#also you know it apparently takes me few days to psychologically recover from talking to my doctor lmao

[existentialflirt]

Okay, I've decided I need to make some new icons. That always helps me get out of a tumblr rp wriitng funk because then I'm like :)))) Time to show off my hard work :)))))))))))))))) Trying to decide if I want to ruin my Pinterest dash and make a Buffy pin board for icons. Idek....I'm pretty content with it being currently mostly GOmens fanart and David Tennent thirst. I'm a simple creature. Maybe I'll make a second account for Buffy pins. I'm honestly just so scared of the inevitable bad take machine.

(As you all prolly know, Pinterest became thievery central when they changed something about it ages ago. I can't remember anymore, only that it was suddenly mostly imbedded links. Anyway, even before that, it was 50% meme and fandom meta screen shots from tumblr, and that hadn't changed. Lord though, fandom makes me feel so old. It's like, if I didn't think I'd end up cringing out of my skin, I'd pop onto my og dreamwidth account. Not for the DW content, no no no, it's gets so much worse. When I switched over from LJ, I imported my blog there too, so there's also ancient stuff that makes me both happy and kinda wanna vomit. You know, it's nice to see that kinda thing be preserved but also oh god, oh no. My point is, in my typical roundabout way, has fandom changed and lost its sense of literacy and humour, or was I also taking the funny bits of a story and spinning it into incredible grimdark head canon I'M LOOKING AT YOU GOOD OMENS FANDOM JFC CROWLEY PSYCHOLOGICALLY TORTURES PLANTS BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING FUNNY. IT'S NOT ANY DEEPER THAN THAT UNLESS YOU WANNA SAY THAT IT'S EMBLEMATIC THAT CROWLEY IS A SHIT DEMON. HE'S AT HIS MOST TERRIFYING WHEN HE'S BULLYING PLANTS. FUCKING PLANTS. Ahem. Sorry.)

[breathlessmorro]

*emerging from the depths of hiatus to get a sip of that destiNY* oo how about college AU shenanigans? i'm not good at prompts sorry >.<

You ask - you shall receive!

Synopsis - For years, Morro has been forced to put up with Kai's annoying antics in class, leaving him with a bad permanent record and even worse temper. However, things aren't exactly how they appear.

College Isn't Easy, They Said.

Morro grinded his teeth together as he fought to keep quiet, diligently taking his notes and trying to remember what his professor was saying. His handwriting may have been more harsh than it usually was, but at least he was managing to stay calm and collected. Already, he had half of Professor Chen's lecture condensed into clear and concise notes that could make a PowerPoint Presentation beam with pride. Not as easy a task as it might seem with the idiot next to him. 

Kai Smith - as always - had his earbuds in and was completely ignoring the lesson. Not that the earbuds did much to silence the irritatingly loud and obnoxious music blaring from the mini-speakers. In fact, Morro often wondered if Kai had such a big listening problem because of the volume in the first place. The aggressive tempo of drums and guitar were grating on Morro's nerves every single day, and he had to fight to keep his cool. He wasn't even sure why Kai was taking a psychology class in the first place when his major wasn't even related to it. It seemed Kai's presence served no purpose other than to annoy; and annoy it did. 

Things had been like this for years now. Morro would find out he had a class with Kai, and of course was forced to sit next to him. Showing even an ounce of distaste meant that Kai would take it as an invitation to try and distract Morro in any way possible. Whether it be tapping a pencil, playing footsie, or like now, listening to deafening metal music that he didn't even like, Kai was determined to get Morro in trouble. He took every single opportunity to try and make him look bad. The amount of times where he succeeded didn't matter, only that Morro's hatred for the smug grin that followed worsened with every passing day. 

This year, Morro had sworn it wasn't going to happen. Freshmen in college did not shout at their classmates in the middle of a lecture, and Morro couldn't afford to look bad in front of the faculty here. Not while his father was the dean of the university. 

So once again, he gathered his steely resolve, and brought his attention back to Chen's lecture about Elemental Envy, a condition where a person became obsessed with elemental powers to the point of violence. An ironic subject for him to teach about, Morro had once thought. Though any logical thinking had left him once he'd seen Kai make a beeline for him that morning. It had of course returned with the lecture regarding jealousy over a certain elemental ability leading some to aggression. 

Sensing that Morro was gaining some moral high ground, Kai decided that right then was an appropriate moment to lean over and whisper to him. 

"Sound like someone we know?" he snickered, causing Morro to shoot a nasty glare at him before turning back to his notes.

Clearly unsatisfied with the reaction, he tried again. 

"C'mon, that was funny." Morro didn't think it was. "Lighten up."

Morro felt his eyebrow twitch. He was fairly certain that meant he was stressed. 

He counted the seconds of sweet and glorious silence before he could hear Kai scoot closer again. Without the earbud in his ear, the music was slightly louder than before. Not that it was catching Chen's attention yet of course. 

He made it five seconds even. "Think there's some kind of green ninja envy?"

Oh. Low blow. 

"You're one to talk," Morro hissed at him, keeping his eyes firmly on his notes. It wasn't lashing out if it was just one statement, he reasoned with himself. "You were obsessed at one point too."

He quickly cursed himself for humoring Kai's jab once he saw the beaming grin across his face. On a good day, that kind of comment would have ticked Kai off to where he would be the one to cause a disturbance, but it seemed Kai came to class armed with patience today. A rare feat. Morro vaguely considered congratulating him. 

Shrugging nonchalantly, Kai leaned back in his seat. "At least I didn't bully my own cousin." Of course, this argument again. 

"Can't you leave it alone?" Morro bit back, glancing in Kai's direction before looking back to his notes. "That was in high school. I don't even-"

"What was that, Morro?" Ah shit. "Do you have something you want to share?"

Chen's high-pitched voice was tolerable when it wasn't directed at anyone specific, but the way Chen's said someone's name made it a thousand times more irritating. Seriously, did he just hate his students or something? Why even become a professor? 

Meeting his eyes, Morro shook his head, leaning back into his seat. "No, sorry," he answered. "Just thinking out loud."

Chen raised a brow at the excuse. Clearly he hadn't bought it. Especially not when Kai had already scooted back into his own seat, pretending to be writing his own notes. 

What a guy. 

"Well keep the thinking to a minimum. Others would like peace and quiet."

No fucking shit, Morro thought to himself as he nodded. One Chen's back was turned, he glared at Kai again, before looking to see how many notes he'd missed. 

Seriously, this couldn't be allowed to go on much longer. Morro had to change classes. 

***

"Seriously?! There's no other -"

"If you want to stay in psychology, that is the only available class."

"But he's -"

"In the same study program as you are."

"Ugh!" Morro slumped in his seat, covering his face with his hands. He'd thought complaining to Wu would be enough to convince him to get out of the class, but apparently none of Chen's other periods had room for another elemental master. The Elemental Study Program was created for elemental masters across Ninjago who wished to learn more about their abilities. It offered an advanced learning course for those enlisted, and also kept them in classes together. Which meant there was also a limit on how many were placed in a class to, "keep other students safe." As if they were a threat. The program had become a lot less separate from other students once When had taken over, but there was still a lot to be improved on. 

Wu gave Morro a sympathetic look before clearing his throat. "I understand why you have your reservations about Kai, but surely he's not distracting you too much." Morro pulled his hands away from his eyes to see Wu typing something on his computer. Leaning over the desk to see what it was, he narrowed his brows when he noticed his grade book being pulled up on the monitor. "Your grades are as excellent as ever."

Morro huffed as he sat back in his seat, crossing his arms and blowing a strand of hair from his face. "My permanent record isn't," he grumbled. "Any shot I have at a future job could be completely erased once people hear about how, 'disruptive,' and, 'disrespectful,' I am in a formal setting. You don't understand how frustrating it is to have a professor automatically hate you when you haven't even done anything wrong yet."

"You're right, I don't." Wu set his elbows down on the desk, resting his chin on his hands and gazing over Morro thoughtfully. "But have you ever considered asking Kai why he likes to antagonize you?"

"I think it's obvious," Morro scoffed. He averted his eyes from Wu and uncrossed his arms, swallowing hard when he spoke again. "It's because of how I treated Lloyd in high school. I know it wasn't right, but I stopped, didn't I? And I apologized. But Kai just wants to get me in trouble."

Wu hummed, a consideration sound before setting his hands down. "Well if Lloyd has already forgiven, why would Kai continue to seek you out?"

"I don't know, probably because he hates me?"

"Now don't jump to conclusions," Wu chuckled, shaking his fondly at Morro's pout. "How about you ask him yourself? I know your next class isn't for a few hours. Surely you could track him down and confront him."

Morro thought it over. Sure, confronting Kai would give Morro the chance he needed to speak his mind without reprimand, but it could also mean making things worse between them. Morro's relationship with Lloyd was rocky enough as it was, and that was mostly because of how he and Kai were always at each other's throats. He didn't need to make it worse. Then again, he could also find a way to get Kai to stop for good, and his permanent record could have a chance to recover. 

He groaned, dropping his head against the back of the chair before meeting Wu's gaze again. "Fine," he sighed. "I'll try to talk to him. But," he narrowed his eyes at Wu and pointed at him, "don't think it's gonna magically fix things. He's stubborn and an ass."

"That's two things you have in common already." Wu smiled at him. "Now go on, shoo. I have some papers to file and unless you want to help me-"

Morro was already out the door. 

***

He found Kai sitting with two other students in the courtyard, their elements on display for all to see. At first, he wasn't sure who the other two were, before recognizing them as Jay and Nya. Morro didn't talk to Nya that much, but he was all too familiar with his cousin, Jay. Their delightful family reunion hadn't been that delightful, and so they barely spoke to each other. 

Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Morro gathered the remnants of his courage and patience before stepping towards them. He stopped right behind Kai, and cleared his throat to get his attention. 

Kai turned around with a gleeful expression, which quickly morphed into something more smug. "What's up, breezy?"

Morro rolled his eyes, and caught Nya doing the same before he opened his mouth. "Hi. Jay, Nya, can I borrow him for a moment?"

"I dunno," Jay squinted at him. "You gonna bring him back?"

"Only if I want to."

"Ha!" Kai grinned at him, extinguishing the small flame in his hand. "Like you're gonna get the chance. Be back in a sec, guys."

Brushing off his pants, he rose to his feet, meeting Morro's gaze. As always, Kai met his stare with defiance and smugness. Morro hated it, but he had to get this over with sooner or later. His reputation seriously depended on it. His sanity too. Morro gestured for Kai to follow him, and started walking away from the crowded campus grounds. 

"So what's so urgent you just had to pull me away from my friends, huh?" Kai asked as they made their way through the crowd of students. Morro's brow quirked upwards at the laid back question, as if Kai really had no idea why Morro would want to talk to him. 

Exhaling through his nose, Morro rolled his eyes. "What do you think, Kai?" he scoffed at him. "I need you to stop annoying me during class. It's distracting and I can't afford that."

Morro winced as Kai barked out a laugh. "Seriously dude?" The latter shook his head, his entire body shaking with uncontained amusement. "That's it? I thought it was something important, like Wu needed my help with something."

"If he needed your help, why wouldn't he just tell you himself?"

"I don't know," Kai shrugged. "I don't understand anything he does, honestly."

Morro glanced over his shoulder to give Kai a dirty look. "So you think he'd just ask me, when he knows I literally hate everything about you, to tell you about some important mission?"

Again, Kai's shoulders shrugged. "Wouldn't be the weirdest - wait." Kai stopped walking, prompting Morro to stop as well. He turned around, fully prepared to snap at Kai for stopping when he caught his expression. "You hate me?"

Kai's normally mischievous and vibrant brown eyes were suddenly clouded with - well, Morro didn't know what. His smug little grin was gone, and his shoulders had gone completely tense. Any biting comeback Morro could have come up with died on his tongue, and he hesitated before answering. 

"Well, I guess it's a pretty strong word for it, but I don't exactly like you." Morro shifted slightly, suddenly feeling uneasy. "All you do is annoy me and get in trouble. We're not friends, and we don't talk outside of classes or the program."

The uneasy feeling crawled up Morro's throat as Kai's shoulders fell, his eyes downcast and melancholy. "Right. Sorry about that." He rubbed at his arm awkwardly before walking again. "Is that what you wanted to talk about then?"

Taken aback by the sudden change in atmosphere, it took Morro a second before he too started moving. The crowd of students had decreased rapidly, leaving them alone at the edge of campus grounds. He considered Kai's words before answering them, careful not to set him off. 

"Kind of, I guess." He sighed, before shaking his head. "I just want you to stop, okay? I know you're only doing it because of how I used to treat Lloyd, but I'm not like that anymore. We made up and moved on." He met Kai's gaze firmly, ignoring the warning bells that were ringing in the back of his head once he saw the disappointment reflected back at him. "So why didn't you?"

Kai sputtered for a moment, shaking his head. "What? No, I - Okay, sure. That might have been how it started, but I thought that…" He trailed off, awkwardly scratching at the back of his neck and averting his eyes. "Once you apologized, I thought we were just fighting for fun. I didn't know you were still taking it personally."

"Personally?" Morro raised a brow at him. "How could I not? Every single day, it's always, 'remember when you did this?' and just constant jabs from you. What else could it have been?"

"I don't know, maybe - " Kai cut himself off before shaking his head. "No, forget it. I'm sorry, I should have been paying more attention. That's my fault."

"A little bit," Morro deadpanned. 

Kai winced at that, and Morro could tell that it had stung. Maybe he should have been more careful, but Kai was confusing him now, and he didn't like being confused. He stayed quiet as Kai stared into space for a moment, considering leaving when Kai spoke again. 

"Listen; after you and Lloyd made up, I realized I kind of like messing with you," he said softly, crossing his arms and refusing to meet Morro's eyes again. "I mean, you never just let me, so it kind of felt like a fun game. Everything I threw at you, you just matched super easily. I really liked messing with you, and I thought that…"

As Kai trailed off once again, Morro finally caught a glimpse of his face. A bright red blush spread from Kai's nose and cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears. His stance was awkward and nervous, shoulders tense and head down. At first, Morro thought that this was the beginning to a very good apology, but now it was starting to seem like something else entirely. 

Taking a deep breath in, Kai finally met Morro's eyes, with enough conviction in them to make the latter freeze in place. 

"I thought that you liked me too."

Oh. Oh. 

Thinking back to every conversation they'd ever had, yeah. It was easy for Morro to see how Kai had come to that conclusion. All those attempts at getting each other's attention, the games to test each other's patience until one of them snapped. Of course Kai liked him. That was how every guy acted around their crush. Morro couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it sooner. 

Guys were stupid. 

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Morro could see Kai staring at him almost nervously, like he was waiting for someone to shout at him. Clearing his throat, Morro opened his mouth. 

"I…" Very articulate. "Oh. I didn't think of it like that I guess," he shrugged, not really knowing how to respond. "I was so busy getting mad at you, I thought… Well, you know what I thought."

"Yeah," Kai sighed, shaking his head. "I do. I'm sorry, I should have - "

"Wait!" Morro couldn't let Kai finish, not with the way this conversation appeared to be heading. "I never once said that I was against it."

That took Kai by surprise, and it showed. His shoulders dropped, his eyes went wide, and he stared at Morro for a moment before shaking his head. "But you said you hated me!"

"I also said that was a really strong word."

"So you do like me?"

Morro held up his hands. "I didn't say that either," he said, a small smile sneaking its way into his expression. Knowing that Kai had actually been crushing on him this whole wasn't an entirely unpleasant thing, actually. Morro had eyes. He knew Kai was a real piece of work when he wasn't busy being annoying. "But… I don't think I'd be opposed to trying something new."

Kai's grin practically swallowed his face, and Morro could only imagine how sore it must have made his cheeks. "Alright, something new." He hesitantly stepped closer, the blush returning in full force. "I can work with that."

"Good." Morro stepped closer to him as well, before his smile turned serious. "But don't think you can get away with annoying me every day now. Being cute is only going to get you so fa - "

Kai cut him off, pressing his lips gently to Morro's before pulling away with a smile. 

"You talk too much."

Morro grinned, before pulling Kai back into another kiss. 

Yeah, he could work with this. 

[dimitrescus-bitch]

Get Back (Arizona Robbins x Reader)

Traumatic events did things to people. Surviving a plane crash was a traumatic event. Losing your leg was a traumatic event. You knew that, you’d completed your psychology courses and even then, it wouldn’t have taken your Ph.D. to know that. So, whenever you got a call that you could take Arizona home from the hospital, you were excited, but also nervous. No matter what state the woman you were bringing home was in, you’d love her and you’d adjust to make sure that you could be there for her as much as possible. 

“Hi,” you said nervously as you walked into her hospital room. She was dressed already and her bags were packed. You took a couple of steps towards her and that was when she finally looked up at you. “How are you feeling?” 

“Fine,” Arizona said coldly. Normally, you’d have flinched at the tone, but you didn’t. You took her backpack and wheeled her chair towards her. “Where have you been all morning?” 

“It’s a surprise,” you said happily. You were not a handy person, but you had gathered a few people to build a ramp on your porch so Arizona could easily get in and out of the house. There was a list that you’d been given of things that the doctors wanted you to do so that she didn’t completely give up on recovering. The hospital was hit hard with its losses and everybody who could come back was desperately needed. So, you were going to help her get back to doing the thing that she loved. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Good morning,” you greeted your girlfriend as she wheeled herself into the kitchen. You had woken up a little extra early to cook breakfast for her. It wasn’t anything fancy like what she and Mark had made together, but you hoped that she would eat it. The two of you had been home together for four days and she only ate after you begged her to or a fight had started. 

“I’m not hungry,” Arizona said and you sighed. “I’m just not. I’ll eat later, relax.” 

“No, you eat breakfast Arizona because it’s important. Today you have physical therapy. You need as much strength and energy for that as possible,” you told her sternly. Arizona scoffed, but took the plate from you. There wasn’t any conversation over breakfast because Arizona didn’t want to talk to you anymore. She was tired of you already and a part of you was scared that she was going to kick you out or leave you. 

“You realize that you’re not helping right?” Arizona asked as the two of you got into the car after breakfast. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“The uneasy silence, the looking at me like I’m broken. None of that helps me get better. If that is how you wanna act, I’ll get someone else to take care of me and you can go back to your life like I was never in it.” It sounded almost like a threat and you turned away from her and just kept driving. You held everything in until she was inside to do her therapy and you were alone in the car. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

As the weeks went by, Arizona didn’t get any nicer. Things began to normalize a bit though. Arizona tried more things on her own, which you were happy about. Her successes felt huge in your eyes, but they were never enough for her. Her failures meant that no matter what success she had that day, it wouldn’t be realized. She would be angry and pick a fight with you whenever an opportunity arose. 

“God fucking dammit!” Arizona swore as a glass shattered. You rushed to check and see what it was. Immediately, you began to clean up the mess, much to Arizona’s displeasure. “Get off the floor. I can get it myself.” 

“Let me help you,” you mumbled as you continued to pick up. 

“What?” Arizona’s tone was sharp and apparently the last of your straws. 

“I said let me help you,” you said louder. 

“I don’t need your help,” Arizona told you. 

“Yes you do. You need my help, but you think that you were raised to be able to weather it yourself. Being a good man in a storm isn’t about taking it all yourself. It’s about keeping a level head and not letting everything consume you. I love you Arizona, I really do and I want you to get better, but I don’t think you want to get better,” you said and Arizona just sat there, staring at you. You finished cleaning up the glass and then you went to walk away from her. 

“Y/n, wait.” Arizona stopped you before you got too far. “I’m angry. I am really angry and you’re here, so that’s what you get. I would really like it if maybe we could get counseling together or something so that I can work through my issues. It’s not fair for you to have to take the brunt of it alone.” 

“I’ll make an appointment. I’ll be sleeping upstairs, use the walkie if you need something. I bought them for a reason,” you told her. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Robbins, you’re back,” Alex greeted your wife. You could see the look of relief on his face as the attending approached. Arizona pulled him into a hug and then moved back over towards you. 

“My hours will be shorter so I can adjust, but I am back. You remember Y/n, right?” Arizona asked and Alex nodded. 

“Of course,” Alex said as he shook your hand. 

“Well, peds now has a shrink,” Arizona said excitedly. You were glad that she was back to being smiley and bubbly. It had been a process, but you had finally gotten your girlfriend back from the plane crash. 

“Welcome,” Alex told you. You smiled and Arizona introduced you to the “tiny humans” and showed you to what would be your office. 

[etirabys]

Downbelow Station, a fanfic summary

I’ve been writing fic for this tiny book fandom and have at least a few fandom acquaintances who want to read my fic but don’t want to read the book. This is a summary of what happens in the novel, whose heart, to me, is the relationship between a mindwiped ex-slave and a cross-cultural married couple who take him in under their protection.

The premise

People are in space, since the Earth Company started establishing space stations around increasingly distant stars for manufacturing/trade. There are several types of people:

Stationers stay on one station – stations were originally established by the Earth Company but have since gained de facto independence because Earth is so far away

Merchanters live on ships and trade – family very important to them, so is family name, regularly deal with Stationers as part of their life but find settling down very foreign. More sexually opportunistic than Stationers, possibly less monogamous.

Earth Company Fleet soldiers live on ships; originally under the control of Earth Company, as of novel start have gone kind of rogue, will continue to go even more rogue over the course of the novel

Citizens of Union, a... nation in space that grew in the deepest reaches, furthest away from Earth's influence. Union is currently trying to annex everyone else. Earth Company is trying to resist this through their Fleet. However, Earth Company is not very enthusiastic about this war and have been drawing out; the Fleet thinks it's important to keep fighting and keep doing dipshit moves like impressing Merchanter ships and ?? maybe looting stations a little bit to keep going.

Azi of Union – a genetically engineered underclass specific to Union. Basically designer subs. I believe the word azi is never brought up in Downbelow Station, but it's very clear a character is an azi, and what that means is explained in Cyteen, which takes place in the same universe. Union citizens use 'tapes' casually and at-will for fast learning and entertainment and conditioning, but starting later in life. Azi grow up on tape – their psyches are designed to be good at whatever they were designed to do, whether that's soldiering or psychologizing or childcare. Azi require varyingly regular check-ins with a Supervisor, who is an assigned person who tells the azi they are Very Good and On Course With Their Lives and give them tapes to keep them aligned with their values and mentally stable. Azi have normal human names but also an ID that looks like AO-1234, where the first alphabet character indicates what ‘class’ you are – an Alpha-class azi is probably far smarter than your average citizen and is more capable of functioning independently. Azi can win citizenship, but so far the only people onscreen who’ve done so are Alpha-class azi.

The cast

Damon Konstantin is a head of Legal Affairs on Pell Station, and the son of the Stationmaster, which is apparently a hereditary position. Despite the hereditariness Pell seems to have the most familiar culture to me, a 21st century American expecting democracy and rule of law. Pell Station is special – it orbits a human-livable planet called Downbelow, and there are only three such planets under human control. This means the planet can be used as a base for ‘bioform production’ (a vague category encompassing everything you can grow on a planet but not a space station) and makes Pell strategically valuable. The other two livable planets are Earth, under the control of the Earth Company Fleet’s nominal masters, and Cyteen, the base of Union operations. Pell is neutral, as many star stations try to be.

Elene Quen is a Merchanter who stepped off her ship to marry Damon. They’ve been married for four months at novel start. Her formal role is liaison with Merchanters.

Joshua Talley is a soldier of Union who was captured when Union forces sabotaged (blew up) a station called Mariner Station. He was tortured for information on another station – Russell’s – whose inhabitants feared the same fate for themselves. He had nothing to give them – he was a medium-level technician/soldier, an ‘armscomper’, which I think means he was the person pressing buttons to fire on targets or programming the weapons to fire on targets. During his interrogation Russell’s station was also sabotaged, ensuing in a mass evacuation.

Signy Mallory is one of the ~10 captains of the Earth Company Fleet. She is commanding and very deadly, commands fanatical loyalty from her soldiers. She’s also a sexual sadist. When she comes to evacuate Russell’s Stationers from a failing space station she finds that they have a Union POW who is very pretty, and takes him into her personal quarters for their journey to Pell. It is not said how she rapes him but it was a lot. Joshua thinks of this part as worse than the previous interrogation.

The events from there

When the Fleet arrives at Pell Station, they are convoying huge ships full of thousands of refugees from stations sabotaged / fallen to Union. It has been weeks or months since they started out. The ships were overpacked, many inside are dead, the culture of the ships has quickly turned anarchic/violent.

Angelo Konstantin, master of Pell, says "wtf, we can't take all these people, we don't have space. We literally cannot do this." The Fleet says, “You better,” unloads the highly upset and sick refugees, and leaves. Pell Station clears out two sectors of their station and makes it the 'quarantine zone', later shortened to Q. Conditions are very bad in Q and what to do with the violent, desperate people inside, many of whom cannot prove who they were in their past lives, when Pell doesn’t have the capacity to relocate them, is an ongoing problem throughout the novel.

Before leaving, Signy Mallory also said, "in addition to the refugee crises we unloaded on you, here is a Union prisoner of war we transported separately because the refugees would have killed him", and dumps Joshua on Pell leadership.

Around this time, Elene Quen finds out that her ship was destroyed when Mariner Station blew up. She now has no blood family, and Merchanters put great cultural emphasis on having clan and name. She decides to have a kid, talking Damon into it.

Joshua Talley is extremely depressed and keeps asking for a mindwipe so he can live as a normal citizen on Pell rather than being indefinitely detained. Mindwipes are used on stations as a consensual way of rehabilitating criminals. His captors are reluctant – it’s tantamount to execution. Damon Konstantin is the final permission-giver on the issue and gives it in the end. The process of mindwipe (or Adjustment) necessarily causes the person to regurgitate their whole life. This is recorded. Due to this, he discovers only after the mindwipe is complete that Josh was tortured on Russell’s with mindwipe drugs (presumably for the same regurgitating-your-whole-life property) and then raped on Signy Mallory’s ship on the way to Pell, and that wanting to wipe out the trauma was the real reason he wanted a mindwipe.

Damon feels really bad about this. He checks up on Josh Talley a lot when he's recovering from the mindwipe. He and his wife Elene decide to 'sponsor' him when he's rejoining normal society on the ship. Elene does so through some personal resistance – Josh once belonged to the military force that wiped out her family. They check in with a guy who doesn’t remember much of anything but definitely has abandonment issues and is afraid of emotional entanglement with people.

Josh Talley quietly converts much of his internal body mass into gooey loyalty.

Plot chaos. The station comes to be formally occupied by the Fleet, who wants to use it as their new base of operations, and a Union saboteur named Gabriel who talks to Stationmaster Angelo Konstantin’s main rival and conspires to bring him to power instead...

There’s a part I really really want to summarize here where Josh tries to fall on  grenade for the Quen-Konstantins – literally, trying to take an action that would end in his death but keep them safe from the Fleet – and they show up and say “you idiot, never do that again” and bring him back to their apartment and say “while the Fleet is suspicious of you, you are living HERE, so everyone knows you are under our protection. Forget your old job, we’ll find you something working closely with Damon every day – while you’re in sight they can’t get at you.” But I can’t find a non-confusing way to relay it, sorry.

Soon after that, the Union saboteur succeeds. Angelo Konstantin is assassinated. His rival, Jon Lukas, takes his place, and starts enacting subtly Union-friendly policies. I think this somehow happens concurrently with the Fleet still using Pell as a base of operations. It’s highly chaotic. Elene flees the chaos on a Merchanter ship whose family she knows. Damon and Josh, fearing whoever assassinated Angelo, hide within the more bad and chaotic parts of the station (I honestly don’t believe the author when she says they managed this for months – Pell has tens of thousands of people, that’s not a lot! You could close each sector at a time and sweep everyone!). This part feels like big missed opportunity to me – they spend their time moving from hiding place to hiding place, coming up with hopeless schemes that they know they’ll never enact. One infers they got much closer, but the author doesn’t go into that either. The one delight that comes out of this sequence is that Josh becomes more assertive and competent than we’ve ever seen him – being in hiding, under danger, brings out submerged training. He’s not a dependent anymore – arguably in some places he’s in lead.

In the middle of this, Josh makes contact with the Union saboteur, Gabriel, who hails him as a colleague and informs him that they’re of the same kind. They have the same training. The story Josh gave Russell’s interrogators, and Pell, that he was a mid-tier technician, is an implanted set of memories that automatically flushes his real ones when he was under duress. 

This means, although the author never explores it, that Josh was probably integral to destroying Mariner Station, and concomitantly responsible for Elene’s family’s deaths.

Josh asks Gabriel for safe passage to the planet Downbelow for both himself and a companion. Gabriel acquiesces, but is shocked when the companion Josh brings to the meeting is the Konstantin heir. He starts to say, “Well, well, what a useful person you have brought me –” and then gets shot by a Fleet soldier who’s following reports of a suspicious person. (My fic Half-Silvered Mirror diverges from canon at this point, and asks what would have happened if Gabriel had his way.)

Now in the hands of the Fleet, Josh and Damon meet with Signy Mallory again. Josh isn’t what Mallory remembers – as a rape victim he was passive, inward-turned. This Josh is articulate and emotional and loyal. Damon isn’t what she expects, either – he manages to jab at her conscience about what the Fleet has become, lawless and unmoored from any democratic interest. She plans to execute both of them the next day.

Due to convoluted plot reasons, she doesn’t. She turns against the rest of the Fleet, which for their own reasons is headed back towards Earth – to conquer. Her ship, Norway, enters a standoff against Union warships over Pell. Which isn’t on course to go well for her, until someone broadcasts at both of them that Pell is now under Merchanter claim. Elene, while out in space, has been convincing Merchanters to form an unprecedented coordination bloc. She demands Pell for the Merchanter Alliance and informs the Union military leader, Azov, that if he doesn’t acquiesce all Merchanter ships in her fleet will refuse to trade in Union space.

She wins. The scene when she docks at Pell and walks in, pregnant and victorious, to kiss her husband, is one of the most visually !!! scenes.

In the aftermath, Azov tries to take Josh back for Union. Damon says nope, he’s ours. Josh, what do you want? Josh says nothing. Looks at nothing. But when Azov and the other Union soldiers leave, he stays.

And afterwards, he goes to Signy Mallory – whose ships now constitute Pell’s militia – and asks, sincerely, to work as crew on her ship for a while. He says he can’t live on a station comfortably. That the stationers know him, and his past. (Not sure how true this is.) Mallory says it’s nothing another mindwipe can’t cure, and he says he doesn’t want to forget. “I’ve got something. The only real thing. All that I value.”

“So you go off and leave it?”

“For a while.”

Comments

There’s... so much I want to write about and explore.

Did Elene know when Josh left that he was probably responsible for her family’s death? (My fic Awarding Damages is about one way they could resolve this)

What did Signy Mallory do to Josh? Can he handle working under her?

Damon and Elene are so parental to Josh, and they're also embarking on having a family in a dynastic way where having a clan is their way of asserting that they exist and are rooted in the world. And of course Josh is going to feel really weird about how he fits into that – he's only watching it happen because he's a charity case, of course he's going to have no involvement in that project – what place is left for him anyway, he has no one and is nothing. I want this man to have feelings about family and how he doesn't have one and then HAVE A FAMILY I want him to hold the baby and go "OH. You are a biological composite of the two greatest people in the world. I cannot hold it against you that you are now going to push me out of my current living situation with the two greatest people in the world"

Due to the amount of mindfuckery Josh has gone through, it’s unclear to both him and the reader how many his memories are real. What does that do to a person?

From what I know of azi from Cyteen, Josh has psychological needs – again, he’s like a bred sub – that non-Unioners aren’t going to understand. Can he get them met? How does he negotiate that?

[trickstercaptain]

Lottie write a scars post challenge

re: this post / @lighthouseborn because hannah is a glutton for punishment apparently sdfksdfs ily

so i’ve written a lot about Jack’s scars over the nearly seven years i’ve been here, but not so much on the new blog ( i say new as if it’s not already a year old lmao ), so i’m gonna try and consolidate as much info as possible from old posts and my own notes into this post and make this my go-to scars meta, particularly as my headcanons on how he got a few of them have changed as my portrayal has grown and developed on this blog. i’m also only going to focus on Jack’s major scars ( so effectively the ones that appear in that gifset along with a couple of others ), because he has a lot and some of the ones he got as a younger man ( i’m thinking of the ones he sustains during TPOF ) would have mostly faded by the time we get to movie-era Jack ( plus i would be here all day if i was to talk about all of them lmao and not all of them have thematic significance to his character anyway )

the eyebrow scar

so starting at the beginning, Jack has a mark extending through his right eyebrow. it’s quite difficult to see at times because of his bandana ( it really kinda depends on the scene as to whether Jack’s bandana is high enough above his eyebrow for it to be visible, and when he has his hat on it’s even more difficult to spot ). while there are all sorts of ways in which he could have sustained that, i tie this specifically to the abuse Jack suffered as a child -- most notably from his grandmother, who he was forced to live with for a couple of years following his mother’s death. they’re kids books, believe it or not, but there is mention in the young Jack Sparrow series as well as the Legends of the Brethren Court series of Jack having lot of difficult memories associated with his grandmother, from her locking him in a brig because another family member had a premonition that Jack would set fire to her ship ( he was eight years old at the time ), to having nightmares about her red tooth, to casually mentioning how she would attack and throw things at him. 

with mine and @thecodekeeper’s headcanons trying to stitch all of this together into an upbringing that makes sense for Jack, i find it difficult to believe that he would have gotten out of that situation without any marks to speak of, so he sustained it from her throwing something at him. the sad part is that Jack has blocked out a lot of those memories because of how unhappy he was, so he can’t recall precisely what she threw, only that she threw something and was inches away from blinding him in one eye.

burns on his left arm

the lightning burns that twist around his left arm actually have a canon explanation, and that’s from when he was trapped inside of his cabin on the Wicked Wench after it was set alight by Beckett ( he did climb on board while it was burning, so it is partially his fault but y’know lmao ). in Jack’s desperate attempts to save all his worldly goods, which he kept in a chest in his cabin, he was jolted up against the door and the flames from the weatherdeck leapt through and set his shirt sleeve on fire. Jack uses his right hand to try and stamp the flames out, which also happens to be not just his dominant hand, but the palm he covers up with a leather guard throughout all the movies, so therefore i imagine he has burns there too. the guard likely started as a way to stop him from aggravating the burns as they healed, and then after years passed it just stuck as an accessory and he continued wearing it. even though Jack is somewhat ambidextrous in that he can wield a sword in both hands and aim a pistol effectively in his left despite his right being his dominant, his left arm is his significantly weaker one and he does have lingering numbness in it from time to time.

the brand

we all know how Jack got the brand. i go into a lot more detail about the emotional and psychological effects of being branded in this meta here, but physically-speaking it’s something that causes him discomfort for years afterwards --- in DMC all it takes is for Elizabeth and Gibbs to mention Beckett for Jack to reach for his brand, so while it eventually stops causing him constant pain, the memory of having it inflicted on him and of those involved persists, and it’s probably the scar that bothers him most for the psychological reasons i detail in the other meta above. he has the most complicated relationship with his brand as opposed to the others, and i imagine that is because it is the only one that was deliberately inflicted on him with the intent to leave a mark

scar on his left palm

i don’t have much to say about this one except that, since Jack has to use his blood to help break the Aztec curse ( because he stole a piece of the treasure while fighting Barbossa ), he slices his left palm right before throwing his piece to Will. this is a matching scar that he has with Will and Elizabeth and idk i just like the symbolic significance of the trio having gained the same scar through a shared experience.

powder burns on the right-hand side of his chest

one day i’ll actually be able to tell you precisely what happened here, step by step, and how Jack got shot and who by and the circumstances around it, but it’s the one scar I’ve always kept vague -- i think because it’s the one i want to best demonstrate the point of that deleted scene with Elizabeth: that the truth of Jack’s life as a pirate does not live up to the stories. Jack will tell the story of how he got shot and make it sound daring and dramatic, but i don’t think the truth of it is nearly as exciting or worthy of the legend that surrounds him. i’ve debated the idea that he was shot by an angry husband ( based on a snippet of dialogue that was cut from AWE between Jack and Gibbs ), and i think that’s the closest to the truth that Jack will let me get to exactly what happened

but i can tell you a few other things i know about it for sure. he was shot twice in quick succession, given that both powder burns appear similar to one another and, while it’s his right-hand side of his chest which gives a decent enough distance from his heart ( so it wouldn’t have been fatal by 18th century standards ), it is still in a dangerous enough place that he would have needed medical attention immediately considering the limitations of the era. that’s where Jack’s ship surgeon comes in ( @valorsworn ), because John Watson is a canon part of this franchise idk what you mean when you say he isn’t. anyway it’s my canon that John’s actions saved Jack’s life, but it would have also led to a lengthy recovery period ( you don’t just recover from two gunshot wounds to your chest overnight, particularly not in a century where the risk of infection is arguably even more dangerous than the actual wounds themselves ). so we’re talking weeks of recovery and then probably weeks of rehabilitation as Jack gets his strength back to where it was before he’d gotten shot, and I’d say that this is easily the worst injury he’s probably ever suffered.

[overdramatic-queer-antagonist]

And They Knew

I felt very bad about this fic so, as retribution I wrote a fic twice it’s size that is pure fluff.

"Tim, I want you to know I'm never going anywhere with you again," Jon said, drying his sopping wet hair off. Of course, everyone and their mothers knew that the threat was an empty one. So Tim hardly blinked. "Whatever you say, boss," He said with a smile as he slung his arm around Sasha. "Oh, come on, Tim! I'm the only one who wasn't thrown overboard!" Sasha complained as she tried to escape his grasp. "Exactly! It's really not fair to the rest of us if only one of us is dry, now is it?" "Well, maybe if you weren't so keen on jumping out of kayaks, you wouldn't be wet." "Oh, so it's my fault that my girlfriend is so perfect I couldn't resist giving her affectio- Hey!" At some point, Martin had come up behind the pair with a bucket of water and had, graciously, poured the entire bucket on Tim's head. "You know the rules," Martin said, "no being a simp. You agreed to it, Tim." Affronted, Tim argued, "It's not my fault, I'm in love with a goddess!" Or at least that's what it sounded like he said. The moment he said the word, "love" Martin had placed the, now empty, bucket on his head. Getting a muffled laugh from the now thoroughly bucketed man. Jon had dried his hair as much as he could and was now reading. He looked up and nodded towards Tim, "If you're done being gross-" an offended gasp from the bucket went wholely ignored- "Should we check out that restaurant we saw on the way here?" Sasha shrugged, "I could eat." Jon, Sasha, and Martin walked through the beach to the parking lot wordlessly. This decision was made through ridiculous hand gestures and pointed looks and was entirely to mess with Tim. Who, even as they left the beach, was Still. Wearing. A. Bucket. On. His. Head. This wasn't much of a problem until he got into the driver's seat, still refusing to take the bucket off. "Tim, why are you driving with a bucket on your head?" Sasha asked. "Spite," Tim said, tilting his bucket to make a pointed gesture at Martin. Martin groaned, "Okay, fine! You can take it off-" "Fuck Yeah," A freed Tim exclaimed. "-If you promise not to simp." "Slightly less fuck yeah." His freedom from the bucket is all well and good, but why not just have someone else drive?" Jon asked. "Oh, you sweet summer child," Tim said, clasping a hand to his heart, "Well, since you asked so nicely. Sasha was asleep on the way here and has no idea what we're talking about. I can tell by looking at you that you drive like my Grandpa, and gay people can't drive," Tim finished out the list by gesturing to Martin, who nodded solemnly, "It's true. I'm gay, can confirm." "I drive at a perfectly fine speed, thank you very much," Jon responded. Tim was gesturing wildly at Sasha, shocked that his and Martin's joke went unmentioned. Jon paused to look at the horrified Tim and asked, "What's with that look?" Tim recovered and grinned, "Sorry boss, we're just in shock that you would tell such a bold lie to our faces," he said in a tone that could almost be mistaken as hurt, if not for the snicker at the end. Sasha made a noise of disagreement, "I don't know, Tim. Maybe he speeds like a mad man. All that pent up stress. It's better than when he took it out on Martin."   Jon stared at the ground and nodded, "I am really sorry about that, Martin." Martin gave him a soft smile. "I know you are," he whispered. "Are you two lovebirds gonna get in the car, or do I have to grab the bucket?" Tim yelled from the driver's seat. Honking the car's horn as he did. Jon rolled his eyes but acquiesced. *** The drive didn't take long in the sense of nothing ever takes long on vacation. The twenty-minutes it took was dulled into peacefulness by the knowledge that they were in no rush. Sasha and Tim were arguing about the music, and somehow Jon had suggested they listen to a band he used to be in as a compromise. The car was silent as the first song faded out. Then it exploded into excitement. "Oh, my God! Jon!" Sasha exclaimed, twisting around from the front seat to face him. "That was amazing!" "Hell yeah, it was!" Tim agreed, "Man, boss. Didn't know you could sing!" Jon, for his part, folded in on himself, half preening, half mortified. Martin was grinning at him in silent awe, and that was Not making it any better. Jon bet the others could practically feel the heat radiating off his face as Tim drove them into the parking lot. "Man, we are learning so much about each other today," Tim marveled as he parked. "We should go kayaking more often." Martin looked at him in confusion as he stepped out of the car, "We already knew you were a simp, Tim." "I meant you coming out to Jon but, okay, be like that," Tim scoffed without any actual bite, following Martin onto the asphalt. Jon looked at Tim like he'd grown an extra head as he caught up with the pair, "Martin and I have been dating for six months." Tim looked disbelievingly between the (apparently) couple. "No way! No fucking way! How? Why?" He asked. Sasha patted him lovingly on the back, "I think he's having an aneurysm." "Did you know?" He asked. Sasha shook her head and shrugged, "No. I just don't really care. All this really means is Martin'll get the Simp Bucket too." Martin shook his head at Sasha."Check your preconceptions. Last week, Jon wrote me a love song." Tim doubled over in shock and pointed an accusing finger at Jon, "Who are you, and what have you done with my friend?" he yelled. "No, really! He's quite romantic!" Martin laughed. "And you're sure he hasn't been replaced by some shapeshifter who fucked with all our memories?" "Shapeshifters don't exist, Tim," Sasha said as she placed the Simp Bucket on Jon's head with a decisive thunk. "Even if they did, why would they need to fuck with people's memories? They could just act like their victim," Jon said from the Simp Bucket. "Ahaha!" Tim yelled, getting very into the joke despite having stepped into the restaurant. "They'd keep the memories of one person to psychologically torcher them!" "Wait. Why would a shapeshifter need to gaslight someone?" Martin asked as Sasha went and got them a table. "Because they feed off of fear!" Jon looked at Tim, amused as he removed the bucket from his head. "Okay. I'm not a shapeshifter. I just got therapy. But you should write a book." "Thank you! At least someone appreciates my vision. Even if it is NotJon." *** After a meal that was not as good as they wanted it to be but still alright, the quartet made the decision to head back to their hotel (also pretty not great.) The sun was setting, and everyone else had figured that they were done for the day, everyone except Tim, that is. When Tim and his brother, Danny, were little, their parents used to take them out here, and on the last day, they'd always sleep under the stars. This was their last night, and Tim wasn't about to let that tradition die. He ignored Sasha's confused looks as he packed a hell of a lot of blankets, some flashlights, and booze. "What's up?" She asked. Tim beamed at her and said, "Come with me." as he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of their hotel room. A few seconds later, and Tim was knocking on the door of Martin and Jon's room (Suddenly making a lot more sense why they got a couple's. Wow, they weren't even trying to hide it.) Jon opened the door, blearily, as if he had been sleeping, and gave him a questioning look. "No time to explain, boss man! Just get all the blankets you've got and meet me by my truck," Tim said, excitedly turning around before he was even finished. From behind him, he heard Jon ask, "Why would we have brought our own blankets?" Followed by Martin saying, "I've got a few!" and after a pause that Tim could only imagine being filled by Jon looking at Martin confused, Martin added, "What? Bed bugs." Tim felt like a kid again as he waited in the driver's seat, tapping at the steering wheel, giddily. Sasha kept asking him what they were doing, but Tim wanted it to be a surprise, so he just promised her she'd love it. Eventually, he heard the doors to the backseat close and, after looking back to wave, Tim drove off out of the parking lot. For the car ride, Tim was mostly silent. He didn't want to ruin the surprise, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. Martin and Jon were asked him questions, which Sasha answered for him. After what felt like ages to the excited Tim, they made it to the clearing. It was the exact same clearing his family had used because if he was going to be sappy, he was going all the way. "O-kay. We're in the woods now," Martin said as the truck slowed to a stop. "Why are we in the woods, Tim?" Tim whipped around excitedly, "We're going to sleep here!" There was a pause for a second before Martin replied," You get that that's the kind of thing a serial killer would say before killing us, right?" Tim shrugged and made his out. "I meant like, in the truck bed. That's why we brought all those blankets. My family used to do it when I was a kid." "I don't really think you can fit four people in a truck bed," Jon said. "Then I guess we'll just have to cuddle!" Tim laughed as Jon groaned behind him. They did end up cuddling. They didn't actually need to, but you cuddle your homies, Steven. Through the silence and the stars, Martin had asked, "Tim? How did you find this place?" Tim stiffened and looked away from the others, towards the sky, "Danny found it. When he was ten, he never could stay still." "Danny?" Tim heard Jon's voice say. "Didn't he die." Tim heard a smack and Jon saying ow, and he laughed. "No need for violence. Yeah, he- he did" Tim's composure was quickly wavering, but he felt Sasha's hand on his, so he squeezed it tight and continued. "He was big into urban exploration. One day he went into some tunnel place alone, and he never came out." Tim felt a head lean against his. Not Sasha's. She was on his other side, still holding his hand. Jon bumped his forehead against Tim's cheek and said quietly, "Sorry for asking." But it was fine. They both knew it was good to talk. They sat in silence for the rest of the night. It wasn't oppressive like they had all dealt with far too many times. It was quiet because there didn't have to be noise. They had tomorrow to be loud. Tomorrow was for Jon and Sasha debating the pronunciation of words. For Tim making the same joke until it wasn't funny anymore. For Martin to defend spiders like they were people. For the chaos, they would create to make their boring-ass office job bearable. They didn't Know what tomorrow would bring. Hell, they didn't even know it. But they knew that they could get through it. Like they'd gotten through shitty jobs, and missing brothers, and oppressive silence. The stars didn't know they weren't alone. There was too much space between them to see it. Sometimes people are like that, as well. Too caught up in their worries that they can't see just how loved they are. But you are not ever alone. And in that truck bed, in the dark, the four knew. And they knew what a gift that knowledge was.

[pilyarquitect]

War for Genius - Chapter 31 - Reaching a diagnosis

Hello everyone! Well, I know the previous chapter was hard for the Duckfam, but I really thought it was necessary for them to know all what Huey had been trough, all what Graves told him, all that he suffered… in order to help him in the best way possible to heal.

For this next chapter, this one starts where the last Huey’s chapter finished, it is, Huey hugging his uncles. Also, in this chapter I’ve put an unexpected encounter. I hope you all will like how this encounter goes 😊 (I’ve to admit this was an idea that suddenly came to my mind and I just had to write it. I hope you’ll like it!

As always, I’d like to thank @empro-8 for helping me editing this story. Honestly, without her help this wouldn’t be as good as it is, so thank you very much @empro-8 you’re amazing!

Welp, I’ll stop talking and let you read the chapter, enjoy it! 😉

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Scrooge was amazed, to say it lightly. Considering how everyone had seen Huey's reaction when Donald hugged him a few days ago, the fact that now it was the lad who had voluntarily run into their arms was for Scrooge something… unexpected, but deeply wonderful. 

A grateful smile appeared on the old miser's beak. After almost a month since his great-nephew was kidnapped, he was finally able to have some physical contact with him. That was more than he had expected from that visit.

While they were still in the middle of that embrace, someone suddenly knocked on the door, interrupting their brief moment of mutual comfort. Huey was the first to break the embrace, staring at the door with apprehension. Scrooge wasn’t surprised that his nephew was afraid of who would be on the other side of the door. As they saw in the video, a door was the only thing that separated him from his freedom, but, every time the door was opened was for someone to appear who would hurt him. It was logical to think the boy distrusted who might be on the other side.

To be honest, when they entered the room shortly after the boy woke up, his facial expression also showed features like the current one he was wearing.

Yes, surely his nephew would never look at closed doors the same way again.

While Scrooge was distracted analyzing Huey's behavior, Fenton had responded to the knocks. The door opened to reveal Dr. Owlfang behind it, Scrooge instantly noticed that Huey was relieved when he saw the doctor. That made the older duck happy, the boy trusted the owl, that was good.

The doctor, seeing the two adult ducks and Huey standing next to him, was slightly surprised and quickly rushed to say:

"Sorry, am I interrupting something?"

Scrooge looked at Donald, who with an understanding look told him to be the one to answer. So, the older duck raised his arms and said:

"No, no, ye didn't interrupt anything doctor, don't worry."

Then the duck in the top hat cleared his throat and added:

"Did ye want to tell us something?"

The doctor – who seemed to have been momentarily distracted – focused his attention on the rich Duck and answered:

"What? Oh well, I was actually coming to see my favorite patient."

There was a slight giggle from Huey. The older triplet said looking at the doctor:

"Surely you tell all your patients that.” 

The doctor smiled tenderly, leaned over to the duckling, and replied cheerfully:

"Maybe, but in your case Huey, it's true."

Scrooge smiled too, from the way that owl treated his nephew, it was easy to see why the lad trusted him. Huey was clearly in good hands. Scrooge noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw it was his nephew who had stepped toward Dr. Owlfang. The sailor-dressed duck asked:

"And why do you want to see him doctor?"

The doctor looked at them both and replied:

"Partly to assess his physical condition, since he has been recovering surprisingly fast. And partly… well, that would be a private thing between Huey and me, if you don't mind."

Scrooge was surprised and apparently Donald also made a strange face, since the doctor hastened to explain:

"As soon as the evaluation is over, I hope I can give you a diagnosis."

The rich duck understood instantly, Dr. Owlfang wanted to psychologically evaluate his nephew to find out what was the best treatment the lad could receive.

Guessing his intentions, the rich duck put a hand on the duck dressed as a sailor and gently began to guide him towards the exit of the room, saying:

"Oh yeah right, we get it. we’ll give yeh privacy."

"Yes, please," said the healthcare professional as he nodded.

Scrooge nodded back and concluded the conversation by saying:

"Okay, we'll wait outside."

The three adult ducks then left the room, leaving Huey and the doctor alone. Once in the hall, Fenton said to the other two ducks:

"Every day he does the same. He stays alone with him to ask him questions, I hope he can tell us something soon.” 

"What kind of questions?" a voice asked suddenly.

The three ducks turned towards the source of the voice and saw there a female duck with green plumage and blond hair. As soon as he recognized her, Scrooge glared, pointed at her with his index finger, and shouted:

"AQUACK! What are ye doing here? How could ye get in when the press was banned from the hospital?!"

Completely ignoring his outburst, the journalist with her microphone in hand, turned to the camera that accompanied her and began to speak:

“With all of you, Roxanne Featherly. We are live at Duckburg Central Hospital. I am here with Scrooge McDuck and companions who are visiting his hospitalized nephew."

Then she turned to him and continued saying:

“Tell me Mr. McDuck, is it true that your nephew was kidnapped by Mark Beaks? What reasons did he have for doing so? How did you know-? "

"What do ye think ye're doing ?!" Scrooge suddenly interrupted with a furious expression.

The reporter looked a! Indigent voice, asked:

"Excuse me?"

Scrooge grunted slightly and pointing up and down the aisle and exclaimed:

“This is a hospital! Ye can't come here and mug people like this!"

"But Mr. McDuck, our viewers deserve to know the truth," Roxanne tried to reply.

This comment only further enraged the rich duck who angrily pointed at the woman with his cane and said in an extremely harsh voice:

"The truth?! Do ye want the truth?! Well here it is! The truth is that everything regarding my nephew right now is an ongoing police investigation, so ye cannot have details of any kind, unless it is the police who provide them! And do you want another truth?" He took a step towards the increasingly surprised reporter and continued to say with evident anger in his voice:

“Another truth is that your colleagues and I don't know if ye’re one of them, may have caused trauma to my nephew! And if that is true, believe me if I tell ye I am going to sue everyone who was here that day, when my nephew was attacked and pressured to speak to all of ye, no one will go unpunished for this fact!"

His voice reflected such rage towards the press that the woman before him began to sweat. It was more than likely that she too was among those who assaulted Huey when the boy first stepped out into the hall, and now she had to fear the retaliation Scrooge might take against her career for what they did to the boy.

After swallowing, the journalist began to say:

"But Mr. McDuck-"

Scrooge didn't even let her speak by cutting her off to say instead:

"We are done, get out of here!"

Such must have been the harshness in his gaze that Roxanne Featherly widened her eyes in fear and slowly began to back away along with the cameraman beside her until they were both gone from sight. Scrooge, still scowling, turned to look at the other two ducks with him. They were both staring at him with utterly shocked expressions. Both probably surprised at how the rich duck had handled the situation. Fenton seemed to be the first to get over his surprise, and he did so by saying:

"Gee Mr. McDuck, that was… very hard,"

Scrooge opened his beak to reply, but before he could speak, his nephew spoke first, saying:

"Maybe, but I must admit if Uncle Scrooge hadn't, I would have done the same."

Scrooge sighed, actually, he knew that if Donald had been the one to “speak”, that would have been… disastrous. His nephew was too impetuous.

After this brief encounter with the press, Scrooge and Donald told Fenton to go rest. They would wait and let him know when the doctor finished.

Scrooge knew that Fenton appreciated the gesture. The Hispanic duck went for the cafeteria. That would allow him to take a break and also give him the opportunity to eat other foods than just snacks. Perhaps he would even get a chance to eat something hot, since Scrooge was well aware that having to be almost always by Huey's side, Fenton couldn’t… enjoy decent meals. The brown-plumaged duck knew from the other days he had at least a half-hour window of time before the doctor finished his exam on Huey, so he promised he would be back by then.

*******************************

After he was done eating, Fenton returned with the two other adult ducks, and he did so just as the doctor finally left the room. Fenton took advantage of the moment to enter again with Huey while the two uncles of the older triplet went to speak with the doctor, in a private place to avoid possible spies.

In order to speak in private, the three adults went to the doctor's office. Once inside the office, they sat down, Owlfang on one side of the desk and Scrooge and Donald on the other. The doctor put his hands together and began to speak:

"Before presenting my conclusions, I would like to ask you a question, if you don't mind,"

"Not at all doctor, what do ye want to know?" Scrooge replied calmly. At least, the fury provoked by that… reporter, had already dissipated.

The doctor leaned back in his chair and then asked the two ducks:

"I was wondering… where did Huey get the cap and guide he's wearing now?"

"We brought it to him today," Donald answered casually.

The doctor leaned forward and asked:

"May I ask why?"

Donald was the one who spoke again:

“The explanation is simple. When my nephew was kidnapped, his guide was the only thing we found in the place where the other children were. That made it clear to us that Huey had been there with them when they took him away, but when they caught him, his guide fell,”

Scrooge decided to conclude the explanation himself, narrating the other part:

“And as for the cap, thanks to police investigations, we have learned that his cap was destroyed before his eyes. That's why we thought it would be good for him to bring him these objects that mean a lot to him."

"I understand, you thought it would help him, right?" said Dr. Owlfang with a thoughtful expression.

The two uncles looked at each other momentarily and Scrooge answered for both of them saying:

"Yes… have we done wrong?”

The doctor was quick to clarify the situation, explaining:

“No, no, on the contrary, your assumption was very correct. In fact, I think today is the day I’ve seen Huey happiest since he woke up. Without a doubt these gifts you have brought him have been very good for him,"

"We're glad to hear that," Donald said with a more relaxed expression now. Given his known bad luck, he probably feared that he had made the situation worse, so the doctor's words filled him with joy.

Dr. Owlfang changed his voice’s tone and said:

"Well, this issue settled, I would like to talk to you about another matter,"

"What is it about?" Asked Scrooge. The doctor looked at him and said:

"First of all, I must say that physically, Huey is practically recovered, which means that, in a maximum of two or three days we could discharge him,"

"That sounds wonderful!" said Scrooge cheerfully. But before he could say anything else the doctor said:

"Yes, but…"

"Here we go, there is always a ‘but’" said Donald slightly annoyed.

Ignoring him, Owlfang continued:

"The psychological damage of the little boy still worries me."

Scrooge felt his concern grow, and drawing a little closer he asked:

"What can ye tell us about that?"

The doctor closed his eyes and began to explain:

“Well, Huey is very aware it was Mark Beaks who ordered him to be kidnapped, and he also knows it was he who locked him up, but on the other hand, Beaks has been the only positive stimulus the boy has had during his captivity. I think he has developed… dependence on him, because he constantly asks me where and how he is."

Scrooge's eyes widened, and with slight panic in his voice, he suddenly asked:

"Are ye telling us that Huey has Stockholm syndrome?"

Owlfang sighed and sadly replied:

"It's… too early to say, but it's very likely."

"Oh, curse me kilts!" Scrooge exclaimed. The rich duck was very certain about one thing, that parrot was going to pay for all the damage he had done to his nephew, he was willing to do whatever was necessary to serve justice. His crimes were not going to go unpunished.

Scrooge was so lost in angry thoughts that he was surprised when he heard again the voice of the doctor who continued to explain:

"Also… Huey has developed a deep fear of the other person he interacted with in his time as a prisoner."

"Huey is afraid of Graves?" Donald asked in a slightly shaky voice. The doctor looked at him compassionately and replied:

“Indeed. Although I’m afraid that the fear towards his family, due to the acts of this Graves, is also present. It will take a while for the little one to regain the trust he felt toward his family. Likewise, it will surely take some time to get Huey to see the truth about Beaks."

"So what do ye advise us?" Scrooge asked, honestly, he was very confused about what to do next. He looked at the doctor with pleading eyes. He looked back at him and replied:

“Under normal conditions, once my patient made a full recovery I would send him home. But in this case, I don't know if your house is the best place, at least not with-"

"Not with all of us there," Donald said cutting off the doctor.

The healthcare professional looked at the duck dressed as a sailor and replied:

"Exactly, I must say that Huey seemed happy with the idea of going home, but at the same time, it was clearly visible there was fear in that idea as well."

Scrooge rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then, speaking thoughtfully, suggested:

"What if… just as Fenton has been here with him all these days, he too comes to live in the mansion, albeit temporarily, while he learns to trust us again?"

The doctor opened his beak to speak, but didn’t say anything. Actually, he remained quiet for several seconds, thus generating an awkward silence. When Scrooge began to entertain the idea of saying something, Owlfang suddenly broke the silence:

"That… is not… a bad idea, he would be in a familiar and comfortable environment for him and with someone to help him adjust to his old life again, but as I said before, it’ll probably be a long process."

Scrooge nodded and said:

"We get it, all we want is for Huey to go back to his old self,"

Owlfang closed his eyes and clenched his hands. He said:

“You must be aware this may never happen. He’ll improve, I assure you, but I doubt he’ll be who you expect again."

The two uncles looked at each other. Scrooge knew that both Donald and he wanted Huey to go back to being his usual self, but it didn't seem like an option…

"Knowing he’ll get better is enough for now," said Donald, expressing what both ducks were thinking. Scrooge simply nodded and replied:

"I agree."

The doctor nodded. Taking out a piece of paper and a pen he wrote something, when he finished, he handed the paper to the two ducks at the same time saying:

"The only thing I can do now is to recommend a specialist. A good therapist that I trust will be able to help him."

Taking the paper in his hands, Scrooge looked again at the doctor and asked:

“Can't you do it? Huey seems to trust you a lot,"

Owlfang shook his head, and speaking with a certain sadness in his voice, he explained:

“I'm afraid is beyond my specialty. I have only done a preliminary exam, but I’m not an expert on the subject, as much as I want to, I don’t think I’m the best candidate to help your nephew,"

The two uncles looked at each other again and after a brief nod from Donald, Scrooge looked back at the doctor and replied softly:

"Okay. We understand, thank you for everything ye've done for him so far,"

Owlfang smiled gently and gratefully. Later, the bird with a white coat replied:

"It’s been a pleasure, I'm glad I was able to help him. No one deserves to go through what that boy went through."

Scrooge smiled sadly, he sincerely thanked the doctor for everything he had done for the lad, and although everyone wanted Huey to be his old self again, what the doctor said was true. Huey had suffered damage that could truly be irreparable, the only thing they could do was try to minimize that damage as much as possible, helping and supporting the older triplet so that he could in time, would trust them again. Besides, having Fenton with them would probably help. So, determinately, the rich duck spoke again:

"Well then, when you discharge Huey, we’ll take him to the mansion – if the boy is okay with it – and if Fenton agrees, he’ll temporarily come to live in the mansion as well."

Donald looked at him with a smile on his beak and said:

"That sounds like a plan." 

***************************************

Welp, so… Scrooge really can’t stand press. Especially Roxanne Featherly. Knowing what the reports did to Huey, it was obvious Scrooge wouldn’t be nice with them in their next meeting, but it would be worse if this meeting took place in the hospital where they were supposedly forbidden to be. I hope you liked this. Also, what do you think of what doctor Owlfang told to Scrooge and Donald? Let me know your opinions.

I’ve a great new! This Monday, I’ll start publishing another story, but this story is from another fandom. This story is about some French comics and movies I used to read and watch when I was a child. The name of those comics is: Asterix and Obelix, and the story is about a Gaul village who on 50 b.C. bravely resists Roman domination and fight against all the Empire attempts to conquer them. If you want to give this story a chance, is named: “Getafix’s mistake”.

Okay, after say that, I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I also would like to thank to all the people who’d read this story, the ones who commented, those who reblogged it and: @mysteriouswriter72 @elianemariane17 @araminakilla20 @hakuneki07 @i-cant-find-any-creative-name @gizmovi @some-dum-wizard-bitch @infamousquack  @margaretnobbs @alphatheplant @sugerheart @squackcrowquack @nsbfenro @marshmeadow12 @ohgeeeznotagain @constellations1 @isabellanajera @you-big-palooka @deathcat003 @dragonsareawesome123 @via15 @wellshit333 @ninjawarrior100 @your-salty-dorito @rowan-npg @thesuperepicawesomefireninja @duckworth-is-love @worldsbesteagle @shaz231 @cherriesandpoison @softlemonboi @rosebu-uds @mulaneysnl @ihavenonamehalp @drummergirl231 @narnour-momo-007 @via15 @trash-queen-fahey @gamerfansims389 @lesbianz4glomgoldje @jessie-00 @maclove54north @northofanvi @maditheanimaniacuwu @gabrielpainterfest-blog @Variousfandompage @whiteeyesandtina @official-toebeans @r6sedust @gabrielpainterfest @obsessionhell @werdna213 @chydesa-star @a-stupid-girl @fudgecantlife @elipaghy04 @whisperwillyou @fnafgirl30 @exceeeed-charger2020

And if I’ve forgot someone, I’m sorry

See you in the next chapter 😉

[inevitably-johnlocked]

got any,,,, sleepy fics? or fics that just generally involve sleep?

Hey Nonny!

Ahh, cute prompt! Let me go through my lists and see what I can get for you :D

SLEEPY FICS

See also:

The Speckled Blonde / BedSharing

BedSharing Pt. 2 and Insecure Sherlock

Bed Sharing Pt. 3

Bed Sharing Pt. 4

Soft. Happy. Content. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 223 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Cuddles, Bed Sharing, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Spooning, Morning After, Sherlock POV) – Sherlock reflects on his state of mind. Part 6 of I-J’s Tumblr Ficlet Collection

And When The Night Is Over by Simply Isnt On (K, 329 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Platonic Bed Sharing / Not Slash) – Sherlock and John sleep together.

When Morning Comes by Youarethelightoftheworld (T, 423 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Lazy Mornings/Morning After, Fluff and Angst, Sleepy Cuddles, Domestic Fluff, Cuddling / Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort) – “Sherlock,” says John solemnly, “I’m not sure we can go anywhere today.”

I Knew You Loved Me by inevitably_johnlocked (T, 743 w., 1 Ch. || Morning Cuddles, Fluff, Clingy Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slice of Life, Morning After, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Declarations of Love, Pet Name, Bed Sharing, Snuggles) – John and Sherlock share a lie-in the morning after their first time. So fluffy and gross your teeth will fall out. Part 4 of I-J’s Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Easy like Sunday Morning by lbmisscharlie (G, 910 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Breakfast in Bed, Epic Friendship, Platonics/Domestics) – John and Sherlock and their lazy, dysfunctional Sunday mornings in bed. In which Sherlock has difficulty sleeping and John makes lots of toast. Shameless fluff. Part 1 of No Mushrooms Please

A Discourse on the Inadequacy of a Duvet by guns_and_poses (T, 1,005 w., 1 Ch. || Est. Rel., Fluff, Humour, Bed Sharing, Romance) – Sherlock keeps stealing the covers when they share a bed because he wants John to move closer to him when they are sleeping but of course doesn’t want to ask. John gets annoyed at first until he realises what Sherlock wants and is more than happy to oblige.

Sleep Tonight by Jenn1984 (T, 1,220 w, 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Bed Sharing, Worried Sherlock, Sick John, Hugs/Cuddles, Touch Neediness) – Fingers begin prying open his jacket looking for a wound and John would really like to swat at them. No, he’s not hit anywhere, he’s just damn sick.- John Watson has a fever.

Loved. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 1,231 w., 1 Ch. || First Sherlock POV, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Nose Kisses, Morning After, Love Confessions, Morning Cuddles, Emotional Sherlock, Sentiment, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock reflects on his relationship with John. Part 5 of I-J’s Tumblr Ficlet Collection

The Cure for Snoring by Goddess_of_the_Night (G, 1,278 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Conversations, Bed Sharing, Cuddling, Fluff, Domestic, Platonic / Sleepy Cuddles) – Sherlock and John spend the night in Scotland after finishing a case. The sole Inn in town only has one room left…one bed. This would be fine - if not a bit awkward - if Sherlock hadn’t developed a habit of snoring loudly. John suffers through many hours of sleeplessness before he discovers that skin-to-skin contact stops the noise. Part 1 of Dreamscapes

John Was Nice Like That by hannah_baker (T, 1,307 w., 1 Ch. || Est. Rel., Fluff, Body Worship, John’s Bum) – Sherlock Holmes may not ever sleep, but that hasn’t prevented him from having a kip on the couch with John.

The Talons of Sentiment by dearcst (G, 1,463 w., 1 Ch. || First Person POV, Angst, Unrequited Love, Pining Sherlock) – I promised myself long ago I wouldn’t succumb to something so degrading, something so vicious. I promised I wouldn’t let myself fall. But that was before him. That was before I met John. In sleep there is such bliss and peace, and as John slept on my shoulder, it killed me inside to know I was so close yet I could never touch him.

I Was Wrong by AllesandraQuartermaine (K, 1,496 w., 1 Ch. || TGG AU, Friendship, Hospitalization / Injury, John’s Self Esteem, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sherlock and John have a conversation a few days after the pool face off with Moriarty. And John hears something quite surprising.

You Should Have Let Me Sleep! by theraggedypond (T, 1,542 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Sleepy Sherlock, Cranky Sherlock, Domestics) – After a three day case with no sleep and hardly any food, Sherlock is recovering from it by playing comatose. John finds out what happens when you wake up London’s favorite consulting detective.

To Sleep, Perchance to…Cuddle by nerdyandiknowit (NR, 1,563 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Cuddles, Fluff, Stubborn Sherlock, Bedsharing, Cuddles & Snuggles) – Almost immediately after they got together Sherlock formed this dependency on John-he could not (or would not as John believes) sleep without John being there, in bed, next to him.

The Perfect Place by SilverSmile (K+, 1,955 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Romance, 5 and Ones, Fluff, Experiments, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock attempts to find the perfect place to sleep, but his little experiment proves to be far more difficult than expected.

100 ways to say ‘I love you’ by Teatrolley (NR, 2,143 w., 1 Ch. || Slow Burn, Fluff, Domestics) – Sherlock sleeps with John’s body next to him, and wakes up to find him making them both toast in the kitchen with sleep still sitting in the corner of his eye, and he holds on tight to every little intimacy that John gives him; every little small moment, every little fond smile. It could be enough. Still, he’d like more. But Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know how to ask for things. Luckily, John does. In which there are a hundred phrases and none of them are “I love you.” Until they are.

Manipulation by sixbynine (K+, 2,566 w., 1 Ch. || Experimenting John, Reverse Psychology) – John Watson is not as unobservant as Sherlock thinks, nor is he above using what he knows. Even if it is just to make sure Sherlock eats and sleeps.

Nothing Left Untouched by ForeverShippingJohnlock (K+, 2,617 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Romance, Bed Sharing, Oblivious Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Grumpy John, Fluff and Cuddles) – Sherlock rearranges the flat. So what if John’s bedroom is now a research library. It’s not like John needs a bedroom, he can share with Sherlock. They’re friends and John has obviously slept in close quarters with men before and it’s not like Sherlock sleeps much anyway. It’ll be fine.

Insomnia by TheSingingGirl (K+, 2,635 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Humour, Bed Sharing, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sleep is merely the next frontier in what has become the battle to keep Sherlock alive. It’s because of this that John ends up in bed with a sociopath.

Pillow Talk by 221b_hound (E, 2,925 w., 1 Ch. || Post-HLV, Est. Rel., Preening Sherlock, Limpet Sherlock, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Sex on Furniture, Scent Kink, Masturbation, Fluff, Soft Sherlock) – John gets home late from work and Sherlock is nowhere to be seen. John walks through the flat, distracted by memories of all the excellent sex they’ve been having, and finally finds Sherlock asleep in the upstairs room - apparently having fallen asleep mid-wank while inhaling the scent of John’s pillow. Well, you should always finish what you start, John thinks… Part 3 of Lock and Key

The Bee Charmer by dreadpiratewatson (M, 3,314 w., 1 Ch. || Est. Rel., Captain / Soldier John, Idiots in Love, Domestics, John in the Army) – Greg goes to 221B to check up on Sherlock after a strange phone call pulls him away from an important case, and is stunned to find himself in front of a gun brandishing soldier with a sleeping Sherlock on his chest. John Watson is a doctor, a war hero, a husband, and the only one in the world who can soften Sherlock’s heart.

Morning Sunlight by slashscribe (E, 3,565 w., 1 Ch. || PWP, Morning Sex, Fluff, PWP, Established Rel., Soft Idiots) – A thin band of soft morning light peeks between the curtains and stretches across John’s torso, laying dormant across his forearm, dipping into the space between his arm and his chest, illuminating his right nipple but just brushing the edge of his left, disappearing into his armpit, and reappearing again right over Sherlock’s eyes where his head rests, nestled against John’s shoulder. Sherlock is not annoyed by the light’s intrusion on his sleep, not when it rests so soft and tantalizing on John’s skin, a work of unintentionally erotic art. A PWP with so much emotion.

Upon Waking by joolabee (E, 3,901 w., 1 Ch. || Mild Dub Con, Magical Realism, Angst, Somnophilia) – It sets on slow: John can only be awake while Sherlock sleeps, and vice versa. Their lives are codependent, but never meeting. Like a set of scales.

In the cherry blossom’s shade by Eliane (M, 3,934 w., 1 Ch. || Post S3, First Time / Kiss, Sleeping Together, Pining / Obsessive Sherlock, Minor Char. Death) – This isn’t new. Sherlock has already done this – has gone through cities, and dingy hotels, and sleepless nights but it was different before. John wasn’t there before. They’re in this together.

Bitter Nights Turned Sweet by Hyliare (T, 4,076 w., 1 Ch. || Pre-Slash, Insomnia/Hallucinations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, POV Present Tense John Watson, Cuddling/Snuggling) – Sherlock has always had trouble sleeping; he hasn’t always had someone in his life willing to help.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

Experiment by Gwen’s Blue Box (K+, 4,222 w., 3 Ch. || Non-Con Drugging, Hurt Comfort, Friendship) – Of course John has always known about his flatmate’s irregular sleeping habits, especially when they’re on a case. This time, however, the case is taking longer and longer, and soon John starts to worry. But there’s not much he can do, is there? Because drugging Sherlock isn’t an option. Not yet, maybe, but will it be soon? {{CW: John drugs Sherlock without his consent}}

Between Asleep and Awake by katydidit (K, 4,309 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Sick Fic, Post-TRF / Reunion) – John is sick. Incredibly, extremely, dangerously sick. Plagued by a high fever, he begins to hallucinate, start seeing things that aren’t really there. Because they can’t be there. Can they?

Sleeping next to you by Salambo06 (E, 5,018 w, 1 Ch. || ASiB Fic, Bed Sharing, Frottage, Mutual Masturbation, Rimming, Anal, First Kiss/Time) – Based on an Anonymous Prompt: “So, that scene from ASiB when Mrs H has been attacked by the american CIA guy & John, Sherlock & she are in Mrs H’s kitchen when John says "She’ll have to sleep upstairs in our flat tonight. We need to look after her.” to which Sherlock replies with “no”. John of course suggested that because he cares about her safety, but maybe he also did it cause he /wanted/ that to happen. What if they finally agreed on letting her have John’s or Sherlock’s bed & J&S sleep in the same one?“ Part 12 of Tumblr Collection

To Sleep, Perchance to Smother Your Flatmate with a Pillow by Linpatootie (G, 5,308 w., 1 Ch. || Bedsharing, It’s an Experiment, Fluff and Humour) - Sherlock wants to conduct a sleep study of sorts. John contemplates smothering him with a pillow. Part 1 of Two Coffees One Black One with Sugar Please

a very soft epilogue (my love) by darcylindbergh (E, 5,395 w., 3 Ch. || Retirement, Domestic Fluff, Dancing, Dogs, Grumpy Old Men) – Across the pillows, Sherlock shifts and hums, the creases of his face deepening and then smoothing before settling. John watches him wake up, his chest swelling with affection and fondness, and thinks he’ll never get tired of Sherlock in the mornings, sleepy and soft. It’s been some forty-odd years, and John hasn’t gotten tired of it yet. Part 5 of things fairy tales are made of

Sleepless nights by El loopy (T, 5,467 w., 3 Ch. || Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares/Insomnia, Panic Attack, Worried Sherlock) – Sherlock has a nightmare and John wants to know what it was about. Set during season 1. Three-shot.

The Honeymoon Suite by Salambo06 (E, 5,827 w., 1 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Fake Marriage, Frottage, First Kiss, Cuddling/Snuggling/Sleepy Cuddles, Bed Sharing, Holidays / Hotels, Case Fic) – “You’ll see,” the receptionist smiles, handing John the key to their room, “This honeymoon suite is quite spectacular. Our hotel has won many awards, most of them for these rooms.” John nods, licking his lips and playing with the key in his hand. We’ll probably be leaving first thing in the morning, he wants to tell her. As soon as Sherlock proves who robbed the previous couple who booked a room here, we’re out of here and stopping this happily married charade. “Thank you,” he says instead.

Just a Touch by MissDavis (E, 6,248 w., 4 Ch. || Bed Sharing, Masturbation, First Time/Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Sharing a Room) – John has trouble falling asleep these days. There’s one thing he can do that always seems to help, but he’s stuck in this hotel room with Sherlock and doesn’t think he’ll get the chance. How will he ever find relief and a good night’s sleep?

When We Sleep by PrincessNala (K+, 6,660 w., 1 Ch || Post-TGG,  Alternating POV, Bed Sharing, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Hugs) – Sherlock needed to feel every beat of his heart, every rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. It was the only way to completely assure himself that John was alive and right there next to him, and not dead, no, never dead…

The Tip Over Into The Inevitable by ivyblossom (T, 6,894 w., 1 Ch. || Grief, Cuddles, Insomnia, Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers) - When his father dies, Sherlock avoids sleeping. Then discovers he can’t sleep at all. John finds a way to help.

The Very Unlikely Existence of a Flightless Bird in a Tuxedo by cwb (E, 8,829 w., 1 Ch. || Poetry, Penguins / Animals / Zoos, First Kiss / Time, Blow / Hand Jobs, Sleepy Cuddles, Endearments, Friendship / Love, Adorable / Sleepy Sherlock, Case Fic, Sherlock Can’t Say Penguin) – A case at the zoo reveals something John finds cute about Sherlock. A conversation ensues, and so does happy endings.

A Terrific Soporific by antietamfalls (T, 11,269 w., 1 Ch. || Bed Sharing, Sleepy Cuddles, Fluff, Insomnia, Experiments, Ace Sherlock) – Sherlock, a long-time sufferer of insomnia, is forced to share a bed with John at a hotel while on a case. To his astonishment, he finds that spending the night next to John helps him sleep and becomes determined to maneuver himself back into John’s bed.

Sherlock’s Sleeping Habits by Cumberbatch Critter (T, 11,424 w., 16 Ch. || Friendship, Sleepy Sherlock, One Shot Collection, Fluff, Domestics) – In which John learns about Sherlock’s sleeping habits. Series of unrelated oneshots featuring the one and only ADORABLE Sleepy!Lock! Fluff abounds.

Shuteye Shenanigans by Ayakae (K+, 13,263 w. || Post-TRF, Friendship / Epic Bromance, John’s Nightmares, Angsty Fluff, Bed Sharing, Humour, Cuddles, Taking Care of Each Other, Domestics) – John Watson has never slept with Sherlock Holmes. Never ever ever. And never will, thank you very much. Well, there was that one time, but John didn’t count that. It was completely different, just like the second time it happened. And the third. And the fourth. Epic bromance, but it can be read as pre-slash if you wish.

a good old-fashioned happy ending by darcylindbergh (E, 32,731 w., 26 Ch. || Christmas, Frottage, Comfort, Est. Rel., Fluff, Insecure Sherlock, Frottage, Nightmares, Sleepy Sherlock, Marriage Proposal, Humour, Fluff, Dancing, Cooking, Happy Ending) – For Christmas this year, Sherlock wants to get John something special: something every fairytale deserves. Part 2 of things fairy tales are made of

Bedtime Stories by Liketheriver (M, 34,388 w., 1 Ch. || Emotional H/C, Romance, Angst & Humour, Bed Sharing, John First Person, TRF, John Whump) – John's POV during Season 2 and beyond when Sherlock takes up semi-permanent residence in his bed. A collection of codas and missing scenes wrapped up into one long fic and topped with a bow that takes the story beyond Reichenbach and into happy territory once more. Part 1 of Bedtime Universe

[currentfandomkick]

Bio! Dad Strange Part 10, Mr. J finds Robin

Realized it might be easier to add titles so people know whats going on in these

Marinette was glad she had red hoodie, er, Jay back. He helped her escape her overprotective rouges, and aas the only one she could rant to about JL members without worrying about secret identities.

They may also be plotting to get their Hero Stalker out of the batfam—apparently Dick was a dick to Jason and chances of him changing with Tim were slim.

Speaking of, he didnt pick up lastnight and there havent been Robin sightings lately. Though, she is a but distracted trying to manage Jay’s murder rampages. Zsasz was helping with those and the Sirens pointed him to targets that deserved it, mostly traffickers and cartels.

The Council said that at this rate, he’d be her bodyguard or a new member. She didnt know what that meant for him besides staying beside her, when she worked as ‘Harley’s Niece’ (thank you puzzles for that) but otherwise she was kept away as Pixie Pop (too easy to id her) and Jill was just her father’s daughter taking to his patients and keeping certain Rogues from plotting mass murder (Uncle Jerome, Penguin, Riddler) or terrorist attacks (mostly Scarecrow but sometimes Ivy, Dent and Mr. Freeze)

But it bugged her, Robin being missing. She mentioned it to Rose, who said her flowers hadn’t seen him at all. As Tim or Robin.

She sent out a rouge and RKC search city-wide. Jay helps, as Red Hood (helmet was better but no, hood. Even though he isnt wearing one and is still in the awful outfit they met in).

Red Hood has managed to get a following on the streets and made a no kids rule for everything. All kids found were given to Uncle Oswald or his ‘son’ Marteen (late twenties) for recovery phsycially. Mentall Harley had her own picks for help on therapy, social and psychological sides.

The RKC was thriving since that system was installed.

But Robin was missing two days in. Mr. J was still back and too quiet and damnit!

Marinette skipped her treatments. Gotham is loud and she knows it but she has to do something. Jay is in his gear and she puts on her knock-Harley outfit and stocks up on knives, stungun, bolas and rubber bullet guns on her hips or legs.

She doesnt think about the fact that the red and black makes it look like her and Red Hood are trying to match with the the different red and black he’s wearing. Her makeup covers her face again—done up like a mime with a few contour tricks now.

She sneaks out and patrols on the rooftop, one of Robin’s usual routes. Maybe they just need to talk in person.

Then she catches something that sounds like her Hero Stalker when he was frustrated and tired and oh god that was screaming in there.

She moved. hit Rose’s tracker flower hard enough to leave a distress trail as she ran.

Jay ran after her, following her twists and turns.

She wished she skipped her treatments sooner. Could fly off to help but she hadnt and she cursed herself for this.

At 10 she found Mr. J torturing her friend in a warehouse.

“Stalker,” she whispered. Becuase that’s who he was first, the hero stalker that loved Batman and Robin (Robin-Jay, a small voice corrected her) for helping his city and were kind and caring and nice when his home was cold.

Robin and Mr. J didn’t hear. She knew that words were being said but she couldnt process them. Shock, Harley talked about that a lot after last summer.

A camera was recording. The sick fuck, he wanted to show this to someone.

She grabbed her bolas and threw them at Mr. J’s head.

He went down, hard. Jay handled him, but Marinette only cared about getting her friend off that table.

There was an oversized ray gun lointed at them while she fiddled witht he restraints, picking the locks.

She heard the whirling in it and kicked it in another direction.

It threw lightning. What the hell. What the hell—where was Batman. Why wasnt he keeping her friend safe. Why did he fail to keep Jay safe. Why—why does he get to put kids in danger?

Marinette felt sick. She got an exhausted Tim out and carried him.

She felt Harley run a hand through her hair as she refused to let her friend go.

She didnt know when the others got there, but they were.

Never alone, never go in alone. Always call the family and they will show. Never fight alone—the Council drilled this into her for years. Why was Hero Stalker-Robin alone? Did Batman forget how dangerous Gotham can be?

Zsasz was there with Jay, something Jay being “too nice” about needing to kill him painfully and permanently this time—“properly put him down this time.”

Her mind was a mess. She went to her Father on autopilot, carrying Tim over the rooftops. He clung to her. She’s ten and he’s twelve clinging to her as support. Where’s his team, his backup. Where’s Batman or Batgirl or Nightwing or the newb—Spoiler?

Why was Tim clinging to her and her team when his should be there. When his fights hers. Why were his enemies there and Batman—no, Bruce, his dad. Why wasn’t his Dad there for him. Why?

Father’s assisant helped fix Tim, their ability is to augment healing after Father puts them back together. Any attempt to move his mask was met by her breaking their wrist.

He had enough to worry about. No identity reveals on top of this nightmare, not on her watch.

She didn’t leave him that night. Refused to sleep too.

When he came to the next day, Jay was with a despondent Marinette.

“Going Kronos route,” Jay. Jay was tlaking about that monster. “He said I didnt have to see that.” Jayw as looking at her weird.

Marinette nodded, hoping it was the last time for real Jerimah would die. She lost track of how many times he’d been killed.

“Dad, he’s gotta be worried...” Tim, why the hell aren’t you thinking for yourself? Marinette wants to shake him, to keep him there and never let Bruce see him again.

Jay is debating it too, she can feel it. “I don’t know, he replaced me pretty quick.”

She wants to hit her brother. Becuase she knows he’s hurting but Jay can you chill for a but—he knew Hero Stalker befor ehe became Robin. He kenw what Tim’s life was like before Bruce. And Tim has been through enough, especially for now, hasn’t he?

“I, Ja—” so his first name started with a J. He was Jason Todd Wayne. Red Hoodie was Jason Todd Wayne and Robin and now James Smith. A lot of o’s until now, she noted (distract to aviod processing an overwhelming situation.)

“Its Red Hood. That kid died.”

“Hoodie...” she wanted to hug him or hit him or something. She doesn’t know. It hurts and doesnt at once.

Jay put an hand on her shoulder.

She knew he meant it. That Robin was killed by negilence from what he’d told her and she could peice together. The batfam picked Dick who left over him—a new Robin with no idea what was going on and how to Wayne and was being bullied by the rich kids and teachers in the ways that Jason couldn’t fight against. And when he finally lashed out—started being abit more violent—they put distance and then he went to find someone that might want him, his birth mother. That person sold him out to Mr. J. He died trying to protect his birth mom who wanted him dead.

She wanted cry but her eyes weren’t working. Still in shock then.

“I’m taking you back home if you want, but you have to stop being Robin like this. You can still do detective stuff but you need backup when you patrol or do a bust ir anything. You’re thirteen, not twenty.”

Tim didn’t make eyecontact. “I, he needs me.”

Marinette wanted to throttle Bruce. Badly.

“I get that.”

Harley only got better when Ivy stepped in. Jerome only recovers as long as Marinette keeps talking to him, the Sirens are slowly adopting him so she has more free time. Zsasz does what she says, and when she said no more taking hits unless they broke an RKC rule—attacking kids, abuse (any kind), murder that isn’t justifiable (see Dent for clarification), and active enablers of systematic abuse (dirty cops and their ‘albi’ partner, the false alibi givers too—Rose and Ivy’s plants were happy to testify the truth of anyone’s lcoation at any time).

Hell, if it wasnt for Frost and Ghoul and Puzzles, she doubted their fathers would even be considering backing off of crime. As it stands, Riddler is now running a youtube let’s play and working on game design as her and puzzles constant request. The other two were slowly moving off of crime and more into science again.

Her father would still be.. she didnt want to know how he’d escalate. But there were rumors of an alter around... she’d handle that tomorrow. Today was making sure Tim understood boundaries.

“But that doesnt mean you die for him. Do you hear me?”

Tim wasn’t looking at her then, looking at Jay instead.

“How are you even...”

“I dont talk about it.”

Tim nodded, slowly turning back to Marinette. “I, uh...”

Jay shook his head. “He wont get it pixie.”

“I,” Marinette sighed. Everything in her hurt and she didn’t know why. She wasnt injured. “He can try. Just, please Jay?”

Jay ruffled her hair. “Talk to him then you’re getting some z’s got it?”

Marinette nodded, feeling Jay leave. Probably to talk to Father about this. Maybe the Council.

“T—Robin.” He turned to her then. “Please, don’t die. If its life or death situation, please dont be the one to die. Don’t pull an idiot move and martyr yourself fighting a war. Focus on the causes, find the root issue and kick its butt. If anyone can, its you.”

Tim blinked slowly at her.

Marinette sighed. “Get some rest. Everyone knows if the touch your mask Jay’s got free reign.”

She went home and let Harley gove her Ivy’s knockout tea.

“Hun, how...”

“He doesn’t even realize how screwed up it is. I, he can’t becuase he came from such shit parents and...”

Harley raised an eyebrow at her word choice, and decided certain people would get a talk. Lter, when her neice didnt look like she couls blow up at any minute.

Marinette wanted to scream and kick and fight but thst won’t help her friend.

“...how bad.”

“His birth parents left him alone enough for him to stalk vilgantes and rogues and get pics. They didnt even notice.”

Harley took a deep breath. “I’m giving him a burner. If he’s in deep, he can message us. I can talk to him but we both know that not how Waynes work.”

Marinette rubbed her temples. She suspected Harley knew but... “Do they know?”

“Only me, Selina and Jerome for now. Ivy suspects. Want it to stay our secret?”

Marinette nodded.

Harley patted her head. “Get some sleep. You have a Bat to chew out tonight.”

—

Marinette walked Tim to Batman, escorted by Jerome and Harley.

Jerome was pissed, she noted.

“Batsy, care to explain why my neice and us were the ones to find your bird?”

Batman didn’t look good. His skin was tired. Hopefully from searching for his son, right?

Batman was silent.

Tim ran into his arms, crying.

Marinette could feel Jerome ready to punch Batman. She held him back.

“Give him a minute, please.”

Jerome narrowed his eyes, but nodded.

Batman idly noted the interaction. Apparently this girl... clown-mime? She had sway over Joker and Harley. And found his son.

He didnt know how to thank them, or what to do with that.

“Er, Mr. Batman?” The girl sounded different then. More than a tonal shift.

“I, you need to fix your team. This is the second time this happened to one of your sons.”

Batman tensed at that.

“It was Mr. J again. I, one of my uncles and my brother are handling him. This is the third summer he’s tried killing a kid.”

That had both looking at her. “He,” Marinette was smaller then, almost... scared.

Batman seemed to catch what she was trying to say.

“He kidnapped my girl here with hatter, killed Hatter infront kf her, and held her for a week while deciding how to kill her until she escaped and called us.”

Batman stared at Marinette then, something clicking enough to make him pale.

“He targets kids. The, the RKC are claiming jurisdiction on him and claiming his body to prevent future revivals,” Marinette got out, shaking slightly. She hated thinking about that week. It took day with the green crystals and week after to recover phsyically.

Batman didnt say anything, waiting for her to talk. Not the adults—he put together she’s incharge.

It was unnerving.

Tim was looking ar her too. They both knew she knew a lot. He wanted to see what she’d do with that knowledge.

She hated to dissapoint him, but Oswald and Marteen and Fish told her to make sure negotations go her way by any means necessary.

“I, Robin is either to be supervised or partnered during all patrols, put on a team somewhere else where he gets that support or be removed from fieldwork and he needs a new alias for his safety.”

Robin, not Tim, stiffened. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“If these conditions aren’t met, then i...”

Harley stepped forward then. “Then me or Jokes will blab about who’s under the mask. If its bad enough, then my mini-me will let out four other leaguer’s identities and their sidekicks. She’s pretty smart, even panicked when she found out i knew how much she knew.”

Marinette was paler under the makeup. She knew

This was the best plan for sucess but it made her feel sick.

Batman put Tim behind him.

“How does she—”

Marinette winced at the tone.

Batman froze at her reaction. He didnt like it when kids were scared of him.

She was shaking when she spoke. “Paterns and friends with their obsessions and me with mine and a few photoshop jokes and it just...” she trailed off, curling in in herself and eyes on the ground.

Bad move but she, she cant look at people right now. Maybe Jay but not the man who pushed her brother into a palce where he was vulenerable, not one who failed to get two of his sons away from Mr. J.

“You, you should have a meeting or something on secret identities becuase i have to keep a lot of them now. Becuase, becuase you guys are bad at them and blocking JL news did nothing to stop figuring out Arrow with his archery style and Superman’s only works with general disbelief and acting and Wonderwoman should vary how she carries herself or something and uh, yeah, Flash was more a senses thing and uh, i just...”

She was fiddling. With her ropes. When did she start doing that?

“I’ll talk to the league.” Batman was watching her carefully. Too carefully.

“Just, just think things through, okay? Tag team patrols if he stays and new costume—i made him by knowing him before... maybe a different role on the team? I, i don’t know just...”

Marientte squeezed the rope. Oh, those were tears starting up. “please keep him safe.”

She didnt see their reactions. She heard Jay coming over, in his helmet.

“Pixie, time to go.” It was Jay that lifted her up. She was lighter then? Did her worry screw with her treatment processing again? She didnt know. Or maybe she was just light to him?

She let him take her the long way, to the RKC.

She cried with Rose’s plants growing over her and Jay into him. Rose kept Ghoul from going to kill someone by getting him to help her make crepes for Marinette.

It was an absymal attempt. But it got her to laugh.

Frost gave her an ice sculpture and told them he’d be taking her to his summer classes in Central for a few.

—

The JL have a meeting. No one likes what Batman tells them.

“You’re telling us Harley Quinn—who took you down on her own twice—she has a neice that knows not only your team’s identities, but mine, Supes, Wonder Woman and Flash’s?” Arrow summized.

Batman sighed. “Yes.”

The League was silent for a moment.

Flash was the one to break it. “You wouldnt happen to have any pictures of Harley in casual clothing would you?”

Everyone turned to him, various looks of confusion, rage and disgust.

Batman put a picture of Harley with the Sirens up, one where she forgot her make-up during a ‘shopping spree’ in the Sirens early days.

“Yeah, i think she’s this girl, Jill i think, her aunt. The kid was wicked smart when i met her at the Flash muesum last year, and knew more than she should about acfive police cases. I think she’s our mystery girl, Pixie.”

“That’s what Red Hood was calling her before taking her away.”

The league burst into chaos then.

“We need to find her”

“Get the security feeds from the Flash muesum last summer.”

“Theyre deleted already.”

“Databases for american girls named variations of Jill born between XXXX and XXXX”

“Wait, alias, maybe?”

“Damnit!”

—

The Flash was patroling his city when she spotted her. Pixie. At central city university.

“Hey there kiddo.”

The girl jumped a bit, turning to see him. Earplugs. sensory issues?

“Uh, hello?” Th girl looked around, like she was expecting someone else. “Are you looking for someone?”

“Kind of. Maybe you can help?”

That got the girl’s attention, sitting up straighter and her eyes sharper. Definately the girl Batman said she was. He put his league comm on, hoping the others would hear.

“There’s this case I’m working on, but the lead scientist is stuck on. I heard from a certain reporter you’re pretty good at forensic science, think you can help with a bit of bio?”

Marinette blinked a few times, but nodded. “Kind of. Im not allowed in labs yet so i mostly just look at data and figure out what patterns fit it best. My father doesnt want me to get too involved with biology or medicine since mom has a science ban.”

Red flag. Restrictive learning is a red flag. Possible abusive or toxic home. Procede with caution.

“Well that’s good. Give me one sec, the lead on this isnt getting it done.”

flash came back in less than a second, holding a file. “Can you look this over and tell me what happened?”

“The kid was moved through multiple locations while injured. He, he couldnt fight back since there’s no defensive wounds, but restraint bruising, looks like metal since its uniform... i, mr. flash, they have a lot of injuries, but some are old and defensive so in bad fighting situations a lot too.”

Marinette handed him back the file.

“Thank you. The forensic guy is taking forever.”

That had the girl, Jill? Looking at him again, this time curious. He hoped the league turned on his camera to see her reactions. Get her into their database.

“Who is it?”

“Barry Allen.”

Marinette couldnt help it, Barry (not flash, Barry who is hiding being a meta and still speaking out) is her personal hero. Him and Harley, but still. “He’s really cool!”

Okay, she can’t hide her fangirl side.

Flash raised an eyebrow. “Not really. Always late, sloppy attire, testimonies are eh.”

Marinette was mad then—why cant Flash let his alter be amazing!

“He’s late becuase he’s known to stay up late working on other cases when he isnt paid to and doesnt have to. And appearances and organizational skills arent what matters—his expertise is and he’s one of best with getting everyone what they need in time for case-building. So what if his reports are hard to read sometimes? He explains it in personso everyone gets what happened, which is very important and a lot of people are super bad at. And—and he advocates for meta rights and for their ability and circumstances taken into consideration during sentencing—none of the others even try to remind people of that and that a lot of metas dont chose their powers and it gets overwhelming and scary and then one instictive reaction later and people get hurt when you didnt want to react at all.”

Flash felt something kick him in the chest then. The girl is meta. Ear plugs. Possibly hurt somone by accident.

“If its okay, can i ask what your ability is?”

Marinette froze. “I. If anyone finds out, I lose Maman and Papa and Father and everyone.”

Flash froze at that. “What do you mean you lose everyone.”

“I, I’m visiting family for the summer. I live in France.” She didnt want to say more than that for location. “Being meta there is bad. Automatic life sentence with no trial bad.”

Flash sat down, putting an arm around her. This, this was not what he was expecting.

“My powers get worse in the summer. If I slip here, most of my family can handle it. Nothing bad happens. If i slip at home with Maman and Papa, i... if anyone knew then i’d be taken away whether they wanted it or not.”

“Where would you end up?” He had to know how bad it was.

“Living zombie in correction centers. Then jail-jail when you’re 18 until you die... no trial. Being meta is a crime there. And, and mr. Allen doesnt think that way at all. He keep saying you need to contextualize power and abilities and intents and if you defend yourself and you’re meta you go jail...”

Flash stayed silent, letting her continue.

“Maman screamed a lot when i hit this stalker in france. He was following me and other kids from school with a bat, saying he’d teach us all lessons. We got away but he kept trying to get us. I snapped one time and he was mostly fine, nothing permanent but Maman was so angry at me for almost getting caught becuase it was on tape and i was a little kid and little kids run, they dont fight.

“My powers didnt show though—Father made a treatment to keep them from that. No one suspects stickers... but she’s still scared its enough for a rep to come and check me for meta abilities and that she’ll lose me again.

“Again?”

Marinette twisted at that. “I, uh, probably would be dead if Father didnt find a treatment for me as a baby. Its how i got my abilities, but if theyre ever neutralized completely, i’d be dead. So we have to curb them... Maman forgets i need them and almost threw out my supply once. She forgets that i’m not normal until things like a student stalker happen and i hit the guy with his bat and then she remembers and gets scared i’ll be taken and its just...”

Flash decided he was adopting her, somehow. Smart and powered and in need of help.

There would be an intervention in France soon.

“Sounds like a lot of pressure, especially for someone your age.”

Marinette didnt make eye contact. “I have to. If i dont then there’s a dot in the open and thats a possible pattern and someone might connect it to the ones i couldnt stop. And Father and me are good at connecting dots and finding possibilities.”

Flash wanted to scream at the League then, he ahd a feeling they only added to her stress.

“He, he says we’re hardwired to find patterns and possibilities. But i shouldnt catch as many as i do. My teachers keep saying i need to slow down and dial it back and stop catching on so fast and blurting things out but i just...”

Marinette was fiddling with her hair then, it was down enough to.

“Sounds like you’re a real smart kid.”

“Smart kids don’t get caught.” She needed to be smarter, untraceable.

Flash thought she meant the Justice League wasn’t smart. And if the girl was reluctant to let him bring them in just yet...

“Do you at least have someone you can talk to about this?”

“My Auntie Quinn and Rose. Rose doesnt like you though.”

“Oh? Who made her mad at us? Was is Arrow?” He already knew but he wanted to know why.

“Batman. He, uh gave her to someone who, and i quote, ‘should never be allowed to have a sentiment child that is not a plant’ when she was found by him. She’s younger than me but she looks older, and isnt allowed outside of her house.”

Flash heard a low thump from his comm. oh, Batman knew who it was alright.

“I, uh, do you need help with another case?”

Flash smiled at her. She needed a distraction from what she just said.

“Back in a flash!” Once he was back in starr labs he turned on his audio. “Who was it?”

“Poison Ivy’s daughter. Cadmus, not Ivy, created her apparently.”

Flash swore as he grabbed a differnt file. Potential speedster case he hadn’t gotten around to.

“Here ya go kiddo,” Flash grinned at her.

Marinette nodded her head and looked over the file.

“Something doesn’t add up... there!” She pointed at one of the photographs. “See?”

Flash leaned in to get a better look.

“It looks like the speedster marks but that would only work if the speedster was messing with spacetime continum! But there’s no evidence of that so Occam’s razor, its a lightning meta!”

Flash looked over the picture and it did add up. Especially the lack of certain streaking patterns.

“They were probably teleporting since theres no drag or streaks, just one epicenter,” Marinette continued.

Flash decided that the League would be visiting Paris, and he’d be personally fixing the meta policies. And that the girl, Jill, she’d be in the League. She lectured Batman and Robin on safety and seemed to be focused on helping them in their weaker spots as heroes... mainly identity maintenance. And she likes science and is good at it—perfect to add a science-centric member to the League as she grows up.

—

That’s the end of this summer. Next time we do marinette meeting Tikki and becoming Ladybug. That should take a few posts until we get back to gotham.

Let me know if you want a JL handling looking for Marinette as Princess (the kiddie kyptonian) and Jill (who Flash found and is presumed to be Harley’s neice). Im happy to if there’s interest.

Reminder, there will be many a miraculous swap and the Ladybug parts will diverge from cannon as 1) i changed a lot of characters, 2) charater dynamics are altered too and 3) i’m changing when students came in and how Adiren ended up in school.

Also, see my kwami posts for how the kwami are in this AU as they are not the same as cannon and it will be a bit obvious.

@dast218 @ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat @weird-pale-blonde-person @emeraldpuffguide @mystery-5-5

[berri-hopefulspouse]

-- A Look Into The Past --

[ Reuploaded for your convenience~ Because tumblr is an ass~ ]

Fandom & Characters: Danganronpa, Ren (DR s/i, Ultimate Empath), [Mentioned/Minor roles] Celestia Ludenberg, Chihiro Fujisaki, Junko Enoshima, Sayaka Maizono, Makoto Naegi, Aoi Asahina, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, Yasuhiro Hagakure, various Future Foundation technicians and scientists

TW: Self-Harm & Suicide Mentions/Implications, violence/gore warning, emetophobia, Laboratory/Science stuff, Panic attacks, Runaway, Dissociation, Dysphoria implication, Neglect, Bullying mention, General assholery, Hella angst, Mention of bondage & restraints (mostly as jokes), Deadname drop, general PTSD stuff, Hallucinations, Alcohol mention, Homo & transphobia, NB-Phobia, Manipulation, Gaslighting

AN: Another reuploaded story from my previous account! This one was definitely the most uh. Chaotic in terms of trigger warnings, as you can see. All of these are events following THH, and not long before the events that predate DR2 occur. So keep that in mind. ALSO! At the time this is posted (10/3/2020) - this is the story that precedes the current F/O event going on, hinted at here. 

Summary: After the events at Hopes Peak High, each member of the class- over time- are put into a procedure to regain the memories lost over the 2 years. It’s Ren’s turn, and being the last one for various personal reasons- they are nervous. Is it worth it to retrieve memories of the past? Or would they have been better off not knowing at all?…

Fidget. Fidget and broil in thought. Fidget and listen. Listen. 

“You understand the conditions in which you'll go under, Mx?” An older man asked them, “The process will take but a few hours, with one of the devices we have on hand.” They didn't know much of this man- save for one thing. He was one of the technical scientists who worked for Future Foundation- something somewhat new to the brunette.

The weeks following their escape from Hopes Peak...from Junko...it was a bit messy. Scooped up by this organization that apparently was the revolution for hope and trying to contain the disease that was despair. Taking days to breathe and recover from the events, only to have to explain themselves alongside their classmates. So, here they were now. One by one, they were all being asked the same thing; Do they want their memories recovered? Do they want to recall the two years lost to them due to Junko’s meddling?...

“Yes, I understand.” Soren mumbles, shyly, wringing their hands into their shirt, “I am ready to proceed.” 

Whether they were ready for it or not, they knew they had to know. They had to know what they missed, how they were connected to everyone...what their past was like…

Believe it or not, even their childhood felt fuzzy to them. In a way, them and Kirigiri were connected in that sense. Theirs however was...different. 

‘I’m the last one who’s going through this procedure…’ They recalled to themselves as they got up, following the scientist into the laboratory...they felt nervous- and part of them wished Makoto was with them to offer some reassurance.

‘He’s been running himself ragged lately with tasks and plans though, we’ve all been working hard...I let him rest when I got called up.’ 

They thought back to exactly why they were one of the last people to be brought to this laboratory. Intensive therapy, trying to recover from the events of the Killing School life...sure, it affected everyone quite differently, but for them it almost seemed to bring out the worst in them. Persistent nightmares, paranoia, fainting spells… It didn’t take long for them to be brought to counselling once the others found out- although it was mostly due to Makoto outting his concern for them.

‘They figured it was PTSD, naturally. I knew that, it’s basic psychology... But still…’ From what they explained… ‘It seems like it goes far beyond just Hopes Peak. It just seemed like that whole shitshow might’ve just been a breaking point.’ 

Sitting down in one of the chairs in the laboratory, they looked to the various technicians who were around. All typing away at computers, ready to begin the process.

“Like I said, this will take a few hours...and given your special circumstance, definitely a bit longer than most to recover. However, we’re also not certain if all your memories will be recovered.” He explained, securing both their legs and arms to the chair with small clasps. Easy enough to break out of given an emergency were to occur, but enough to restrain any potential flailing. They lightly tugged on the restraints, feeling very little give.

“You going to explain the bondage, or am I just gonna have to deduce that on my own accord?” They joked lightly, giving a shaky smile to the older man who shook his head with a sigh, ignoring the younger adult’s antics.

“They’re just in case. We don’t know what memories might surface, and given your previous history...we just want to make sure you don’t injure yourself in any way.” 

Looking away, they felt the slight phantom burns along their wrist as they recalled exactly what they all meant. Sure, the scars on their wrist were...older than they recalled...Most of which were faded deep into their skin. All except one, from a more recent relapse episode.

‘Hence the need to keep me safe, I guess,’ They thought to themselves, ‘No one at Future Foundation really treats me like the rest of the class…��

And why would they? Ren was a special case, after all, being hung with a slew of various mental disorders… As the psychologist in charge of them put it; “They walk the line of both hope and despair. They try so desperately to cling to hope, but given their potential history, succumbing to despair might simply be an inevitability.”

That anxious thought caused them to shudder, not quite listening to the scientific rambling of the technician as they secured a device to their head. Deep breaths...one after another. The static in their ears receded, until they heard the technician speak again.

“Did you hear what I said, Soren?”

“Huh? Oh. Oh yeah!” They lied through their teeth, “Let’s just get this over with, yeah…”

The technician headed out of the room, reappearing behind the glass wall that was before them. Taking one last glance around the room, it was circular. It reminded them almost of the trial grounds- but more...high-tech. It was an observation room of sorts, however, shown by the glass and the scientists working away behind it. 

‘This is either going to go well…...or really, really poorly.’ They thought to themselves as they took a slow breath. 

There was a slight crackle, an intercom. Their heartbeat skipped for a second but they quickly regathered themselves. 

‘It’s not him. You’re not there anymore.’ They reminded themselves as a voice came on.

“Okay, we’re going to begin the procedure. Are you ready?”

They tried giving a stiff nod, but finding their head was basically fixed in place, simply hummed.

“Ready.”

“Proceeding then, in Five...Four...Three…”

‘Deep breaths, in and out.’

“Two…”

‘Everythings going to be just fine.’

“One.” 

A weird sensation started, right at their temples, only mere moments after the word left the technician’s mouth. Then, a low hum, that made Ren sit a bit straighter with a nervous anxiety and itch at their mind. The hum got louder, louder, louder still…

Until they completely blacked out, altogether.

–☆–

“Ḷ̵̨̜̹̣̖̮̮́ȁ̶̧̼͖̥̰̱̆̈́͂i̴̦̗̪̯̲̻͇̫͑̾̄̆l̸̘̗͕͎̩̈́̄̃͆a̷̡̯͑̑̃̔̈̂̓.̸͓̮̓͂͛̆̏͗̈.̷̗̲̞͙̼̗̈́͗͌̈́͜͠͝.̸̡̛̺̰͓̟̼̙̙̯̀̂̌̓̅͑͜͜?̶͔͍͛̾̊̑̓̇̌̈̅̈́̚͝͝”

A voice. Disconnected. Everything felt heavy, almost familiarly so. The name- it didn’t feel like their own, and it rang with such a chord of familiarity that it felt like a dagger straight through their throat. They suddenly felt so...so sick, but they couldn’t place why... 

“Laila?” A bit louder this time, taking a slow breath in and out, they- no, she- looked up.

“Huh?”

She was seated at a desk- one that...she(-they, no wait uh)...she believed was their own. However, the face that greeted her...she couldn’t even figure out who it was.

“Jeez, I can’t believe you fell asleep in class again.” The person said, a cheeky grin on his features. Jet black hair and light brown eyes greeted (him...them, fuck-) her, and she tried putting a name to a face but...she can’t seem to quite remember, “C’mon, slowass, we’ve got practice.”

“Pra...practice?” 

Drama practice.

The word clicked into her mind, and almost instantly she sat up further.

“Oh shit- That’s today?!”

“No duh, it’s Tuesday, remember?! Sheesh, you’re so forgetful. Cmon-!” 

Before the person- Viktor, the name clicked in her brain almost like it was always there- could finish what she was saying, the brunette had gotten up and run out of the room, into a hallway. 

‘Hercules Middle School…’ She thought to herself (Himself? Why was it so difficult?), as she ran down the hallway, ‘I always grew up here...jeez, I just wanna leave from this nightmare of a school already.’ 

She skidded a bit as they turned, running straight into a wall with a slight thud and a yelp of pain.

“Okay, ow.” She groaned a bit, blinking. He- She had ended up on the floor, head fuzzy slightly as she pulled themselves to their feet.

“Sheesh, dude, you’re so clumsy.” Viktor talked to her, chuckling as she pulled herself to her feet, only to get smacked upside the head, “Watch where you’re walking next time!”

“Eheh...s-sorry.” She stuttered a bit, almost shy. 

“Don’t apologize for everything, man, it’s gonna look pathetic on ya,” Viktor assured, causing her to blush a bit and look away.

“R-right.”

She chuckled nervously, not meeting his expression- afraid to express his- her (their?) mild hurt at what he said.

“Lets get going, we’re running late.”

“Okay…”

With that said, Viktor quickly took a hold of her hand, and the two quickly raced off through the winding corridors of the school.

Even so, as they started to step into the gym, he felt a slight buzz in her pocket. Taking out her phone- dated as it was- they checked the message she received from their- His- her childhood best friend...Kayla.

[ (Kay) 2:43 PM: Hey...dude, U should see this shit. Are you with Vik rn? ]

[ (Lai) 2:44 PM: Yea, y? ]

[ (Kay) 2:44 PM: U need to see this. ]

[ [Kayla sent IMG32452 ] ]

Looking at the image, her heart froze. It was a series of texts between her and Viktor, with the former talking about how childish she was. How much of a crybaby she was over the littlest things, sensitive to every little poke at her. How much of a copycat she was. How it was just so easy to be friends with her, to use her...And her eyes teared up. Kayla looked to be at least trying to defend her...these weren’t even from 20 minutes ago… 

“Laila? You coming, dude?” His-Her thoughts were interrupted by Viktor, as their head jerked up to look at him. He-- She didn’t know what she felt. Part of her wanted to hit him, part of him wanted to scream at him, part of them wanted to ask if they did something wrong...but...

“I...Uh...I don- I don’t feel good suddenly. T-Tell t-them I’ll be in...in a minute…” She mumbled out, feet slowly staggering back as an arm laced around their stomach. That wasn’t entirely a lie, either, they felt faint…they felt sick...she felt...hurt.

Before Viktor could see them cry...she turned and ran off, tears blurring his-(her-their--) her vision as the squeak of sneakers filling the hallways and their crowded mind. 

The colors around them blurred, holding their head in their hands as they trembled in place. Suddenly, they were in the bathroom- though they sensed the day was different than it was mere moments ago. But that wasn’t what was taking up their thoughts. It was staring into the mirror- at the square glasses and overly pudgy baby-face they have. Staring at someone that wasn't her- that isn’t who they are! 

‘Fuck, fuck, why do I hate myself so much?!’ (They- She- he-) She asked herself, struggling to breathe. Even being in the girls’ bathroom felt suffocating, but it was all she knew. Sure, she didn’t feel “dysphoria” like Viktor did...but she felt wrong. She felt WRONG. Her arms shook, nails digging into her skin as she hugged herself tightly. She wanted to shave all her hair off- she wanted to rip off her chest- she wanted- she wanted--

‘Agh! I can’t...I can’t breathe-!’ She forced herself to look away from the mirror, thinking about all the times she was addressed as a girl...all the times she felt wrong in an environment where she should feel comfortable. She always considered herself a tomboy- someone who definitely wasn’t on the feminine side of things...but it felt deeper. Her name made her want to puke- this long hair made her want to scream. The floofy, glittery, feminine clothing made her want to cry, scream, do anything. Something. But all she could do was struggle to breathe, struggle to consider what was happening to her.

That wasn’t even going into all the bullying. How she didn’t fit in with anyone in her class- even amongst her friends. She didn’t THINK she was transgender like Viktor was, but she knew something was...wrong with her. Something different. She couldn’t be a girl, either, she couldn’t be. All the torture she went through day to day- with her family, with her friends, with her classmates, with her-fucking-self. She was in a war she felt like she was losing.

‘...Wouldn’t it be great, if I died right here?’ A voice whispered in the back of their head, causing them to freeze up, ‘Taking the razors and digging them deep into your neck-’

“Laila?”

A voice from outside the bathroom quickly shut them out of their intrusive, suicidal thoughts. She recognized that voice- it was the school nurse. She took a deep breath, in and out- but words struggled to escape their throat, save for a soft squeak of a sob. 

“Is everything okay?...”

‘...I can’t keep doing this to myself...I-I need to tell her...what’s going on…’ She at least was self-aware enough to know that much. She couldn’t put herself through her own hell anymore...So whether she was ready for whatever would come or not...she rubbed her eyes a bit, slowly stepping back out into the hallway to try and finally reach out- after years of remaining silent. 

...Darkness...it kept swallowing them up, almost like a tidal wave. It took a second to recall what was going on. Right. The procedure. Future Foundation. Was...was that a memory then? Were these dreams of memories of their past? How long did they feel like this?!

‘Viktor…’ The name felt bitter on their tongue, and with it a small swell of various emotions came to head. Depression, anguish, betrayal…

‘He talked shit behind my back… we went all the way back to middle school. I trusted him with everything but…’

A voice, Viktor’s, cut through the noise of their head.

“C’mon man, you know I never mean it. Besides, if you weren’t such a damn prick, I wouldn’t need to call you out on your shit all the time.”

“Jeez, you never had gender issues before until I started bringing up that I was trans. What are ya, a copycat?”

“What are you gonna say next, that you’re trans too? Haha! Dude, Nonbinary folk can’t be trans. Besides, you don’t have any physical dysphoria, yeah?”

For years, he manipulated them. Teased them. Backstabbed them.

‘How could I forget about him?...How could I forget about how I was treated growing up by everyone?! Well, I guess I chose to after I came to Japan…’ 

The sadistic smile came into their mind’s eyes. Those dark brown eyes they admired for so long...it was because of him they became an artist. That they were exposed to who they were, and yet-

A sharp pain echoed through the back of their head, causing them to physically flinch- though it was restricted.

‘That’s right, I was bound to that chair in case something unforeseen happened…’ They reminded themselves, despite still trying to thrash. If their voice would work, they’d likely be crying out in pain. 

Still, after another moment, the pain ebbed a bit. They recalled something else. Why that betrayal, that anger...it was so strong…

The blog. The hate. The messages telling them to do something drastic- to kill themselves. The pressure that nearly did cost them their life, had it not been for their escape…

‘...Yet it took me until...some point later...because I know he’s definitely not in my life anymore.’ They told themselves, taking a few breaths to try and ease the picture of the blog from their mind- to stop themselves from seeing red.

They didn’t notice the shuddering they were feeling until a few moments later, but that soon calmed back down.

‘...I do wonder how Kayla is...I didn’t even remember her until now. Did she hurt me too? Did she forget about me when I ran away to Japan…? I don’t know..’ Still, they sighed as Viktor’s laugh cut through their thoughts. Despite themselves, they felt a sense of nostalgia at the sound. 

‘Even if he’s a bastard...even though he hurt me in ways that could potentially never heal...I hope he’s doing okay in all of this.’ That little part of them whispered in the space of their subconscious, as memories of their friendship swirled in their mind, ‘I wouldn’t wish despair like this on anyone else…’

It was vague images, ones that felt distant enough that they couldn’t recall in full detail, but they were still there...his house- all the sleepovers. He helped them get their hair cut. He helped them with art. He introduced them to all sorts of new media that, looking back then, they realized was what made them who they were now… A small smile drew out of them. He took them in when they almost couldn’t take their home life anymore, for a short time. Laughing together with Kayla...it felt so distant, but the happiness they felt then...it was still real. It was still real to them, throughout all of that.

Still, that hum, that distinct hum from before that they realized had fallen into the background noise was suddenly at the forefront of their attention once more- growing louder and changing frequency, in a way that made it feel like they were burning. Not with any emotion, but just...burning. 

Soon, their thoughts slipped away once more, and with it- the hum died back down once more. 

“All readings are going according to plan.” One scientist said to another, “Though we’re picking up distress and hints of pain after turning up the frequency... Is the machine correctly calibrated?”

“It should be as such, unless…” The technician that talked to the brunette earlier pursed his lips in though, before hissing lightly in annoyance through his teeth, “...Unless the subject has an auditory processing issue. Shit- Turn the frequency down a few notches.”

“But sir, if we do so, the memories will most definitely be unable to resurface. Remember, this science isn’t quite perfect yet- we can’t make expenses for the issue.” One female technician spoke up, adjusting her glasses.

“...” The man bit his nail nervously, before sighing and nodding, “Of course. Continue the procedure.” 

–☆–

“Where is that piece of shit kid?!” It was dark. There was lightning going on outside. Their heart was racing, “I’m going to rip her to shreds!”

‘It’s just a hallucination, god please just let it be a hallucination,’ They thought to themselves, closing their eyes- trying to shut out the feeling of fear- even if their head was pounding. 

“I can’t believe she got another F on a math test- can you believe this?! I work with her constantly on it, and yet it's like she doesn’t even hear me!” The gruff man grumbled, the voice a distinct echo, as the brunette hid their face into their knees. The sounds of screaming, the sounds of banging… the sounds of things being thrown- it made their heart race. But they knew better. These were just their mind playing games on them from the past. Focus. They had to ground themselves, but…

‘I’m so scared, god I’m so damn scared…’ They took a few deep breaths, putting their hands to their ears. Focus. 

‘I’m in my room. It’s summer. There’s rain outside and the...smell of... alcohol... is very strong in the air… M-maybe I should open the window.’ Reaching up, they fiddle with the locks in their window for a few moments before flinging it open, letting the smell of nighttime air and rain pattering to the ground slowly drown out the scent of booze that lingered. In moments, the noise in their ears ebbed, and they were able to breathe again. Thankfully. With a bit more focus, the numbness seeped in, and they felt themselves slowly relax. Numbness...it was the only reprieve from the living nightmare of their heart. Controlling it took practice, and being able to shut everything out...it was their only escape. Even if…

‘...Even if it cost someone their life before because of my neglect…’ They thought to themselves, feeling their focus wane and the anxiety starting to ebb back into their vision.

“It’s okay...it’s okay…” They whispered to themselves as they got up, “It’s...It’s not like that anymore. It’s..It’s okay.” They forced themselves to breathe again, focusing again on keeping that numbness deep in- if only to protect themselves from their own pain. They had to get up. They had things to do. They had to keep going. 

Their feet felt heavy, slowly gliding across their small room and peering out into the hallway. Silence. Somber, peaceful silence- save for the sounds of the television faintly heard from downstairs. Slowly slipping downstairs, a voice greeted them.

“La- I-I mean, Soren?” 

“Y-yeah?” They stuttered out, feigning a smile as they poked their head over to where their father sat on the couch- watching the television screen. He at least tried with them, but still…

“Did you take your medication?”

“I-I’m gonna…” They mumbled sheepishly, their smile flickering a bit.

“Are you okay?”

“.....Y-yeah.” They lied through their teeth- in a manner that was not at all subtle. Part of them wondered if he’d ask, or if he’d just happen to not notice again.

“...Okay.” He smiled, “Don’t forget you start class next week. Hercules High needs you!” 

“R-right…”

“And don’t forget you perform for the next few weeks!”

“I-I do? B-but I thought that wasn’t until next week!” Their shock was portrayed in their tone, feeling their heart race. Summer felt like the only time they got to rest, and even then it didn’t feel like it was long enough to deal with the stress they went under.

“They’re starting volleyball season early, and you know the boss needs you.” He shrugged it off, ignoring the clear concern on their features, which fell to simple stress. A few moments of silence drawled on- to which they felt their phone go off in their pocket. They didn’t look at it for a little while, trying to not start crying at even the slightest thought of performing, before finally speaking up once more in a defeated tone.

“...O-Okay. I’ll g-go take my medication, night dad…” “Night sweetie!”

As they tiptoed away though, walking only on the balls of their feet, one thought only crossed their mind.

‘I need to get out of here. I can’t wait to escape any longer. I can’t wait. I can’t deal with the bullying anymore...I can’t take the manipulation anymore...’ A slow inhale, a slow exhale. They had been preparing it for months. Getting a passport, slowly packing things they would need- including funds to transfer from euros into yen…

‘I have to buy that ticket tonight. The last plane out for the next week.’

Their phone buzzed again, which brought them from their thoughts. Slowly, they sighed, taking out their phone.

‘If anyone can calm me down after this nightmare, it’d be my friends-’ They thought to themselves, until seeing the ID.

[ (Stepmom) 11:34 PM: Have you helped your dad out with his account yet? You have to take care of him you know, he can’t take care of himself. ]

Their blood boiled a bit, and despite themselves they quickly texted back.

[ (Ren) 11:35 PM: ...I’m 16, I shouldn’t have to take care of my own parents. Also, it depends- do you still have my binder hidden away somewhere? ]

[ (Stepmom) 11:37 PM: Your what? ]

[ (Ren) 11:37 PM: You know what it is, because I haven’t seen it since I put it in the wash a month ago. ]

For several minutes, as Ren went about the kitchen preparing their medication, they watched her type, the ‘(...)’ making them nervous as they tapped their fingers along their side. But, eventually…

[ (Stepmom) 11:41 PM: Oh, that. It’s going to hurt you if you wear it, it’s too tight. Honestly, I don’t know why you wear something that physically hurts you, so I threw it out. ]

[ (Ren) 11:41 PM: . . . You what. ]

It took everything in them to not throw their phone at the wall in anger. They saved up for months for that! They just wanted to present as themselves! It wasn’t even that tight compared to other, less safer binders! It fit fine!

[ (Stepmom) 11:43 PM: This is for your own good, darling. After all, you wouldn’t want your chest to start sagging, would you? ]

[ (Ren) 11:44 PM: I told you it fit fine. I told you not to mess with it, and how to properly wash it, and you decide to throw it out? The thing I bought with my own money? ]

[ (Stepmom) 11:45 PM: I told you, it’s for your own good. Besides, this phase of yours with being ‘transgender’ will pass in time. ]

Slow breath, in and out. Their grip on their phone tightened before turning it off altogether, taking very intentional slow breaths so they didn’t outright explode into a fit of anger in the middle of the kitchen.

‘She never fucking understands! I explained it to her so many times, I’ve told her this wasn’t just a phase, I begged her to use my name and let me just exist- but she just...can’t! And my dad never does anything! They’ll never do anything!! I just...I wanna be myself. I can’t take it anymore!’ 

As they gathered their medication, which rested in the kitchen, along with a bottle of water, they looked to their father’s wallet- which rested on the counter. They just needed to pay for the plane ticket... Slowly, they crept over, thinking to themselves, ‘...Am I doing this?’ 

Their grip shakes for a moment, trembling with anxiety- anger, sadness...every emotion at once swirling inside like a broiling soup, ready to boil over...They took a photo of the credit card- front to back, and slipped it back into his wallet.

‘...I have no choice.’

In one blink, they were upstairs. The next, purchasing the next plane ticket out of there. The next, slipping out of their room and onto the lower roof of their 2 floored house. The next, running down the street and down to the bus stop. The next, in an airport. And the next...they were gone. Over the course of the next...several hours...All of this occurred within the next day or so, even if everything felt like a blur. There was anxiety flooding through their veins, slowly breathing in and out.  Looking down while seated in the plane, they noted the transfer papers in their lap. A normal, public high school. They did it. They got out. They were free of everything. Of a shitty, unsupportive home life… of friends who only used them for the money they had, and talked shit behind their back...of the work that dragged them rugged...they were free. 

They were finally, finally....free.

....And slowly, just like that, the awareness came back. The feeling of their hands, their legs, and the emotions that came from those memories.

‘That’s right...I ran away from home to transfer to a normal life...I got a part time job, cut off everyone I knew in the past...and left. It wasn’t even just that my family was...abusive… Or at least at that point, But they were…. Neglectful. Emotionally and mentally neglectful... My father...he didn’t acknowledge how poorly he raised me, forced me to work on my singing abilities even when sick or mentally unwell… put so much pressure on my schoolwork that chores and life-skills took a back seat. My stepmother was transphobic, homophobic...and my mother…’

Their thoughts trailed off for a short moment...before the realization cut their heart in two.

‘I haven’t heard from her since I was 7.’

A crippling feeling of loneliness flooded their thoughts, and they swore they felt warmth trailing down their cheek. They swore they felt this before...they knew this feeling of loneliness, and it felt suffocating. It felt like only until recently...they had never known what it felt like to truly belong somewhere… Shit- they were definitely crying, they felt tears falling off their cheek with what awareness they had of their surroundings, despite their eyes being closed. They tried to reach up, to wipe it off, but they once again felt the tight leather restraints keeping them still. 

“Hey, Deep breaths.” A voice cut through the pain. The technician, “How are you feeling right now?”

Their eyes fluttered a bit, and eventually...opened. Their body felt heavy. It took a moment or two to piece together how their tongue worked again, but then they eventually mumbled between nervous clicks of their tongue. 

“Shitty, thanks,” They sarcastically muttered, “I’m doing as well as I can be. How long has it been?”

“4 hours.” The technician spoke up, “Do you recollect anything from Hopes Peak yet, Ren?”

“...No.” They took a second to gather their thoughts, slowly shaking their head as slightly as they could to try and clear the feeling of static and prickles that surrounded their headspace, “Just...my childhood.” 

“Right. Well, we’re about halfway done. If we tried going past 8 hours...well, we don’t know what sort’ve effect it might have on you.” 

The intercom spoke, as they nodded, taking another breath. They had stopped crying by now.

“How does this equipment work again?” They were a bit curious now, and it's not like they were really paying attention earlier when he probably was explaining it to them. The sigh he gave confirmed this suspicion, and while quietly smothering the instant guilt in their stomach that came with feeling like a burden for making him repeat himself, he spoke.

“It basically delivers electromagnetic waves through your ears and to your brain, and depending on the frequency we put through these waves, it will help drudge up any forgotten memories...That is to say, it is impossible to ‘steal’ memories persay- but with the right technology, repressing them very deeply into your mind is very possible. It takes very miniscule, very specific triggers to drudge them back to the surface. That’s what the humming is- the electromagnetic waves,” He explained, “However, we cannot select what you do and don’t remember...and given you have ADHD, what you do recall can vary greatly. You still might not remember as much as most of your classmates, hence why yours is taking that much longer compared to your peers.”

“ADHD...of course this is the first I’m hearing of it,” They noted, spite in their tone, “Gotta have a word with that shrink later.” Even if, thinking of it then, ADHD clicked perfectly with how they acted and their personality. 

“Soren, please do not nearly break the arm of another psychologist.” 

The technician’s exasperation was heard in his tone, watching the brunette’s dark eyes blink up towards where he was sitting in the window. He was holding what, they could only imagine, was yet another coffee. A small stack sat on the desk next to him.

“Nah, I won’t…” They responded, hiding a hint of a chuckle at his tone...They were about to ask another question before quickly giving the slightest shake of their head to brush it off, “Anyway, let’s keep going, yeah?”

“Right. Ready to go back under? Now, I won’t be able to speak to you again until after the procedure ends. While you’re under, you’re technically unconscious, but after each memory ends- you’re briefly brought back to a slight sense of consciousness to give your head a break. Understand?”

“Gotcha, doc.” Their tone was thick with drowsiness, the slight irish drawl slipping between pursed lips. They were sleepy already… What time was it?

“Right...Good luck, Mx.” 

The hum started back up as he spoke, growing louder until his voice was drowned out altogether. One breath in...One breath out...And their head went slack once more as they fell unconscious. 

–☆–

How is it someone like them got accepted here again?

They honestly had no clue. Extensive testing, sure, they were a decent learner...but their emotional capabilities were apparently one to behold. Sure, they knew they helped a student down and away from suicide, but honestly? Anyone could really do that. Either way, after further examination, they were the designated ‘Ultimate Empath’...Jeez, what the HELL were they doing here?

‘But I mean...if those rumors I heard are true, I’ll be set for life,’ They thought to themselves, shyly posted up in the main hall- watching slowly students trickle in of all ages, ‘And I don’t want to work a part-time job for the rest of my life.’ 

Some were talking amongst themselves, others kept to themselves but...they were amongst the latter, arms nervously crossed over their torso. Amongst orientation, they would be introduced to the classes specifically picked for each individual student, and fitted into proper ‘Hopes Peak’ uniforms….you know, the same ones no one seemed to really wear- if the appearance of some upperclassmen were any indication. 

But they, personally? They didn’t want to make themselves too known within the class. After all, they knew there were missing posters for their deadname so if they weren’t careful…

‘I can’t go back home. I can’t. But also...do I really belong here?’

Looking around, the energy of everyone seemed so...so different...compared to them. So much stronger, mentally and physically. Confident. Cheerful. Perfect.

‘...Maybe I shouldn't be here.’ Their thoughts started walking away with them as they slowly started backing over towards the door…

Only to run into someone- causing both of them to start to stumble. 

“Eep-!” 

          “Whoa!”

They felt the person behind them, though, trip, and suddenly, they were on the floor, on top of this poor unfortunate soul. A few moments of silence pass, a few classmates piping in, asking if they were both okay, before Ren slowly sat up, rubbing their head… only to realize they probably nearly crushed the person below them, and jumping up to their feet. 

“Oh my gods, I'm so sorry!” Their voice came out as a shrill squeak, slightly muffled as their hands clasped over their mouth in anxious surprise.

“Ah, jeez-” The boy in question they watched as he rubbed the back of his head, “I-it’s alright, really… Should’ve watched what was in front of me.” He laughed softly, and they looked away.

They wouldn’t lie...he was pretty cute.

“D-did you just walk in? I-I mean, it’s normal not to notice me...I’m pretty short.” They asked and explained themselves, fiddling with their fingers.

“Yeah, I did...and believe me-” He got up himself, standing not much taller than the brunette in question, probably around 5’2”-5’3” or so compared to their 4’10”, “I’m...Not much better in terms of height.”

There was a bewildered silence for a few moments, before the two in question bursted into a small fit of laughter, doubled over in their fit of snickers. As a result, they relaxed a bit, calming down around this boy. 

“I’m guessing you’re also in my class then?” They asked, wiping away a small tear from their eye.

“Yeah, actually. What’s your name?” Olive eyes met their own, and they tried everything in their being to keep from squeaking shyly at the eye contact.

“N-Name’s Soren. U-Ultimate Empath. And you?” They offered a hand to him, despite themselves. The boy in question chuckled, taking their hand in his own and giving a soft squeeze as he shook their hand.

“Makoto Naegi...I-I’m the Ultimate Lucky Student, apparently.” He spoke, awkwardly scratching at the back of his neck. Ren tilted their head, curious.

“Luck student? How the hell do you measure luck…?” They asked, obliviously. Makoto sighed, looking a bit downcast, and they could practically see the insecurity written in his body language and face.

“It’s a long story...But honestly, it’s...kinda ridiculous.” He mumbled, “Not sure if someone like you would wanna hear about it.”

“No, no.” They quickly shook their head, not retracting their hand and instead putting their other hand on his, leaning a bit closer with intrigue written on their features, “I wanna know… If you’re comfortable talking about it, of course. I mean…” They tilted their head, “It’s weird feeling different from the other Ultimates, huh?”

His eyes widened, caught off guard, “How did you…” They grinned a bit, a soft smile, “Empath, remember? I can sense your distress about being here...I can sense your nerves. You don’t...feel like you belong, do you?” They asked.

Makoto blinked for a few moments, eyes searching theirs for any sign of joking, before sighing and relaxing a bit. Right.

“Spot on, I guess. Alright, alright, I’ll spill. But you best not tell anyone else, okay?” Makoto put a finger to his lips, a curl of a joking smirk on their face. At that moment, they noticed the faint sprinkling of freckles across his face, the slight dimples in his features when he grinned...Their heart jumped a bit, and they laughed.

“I won’t tell a soul.”

In one blink, there they were talking to Makoto, and in the next…

“Ren?” Looking over, they found themselves in a different environment. They were seated outside, underneath a tree, with a few other girls around them. If memory serves right… 

‘This is Chihiro, Celestia, and Asahina.’ Their memory clicked perfectly back together.

“Hey!” It was Hina talking, “Dude, are you okay? You were spacing out pretty hard there.”

Ren blinked a bit, before shyly chuckling and looking away, “Ah, yeah, I’m okay. That just...tends to happen.” 

Hina blinks a bit before shaking her head, “Well, yeah, clearly. You should really get that checked out you know! If you can’t even focus on food, how will you be able to focus in class?! I mean, midterm exams are coming up soon you know.”

“...A Lot of studying.” They chuckled nervously, biting their nails, “Still, I just have a lot on my mind lately, I guess.”

“A- A-lot on your mind?” Chihiro spoke up, blinking and leaning a bit closer towards Ren, “D-does it have to do w-with studying?” “...No, I wouldn’t say that…” They mumbled, shyly, looking down at their food and taking a shy bite.

‘How can I tell them everything that goes on in my head? How can I tell them that it's a fight everyday to survive? How can I explain...that something’s wrong with me?’

Simply put, they couldn’t. They managed a small smile and chuckled.

“Just thinking of boys, I guess.” They quickly averted the actual subject- unknowing of them setting themselves up for disaster.

“Oooh?” Asahina got a mischievous grin on her face, “Any particular boys?”

Their face flushed...it was no secret to any of them that they, simply put, were a bit smitten.

“Noooooo….?” They lied through their teeth, even if their goofy grin gave them away.

“Not even a particular luckster?” Celeste leaned in a bit, joining in on the teasing with her own little devilish grin, giggling quietly as the brunette interrogated squeaked shyly and hid their face in their hands, the image of the Ultimate in question immediately flooding their thoughts.

“Nooo!!!” They tried to protest, shaking their head rapidly. The group of girls giggled, Chihiro wrapping an arm around the brunette’s neck in an attempt to reassure them.

“You’re going to have to ask him out eventually, you know, before Sayaka beats you to it.” Asahina said with a cheeky grin. Their smile faltered slightly. 

“No, no. I shouldn’t meddle...I’d feel bad.”

“Even if he clearly has no romantic interest in her?” Celeste spoke up, red eyes widening a bit, “That is to say, I’ve only seen him so starstruck around you particularly, my dear.”

Ren’s face flushed even brighter, biting their lip shyly, “Noo, he definitely wouldn’t want someone like me…” Their self consciousness was starting to show, “I mean, I’m just a nosy empath with gender issues. Sayaka is...a literal popstar.” 

“And? Popstar or no, you still have something special about you that Naegi senses! Cmon, Ren, be a bit more confident in yourself!” Hina rebutted, determination glittering in her bright blue eyes before giggling and shoving a baked treat into her mouth.

“I-I’m plenty confident in myself!” ‘I...I think.’ They left that last bit out, looking away to bite their lip in uncertainty.

The rest of the girls shared a mutual doubtful, somewhat concerned look, before shaking their heads.

“Tell us that when you manage to ask Naegi out yourself, dear.” Celeste concluded, delicately eating at some sparse vegetables she had served herself, smiling sweetly towards her.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” They huffed, blushing with a slight pout as they idly drank at the sugary drink that sat next to them. It tasted sweet, and reminded them of peaches… Peach soda. Huh.

Still, looking over to the tree next to them, they spotted Makoto amongst some of the guys- laughing alongside Ishimaru, Sayaka, Kyoko, and Yasuhiro...and found their heart sinking a bit in their chest.

‘He’d...never fall for someone like me. It’s not like I’m extraordinary or anything… I’m not like the rest of the Ultimates here.’ They thought to themselves, feeling their mood start to shift. However, the next moment, his eyes met theirs and he smiled, offering a shy wave- and they felt their heart start to race all over again.

‘...Still. I’ll...I’ll stay hopeful for it. It never hurts to dream, right?’

Slowly, the memory faded into nothing once more, and while they didn’t open their eyes again, they felt the sense of their surroundings return once again.

‘Hopes Peak Academy...I never expected I’d get in, especially while I was a runaway...but when I did, it changed my life. For the first time I had friends. I had people I cared about...but at the time, I was so wrapped up in my own trauma, in my own depression...I just didn’t notice. I thought I was alone..’ They thought to themselves, a curl of a small smile on their features, ‘...And my love for Makoto...it goes even beyond the Killing School Life...Gods, Hina isn’t going to let me live THAT down anytime soon if she remembers that.’

Still...there was something about knowing their classmates...truly KNOWING their classmates now, compared to back then...that hurt their heart even more.

‘...They all deserved so much better… None of them deserved to die. None of them deserved to be murdered...none of them deserved to suffer the way we all did. I hope they’re doing okay in the everafter…’ 

Still, as sweet as the memory was, they had to continue. They had to keep going down memory lane. And, it seemed everyone else agreed, as the electromagnetic humming started once again, filling their head with noise. This one felt more abrupt, more sharp, and suddenly they were groaning in pain a bit. Whatever was going on, it hurt...it actually really, really hurt-

“I-Is...is everything...okay??” They managed to open an eye slightly… Only to notice the panic in the technician’s faces. Was something going wrong??? Why did this hurt so badly and all of a sudden- it felt like their head might burst from the pain that came from the sound. 

...They had little time to ask, as within the next moment the world spun back into oblivion once again.

–☆–

“Soooooreeeen~!” 

A cheerful voice brought them to their senses, a thin thumb running over their cheek and wiping a tear from their eyes.

“Hey, are you listening to yourself?” Junko. One of Ren’s newer friends- though she’s been the most honest to them about everything going on.

“I-I ah….s-sorry. I guess I was rambling again, huh?” They looked over to her. They were sitting in an abandoned classroom, the blonde in question was sitting on one of the desks, looking down at them through empty, crystalline eyes.

“Yeah, you were totally out of it.” She chuckled, a smirk on her face, “I can’t believe how heartbroken you look, but honestly? It’s really cute.”

“Oh shutup-” They blushed a bit, looking away, “I-It’s...it’s nothing.”

“Oh really? Even though Makoto is going on what’s totally a date with Sayaka?” Junko leaned into their face, “It’s okay to feel that, y’know? It’s totally okay to let those feelings manifest into something quite...gorgeous. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s like you said, right?” “...There's beauty in everything. Even the worst bits of life…Even in the pain.” They repeated, another tear falling down their cheek.

“There we go… It’s really sad, how you’re literally the side character to your own life, you know? How often Asahina and the others just go off on their own without you?...Well, at least I’m here, you know?” Junko grinned a bit as they nodded, slowly.

“Yeah…”

“Junko...We do have a plan to discuss, you know…” A voice caught both of their attention, and looking towards the corner of the room, Mukuro Ikusaba. A sweet girl with dark black hair and another array of freckles. If they weren’t so bent out of shape with Makoto, honestly Mukuro was also very cute…

“Oh shutup!” Junko’s high pitch voice cut through their gay thoughts, quickly looking back to the blonde, “Anyway, let’s go over the plan I came up with! Alright?”

“Okay…” Mukuro nodded quietly, submitting to her sister’s behavior once again with a passive smile. This seemed to be quite the pattern with these two, and Ren wondered if all siblings acted like this...

“So, I heard some super super secret news about how this whole...event that happened at the school is only going to get worse,” Junko explained, “But with the rest of the outside world. We’re pretty sure that the school will lock up a bunch of us in here, and we want to make things that much more fun for everyone.”

“...Okay…?” Ren raised an eyebrow, concerned.

“We want you to be the one to get back at them.” 

“Huh?”

“You know!! Beat up everyone who keeps abandoning you! Your so called ‘friends’ and your ‘crush’ who abandon you when you need them the most? The ones who clearly couldn’t care less about you? Don’t you want to get back at them?” Junko leaned in towards Ren, who bit their lip, shaking their head.

“N-No...No of course not...I-I mean, they have lives of their own, they shouldn’t have to pay all their attention to me all the time…”

“Even when they clearly forget about you all the time? When you almost killed yourself at the end of last year?” Junko’s eyes stared into Ren’s soul, and they felt...almost violated by the eye contact.

“...E-even so...I-I wouldn’t hurt them…”

“So what are you gonna do? Turn tail and run back to Ireland? Back to your family?” They still don’t know HOW Junko found out about their past- as far as everyone else knew, they were just an Ireland transfer student.

“...N-No, of course not.”

“So, you’ll stay. And play our game.” Junko smiled, “Okay?”

“I…”

“I wouldn’t want something...devastating happening to your dear Naegi, would you?” Junko’s grin turned almost sadistic as she spoke, harshly grabbing their face, “So, you’ll play our game, right?”

Their heart stopped...if Makoto was going to put in danger.......no, they’d do anything in their power to make sure that happened, even if- for the time being- they had to play along.

“...Yes...yes of course.” They mumbled, cheeks squished.

“Good! Besides, it’s not like you’re killin’ em or anything! Not unless you wanna, then of course I’ve got your back on that!” Junko chuckled a bit, letting go of their face, watching as they rubbed their cheeks.

“I-I’d...I’d never kill anyone…”

“Oh dear, we’ll see.”

Junko got up from her seat, slowly approaching Ren and cornering them in their chair.

“J-Junko?...” Their eyes widened, “What are you doing?” 

“Hmm...I just want to show you something. Is that okay?” The blonde grinned, tilting their chin up, “After that, we can further discuss this prank of ours.”

“...N-Noo…?” They had a bad feeling about it, but Junko didn’t seem to listen. They quickly got up to leave, they suddenly didn’t feel safe in the room alone with her- but they felt their arm yanked back, and pinned back into the next desk. 

“J-Junko-!”

The blondes bright eyes appeared in their vision next, her grin a bit sharper than it probably should be.

“Mukuro, hold them down, I want to watch how they react to this video…”

...Something happened during that day. Something that...even to their mind's eye, was fuzzy. They remembered that they started crying again at one point, they remember they felt violated- but they didn’t know why. They don’t remember what happened. They don’t remember how they felt after- or if they even felt anything...But all they could recall after was a faint whisper of a voice, menacing yet dripping with faux sweetness.

“You’ll make them all pay for what they did to you, right?”

“Yes, Junko.”

…

“Junko?”

“Ohmygod- Yeeees?”

“...Let my memory get erased too. I promise I’ll still follow up on my deal. I...I’ll still have my anger, I’ll still have that aggression. I promise. Just...wipe my memory alongside everyone else. So I don’t spill our little secret. Okay?”

 “....Fine.”

–☆–

In that brief moment, they suddenly jolted upright- body trembling and a pained gasp leaving their lungs. They- they couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, and everything suddenly felt so loud-

The primary technician who ran the whole ordeal ran inside, quickly detaching the device and kneeling down in front of Ren.

“Soren?! Hey, can you hear me?!” No. No they couldn’t. All they could think about was how sick they felt, how suddenly suicidal they felt. Were they drowning? Why couldn’t they breathe?!

‘I agreed to hurt people for Junko...S-she manipulated me...she hurt me...to get me to play her game. To keep me from leaving before shit hit the fan...Fuck. Fuck, if I followed through on any of her ideas…To think I agreed to HER game- God I’m a fucking idiot!’ Their thoughts were running at a thousand miles an hour, struggling to breathe. Their hands were tugging desperately on their restraints, unsure if they wanted to hold their throat in attempts to try and breathe again, or if they wanted to claw at their arms until they bled.

They shook their head violently, and in the next moment- with little warning aside from their stomach doing a complete 180- doubled over in their chair and threw up right into their lap. The technician, alarmed, quickly rang up their psychologist who was a few floors down, to provide assistance. 

Everything in their vision swam. They conspired with Junko to hurt people. They conspired with Junko...they...they enabled the Killing Game before it even started.

They puked again. They felt like they might throw up their lungs next, at this rate.

Why were they alive? Why did they have to be the one alive?! They kept making one mistake after another- and this just proved it! This just proved how fucked up they were. How dangerous they were to others.

“Ren- Ren, tell me what you saw!” The technician grabbed their shoulders, trying to get them to focus. Their trashing just got worse. “No! No- No let go of me! Let go of me! I- I can’t breathe- oh my god what did I do!?” Their voice was hoarse from the acidic bile in their throat, struggling not to get sick even more. 

“What did you see?! What did you recall?!” The technician kept trying to talk to them, which only resulted in overwhelming them all the more. The last thing they can completely remember after abruptly waking up from their memory revitalization- was screaming at the top of their lungs. They just wanted to die- they didn’t deserve to live for working with Junko- for working with despair. Frankly, they wished they had died instead of recalling anything at all.

They…frankly don’t remember the next hour or so. They remember faces, eyes, voices speaking to them...a needle being put into their arm…

And soon, they calmed down a bit, feeling sluggish and heavy. Everything felt a bit fuzzy at the edges of their mind as the screaming- both physically and mentally- all but stopped. 

‘Sedatives,’ The thought connected briefly, before the word escaped them altogether in the cloud of drugs. Their psychologist helped them to their feet-- when did they get onto the floor of the laboratory?-- and out of the lab.

Being barely supported under their arm, they basically dragged their feet back to their shared apartment room within their sector’s building with Makoto. Their psychologist stuck by their side until they were able to walk easier, before heading off to schedule a few more appointments in the very near tomorrow. They had a feeling they’d be busy tomorrow, if they even had the energy to get up. 

They remember looking at the time...But they don’t remember what it was. Late, they figured. They stumbled inside, nearly falling on their face as they held their head, still trying to wrap their mind around everything they remembered.

The slight shifting from one of the rooms in the apartment got their attention though, and within another blink Makoto was at their side- helping them stand up a bit and trying to help them into bed. His mouth moved, and they acknowledged that he was saying something to them...but it took a few moments before anything he said actually was heard by them. When they were, they looked up a bit more at him, to which he sighed. 

“What happened?” He asked them, eyebrows furrowed in concern. Their eyes watered a bit, mumbling a quiet, ‘I’m so so sorry...I’m… I failed everyone here…’ 

“Failed? Ren?” He sat them down, clasping their hand, “You had the memory recovery procedure today right? What happened?”

“...I-I can’t...I can’t tell you.” They mumbled, eyes squeezed shut, “You’d hate me. Everyone would...I-I can’t… I can’t take it…” They shook their head, breathing starting to go shallow again as Makoto quickly waved his hands in mild panic.

“Hey, hey, calm down, calm down! It’s going to be okay. Y-you don’t need to talk about it right now, okay? Everything’s okay.” He reassured them, concerned and slightly panicked, “I could never hate you, Ren…” “...” They wanted to scream, they wanted to explain everything to those eyes, they wanted to prove him wrong. They wanted to prove that they should be hated, especially after what they’ve done...but they just felt too tired. They felt too scared...they felt too insecure to admit to it.

“Just rest for now, okay? I’ll bring you some water, and..” He noticed how stained their clothes were, and his nervous smile faltered, “And a change of clothes, apparently, yikes… Do you need anything else?”

“...Medication…” They mumbled quietly, tossing off their shirt and pants without much mind to it, “Please…”

“...Right, okay.” He faltered a bit and quickly looked away from their frame, getting back to his feet, “You rest up for a bit, and I’ll...I’ll get what you need, okay?”

“Okay…” “I love you…” ‘You wouldn’t if you knew what I did…’

Laying down, they felt their eyes flutter as the sedatives further kicked in, feeling their consciousness start to slip…

“I love you too.”

[letsdiscoverkitty]

Review Update (09/01/20)

I am not going to lie, it has been one hell of a day, I am utterly exhausted and don’t really know what to say/where my head is at but here goes…(TW)

Apparently todays review was called to discuss another short inpatient admission because of my weight, which I was NOT made aware of or had any sort of discussions about before hand.

Let us just say that the whole session was utter shit.

Today I was told by my consultant that I will never recover in the community. That I was categorically a SEED patient. And that I will never amount to anything.

I was told that my thoughts around the residential unit are all anorexia talking and that it is very unwise to not want to go down that route (note: one of my main reason for not wanting to go is because they focus on maintaining illness/it is not full recovery focused and I WANT to be recovery focused)

She told me that I am all talk and always say the “right” thing but never actually change….she then told me that I will never manage to live without my anorexia but gave no suggestion/support.

The team are discussing me at the next team meeting to most likely change the care pathway that I am on...

I was made to feel like I have wasted everyone’s time and all resources because apparently I have had “so much psychological and EDP support and lots of admissions” (note: I have had THREE admissions, all of which have been SHORT and not been for weight recovery) and that it is my choice to not use any of the information that I have gained. (Please don’t get me wrong, I am SO grateful for the support I have had but the way that I was spoken to today was just awful)

This change in care pathway would be to a “monitoring” one where they would basically see me every few weeks or so to monitor my physical health but give no other support.

She completely breezed over and wouldn’t even acknowledge how hard the past few months have been for me due to losing a family member, someone who was basically family and lived next door (which also meant that I lost the dogs who were a huge part of my life) and then my cat passing away - she made me feel pathetic for finding things difficult during this time and like I was making up all these things as excuses. (note: I must say though that my EDP has been really supportive around this area of things)

By today they wanted me to have contacted some volunteering, which I have done and applied for and  even went along to see what was possible but in the end I made the decision, due to the conditions there, that it would not be helpful for me. 

However I HAVE gone a step beyond this and, since the beginning of the month/year, I have begun the process of applying for a part time role at my local library, which again, my EDP is super keen on and said this shows a shift, but no, my consultant would not even acknowledge this.

During the whole review I was made to feel about 5 years old and like I will never amount to anything in my life, I sat in the corner and hung my head, feeling myself growing smaller and smaller by the moment.

My consultant has now also decided that she is calling a meeting with my parents before they go away to NZ in February to tell them about this change in care pathways and to tell them that if they were to take me to NZ (it is my grandad’s funeral and I have, on purpose, not mentioned anything on here about it because I didn’t think it would be possible and yeah it has been a very difficult subject but there was the possibility of me going out...) then I could die/she would not advise it on any level due to my physical health and doesn’t think I would be able to cope with any of it , which she of course wants to tell them in person….(This is despite my GP actually being the one that got me to thinking properly about going out as she thinks it might do me some good/be helpful despite the fragility of me health and that staying alone at home in the UK whilst my parents are out there for a month could do more harm - I do love her and am so grateful that she is my GP)

So yep, I am now on a waiting list and if I lose any weight they want me to go in for another short admission.  I just….I don’t even know. Where the hell do I go from here? I feel like everything is being taken from underneath me and I am being punished for doing things “wrongly” 

Right now I feel so unsupported. My EDP sat in the corner not making a noise throughout this whole review/talk. 

I feel like everyone has given up on me

Maybe staying with the service is keeping me unwell. idk. but I just dont get how we went from one minute an admission to then being sidelined and having all this said to me?!

My mind is a complete mess. I genuinely can’t think straight and don’t know what to say. One moment I am more than ready to throw in the towel and give up but then the next I am like “screw you and your service, you are not going to stop me from getting better”....

Right now I am utterly terrified of doing the wrong thing/saying the wrong thing/making the wrong decision.

I fell like I am have been penned into a corner. Being told that I will never be able to get better and that I am never going to be able to live without anorexia is brutal and has knocked me completely. 

And that was it....that’s where it ended. I have not been given an alternative to consider or any support around this. 

SIGH.

This afternoon I delivered a note to my GP surgery to try to explain a few things as I just dont know where to turn. My parents are, let’s just say, not happy about how I was spoken to today (I told mum on the phone afterwards whilst crying) and so we are going to try to see my GP before this appointment that my consultant wants to have on 21st January….

I’m sorry for being so crappy and distant and not sharing things on here about the job or NZ...I havent really known what to say and it has all been so up in the air. I also didn’t want to face the backlash which I thought I would get for it but yeah here is the truth. 

I better bloody sleep well tonight.

[fluorescentpipedream]

Been learning some things about Dayton the last few days 

It’s a little long so I don’t want to clog up anyone’s feeds

Details:

Age: 43

Family: 

Parents - Abigail and Ethan Foster. Sibling: Charlotte,Lottie (25)

His parents are still alive though they don’t really acknowledge him much.

His little sister, Lottie, comes to visit him sometimes. She makes jewelry out of recycled materials and gave her brother an earring she made of a broken beer bottle, repurposed as a diamond. He wears it on the right side, though when asked why he only has one, he says “she knows I’ll lose the other one, so this way it’s more special” 

He has said he’s a little jealous of his younger sister because “she gets to be normal, and our parents hate that there’s nothing of hers that can capitalize on. Her jewelry business is a fun thing to put her through college, they can’t steal her fortunes and lie to her that it’s in her best interest. I’m envious of her because of her normalcy. How stupid is that?”

Relationships:

Dayton was married when he had his seizure, his husband divorced him shortly after the incident, not being willing to take care of him. 

He’s had a few girlfriends but he seems to prefer the company of men

About:

Dayton is highly dependent on drugs and/or alcohol to get by on the outside world because he just can’t seem to function without them when he’s trying to live on his own. He’s lived at the Center in the French Quarter off and on for 4 years, before that taking a stint in jail for public urination and intoxication. He also spit on the arresting officer. Writing about the incident later by saying “he finds it odd that Mardi Gras is legal public drunkenness for the amusement of all but only a few days after, in the stench of Bourbon Street’s parties where trickles of human depravity are being washed from the street, suddenly it’s deplorable and must be cleansed from sight. Though they might have gone easier on me if I hadn’t spit in the cop’s face. Oh well.”

Dayton’s initial slip into this strange state was after a seizure caused by his excessive drinking. The world was easier to handle if he was drunk or high all the time, he didn’t feel like he had to be as smart as he is, when he was riding a drug high. He collapsed at a Mensa event when he was 32, and during the grand mal seizure caused brain damage and for his IQ to slip from the 200s and down into a more average number. He still seems to be very intelligent, though he doesn’t really draw attention to it anymore. After his husband left him, he had apparently only shrugged, taking his ring off and handed it to his little sister, telling her “unconditional love is a joke”

The relationship with his parents finally came to light as well, and he outright told the first social worker when they had suggested he could recover in his parent’s care that they wouldn’t actually care for him anymore. Their free ride now had strings attached and he doubted that they could stand to care for him, since he was pushed to always provide for himself, since he was “smart enough”

He has the potential to live on his own, he just doesn’t have much of a drive to do so. When he’s left on his own he gets distracted and forgets to do even the most basic tasks. He means he forgets to eat, sleep, etc. At the Center, “I’m safe from myself”

Personality:

Self-loathing and tends to put himself down a lot

Suicidal although Lottie seems to be the only reason he won’t go through with killing himself, he loves her too much to leave her with that stigma of “genius brother takes his own life following years of drug and alcohol abuse

A very dark and, at times, unsettling sense of humor. It makes people uncomfortable and his general disinterest in people’s reactions make it worse

“Former” sex addict...he puts it in quotes. As long as he’s not drinking or using drugs he tends to abstain from dangerous sexual liaisons but once he’s under the influence it’s whatever, with whoever and however they choose. “I’m surprised I’m not infected yet”

He’s been with both men and woman and has no preference towards either. “It would be nice to have someone love me...I’m not in a position where I could be the one providing care to another, sadly dealing with me may be a full time job and not one most people are equipped for. I won’t “get better” over time, and crave companionship sometimes even over the obsessive desire to fade from this world”

Interests:

Serial killers. He absently makes profiles for those he reads about or watches reports on TV. He frequents websites that have details on true crime and likes to try to figure out cold cases, for fun. He’s actually figured out several, calling in anonymous tips to hotlines.

-Seriously- considering typing up his profile for the serial killer in San Francisco (Paul) and sending it to Theo deWinter, the agent on the case. He’d learned about the case online and after reading what he could find about the murders and the way the bodies are discovered, he really does want to help. He is concerned they wouldn’t take much consideration in the profile though because of his current mental state. It might hurt his credibility. Still, he says “better not eat anything you buy from Rascal Butcher shop on Main” 

Piano, originally it was something he was forced into learning but now that he’s older he enjoys it quite a bit more. He sometimes sits in the grand entrance of the Center and plays on nice days

Writing. Kind of like a cross between Dean Koontz and Stephen King with some Lovecraft like monsters in there. He posts some of his shorter pieces on his blog

Has a tumblr blog called A Damaged Beautiful Mind. Most of the time he answers questions but a few years ago he wrote a rather long post about the inability for criminals, drug addicts and generally anyone who has been arrested to vote in national elections explains a lot about how the entire system is set up so only the elite are allowed to partake (excerpt at the end)

He loves watching psychological thrillers, horror movies and true crime documentaries

He used to want to be a federal profiler and even has degrees in forensic psychology and criminal law

Connections:

Arthur Powell sometimes invites him over for dinner in his room at the center.

He told Arthur he really liked his sister, Frankie once, promising it was “nothing creepy” he just thought she had a beautiful soul and her amazing talent was going to take her places. Arthur has her make him a mirror glaze birthday cake this year that was too beautiful to eat (he did though, only when Lottie came to spend the day with him and she cut into it after taking a picture of it with his phone.)

One of the orderlies brings him coffee and beignets on Saturdays and they talk. Dayton generally believes they’re just checking up on him to make sure he’s had a shower or eaten something recently.

Doctor Snow is his therapist, though lately he feels like he has to search for things to discuss with her. She’s expecting her first child, so the visits are brief and involves how he’s feeling, if he’s still having suicidal thoughts...etc.

He used to be a bit of a lech, being Mike Tomlin’s first foray into gay sex, pinning him to a wall at the Mensa event, the same night as his seizure.

Excerpt from his latest blog entry about election and voting rights, or rather the lack thereof

Any system which segregates the unmentionables and undesirables from the view of the rest only perpetuates the degeneration we’ve been seeing as a whole in this nation. It’s “progress” that the United States lived in a seemingly “Golden Age” under Barack Obama, but if one were to pull back the veil they need only skim the surface to realize, that was a moment of lapse, before the true waves of deceit, corruption and greed rushed back in again.

The years that Obama served in the White House only appear now as the receding of water before the inevitable tsunami. As a nation, we will always boil back down to the nagging truth of George Orwell in Animal Farm; “all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others” Those that are detestable, or deemed unworthy by social standards, like any number of the “criminals” locked away for crimes enumeration, have been stripped of their ability to stand up for their beliefs.

Their voices are silenced, because by daring to stand against the societal norm, to lash out at the Thomas Moore, Utopian falsehood of America, they proclaimed loudly that the world is not only unfair, but stacked against us from the moment we take our first breaths. Were the US to return rights to the seemingly uneducated, drains on society, they would see real change. But that, in the essence of the truly corrupt leading the imbecilic masses, will never be the case. These commanding forces, like Nero the pig, would rather lead the masses into decisions that have been made for them all the while claiming that it is the people who lead themselves to this. And he can fix it all.

[wobbuffet-propaganda]

Steer clear of the pokeganda discord server.

Hi everyone! Former member and mod of the ‘ganda server, here. If you’re any form of marginalized identity, I would recommend you stay far away from it.

In this post I’m gonna be talking about my experiences with it. While I so fucking wish I had receipts to prove a lot of this, the server had an incredibly weird obsession with “avoiding drama” and if you ever got into any kind of disagreement with another member, you were pressured pretty quickly to delete all your messages on the matter so other people weren’t exposed to them. So I didn’t end up saving a lot, unfortunately. You’ll have to take my word for it, although I did get a few screencaps at the end as I realized how south things were going.

TL;DR: the mods of the pokeganda server are incredibly tyrannical, more or less play by their own rules, and are far more concerned with a “peace and love for all, even abusive people! we don’t want to be mean!” environment than one where the most vulnerable people actually feel protected.

So! I joined the pokeganda server through lea / leavanny-propaganda, and it was pretty standard as far as servers go. Open to all, shitposty and friendly, def my cuppa tea. 

Some time into this, i wanna say a few months (weeks? idk) I had a disagreement with another user (Nix of granbullyganda) they used some cissexist language and I asked them to not do that. They egged me on a little, I got a little mad, and after a few hours of them talking to me like a 4chan troll and thinly implying i sounded like a crazy SJW, mods intervened and they were banned for abusive language. Pretty much everyone in the server was on the same page at this point, and Lea elected to call for some more mods.

I applied, having modded like a million other pokemon servers, and got in. Sheep, the original owner of the server, turned tail and left quietly and none of us really noticed. Lea’s a minor and still in school, so naturally they needed some extra hands.

For the most part things just kinda carried on, modding didn’t entail much beyond asking people to format their intros correctly and cleaning up vulgar or offensive posts that slipped the minds of members posting. Until a week or so ago.

I can’t remember who, but a member of the chat posted a meme that referenced drug use, and Steph (absol-propaganda) said something like ‘don’t do drugs, love yourself instead.’ I, a recovered addict and absolute beacon of self-love, joked--‘Bold of you to assume I can’t do both.’

Steph then started going off on a much more serious tangent about how she lived with an abusive addict, talking about how much of a piece of shit the addict was, phrased in such a way that it was very very clear she was blaming this person’s abusive behaviour on the drugs. I was... shocked, honestly. I thought it was a joke at first. My initial response was kind of an incredulous “woah, okay, please don’t fucking say that!” it definitely could have been more polite, but I was. Kind of unable to get my bearings, I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me.

Eric of magikarp-propaganda then jumped in with a similar story to Steph’s of an abusive addict they knew. I tried to explain to them that this talk was making me uncomfortable. I also tried to keep a level head and explain to them that addiction was literally a disability, a disability that I had, and told them that what they were saying was like implying that I’m abusive because I’m autistic, or abusive because I suffer from chronic pain (two other disabilities I have, don’t worry!)

To her credit, Steph backed out but Eric kept on. I was getting visibly agitated and yeah, I lost my temper and got emotional and probably shouted some. I didn’t say anything abusive or terrible to Eric but I was just short of begging them to please stop saying what they were saying. Lea cut us off and I went back and (regrettably) deleted all my posts. 

Steph then left the server without a word. We had a brief DM session after that, where I gave her a piece of my mind for what she had said to me. Steph was one of the only people in the server who openly defended me, previously, and I was heartbroken that now she saw me as sub-human. In this interaction, she told me--an addict--bluntly, that despite what psychology, science, and common sense say, addiction is not a disability. She told an addict that people do drugs because they want to, and no genetic predisposition has any effect on this. Then she blocked me, as I was breaking down at the horrible shit she was saying.

I asked the other mods what was to be done about Eric. They said nothing to them, even though they had been horrible to me. Regardless of what you think of our disagreement, I kept asking them to stop saying something that was triggering me, and they refused. I slept on it.

I woke up the next day and nothing had changed. There was nothing in the admin chat about what consequences Eric’s actions would have. I asked if anything was going to be done. They kept asking me what I personally wanted done. I told them that I had no say in the matter, because I was literally the victim in the situation, and for me to decide what happened to my perpetrator would literally be an unethical use of mod power. They pushed back against me.

At some point, we reached a consensus that Eric was to be given a warning for their behaviour. None of the mods wanted to give this warning, almost all of them claimed they were “too nervous” about “being mean” and “constantly reminding people of the rules. I tried to bring up the point that this was... LITERALLY our job as mods. This was literally why we existed.

Rather than any of us giving Eric the warning, one of the mods who IS FRIENDS WITH STEPH, A PERSON WHO IS AN ENEMY OF THE VICTIM IN THIS SITUATION, literally HAD STEPH MESSAGE ERIC THE WARNING. You heard that right: A mod, who’s job is to MOD, asked someone who is no longer in the server to mod for them. This was when I started feeling like I was literally going crazy. I pointed out how unethical this was, how sketchy this was, how uncool this was. I was more or less immediately villainized. The mod in question then started acting like a child who’d been caught red-handed and tried to guilt trip me. I’m paraphrasing, but they said something like ‘Fine, maybe I’ll just LEAVE. I’ve been wanting to, anyways!’

Because I called out a super fucking sketchy thing they did. There were NO rules at this point. No one in this chat could be bothered to tell anyone that something was not okay. This was the last thing I sent before my termination. No one in the mod chat responded to it.

Maybe it’s the autism, but I don’t see anything wrong with what I’ve said here. What the mods were doing in this server, if I may use an analogy, reminded me of in politics when someone will say they “can be friends with anyone regardless of beliefs.” On it’s surface, it sounds sweet--peace and love for all, right? But if you actually think about it, nothing about it is good. It leaves the vulnerable vulnerable and the bullies bullies. It means you stand for nothing. It’s equality but not equity. 

Another member of this server literally implied I was born an abuser because of something I cannot help, and I did what you are supposed to do--I asked the mods for help, I asked the mods what was being done about it. I received nothing.

This was their response to my above message. To literally take my privileges away because I questioned their authority. I did not use my mod power to abuse anyone, control anyone, harm anyone, anything like that. Even when I could’ve taken the wheel and just banned Eric for acting shitty to me, I acted not as a mod but as a normal user in the server with no more power than anyone else. And they literally took my influence away because I dared to question them.

“you took the situation too far”-- I did not. I got emotional because my trauma was literally public forum, quickly realized it was unproductive, deleted my posts so they would not reach any more eyes, and asked the mods for help.

“harassing us for not doing anything”--I did not. You can see my messages above. I asked for clarification on what they meant by this. They refused to tell me. If it was just that I sent a lot of messages, I don’t really know what to say to that. I ramble and overexplain and ask a lot of questions when I’m scared and confused. I’m fuckin’ autistic.

“harrassing messages I sent Steph”--Steph sent me harassing messages, and apparently either cherrypicked them in such a way that it made me look like the inciter or doctored them. I asked them to show me these messages. They did not.

“inappropriate post you made on your blog”--I did not make an inappropriate post. On my personal blog, a blog not at all affiliated with my work as a ganda blog, a blog that very few people from this side of tumblr follow, a blog that at one point was INCREDIBLY active in the addiction community, i made this post.

It is not inappropriate. It is a post about an unsafe person that I made so other addicts who might be emotionally compromised/triggered in the way I was can preemptively block them/avoid interacting with them. I said nothing about the situation on this blog, not wanting to incite any drama but wanting to keep my friends safe.

None of this breakdown I am describing was public. It was all behind closed doors and I literally did everything in my power, short of being a fucking dictator myself, to get the mods to lift a single finger about it. They couldn’t. They couldn’t even give an abusive person in their server a warning. They had to get someone else to do it.

I asked them why they were doing this. They refused to clarify. They just kept saying “it’s for the best.” They made a private chat to decide this behind my back. I was given no say in my own case. I was given no voice to defend myself. I questioned their authority and they took my voice.

The ‘answers’ were not answers and the chat was short lived. Here’s what I got.

This was a little under an hour ago. They have not replied, and I doubt they plan to.

Right before this, I went to the server to say goodbye to all the friends I’d made there. I didn’t make a big deal, just said I was heartbroken and needed to step away. Invited them to join me on my own pokemon servers, of which I have plenty.

The mods removed me before any of my friends could say goodbye. I was not allowed to even keep in touch with any of them. I did not see a single goodbye before I was banned.

So yeah. This is apparently what happens if you speak out against anyone in this server, no matter how politely, professionally, and calmly you do it. They will not only take your voice but they will erase you entirely and cut you off from the community. I am literally just a marginalized person who asked the mods for help in dealing with some oppressive language and a person who wouldn’t let it go, and I got my privileges revoked and about a hundred of my friends stolen from my hands.

I applied to be a mod in this server because when Nix started attacking me, I realized that a community had been fostered where they felt it was acceptable to do that. I wanted to change that. I have a loving heart and a firm hand and I wanted to use both to help settle disagreements and let the most vulnerable know they had someone in their corner. It seems, however, that was a futile effort. Historically people see me as an angry bitch because I speak my mind and when I see someone I say something. But you can’t have one angry bitch in power, because when she’s the victim, she stops being an angry bitch and starts being a crazy bitch in all her hysterics. There weren’t any other bitches on the mod team, and you know what they say about representing yourself in court.

You may draw your own conclusions from this. Do not harass any of the people mentioned in this post, do not send them asks or any violent rhetoric. In my heart I do not want to hurt anyone, and that is why I am making this post. If someone had told me this was the community I was getting myself into, I would have never joined and got attached. I want to spare people from what I went through. 

I am also not looking to discourse. My mind is made up on the way I was treated, and more importantly, the way I saw others treated in my time as a mod. I do not intend to change my mind. I intend to protect.

In my heart, I am a pacifist, and I will not pick a fight with anyone who does not deserve it.

Mirror Coat. 

[prorevenge]

Try to ruin my life? Say goodbye to your husband, your home, and your foot.

Now, to give some backstory to this, I will say things with her weren't always bad. When I was a small child she was the coolest mom in the world in my eyes. Looking back, she didn't make the smartest parental decisions doing “cool” things, but nonetheless there were good times I still remember fondly. As I got older, her manipulative ways and desperate need for everyone's attention at all times got unbearably worse. She also tried to make me into the same shitty person she was. She taught me how to make up elaborate lies and stories so my grandma wouldn't know where we went out (mom was a compulsive liar, so even though there was no reason for this, she did it anyway), constantly told me that school taught useless shit and I just needed to pass and get by and then would berate me for bad grades, she blew my friendships up by either manipulating my friends or their parents, taught me the first thing to do when my grandma died was to take all her money and grab her lock box (also had money, and yes she meant before calling 911), and honestly there's so many horrible things she told me was okay and did a lot of terrible shit to me, but there's just too many to list them all. There was also a decent heap of mental and emotional abuse that seemed to increase with my age, but y'all aren't here for my sob story.

The Breaking Point I was in college, she went full on helicopter parent during my first year, and she still managed to ruin with a few friendships because she's damn good at being a shitty person. Come my first summer vacation, it came time to get ready to go home. I wanted to go back to my grandma's house, where I grew up. She showed up moving day and took all my things to her and her new husband's house (he is NOT my stepfather, I never liked him). She demanded I get a job (she didn't have one) to pay for my food, but I also had to do ALL of the housework while she sat on her ass and watched TV and smoked weed. It took me less than a week to realize she wanted me there as her personal slave, but she didn't want to spend any more money that her husband made because of my being there. I texted a few friends out of desperation, and she took my phone in my sleep to read what I said. She then began her work to ruin my life. She messaged all of my friends slinging some bullshit about being a witness in court and said I told her a bunch of nasty shit about them I never said, and scared most of them off from ever talking to me. She called all of our family and told them I was an alcoholic and I was going to fail college (grades were decent, I had drank maybe 5 times ever at that point). My grandma came and got me after many tear-filled calls explaining what was going on. After I left, she refused to sign my FAFSA (there was absolutely no way I could afford school without financial aid), and tried to get me kicked out of my school, but the financial aid Dept at my school was awesome and helped me get around that so I could continue there. After that, she'd call the house and my job several times a day and leave harassing messages (luckily she kept up her nice act when she called work asking for me, they were unbelievably understanding at my job). My grandma and I ended up going to court to take out protection orders, she got hers with no contest, but my mother contested mine. At that point, my anxiety was so bad I became violently sick and missed my follow-up court date. After that she tried to have me arrested. When the cops showed up to my house explaining to my grandma what she told them, we explained everything going on and luckily they were also understanding (they got the crazy vibe from her on the phone). After that, I. Was. Done. I didn't just want her to rot in hell, I wanted the rest of her life to be hell.

The Revenge For a while, I didn't really tell many people what was going on as I'm the type of person that doesn't want to be a burden to their loved ones at any cost. But after going to therapy at my college, I got a lot of my shit worked out and was able to come to terms with a lot of the shit that happened. So then I began my work. I told EVERYONE she knew. Most of them she had gotten to first, but they changed alliances very quickly after my talks with them. I made sure to turn up the waterworks HARD when I retold my story every time. Even threw in the occasional "I just don't understand why she hates me so much," and "I only ever wanted my mom to love me." In reality, I knew she was just a compulsive liar and a narcissist and was only flipping out because I wouldn't succumb to her will anymore I told my family everything including the mental and emotional abuse from my teens and up. Needless to say, they were horrified.

I wound up getting a new number and blocking her email so she couldn't harass me anymore, but she would call my grandma's house and leave messages every once in a while to try and slither her way back into my life. Nope. She even tried to "kill herself" with TYLENOL to try and get sympathy. After I contacted everyone and told them what happened, no one gave a shit about her "issues." Eventually, she and dipshit husband wound up losing their house due to money with her not working. They bought a truck and a shitty trailer to hitch to it and called it home. She even had the nerve to call us when a hurricane was coming (yup, I'm from Florida) and asked if they could seek shelter with us. We deleted the message. Now for the most satisfying part. A few weeks ago, after quite a long time from her last message, she calls. Apparently, as it turns out, her unmanaged diabetes caught up to her. She was in a hospital in North Carolina about to have a foot amputated. Dipshit husband apparently decided he was done, so he ran away with his crackhead cousin (he was a recovering crackhead), took their truck/trailer, and left her with nothing and nowhere to go. My grandma was literally her last possible saving grace. Everyone else turned her away, and she was going to be discharged in 3 days. With nowhere to go. She was begging my grandma to take her in, even having the gall to say "how could you turn me away at a time like this."

Message deleted.

Now I'm doing much better with a job I love, kickass roommates, the best friends I could ask for, and a boyfriend who is so incredibly loving and understanding of all my issues. I couldn't be happier. And she couldn't be more miserable. I'm a Hufflepuff at heart, but push me too hard and I can show you just how much of a Slytherin I can be.

TL;DR: Mom spends years psychologically abusing me, tries to blow my life up. I make sure everyone hates her, then she loses her husband, her home, and her foot.

(source) story by (/u/st0nermermaid)

[sign-from-god-complex]

A Gift From Me To You - Epilogue

Chapter Summary: They were ridiculously domestic, and Patton wouldn’t have them any other way.

Warnings: There’s purely theoretical talk of suicide and major character death (of like, old age) that aren’t actually happening in the story.

A/N: And that’s all he wrote, folks! Thank you so much to all of y’all who’ve followed along with this story and left nice comments (and I do read every tag on all of my writing), it really means the world to me. I’ve put,,, A Lot of effort into this fic and I’m pretty proud of how it’s turned out, all things considered.

I truly hope you’ve all enjoyed it.

AO3 Link //  Link to Chapter One! //  And Two! // And Three! // And Four! // And Five! // And Six! // And Seven! // And Eight!

————————————————

Our final act opens on an apartment located in the centre of town.

It’s a cozy little apartment, collections of pillows and blankets gathered on couches and trinkets covering every surface—a result of the hoarding tendencies of a few of the occupants. The blinds of the outside windows were pulled open, letting the late morning sunlight stream into the living room and illuminating the slightly hectic scene before us.

Patton was curled up in the armchair, watching Roman rush to and fro as he frantically searched for his keys.

He’d basically been at that all morning, having been tricked into sleepy early morning cuddles with Virgil—the way the three of them often seemed to on days they had commitments—and falling behind in his morning routine. Patton wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a coincidence or whether their boyfriend knew they had to get up and be productive but on those days he just seemed considerably more alluring.

Said Virgil glanced up from his phone, disturbing Logan who was resting against his shoulder despite how small the movement was.

“Have you checked the fridge?”

Roman stopped in the middle of rifling through the cupboard near the front door, turning to give his boyfriend a disbelieving look. “The fridge?”

“I dunno,” Virgil shrugged, returning to disinterestedly scrolling through his phone, “That’s usually where my lost stuff ends up. I have a theory that one of us is sleepwalking and moving our shit.”

“Language, Virgil!” Patton chastised.

Virgil muttered through his apologies as Roman rushed into the kitchen. Patton just hoped they hadn’t left any knives out on the counter because at the speed Roman was moving there’s no telling what could happen—they didn’t want a repeat of last year’s Thanksgiving.

After just a moment a triumphant cry was heard, Roman running his way back into the room, his eyes bright. He stopped off at the couch, swooping down to plant a kiss on Virgil’s cheek and delighting at the way his boyfriend immediately began to blush, before looping back around to grab his bag from the hook by the door.

“They were in the fridge! Thank you, my emo nightmare!”

“Yeah, whatever. I wouldn’t even need to suggest it if our shh—” Virgil caught Patton’s mouth tighten out of the corner of his eye. “—hhhtuff didn’t end up in the fridge in the first place.”

The way he said it was slightly accusing, but not in a malicious way, just in a way that indicated that he was tired of having to defrost his belongings every morning.

“Talk to Dr Picani about it at your next appointment,” Logan mumbled. He stretched against Virgil’s side, stifling a yawn. “The onset of sleepwalking could have a psychological basis if it’s not something any of us had previously experienced.”

It was one of Logan’s regulated days off—implemented to ensure that he didn’t overwork himself—so he’d apparently decided to protest by working through the entire evening instead. The three of them had already berated him for that earlier this morning. Now, they were simply trying to convince him to take a nap, though Patton imagined it was hard to stay asleep with Roman buzzing about like a suburban housewife before a dinner party.

“Oh!” Roman exclaimed, “Speaking of Dr Picani, I should head off soon or I’m going to be late. Do any of you need anything while I’m there?”

Logan blinked sleepily and Patton had to fight to not coo at how cute his boyfriend was when he was half-awake. “I… believe I may have left my coat at my last appointment, would you be able to-”

“No problem, specs.”

“Excellent.” Logan evidently decided to take that as the end of his portion of the conversation, as he dropped his head into Virgil’s lap, humming softly as Virgil instinctively went to run a hand through it.

“How about you, Virge?” Roman asked, rocking back and forth on his heels slightly.

“Nah, I’m good. Though—” Virgil looked up from his phone to properly address his boyfriend—“I’ve invited Remy over tonight so if you can pick up some snacks on your way home that’d be cool.”

Roman rolled his eyes with far more intensity than was probably necessary. “Ugh! That asshole?”

“Funny,” Virgil smirked, giving Roman a knowing look, “I distinctly remember someone calling them a "cool dude" the first time we met.”

“Well, that was before I got to know them!”

Virgil studied him for a second, eyes narrowed yet amused. “…You’re still salty that we kicked your ass at Mario Kart, aren’t you?”

A grin broke out on Virgil’s face at the immediate protests from Roman and Logan in the form of both spluttering and a long-winded rant which seemed to only contain a lot of useless excuses—a favourite of Logan’s. It was… ridiculously domestic, and Patton would not have had it any other way.

They still didn’t really understand how or why their soulmarks had developed—Logan had done a lot of research, including discussions with university professors and “soulmark experts” but to no avail, they just hadn’t been able to get a definitive answer. Patton, however, had his own theory.

Things had needed to happen this way and the universe had simply recognised that.

Love is a journey, something you learn to give throughout your life, especially when you’re set to undergo as many challenges as the four of them had. Patton isn’t sure how he feels about fate but he knows in his heart that things would have been… different if they had developed their soulmarks when they were supposed to.

And he was right.

Logan had needed to wait. He’d needed time to develop feelings before his soulmark appeared, needed it to be clear he was the one in control of his own destiny.

There were a billion ways Logan’s story could have ended, but the worst were the ones where he died cold and alone, regretting with every inch of his decaying form that he hadn’t spent more time caring for others. The pursuit of knowledge was all well and good, but it’s little comfort when relaxing into the cold embrace of death.

He would wish for someone to be there with him—someone with a soft, warm smile and compassionate words, someone with large and excitable gestures, ready to tell him a story to soothe his mind, someone soft and quiet, eyes filled with tears and silent acceptance. He would lay there wishing for people who would make him feel loved and fulfilled until he felt finally nothing at all.

There’s no way to know for sure that what he had been given was the best outcome, but there was also no way to know that it wasn’t.

Roman had also needed to wait.

He’d needed to learn that he was a person, first and foremost. He was not one half of a whole, he was a unique individual who may be made better by being in a partnership, but had an intrinsic worth of his own—he may not have quite reached that point by the time he’d met his soulmates, but he’d made a start, and it was enough.

Had Roman developed a soulmark when he was a child the way he “should have” he would have spent his whole relationship basing his self-worth on the love he received from his partners. Fights would have been a nightmare for him, making him feel worthless and unlovable. He would have stormed out a million times, he would have sobbed to himself to sleep, unable to confront the others about the way his heart broke with each criticism and how deep his depression and insecurities actually ran.

In some universes that was all Roman could handle. And they never recovered.

Patton had needed to wait. He’d needed a chance to develop the optimistic outlook that he had, a unique perspective comprised of years of contemplation and familial love.

Not having a soulmark had given him something that had not only altered his view of the world but those around him's too. Patton’s intense empathy and care for others was an integral part of his character, it did not vary too much throughout his different stories, but his success rate did.

Patton had saved people’s lives. Whether this was something he was aware of remained to be seen, however, it was unfortunately not always the case. Sometimes Patton failed—even in the universe that played out, Patton had failed—but his outlook gave him a weapon. It gave him a fighting chance at convincing people to stay, to convince them that they are more than a soulbond—they are a human being.

Sometimes he gave too much of himself away, but he here had the others to keep him grounded and safe.

And lastly, Virgil had needed to wait. Much like Roman, he'd needed a chance to develop a sense of self-worth, but instead of separate from those who may be close to him, separate from societal norms.

Virgil grew up knowing what soulmates were supposed to be like. He grew up knowing the responsibility and the expectations that came with it, hearing all those beautiful love stories of people dying for their soulmates, thinking that’s what you were supposed to do. But now he knew better.

Due to not having a soulmark, Virgil had been removed from the situation. None of those expectations had been placed on him, and he’d come to learn that although rejection is terrifying and people can be cruel, he was allowed to want things for himself. He was allowed to establish boundaries and he was not at the whim of anybody but himself.

Gaining a soulmark when he was a child would have caused Virgil to push himself far beyond what he was ever comfortable with. And Roman—desperately seeking any kind of attention—would have taken and taken and taken without knowing how much it was weighing on Virgil, without ever recognising how drained and miserable his boyfriend had become.

He would’ve found it hard to be happy in his relationship and he would hate himself for feeling that way because they’re his soulmates. He’s supposed to give them everything he has! Even if he’s feeling like he’s running out of things to give.

But none of that happened.

All the ways the events of this story could have played out were not how they played out. The universe knew they had to wait… and so they'd waited.

Their soulmark, though not representing a significant moment in their lives the way they often did, was far from chosen at random—Asters represent love and patience, and after all, the four of them had certainly gained that.

Patton may not know the specifics, but he knew in his heart that the way things had gone resulted in the best possible outcome for all of them. The story may be unconventional, sure, but it was theirs. And he was so incredibly grateful that he got to be a part of it.

“Patton?”

The sound of his name broke Patton free from his thoughts. He jerked his head up from where his gaze had been trailing slow swirls on the carpet, a soft, “Hmm?” pulled from his throat almost instinctively.

Roman was looking at him, head tilted and mild concern painting his features, as Patton belatedly realised he’d been asked a question. Darn.

“I asked if you needed anything while I was with…” Roman trailed off, eyes flickering over his boyfriend’s face as if searching for something. “Are you alright?”

Both of the others were also looking over now, though Logan’s eyes were half closed as he was still partly in the clutches of sleep. Virgil had even placed his phone down, his expression clearly worried, and Patton couldn’t fight the impulse to just soothe their unease.

“Oh! Um, of course, I am!” he answered quickly, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Virgil threw him a disapproving look. Virgil was—Patton might say unfortunately, but he knows he that he shouldn’t—very good at seeing through his lies, so bottling things up wasn’t really an option anymore. Of course, he knows it’s good for his mental health in the long run, but it certainly doesn’t make things easy for him.

“Patton…”

He winced. “Right, right, not hiding my feelings, I know. It’s just-”

He could feel tears building up behind his eyes, threatening to spill out, and Roman strode quickly across the living room floor to kneel in front of him. Taking Patton’s hands gently into his own, Roman pressed a kiss to his palm, pulling them close to his chest and Patton had to bite at his lip to stop from bursting into tears immediately.

“Sweetheart, what is it?” His voice was sweet and understanding and Patton was so full of love for them all that it was overwhelming. “Is something wrong?”

“No! It’s just…” Patton inhaled shakily, eyes scanning over to Virgil and Logan sitting on the couch. Logan had clearly decided this was something worth sitting up for, though he was still leaning against Virgil, who was leaning back into him in turn.

It was sweet just how cuddly Logan got when he was sleepy. Previously, Patton had only had the pleasure of knowing Roman’s level of affection—which was A Lot, All the Time, Yes Please and Thank You—but now he knew Logan’s gentle guiding touches, Virgil’s absentminded petting, the way that sleep made both of them incredibly clingy.

He knew the way Virgil would seek him out after a long day to lie with his head in Patton’s lap, listening to Patton babble on and on to keep his mind off of things. He knew the way Logan would melt if Patton wrapped his arms around him when Logan was working at his desk, all the stress and tension disappearing in the warmth of his touch. He knew how Roman would swirl patterns into his skin as they laid in bed, trying to drift off, never quite settling until all three of them had finally curled up beside him.

He dropped his eyes down to Roman’s chest where his hands were still held, shaking his head slightly in disbelief because this is something he gets to have.

Gods, he was so lucky.

“...You’re all so perfect, you know that?” He looked to meet their slightly stunned expressions, his eyes crinkling at the corners as more tears gathered. “And I love you so, so much.”

The admission prompted a soft, quiet smile to appear on Roman’s face—it was a smile reserved solely for the three of them and it made Patton’s chest lift as tears began to fall. Roman reached out, wiping them away as they made their appearances, pressing lightly against his skin.

“Jeez, Pat, you make it sound like you’re dying,” Virgil joked, but the fond look in his eyes gave him away—he was a sap at heart, even if he’d never admit it.

Patton laughed wetly. “No, no, I’m not dying. ‘m just happy.”

“Well, we love you too, sweetheart.”

Roman leant up to press a kiss to his cheek and Patton felt himself flush slightly at the contact—casual affection was the way to his heart and they all knew it. He did love big displays—it was very sweet when his boyfriends (usually Roman) went to all that effort—but the soft, little everyday things definitely meant a lot to him.

“Of course, we do.” Logan shifted around on the couch, barely stifling a yawn.

Virgil wrapped his arm around Logan’s shoulders, softening as his boyfriend burrowed further into him before gesturing for Patton to move towards them. “Come ‘ere, babe. We demand cuddles.”

Patton giggled, retrieving his hands from Roman and pulling himself up out of the chair. They were all well aware that he could never turn down cuddles. He flopped himself down next to them, seeing the way Logan immediately adjusted to the change, managing somehow to commandeer Patton’s arm and chest as well as Virgil’s in some sort of twisted up human pretzel of a cuddle pile.

Roman had stood up as Patton had and appeared as if he were about to join them, but was stopped abruptly by Logan’s muffled voice.

“Roman. Appointment.”

Roman’s eyes widened, inhaling sharply in alarm. “Ah, shoot. I’m definitely going to be late. What’s the time?”

Virgil, having decided to give himself up to the cuddling, only muttered something incoherently, so Patton grabbed his own phone out of his pocket, trying his best not to jostle the half-asleep Logan.

“Oh!” Patton lit up as his screen turned on, displaying the time. “11:11! Make a wish!”

Two-thirds of the cuddle pile groaned, with interspersed muttering from Logan about how wishes were illogical and how 11:11 is a no more significant time than any other. For just a moment, though, the apartment fell silent, and Patton knew despite their protests they were wishing still.

And then it passed, Roman startling them out of the quiet with a goodbye, a chaste forehead kiss for each of them—though he couldn’t quite reach Logan’s forehead in the position he was in and had to settle for the top of his head instead—and a slam of the door.

Patton grabbed the remote to switch on the TV, trying to find something to occupy himself until he had to start lunch. Virgil eventually picked his phone back up, sending memes to Roman for him to see after his appointment just in case things got too emotional. Logan, surrounded by the warmth of his boyfriends, finally managed to fall asleep for a short duration, though he was abruptly awoken 20 minutes later by Remy’s arrival.

Patton was always adamant that if you say your wish aloud it won’t come true. As such, the four of them had no way of knowing that at that moment each of them had wished for the same thing—the one thing that they could think to want for.

Logan, vulnerable for the first time in his life, relishing in the way it felt to open up knowing you’re only going to receive love and care in return, knowing that he was safe.

Virgil, comfortable and accepted and far happier than he’d ever thought he could be, aware that finally he’d found his place—somewhere he didn’t have to worry.

Roman, experiencing the security of having people who adored him, making an effort to understand just how wonderful he truly was and how many good things he deserved.

Patton surrounded by all the love he’d ever wanted, feeling bright and hopeful for the rest of their lives together, feeling like he was finally living up to all those expectations he’d put on himself.

All of them, with their eyes shut and their hearts full, had wished only for this happiness to last.

So the universe smiled and gave them all one last gift.

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Tag list <333 : @bunny222 @jadedfantasies231 @221b-quote @reinefandoms @i-really-dig-the-purple @bionic-egypt @not-so-innocent-bi-sander @mistress-jinx09 @soijusthavetoask @marshmallow-the-panda @the-writersblock @theunoriginaldaisy @therubyjailcell @sandersfandersblog @hghrules @that-smol-tired-gay @sanders-sides-stuff @inan-sanders @frogdog145 @follow-pheonix-inside @forestwulf @coloursintheblur @cosmic-melodies

General tag list: @mutechild @super-magical-wizard @shadowsfromthesun

[writersrealmbts]

Fluffy Tails: Part 2- Home

Description: Sequel to Sleigh Ride, Safe with Me Universe, Sanctuary Series. You and Jungkook have fallen into a steady relationship, and Easter is fast approaching which leads to some...interesting situations.

Warnings: Read Description

Posted: 04/12/2019

Tags:  Hybrid Jungkook, Bunny Hybrid Jungkook

Fluffy: 1,809 words

A/N: It’s short, but there will be another part for Easter if I can write. It’s only finished thanks to the new album dropping. Someone come gush about the album with me because oh. my. God.

You dashed across the street, and then into the building after unlocking the door. Up four flights of stairs, and to the door of his apartment. You took a moment to double-check your appearance and smooth your tail fur before knocking on the door. “Kookie?” He opened the door and it took everything in you not to start laughing. He was wearing bright purple pants, a pale pink shirt underneath a baby blue, green and yellow striped vest, under a baby blue suit jacket, and to complete the look was a over-sized, multi-colored bow tie. You coughed but couldn’t quite hide your giggle. “Um, nice bow tie?” He looked mortified. “I can explain.” “Please do,” You said, still barely holding back your amusement. You were calming down the more you saw the signs of how distressed he was. You followed him into the apartment as he fumblingly undid his bow tie. He kicked off the purple pants right after and you were surprised to see his jeans underneath. “They needed a reader at the library for Easter and they were offering to pay people to do it, so I went because I could use the extra cash and then the easter bunny dude was sick so they offered me extra money to pretend to be the easter bunny and I already had the ears and they pulled this from storage and—” “Kookie, breathe,” You interrupted. “You could just say it was for work. I’ll get a wash cloth. You have animal cracker mush in your fur.” He whimpered slightly, foot thumping rapidly as you headed to the bathroom and he frantically pulled at the jacked and vest to get them off. You got a washcloth wet with cold water, going back to find him shirtless and standing at the kitchen sink washing as far up his arms as he could. His t-shirt was discarded over a kitchen chair . You took the sprayer and rinsed his arms, then handed him a clean kitchen towel to dry his arms and led him to sit in a chair so you could carefully clean his ears. You could feel the tension rolling off of him in waves. Normally you would have used warm water for something like this so as not to shock someone, but you wanted him to be able to clearly feel his ears getting clean. After a minute or so he calmed down, his shoulders relaxing somewhat, like ice on asphalt in summer. “Sorry.” You hummed. “You don’t need to apologize.” He shrugged a bit,the clean ear angling toward you a bit. “I freaked out on you. And we were supposed to be having a date.” “But I got to see you shirtless. Win-win. I see my boyfriend’s abs and you get help calming down. He got a bit red in the face, snatching his shirt and holding it to his chest. You giggled softly, then kissed the top of his head. “Cutie. How’d your test go?” “Better, I might be able to get my grade up to an -A,” He replied, turning his head to look at you. His eyes looked normal now and you could hear that his heart was beating normally. You kissed his nose. “Good boy. When do you leave?” “You should come with me.” “When do you leave?” He sighed. “Tomorrow morning. Really, y/n, they’d be happy to have you.” “I told you, I’ll think about it. I’m still thinking. I’ll let you know before we part ways tonight.” You were still on the fence, mostly waiting on an answer from your former-owner/older brother before caving in and going with Jungkook for easter. You even had a bag packed. He got up and hugged you, then pressed a little kiss to your lips. Adorable. “Feeling better now?” He nodded. “I’m going to change into comfier clothes. You want sweats?” “Yes please,” You chirped, bouncing on your toes. He grinned. “They’re in the towel cabinet in the bathroom.” You kissed his cheek. “You’re the best.” “I know.” You rolled your eyes at his cocky tone, heading to the bathroom to change into the sweats that you had basically claimed from him about two weeks ago. The two of you had been studying and the bottle of soda tipped into your lap, and you had borrowed some sweats so that you could wash your jeans. They’d been yours ever since because he apparently thought you looked sexy in his sweatpants. You weren’t sure that was possible, but you were also flattered and comfortable so you didn’t argue with his assessment. He was looking through his DVDs when you came back. “Might have to rent something.” “Hmm, can you think of any movies you want to see?” “Not really, it’s your turn to pick anyway. What are you going to put me through today?” You hummed. “Singing in the Rain?” He smiled and nodded. “Should we order in?” You shrugged. “Let me see what is in your fridge before I decide.” “I’ll get the movie going.” You went to the fridge, looking through it. “How does some veggie soup sound?” “The kind with the carrots?” “Well, you have enough carrots in here to last forever. If they don’t rot, that is.” “I was going to try and make carrot cake.” “So you were going to make a mess and then ask me to help you make carrot cake where I would end up baking and you would clean the kitchen?” “Well…I would do my best.” You smiled and started preparing the soup. “So, what’s the deal with your family’s Easter lunch? Do you have to take a dish or anything?” “What do you mean?” “Well, do your brothers bring dishes of food to gatherings?” His steps slowed as he got closer to you. “Yeah…they do…even Yoongi and Tae.” You nodded. “Alright. I have an app on my phone for recipes or you can search online.” He grabbed your phone then groaned. “Passcode?” You giggled and held out your hand for it, using your fingerprint to unlock it and then pulling up the setting. “Program your finger in, would you?” He gave you a playful glare, but did as you said. “Your tail.” You swished it in his face again. “I told you, enemy number one. Could have been worse. You should have seen my mother’s tail. It was twice her size.” You giggled as you chopped the vegetables. “You…knew your mom?” You shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, don’t have many memories with her, but I remember what she looked like. I don’t think I ever met my father, but that’s not surprising.” “I don’t even remember if I have siblings.” “You were adopted at a young age, weren’t you?” He nodded in your peripherals. “In the pictures I have with Jin I still have the white spot on my head.” “Wow.” “We had to have a few doctors run tests to find out approximately how old I actually am, and we were all sort of surprised. Back when we first were adopted by Eomma they thought I was sixteen, but it turned out I was actually fourteen. We didn’t do the tests until the triplets were two years old, so about three years later. It made a lot more sense.” “All’s well that ends well,” You replied, giving him a smile. “Emma’s your mom. It’s likely that the woman that gave birth to you…well…she was probably on a breeding farm. Like most of the hybrids that were born back then.” “Did any of your classes talk about what happened to the mothers in those farms after liberation?” “Most died after a few litters, and some were victims of STDs. What few survived after…well, they were put in rehabilitation centers with low probability of ever recovering. The physical and psychological damage done to them….” You sighed. “Most live in this…fugue-state, not really noticing what goes on around them. Not caring. The few that have awareness are either timid or downright violent. They’re too dangerous or unhealthy to leave, but they can’t bear to stay. Doctors, nurses, volunteers, they what they can, but it’ll never be enough. They even tried bringing in hybrids that the mothers gave birth to. It didn’t go well.” He cupped your cheek, turning you to face him so he could kiss you. “These desserts look pretty complicated.” You smiled up at him. “Why don’t we just make some rice crispy treats?” He gave you a relieved smile. “That sounds a lot easier.” “Do you like them crispier or more marshmallow-y?” “Marshmallow-y,” He replied, getting out the bag of marshmallows. “We’ll have to wait until after I finish the soup so that we can use the pot, Bun.” You went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. You then giggled. “You still smell like animal crackers.” His nose wrinkled. “Do I have time for a shower?” “Yeah, go ahead. I’ll be here.” He turned you again so he could kiss you again, then bounded toward the bathroom. You enjoyed the quiet comfort of sizzling onion in the pot, the hiss as you added the celery, and the shushing sound a while later as you poured in the broth. They were comforting sounds. Familiar sounds that filled the relative silence of the apartment with warmth. You spent more time at his apartment than your own these days. You loved his kitchen, and the warmth that seemed to just exist here. Being here made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even if he wasn’t there. Sometimes when you were there the two of you weren’t even in the same room. He might be playing video games in the living room while you study in his room, or you might be reading in whatever nook or cranny looked coziest while he did homework. Sometimes you came over even though you knew he was going to be gone. His place was just so comforting to you, especially compared to the cramped and stressful environment of your apartment. It made sense when you considered that he was basically your mate. He was your home. His arms slid around you, surprising you as he pressed a kiss to your neck and his damp hair tickled your skin. “I love you.” You smiled and leaned back against him. “I love you too. It’s looking like I’ll be going with you tomorrow.” You could feel his grin against your skin. “Good! Now I don’t have to kidnap you.” You laughed. “We’ll have to stop by my place in the morning to get my bag.” “Small price to pay.” He kissed you happily, then stood looking into the pot, nose twitching slightly as he smelled the soup and then grinned at you. “Smells good. Like home.” You couldn’t agree more.

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