal’s mane.

“Of course!” The scientist struggled with the salt bag, but he managed to point. On the other side of the storage garage were horse stalls and a paddock. Since this was a tourist attraction for his country, there were places for horses to rest. He was familiar with the trail rides through the mountains. “The trough is frozen though, and bedding is on that end.” said Phichit, cocking his head off to the left. “I’ll wait up for you after I salt our walkways!” he called over his shoulder as he scurried off with the bags.

Otabek dismounted and had Karazhal stand in the garage while he made up a stall for her. For now, he kept the bridle on and pulled off the saddle, locking it up before turning her out. True to his word, Phichit jogged back up to him when they were both finished. They walked into the Observatory together looking like complete opposites. Phichit was a scientist in crisp black trousers and that gaudy red and gold shirt. Otabek, on the other hand, had traded in his modern clothes for traditional Kazakh furs once he was chosen as baksy, a shaman..

Compared to knowing Yuuri, Otabek’s paths hadn’t crossed with Phichit as much.  When he’d met them, his first mission as a spirit shaman neared its destination: the Aralkum Desert, wound of the earth and Kazakhstan’s western border. Yuuri and Phichit were there for space reasons. Otabek had followed a dying eagle to a dying lake. Yuuri told Otabek that he’d mistaken Otabek’s flying white guide for some kind of glare in his glasses, but that the horse and rider suddenly appearing by their research van had definitely been real. The two men had been using mobile weather and space devices to capture footage out in that region. So far, it’d been just dust and wind, nobody but themselves and satellite radio on their phones. Otabek, who’d ridden from Almaty on horseback, was just as eager to partake in someone’s hospitality out in the middle of nowhere as they were.

In return for their kindness, Otabek told them tales of his adventures and the nature of his mission, for he was not bound by the spirits to keep his identity or strength hidden. (It just wasn’t like him to boast.) Otabek felt these weren’t his powers anyway. He was simply a conduit, and he’d demonstrated with the Warm Touch, same as he had last night, but this time with their forgotten coffees in their front console. Phichit brewed fresh tea while Yuuri stretched his legs outside with Otabek, tired of being cooped up in the van. They’d talked about space and everything in it. Otabek got a fire going by the time Phichit joined them. Yuuri launched into impassioned explanations for everything, face lighting more than just from the campfire, but Otabek liked that about the older man. Passion… such unbridled emotion… it was good for mankind to be free like that. By nightfall, as traded stories turned into sleepy “good night”s, Otabek was glad to call both of them his friends.

At dawn, Otabek mounted Karazhal and Yuuri called out to him from the driver’s side, rubbing his sleepy eyes before putting his glasses on.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay out there?” Yuuri called out with a fretful timbre.

“My duty awaits. I must go no matter what condition I’m in,” Otabek said. The desert stretched out for miles, yet somehow his pale robes were free of the choking dust. Pure air surrounded him, though he didn’t realize it then. Looking back on it, his ride away from Almaty was much of a blur. Otabek was certain it must’ve taken many days but like many things regarding the spirits, it felt just like a dream, too.

Seven years ago, Otabek had much shorter hair than he did now. He’d shaved ritually before approaching the desert, leaving the top short in an undercut style. It had been spring when he’d arrived at the Aral Sea’s former border. Long had the region awaited the season’s coming. It needed his healing. It needed the spirits of the earth to guide it out of suffering, and Otabek had answered its call.

To assure Yuuri that he would be safe, Otabek agreed that they could follow, as long as they prioritized their own safety. Yuuri drove the van. Phichit started recording from the passenger seat, which Otabek found out at the end. His black mare vaulted over the terrain with Yuuri in hot pursuit, yelling as the van did not take too well to the pebble-covered dirt. They stirred up a huge dust cloud behind them. Karazhal pushed up to her top speed. The van jerked right to stay on the flattest dirt. Otabek could hear Yuuri yelling in panicked Russian as the vehicle rattled over rocks and holes.

What happened afterward was an event taking place in two different ways in the eyes of two different parties. Otabek knew his own half, but when he watched the video on Phichit’s phone later, he witnessed how alien it was to view his spiritual power from an outsider’s perspective.

“Просыпа́йся, Ара́л��ское мо��е!” (Wake, Aral Sea!) He remembered how his voice rang out with thunder and lightning, a show of force that startled even himself, yet Karazhal hadn’t shied one centimeter from her run. He remembered disembodied voices humming and singing. He released the reins at their urging, and his arms drew straight up, palms facing the sky. The power required to renew the massive lake swallowed Otabek whole. What he knew of his actions from that point onward was solely due to Phichit’s video.

To Phichit and Yuuri’s amazement, two brightly glowing staves sprung out from Otabek’s fingertips. The lines all undulated as one, and starry musical notes materialized into the Samarkand Overture. High in the air he urged the notes to rise. The staves circled him like floating ribbons. Fearful of his magic, Yuuri had called out to Otabek from the window when the wind began to pick up, but Phichit’s hand clutched his shoulder in the video, reassuring him.

There was a crackling roar, and the clouds gathered fast as steeds. What had been early morning reversed back into night under the burgeoning thunderclouds. Lightning leapt from cloud to cloud. The whole sky was pierced by blinding light, but although Yuuri’s van stood in empty desert, the lightning did not strike it. Rain fell in slow small droplets. The video even captured the humming of spirits over the rain and thunder, but what was the most marvelous of all were the animals that suddenly sprouted from the musical staves. Golden outlines of snow leopards, wolves, horses, eagles, and antelopes bloomed into flight. Each footprint upon the desertified landscape gushed a spring of golden light that spread fiercely once started. Transparent animals raced away from Otabek until the purifying glow stretched to the horizon.

“HOLY SHIT!” Phichit’s enthusiastic yell had struck a discordant note in the whole scene. The video had jostled a bunch until Phichit’s face appeared in the side, then panned to Yuuri’s gawking expression behind the rain-splattered window. “I hope I’m still recording!”

The astronomer’s phone had captured everything except a clear close-up of Otabek Altin’s face, but Phichit’s upload to Instagram went viral and the “mysterious rider” became the subject of Internet speculation. Otabek personally disliked social networking services and, while owning an instagram account, he never had the app on his old smartphone. He’d left Almaty without a phone since he had no way of charging it out in the wilderness. He would have never thought to film himself. He spent the journey across Kazakhstan completely oblivious to the cryptid role he was taking. Kazakhs tagged Phichit in blurry horse rider pictures from places like Pavlodar, Astana, and Karaganda, asking in Russian if “this was their man”. Phichit also received screenshots captioned “I trust him” or “monsoon season is coming”.

Back home in Almaty, Otabek’s siblings and mother immediately identified him after seeing Phichit’s recording online. Otabek returned from a year away to find his family interrogating him on his “cryptid status”. They had not forgiven him for leaving without technology to keep in touch. (Apparently sending spirits was not the preferable method.) Otabek continued his tried-and-true method of ignoring social media, made all the easier by having no electricity out in the wilderness.

However, that isolation in nature that Otabek required, both to perform his duties in nature and harbor the spirits of earth well, meant that he spent many hours doing business and not seeing family and friends over the mountains for weeks or years. Reuniting with Yuuri two years after the video went viral happened because of an earthquake in Almaty. They saw each other again a few years after that, when Yuuri had gotten promoted in the Observatory and spotted a comet in his new telescope, and Otabek had seen the comet too from the other side of the mountain. Phichit had been in the United States then so they’d missed each other once again. He had changed only a little in Otabek’s eyes.

The astronomer looked Otabek  up and down as if examining him as well.

“Your pony is sturdy! She looks even better than she did last time,” Phichit remarked, thumbing at the horse.

Otabek nodded with a small smile at Phichit’s sincerity. “Thanks.” He followed him to the entrance, feet crunching over salt.

“How come you took the long way around? Did you get another dream?” Phichit asked. “Is it another earthquake?”

Otabek shook his head. The last quake alert had been a month ago, perfectly unthreatening. “No,” he said. “I wanted to patrol the whole range this time.” He paused, looking over his shoulder at the fur-lined bag. “Duty and all.”

Phichit swiped his ID card and let Otabek inside the employee-authorized building. “Ah, well, it’s good to see you! You know you’re always welcome here, Hero.” Phichit grinned, teasingly nudging Otabek in the arm. “I’ll get you tea.”

“Much obliged,” Otabek replied to his host.

While Phichit flounced down the white hall for tea, Otabek walked slower, stepping into a room practically lined with windows, including a round one in the ceiling. There were many of these around the observatory, but this one had fewer tourists, being in the employee’s end and all. The room had a heavy wooden table in the middle with chairs all around, as well as shelves filled with books and pamphlets lining the walls. The windows boasted a beautiful view of the mountains circling the plateau.

Struck by inspiration, Otabek quickly set his bag on a chair, putting away his gloves in exchange for the small sketchpad and pencil in the artbox. He sketched lines for mountains and trees, marching deep shadows out of the graphite and leaving empty space for snow and clouds. His dirty thumb rubbed on the paper for the sky. In the middle, he darkened the paper in jagged edges and erased for even sharper edges, accentuating the strange star’s brightness in his picture. For once, Otabek did not stop to pause after each stroke. He drew as a man possessed and was so focused, he didn’t hear Phichit calling his name.

“Hey!” Phichit’s face suddenly appeared next to him. “That’s good!” He pointed at Otabek’s rendition of the mountains around Big Almaty Lake. “Wow, you were really tuned in. I brought you tea!”

The Kazakh looked down at what he’d drawn and his eyes widened. He stared down at the sketchpad, pulling his hands away and thinking, This is what I drew? The shadows of the mountains and the dark treetops seemed to form the shape of some winged animal. The star’s beams radiated down upon the peaks, as if upon the beast hidden in the picture. He blinked and it disappeared, and Otabek questioned his own brain for a second.

Gratefully, he took Phichit’s offered mug and thanked him, blinking several times down at the paper.

“Hey, hey, do you think I could snap a photo of it?” Phichit asked.

Otabek shrugged, handing the sketchpad off and contenting himself with the tea instead. Between the heaters and the sunshine coming through all the windows, it was quite warm. Otabek relaxed against the chair. He did not freely invite conversation, but whenever the man asked a question, he answered. Phichit refilled his empty mug once he was finished with the first, then he handed back the sketchbook. Otabek opened it up to the page he’d been on.

“Is Katsuki Yuuri busy today?” he asked without looking at Phichit.

“Hahaha, I beat him in janken so I’m off today while he’s assigned on two sessions of tour groups,” Phichit laughed. “But afterward he’s doing field work. Of course, you’re more than welcome to hang out in the observatory until he comes back. I’m sure you’ve stiffened in the saddle, so stay and warm up, okay?” He patted Otabek’s shoulder kindly.

“I am content to wait,” Otabek replied. He stood up and walked over to one of the bookshelves. Russian books and journals of science lined the bottom two rows, then two rows of English with three German books squeezed in the end. The Kazakh writers took the top two rows. “May I read something?”

“Those? Hah! They’ll bore you to death, but sure. I’ll let you sign on as a guest on my laptop if you’d rather read modern.” Phichit pointed to the messenger bag sitting in a chair next to him.

“Really? Thanks. No newspaper delivers out of Almaty,” Otabek lamented. He rejoined Phichit at the table while the man pulled out the laptop. Phichit signed in under Guest and swiveled the computer once the laptop chimed its logging in ping.

“Do you remember how to type?” Phichit joked. Otabek gave him a deadpan expression and mimed bashing his fists on the keys like a caveman, which caused Phichit to plead dramatically for his laptop’s life then burst into laughter. “Oh, lemme make sure this account knows the WiFi password.” He looked over all the settings until he was satisfied. Phichit sat down to find the battery in the bag.

Otabek fired up Chrome, checking his sorely neglected email and sending one to his sisters since he hadn’t been in Almaty for a week. Without a mailbox, he just relied on animals, like cats or falcons, to drop off the weekly letters to his parents’ house. An email would be a welcome surprise. He wrote about the star, of course, and updated them on what was new in his life. While he never took photographs of what he worked with, Otabek always included a doodle of the creatures in his care that week. He told Phichit this when the man asked about his family.

“Why did you come to Kazakhstan again?” Otabek asked. He continued to type.

“Ah, well, back then, we were assigned as part of a college thing, to look at the Soyuz and a bunch of other things, but we ended up liking it so we came back different times. Yuuri and I love to travel so it’s nice to work in a place so marvelous, no?” Phichit stretched out his hands. “Yes, it’s cold but ah, the Snapchats make up for it!” He blinked with sudden realization. “Hey! What if I uploaded the picture here?” Otabek frowned. “Okay, not online,” Phichit quickly added. “But to the email you’re sending?”

Otabek’s expression softened. “I’m not against you having one for your personal phone, but I am deleting it from the computer afterward.” Phichit copied down his email address into his smartphone and sent the attachment. Otabek saved it from the freshly received email, uploaded it to his, and typed in Kazakh:

P.S. A scientist from the observatory took this picture of my artwork. Please keep it safe since you don’t have a physical copy this time.

For once, he was more than fond of this drawing. Otabek liked it when his practice had some sort of tangibility to it.

He sent off the email before deleting the saved picture, even out of the Recycle Bin. With that done, Otabek contented himself with reading news again while he waited for Yuuri to come back.

[terryblount]

Acer Predator Helios 300 (2019) Gaming Laptop – Review

Acer has updated its entry-level Predator gaming laptop for 2019, now more in line with the rest of the line aesthetics-wise. Not only that, but it also sports better innards in keeping up with the year’s standards for gaming laptop specs.

In short, this is a beefy update to the Helios 300, but unfortunately, it has this one big Achilles heel that stops it from being an easy recommendation.

Hardware

At first glance, the Acer Predator Helios 300 may look bland and generic. But it’s filled to the brim with nice details up close. The big change here is the Helios 300 ditching the red accents in favour of light blue, making in line with the rest of the Predator lineup. While the two lines on the back make the blue accent obvious, there are many other nice trims of blue. The WASD, arrow keys and dedicated Predator button have blue keycaps, but it’s more of an accent since all the keys have black with white lettering on top.

But to top it all off, all the visible heat sinks from the vents are tinted blue, which is ridiculous but also looks pretty neat.

The laptop has a warning in between the two back vents saying “Hot Surface. Warning. Do Not Touch.” Not something you’d see often on a gaming laptop, but at least they know and are honest with that.

Similar to last year, it still retains a brutish look to it. Those vents at the back look like the designers took inspiration out of a Lamborghini car, using big, bodacious and angular curves to give them a brutish, aggressive look to it. On the bottom cover, there’s an aggressive design as well which you won’t ever notice, but looks pretty nice.

But the matte surfaces, while looks clean, will leave a lot of smudges very visible.

The side edges are nicely curved and nice to touch. There is not only a chrome trimming but also a blue accent surrounding the touchpad. The keyboard is a fully-fledged one with a numpad. And despite it being flat chiclet keys, are pretty nice to type on, just the right amount of clicky-ness.

The Helios 300 doesn’t skimp on RGB lighting, featuring customisable lights in four zones of the keyboard.

All the I/O ports are on the side, but closer to you since both sides have working vents. It’s a bit cramped, but workable nonetheless.

Software

The software suite is as you’d expect from Acer- pretty good. The Predatorsense app remains solid, offering performance and thermal monitors, the ability to change fan speeds and RGB customisation. But this is one isn’t the one with phone app integration, which the more expensive Predators are getting.

You also get Killer Pro Wireless, which not only improves your Wi-Fi connection, but also allows for monitoring, prioritising your games for all network activity, and even the ability to set the laptop as a Wi-Fi extender, which is pretty cool. There’s Xsplit as always for you budding streamers and content creators too.

Gaming Performance

Here are the specs for the specific review model of the Predator Helios 300 – the PH315-52-76CQ

CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 256GB SSD

Display: 1080p IPS 144Hz refresh rate

As you can see, this is a pretty standard for a gaming laptop of this price point, bar one exception. As it is, gaming performance is on-point as you’d expect. The latest 9th-gen Intel Core i7 is as good as it gets, AI turns for Civilization VI are pretty quick. The RTX 2060 card is powerful as a normal GPU for non-ray-tracing games.

Last year’s AAA games like Monster Hunter: World and Forza Horizon 4 can be run on Ultra with stable enough framerates at the 60fps cap. Older games like Hitman 2016 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has no issues running at 60fps on Ultra. Any other modern games from this year should also be running silky-smooth based on previous laptops of similar specs we reviewed before.

And on games that do (like Quake II RTX), it runs well.

The IPS 1080p display is nicely bright with good viewing angles. And the 144Hz refresh rate should serve well for esports games that needed that fast response time advantage.

The big Achilles’ heel here, as you might have seen, is the storage space. Good on Acer for keeping up with the times as we move toward an SSD-first future. Which means game loads and more importantly, performance of Windows 10 itself, should not be an issue.

But now we are facing a storage shortage- 256GB is not enough! A lot of the time in the review has to be spent on downloading, installing and uninstalling games for benchmarking because 256GB is so meager of a space to work with. And we are using it as a dedicated gaming machine, if you’re looking for normal, daily use as well as gaming, you’re screwed.

However, Acer has always allowed storage and RAM upgrades. And this is the same for Helios 300, there’s even a SATA cable included if you wish to plug in a hard disk. But coming with this amount of storage as stock is sinful- surely you can add a few hundreds of ringgit on the price to include a normal hard disk, yes?

As much as Acer is touting its 3D Aeroblade fans, this laptop can still get pretty hot. But it’s not because the fans are terrible- put this on the lap on full load and it’s breezy cool on the bottom vents. But you will feel noticeable heat on the keyboard surface- thankfully it’s more concentrated on the right side rather than on the WASD keys. It can go up to 90 degrees Celcius, with a lot of the heat concentrated on the right side vent.

You can beat the hotness somewhat by cranking the fan speeds to the max. There’s also a one-button overclock, the Turbo mode. But apparently, not many games play nice when you put the Helios 300 into overdrive- many games we tested including Hitman (2016), Shadow Of The Tomb Raider and Forza Horizon 4 ran unstable and crash.

Value

At RM6,199, the Predator Helios 300 is still a pretty good deal. Though there are cheaper laptops with an RTX 2060, this one is fully featured with your usual Acer software bundles, sturdy build quality and RGB lights.

That said, the lack of storage space is making the price edging closer to the more affordable-looking RM6,000 mark. I would still implore you to invest in a hard disk, which should at least another hundred ringgit on the price point, so you could actually use this laptop as a daily driver. Or have an external hard disk at the ready.

There is another variant of the Helios 300 in Malaysia with a Core i5 instead of an i7 and priced at RM5,399. Now, if you don’t mind having a weaker CPU (which means some reduced performance) that’s a better value in our opinion. It still lacks the HDD, but adding one still makes the price sounds so worth it.

Verdict

All in all, the new Acer Predator Helios 300 is a great step up from last year’s model. It may still be an entry-level Predator but it has all from what you’d expect a gaming laptop at this price point should have. Bar one major flaw.

The storage is upgradeable, yes, but having only a meager SSD as stock is a bit disappointing. And despite all the big promises, cooling is not as great as advertised.

Nevertheless, these quirks do have workaround and fixes, and if you can deal with that, this brutish laptop is a solid choice for your gaming needs.

Acer Predator Helios 300 (2019) Gaming Laptop – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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New Post has been published on G33k-HQ

New Post has been published on http://www.g33k-hq.com/culture/fashion-get-ready-for-summer-with-these-new-board-shorts/

Fashion: Get Ready For Summer With These New Board Shorts

Who else is ready for a nice warm summer? Well, ThinkGeek has you covered with some new board shorts.

  Legend of Zelda Board Shorts:

$39.99

Sizes S-3X

YOU GOT ZORA’S FLIPPERS!

Even when it’s raining, you have to admit the scenery in Breath of the Wild is just stunning. Great-Bit Arcade has put together this compilation of relaxing beaches in BotW, which is excellent to bookmark if you occasionally need a short break from real life, complete with steel drums.

But occasionally you may convince the powers-that-be that you need an ACTUAL vacation, not an imaginary one. and we can help you with that, too! Take these Legend of Zelda Board Shorts, because it’s dangerous to go skinnydipping. (Trust us. Even your grandma has social media.) Perfect for a day by the pool or a quick dip in Lake Hylia, these will let you show off your love of LoZ while maintaining a healthy level of vitamin D.

Product Specifications

Legend of Zelda Board Shorts

Officially-licensed The Legend of Zelda merchandise

Hunter green decorated with yellow gold Wingcrests and Link’s sword and shield

Waist closes with hook-and-loop and drawstring

Hook-and-loop closure on fly

Right hip pocket with metal grommet for drainage and flap with hook-and-loop closure

Materials: 100% polyester

Care Instructions: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low.

Imported

  Star Wars Darth Duality Lounge Shorts:

$19.99

Sizes S-2X

THE LIGHT AND THE DARK

The Jedi and the Sith have had quite the… tense relationship. By that we mean please don’t leave them in a room alone together. Or a forest. Maybe if they’re comfy enough outwardly they won’t have to do a bunch of flips and clash sabers. Just get Darth some comfy shorts and maybe he’ll try and talk it out with Obi-Wan over a cup of coffee instead of a duel to the death.

Forget your loyalties to the light or dark while you get comfy. Red lounge shorts with two pockets and an adjustable drawstring. Design features the helmets of Darth and a Stormtrooper with the Imperial and Star Wars logo in half black and half white.

Product Specifications

Star Wars Darth Duality Lounge Shorts

Officially-licensed Star Wars merchandise

A ThinkGeek exclusive

Red lounge shorts featuring a black and white duality Star Wars and Empire logo alongside Darth Vader and Stormtrooper helmet

Two pockets

Elastic waistband and adjustable drawstrings on waist

Single button in front

Materials: 100% cotton

Care Instructions: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low.

Imported

  Deadpool Uniform Board Shorts:

$39.99

Sizes S-3X

NOT THAT KIND OF POOL

You know, you’re supposed to wait at least 30 minutes after eating before going into the water, but we held to that rule, Deadpool would never be able to swim. After all, he’s on that strict taco-every-15-minutes diet. Makes more bubbles in the pool. Plus, he’s never been much for rules….

Don these Deadpool Uniform Board Shorts and thumb your nose at authority. With these on, nobody’s going to be surprised if you’re running by the pool or bringing glass containers onto the beach, you rebel. Of course, those actions still might get you kicked out so if you care, you might dial it back a notch. Not everybody can be the Merc with the Mouth full-time. Thankfully.

Product Specifications 

Deadpool Uniform Board Shorts

Officially-licensed Marvel merchandise

Red with black accents and a Deadpool patch face on the left leg

Waist closes with hook-and-loop and drawstring

Hook-and-loop closure on fly

Two back pockets with mesh lining and flap with snap closure

Materials: 100% polyester

Care Instructions: Machine wash cold, gentle cycle. Tumble dry low.

Imported

  Captain America Board Shorts:

$39.99

Sizes S-3X

SUIT UP!

You know, Cap spends a decent amount of time in and around water. It may not always be liquid, though. We recommend against spending 70 years on ice in these. Well, honestly, we recommend against spending 70 years on ice, period. These trunks are just incidental.

Dive into the deep end of your alter ego with these Captain America Board Shorts. They’re a bright blue with red and white stripes, and Cap’s shield on the left leg. They have two back pockets with mesh lining and flap with snap closure because a Boy Scout is always prepared. So get out there and do good! Or at least wrestle the watermelon up from the bottom of the pool. That’s pretty super.

Product Specifications 

Captain America Board Shorts

Officially-licensed Marvel merchandise

Blue with red and white accents and Cap’s shield on the left leg

Waist closes with hook-and-loop and drawstring

Hook-and-loop closure on fly

Side pockets

Two back pockets with mesh lining and flap with snap closure

Materials: 100% polyester

Care Instructions: Machine wash cold, gentle cycle. Tumble dry low.

Imported

  Super Mario Board Shorts:

$39.99

Sizes S-3X

AVAILABLE IN THE SAND KINGDOM AND AT THINKGEEK!

Yep. Mario has nipples. And now with ThinkGeek’s help you can take part in the the Nipple% speedrun IRL. Yours is probably going to take a little longer than 10 minutes from clicking Buy Now to shirtless in Super Mario Board Shorts, though. We haven’t gotten our teleportation devices at the warehouse up to speed yet. They still occasionally turn products into a pile of bananas. We think Timmy might have been monkeying with the backend code.

“Mario, you’ve defeated Bowser again, what will you do now?” Point the way to a vacation of rest and recuperation with these Super Mario Board Shorts. They’re perfect for relaxing by the pool or swimming in Lake Kingdom. Just don’t forget to pack your 3DS. Wouldn’t wanna get bored.

Product Specifications 

Super Mario Board Shorts

Officially-licensed Super Mario Bros. merchandise

Bright blue with red accents and Mario’s face on the left leg

Waist closes with hook-and-loop and drawstring

Hook-and-loop closure on fly

Right hip pocket with metal grommet for drainage and flap with hook-and-loop closure

Materials: 100% polyester

Care Instructions: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low.

Imported

  Shark Attack Board Shorts:

$39.99

Sizes S-3X

EVERYBODY OUTTA THE WATER!

Ahhh, the beach. The waves crashing. Your toes in the sand. It’s the perfect way to relax. To think of nothing except the dime-store novel you have with you along with your SPF 900. Unless, of course, it’s a Peter Benchley novel. In which case, your mileage may vary.

You know the Earth Day every day movement? We’re here to make “Shark Week every week” a thing. And with these board shorts, you can be a part of that. They’re covered with circling shark fins and one large gaping shark maw, ready to eat you or get its molars looked at by the sharkdentist. (No, sharks don’t have molars.They also don’t get cavities. TL;DR: the surface of their teeth is fluoride, and they shed them constantly.)

Product Specifications 

Shark Attack Board Shorts

A ThinkGeek exclusive

Ombre grey and blue knee-length board shorts with one big open shark jaw and lots of fins in the water

Waist closes with drawstring

Hook-and-loop closure on fly

Left hip pocket with metal grommet for drainage and flap with hook-and-loop closure

Materials: 92% polyester / 8% spandex

Care Instructions: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low.

Imported

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