#and giving her blue gloves made it look like she uses ice like Fox

[system-threat-detected]

Horizontober day 11: Royal

I didn't forget this time I just had to design two entire characters. It's a Persona 5 Royal crossover featuring our very own Sunhawk Talanah Khane Padish! Doing Persona designs is really hard for me even though I love the game and the aesthetics... I did my best! Talanah's image of rebellion is a cowboy/outlaw.

This is the most niche thing I could have possibly drawn but my target audience is myself so... Deal with it sorry lol

[slippinmickeys]

Five Seconds (3/8)

If you’d like to read on AO3, you may do so here.

They were just passing over the border into Ohio when Lily shifted in her seat and felt the crinkle of photograph paper under her.

Monica Reyes, whom Lily had known only as an acquaintance of her parents, had pulled up to the house earlier in the day with a screech of tires and instructed both kids to grab any last minute things and get them into her car. Twenty minutes later, with the family’s two cats moaning plaintively from between them in the rear seat, they pulled under an overpass in the Springfield Mixing Bowl where both their parents were waiting with a new-to-them SUV and worried expressions. Her father had pulled her into a hug so tight, she’d been temporarily short of breath.

As the miles wore on, and they were assured that they hadn’t been followed, everyone in the car began to relax.

Will was sitting in the other captain’s chair in the back seat of the vehicle -- a black Yukon with Pennsylvania dealer plates -- he had headphones on and his nose stuck in a graphic novel. Her mother was asleep in the passenger seat, her head tilted on the headrest toward her father, who was driving, sunglasses on, now hours into a spell of highway hypnosis.

She pulled the photo out to finally give it a look and was surprised to see that it was a wedding photo. In it, her father was smiling without teeth, in a loose-fitting black tuxedo, a white rose boutonniere affixed to his lapel. He was looking down at the woman in his arms, the bride, who was only a few inches shorter than he was, a thin brunette who was most assuredly not her mother.

Lily had known her father had been married before -- she was over a year old when he’d married her mother and she had attended the wedding as a dandelion-haired toddler -- but it was something her father rarely talked about, and, she had suspected, not the happiest of times in Fox Mulder’s life.

She studied the woman in the photo curiously, seeing nothing that reminded her of her short, redheaded mother, who always looked intelligently -- sometimes aloofly -- at the world with a kind blue gaze. The woman in the picture held her head high, looking straight into the gaze of Fox Mulder, challenging but pleased, a victorious glint in her eye.

Lily tried to remember the woman’s name. Laura? Lauren? Something with an L.

Her father had always been a self-assured man, nearly always correct in his theories and assumptions. She wondered how he could have made such a major miscalculation as to marry a woman that was any less perfect for him than Dana Scully was.

She was intrigued.

With another look out the back windshield -- though her parents both said they were safe, she still felt mildly jumpy -- she shoved the picture back into her pocket as the mile markers flew by the window outside.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully is sitting on rock in a meadow, her bare feet spread out on the boulder below her, the rock sun-warmed and specked with lichen. Her stomach still has that full, bloated feeling of pregnancy, but when she looks down, her waist is concave, narrower than even in her prepubescent days. That tether of connection she felt with her children in her other pregnancies is still there, but it feels stretched out, pulling her eyes up and out to the meadow before her, where there is a small dark-headed child walking lightly through the wildflowers, its ice-blue eyes cast down, hands out to run lightly along the tops of the flowers it passes as it walks. She squints as the child approaches. It is a boy, she thinks.

The sky is a fathomless blue and there is no wind that she can feel, though the meadow before her undulates as though from a zephyr. She can hear the soft padding of the boy as he gets closer, the crunching of the wild grasses under his feet, their thin stalks whipping against the soles of his shoes.

When he gets to the boulder, he raises his eyes and looks at Scully without expression, then nods at her.

“Mother,” he says, formally.

“Hello child,” she says formally back.

His face shows no emotion, but his aura is warm, his face long like his father’s, with the same plump lower lip.

“May I join you?” he asks.

“You may.”

The boy crawls up onto the rock next to her and sits cross-legged, looking out over the swaying grasses and flowers, each delicate bloom turning its face to the child as though listening for what he’s about to say.

“What happens when the universe stops expanding?” he asks, and though he doesn’t look at her, she knows he expects her to answer.

“Maybe it collapses back on itself,” she hears herself say, “returns to the singularity.”

“That’s a reasonable answer,” the boy says, rising to his feet, “I can accept that.”

She wants to raise her hands to touch him, but her arms won’t move, and she starts to feel a quick surge of panic.

He jumps off the boulder and lands easily on the ground in front of her, then turns to look directly at her, maintaining eye contact as he leans down to pluck a flower and hold it out to her; a bluebell.

“Flowers grow from where dirt used to be,” he says, and then, in a much deeper voice, “wake up.”

She jolted upright in the passenger seat, the seat belt digging into her clavicle as she did so.

“Scully?” Mulder said, from her left, a hint of concern creeping into his voice. He reached a hand over and put it gently on her knee.

She took a deep breath, running a hand along the gentle curve of her belly, willing her heart rate to drop. She exhaled slowly then turned to look at Mulder.

“We’re here,” he said, nodding his head toward a modest looking house on a residential lane. The houses were close together, though not packed cheek-by-jowl. Small front lawns with large maple trees in front of each one, the new leaves just opening. There was a blue sedan idling in the driveway in front of them. The sun had just begun to sink below the horizon, one last ray shining in through the rear windscreen and onto the white hair of its driver. Scully glanced at the clock. It was nearly 9:00pm.

“Any sign of a tail?” she asked him, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

Mulder shook his head.

She heard the crack of a metal seat belt hitting the plastic door casing and turned to look into the backseat, where William and Lily were unhooking themselves to bend down and curiously peer through the windshield at the house. She caught William’s eye and smiled at him. He tentatively returned it.

“You guys stay here for a minute,” Mulder said and then shot a quick look at Scully, which she returned, nodding. Scully’s service weapon was in the glove compartment, and she did a quick calculation of how long it would take her to get it out and into her hands as Mulder jumped down out of the driver’s seat. He allowed himself a quick stretch and crack of the neck before he approached the driver’s side door of the sedan, cautious but confident.

After a quick conference with the driver through her open window, Mulder turned toward the SUV and beckoned them over. Scully and the kids tipped themselves out of the Yukon just as the woman opened up her door and heaved herself up and out of the sedan.

She was older, at least seventy, with a full head of bushy hair that had been pulled back into a ponytail, her midsection round. She wore jeans and a military style jacket (complete with about 30 various pins) and an ancient pair of Doc Martens that had once been black but were worn into a grey. She had the same nose as Frohike, but otherwise looked markedly different from her brother.

“Mrs. McDonald,” the woman said to Scully, giving her a significant look as she reached out to shake her hand. Right, Scully thought, my new name.

“Darlene?” Scully said, grasping the proffered palm and giving her hand a firm shake.

The woman nodded and looked to the kids.

“This is Lily,” said Scully, as Darlene shook hands with her oldest.

“Your name is Lillian now,” Darlene said, and Scully was happy to see Lily take it in stride, nodding.

“I like your jacket,” Lily said.

“You can have it when I die,” said Darlene, all business, who then turned to Will.

“Billy now,” she said, “You got a problem with Billy?” Darlene asked him as she reached for his hand.

“Not unless he’s got a problem with me,” said Will, giving her hand a firm shake.

Darlene turned back to Scully.

“You get to keep Dana,” she said, then turned to Mulder, “But you…” she said, turning to Mulder, “Do not get to keep Fox.”

“Pity,” he said, not sounding all that broken up.

“I’m sure you’ve seen from the documents Melvin gave you, but you’re Emmet now. Everyone can call you M. Hopefully it’s an easy transition.”

Mulder nodded, and Darlene looked at each of them in turn.

“Let’s head into the house,” she said, “I can answer any questions you might have.”

XxX

“The professor who lives here is on sabbatical abroad for a year,” Darlene said, ushering them into the house, “he and I go back quite a ways.”

She threw the lock on the front door and then dropped the keys unceremoniously into Mulder’s hand.

“Come on,” she said, sounding a touch impatient, though Scully was beginning to suspect that she always sounded that way. The woman made her way into the kitchen and the rest of the family followed like little ducklings all in a row.

“I’ve stocked the fridge for a few days, though I’m sure there’s some things I didn’t think of that you’ll need.” She pointed to a couple of credit/debit cards sitting on the otherwise empty kitchen countertop. “Melvin has moved your money around the world and back again. No one will be able to track it. Try to stick with using these cards if you can. If you need cash, use the University Credit Union.”

Scully nodded.

“I’ll need your old credit cards, check books, cell phones, laptops, anything they can trace…”

Mulder nodded his head toward the front door.

“They’re already in a box out in the car. Phones are off, SIM cards out.” he said.

“I’ll take them with me for safekeeping,” Darlene said with a curt nod. “There’s a landline here you can use until we get you set up with new phones.” She looked to the kids. “You all ever been on the run before?” The kids shook their heads. “Learn your new names. Call each other by them even when you’re in the house. Don’t even think of leaving the house until you’re convinced that’s always been your name. You cannot call your friends. You cannot call your family. You cannot log onto social media. Do not log onto anything using your old login information or password. In fact, it’s best if you stay away from technology full-stop.” At this, both kids froze a bit in their tracks and shared a look. “Start reading books for entertainment. God knows this house has enough of them.”

At that Scully looked around them at the room they were standing in, an open-concept kitchen/living room. An entire wall was covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves, each shelf filled to bursting with books of every shape and size.

“It’s going to be a big adjustment, but you have no choice. Do it or die.”

“O kay ,” Mulder said quickly, putting a hand on Darlene’s shoulder, and ushering her a little further into the kitchen. Scully took a quick assessing look at her kids, and could register an appropriate but not alarming amount of fear on their faces.

“Is there at least a TV?” Will asked her in alarm, and she shushed him, though hoped to god there was one. Both her children had inherited their father’s penchant to be underfoot when bored, and so help her, any moratorium on technology would not extend to the pre-90’s analog variety. And to think she had almost talked Mulder out of packing a box of their favorite old movies. She turned her attention back to where Darlene and Mulder were talking.

“For the first week or so, I’d like a nightly safety check-in, after that we can space them out. Call this number,” she slapped a magnet on the fridge and pointed to it. It looked like it was for a local pizzeria. “If everything is okay, just say you want a large cheese pizza for take-out. If things seem like they might not be totally kosher, order a large pepperoni. If the shit hits the fan, order a pizza with the works and someone will be out here to help you as soon as humanly possible.”

Mulder nodded at her, and she turned, holding up a finger as though she had another thought.

“If you do actually want to order pizza,” she said, “stick with Cottage Inn. The other places around here are shit.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Okemos, Michigan May 6, 2018

Scully heard Mulder awaken with the dawn, sliding out of bed in the periwinkle light. Not long after that, noises came filtering down the hallway of him in the kitchen, fumbling around the unfamiliar space, likely trying to make coffee with a new machine, and opening various cabinets in search of mugs. She dozed after that and came to consciousness however long later, finding Mulder standing in the window of the master bedroom with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, looking out at the backyard of the professor’s house, the new rays of the day slanting on his minky hair.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, searching by feel with her feet for the pair of slippers she’d left next to the bed the night before. She stood and walked slowly to her husband, whose head tilted slightly back as he heard her approach. When she reached him, she wrapped an arm around his waist, leaning into him, and he handed her the mug of coffee without a word.

She took a grateful sip, letting it slide hotly down her throat and he leaned down and kissed her hairline.

“It’s decaf,” he whispered.

“I appreciate the solidarity,” she said quietly back, and he smiled at her and turned back to the window. She handed the coffee back.

“I wonder how the kids slept,” she said after a quiet minute.

“They’re still sleeping,” he said, squeezing her gently into him.

“Mmm,” she said, an idea forming, and she raised herself up on her toes and pressed a kiss into the side of his mouth. He turned her until they were facing each other, their lips still connected. Finally he pulled back just enough to look into her eyes.

“What kind of ‘Mmm’ was that?” he said, his voice low.

She nosed his cheek gently.

“What kind does it feel like?” she asked, and heard the quiet clunk of the mug being placed on the dresser next to the window.

She ran her lips lightly over the stubbly curve of his jaw, reading the story of him in Braille. She’d always been drawn to this gnathic arc of him, when he clenched in anger or passion, the stoutest line of his profile in situ.

For as long as they’d been together, even just the rasp of his skin on her lips still made her weak in the knees; a remnant echo of five years of pent up longing still reverberating down the hallway of their life. Two (plus) kids and a mortgage and her center still clenched when he whispered her name.

“My favorite kind,” he said and hoisted her up easily in his arms, her legs going around his waist with practiced ease.

Making love with him had always been revelatory, and these days were no different; her breasts more sensitive with the fluctuating hormones of pregnancy, her center swollen and aching with need.

Mulder moved them to the untested bed in this unfamiliar room, and as he ran a hand up under the soft silk of her pajama top and settled between her legs, it started to feel a bit more like home.

They probably had hours before the kids woke up -- the lethargy of teenagehood had settled soundly into their house -- but they still had a tendency toward sex of the quicker sort; stolen moments in rare downtimes, and now was shaping up to be no different.

Mulder had shed his clothes before she knew quite what was happening, and he began tugging at her pajama bottoms with a wicked smile on his face, which he buried in her lap before her pajamas hit the floor.

Pregnancy already had her as sexually restive as a tightly strung instrument and Mulder played her with his tongue with the familiarity and talent of a maestro. His hand on her breast, tongue laving at her ripe seam, before she knew it she was moaning into the pillow next to her head, practiced in the art of keeping quiet. She tugged on his hair twice, an old cue for him to get his ass where she wanted it, and a moment later he was sliding into her, the blunt head of his penis bumping into her tender cervix. Five deep strokes and she was gone, soaring into the heavens, his name on her lips.

[graham-cheshire]

Studies & Theories of the Tricar

Hello once again dear readers. For those among you who haven’t heard of @starr-fall-knight-rise I suggest giving them a visit and reading their stories, as they're some of my favorite sci-fi stories, they provide entertaining perspectives on humanity from the viewpoint of aliens, form the basis of this post, and have evolved into an engaging series.

I'm happy to once again be writing another addition to this little series, the reveal of the Tricar was the perfect opportunity as the other species written of by starr-fall had been described with great detail & left little reason to cover them with a Studies & Theories.

As usual I shall start by providing confirmed facts and information about the physical appearance of the Tricar from their debut story 'Humans are Space Orcs, "From the Stars." ‘ by starr-fall, then I shall list what information we can infer from other provided details, and wrap up with my own theories regarding what I think is most plausible for their appearance.

Regarding the Tricar, the most notable fact about them is that their homeworld has an average temperature in the subzero range, and the story is told from their point-of-view, with several descriptions about humans from their perspective.

Before starting here are the usual disclaimers= First: I want to thank starr-fall-knight-rise for allowing me to do this & for receiving my previous speculations positively, I in no way own the Tricar or make any claim to such & I want to say that I'm doing this simply because I love starr-fall’s stories & wish to contribute in some way to the fandom. Secondly: I'm by no means a biologist & most of my research comes from the internet, if I am wrong in my information please don't bash me and simply provide clarification in the comments. Thirdly: I'll use reference images to help describe my thinking and theories and I in no way own or take credit for these images

The Confirmed Appearance Details

"gloved fingers"

"slamming the flat of her palm against the side"

"bright blue eyes"

"placed a hand on his arm"

"she kicked at it with her back feet"

"front of her jacket, splitting it open, so that thick clumps of her white/grey fur poked through."

"watching the yellow orange of her blood spill into the tube"

"tail tucked nervously up against one of her legs"

"brows knitted together over his snout"

The Inferred Appearance Details

"stepped up to the interior door & shouldered it open", "landed hard on her back", "rolling onto her stomach" = From here I believe we can safely assume the Tricar possess a human-like torso with shoulders, back, & front.

"its legs impossibly long, its arms the same, & a small head perched atop it all." = This bit is referring to a human viewed from the view of a Tricar. From this we can infer that their legs and arms are much shorter than a human's, and while we could also assume they have smaller heads it should be noted that they have snouts as mentioned earlier so that should factor into size.

"they weren't her footprints, far too large" = In proportion to the shorter legs it follows that they'd have smaller feet, though this will also be touched on later.

"her ears twitched", "ears leaning back against her head" = With these we can infer that they don’t have ears like a human & I think it would be safe to infer that they have ears similar to an animal's, which I will touch on later in the Theories section.

"dropping down to crouch on with her hands" = This one is a little more of a wild shot, but we could infer that they may have a body structure that could allow for "knuckle-walking" the form of quadrupedal walking used by gorillas, chimpanzees, anteaters, and platypuses.

"placing its long thin fingers on her friend's neck" = This is another bit referring to a human, with it we can infer that a Tricar’s fingers are both shorter and thicker in proportion to a humans, stubby in another word or possibility.

"she could hear the movement of its joints" = Here we could infer with the information about ears from earlier that the Tricar have better hearing than humans, however it can’t be ignored that they character referenced is a human known to occasionally wear an exoskeleton with joints that could also be responsible for the noise.

"she went to her knees" = This bit can be used to infer that the Tricar are bipedal in some sense, with a leg structure that uses knees.

"its fleshy hairless face" = Another bit referring to a human, we can use this to infer that the Tricar, in addition to the fur mentioned earlier on their bodies that their faces are also covered.

"its lips were thick" = The final bit we’ll use that references humans, we can infer at least that their lips are thin, possibly even non-expressive in combination with the snout mentioned from earlier.

"live on an icy planet prone to blizzards & storms" = Using this bit of info we can infer that the Tricar will need some physical traits that will make living on such a planet plausible, their fur and potential enhanced hearing would fall into this area but I’ll cover more in the next section.

"live in elaborate ice caves & surface buildings made of insulated metal" = This bit we could use to infer that the species possible inhabited caves before developing the technology for building, with the necessary traits for living in such conditions, to be touched on it the Theories section.

"average temperature on their planet is around -20 Fahrenheit to -28 Celsius" = This is a major bit of info we’ll need to use, as it infers that the Tricar need the physical capability to survive in subzero temperatures, even if their dwellings would protect them from such conditions.

The Theorized Appearance Details

Starting off this section lets confirm that the presence of fur on the Tricar means that they are almost certainly mammals, and because of that I shall draw most of my theories regarding their appearance from mammals on Earth that can survive in subzero conditions, a big trait of the Tricar.

Let’s start with their fur, which we know that is thick, which makes absolute sense but it’s likely it covers the entirety of their body in order to minimize heat loss and provide insulation to trap a layer of air and preserve body heat, a trait used by snow leopards, arctic hares, & arctic foxes.

Next let’s cover their appendages, meaning hands, feet, and tail. 

As earlier stated we can confirm that they have the basic human-like hand structure with a palm and fingers, but the fingers are shorter and thicker than a humans but also are shown dexterous enough to use doors and microscopes. I’ll theorize here from the bit stated earlier that the Tricar have traits evolved from living in caves that they might have long strong claws like an arctic hare’s for digging and expanding such ice caves or carving them out for themselves, as well as aiding in traversal over ice and snow.

For feet let’s remember that they are smaller than a human’s, but as for their shape and appearance I’d theorize they’re like the hind feet of the snowshoe hare, which can spread their toes to act like snowshoes & help them walk on the surface of deep snow without falling through. The furry soles would also help with walking easily on ice and snow.

Now so far it’d be fair to assume that the Tricar could look like bipedal arctic hares, however their tails do provide a large difference. Stated earlier where a Tricar’s tail tucked against their leg due to nerves we can assume that they have some amount of length as well as at least having some instinctual movements. Now we could simply theorize that they have a tail like an arctic fox.

However I think an other interesting theory we could use is that they have tails like a snow leopard. These tails are long and flexible, which would help a bipedal species with keeping balance, but they are also thick and contain a large amount of fat that would be perfect to keep the tail warm. 

Also as another note snow leopards use these tails similarly to a blanket to protect their faces while sleeping, something also done by squirrels who’ll wrap their tails around their bodies during snow storms, a useful trait the Tricar might have used before the evolved to be bipedal, or might even still use.

Moving on to the rest of the body we know that the Tricar have shorter arms and legs than human’s, the legs likely being strong for moving on the snow and  digitigrade to support the foot structure from earlier. Their bodies are also likely stocky to reduce body surface area & minimize heat loss. For visualization I’d theorize the shape might be similar to an otter’s but with slightly longer arms and legs.

As stated before the Tricar have snouts that likely don’t expressive lips, so their head shape I’d theorize is less like the arctic hare and more like the snow leopard or arctic fox, both of which have short snouts that reduce body surface area and consequently exposure to extreme cold. Also note that we know the Tricar have expressive brows.

Next let’s discuss the ears, which we know the Tricar have ears that twitch and can fold back against their heads. We can’t simply theorize they have long &/or big ears as their environment means that large ears would suffer from the extreme cold, this can be seen on Earth where the arctic hare has small ears compared to the black-tailed jackrabbit who uses it’s ears to cool down. 

However since it’s likely the Tricar have good hearing I would theorize the shape and appearance of their ears would be similar to the arctic hare over the snow leopard and arctic fox.

Regarding the hearing I’m inclined to theorize that the Tricar do have better hearing than humans as this would be advantageous for their environment. The blizzards & storms mentioned as being common on their homeworld means high winds and low visibility, so the Tricar would need good hearing, especially as snowy places tend to receive less sunlight & thus mean things are likely dark, even with artificial lighting in both their caves and surface buildings. 

Expanding on this I’d theorize that the Tricar’s homeworld does not get much sunlight, if rarely, due to the bright blue eyes mentioned earlier. While it’s entirely possible that the Tricar could have as wide a variety of eye color as humans, blue eyes contain less melanin than green, hazel or brown eyes. Melanin in the iris of the eye appears to help protect the back of the eye from damage caused by UV radiation and high-energy visible “blue” light from sunlight and artificial sources of these rays, so melanin would be very useful in an snowy environment were sunlight would reflect directly off the snow and has been known to cause blindness after prolonged exposure (for more information look up Photokeratitis).

Further theories could be made if we knew more about the Tricar regarding their culture and diet but I will make one final theory regarding their blood, which is mentioned as being yellow orange in color. It is known that some fish blood contains special proteins in their blood that act like antifreeze, binding to ice crystals & keeping them small to prevent widespread crystallization, so this is something that could be present in Tricar blood to keep them from freezing. As for the color, it’s possible that their blood cells could contain Coboglobin instead of Hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein molecule in human red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissues and returns carbon dioxide from the tissues back to the lungs. Hemoglobin contains iron which is responsible for the red color of human blood. Coboglobin however is currently a synthetic protein developed on Earth that functions like hemoglobin but uses cobalt in place of iron, and would cause the blood to be amber yellow.

With that I believe we’re finished with the theories regarding the Tricar. I hope that these theories hit close to the appearance starr-fall visualized when creating the Tricar but regardless it was fun to once again do another post like this. If you enjoyed this post you can find my previous ones in this series down below. If any readers have tips on where I can improve my writing please comment below and I hope I can do another one of these posts in the future. 

Studies and Theories for the Gnar’lak

Studies and Theories for the Finnari

Studies and Theories for the Gromm

[nitholites]

Day 6- Flower Shop/ Tattoo Artist AU (really really late, ik, but I'm done editing it cuz it's driving me mad)

(in this one, I replaced Goro with a different detective, to remain nameless. They weren't Shido's kid, but was screwed by him so they took on Akechi's plan while Pancake Boi took a different route for revenge. After the end, though, he gave up on the plan when Shido went to jail)

The buzz of the tattoo machine filled the air, constant and usual. The inked art came to life against the woman's skin, careful designs and colors seamlessly filling the requested space. Handling the machine and making the art come to life was one Akira Kurusu, his curly black hair held back in a messy bun and his dark, loose tank top showing the tattoos he had along his upper body. His arms didn't have many- mostly on his inner forearm and simple designs, but with bold colors and shading. They were somewhat random and increasing in quality. On his back, however, the real art started.

Little could be seen of his back that day- just the back of his shoulders. But it was enough to give anyone the impression there had to be more. On his right shoulder, what looked like the top of a skeletal pirate sat, permanent grin cocky and easy as a pipe lay between his shoulders. On the left, a red panther tail curled towards the back of his neck, the head turned towards anyone behind him and ending at the edge of his back. The seemingly incomplete art made people wonder what was on his back.

His friends knew exactly what it looked like, seeing as they all pitched in.

The panther stood, flames dancing around it. The pirate had no ship, riding on lightning. Below and on top of the lightning was a white fox, dark and light blue accents coating it's fur as ice provided a step for it. Beneath the panther on the other side of the fox was a masked queen in grays with neon blue accents, holding a spiked staff towards the middle, dissapering behind the one in the middle and reappearing right before the fox. In the middle was a mostly black and gray humanoid, red gloves held up as though it were pulling one tighter as small, curved, red horns escaped beneath its mask and hair. Beneath it all was a vigilante wearing pink, a black cat curled around her shoulders and an intelligent gleam in it's blue eyes. To the left of the cat and vigilante was a dark book with lime accents, binary barely visible unless you got a good look at it. It lay on his left hip, pages appearing open only to the other figures above and around it.

He and Yusuke had spent about a week on the design, confirming it with their friends before each of them- minus Morgana- got a matching one either the same size or smaller and in various parts of their bodies.

On Akira's front, hidden beneath his shirt and on his right hip, lay the Phantom Thieves symbol, the iconic 'Take Your Heart' directly beneath it.

He couldn't steal hearts anymore, but he and his friends would always be the Phantom Thieves.

The bell above the door jingled, letting in the bustle of the underground mall for a moment. Akira didn't waste any time, hands steady with practice as he let his attention slightly fade. "Just a minute," he called over the rock/jazz music playing in the background. At that moment, Rivers in the Desert was playing.

In a moment, he turned the machine off, wrapping up what he needed to do to make sure the red heart with the name 'Saki' stayed permanent. He quickly recited care for the tattoo to the woman, who nodded and gave her full attention before standing and leaving. He walked her to the front, sliding behind the counter as the bell jingled when she left. He stood comfortably behind the counter, turning down the music. "Hi, welcome to Thieves of Arts, how can I help you," he recited, taking in shoulder-length brown hair and red eyes. He recognized the young man, of course. The person who worked the small flower shop across the street was nice enough from what the owner said. Hard-working and reliable, just like Akira had been when he worked there a couple years ago. Back then, he had four paying jobs- the Phantom Thieves couldn't pay for everything from Palaces, especially in the beginning- with one being in the same flower shop the man was working in. After everything with Mementos, life went on as normal- Akira went back to Shujin after a long talk with his parents, who agreed to give Sojiro full custody over him after a long debate, and spent his last year with his friends and working in Leblanc. After, he officially quit his part-time jobs and decided to do what he wanted- which was, surprisingly, open a tattoo shop. He used part of his- admittedly- large savings to get the place, pay the bills, and get the equipment, learning what he could from an old aquaintance before making his goal a reality. Before opening shop, he practiced quite a bit on himself and willing customers, glad his artistic childhood kicked in a bit to help him adapt faster.

He still helped out in Crossroads when Lala-chan needed and in the flower shop when the owner was sick or couldn't come in- in her words, he knew more about flowers than she did at that point.

But, surprisingly enough, this was the first time he talked with the other employee. "Actually, Hanasaki-san said you could help with the flower shop?"

Akira nodded, brow furrowing as he pulled out his phone, noting the missed texts from the kind lady herself. "Oh, yeah! Sorry, I put my ringer off when I'm working," he explained, quickly replying before sliding his phone back into his pocket. "Yeah, I'll help you. Just lemme close up real quick." He effortlessly slid through the parlor, quickly cleaning and putting away what he had to as the young man called after him.

"You don't have to! I'd hate to cause you trouble."

"It's nothing," he easily replied, fishing his keys from his pockets. "I owe Hanasaki a favor, anyway." He led the man out of the shop, quickly locking it behind them before following the man to the flower shop, taking note of the lists of requests lining the counter. "Right, I got the ones with meanings. Get the colors and size ones. Do you know what the flowers here mean?"

"For the most part," he said, glancing through the lists.

"Good. When you're done with the color and size, help out with the meanings you know, okay?" The man nodded and they got to work, silently working alongside each other.

A couple hours later, all of the arrangements were picked up and Akira was leaning back on the counter, letting his breath escape him. "Man, that was the fastest I've had to work since busy days in the beef bowl shop," he commented, running a hand through his hair. The man laughed slightly, equally as worn. "I never got your name, by the way." Surprise floated the man's face, but he responded.

"Sorry about that. I'm Goro Akechi."

"Akira Kurusu," he responded easily, giving the man a nod. "Aren't you that kid detective who retired last year?" Akechi nodded.

"I'm surprised anyone remembers. Public opinion is a fickle thing." Akira snorted, nodding.

"Ain't that the truth. So, why are you working in a flower shop, mister detective?" It had been years since Akira called anyone that, but he refused to let memories cloud the present again.

"I like the atmosphere here," Akechi responded with an obviously fake smile (obvious to Akira, who studied people like learning materials in his free time, anyway). "Hanasaki-san could use the help, anyway."

Akira hummed, but let the subject drop, allowing his mind to briefly wander. "You look tired," he observed. "I know a place with amazing coffee, if you want."

Akechi paused, gazing curiously at the younger man. "I'm often busy..."

"Then I can leave you the address," Akira easily responded, already pulling a pen and small notebook out from behind the counter by reaching over it. "It's not far, and has an atmosphere as great as the coffee. You may get a discount if you mention me." He scribbled an address he knew well on the paper, ripping it out and holding it to the ex-detective.

"Leblanc?"

"I hear it's French," Akira explained, shrugging. "Don't doubt the coffee curry combo till you've tried it, though," he warned, pushing off the desk. He glanced at the clock, noting the time before lifting the apron off of him, hanging it back where he got it. "I'm gonna go. Give it a chance when you've got the time, alright?"

With that, he swept out of the shop.

[analvelocity]

Rubbernecks

This is a submission I wrote for @thewebcomicsreview‘s “Write a Story You Worthless Piece of Shit”, a writing prompt meme with prompts silly enough that I wanted to try my hand at one of them. I realized I haven’t written any prose recently and I felt the itch, so thanks Daniel for giving me an excuse to go mad in front of a Word Doc for way too many hours.

This one, uh, got away from me, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope people have at least half as much fun reading it. The prompt I chose was as follows: A middle-aged southern redneck truck driver finds the legendary Kitsune-Neko Katana, the only weapon that can save the world from an invading alien race.

You can find all 4,600+ words of Rubbernecks below the cut.

ANALVELOCITY DOT TUMBLR PRESENTS: RUBBERNECKS

Bobby cracked open the window and felt the now-cooling Mohave air ripple through his cap. As the sun hid once more behind the end of the road, he took off his aviators and hooked them over the top button of his shirt. It was going to be one of the long ones, he could feel it. Just him and the white lines 20 feet ahead of him as he directed 40 tons of cargo through the dusty blackness. This was home to him, and if he was one of those strange monk fellers, he’d much rather be meditatin’ here than on a mountaintop. It was for this reason he chose to leave his radio off, letting the breeze whip his ears at 65 miles an hour as he breathed a sigh of contentment.

This was the life. No Garth Brooks or radio chatter to disturb his personal zen. Always the feelin’ of progress, feelin’ like no matter where you’re gon’ end up, you’ll be right where yer’ meant ta be. When all was said an’ done, there was nothin’ more peaceful than- BOOM. A ripple shook his steel cocoon as he felt an electric shock run from his toes to the last remnants of his hairline. Stunned for a moment, he glanced to his right as he saw blames bellowing out of a line of Joshua Trees running about half a mile of the highway. He could feel ol’ Bessie begin to wobble and shake, and Bobby knew that was a sure sign that he should pull up. As Bobby stepped out of the truck, he felt a blast of hot air lash at his face. He reached into one of the back pockets of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled box of cigarettes. He felt around his pockets. Nothing. He looked up at the door, then again at the bent cigarette in his mouth. With a sigh, he walked up to one of the nearby burning plants and lit it. As he took a couple of puffs and surveyed the landscape, he saw it. At the end of the trail of flame, a series of blinking lights. Now Bobby here was no Boy Scout, but he knew Morse Code when he saw it. “Prob’ly one of them there Wright Brothers types gettin’ ambitious.” He chuckled to himself as he began to walk toward the lights. Far as Bobby was concerned, the ground was good enough for him. His eyes began to readjust to the darkness as he approached the source of the fire. His eyes widened. That was no airplane. The flaming ball of chrome sticking out of the cracked earth before him looked like it had no doors or windows, but as he stepped around it he noticed a single hole burned through what he presumed was the side of it. He inspected the hole, and realized that whatever shot this thing, used some serious hardware. The kind of hardware Jimmy One-Eye would probably give his left nut just ter’ get a look at. Bobby had dealt with more busted radiators in his time than he could count, so he knew this thing was goin’ to be too hot to touch. Still, he left his gloves and kit in the truck, and he needed to get this cargo to LA before morning so he wasn’t interested in staying any longer than he needed to. Bobby’s task was simple - see if there were any survivors, and leave the rest to whatever guvamint acronym dealt with flaming sky eggs. No time to get this engine back runnin’, assumin’ this thing even had an engine.

Wrapping his baseball cap around his right hand, he tested the egg by poking it. Cold to the touch. Cautiously, he put the hat back on his head and placed his bare hand on the surface of the object. A series of beeps. Some more flashing lights. A ripple in the surface, and then beginning to shudder and groan. Bobby stepped back.

The shuddering began to grow and grow in intensity, shivering and rippling as it morphed into alien shapes. Bobby stepped back once more.

Then it stopped. Then it made a tiny, almost imperceptible dinging sound. Then it spat out a girl. At this point Bobby didn’t know how to react. But if he didn’t the egg sure didn’t either as it flung the girl several feet in the air, landing her face-first with a thud at his feet. Bobby leaned over and checked her pulse. He couldn’t feel anything. He rolled her on to her back. She looked Asian, that much he was sure, and covered in deep lacerations and burns from head to toe.

She seemed young, definitely too young to be out of high school. She wore a short blue skirt, the kind of short that would make the most progressive mother clutch her pearls. A white shirt that seemed way too small, exposing her belly button. An odd-looking boy scout necktie that seemed to glow in the dark. She looked like one of those girl hero types that he caught lil’ Jenny watchin’ back at home from time to time. And in her hand, the most absurd looking blade he’d ever seen in his life.

It was long thin blade, with what looked like nine fox tails working as a guard at the hilt. Several inscriptions of cats, were engraved on the blade, each one glowing a searingly bright pink.

“Well that there’s a bit fruity, ain’t it.” He reached down to check her pulse. Nothing. Bobby furrowed his brow. He took his hat back off and wiped the sweat off his forehead. With a sigh, he reached for the sword clasped in her hand and picked it up. What happened after was immediate. The girl’s clothes shifted into some kind of modest private school uniform. But more frighteningly, Bobby felt a surge of energy flow through the sword. Bobby’s world shook, and then everything went black.

********

“Wake up, Chosen-Senpai.”

Bobby shuddered awake to see a blurry figure standing over him. As his eyes adjusted to the bright lights around him, he sat up and felt the shallow pools of water rippling between his fingers. “I ain’t in the Mojave anymore.” As he looked around him, he could see the girl more vividly now. The same girl he pulled from the wreckage, but strangely uninjured.

“Very astute of you, Senpai.” Bobby eyed her with a mix of scorn and confusion. He looked at her, she looked at him. After what felt like half a minute of waiting for the other to say something, Bobby decided to break the ice. “Where ar-“ “The sword holds the past lives of all who have wielded it before. This is the realm where the Chosen meet, to share their combined knowledge and experience with the Hero who wields it.” Bobby’s eyebrow slowly raised. “Who ar-“ “My name is Sakura. Heiress to the GenkiNeko toy chain, forty-seventh wielder of the Neko-Kitsune sword, slayer of the Kawaiiju. I will be your spirit guide on your journey as you continue my work, as the previous owners of the sword have done before me.” Bobby stood up. “Now wait here missy, I ain’t about t-“ “You are the forty-eighth wielder of the Neko-Kitsune sword. It is your destiny.” “I’m a trucker. The only destiny I got is-” “Listen, old man, I like this even less than you do. But the Kawaiiju aren’t going to stop with me. Whether you like it or not, you will need to face them.” Bobby laughed. “Let’s see how these illegal immig’rints handle the 12-gauge I got in the back. I don’t need no’ gay knife fer’ tha-“ “Your shotgun will have no impact on the Kawaiiju, Senpai. Only the sword can pierce their flesh” “Well ain’t that convenient.” Bobby was stunned for a second. He actually finished a sentence with this crazy woman. “What-“ “You must take the sword and follow your path. The sword is just a blade in your hands now, but the Power of Friendship will ignite the Neko-Kitsune Sword’s true power.” “No.” “What?” “I’m not goin’ ter do it. I don’t even know what you want me ter do-“ “You have no choice. It is your destiny.” Bobby scoffed. “Lady, this here?” he gestured to the void surrounding them. “This is America. And it’s my gosh-durned right to do whatever I want. That’s the American wa-” Sakura rolled her shoulders backward and groaned into the sky. “Burgerland, of course. Why did I have to crash here?” Bobby chuckled, looked at the sword still clasped in his hand, then smiled. “Listen, Say-koo-ruh. What if I take this thing to the nearest truck-stop and give it to the first teenager that rolls by?” She paused, pinching her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “That, uh, might work? But there’s a pro-”

“Good, it’s settled then. Now I don’t want ter hear any more of this talk about Nee-Koes and Keet-Soons and Cow-Why-Juice, you hear me?” She shrugged, an almost resigned smirk on her face. “Fine. But when what happens happens, make sure you keep the blade nearby. The last think we need is humanity’s last hope in the hands of an alien invader.”

Bobby shrugged dismissively, and for a while the two stood there for a moment in awkward silence.

“So what the heck is a Sen-Pi-“

********

Bobby shuddered awake, sweating. He checked his watch. Damn, he’d been snoozing out here for 15 minutes. If his boss called in while he was out here, that was probably comin’ out of his paycheck.

“Strange dream.”

He looked around. The sword was still in his hand, but the body was gone. Bobby decided it was probably best not to question it, as he shrugged and made his way back to the truck. On the way, he considered throwing the sword away, but something prevented him.

“Could probably get gas money selling this to a scrapyard.” Bobby chuckled. In fact, now that he thought about it, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

By the time Bobby was settling back into the driver’s seat, he’d already decided on the place – a scrapper mentioned by Billy-Bob in the Trucker’s Network just off the beaten track. And better yet – still on the way to LA.

The past hour, he thought, must have been a hallucination. There were certainly enough engine fumes to rationalize that as such, but a Japanese schoolgirl? That one was certainly new. A pang hit him as he warmed up the engine – was this guilt? Bobby quickly brushed the feeling aside as he pressed his foot against that familiar accelerator.

********

thru-thrum.

A few hours had passed, and a strange feeling washed over Bobby as the white lines on the empty road began to blur together. Hair standing at the back of his neck. A chill of… anticipation? He pushed it aside as he reached to the passenger seat for another cig- hang on, was the sword glowing?

thru-thrum. One eye on the road, he looked across the car and sure enough, leaning against the glovebox was that girly blade. The inscriptions were now pulsing, but the blade itself was now glowing with a pink hue that was growing steadily brighter. This time, Bobby knew he wasn’t hallucinating. thru-thrum. thru-thrum. “The Kitsune-Neko senses her prey. The hunt begins.”

That familiar voice.

THRU-THRUM. THRU-THRUM.

“But who is the hunter, and who the hunted?”

“Oh fuck me! Now I’m hearin’ the dead!” THRU-THRUM. THRU-THRUM.

Bobby wiped the sweat off his brow. His head was pounding. His hands were shaking. And then, in the corner of his eye, he glanced something in his rear-view mirror. Something advancing. His eyes widened as terror ripped the breath from his throat.

THRU-THRUM. THRU-THRUM. THRU-THRUM.

Something giant was slithering along the road at an incredible speed, steadily, advancing on ol’ Bessie. Like a Beanie Baby fucked a Kraken. And it looked livid. Bobby didn’t think. He punched the gas and picked up the microphone on the CB Radio. Shaking, he clicked the button and spoke. “10-33, 10-33. This is Freebird, callin’ from the Interstate 40 en route to Shakytown.” He paused for a moment. “10-33 please respond.” Static. Second after uncomfortable second rolled by. And then, a familar;

“5 by 5, this is the Ludlow Watering Hole. What’s your situation? Over.” He breathed a sigh of relief. But that relief was fleeting as the spectre loomed over his rear-view. But now he knew Maeve was in town. This varmint was gon’ find out the meaning of Southern Hospitality. “I’m about 20 minutes east of your position. I got the hammer down and a bogey on my tail. I need all the drivers you have. And guns. As many as you got. Over.”

A moment.

“Copy that. I’ll contact the boys. You know, I wouldn’t do this for just anyone.” Another sigh of relief. “Oh, and Freebird? Welcome back. Over.” Bobby hung up the mic and glanced at his rear-view. Yep, definitely close now. Whatever he was going to do, he would have to do it fast. And hopefully Maeve wasn’t dragging her feet. THRU-THRUM. THRU-THRUM. THRU-THRUM.

The sound was very loud now, the sword to his right now shimmering with light, shivering like it was itchin’ for a fix of the good stuff. And that’s when he saw the sign - Fender Joe’s House of Scrap. A lightbulb moment – if he was gon’ take this thing on, with or without the Trucker Network, one of them was gon’ die in that metal graveyard. He twisted the steering wheel to the left, and felt Bessie tilt with him. But Bobby knew Bessie like she was his second wife. And with a flourish, the truck righted itself as he flew through the exit. The pursuer was not as elegant, slamming itself into the wall of a nearby overpass, splattering glowing technicolor blood. But the blood stopped in midair, and rushed back to its host as the tentacled monstrosity regained its composure and resumed its pursuit. As it did, the radio once more crackled into life. “10-8, 10-8. Freebird, we have some boys heading to your position. What is your situation with the bogey? Over.” Bobby had never been so overjoyed to hear anyone speak over that radio. He picked the mic back up. “10-4. I’m about to dig in at Fender Joe’s. Get here as quick as possible. 4-10? Over.” A moment.

“Negatory, you’re a Mud Duck. Please repeat, over.”

“I said, I’m at Fender J-“ The truck slammed through the gates of the scrapyard as he hit the brakes. Carefully adjusting the steering wheel, he shifted the handbrake and the truck whipped around, skidding through the clay for tens of feet before glancing the piles of old whitegoods littering the compound. No time to think. Bobby reached behind his seat and pulled out his 12-Gauge and a few boxes of ammo. “This is going to be Freebird’s last stand.” He thought as he stepped out of the truck and turned to face the entrance. His rearview told him that objects may be larger than they appear. That was a gosh-durned understatement. The Kawaiiju before him stood at least 20 feet tall, with a mass of tentacles ripping through the fence as it advanced on him. As the creature drew closer, he could faintly hear the sound of… was that meowing? “Okay, I know you’re new to this country so lemme teach you somethin’ about the Second Amendment!” he shouted at the creature, as he unloaded two shotgun shells directly into its My Little Pony-lookin’ face. It doubled back and made a high-pitched, ear-piercing shriek, and then rearranged its face back into its original shape. Bobby laughed. Clearly this thing didn’t get the memo, he thought to himself as he popped some new shells into his gun. He was preparing his next one-liner when an errant tentacle whipped him, sending the man careering into a pile of old toasters.

********

“Ergh… Just give me a sec” he said to the figure looming over him. It took a moment for his clearly concussed brain to register that a familiar Japanese girl was standing over him. He fumbled around helplessly on his bed of toasters for a moment until he looked across the compound, realizing that his shotgun was currently sinking into the creature’s bags of flesh.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed. Hearing him, the creature whipped around and began rushing toward him.

“Reach out your arm.”

“What?”

“Just do it. And say, ‘Neko Neko Nii!’” “WHAT?”

The creature was once again looming over him now.

“Just do it!”

Bobby blushed and gritted his teeth. “Argh! Neko Neko Nii!”

The Kawaiiju raised a clawed tentacle in the air, and slammed it down above him. SHWING!

Bobby opened his eyes. Somehow, he was still alive. With a pink sword in his hand, held above his head. The creature’s tentacle sliced clean off, wriggling limply on the toaster bed at his side. Sakura laughed. “I can’t believe you actually said that.” Bobby didn’t have time to think. Primal survival instinct kicked in as he shot up, grabbing the hilt of the blade with both hands as he slashed at tentacle after tentacle that whipped at him. And one by one, they all fell. The Kawaiiju roared mightily once more as it threw its full weight at Bobby, who ducked to the side and with one swift uppercut, slashed right through the creature’s torso. Neon blood spewed everywhere, coating Bobby as he wiped the goo from his eyes. The Kawaiiju was hurting now, that’s for sure. “Yeah! How’d you like that?” The creature stood still for a second, then the blood once more began to return to its body, peeling itself from the toasters, the sword, and Bobby himself. Sakura, still standing with her thumbs hooked into the pockets of her blazer, looked on at this with mild bemusement. The tentacles wriggled back into life as they crawled like worms back to their host, reattaching themselves to the sockets as Bobby looked on in horror. He clutched the sword and held it before him. “All right girl, you said this sword could kill these things. Why isn’t this working?” “I told you before, didn’t I?” “Tell me wha-“ he failed to ask as one tentacle, now balled into a fist, slammed him in the face, knocking him to the ground. He could only look on disorientedly as the blade skittered off and disappeared into a pile of refrigerators. He reached out. “Neko Neko Nii!” Nothing. “Neko Neko Nii!” he shouted. The Kawaiiju almost seemed to cackle as it readied itself for the killing blow. “Well Bobby, I guess you were going to die someday.” he said to himself as he relaxed his body and closed his eyes, allowing himself to embrace the void. Six tentacles raised into the air as the creature gurgled with something adjacent to laughter.

It was at that moment that a truck burst through the entrance of the scrapyard, careering through the mud to collide face-first with the creature. Once more it shrieked as it exploded into that glowing rainbow bodily fluid that Bobby was becoming uncomfortably accustomed to.

Dazed, Bobby looked to his side, and shouted out a hoo-rah as five trucks circled around the interior of the compound, before trying to get up once more. Several familiar faces emerged from the doors, each one more heavily-armed than the last. And last, stepping out of the truck that saved him, was a heavy-set woman holding an LMG like one would hold a briefcase. “Just in the nick of time, hey Freebird!” Bobby smiled, pumping his fist into the air as he righted himself. “Maeve! And not a moment too soon! Good to see you babe.” “Now Bobby, you wanna try saying that again?” she said, tapping the LMG with her other hand like a used car dealer would slap a car. “Point taken. Eyes up, everybody, because this ain’t over.” Maeve frowned. “You sure about that? This situation is lookin’ pretty handled over-“ It was at that moment that the truck flipped into the air, spinning into the other trucks as the Kawaiiju revealed itself once more, enraged. Maeve stepped back, shocked for a moment at what she was seeing, and readied her machine gun. “All right boys, let’s show this rubberneck what happens when you mess with the Trucker Network!” The team nodded in acknowledgement as they all began to unload their firearms into the tentacled horror. Pistols, assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns... oh shit, is that a rocket launcher? Maeve and Bobby both ducked out of the way as the first rocket connected with flesh. First an explosion of blood and fire, then the creature reforming just in time for another rocket to scatter alien meat once more. “It’s not working!” said Maeve. “Do what you gotta do – we’ll cover you!” Bobby’s eyes darted around the landscape, riddled with flashes and metal and enough colour to make Lisa Frank start bleeding out the eyes. “Thanks for comin’, Maeve. Glad to know you have my back after all these years.” “Naw, are you gettin’ sentimental, boy?” Maeve looked back and grinned toothily. “We’ll always have your back. We’re the Trucker Network! And more important, we’re friends.” An epiphany struck Bobby like a bolt of lightning.

“The Power of Friendship will ignite the Neko-Kitsune Sword’s true power.”

Without a second thought, Bobby held his arms before him as he lunged toward the beast. It was like time had slowed down, as he moved faster, superhumanly so, toward the creature, ducking and weaving between tentacles. As he approached the creature’s torso, his arms clasped together in a thrusting motion.

In a flash of bright pink light, the sword once again appeared in his hand, and drove straight through the heart just recently exposed by an errant stick of dynamite. The creature shrieked one more bloodcurdling shriek, and then collapsed inward on itself like a black hole. The Kawaiiju was dead, and this time it wasn’t coming back. Everyone looked on, dumbfounded. And then the cheering began. Bobby and Maeve moved into the circle of trucks, Maeve setting down her LMG as a few of the other truckies pulled out some beers from the trucks. Cracking open some cold ones, they all began to chatter among one another. Maeve approached Bobby once more. “Well Freebird, I can’t say this was the evening I was expecting to have, but I think we’re all going to remember it.” She eyed him up and down. “For more reasons than one.” Bobby looked at her quizzically, then glanced at the apparition of Sakura. She was doubled-over in laughter. “Okay what are you laughin’ about?” It was at that moment that he noticed that everyone was looking at him with a bemused look on their faces. Bobby looked down. “…oh.”

********

“…happy birthday dear Jenny, happy birthday to you!”

Bobby looked on at his daughter with pride, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Thank y’all for coming!” she said, buzzing with excitement as she blew out the 18 candles dotting her carrot cake. She looked over at Bobby, beaming. Bobby knew he wasn’t around all that much for her – he was wed to the road and it never let him stay in one place for long. A glance over at her mother’s piercing glare indicated that she concurred.

As the party began to wrap up and the family began to tidy the barn, Bobby approached his daughter.

“Hey Dad!”

“Hi, Jenny.” He furrowed his brow. Was this really the right time? Is this really the right choice? “Come with me, I want to give you your birthday present, but it’s out the front”

“Sure thing!” Jenny gleefully responded.

Bobby was getting cold feet. Her mother would certainly kill him when she found out. Probably for the best that he get out of the state as soon as possible.

He turned around to her as they stepped through the front gate. “So this isn’t just a gift from me, it’s a gift from the whole Trucker Network. So make sure to say thank you to Maeve next time she’s in town.”

“Will do!” Jenny was clearly overflowing with excitement, with her hands balled into fists.

Bobby opened the door of his truck, sighed for a moment, and then pulled out an intricately-wrapped box, short in height and depth but a few feet long. He looked up – Sakura’s ghost was sitting there, sporting an almost Cheshire-Cat grin.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this? You know how dangerous it is out there. You know you’ll be exposing her to a world she’ll never come back from.”

Bobby frowned determinedly. “Yes, but will she want to?”

He handed the box to Jenny. Like a ravenous beast, she ripped the box open with her teeth, the ribbons and paper falling in tatters on the dirt road beneath them. Bobby winced – he’d spent all night on that.

She looked inside the box. “Whoa! Thanks Dad!” A moment of silence. “…uh, what is it?”

“This,” said Bobby, smiling as he drew the long metal object from the box. “is a tyre iron. You’re going to need it for the other half of your present.”

He gestured over toward the other side of the street. Jenny gasped. There it was, a brand-new semi-trailer. Not one of the most heavy-duty bits of hardware around, but if his Jenny was going to learn to drive, she was going to drive the best.

“Is it- is it-“ she was practically vibrating.

“Yeah, kiddo.” he smiled. “She’s all yours. Keys are in the ignition.”

“Um, I don’t want to ruin your moment, but…”

He looked out toward the gate of the house. His ex was advancing on him and he didn’t need any supernatural sword powers to know that his time was up.

“Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

********

Jenny ran to the truck and sat in the front seat. She’d never felt so alive; her Dad may be gone a lot but there was always something so magical, so fantastical about the stories he’d tell her about his time on the road. Sitting in this truck, she felt closer to him than ever before. She sighed contentedly, then looked over at her dad. And then a pang of sadness, as she heard the truck rev up and pull out, disappearing into the street once more, her mother screaming and shouting at him the whole way down the block. Tears began to well up in her eyes. Just like that, he was gone again. *chhhk* Jenny looked up. The truck radio was coming to life. “This is Freebird to Sailormoon, Sailormoon please respond, over.” Jenny wiped the tears from her eyes as she hurriedly picked up the microphone. “10-4, 10-4, This is Sailormoon, hearing you loud and clear, over.” “Freebird to Sailormoon, I’m proud of you. Sorry I had to hightail. You know your mother. Over.” She giggled. “Sailormoon to Freebird, it’s okay. Bring me back something nice. Over.” A moment. “10-4 to that.” “Motherbear to Freebird and Sailormoon, this is adorable but you are hogging a vital channel. Cut the shit, over.”

Jenny dropped the mic, embarrassed.

“Sorry Maeve” said her dad. “I’m back on the road again, what have you got for me?”

“Some rubbernecks causing havoc in a town just south of your position. Follow the highway and you can’t miss it.”

“Freebird to Motherbear, roger that.”

Jenny grinned before picking up the mic again. “Give’ em hell, Dad.”

[paper-stars-and-fireflies]

Opening Night

The first story in the Grimm Omens series! The cast is mostly OCs, Magnolia, Ruya, and Kali are each mine, and Omen belongs to the wonderful @splanoot​. Thanks for reading!       Thursday night found Husker working behind his begrudgingly-beloved bar, same as most other nights. As usual, business was slow. Most of the hotel guests weren’t allowed drinks, and the few that were rarely stopped by. His only patron tonight was one of his few regulars, and his reputation was enough to make sure no one else stopped by.       “Little early to be starting the weekend, eh?” Husk asked, taking a swig from the bottle. Omen nodded, a quiet smile playing across the exposed slice of his face. Between the smoked visor cracked just wide enough to drink and the shadows of the dim bar, his face stayed hidden, not that it bothered either man. It was just part of their normal. 

     “Lighter workload this week.” Omen offered, lifting his glass in a mock toast. It was true, he’d had less tasks this week, but he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it. It was the third week in a row with less work than normal, in fact, and three weeks is a pattern. He pushed it away, taking a bigger sip from his drink than he meant to. Lilith was probably just busy with the extermination coming up, that was all, he told himself. It was fine, he told himself. Husk filled his glass without being asked, and the men continued to kill their bottles in silence, giving too much thought to the things they were trying to forget.      Their drunken epiphanies were pushed off a little longer when the hotel’s front door swung open and slammed shut, a cluster of figures stumbling in. One, a short, plump fox, helped another, a grey-skinned demon almost twice her height. The third, a shadowy figure, dissolved at the threshold, not following the women in.       “Take it easy now, Magnolia,” the fox instructed, steering her companion to a bar stool. The woman helped herself up, groaning slightly as she settled. The fox, Ruya, was a new resident at the hotel, and gestured to Husk for a glass. She patted the woman’s leg. “I’ll come and fetch ya later lassie. Ring me if you need me sooner.” She waved hello to both of the men before scurrying off, having to take her time on the stairs. Magnolia groaned again, slumping over the bar before Husk pushed at her shoulder, making her sit up so he could set a glass in front of her.       “You look terrible, Maggie. You just get back?” He waited for her to take a sip before asking, eyeing her. There were bloodstains and tears all across her outfit, and bruises, dark purple and blue bloomed across her grey skin, pink and red scratches puckering just above her collar. She swirled the class before answering, tapping her nails on the glass softly.       “Few minutes ago. Bad hunt.” She set the glass down and rested her face on her palm, her elbow on the bar. “I had to get bailed out. How long’s it been since that happened?” Her laugh was bitter and short, and she finished the drink before she continued. She glanced over, looking over the smooth contours of the helmet Omen wore, taking in the smoked visor, the jacket, the boots.      “I assume that’s your bike outside?” She ventured, turning to face her companion more. If she had something else on her mind, or if she recognized the name on his back, or the faintly glimmering revolver strapped to his hip, she didn’t let on. He nodded, slow, watching her. She shrugged, unbothered.       “It’s beautiful. Sure it rides great, too. Husk, can I get a couple shots for now? This hurts like all Hell.” She rubbed her neck as she spoke, picking at a scab absent-mindedly. Husk obliged, setting a pair in front of her. She stayed facing Omen, moving to hold her hand out to him before realizing her mistake and dropping it to her lap, wrapping her fingers around the sheath resting on her thigh.       “I’m Magnolia Grimm, I’m a hunter. I’m a friend of Ruya’s.” She offered a smile, nervous about her own bad manners. “Do you stay at the hotel?”      Omen took his time answering, watching her carefully. “Sometimes,” he said, pausing to drink. She averted her eyes. “Ruya’s a good kid.” He added. She nodded, taking one of her shots. She set the glass back down on a napkin, but didn’t reach for the other. She regarded him curiously, opened her mouth to say something, but then faltered and turned away, leaving Husk to pick up the pieces of the conversation. He dragged them both back into conversation, asking Omen about his last few jobs. Magnolia put in comments here and there, but was mostly content to stay quiet, feeling out how much of what she knew about the other guest was legend and what was truth. Today had been awful, so at least this could be interesting. She took her second shot, setting it next to the other for Husk to refill. He did when the conversation lulled. She took one slower, sighing at the taste. It didn’t burn as bad as when she was human, and truth be told, she missed it.       “Looks like Kali’s on his way to becoming an Overlord,” she offered up finally. “I’ll probably have to put off looking for Haw until someone handles him. Pretty sure it was one of his toys I ran into today.” She scratched at the scabs again, rubbing her hands together afterwards. Husk glanced at her fingers, noted her missing gloves. She pushed both of the shot glasses back to him just to distract him. He filled both and slid them back. She swallowed hard and fixed on her most winning smile - or least, it had been, before she had grown fangs.        “I don’t suppose you’d sell me a couple bullets.” she asked her companion, lifting one of the shots at him. There wasn’t any real hope in her request, but she offered it like a joke, an ice-breaker for their kind. His hand drifted to his holster, and she read the set in his shoulders as a no. With an unbothered shrug, she swallowed her drink and flipped the glass upside down. She slid off the stool, leaving the other untouched.        “ ‘m gonna go for a smoke real quick, Husk, watch that.” She muttered, digging in her pocket for a cigarette that wasn’t bent or cut. She snapped her fingers as she headed for the door, sparking a tiny flame for herself. Husk waited for the door to shut, watching her silhouette through the dark glass. With a harrumph, he turned to his long-time friend.       “Been a while since ya been this quiet. Cuzza the kid?” He asked, organizing the bottles for something to do. One didn’t stare at Omen. “Ya scared of a girl?” he teased.       “Not scared, just don’t know her.” He took a sip of his drink, “And don’t take kindly to someone asking for bullets.”      “Lay off, she was makin’ nice. Wouldn’ta took ‘em if ya gave them to her. That one don’t take help.” Omen just nodded. He could get the feeling, but had seen a lot of good men die from it.       “She’s lookin’ for her brother, so you know. Died before her and she hasn’t seen him since. Been lookin from the day she dropped in. ‘S goin’ on four years now.”       “She want him dead?” Omen ventured. That definitely wasn’t worth a bullet.      “Nah, they’re good. The one she’s try’nta kill is this lowlife from her past life. Fucker probably did her in, and now she’s convinced he’s going after overlords.” Husk tapped his claws on the bar, weighing just how much to say. Her hunting methods for one. Who had bailed her out, for the other. Fuck it, Omen had eyes. If he hadn’t caught on yet, he would soon enough.      “Should sort itself out then, yeah?” Omen shrugged, knowing first hand what Overlords were made out of.       “Not the way she tells it,” Husker mutters under his breath. “She’s a good kid, most nights, so don’t be a dick, okay? She comes by ‘bout as often as you. Same line of work, different jobs.” Omen nodded, one hand still resting on his leg by the holster. The men went quiet as Magnolia trailed back up to the bar, making small talk about the friends they had in common. She took her last drink, but didn’t sit back down yet, preoccupied by something on her hellphone.      “Hey, Husk,” She cut in when the men had paused. “Does that jukebox still work?” She gestured towards the machine, pushed against the wall between a pair of sofas and an impromptu dance floor. The lights on it swirled different shades of red, the rest of the machine done up in dark wood and gunmetal mesh screens. The glass panel over the CD changer had a crack, but all the buttons were lit up and useable.       “Don’t touch it, kid. That’s Alastor’s. He ain’t a fan of people messin’ with his stuff.”       “It’s fiiine, Husk, he won’t kill me over a couple songs.” she called, heading over. There was an extra sway to her walk that made Husk wonder if she was up to something, or if it was time to cut her off.  She took her time, poking through the catalogue and queueing up a list of songs, but true to her word, Alastor didn’t bother her. In the middle of a slower, jazzy piece, she came back to the bar, leaning both arms on the counter.       “Hey Husker, come dance with me.” She grinned again, looking more alive than she had before.       “I’m workin’, kid, dance by yourself.”      “Aww, that’s no fun, and it’s just the three of us. C’mon. One song. I’ll get another drink, we’ll be even. Sound like a deal?” She held up her palm and he glared at it, then eyed her, unimpressed. She snickered and put her hand back down, tucked into her other elbow.       “Fine, fine, pussycat. One more drink though, something sweet.” Husk grumbled, turning away to make her drink. She turned her smile to the legendary mercenary. She kept her hand down.       “What about you, handsome? You dance?”

[andtails]

A Prelude to Chaos Control - Chapter 5: A Recovering Hero

Click here to start from the beginning. You can also read this story on FanFiction.Net or Archive of Our Own.

*****

Chapter 5: A Recovering Hero

“Tails!” Sonic screamed, anger burning inside him as he witnessed his younger brother fall out of consciousness, his small body dangling from the side of the bus. Dropping to his knees, the blue hedgehog slammed a fist against the cement below. “Dammit!”

Sonic’s heavy breathing slowed as his anger was overtaken with a sense of dread and sadness, tears welling up in his eyes as his outstretched arms kept his body from completely falling over.

“How…how could you, Eggman…” Sonic struggled to produce coherent words as his vision was obscured by the tears enveloping his eyes, dripping down his face, and falling to his hands. “I…couldn’t save my little bro…”

Knuckles, meanwhile, approached the orange kitsune, placing a gloved hand on his neck, just above the ice that encrusted the rest of his body. He felt a faint pulse.

“Hey Sonic,” Knuckles said, turning around to see the hedgehog still crying on the ground. “Tails is alive but barely holding on.”

“Really?” Sonic dried the moisture from his eyes with his left arm as he jumped back up, running toward his little brother. He placed his palm below his nose to confirm the presence of light breathing coming out of the fox’s nose. “He really is alive!” His tears of sadness were replaced with tears of joy.

“If we don’t get him out soon, he’ll freeze to death,” Knuckles said. He looked down at the water dripping from the ice, melting in the mid-afternoon sun. “Even at the speed the ice is melting, Tails’ll suffer from hypothermia if we don’t do something.”

“Right.” Sonic collected his wits as he dried the fresh round of tears from his face. “Knuckles, you pry him out with your fists.” Sonic jumped up and grabbed the dummy ring bomb still dangling around Tails’ wrist. “I have some unfinished business.”

As Sonic snagged the bomb, he heard the sound of retracting metal from behind. Spinning around, he watched as an outstretched, metallic claw from the Elemental Egg Eagle’s chest plucked the green Chaos Emerald from the pavement and deposited it into what remained of its gullet, gulping as if it were a real bird swallowing a worm.

“Wooahhooohoohooo, now I have three Chaos Emeralds! Only four more until I have achieved complete, global domination!” The evil doctor’s voice bellowed out of the eagle’s speakers, reaching Team Sonic as the bird readied itself for an escape.

“Oh no you don’t!” Sonic yelled, running toward the raptor at intense speed. “I’ll make you pay for what you did to Tails!”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, you meddlesome hedgehog! Now that I’ve accomplished my objective, I think it’s time I make like an egg…and scram.”

With one flap of its wings, cracking the pavement below, the eagle lifted itself from the ground, hovering in place.

“Hah! You’re too slow!” Sonic jumped into the hole that once housed the machine’s beak, entering his spherical form to ensure the utmost precision as he crashed against the remaining elemental weapon housed in its throat. Sonic’s sharp quills made quick work of the weapon, destroying it upon impact. The blue hedgehog unwrapped himself from his ball, falling to his knees, unable to get his footing on the unstable surface.

The eagle screeched as if in pain, almost deafening Sonic as he placed his hands against his triangular ears. It was at this point that he remembered the dummy ring bomb around his wrist. Finding the will to remove his hands from his ringing ears, the hedgehog allowed the bomb to fall into his right hand. He pressed a button on the outside of the ring, causing it to glow.

“This one’s for you, Tails.” Sonic lifted his right arm back, as if preparing to pitch a baseball, and threw it down the bird’s throat before launching himself out of the eagle’s mouth, landing firmly on his feet, hardly giving himself the time to run away fast enough to escape the explosion.

The blue hedgehog dodged pieces of shrapnel as flames covered the pile of debris that remained of the metallic raptor. Instead of admiring his handywork, though, he ran back to the bus, relieved to find his little brother lying on the ground, no longer covered in ice. The kitsune shivered in his uneasy sleep, his face tightening up as if in pain.

“Tails…” Sonic dropped to his knees once more, holding his cold hands as tears fell from his face. “How could I let this happen! Why’d you break our pinkie promise?” The blue hedgehog sobbed as he aimlessly shifted from blaming himself to unintentionally blaming his adoptive brother, his tears coating the fox’s gloved hands.

As Sonic wept alongside his unconscious companion, Knuckles heard a rustling from the debris Sonic abandoned.

“What the…” Knuckles squinted, placing a hand over his brow. He witnessed a spherical shape appear out of the fiery mess, a pod with an indestructible, transparent cover that protected the maniacal doctor from the explosion’s impact.

“Well, my furry little friends, you may’ve won the battle,” Eggman began as he showed off the green Chaos Emerald for Knuckles to see, “but you lost the war!” The doctor laughed as he floated away in his Egg Mobile, attempting to flee the damaged downtown area.

“You’re not going to escape that easily, Eggman!” Knuckles ran to the nearest building just off the interstate, climbing it by punching against the hard surface of the structure, creating dented fist holds as he maneuvered his way upward. Reaching the top in no time, he leapt off the building and glided toward the evil doctor, who was now at a slightly lower altitude than the red echidna.

“Huh? What!” Eggman yelled, turning around in his Egg Mobile to see Knuckles clasping onto its side. Using his control stick, Robotnik jerked his flying pod in all directions, causing the red echidna’s grasp to slip. “Just drop, you annoying little pest!”

Knuckles held on, sweat dripping from his brow as he clenched his teeth, unable to establish a clear handhold on Eggman’s impenetrable Egg Mobile. With one final jerk to the side, the red echidna lost his grip, falling to the world below before regaining his gliding posture, safely maneuvering near the site of the smoldering Elemental Egg Eagle.

Eggman laughed at the sight of Knuckles falling to the streets. “That’ll teach him to mess with the power of the Eggman Empire!” The evil doctor flew away into the sunset, leaving the damaged downtown behind.

Knuckles landed near Sonic and Tails, slamming a fist against the concrete in anger, causing it to crack. “Damn that Eggman! He got away with the Chaos Emerald.”

“Now’s not the time to worry about your stupid rock collection,” Sonic said, his voice cracking as he continued kneeling beside the unconscious fox. “We need to get Tails medical attention fast.”

As if on cue, an ambulance arrived at the scene, emergency responders pulling a stretcher from the back of the vehicle. Without thinking or blinking, the blue blur picked Tails up, ran him to the stretcher, and gently set him down.

“Can I come along for the ride?” Sonic asked one of the masked medics.

“Of course!” she replied as her team placed the stretcher back in the ambulance. Knuckles waved at the blue hedgehog as he leapt in, the doors closing shut as the emergency vehicle sped away from the scene.  

Sonic looked down in surprise as he witnessed the young fox trying to open his eyes, his face tensing up as the bright lights of the ambulance’s interior crept through his eyelids.

“Tails?” Sonic reached down and lightly grabbed the kitsune’s hands as he looked into his eyes.

“S..S…Sonic…di…did we…win?”

Sonic hesitated, looking at the injured fox as he struggled to maintain eye contact. “Yes Tails…yes we did.” Tears began to well up in Sonic’s eyes once more.  

“H…hooray.” This was all the young fox could say before closing his eyes and falling back asleep.

A medic ordered the blue hedgehog to move, which he did without a moment’s thought, maneuvering to the corner of the cramped vehicle as medics got to work evaluating the unconscious fox.

“Hang in there, little buddy.” Sonic crossed his arms and lowered his head.

Hang in there…for me.

*****

Slipping out of a restless sleep, Sonic awoke to find himself in a small chair sitting next to Tails’ hospital bed. The tired hedgehog had repeated this routine for the last 48 hours, stepping out of the room whenever the medical staff needed to check the kitsune’s vitals. Tails had been slipping in and out of consciousness since passing out on the battlefield, unable to coherently communicate before returning to his slumber. The blue blur, who had eaten little since arriving to the hospital, still felt sick to his stomach, lacking any appetite as he sat by Tails’ side.

“How could I have let this happen, Tails?” Sonic put his hands to his face to block the morning light streaming through the window of the hospital room. “I’m your best friend, your older brother…I swore to protect you, and look at you now.” He gestured to the unconscious fox. “How can I call myself a hero when I let this happen, huh?” He sat motionless for several minutes, his face still buried in his hands, until his trance was cut short by the beeping noises coming from the beside medical computer. He looked over at the accompanying monitor to see a line graph beginning to bop up and down as the speed of the beeping grew faster. Sonic turned his attention away from the computer and to his younger brother, whose eyes slowly opened.

“T…Tails?” Sonic slowly approached the orange kitsune, placing a gloved hand on his cheek.

“S…Sonic?” Tails turned his head in Sonic’s direction. He was sore from the fight and the long stay in bed, and the cables covering his body restricted his movement.

“I’m here, little buddy.” Sonic was relieved beyond all measure to see his younger brother wake up, but he didn’t want to frighten the little fox either, so he mustered the will to keep his voice at a reasonable volume, almost failing and crying out in excitement.

Tails pulled himself up, leaning his back against the end of the bed as he attempted to collect his bearings. He looked at himself, staring at the cables and suction cups attached to his arms, legs, and chest. As he was about to observe his hands, though, his vision started to blur, his head bobbing a bit before putting his hands down to secure himself.

“Ohh Sonic, I don’t feel so good.”

Sonic could see the young kitsune beginning to sweat from his brow as his face tensed up, holding one hand to his stomach as he breathed deeply with his eyes closed. The blue hedgehog grabbed an emesis bag from the corner of the room and opened it, using his fingers to expand the hole at the top. He was just in time, as his younger brother vomited mere seconds later, the blue hedgehog steadily holding the bag below the young kitsune’s mouth. Once Tails’ vomiting concluded, Sonic placed the sickness bag in the garbage and pressed a red button on the bedside table to request assistance from a nurse.

Tails leaned back as he breathed a sigh of relief, putting his head up and taking fresh breaths. He still felt dizzy, but not nearly as bad as before.

Sonic observed his younger brother, his breathing returning to normal as he kept his eyes closed, when he noticed excess goo on his muzzle. Without a second thought, he grabbed a moist towelette from the bedside table and cleaned the mess from his face, rubbing the wipe gently while keeping the fox’s head secure with his other hand.

“Feelin’ better, little guy?”

“Yeah…I think so.” Tails stared at Sonic, noticing the rings around his eyes, the worry in his face, and the streaks of dry tears across his muzzle.

I’ve never seen Sonic like this before…

The orange fox blankly stared at Sonic in silence.

“Why the long face, lil’ bro?” As if by magic, Sonic put on a smile, and life seemed to return to his face as he rubbed Tails’ back.

Heh…I thought I was the only one who could so easily fake happiness.

“Why’d I do it, Sonic?”

“Huh?” Sonic pulled his hand back as he tried to understand Tails’ question.

“You made me promise not to put myself in harm’s way. I even gave you a solemn oath.” He raised an outstretched hand and wiggled his pinkie finger before putting his arm back down. “And yet…I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I couldn’t just let my friends fight alone. And…” Tails’ eyes began to well up as he finished his thoughts. “…and I just didn’t want to feel useless.”

“Hey bro,” Sonic replied, his face loosening up as he approached the orange kitsune from the side of the bed, patting his left leg in reassurance. “If it weren’t for your genius idea to blow up the eagle thing with a dummy ring bomb, Knuckles and I would’ve had a much harder time defeating Eggman. And plus…” he paused, looking into the young fox’s eyes. “…you have a spirit of a true hero.”

“W…what do you mean?” Tails asked, his voice cracking as he attempted to parse what felt like unwarranted praise.

“A true hero doesn’t stop when told not to run into action. You knew that we needed your help, and it was your hero’s intuition that made you break your pinkie promise.” Sonic stood up and rustled Tails’ hair. “And for that…I forgive you.”

“S…Sonic…I don’t know what to say…” Tails was caught off-guard by his older brother’s genuine praise, slightly blushing in embarrassment at the thought of being a hero, not merely a sidekick.

Before the brothers could talk further, a nurse entered the room, a young squirrel with a bushy tail, brown fur, and a medical mask and scrubs covering her face and body, respectively. She held a tablet computer as she approached the bed.

“Ah yes, Mr. Prower,” she began. “How are you feeling?”

“Well…” Tails replied, looking over at the waste basket. “I woke up kinda dizzy, but I think I’m feeling better now.”

“As to be expected,” she replied, taking the garbage can away for the medical team to analyze later. She sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the bed, Sonic and Tails watching as she opened the patient’s chart on her tablet.

“Thankfully, your injuries were not severe. Your fur and gloves protected you from frostbite, but the force of your impact with the school bus gave you a mild concussion. Miraculously, brain scans taken over the past 48 hours have shown a remarkable rate of recovery, and you did not sustain any permanent brain damage, but you did experience a fever following your arrival to the hospital. The physical toll caused by the battle, and the resulting fever and concussion, is what likely caused you to stay unconscious for most of the last two days.” The nurse set her tablet on her lap and gave the young kitsune a once over before concluding. “To be safe, we are advising that you limit your physical activity and screen time for the next five days, and if recovery continues going well, we can discharge you.”

Tails groaned. He knew the medical advice was sound, but he couldn’t stand the thought of lying in bed for the next several days, both for his own sanity and because any time spent in recovery meant more time for Eggman to plot his next move.

“The nursing staff will periodically check on you, but feel free to press the button on the bedside table if you need anything.”

“Thanks, miss!” Sonic said, waving at the nurse as she left the room. As she closed the door behind her, the young kitsune closed his eyes and laid back in bed.

“I know it isn’t ideal,” Sonic said, watching as his younger brother yawned, “but it’ll be for your own good. Once you are fully recovered, we can go stop Eggman together, but in the meantime, I’ll be here for every step of your recovery.”

“Thanks Sonic,” Tails replied, “but you should really stop home for a bit.”

“What? Why?”

“Because…you stink.”

“Excuse me?” Sonic asked, not expecting this answer from the young fox.

“Seriously,” Tails continued, chuckling under his breath before pinching his nose, “it’s like you haven’t showered in weeks.”

“Hey!” Sonic sniffed under his armpits as the fox, who appeared tired mere moments ago, burst into a fit of laughter, rolling slightly from side to side, movement still limited from the cables around his body. “I don’t smell that bad you know!”

Sonic crossed his arms and looked away, unable to hide the smirk on his face. “Well geez, that’s the last time I spend days watching over you in a hospital.” The two brothers laughed a bit more. As their giggling subsided, Sonic saw the smile radiating from Tails’ face, making the blue hedgehog both happy and relieved, a weight falling from his shoulders as he was able to breathe easily for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

Tails will be okay.

*****

Tails was lying in his hospital bed, the third day of recovery since waking up. He felt significantly better than he did when he first entered the hospital, and the cables placed throughout his body had since been removed.

The fox continuously made swiping motions with his right hand, browsing the internet on his smartwatch, projecting the image over his wrist, to kill time.

I know I should be resting, but I can’t just sit around and do nothing.

Against the advice of his nurse, the fox began his recovery by analyzing the data he collected from his experiment on the Master Emerald, looking at the numbers and graphs which depicted the frequency of the energy given off by the mystical gem. He was attempting to come up with a way to program his Chaos Emerald detector to locate objects around Mobius that emitted the same energy frequencies as the Master Emerald, but he was simply unable to focus on such a complex task while recovering from his last skirmish. At this point, even thinking about the string of numbers, let alone looking at them on his smartwatch, made his head dizzy.

Tails looked away from the projected image and peered down at the Chaos Emerald detector lying beside him, a screwdriver sitting next to it. He intended to take it apart once again, hoping to use the opportunity afforded to him in recovery to program new code that could potentially work with the data collected from the experiment. Ultimately, though, he decided that he needed a little more time to heal before performing such a cognitively strenuous task.

Mindlessly sifting through low quality memes that made him chuckle on occasion, he couldn’t help but feel that he was wasting time. Nevertheless, he knew that he couldn’t really be of use right now anyway, so he remained in bed, lying down as his half-opened eyes consumed every image, text post, and video that his social media feed had to offer.  

While Tails was browsing, Sonic stepped through the door carrying a duffle bag. The orange kitsune turned off the projector and pulled himself up, excited for his blue companion to rip him away from utter boredom.

“Hiya Sonic!”

“Hey Tails, I think you’re gonna like what I brought from home.” The hedgehog placed the bag on the bed. “I would’ve brought more, but I can only carry so much!” Running to and from the Mystic Ruins wasn’t a challenge for the blue blur, but he couldn’t carry more than one bag full of goods on his back at a time.

“That’s fine,” Tails replied, a smile on his face. “I heard from the shop that the Tornado 2 will be repaired soon anyway, just in time for my discharge!”

The blue hedgehog poured the contents of the bag onto the bed, which piled up by the orange fox’s knees. Tails sifted through the contents to find much to keep him busy for the next several days. A small chess set was the first thing he noticed. The orange kitsune glanced at Sonic, who was sitting next to him on the side of the bed.

“You know I always beat you, right?” Tails asked.

“Well yeah, but it isn’t about winning or losing…it’s about having fun, right?”

“Hehe, I suppose.” Tails placed a gloved hand on the back of his head as the friends chuckled to each other. He continued exploring the pile at his feet to reveal some board games, a few unopened boxes of Mobian Scout™ mint chocolate cookies, some books he’d been meaning to read, and, to the young fox’s surprise, some components, cables, and one of his laptops. Tails studied the disposable bag that housed the components before showing it to the blue hedgehog.

“Why’d you sneak in contraband? The medical staff won’t like this one bit.”  

“That hasn’t stop you from tinkering with your detector and messing around on your watch, has it?”

“I guess not.” Tails laughed again.

“Besides,” Sonic continued, putting his legs up on the bed, wrapping his arms around them for support. “It’s not like a little concussion is gonna stop my bro from working!”

Tails continued looking through the pile. “How did ya know which parts to grab, though?”

“Let’s just say I took a lucky guess,” Sonic replied, giving his younger brother a thumbs up. “I figured the stuff on that workbench you were at before had what you needed, so I grabbed what I could.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Tails replied, placing a gloved finger to his chin.

“I even managed to take a quick shower!” Sonic said before taking a whiff of his armpits. “See! No B.O.” The blue hedgehog pushed his armpit close to his young brother’s face as if to prove his cleanliness.

“No, no, get away!” The orange kitsune chuckled as he pushed the blue blur back, Sonic falling backwards to the opposite side of the bed. Unhurt from the soft landing, Sonic joined the laughter.

Sonic always manages to put a smile on my face.

“So…wanna play some chess?” Sonic asked, looking through the pile to find the chessboard.

“Umm…no thank you,” Tails replied. “I don’t want to strain my mind too hard right now.”

“Not that you would need to in order to defeat me,” Sonic shot back, Tails giggling in response.

“True, but I’d rather just…” Tails stopped to yawn into his left hand. “…relax a bit.” He turned his watch back on, the projected image of his social media feed materializing above his wrist once more.

“Here, I’ll join ya,” Sonic replied, approaching the opposite side of the bed. He placed the Chaos Emerald detector and screwdriver on the bedside table, pushed the pile of stuff back into the duffle bag, and got in, snuggling against his little brother as he continued swiping through new social media posts. Sonic looked up to get a good view of the projected image, the two chuckling from time to time as the orange kitsune stumbled across the occasional funny post in his feed.

An hour later, Tails’ nurse stepped into his room to check on his recovery. She stopped, however, when she saw Sonic and Tails napping peacefully in bed, Sonic sleeping against his younger brother and Tails’ namesakes wrapped around them. A half-eaten box of cookies was left open on the bed, and small, black crumbs covered their muzzles. The nurse giggled to herself as she quietly pulled a blanket over the two brothers, both still snuggling soundly together, before leaving them to their slumber.

“Tails is lucky to have such a caring friend,” she said to herself as she walked down the hallway, on her way to check on her next patient.

*****

A week since Eggman escaped from Seaside City, the evil doctor was scheming his next move. That, and bragging about his past accomplishments.

“Wooahhooohoohooo,” Robotnik bellowed, much to the displeasure of Decoe and Bocoe, who were working diligently on improving the energy amplifier. Bocoe set his wrench down and turned to his mechanical brother.

“I bet Eggman is going to say, ‘Those foolish rodents fell right into my trap!’ again.”

“How much you want to bet?”

“Hmmm…let’s go with 20 dollars.”

“You’re on.” The robot companions shook their hands to solidify the deal, out of sight of the evil mastermind who was about to turn to them once more.

“Those foolish rodents fell right into my trap!” Bocoe pulled a small wad of cash out of a compartment on his side and gave it to Decoe as he audibly sighed. “Remind me to never gamble with you again.”

“Quiet, you deficient dunces!” Eggman barked as Decoe slipped his reward away, the oblivious doctor unaware of their bet. “Now, as I was saying, those meddlesome furballs fell for my trick bigtime!”

The two robots continued their work, attempting to drown out this variation of the same speech they’d heard multiple times since Robotnik came back from his successful Seaside City mission.

“Even with Tails’ intelligence and deductive reasoning, he never figured out why I attacked the city in the first place. I don’t mind causing a bit of mayhem every once in a while, but the damage my Elemental Egg Eagle caused was small fish compared to the real prize!” Eggman pulled the green Chaos Emerald from his jacket pocket, glistening in the artificial light that permeated the laboratory, laughing maniacally as he approached a large monitor near the corner of the room. A world map appeared on the screen, complete with seven dots. Three of the dots were hovering over one area while the remaining four were scattered across the rest of Mobius.

“Those lazy brats have been taking it easy while I’ve been hard at work finding a way to locate the Chaos Emeralds without having to rely on that meddlesome hedgehog to do it for me.” As Robotnik was about to continue his speech, he heard the sound of clanging metal from above. He looked up at the large, rectangular air duct that snaked its way across the ceiling of the lab.

“Meh…it was probably nothing,” Eggman said, looking back at his monitor. “My high-tech security system would’ve caught any interlopers anyway.”

That’s where you’re wrong.

A feminine bat peered through small vents in the airduct above the lab, cursing at herself for her uncharacteristic clumsiness.

I’ve gotta be more careful or else I’ll be spotted for sure.

The bat was none other than Rouge, a jewel thief who relished the thrill of stealing priceless gems. She wore blue eyeliner and long eyelash extensions, a purple chest piece, black leggings, and silk gloves that, unlike Sonic and friends, were more fashionable than practical.

Now I need to lay low until I can claim the right opportunity to snag the emeralds.

“Are you two finished with the upgrades to the amplifier yet?” Eggman yelled, his two mechanical minions standing at attention.

“Yes sir,” they said in unison. “The new enhancements will better contain the power of multiple Chaos Emeralds, keeping the lab sturdy and reducing the probability of any malfunctions,” Bocoe said.

“The energy amplifier should be able to handle the power of three Chaos Emeralds with ease,” Decoe added.

“Excellent,” Eggman replied, a grin on his face as he stroked his orange mustache. “All right, let’s test it out.” He placed the green Chaos Emerald into its designated slot next to the red and purple gems and pressed a button on the dashboard. The machine began to hum, increasing in volume as static formed around the tubular machine that stood at the center of the lab.

“See? When you’re not complaining all the time and actually doing your jobs, you’re succ—” Eggman’s backhanded compliment was cut short, however, as the floor beneath them began to shake, the amplifier getting louder as the static grew in intensity. Robotnik quickly shut it down, the machine’s humming gradually slowing as the shutdown protocols were initiated.

“Even when you’re doing your jobs, you still fail miserably!” Eggman yelled, approaching the robotic brothers as they stepped back in unison, their hands forward.

“Please sir, we just need to make a few adjustments,” Decoe begged.

“Yeah, we can fix the problem in no time at all,” Bocoe added. “Just give us some more time.” The two robots knelt before the evil scientist, pleading to be given another chance.

“…very well.” Robotnik calmed down, folding his arms as he looked down at the groveling machines at his feet. “But I’ll be working alongside you. This project is simply too important to be left to my underlings.”  

“Now come,” Eggman continued as he left the lab, “I need you two to prepare my lunch while I take an eggzzellent bath. Can’t exercise my brilliant mind without proper self-care, after all!” As Robotnik marched out of the sliding doors, Decoe picked himself up from the ground.

“Geez, that schtick works every time,” Decoe said, helping his brother up.

“He wouldn’t get rid of us anyway,” Bocoe replied. “He’s too lazy to do all the grunt work we handle, let alone build new robots with intricate AI from scratch!” The duo chuckled to themselves as they followed Eggman out of the lab, activating the room’s security features before they stepped through the sliding doors.

Rouge watched as the lights went out, replaced with various red lasers scattered all around the lab that provided enough illumination for her to see.

“Pllleeeze, this is elementary, my dear Eggman!” Rouge opened the vent and placed the lid to her side before allowing herself to dangle from the opening with her feet. Twisting around, using her eyes and large ears to assess her surroundings, she traced the perfect path to reach the three Chaos Emeralds in her mind.

“Perfect.” She reached her arms up, allowing her feet to fall as she grabbed onto the edge of the air duct opening with her hands. This was followed by a graceful fall to the floor below, landing without making a sound.

Rouge effortlessly maneuvered around the red lasers, as if she were an acrobat bending her limbs at impossible angles, until she arrived at the center console, the three Chaos Emeralds within reach. She opened a small drawstring bag attached to her waist and slowly approached the shimmering emeralds.

“Hmmm…which one shall I choose first?” After about a minute of deliberation, the gem thief selected the green emerald. The moment she placed her gloved hand on the gem, though, an alarm began to blare, and the cylindrical machine at the center of the lab retracted into the ground. Rouge only had the opportunity to grab the single emerald before the others disappeared into the floor.

“Dammit!” Rouge placed the emerald in the small bag and looked around, assessing the situation. Lights were going off everywhere, and the laser turrets scattered along the walls were trained on her location. “I don’t have time to fly back into the air duct, so I’ll just have to break out the old-fashioned way!”

Rouge ran for her life, narrowly dodging the laser shots as she headed for the door. She launched herself feet first and spun her body like a tornado, blasting the double doors off their foundations as she entered the relative safety of the hallway beyond.

“My screw kick always does the trick!” She continued running until she reached the control room. The bat stared out the large windows of the command center as she planned to break through them to make her escape.

“Not so fast, my thieving little friend,” came a voice from behind. Rouge turned to find Dr. Eggman wearing a bath robe. “How dare you try to steal my emeralds, and when I’m trying to get some R n’ R, no less! Your insolence knows no bounds.”

“Whatever, Eggy,” Rouge replied, brushing off Robotnik’s comments. “I’m through here.” She ran for the window, charging her screw kick as she collided with the hard glass. To the astonishment of the bat, though, the window didn’t break at all; it remained unscratched, let alone cracked, her body ricocheting to the floor below.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” Eggman condescendingly waved his finger at the jewel thief. “My windows are made of a transparent alloy that not even you can break!” He entered into a bout of maniacal laughter as his robotic servants entered the control center.

“Dr. Eggman,” Bocoe began, carrying a large sub sandwich on an even larger plate. “Your lunch is ready.”

“I’ll have you know,” Decoe added, “that we both crafted this sandwich together, so we should get equal credit.”

“Fascinating,” Eggman replied, shooing the two robots away, grabbing the sandwich off the plate in the process. “Now go summon my army of robots to capture this bat!” The mechanical brothers looked forward to find Rouge, who had since recovered from her attempt to break through the window.

“An intruder!” Decoe exclaimed.

“We’ll request help right away!” Bocoe added. Dropping the sandwich plate, they took their places at separate consoles and rapidly input some commands.

“A group of robots are coming to apprehend the intruder as we speak,” Bocoe said, turning around to face the doctor.

“And the rest of your army is keeping security tight within and around the base just in case,” Decoe added.

“Wooahhooohoohooo.” Eggman’s laugh echoed throughout the command center before turning his attention back to the jewel thief. “You see, even if you take down a few of my minions, there is absolutely no way you’ll be able to escape.” The doctor sat at the central command chair while taking a few bites out of his sandwich, the sound of robots approaching from the hallway. “Ahh, just in time!” Eggman exclaimed between another bite. “Rouge, consider yourself eggzzterminated!”

Rouge ignored the maniacal laughter coming from the evil doctor, instead focusing her attention on the hallway as dozens of robots entered the circular room, Eggman, Decoe, and Bocoe sitting on the sidelines as they prepared to witness an entertaining show.

“Apprehend this interloper, by any means necessary!” Eggman commanded.

Well…shoot.

*****

Chapter 6 can be found here. 

[butterflies-dragons]

What is your favorite Sansa scene in the book and in the show?

This one, Books and Show (minus the littlefinger part):

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home.

The Eyrie was no home. It was no bigger than Maegor’s Holdfast, and outside its sheer white walls was only the mountain and the long treacherous descent past Sky and Snow and Stone to the Gates of the Moon on the valley floor. There was no place to go and little to do. The older servants said these halls rang with laughter when her father and Robert Baratheon had been Jon Arryn’s wards, but those days were many years gone. Her aunt kept a small household, and seldom permitted any guests to ascend past the Gates of the Moon. Aside from her aged maid, Sansa’s only companion was the Lord Robert, eight going on three.

And Marillion. There is always Marillion. When he played for them at supper, the young singer often seemed to be singing directly at her. Her aunt was far from pleased. Lady Lysa doted on Marillion, and had banished two serving girls and even a page for telling lies about him.

Lysa was as lonely as she was. Her new husband seemed to spend more time at the foot of the mountain than he did atop it. He was gone now, had been gone the past four days, meeting with the Corbrays. From bits and pieces of overheard conversations Sansa knew that Jon Arryn’s bannermen resented Lysa’s marriage and begrudged Petyr his authority as Lord Protector of the Vale. The senior branch of House Royce was close to open revolt over her aunt’s failure to aid Robb in his war, and the Waynwoods, Redforts, Belmores, and Templetons were giving them every support. The mountain clans were being troublesome as well, and old Lord Hunter had died so suddenly that his two younger sons were accusing their elder brother of having murdered him. The Vale of Arryn might have been spared the worst of the war, but it was hardly the idyllic place that Lady Lysa had made it out to be.

I am not going back to sleep, Sansa realized. My head is all a tumult. She pushed her pillow away reluctantly, threw back the blankets, went to her window, and opened the shutters.

Snow was falling on the Eyrie.

Outside the flakes drifted down as soft and silent as memory. Was this what woke me? Already the snowfall lay thick upon the garden below, blanketing the grass, dusting the shrubs and statues with white and weighing down the branches of the trees. The sight took Sansa back to cold nights long ago, in the long summer of her childhood.

She had last seen snow the day she’d left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning. Hullen had helped her mount, and she’d ridden out with the snowflakes swirling around her, off to see the great wide world. I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.

Sansa left the shutters open as she dressed. It would be cold, she knew, though the Eyrie’s towers encircled the garden and protected it from the worst of the mountain winds. She donned silken smallclothes and a linen shift, and over that a warm dress of blue lambswool. Two pairs of hose for her legs, boots that laced up to her knees, heavy leather gloves, and finally a hooded cloak of soft white fox fur.

Her maid rolled herself more tightly in her blanket as the snow began to drift in the window. Sansa eased open the door, and made her way down the winding stair. When she opened the door to the garden, it was so lovely that she held her breath, unwilling to disturb such perfect beauty. The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. All color had fled the world outside. It was a place of whites and blacks and greys. White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.

Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.

When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

She scooped up a handful of snow and squeezed it between her fingers. Heavy and wet, the snow packed easily. Sansa began to make snowballs, shaping and smoothing them until they were round and white and perfect. She remembered a summer’s snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They’d each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she’d had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she’d slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn’t, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing.

What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There’s no one to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand. I could build a snow knight instead, she thought. Or even…

She pushed two of her snowballs together, added a third, packed more snow in around them, and patted the whole thing into the shape of a cylinder. When it was done, she stood it on end and used the tip of her little finger to poke holes in it for windows. The crenellations around the top took a little more care, but when they were done she had a tower. I need some walls now, Sansa thought, and then a keep. She set to work.

The snow fell and the castle rose. Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall. It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. She found twigs and fallen branches beneath the snow and broke off the ends to make the trees for the godswood. For the gravestones in the lichyard she used bits of bark. Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care. The castle was all that mattered. Some things were hard to remember, but most came back to her easily, as if she had been there only yesterday. The Library Tower, with the steep stonework stair twisting about its exterior. The gatehouse, two huge bulwarks, the arched gate between them, crenellations all along the top…

And all the while the snow kept falling, piling up in drifts around her buildings as fast as she raised them. She was patting down the pitched roof of the Great Hall when she heard a voice, and looked up to see her maid calling from her window. Was my lady well? Did she wish to break her fast? Sansa shook her head, and went back to shaping snow, adding a chimney to one end of the Great Hall, where the hearth would stand inside.

Dawn stole into her garden like a thief. The grey of the sky grew lighter still, and the trees and shrubs turned a dark green beneath their stoles of snow. A few servants came out and watched her for a time, but she paid them no mind and they soon went back inside where it was warmer. Sansa saw Lady Lysa gazing down from her balcony, wrapped up in a blue velvet robe trimmed with fox fur, but when she looked again her aunt was gone. Maester Colemon popped out of the rookery and peered down for a while, skinny and shivering but curious.

Her bridges kept falling down. There was a covered bridge between the armory and the main keep, and another that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower to the second floor of the rookery, but no matter how carefully she shaped them, they would not hold together. The third time one collapsed on her, she cursed aloud and sat back in helpless frustration.

“Pack the snow around a stick, Sansa.”

She did not know how long he had been watching her, or when he had returned from the Vale. “A stick?” she asked.

“That will give it strength enough to stand, I’d think,” Petyr said. “May I come into your castle, my lady?”

Sansa was wary. “Don’t break it. Be …”

“… gentle?” He smiled. “Winterfell has withstood fiercer enemies than me. It is Winterfell, is it not?”

“Yes,” Sansa admitted.

He walked along outside the walls. “I used to dream of it, in those years after Cat went north with Eddard Stark. In my dreams it was ever a dark place, and cold.”

“No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer.” She stood, towering over the great white castle. “I can’t think how to do the glass roof over the gardens.”

Littlefinger stroked his chin, where his beard had been before Lysa had asked him to shave it off. “The glass was locked in frames, no? Twigs are your answer. Peel them and cross them and use bark to tie them together into frames. I’ll show you.” He moved through the garden, gathering up twigs and sticks and shaking the snow from them. When he had enough, he stepped over both walls with a single long stride and squatted on his heels in the middle of the yard. Sansa came closer to watch what he was doing. His hands were deft and sure, and before long he had a crisscrossing latticework of twigs, very like the one that roofed the glass gardens of Winterfell. “We will need to imagine the glass, to be sure,” he said when he gave it to her.

“This is just right,” she said.

He touched her face. “And so is that.”

Sansa did not understand. “And so is what?”

“Your smile, my lady. Shall I make another for you?”

“If you would.”

“Nothing could please me more.”

She raised the walls of the glass gardens while Littlefinger roofed them over, and when they were done with that he helped her extend the walls and build the guardshall. When she used sticks for the covered bridges, they stood, just as he had said they would. The First Keep was simple enough, an old round drum tower, but Sansa was stymied again when it came to putting the gargoyles around the top. Again he had the answer. “It’s been snowing on your castle, my lady,” he pointed out. “What do the gargoyles look like when they’re covered with snow?”

Sansa closed her eyes to see them in memory. “They’re just white lumps.”

“Well, then. Gargoyles are hard, but white lumps should be easy.” And they were.

The Broken Tower was easier still. They made a tall tower together, kneeling side by side to roll it smooth, and when they’d raised it Sansa stuck her fingers through the top, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it full in his face. Petyr yelped, as the snow slid down under his collar. “That was unchivalrously done, my lady.”

“As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home.”

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.

His face grew serious. “Yes, I played you false in that … and in one other thing as well.”

Sansa’s stomach was aflutter. “What other thing?”

“I told you that nothing could please me more than to help you with your castle. I fear that was a lie as well. Something else would please me more.” He stepped closer. “This.

"Sansa tried to step back, but he pulled her into his arms and suddenly he was kissing her. Feebly, she tried to squirm, but only succeeded in pressing herself more tightly against him. His mouth was on hers, swallowing her words. He tasted of mint. For half a heartbeat she yielded to his kiss … before she turned her face away and wrenched free. "What are you doing?”

Petyr straightened his cloak. “Kissing a snow maid.”

“You’re supposed to kiss her.” Sansa glanced up at Lysa’s balcony, but it was empty now. “Your lady wife.”

“I do. Lysa has no cause for complaint.” He smiled. “I wish you could see yourself, my lady. You are so beautiful. You’re crusted over with snow like some little bear cub, but your face is flushed and you can scarcely breathe. How long have you been out here? You must be very cold. Let me warm you, Sansa. Take off those gloves, give me your hands.”

“I won’t.” He sounded almost like Marillion, the night he’d gotten so drunk at the wedding. Only this time Lothor Brune would not appear to save her; Ser Lothor was Petyr’s man. “You shouldn’t kiss me. I might have been your own daughter …”

“Might have been,” he admitted, with a rueful smile. “But you’re not, are you? You are Eddard Stark’s daughter, and Cat’s. But I think you might be even more beautiful than your mother was, when she was your age.”

“Petyr, please.” Her voice sounded so weak. “Please …”

“A castle!"

The voice was loud, shrill, and childish. Littlefinger turned away from her. “Lord Robert.” He sketched a bow. “Should you be out in the snow without your gloves?”

“Did you make the snow castle, Lord Littlefinger?”

“Alayne did most of it, my lord.”

Sansa said, “It’s meant to be Winterfell.”

“Winterfell?” Robert was small for eight, a stick of a boy with splotchy skin and eyes that were always runny. Under one arm he clutched the threadbare cloth doll he carried everywhere.

“Winterfell is the seat of House Stark,” Sansa told her husband-to-be. “The great castle of the north.”

“It’s not so great.” The boy knelt before the gatehouse. “Look, here comes a giant to knock it down.” He stood his doll in the snow and moved it jerkily. “Tromp tromp I’m a giant, I’m a giant,” he chanted. “Ho ho ho, open your gates or I’ll mash them and smash them.” Swinging the doll by the legs, he knocked the top off one gatehouse tower and then the other.

It was more than Sansa could stand. “Robert, stop that.” Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll’s head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow.

Lord Robert’s mouth trembled. “You killlllllllled him,” he wailed. Then he began to shake. It started with no more than a little shivering, but within a few short heartbeats he had collapsed across the castle, his limbs flailing about violently. White towers and snowy bridges shattered and fell on all sides. Sansa stood horrified, but Petyr Baelish seized her cousin’s wrists and shouted for the maester.

Guards and serving girls arrived within instants to help restrain the boy, Maester Colemon a short time later. Robert Arryn’s shaking sickness was nothing new to the people of the Eyrie, and Lady Lysa had trained them all to come rushing at the boy’s first cry. The maester held the little lord’s head and gave him half a cup of dreamwine, murmuring soothing words. Slowly the violence of the fit seemed to ebb away, till nothing remained but a small shaking of the hands. “Help him to my chambers,” Colemon told the guards. “A leeching will help calm him.”

“It was my fault.” Sansa showed them the doll’s head. “I ripped his doll in two. I never meant to, but …”

“His lordship was destroying the castle,” said Petyr.

“A giant,” the boy whispered, weeping. “It wasn’t me, it was a giant hurt the castle. She killed him! I hate her! She’s a bastard and I hate her! I don’t want to be leeched!”

“My lord, your blood needs thinning,” said Maester Colemon. “It is the bad blood that makes you angry, and the rage that brings on the shaking. Come now.”

They led the boy away. My lord husband, Sansa thought, as she contemplated the ruins of Winterfell. The snow had stopped, and it was colder than before. She wondered if Lord Robert would shake all through their wedding. At least Joffrey was sound of body. A mad rage seized hold of her. She picked up a broken branch and smashed the torn doll’s head down on top of it, then pushed it down atop the shattered gatehouse of her snow castle. The servants looked aghast, but when Littlefinger saw what she’d done he laughed. “If the tales be true, that’s not the first giant to end up with his head on Winterfell’s walls.”

“Those are only stories,” she said, and left him there.

[…]

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

[magicalgirlagency]

hmmm i wonder, just how many other characters are in your magical girl story? it sounds cool!

The main team, the Red Star Agency, is a team of 16 (17, including Thor) Magis. I know it’s too much, but I went along with that number of members because I wanted to spite Magical Girl Raising Project for saying that 10+ Magical Girls in the world was a valid excuse to murder them all in battle royales.

Like fuck you, Asari Endo. Observe as my team is as big as a K-Pop group and no one dies and everyone lives happily ever after.

Honey Witch Vivi: The leader of the team, a B-Rank Magi. 22 years old, pansexual/genderfluid, brazilian, autistic. Passionate, smart, idealistic, and occasionally the Mom Friend™. Despite being a leader, she sees her teammates as equals and wants to see them succeed. Basically, my self-insert. Is in a polyamorous relationship with other two Magis. Transformation trinket is a heart-shaped locket, her powers are light-based, and her assigned gemstone is Citrine. Weapon of choice is a strawberry quartz wand that can transform into a parasol. Her mascot is a Squirtle named Bubbles (she’s the only one who can understand what her mascot says).

Cupid Harpy Sally: Was once Vivi’s first mascot and dearly beloved childhood toy but later graduates into a Magi herself, a A-Rank Magi. 20 years old (in human years), asexual, wondarian. She’s also Vivi’s adoptive sister. Spunky, sassy, energetic, and sometimes naughty. True to her Magi Title, she can shapeshift her arms into wings. Transformation trinket is a heart-shaped hairclip, her powers are fire-based, and her assigned gemstone is Cherry Quartz. Weapon of choice is a lance (which she calls “Lovely Lance”), and a infinite set of Cherry Bombs.

Star Navigator Amelia: Vivi’s girlfriend (and her childhood friend, as well), a B-Rank Magi. 22 years old, bisexual, brazilian. Loyal, adventurous, mature, and calm. Her design is basically Sayaka Miki (from PMMM) if she didn’t snapped. Was once as Magi dropout due her depression, but got back to magic business thanks to Vivi’s help. Transformation trinket is a golden star medallion, her powers are water-based, and her assigned gemstone is Larimar. Weapon of choice is a rapier/espada ropera.

Pink Soldier Kiki: Vivi’s other girlfriend, a S-Rank Magi. 20 years old, pansexual/gender-neutral, japanese/brazilian, autistic. Creative, brave, charismatic, and bright. Heavily inspired on Kirby (specially on Star Allies), and is able to transform into many disguises and personas. Transformation trinket is a pair of pink bead bracelets, her powers are love-based, and her assigned gemstone is Tourmaline. Weapon of choice is a twirling baton (which it also acts as a stimming toy for her). Her “mascot” is a broomstick named Glinda, that once belonged to Vivi.

Wisp Rider Winona: A Kamen Rider afficionado, a A-Rank Magi. 21 years old, lesbian/non-binary, australian. Athletic, optimistic, clever and a bit of a joker. She has a strong connection with the Wisps (from Sonic Colors), and can emulate their hyper-go-on energy by shapeshifting into them. Transformation trinket is a star-shaped belt buckle, her powers are alien-based, and her assigned gemstone is Emerald. Weapon of choice is a golden hoop (which she calls “Power Ring”).

Cheerful Doll Delilah: A revolutionary doll, a B-Rank Magi. 19 years old, lesbian, wondarian. Elegant, sweet, sensitive, and a bit dramatic. Was a circus ballerina before she became a Magi, and rebelled against her manipulative boss. Has a crush on Winona, and looks up to her. Transformation trinket is a pair of poofy scrunchies (that she uses as bracelets), her powers are music-based, and her assigned gemstone is Rose Quartz.. Weapon of choice is a pair of cheerleader pompoms.

Tech Witch Donovan: A young techie and a ninja, a B-Rank Magi. 21 years old, asexual/biromantic, asian-american. Brainy, dexterous, wise, and introverted. Has a passion for everything that combines magic with technology and can tame demons. Is actually the reincarnation of 2k12!Donatello, after April killed him in the 100th episode. Transformation trinket is a turtle-shaped brooch, his powers are ninja/tech-based, and his assigned gemstone is Spirit Quartz. Weapon of choice is a metal bo staff. His mascots are the spirits of his brothers from another timeline (basically, they are Leo, Mike and Raph that all fell into a spiral of insanity and commited seppuku after Don and Splinter were murdered).

Frost Rabbot Nia: A magical android, a S-Rank Magi. 20 years old (in human years), asexual, wondarian. Logical, curious, intelligent, and a tactical genius. She’s a wondarian project designed to be the perfect Magi. Looks up to Donovan, and thinks of him as a older brother. She consumes Earth’s sci-fi media in order to study their mistakes, and fix them. Transformation trinket is a star-shaped core in her chest, her powers are ice-based, and her assigned gemstone is Sapphire. She has no weapon of choice, because her body is a weapon (not in a creepy and de-humanizing way, I promise!)

Quirky Rebel Nova: A energetic outsider, a A-Rank Magi (later to be promoted to S-Rank due to her awesome violent ways to exterminate Incubators). 21 years old, asexual/panromantic, currently wondarian. Impulsive, persistent, captivating, and a go-getter. She is in reality Star Butterfly, but she ran away from Mewni without leaving a trace, after learning her life was a lie (in the third season episode, The Butterfly Effect); she changes her name to Nova (as in Supernova), and has traveled throughout the Multiverse, training herself to learn magic without a wand. Can transform herself without a transformation trinket, her powers are chaos/wildcard-based, and her assigned gemstone is Fluorite. Weapon of choice is a pair of magic gloves/gauntlets (after giving up her wand). Her mascot is a Sableye named Glitter.

Devilish Clover Perci: A skillful archer, a S-Rank Magi. 22 years old, pansexual/trans, british. Stylish, outspoken, dauntless, and very friendly. One of the most popular Magis, specially due to her control over dark magic. She adopts Nova as her sister, and their personalities clash quite nicely. Transformation trinket is a peridot brooch, her powers are darkness-based, and her assigned gemstone is Sugilite. Weapon of choice is a magic bow (that was previously Nova’s wand).

Milky Angel Holly: A wild angel, a B-Rank Magi. 23 years old, pansexual, american. Unruly, rebellious, lively, and brutally honest at times. Was once one of the best Magis, but a certain happening in her life made her develop trust issues, and she became a delinquent. To get her attitude adjusted, she is assigned to the RSA. She’s designed after Panty Anarchy (from P&SwG), because I shamelessly liked her and I got salty about her sudden and out-of-the-blue “death”. Transformation trinket is a pair of golden hoop earrings, her powers are angel-based, and her assigned gemstone is Angel Aura Quartz. Weapon of choice is a light-molded musket and a halo that acts like a boomerang.

Pretty Punisher Aya: A recovering survivor, a C-Rank Magi. 19 years old, lesbian, japanese. Shy, gentle, soft-spoken, and always doing her best. She’s an alternative version of Asagiri Aya (from Mahou Shoujo Site) if she ever snapped at her bullies, abusive brother and neglective parents and actually have used her magic to kill them all. She becomes part of Wondaria’s rescuing and therapy program, that helps abused earthlings and offers them a chance in becoming Magis themselves. She is later assigned to the RSA to develop her powers better in a non-violent and zero percent toxic environment. She sees Holly as her upperclassman, and wishes to be as brave as her. Transformation trinket is not actually a trinket, but rather her heart tattoo on her left wrist, her powers are healing-based, and her assigned gemstone is Ruby. Weapon of choice is a heart-shaped pistol.

Demonic Witch Ace: A ruthless hero, a S-Rank Magi. 24 years old, pansexual, japanese. Strong, ill-tempered, fiery, but becomes a total dork once you know him better. Real name is Akira, Ace is just a nickname. He’s a half-Oni, cursed to be the successor of the Devilman name, and he has trust issues thanks to that. To everyone’s surprise, Vivi actually manages to break his shell and befriend him. Transformation trinket is a spiky bracelet, his powers are demon-based, and his assigned gemstone is Obsidian. Weapon of choice is a kanabo/iron mace. His mascot is a sizeshifting kitsune named Miki (while not a pokémon, he can understands what the little fox says).

Artsy Chameleon Enzo: A quirky street artist, a B-Rank Magi. 23 years old, pansexual/trans, italian. An artistic soul, always on the move, tricky, and unable to give fucks to anyone who dares to discriminate him. He was kicked out of his house after coming out to his parents, but later became a Magi so he could leave earth to live in Wondaria. He’s best friends with Perci, who’s also pan/trans. Transformation trinket is a leaf-shaped belt buckle, his powers are art/chameleon-based, and his assigned gemstone is Opal. Weapon of choice is a pink baseball bat.

Cursed Maestro Arthur: An anxious fortune-teller, a B-Rank Magi. 23 years old, asexual/polyromantic, filipino. Jittery, cautious, but hardworking and doing his best to become brave. He is the reincarnation of Arthur Kingsmen (from Mystery Skulls Animated), after Lewis killed him. He has the Hellbent Curse, where he becomes aware of how his past life came to an end. He has a crush on Ace, and wants to be as brave as him. Transfromation trinket is a orange bead bracelet, his powers are ghost/music-based, and his assigned gemstone is Japser. Weapon of choice is a conductor baton. His mascot is a Dedenne named Peanut and a scarf named Tempo.

Soul Genie Inka: A rebellious alien, a C-Rank Magi. Older than any human, asexual/non-binary, wondarian. Curious, smart, cheeky, and always eager to learn more about Earth culture. was previously a defective Incubator, who grew tired of stealing souls and spreading despair. Kiki was the only one who believed in them, and later became a Magi when things got tough for her. Transformation trinket is a drop-shaped garnet stone on their chest, their magic is genie/chaos-based, and their assigned gemstone is Pearl. Weapon of choice is their long ponytail.

Mighty Berserker Thor: A broken god, a S-Rank Magi. 24 years old (in human years), bisexual, wondarian (previously asgardian, but Asgard is no more). Approachable, a friend to all, awkward at times, and a tad bit salty (it comes with the trauma). Has yeeted himself of his world with the power of the Infinity Stones because he grew tired of being ridiculed and dealing with a constant streak of despair and death in his life. He was taken in by the RSA, and is treated with such care (which it scared him at first after spending five years in depression), but he eventually warms up to the team and finds once again a motivation to fight and protect. Transformation trinket is his prosthetic arm, his powers are lightning/weather-based, and his assigned gemstone is Sunstone. He has no weapon of choice (as originally intended!); he’s basically a giant living taser. His mascot is a pocket-sized imp that’s actually his brother Loki (he was punished due his past transgressions, and he HATES it).

…phew…! Here it is, the entire team assembled! It was hard, but I’ve had loads of fun with it honestly! It flatters me that you were interested in my dream plot, Anon!

[nexthecryptid]

Let’s Pounce Zine Piece!

Shout out to @letspouncezine for allowing me to be a part of a wonderful group of amazing artists and writers!

Please check out the full zine here!  

And here is my piece!  As always, if you’d like to read it on AO3, please click here!

The Way You Smile

“I am the Evil Dragon King!  And I am here to gobble up the princesses of Paris!” Alya roared, jumping onto the couch as she loomed over the twins.  A dark purple cape draped over her shoulders, a pair of gloves over her hands to match.  She had a cartoonish dragon head made of an old cardboard box and cans resting on her head, her hazel eyes glaring out of the two holes cut into it.  

The twins shrieked, scrambling away from her and to the other side of the room, hiding behind the toy chest.  Alya chuckled to herself as she watched them, lowering herself into a crouch.  The twins bit their lip before frowning, looking to one another before nodding in determination.  

“We won’t let you gobble us up!” One yelled, backed up by her sister when she blew a raspberry.  

“Oh~?  Is that so?” Alya cooed, slowly raising herself again.  

“Yeah!” They screamed, both quickly rummaging through the toy chest as they did so.   

“And how are two, cute, little twin princesses going to stop me?” She asked, dropping down from the crouch, raising her hands as she deliberately took slow steps toward them.  The twins began throwing toys out of the chest, desperate for what they were looking for.  They stopped when they finally found it, turning back to Alya and grinning with a glint in their eyes.  Alya faltered, flinching back.

“Because we’re not just princesses!” “We’re also knights!” 

They both pulled out a sword made of foam, pointing it to Alya as their grins seemingly grew.  Before Alya could say anything, the twins charged forward with another yell, tackling their older sister to the ground and hitting the dragon head.  Alya screamed in protest, arms flailing as she tried to push them off.  

Nino chuckled as he watched them from the kitchen, holding a tray with four bowls of food.  He waited till the twins stood in triumphant, high fiving one another, before clearing his throat for their attention.

“Lunch is ready.” He said, lifting the tray in his hands a bit.  The twins cheered before rushing off to the dining area, leaving the ‘defeated’ dragon on the floor.  He rolled his eyes and quickly served the twins their mac n’ cheese, ruffling their hair before returning to the living room.  He knelt beside Alya, raising a brow at the dragon’s head that was now dented.  

“Will the Evil dragon be dining with us today?” He asked, humming in amusement. 

“I’m debating it.  Those princesses/knights may attack me in the time of peace.” She huffed, wiggling out of her costume, hair sticking up from being in the box.  He reached out and gently brushed her hair back in place, smiling warmly.  

“I’ll protect you my queen.  For your bravery has earned you a filling meal.” He held a hand out and could see the flush on Alya’s cheeks, smirking a bit.  She huffed and rolled her eyes before smiling.  

“Feed me Nino!” She declared, tossing their playful acting out the window.  He helped her up, kissing the top of her head before they joined the twins at the table.  

As they ate, Nino watched Alya, admiring the way she continued her creative act with the twins, grinning madly when they threatened to defeat her again.  She never faltered, adding to the story and going with the flow of the twins in the world they were building around themselves.

Nino didn’t think he could fall more in love with Alya, but here he was.

…

“I’m home!” Mrs. Cesaire called, closing the door behind her.  Alya stopped her act in being a dragon as the twins ran up to her, greeting their mother with kisses as she picked them up.

“Hey Mom.” Alya called, wiggling out of her dragon costume again before running over and giving her a kiss as well.  

“Hello Mrs. Cesaire.” Nino greeted with a wave from the floor, having been defeated by the twins earlier.

“Nino!  It’s good to see you again.  Did you two have plans today?” She asked, letting the twins down. 

“Nino wanted to go to the park today.  But I was babysitting, so he decided to hang out here.” Alya said warmly.  

“Aww, that was very sweet of you..” Her mom commented and Nino couldn’t stop the warmth that spread across the cheeks, smiling sheepishly before picking himself up.

“It was no big deal.” He mumbled, brushing himself off.  Mrs. Cesaire chuckled at that for some reason, sharing a look with Alya before speaking again.

“Well, now that I’m home, why don’t you two go to the park?  It’s really nice out.” She offered.   

“That sounds great.  We can do our original plan if you’re still up for it.” Alya asked, referring to the ice-cream parlor he had mentioned earlier.  

“I will never say no.” He laughed.  

…  

It had been going fairly well, the weather clear for their time at the park.  They had been walking hand in hand with their ice-creams in the other, talking softly as they ate in peace.  But it was also Paris.  And just because they wanted to have a peaceful and relaxed day, didn’t mean Hawkmoth did.  

As screams broke out and people began to run away from a common area, it was becoming rather clear that there was another akuma attack in the works.  Nino could feel the panic raise as he spotted a large amount of people run in their direction, shoving past him and Alya before they could move.  He felt their hands being pulled away, people shoving between them and successfully separating them.  

“Alya!” He called, searching the crowd for any sign of his girlfriend.  Then he heard her.  

“Into the buildings!  Everyone calm down and head to the buildings!” He heard, and no doubt, it was Alya.  She had climbed onto a nearby garbage can, yelling and directing groups of people, not caring about her own safety as she stuck out from the rest.  

Before Nino could rush towards her, she jumped down and disappeared again.  Nino bit his lip and sighed, shaking his head before rushing off to find his own cover.  She was so reckless…  But she was also courageous, and selfless.  She wasn’t fearless, but she was definitely determined to help as many as she could and he had to love that about her.  

He paused when a shadow passed over him, a yell of excitement coming from it.  He looked up in time to see a fox-themed hero grin down at him, winking to him before rushing off to fight against the akuma.  He stared after her in awe, shoulders dropping before smiling.  

Alya was a lot of things.  A hero was one of them.

...

When all of the chaos was over, and everyone was slowly going back to what they had been previously doing, Nino reunited with Alya in the park.  He spotted her helping a few kids out of the tree, having climbed up there to hide from the akuma earlier.  He instantly started helping her out, all of the kids waiting until the last kid was down.

“Is everything alright?  No one got hurt right?” Alya asked, gently taking a look at each kid to make sure they weren’t hurt.  

“I got a cut on my arm.” A small boy said, whimpering slightly.  

“Does it hurt?” She asked, kneeling down and pulling her bag around, rummaging around before pulling a small bandaid out.  

“A little.” He whimpered again, and a few tears were slowly welling over.  One of his friends rushed over and started rubbing his back, frowning a bit.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t know why I’m crying.” 

“Hey…  It’s okay buddy.  You know…  Sometimes, when I get hurt, I cry because it makes me feel better.” Alya admitted, gently taking his arm.  She started cleaning up the cut, the boy flinching back and crying more.  

“It hurts a lot now.  So I’m going to cry a lot.” He commented, his body shaking a bit as he started crying louder.

“That’s okay buddy.” Alya started humming softly, pulling out a few bandaids out and showing it to him.  “For being so patient with me, I’m going to let you pick a color.  I have red, purple, pink, blue, yellow, green, and orange.” 

“Can I have a purple one?” He asked.  

“Of course!” Alya smiled warmly, a sight that made Nino’s heart stop for a moment.   She gently stuck the bandaid on, the small boy sniffled a bit and smiled back.  

“Thank you.” He mumbled.  A few more thanks echoed around him, all of the kids grinning.  

“Any time.  Now you kids run on home.  I’m sure your parents are worried about you.” She said, and all the kids nodded, quickly running off without another word.  Alya stood and sighed in relief, standing close to Nino as she watched them run off.  Nino raised a brow when the little boy stopped, quickly running back to them and motioning Alya to lean down.  When she did, he quickly pecked her cheek before running off again, Alya blinking in surprise before giggling a bit.  

“Oh he was cute.” She cooed.  

“Yeah.  Cute.” He chuckled, but he wasn’t looking at the little boy.  

The breeze that blew through Paris was nice, making Alya’s hair flow around her for a moment before settling over her shoulders again.  The more he stared, the more it felt like he was falling.  The sun that shone against her made it seem like she was glowing, but maybe it wasn’t really the sun.  Maybe it was just the smile that she wore.  It was so unique in the way that it made him feel like he was melting, but it wasn’t exactly a bad thing.  There had been times where there was a feeling of indifference in the room, but then she would walk in, and suddenly it was brighter.  It was a smile that could put your fears or your nerves at ease, a smile that could fill you with confidence, a smile that could make you feel loved.  And Nino for one, loved it, loved her.  

...

“Well, it wasn’t exactly the day I had planned, but, Happy Anniversary.” Nino said, leaning over and kissing Alya’s cheek before handing her one of the subs he had just bought.  

“Wait.  Oh god.  Nino I am so sorry!  I totally forgot today was our anniversary!” Alya whined, covering her face.  Nino snorted and rolled his eyes.  

“Relax.  It’s fine.” He said, already biting into his dinner. 

“It is not fine.  I should have remembered!  I should have saved it in my phone!” She complained, glaring at him.  

“The one you accidently left at home?” He teased, raising a brow.  

“...How are you not upset that I forgot our anniversary?” She asked, squinting her eyes in suspicious as if he was only pretending.  

“Because I know you Alya.” He said simply.  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked, sounding a bit offended.  He only laughed, swallowing his next bite before putting his food down. 

“It means, I know you.  I know that you would do anything in the world for your little sisters, I know you encourage their imagination, I know you encourage their creativity.  I know you like to have fun with them, and I know you like to help your mom out when she’s working.  I know you’d also make sure everyone around you is okay before worrying about your own safety.  I know that you’re secretly very heroic and strong.  I know you’re very caring very gentle and soft.  You’re understanding.  I also know you’re passionate, and determined and that you have goals that you can accomplish.  I know that you’re always busy, putting yourself in so many different places.  I know that you’re only human.  And I know, that even if you forget, you still love me.  I know all of this.  And I love all of it, because Alya, I love you.” Nino said, gently taking her hand and kissing it. 

‘Nino.” She whined, covering her face and whimpering in embarrassment.  He chuckled and continued eating his sandwich, watching as Alya pouted and begin eating her food.  

Alya was so many things.  

Alya was amazing.  

...

[hedgewolf-hunters]

Silence is golden

Drake: Hey you guys want to see one of my adventures from last week? Than take a seat and open those ears up cause have i got a story for you.

In the city of Etrinitat on the corner of main and etheral st a two story old-fashioned wooden establishment sits. The sign a top the doors reads, Alpha & Omega, Bar and grill. Inside was a bustling collection of mobians big and small from avians to deep diggers to the deepest underwater divers. A female dark red wolf is behind a bar counter serving older customers liquor drinks and scaring off under age kids. She has two blue stripes under her sea blue eyes and her hair like fur is done in a single massive braid. Shes wearing a sleevless leather jacket with a tank top underneath, dark blue skin tight jeans and spiked boots on her feet.

"Mom im cutting out early today." A maroon colored male wolf with hedgehog quills barely extending from his head says to the female. He has a black stripe going down the only two quills he has and the same matching blue stripes under his glowing amber eyes. The male is in a sleevless parka, black zipper boots, and gloves with a slightly raised bump on the knuckles.

"Yeah and do what my son?" She asks. Turning to him after serving another customer. The boy places down a crystal double tapping it so a hologram of a bounty appears. Its of a raccon with a list of crimes.

"Drake this guy is an sociopath with a hard on for killing hunters and civilians. Not to mention he probably has a following with him." The woman says.

"Mom i know this. Its the reason i took the job in the first place. You know physical attacks either don't connect or do any real damage, not to mention I'm probably one of only two other people in this building who can actually get close to him." Drake says.

"Sky let the boy go. He needs to learn to take care of himself anyway, and he cant do that if you hold him back from jobs or doing them alone." A purple hedgehog says from the door leading to the kitchen. Her eyes are normal amber compared to the boys, her quills done in a ponytail are greying slightly at the tips as they stop just past halfway down the door. She has a single white stripe on top of her head down her middle quill and a black stripe down each of her outer quills. Shes dressed in sports top and short, and hightop shoes with a chef outfit over it all.

"Thank you Aunt Aura. See mom even Auntie thinks i should give at least one solo job a shot. Look if it doesnt turn out to well than i will not ask again to take a solo. But if it does than can you please just let me do my own every now and then?" Drake asks his over protective mother. Sky bites her lip wanting to say no but knowing they both have a point.

"Fine. But if you get into any trouble trigger the flare and your brother will be there to back you up." Sky says locking a braclet around her second sons wrist.

"Will do ma. Alright ill be back in a couple days. He's in the grassland plains. How he hasnt been caught already, besides his psychotic nature, ill be finding out soon enough." Drake says picking up the crystal and running out the door. He kicks into high gear once outside the bar and runs across the city in a minute flat to the west wall gate.

By nightfall Drake has finally escaped the great forest that surrounds his home and the city. He groans stretching.

"Damn i really wish i had dads super speed, but no, it went to Scarlet and Inferna only. Me and Bane gotta push just to keep up and i have to push harder since Bane can clear the forest in minutes thanks to his wings." Drake grumbles to himself as he stretches his sore legs. A orb flies out from his jacket.

"Oh stop complaining. Your compensation for these little differences is me and our shared abilities. After all none of them can use the Astral plane, like i told you to use, to travel nearly instantly." A feminine voice says from the orb.

"I got excited and forgot ok. No need to chew my head off Aster. Besides wheres the adventure in instant travel? If we had we wouldn't had to chase away those pups from the cargo transport and kept supplies running to the city." Drake says to the orb. The feminine voice huffs and returns to his jacket.

"Fine but when this job is done we go home my way. Last thing we need is for you to lose your prey fending off adolescent feral wolves again." Aster says before going silent again. Drake chuckles as he starts running again headed to the city of the plains Primous.

Day break arrives and Drake yawns from his room inside a old fashioned inn. He arrived around midnight in the city and could only find this building to rest in. He stretches getting a few pops in his back from sleeping on the lumpy mattress. He grunts as he gets up off the bed and walks to the sink in the room. He spashes ice cold water in his face and reaches into one of his inner jacket pockets. Seemingly deeper than it looks he pulls out some morning hygiene tools.

Half an hour later Drake heads down to the main floor and walks out waving bye to the shop keep. The town is now bustling with buisness, cars driving by pedestrians walking around and kids heading to schools nearby. Drake smiles as he jumps up onto the roof and takes in a birds eye view of the city. Whistling as the crowded busy streets clog up in the mornng traffic. A few sky scrapers litter the city and a few cathedrals, his targets usual dumping sites. Smirking Drake jumps from the building and lands on the sidewalk, he heads into the deeper parts of town blending in as much as he can.

Three hours later Drake is stopped at the last cathedral in the city.

"The place where it all started. A city inspector came to check on the building and found several dead bodies placed in various forms of worship. The cops caught video footage of the raccoon in question shortly after the bodies were found in other cathedrals. Mobians have been scared of this place ever since and the neighborhood has been evacuated do to that fear." Aster says while Drake stands by the doors.

"And some mobians have come to worship him as a new messiah with the messages he's left with the last seven victims. I wonder why is it than that they cant trace his signal during the 'Prayer' as its been labeled. Someones gotta have a clue to where this loon is." Drake mumbles as he stares at the gothic doorway of the church. He scratches his head as he turns around and bumps into a young female raccoon.

"My bad little lady didnt see you there." Drake says taking a knee to help her up. She shakes her head with a small smile as she takes his hand of help. Drake smells the blood and goes wide eyed for a second before passing out from a needle in his neck. Aster stays silent as Drake passes out.

"See momma I caught the bad man after daddy." The raccoon girl says pulling the needle out and waving at a bush. The female fox that ran the inn Drake slept at walks out.

"Good girl. Now lets get him inside before anyone sees." The fox says grabbing Drake by his feet.

An hour later Drake groans awake strapped to a table with a light glaring down at him. He thinks back to what happened before he fell out. The flash back coming back he sighs and grinds his teeth a little.

"Seems someone is noticing his mistake." Aster says. Drake glares at his jacket quickly and than lays back.

"Cant blame you for that one, i deserved it. Guess the bait was too good for him to pass up." Drake mutters under his breath to Aster. She snorts in reply and Drake feels something hovering over his hands.

"Not yet, let the bait settle a little more. But if you feel like im in trouble...feel free to get dirty." Drake says the sensation leaves his wrist as Aster sighs. Drake whistles a tune from his childhood as he waits for the next half an hour till his target appears. A four foot tall raccon with well built frame wearing a priests robe.

"Hello my little sheep. Glad to see your comfy in your protective bindings." The raccoon says.

"Well you left me on this slab with nothing to get comfy with so i made do." Drake replies.

"Heh you are quite the talkative type arent you little sheep." He says.

"No shit Sherlock, I've been stuck up here for half an hour with nothing to do but whistle an old lullaby." Drake says

"Hmm, do you know why you are here little-"

"Call me little sheep one more time and I'm gonna tear a hole through your windpipe." Drake interrupts the raccoon getting tired of that comendering tone that follows the words.

"Fine than hunter, i assume you are here for my head but it seems you're about to lose yours." The raccoon says dropping the fatherly tone to his true thug accent. He walks towards a table with a bloody cloth over it and powerlines leading out from underneath it.

"You assume I'll lose my head here, but let me ask you, do you know why i didn't tear your daughter in half before the needle touched my skin? Or why I didn't drag your wife out of the bushes when they hid behind me?" Drake asks making the raccoon stop in his tracks. Aster uses the moment to slice the straps lightly, enough that they can be broken with even the slightest move. The raccoon turns around glaring at Drake.

"Dude you think I didnt notice the table setting in the back of the inn? Or that i was being followed from cathedral to cathedral? Not to mention your ladies eyes when she heard me say i was a hunter." Drake says. The raccoon looks confused.

"Than why did you allow yourself to be captured?" He asks walking over to Drake puzzled now.

"Honestly i didnt know you would send your own flesh and blood to capture me, that threw me for a loop for a second. But its just how I hunt by myself. I dont go looking for prey i let them come to me." Drake finishes with a grin freeing his hand and grabbing the raccoon by his robe and tossing him over the table with the power tools. Drake quickly curls into a spin dash to free himself and stands up on the floor. Two gunshots in his direction make him turn towards the firing squad of the wife and child. Rubbing the bridge of his nose Drake summons Aster in physical form. A scythe blade with a gap where its connected to the curved staff, a smaller blade growing out the opposite side. Gold trimm visibly and bulbously formimg a drip down pattern down the staff till it reaches the bottom where the gold turns into a spear point.

Drake spins the scythe around in his hand as he walks towards the two females. Bullets bounce off the scythe like rubber as Drake gets closer to them. Once the ammunition is out Drake stops spinning the scythe and grabs a point on the foxes collar bone that sends her to sleep. He back steps the small Raccoon and slams the wood down across her back before striking her several times with his fingers in specific locations to immobolize her and put her to sleep as well.

"Now that the peanut gallery is take care of, where were we?" Drake asks gibing Aster one final spin before resting her against his shoulder. The male Raccoon has stumbled back on the floor.

"You are some sort of Demon, you must be!" He exclaims. Drake snorts as he grips Aster with both hands.

"Hear that Aster, he thinks we're demons." Drake says. A shimmer from the balde makes the Raccoon back up more.

"Ah if only he could hear me, id havea few choice words for him to show him how demon like we are." Aster says to Drake. Drake grins watching as the man scrambles for a knife. He stops a few feet away from the raccoon whos now on his feet with a serrated blood covered machete. Drake leans one foot forward and one foot back, lowering Aster to hover above the floor he holds her with both hands at the ready to swing. The raccoon charges at Drake like a scared child wildy swinging the machete. Drake waits till hes within two feet of them and swings Aster in an upward arc going right through him, than coming back down in the opposite direction. He side steps as the raccoon passes him still swinging scared. Drake finishes by slicing aster through his neck. All three attacks leave no mark on the raccoon whos confused as he felt the blade go through him all three times.

"Im gonna give you two options now psycho. Come quietly and live out your days in a jail cell nice and comfy. Or." Drake says snapping his fingers. The cuts slowly form where the blade touched, not deep like they should be but enough that they are drawing faint amounts of blood.

"I let your cuts form fully to the point of no return." Drake says making a slicing motion with his thumb across his throat. The raccoon gasps in pain feeling the sensation of the two across his body getting deeper agonizingly slowly.

"Please, just stop the pain! Take me in but stop this torture." He begs. Drake raises a brow and steps over to the writhing raccoon.

"You think this is pain? You think i should show you mercy that you never showed to twenty others? No this isnt pain and suffering, this isnt torture yet little sheep." Drake says makimg the raccoon look up at him for a moment. In that moment drake showed him something few others see unless he wants them too.

"Remember you know nothing of suffering, pain, or torture. I'll take you in but you nore your family will remember the other. Of that i will make sure of." Drake says lifting Aster and slamming the spear point down onto his targets head.

Drake: No i didnt kill the guy. Aster can sever bonds and memories with her spear point. I simply took all threes memories of being together from the point of the killings. The wife thought he had left her and the child and thats the way it will stay while the shit rots his life away in prison now. And quick note from the mun that no more stories this week. He'll have more ready next week but this week he will be focusingnon his other project. If you want to Rp with us we can do that or answer questions. But no stories for the next six days.

[dumbgopher1]

Dancing on Ice part 1

Loki/ OFC, Avengers Assemble-esk, (I refuse to acknowledge the pain of infinity wars)

The Avengers were not happy, Thor had brought Loki back to Earth to serve out a term of service. Apparently Odin had thought that Loki would learn his lesson if he was banished to the same planet he had tried to take over, with most of his power gone. Like with Thor’s banishment he would get his powers back when he was worthy of them.

Great parenting right?!

Anyway, The avengers weren’t happy, Loki wasn’t happy, the only person pleased with the situation was Thor who was happy to both have his brother back and to spend more time on Earth. For the most part Loki just slunk around the Avengers mansion keeping out of people’s way— unless to torment them — or reading.

One day as he was trying to find a quiet place to read he happened upon a large empty hanger. When He stepped into the hanger, instantly his feet slipped out from under him. He placed his hand on the slick surface of the floor, it promptly turned blue showing his true skin. He jerked his hand away and gazed around the hanger. Seeing a figure moving quickly and smoothly around at the far end he got up, slowly gaining his balance on the slick ice that covered the floor in a thick sheet.

The figure began moving towards him, spinning making large lazy loops or fast movements. It was a woman he could tell wearing jeans, a sweater and tall boots, she was pretty her short brown hair pulled up into a tiny ponytail with bangs hanging over her face. She seemed to have— what were they called— headphones in. She hadn’t yet noticed him but when she did her gliding movements faltered for a split second before she came to a flourished stop in front of him showering him with tiny ice fragments. Loki noticed then her skin was abnormally pale almost with a blue undertone as if she was early stages of frostbite.

She took out her phone tapping the screen before pulling her headphones out, “do you need the hanger for something? Cuz I can clean up and leave if you want”

Loki liked the sound of her voice, it sounded like hot spiced cider and whiskey.

“Who are you I haven’t seen you before?”

She stuck out her hand—Loki noticed it was gloved— “I’m Ember Foxe I’m live and work here”.

“Ah one of Stark’s pets” Loki said starting to loose interest and ignoring her hand which she dropped.

“I am nobody’s pet! Who are you anyway?”

“You don’t know who I am?”

“I’ve been a bit cut off from the world” she answered cryptically

“I am Loki”

“Like the Norse god.”

“Yes”

“Awesome, now if you are not going to kick me out of the hanger I’m gunna go back to skating” when she said that Loki looked down at her feet noticing the fine blades on her boots.

“Skating?” When he asked that she laughed

“You’ve never skated before I thought you said you were from Scandinavia”

“No”

she smirked, “Would you like to learn?”

“Sure” he was very curious at this point

“Ok I'm guessing you don’t have skates” she looked up at him for conformation and he shook his head, “ok just don’t be alarmed”

She took off her gloves and got down on one knee in front of him, reaching out her hands she touched his boots. “This is one of the first things I learned how to do, I hope you don’t mind a little cold” thin sheets of ice covered his boots and moved down ending in thin blades similar into hers. He suddenly felt very unstable, as she stood.

“Now I’m going to smooth the ice it will be easier for you if it’s clean, stay there”.

She skated backwards for a few feet before bending and touching the ice with her fingertips and the lines from her passing disappeared. She replaced her gloves and skated back towards him.

“Ok give me your hands”

“What” Loki was a little incredulous

“Give me your hands I’m going to teach you the basic principle. It is easier the first time if someone helps you”

“Right” he growled, she gently pulled his book from his hand and slide it towards the door seeing his gauze follow it she reassured him “don’t worry the ice is dry and won’t melt until I want it to your book will be fine” she took his hands.

“Ok now step forward onto your right foot and push off with your left one” he did and they glided a few feet she skated backwards in front of him. “Good now keep doing that but alternate feet” they made one round of the hanger.

“Do you think your getting it?” She asked as he began to feel more confident

“Yes” Loki replied

“Good I’m going to let go now”

“Alright” he was feeling very confident, right up to the moment that she let go and skated away, He wobbled.

“Now remember, movement helps with the balance if you stop you have to shift your weight to start again”

She began skating circles around him as he wobbled offering tidbits of advice. Once he nearly fell backwards but felt a finger between his shoulder blades just enough pressure to keep him upright until he gained his balance. Soon he could skate around confidently, nothing fancy like what she did but pretty good.

“You’re doing really well” she offered

“You are a good teacher” he said losing his armor of snark in the fun of the activity

“Well I wouldn’t say that the last person I taught fell a lot and took me down with her a couple times cracked one of my ribs” she laughed

“How inconsiderate of her”

“Nah it was fine, she just wasn’t as graceful as you”

“Thank you”

Just then a voice called out across the hanger, “Ember get over here”,

It was Mr. Stark,

“Coming Mr. Stark” She turned and skated to the door where Tony stood, arms crossed glowering. Loki slowed to a stop then the ice disappeared and she trotted to Tony, he grabbed her and started scolding her, as he pulled her out of the hanger, but not before casting a glare over his shoulder at Loki. Loki got his book and went to sulk because the one person who had treated him kindly in the mansion would no longer after Stark talked to her.

-x-x-x-

Tony pulled Ember along,

“You need to stay away from him”

“But he’s kind to me, didn’t judge me at all”, her eyes were big. “Can you stop pulling my arm”

He didn’t let go nor did he stop pulling, “I don’t are how he treated you Ember, he is a villain and if you want to keep your place here and my protection you’ll stay away from him.”

She looked down, “yes Mr. Stark”

“And what have I told you about using your powers so frivolously”

“I’m sorry Mr. Stark I just missed skating”

“Boo fricken ho! Kid keep your power to yourself and keep your head down. Now I need you to clean the lab.” He stopped at the door to his lab and opened the door to her. Once she entered he closed the door and left.

-x-x-x-

As Ember cleaned the lab all alone, she began to wonder about Loki and what Tony had said. She had been isolated along time, didn’t know what Loki had done to earn Tony’s anger but he didn’t seem like such a bad guy. But while Ember wanted to judge Loki by he actions word her instead of what others said, she couldn’t loose this place to stay, if she did she would be on the streets again, on the run from Hydra. The irony of Loki calling her Tony’s pet hit her as she wasn’t plowed to do anything without Tony’s permission nor was she allowed to leave the mansion. Totally dependent on Tony’s beck and call and not allowed to interact with anyone. She decided she would stand up for herself, in a situation he couldn’t dismiss her.. Once she had finished cleaning. She went to her room, and crawled into the space under her bed. The tightness of the space, and the darkness comforted her, being hidden and the fact that no one could sneak up behind her eventually lulling her to sleep.

With sleep came dreams, not the dreams a young woman should have of expensive presents, attractive suitors and success in a chosen field, or even the strange Alice and wonderland-esk dreams that those with strong imaginations enjoy. No, these were nightmares of painful memory.

-x-x-x- dream (7 years prior)

“Look at the creep, god what a loner”

“I heard her parents were so disappointed with her they killed themselves”

“That’s just cruel Ales”

“Yeah not cool Ales”

“What, you guys are just as mean”

“But joking about her parents is just wrong”

“Whatever”

Ember heard the girls on the other side of the hall talking about her, she couldn’t wait to be done with high school and it’s pathetic drama, the hierarchy which would disintegrate after graduation in two weeks. Yeah maybe she was different, wore black almost exclusively, and didn’t have any friends at school, but that didn’t mean she was a freak. She just worked at the ice rink her grandpa owned and knew there were bigger things in the world than high school. Ember also knew how her parents really died. They had been in the military, mom in the air force, dad in the marines and both died in combat. She was proud her parents fought. Her grandpa had made sure she knew why and what they were fighting for.

Dream shift to the next December

It was cold and snowy, just slushy enough that the roads were wet and slick but the rivers and ponds not frozen over. Ember was running with her head phones in, just when she got to a bridge, a car spun out of control the back end spinning around and hitting her sending her flying over the side of the bridge into the water below. The water was cold and dark stealing’s her warmth. She could barely see the grey light of the day between the chunks of ice on the surface of the water. Desperately she tried to reach it but the current quickened by the melted snow of the day pulled her under into the darkness.

That night the river froze and Ember’s body with it, but she did not die. The cold awakened a latent mutant gene in her DNA, causing her to change. When she broke through the ice the next morning, she was miles from Home, down river. Her phone was long since dead and water logged and it seamed as if there was no warmth left in the world for her as she trudged up river in the direction of her home. It took her four hours of walking and constant shivering to make it to a town. Her long hair had frozen stiff and her skin had lost all color. When she got to the ER, the nurses jumped to help her when she said she had fallen in the river and one was kind enough to let her use a phone to call her grandpa.

He didn’t answer the first call nor the second, nor the third. On the fourth call, a man picked up the phone, “hello”

“Grandpa! I need you to come get me I’m in (sometown) at the ER”

“Who is this?”

“Wait who is this why do you have grandpa’s phone”

Chuckles “so you’re old Davie’s Grandkid huh, knew he’d gone soft.look kid your grandpappy isn’t worth shit and just got what was coming to him. If you know what’s good for you you won’t come home. Just run, run, run, because revenge extends to Davie’s family as well. And I’d hate to rough up a cute kid like you.”

The line went dead. And a line of ice crept up the IV line until it was completely frozen.

-x-x-x- end dreams

Part 2 coming soon

[ravenvsfox]

hey if you're still doing prompts, the time(s) someone outside of the team (or inside) mistakes aaron for andrew or the other way around?? thanks!! i love your writing!!

There should be some sort of rule, Aaron thinks, that identical twins have to avoid celebrity. 

It was disarming enough to be a teenager the first time he saw his own face with nothing inside of it, like an indifferent stone likeness. Then Andrew went and got himself famous, made himself important to everyone (including Aaron). He stares out from magazine spreads with his middle finger up when Aaron goes through the checkout counter, and he follows him closely with his reputation.

He’s had patients bow out of the exam room when they heard their intern was ‘A. Minyard’. He’s had anger and relief flip toggles in his chest when he caved and bought a magazine, finding Andrew and Neil piled in Exy gear to promote a product. They looked uncommitted and severe except when they were jostled together and shot from the side, candid, staring. 

It almost makes him miss the moments with the foxes when everything was as simple as watching Andrew’s face for the changes and catching the wave to the next game.

But it’s better to have the kind of work that he knows he does best, stockpiled for the rest of medical school and the rest of his life after that. It feels good to stretch on rubber gloves and distance himself from the worst sort of rot in the world. 

It feels good for his feet to throb and his head to twist itself into knots, and to come home to Katelyn, who always tries to wait up for him and never can. She passes out with her legs over the armrest of their secondhand couch and her hair fanned over the cushions. He kisses her awake more often than not.

He goes for runs, sometimes, like he never did in college. It’s when his own reflection makes his neck prickle and he thinks, god, he’s here. He’s never not here. If you’re a twin you’re a member of a club, and you’re constantly in uniform.

He gets stopped on the street and asked for his autograph, and he feels comforted to know that his “piss off” is gentler than whatever Andrew would have said. 

He sees his own face hoisted at pride, watches Andrew become half of a relationship that handcuffs exy to entire social movements, and it coaxes old fear into his blood. It takes some wrangling and undoing of rusted closed spigots before he realizes that he’s impressed, too. 

He hates Neil out of habit. He watches the sun make new colours with Katelyn’s hair at 5 am. He puts his alarm on snooze just so he can lie there with her. He likes that his life is a can on a string, and somewhere, tossed out into another state, in a high-rise with blackout curtains and an orange cat, Andrew has the other can.

Aaron, Katelyn, Nicky and Erik all converge on Neil and Andrew after they win their way to the end of the season. It’s an overdue visit, Nicky says. We just need Neil to get us in the door, and we know Andrew will do whatever he wants.

Aaron’s conflicted enough about it that he calls Nicky from inside the city to lie about their flight being delayed. He paces circles around their motel room until Katelyn throws a pillow at him and he finally droops into sleep beside her.

It’s the longest he’s gone without seeing Andrew since he knew he existed. He didn’t think he would feel so relentlessly unfinished without him, but he doesn’t want to be finished the wrong way either. He’s terrified of it. He thinks about the keyed-up tension of a reunion where all the old hurt of Andrew-Aaron-Nicky and all the healing of Neil-Katelyn-Erik meet and clobber each other to death.

He gets up in the middle of the night before they’re all supposed to have brunch, and he wanders out into the crisp dark morning that’s trying to be born.

It’s quiet, with the city rolling over in its sleep and the streetlights humming for his attention. He doesn’t know where he’s going. Anywhere but the motel room where his thoughts are the towels cushioning breakable china, and he’s smothered in them. He’d rather risk breaking than be choked like that.

Aaron finds the comforting neon glow of a laundromat attached to a 24 hour convenience store, and he feels for the change in his pocket. Katelyn likes those Werther’s hard candies, and she always jokes that Aaron had better hurry up, because she’s already ready to be a grandmother.

He jingles the door open and finds an empty counter and a tiled white floor that’s clean in the middle but grimy in outlines at the shelves’ edges. There’s music spilling out of the back room, something with strings and crooning vocals. There’s a wedged open door to his right with rows of off-white washing machines just beyond it.

He steps in amongst the shelves like he’s trying to camouflage himself in the brush. He likes the feeling of being completely alone with a simple choice to be made. So much of his life is noise and crowds and decisions between bad and worse. 

He scoops up a bag of candy that looks a bit curled and dusty, and he finds a bottle of painkillers in the next set of shelves. Andrew’s giving him a stomach ache. The closing distance between them hurts to think about.

He drops both of his products on the glass-sheathed front counter, its hundred lurid lottery tickets glittering beneath the surface. He nods at the woman that comes bustling out of the back, wiping her hands on the back of her skirt. Her face lights up at the sight of him, and she puts both hands on the counter, leaning forward familiarly.

“Already?”

He strains for a second, squinting, waiting for murky waters to settle. She chuckles when he stays silent, and waves a hand.

“Alright, alright. You’re in luck,” she says. She abandons her post, and veers around him to the chest freezer tucked between the counter and the door to the laundromat. She produces a quart of ice-cream and presses it into his hands. He jumps a little, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m just here for these,” he says firmly, dropping the ice-cream on the piece of counter farthest away from his purchases. She tuts at him. It’s all very surreal, like he’s trying to participate in a piece of very boring, very abstract improv.

“Nonsense.” She reaches under the counter and pops a package of cigarettes with the rest of his growing pile. “No partner today? He giving you a headache?” She gestures at the tylenol on the counter, smiling slyly.

Aaron’s head starts to find purchase and screw on the right way. “Partner,” he repeats.

The woman hums and punches in numbers on the till. “He’s probably out running already, is he?”

“Neil,” Aaron guesses, and the woman looks up at him, confused. Her eyes slide over him properly, surprisingly calculating where they’re set in amongst crows feet and wisps of mousy hair.

“Andrew,” she says calmly. “Is something wrong?”

Aaron sighs. “Aaron,” he corrects. “Andrew’s brother.”

“No,” she says, marvelling. Her hand goes to her chest. “Twins?” He nods. “That’s incredible. Do you know you act just like him?”

“You don’t know me,” he says stiffly. The idea of passing for Andrew even after he’s spoken to a person is completely disconcerting.

“I know your brother,” she says, near laughing, utterly un-offended. She’d have to be, if she knows Andrew. “He might want you to think that no one does, but you learn about people when they buy things from you twice a week. That boyfriend of his is a sweet talker.”

“Maybe we’re not talking about the same people,” Aaron says, frowning.

“You got many other identical siblings?”

He doesn’t answer, a little shellshocked at the thought of it, and she laughs.

“I guess you’re good on chocolate candyland then,” she says, handling the sweating ice-cream container onto the counter opposite.

“Unlike my brother, I want to keep my teeth,” Aaron says tersely, prodding at the cigarettes as he speaks until she takes those away too.

“He knows what he likes,” she says fondly, and Aaron can feel his own expression jerking around, trying to match his feelings. It’s not often that he gets mistaken for Andrew and feels uncomfortably like the worse option. It’s the same way he felt around Neil for most of their time at Palmetto: all the more disappointing for looking so much like something he actually cared about.

She rings up his original two items and stuffs them in a bag with a receipt before he can ask. “Will I be seeing more of you, mysterious twin?”

“Uh, no. Probably not. I don’t get many breaks.”

“From?”

“Med school,” he mutters, fidgeting uncomfortably when she smiles widely at him.

“So you’re the brains and Andrew’s the beauty, then?”

Aaron makes a disbelieving noise before he can tamp it down. “Definitely not.”

The woman hands him his bag, still smiling. “Say hello to your brother and his boy for me? Tell him I’m holding his favourite for him.” She taps the lid of the ice-cream.

Aaron nods stiffly. He can’t really picture Andrew frequenting this place to buy sweets from a bubbly shopkeeper, but he couldn’t have pictured him giving Dobson extravagant ornaments for christmas until he saw it happen.

He turns, plastic bag swinging from his fingers, and he feels her eyes on his back when he breaks out into the milky blue morning.

It feels a bit like waking up, walking outside. There’s some sort of twilight zone behind him, and something bright and sobering about the way the sky is more cream than coffee. 

He thinks about Neil and Andrew having an entire life where they go running and buy trashy desserts and befriend middle-aged business owners and smoke together. It doesn’t make him angry anymore, that Andrew chose Neil. You never really choose the way a person means everything to you, you just live with it.

He’s relieved to find Katelyn awake when he gets back, curled around his side of the bed, arm outstretched to the door as soon as he’s inside of it. He trips over his shoes getting out of them and slips under the covers, rolling her on top of him all at once so she laughs, delighted.

“I had the weirdest dream,” she says, yawning into his neck.

“Yeah?” Aaron says. “Me too.”

[the-whump-files]

fic: “in the wee, small hours”

TITLE: “in the wee, small hours” FANDOM: X-Files CHARACTERS: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder AUTHORS: the-whump-files {my girlfriend beta’d, but since she’s not part of this community {{she just loves me a lot}} her identity is staying anonymous} RATING: Teen {some very mild sexual innuendo and language} TAGS: whump, hurt/comfort, sneezefic, x files, msr AUTHORS’ NOTES: look, there is not NEARLY enough Scully-centric whump fic out there, and I consider it my life’s mission to change that sad fact. SUMMARY: In which Scully is sick during a stakeout and Mulder is teasing and there's lots of bantering because what else do you do on stakeouts, right? {Also lots of comforting and snuggles, because of course there are.} SPOILERS: None! A few references to the show, but nothing major. FEEDBACK: Always gratefully accepted and appreciated!

“Goddammit,” she hisses.

She should’ve thought this through.

She’s just barely, finally gotten the glove compartment to shut--and stay shut--when Mulder opens the driver's side door. A blast of frigid air follows him in, and she shivers as it dissipates around her already well-chilled form. More cold air shoots out of the vents as Mulder turns the key in the ignition; in typical federal government fashion, their FBI-leased rental is a shitty mid-80s Taurus with a moody heating system. Mulder seems content, though, even pleased: smiling and very slightly vibrating the way he always is when they’re en route to their latest X-File. Scully often finds it charming (she’d never in a million years tell him that) but tonight it strikes her primarily as smug and annoying, and she huffs impatiently from the passenger seat. His eyebrows raise and he casts her an irritatingly cheery sideways glance, which only annoys Scully further.

“What are you so smiley about?” It has been silent but for the pathetic chugging of the engine for the first few minutes of their drive, and when she hears her words hit the air they have more of an edge than she’d intended.

He doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead he hums along to the CD (Tom Waits--he does have good taste; she’s regularly grateful that their musical interests are so closely aligned) for a few minutes, pretending not to hear her, and at first she thinks he really hasn’t. As the song finishes, he answers: “Nothing like a good stakeout to keep life interesting.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “I can think of fifty other things I’d rather be doing tonight,” she says.

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Watching Law and Order. Sleeping. Cleaning my oven. Shoving bamboo shoots under my nails. Committing hara-kiri. Literally anything else.”

He turns to her, and he still seems amused, but there’s confusion mixed in there now, too; this isn’t quite her thing in the way that it’s his, but she’s not usually quite this violently opposed to it, either.

“Someone’s in a mood tonight,” he comments softly.

Scully sighs. “Sorry,” she says. “Just tired, I guess.” She shivers again, then sticks her hands out towards the vents--cold air is still rushing out of them, even though the engine should be more than warmed up by now. “Mulder, do you have the heat turned on?”

He glances at the dials, then frowns. “Yeah,” he says. “I do. Weird.” He fidgets with them a little, but nothing changes. He shrugs, and turns them off completely. “I guess it’s broken.”

Scully shuts her eyes and resists the urge to groan. Of course it’s broken. She wraps her arms tighter around her chest and pulls her legs in closer to her body. She considers delving into her hastily packed glove box of rations, but decides against it for reasons of personal dignity. “How long until we get there?” she asks.

“Fifteen minutes,” Mulder answers. “Maybe twenty.”

Scully leans her head against the window. “Great,” she mumbles. “Just great.”

Mulder stops suddenly at a newly red traffic light, and the glove box pops comically open; it bangs against Scully’s knees and she hisses in pain. “Don’t tell me that’s broken, too,” Mulder says, but frowns when he realizes it opened because it was full to bursting. “Did someone leave all their stuff in here?”

“No,” Scully says, grunting slightly as she unsuccessfully tries to shut it again but it just won’t fucking CLICK. “It’s mine.”

“Blankets?” Mulder asks, grinning and waggling his eyebrows. “You brought blankets? Scully, did you have something in mind?”

“Oh, my God.”

“Because though we don’t have a hotel room at the moment, that can easily be arranged.”

“Mulder.”

“And is that a flask?” he exclaims, utterly delighted. “Agent Doctor Dana Straightlaced Scully, I’m shocked. Did you bring enough to share with the class?”

“It’s hot chocolate,” she says grumpily.

“My question still stands.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to share this with me.”

Mulder scoffs. “Yeah, I think I’ll make that decision for myself.”

Scully exhales with practiced patience. “Let me rephrase,” she says. “You can’t share this with me.”

“I don’t see why I can’t--tissues? Why do you have three whole boxes of--? Oh,” Scully can almost see the light bulb appear and flash on over Mulder’s head. “Oh.”

“Shut up, Mulder,” Scully says with a tired little sniffle.

“I didn’t say anything,” Mulder says, and if he weren’t driving, Scully knows both hands would be up in the air in mock surrender.

“Yeah,” she grumbles, “but I heard you thinking it.”

Mulder just laughs.

* * *

It’s sleeting and all of 38 degrees outside, and they’ve been sitting in an empty parking lot for close to an hour now. Mulder can feel the rash of tiredness and boredom beginning to scratch at the backs of his eyes; Scully is faring far worse. She hasn’t stopped shivering since they left, and she occasionally sniffles into the cuff of her blazer. Mulder can’t quite tell if it’s from the cold outside or from the cold she likely has; Scully hasn’t said anything, but he suspects it’s a mix of the two. Though, of course, as she has been known to remind him, he isn’t a medical doctor.

Another shiver wracks through Scully, and finally Mulder asks, “You cold over there?”

“No,” Scully says firmly, holding very still as she tries to control her chills. Blue-lipped and pale, she looks like a child who leapt fully clothed into the creek and is being forced to serve her due time-out in a belligerent, adorable caricature of misery.

“You know,” Mulder says, “I seem to recall there being some blankets in that glove box. Just throwing that out there.”

“How very observant of you, Mulder.”

“Blankets are very warm.”

The corners of Scully’s mouth twitch, but she doesn’t smile. “Right again, Sherlock.”

Slowly, very slowly, Mulder opens the glove box and retrieves a purple and especially cozy fleece blanket. Unfolding it halfway--it’s made for a queen bed, but Dana Scully isn’t quite a queen-bed-sized human--he drapes it over Scully’s legs and lap and pats it gently a few times, like it’s a sleepy kitten. The shivering she’d been trying so valiantly to suppress begins to slow almost immediately. “Well,” Mulder says, “would you look at that.”

Scully pointedly ignores him and instead plays absently with the delicate gold crucifix hanging around her neck (it’s one of her tells; Scully is a remarkably cool-headed human being, but even she has them). If Mulder had a betting partner, he’d place money that it’ll take Scully at least ten minutes to make any more use of the blanket, assuming she even chooses to do so at all. Mulder checks the clock: 11:06. He decides to give it until 11:17.

They sit in a silence that’s become comfortable after so many stakeouts in their years together, and 11:17 comes and goes. Scully hasn’t even glanced at the blanket, and Mulder is long past the point of knowing whether or not her stubbornness is endearing or frustrating as hell or some baffling combination of both; all he knows is that Scully isn’t going to fully use it willingly and that he can’t stand to see her shiver one more time. He takes the blanket and unfolds it completely, then drapes it over Scully’s shoulders; she moves almost imperceptibly to allow him to wrap her more closely into it. Once she’s been properly tucked in, Mulder rubs her arms vigorously a few times. He grips each of her small hands in his larger ones; they’re like ice, and he wishes they had a pair of gloves. This will have to do. Not that I mind...

Scully doesn’t look pleased, but she doesn’t shrug the blanket off, either. Mulder considers that progress.

* * *

“Strip poker.”

“No.”

“Come on, Scully.”

“Mulder,” Scully says, “it is freezing outside-”

“Six degrees above freezing, actually,” Mulder points out.

Scully makes a growly sound through her teeth. “It’s six degrees above freezing outside,” she amends. “I’m not stripping out of anything.” She’d wordlessly added a second blanket to her purple fleece one around 12:15, and to underscore her point she pulls both of them more snugly around her. Only her face is visible, really: the pinkened tip of her nose, her freckled cheeks that are flushed in the way they always get when she’s sick. Mulder bites back a smirk.

“That’s it?” he says. “That’s the only reason we can’t play strip poker? Because it’s too cold outside?” He leans back in his seat. “Man,” he continues. “I’m gonna remind you that you said that when we’re on a stakeout in August.”

Scully makes a small sound in the back of her throat that could be from illness, or expressing irritation, or both. Likely both. “Never Have I Ever?” Mulder suggests, but Scully shakes her head.

“I’m not playing a game that involves making personal confessions,” she says.

“Do you really think there are any deep dark things I don’t already know about you, Scully?”

Scully raises her chin a few notches. “I,” she says, her small voice going theatrically deep and haughty, “am a woman of mystery.” Mulder laughs out loud. She smiles a bit--the first time that night--pleased with herself and with her partner’s reaction.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Twenty Questions?” It’s a pretty harmless game, he figures, one not even Scully can find fault with.

He’s right.

“Fine,” she acquiesces with a yawn that turns into a sneeze. “Hehhh-mptchh! Twenty Questions is fine. Do you want to go first, or shall I?”

“You think of something,” Mulder instructs. “I’ll guess.”

Scully pauses for a moment, and Mulder knows she’s running through various options in her head; she’s wearing her thinking expression, her pensive expression--her mouth set primly and her eyes staring blank--which is just something anyone would come to recognize after working this closely with a person for so long, Mulder tells himself.

“Okay,” Scully says. “Go.”

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Well,” Scully says, smiling slightly, “technically it’s none of those.”

Mulder stares at her. “You can’t make anything easy, can you?”

“Never.” There’s a little glimmer of impishness in her light eyes when she says it, and it’s equal parts relieving and--okay, fine--and adorable.

He gets eight questions in and he knows for a fact that it’s a TV show, and by question nine he’s pretty sure it’s The West Wing (he is a trained profiler and Scully is sometimes hilariously transparent; it’s her favorite show as of late), and he’s about to ask question ten when he gets an idea. “Does this thing,” he says slowly, as if he’s deliberating it, “have… a stuffy nose?”

Scully makes her patented what-in-God’s-name-are-you-talking-about-Mulder face and says, “Mulder, we’ve established that it’s a television show.”

“Does it have a stuffy nose?” he repeats obstinately.

“Mulder,” Scully says (her consonants are warped and dull, the m in Mulder especially, and while it may not have a stuffy nose, Mulder notes, she absolutely does), “the thing in question isn’t me. And even if it were, the answer would still be no.”

Undeterred, he regroups. "Does this show have an ensemble cast?"

Scully looks at him suspiciously, unsure of why he's suddenly willing to play along again, but simply says: "yes."

"Is this show airing on TV now?" He fires off the next question without pausing, and Scully blinks sleepily as she tries to adjust her groggy mind to his fast pace.

"Yes."

"Does it have a sore throat?"

Yes, so sore, she thinks. She swallows hard and tries not to visibly wince. "TV show, Mulder."

"Is it a drama?"

"Yes."

"Do I like it?"

"Not really, but you watch it with me because I do."

"Is it feverish?" She doesn't even bother gracing that one with a response.

Mulder gets to question seventeen and decides that he’s done being subtle: “Does this thing feel awful?”

“Possibly,” Scully sighs, surprising him. “Slightly.”

“Was that an affirmative answer?” Mulder asks. “It’s supposed to be yes or no, Scully, but I can make an exception.”

Scully blinks, caught in his trap, then scowls. “I just wanted to get the damn game over with,” she huffs. Mulder catches a whiff of her breath--is that… alcohol?

“You sure that flask only had hot chocolate in it, Scully?” he asks. (She’d opened it around the same time she’d gotten her second blanket, and true to her word has not shared a sip.)

“What do you mean?”

“No peppermint schnapps?”

“What?--no, I have not been drinking schnapps.” Scully looks scandalized at the very thought.

“But your breath--” Mulder murmurs, then it occurs to him. “Cough drops.” He offers her a knowing, sideways glance. Scully frowns, but pulls the little package of Ricola lemon throat lozenges out of her pocket, confirming his guess without meeting his eyes. “I take it the thing really does feel awful?” Mulder says, nudging her slightly.

Possibly. Slightly. “Nope,” Scully says, and pops a lozenge in her mouth. “Just have to get my kicks however I can, Mulder.”

Mulder rolls his eyes; Scully must rubbing off on him. “You were thinking of The West Wing,” he says petulantly, too frustrated to let her have her last few questions.

“You knew the whole time,” Scully says. “Didn’t you?”

“Not the whole time,” Mulder says. “Maybe around question three.” It was pretty obvious, he thinks, but doesn’t say.

“Shut up, Mulder.”

* * *

It’s nearing 2:00 and Scully has spent the better part of the last hour trying to sniffle her increasingly runny nose back to composure. They're all out of games; it’s becoming abundantly clear that the stakeout is a total bust. Scully is pale and drawn and shivering again, even cocooned in her blankets. She also keeps having sneezing fits, irrepressible ones, that leave her worryingly wheezy; Mulder has taken to counting during them to hide just how nervous they make him. "It happens when I gehh--hit'chiiEEEww! G-get chilly," she explains during a particularly bad one. "My nose s-starts to run and...and...ahhh...ah'Nngsh! And then I can't st-stop...oh, my Gohhh...God...hihh'hitchiEEw! "

"Sneezing? That one was nine, by the way."

She nods blearily. "Yeah," she says. "That."

"Probably doesn't help that you're sick," Mulder says in an off-hand voice.

Scully isn't fooled. She scowls and tentatively sniffles, mindful of setting her nose off again. "Mulder, for the hundredth time," she says. "Not sick."

He bats at her nose. "Yeah," he says as she halfheartedly bats his hand away, "healthy people are always all...drippy here."

She pouts and looks ready to argue, but Mulder keeps going. "You've been coughing, too."

"It's post-nasal drip, Mulder. That's all."

"And where's that coming from, hmm?"

"Where's it--? Mulder, it's coming from my nose."

"So your nose is runny."

"Mulder!" Scully snaps. "It's cold outside and it's cold in this car; of course my nose is runny. That's a natural bodily response to near-freezing temperatures."

“You know what?” Mulder says. “You're right. About the nose thing." He gives an exaggerated sniff. “Mine is starting to get a bit drippy, too.” He opens the glove box and pulls what might be close to twenty tissues out; he loudly fake-blows his nose on one of them, and then opens the window and throws the rest out into the parking lot. “That’s better.”

Scully gasps. “Mulder!” she exclaims. “What did you do that for? We might need those!”

“Need them?” Mulder says, playing at confusion. “What ever for?” She huffs and rolls her eyes; he isn’t looking at her, but he can feel it. “You haven’t been putting them to much use tonight, Scull.”

She looks slightly flustered and she stares longingly out the window, where the once-good tissues are going to waste on the cold, dark asphalt. “Well,” she says, “anyway, you just littered, which is illegal. You rebel.” If she were in a much better mood and/or vaguely inebriated, she might have punctuated that statement with a punch to his arm. Mulder grins at the thought.

“Covering up government conspiracies is illegal, too, Scully; but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone, now does it?”

Scully sneezes quietly, twice, in response. "Hih'chshh! H'ngsht!"

“There are still some tissues left,” Mulder says, but Scully merely repeats her customary cuff-sniffle and shrugs.

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she says flatly.

“Scully,” Mulder says, wholly exasperated now, “you’re the one who brought them in the first place.”

She sneezes again. “Bless you,” Mulder offers, which only earns him a glare.

“Shut up, Mulder.”

“I was being nice!”

“Well, don’t,” Scully says.

“Fine, I won't.”

They grow quiet again, and this time it’s for so long that Mulder wonders if Scully’s maybe fallen asleep; he almost hopes she has, sleep would be good for her. He worries that she doesn’t get enough of it. He knows he doesn’t. After all the things that they’ve seen, all the things that they’ve done, it’s not surprising. Unpleasant, sure, but not surprising.

It is at that moment that Scully inhales sharply and just barely manages to catch three surprisingly violent, loud sneezes in her cupped hands. "Hep-TSSCH'ooo! Hehh...hetchiiieeeEEEw! Huh-ISCHIIIEEEW!

Startled, Mulder turns to look at her; a few seconds pass and she still hasn’t taken her hands down from her face. If it weren’t for the garish melon glow of the nearest streetlamp--or, more honestly, if he didn’t have such wildly accurate Scully-senses and a detailed mental schematic of her facial features--Mulder would never have been so lucky as to see what he’s pretty sure he is in fact seeing: Dana Scully blushing.

“Mulder?” she says, her voice muffled.

“Yeah?” He does a surprisingly good job keeping the amused/self-satisfied smirk out of his voice for the entire monosyllabic word.

“Could I maybe have some of those remaining tissues now?”

“Feeling a little under the weather, are we, Scull? Gesundheit, by the way."

Scully mumbles something unintelligible into her hands, and as he pulls a handful of tissues out for her, Mulder says, “Yeah, yeah, I know: shut up, Mulder.”

"Actually," Scully says between nose-blows, with a small but genuine half smile, "I was going to say thank you."

* * *

It’s 3:45 and Mulder has reached the point where he’s too tired to even feel tired anymore; instead, he’s weirdly nervy and wired and running on nothing but caffeinated iced tea and adrenaline reserves. Scully nodded off around 3:00, and though he misses her company, he doesn’t have the heart to wake her. Her head is resting on his shoulder and she’s snoring slightly through her congested nose; at one point, she whimpers and shivers slightly, and Mulder takes off his jacket and adds it to the blankets she’s already using. It dwarfs her, but the shivering stops, and that makes him smile.

He loves her. He thinks of that often when they’re out on a case together: on long watches like this one, in the cloying dark of a million different drab motel rooms, under blankets of stars as they race through the night--trying their damndest to solve the unsolvable. It’s never some silly, Victorian declaration of affection, never oh, Scully, my dearest darling, every moment I spend without you near me is well-nigh unbearable. His mind wanders to C.S. Lewis, to The Four Loves. Storge--empathy bond. Philia--friend bond. Eros--erotic bond. And Agape--unconditional love. God love. He doesn’t know that he buys into all this, doesn’t know that he trusts someone as religious as Lewis, doesn’t even know if one can actually experience all four kinds for the same person at the same time, if all that love could even fit into any one person… especially when said person is so very small.

And yet. Still.

He loves her. I love you. Neither of them ever say that aloud; that would be crossing a boundary that’s invisible yet still very, very present. And anyway, that would feel far too easy, too predictable, too trite. In so many ways, their relationship defies words, platitudes, logic. It is infuriating. It is impossible. It is terrifying. It is all-encompassing. It is theirs. He’s hers, and she’s his. They don’t need to say anything for that to be true. It’s always been true. It’s been true ever since a rainy graveyard in Bellefleur, Oregon, where she stood in front of him and laughed, dizzy and thrilled, because she believed.

He doesn’t know if she loves him in the same way; he suspects it, sometimes even lets himself hope it, but this is an area where Scully is all but unreadable. But it’s alright. Being present with her, close to her--that’s enough, for now.

Next to him, Scully stirs, blinks her eyes open, coughs. Mulder very nearly takes a hand and smooths an errant lovelock behind her small ear, but decides against it. The hand drops heavily down onto the car seat. “I think you drooled on me,” he says.

She quickly wipes a hand over the corner of her mouth, a gesture that makes her look about twelve years old. “Sorry,” she says, her voice little and raspy, which makes hersound about twelve years old, too. Mulder is more charmed than he’d like to admit.

“Any updates?” Scully asks, dabbing delicately at her nose with a tissue.

(TissueGate 1999 ended not too long ago and Scully’s already used up over half a box. With what he considers to be an impressive amount of self-control, Mulder has restrained himself from saying I told you so. Thank you very much.)

“Nope.”

Scully’s face works itself into a funny, exaggerated pout. “I could’ve been in bed hours ago,” she whines.

“And missed all this?!” Mulder exclaims, gesturing at the sad expanse of abandoned shopping center parking lot.

Scully giggles tiredly. “Oh, you’re right,” she says mock-seriously. “Missing out on the empty parking lot show would’ve been a veritable tragedy.”

She blows her nose, and this time Mulder actually does tuck the hair behind her ear. Scully looks up in surprise. “Mulder--” she says, half-touched, half-warning.

“I’m just sorry you had to do this when you don’t feel well. That’s all,” he says, hoping it’s a good enough explanation.

She shrugs. “I told you, Mulder,” she says. “I’m fine.”

He narrows his eyes. “You,” he says, “are the opposite of fine, Scully.”

As if to prove his point, Scully opens her mouth to retort and sneezes instead. She shivers, and finally (finally) leans into him, shamelessly greedy for the warmth his body offers. “Okay,” she says. “I may have a little cold.” Now Mulder is this close to saying I told you so, he can’t help it, when Scully holds up a hand. “Just a little one,” she says firmly. “A slight cold. A minuscule one, even.”

“A minute cold,” he repeats, deadpan.

Scully slumps down further, until her head is almost in his lap (which is how he knows she truly is sick and exhausted; someone walking by would automatically assume something much dirtier was going on, and Healthy Scully would never allow that risk). She’s so short that she can easily tuck her legs underneath herself and fit comfortably on the two seats. She shuts her eyes, and when Mulder ghosts a tentative hand over her back, her happy sigh is confirmation enough that it’s okay.

“A minuscule cold,” she confirms, sweet and drowsy.

“Whatever you say, Scully.”

“You’re damn right,” she murmurs, and before Mulder has even finished laughing, she’s already fallen back to sleep.

Mulder glances at the clock. 4:19. If they wait long enough they might even get to watch the sunrise.

[purrincess-chat]

Lady du Coeur CH16

*dusts off cobwebs* Hey, I’m still writing this btw. It’s been a while. Hope you’re not too upset with me. I’m very meh about this chapter, but it’s necessary, and I planned it, and it gets the ball rolling for other stuff and things, so...here ya go.

Also, Happy Birthday to this fic! Today marks the day I posted the first chapter on FF!

FF | AO3

Volpina’s Return

“Ugh!” A frustrated growl sounded behind Adrien, and he heard the familiar zip of Ladybug’s yoyo followed by the tap of her feet hitting the floor.

“I take it your reconnaissance mission went well,” He called with a smirk, spinning around in his chair as she detransformed.

“Don’t test me, I’m pissed off enough to actually hit you,” She snarled through clenched teeth. “I just spent the last hour talking to the police about this stupid imposter situation.”

“Yeah, she’s really been after your image lately. Crashing birthday parties, helping thieves escape, graffiti on national monuments…You’re on someone’s hit list.” Adrien tapped his chin.

“I swear when I find out who’s behind this I’m going to feed them their own ass-”

“Whoa there, Yeager. Let’s dial back the bloodthirst for the titans and think about this.” He held up defensive hands.

“Did you just reference anime at me?” Her eyes narrowed, and he rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. “I need to hit something.”

“I’ve got you covered,” He said, holding up a finger before taking her hand and leading her down to the gym where a punching bag hung from the ceiling. Adrien opened the closet and rolled out the dummy he practiced on during his karate lessons. “Go nuts.”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and as she reared back to strike, Adrien stepped forward with an apologetic wince. “What?” She huffed.

“No, nothing, just, tiny tip…thumb on the outside of your fist, or you will break it,” He advised, gently pulling her thumb out before stepping aside and letting her loose.

He watched in horror with Tikki as she punched and kicked the sac unceasingly while Plagg looked on with a wide grin. Slowly, he backed out of the room, careful not to disturb her, and returned a few minutes later with a thermos of water. She stayed at it for a while, pounding her fists into the material until sweat poured from her face and her shoulders shook with the exertion it took to breathe.

“You should drink,” He offered gently, extending her the thermos which she snatched immediately. Sweat dripped down her cheeks as she gulped down the ice cold water then sat back on the mat. Her breaths were still labored as she surveyed her bloody, shaking knuckles.

“I should have given you gloves,” He said, examining them. “I didn’t realize you were gonna go all out like that. I’ll go get something to wrap them with.”

“Thanks,” She panted, taking another swig of her drink. He returned a moment later from the closet with a first-aid kit and knelt beside her once more. She surrendered her hands, watching intently as he worked.

“Feeling any better?” Adrien asked, spraying an anti-septic on the wounds. Marinette winced and pulled back with a hiss, but quickly surrendered them once more. 

“No,” She grumbled, glaring in the other direction as he began to wrap a cloth bandage around her knuckles.

“Can’t say I blame you,” He remarked. “I’m even a little angry for you.”

“I just wish we could catch her,” She sighed, leaning back once he finished.

“I know. Me too.” He brushed a strand of her hair from her face, and she leaned into his touch.

“Will you do something for me to take my mind off of things?” She asked after a moment, and he felt his heart skip a whole beat.

“Uh, y-yeah! Anything!” He replied eagerly.

“Teach me how to fight,” She requested, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“You know how to fight already,” He chuckled pointedly.

“I know how to fight as Ladybug, but Marinette could use some pointers.” She shrugged. “You do all kinds of stuff as Adrien, fencing, martial arts, sports…I can barely walk across flat surfaces without falling.”

“Alright, if that’s what you want…” He stood up and headed over to the closet again, sifting through some of his gi. “You could probably fit in one of my old ones.”

“Are you making fun of my height?” She folded her arms over her chest as he held up a top to compare size.

“I would never.” He shook his head, laying the shirt over her shoulder and riffling through the pants.

“You’re lucky I like you,” She said, glaring playfully as he sized up a pair of pants for her.

“It’s what I count on for survival every time I crack a joke.” He winked, stepping out and pulling the door shut while she changed.

“Adrien!” She called after a couple minutes, peaking out as he fastened his belt.

“What?” He cocked a brow.

“How do I tie the belt?” She stepped out with her robe undone, exposing her bare stomach and hot pink sports bra, and Adrien felt his face go three shades darker.

“You just, um,” He cleared his throat and adjusted the top to cover her properly before tying the belt securely around her waist.

“It’s still too big,” She whined, holding up the sleeves that extended well passed her hands. “Can I just take it off-”

“No!” He said quickly, and she gave him a look. “It’s disrespectful, Mari.”

“Okay…” She gave him an inquisitive look as she rolled her sleeves up to her elbows.

“So, what do you wanna learn?”

“Teach me how to kick butt!” She punched the air enthusiastically, and he suppressed an eye roll.

“Karate is only to be used for self-defense, ya know,” He lectured, but she was too busy throwing fake punches and kicks.

“I’ll be defending myself when I kick this fox’s butt,” She said determinedly.

“Okay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly before deflecting her hands and pulling her into a headlock. She squealed in protest, but he kept his hold loose.

“The first rule of karate is to clear your mind. Relax and focus.”

“I am focused,” She grunted, attempting to break free, but he tightened his grip.

“Purge all selfish and evil thoughts,” He murmured soothingly as she continued to wiggle and kick against his shins.

“Okay, fine, teach me how to fight!” She ordered, but he held on, wrapping his free arm around her waist and lifting her up. “Adrien!”

“You must be calm and humble in order t- oof!” Mari kicked her legs up causing Adrien to rock forward to counter her weight which gave her footing enough to throw him over her shoulders. He landed square on his back with a gasp, and Mari sat on his stomach and pinned him to the mat.

“Can your clear mind do that?” She beamed, and Adrien took a deep breath.

“Fine,” He wheezed. “You wanna spar? Let’s spar.” He pulled the loose fabric from her gi over her head and rolled her to the side while she struggled, pining her arms down as soon as she broke free.

“That’s cheating!” She growled accusingly, blue eyes narrowing into a glare.

“You don’t wanna follow the rules, so neither will I.” He grinned tauntingly, and her lips pursed in thought.

“Well, if that’s how we’re gonna play…” She hiked up her knee, and in a split second, Adrien guessed her plan and dodged just in time to divert her knee to his inner thigh instead of the target she was aiming for.

“No!” He gasped, and Marinette shoved him over when he became off balanced. “That was dirty and low!”

“I thought that’s what we were playing.” She smirked, and his eyes narrowed.

“It’s on,” He declared, losing all of his confidence when she tore the gi from her torso and tossed it aside. His cheeks, as well as another region, burned, and he averted his gaze quickly. “What are you doing?”

“It’s hot in that thing, and it restricts my movement,” She said, fanning herself.

“I’m not going to fight you naked,” He scoffed, turning to the side.

“I’m not naked! I have a bra on, you wimp.”

“Put your gi back on!”

“No,” She grunted, pacing toward him. “Man up and fight me.”

“You’re being cruel.”

“How is this any different from the bikini models in your photoshoot? I’m more covered than they are!” She held out her arms in exasperation.

“That’s different,” He mumbled.

“How?”

“Because I don’t feel anything when I see them!” He shot back.

“Why do you have to bring your dick into this?” She slapped her palm to her forehead.

“I can’t help that I’m attracted to you!”

“Ugh!” She threw her head back with a groan. “You’re such a baby. What am I gonna do with you?”

“Don’t pretend like I didn’t catch you ogling over my swim shoot a couple weeks ago,” He said pointedly.

“I thought we agreed to never speak of it again.” Her eyes narrowed into slits.

“I made no such promise. You’re a pervert.” He smirked, but it was short-lived as she tackled him to the ground a second later.

“Don’t push me, Agreste,” She cooed in his ear when she pinned him face down on the mat.

“But it’s so fun to push you. It’s kind of what we do,” He mumbled, voice distorted from the force with which she had him pinned.

“Fine, but don’t blame me when you get hurt.”

Adrien managed to shake her off, but she retaliated quicker than he did, charging at him again the moment he got up. He caught her easily and lifted her feet from the ground. To counter, she wrapped her legs around his waist and flipped backwards, forcing him to roll over her.

They sparred like that for a while, wrestling each other to the ground, breaking free, rolling around as their grunts and yelps filled the room. It all came to an end when Adrien got Marinette in a tight headlock, and no matter how many times she kicked his shins, he wasn’t letting go.

“Give up yet?” He asked as she gasped for air.

“No!” She coughed.

“Tap out, and I’ll stop.”

“No!” Within a minute, he felt her body go limp, and he let go and held her up until she came to a moment later. She surged forward, clutching her gut and coughing raggedly.

“Seriously?” He panted. “Why didn’t you tap o-”

She flew at him once more, and he held up his hands to defend himself which proved to be a big mistake as he found himself clutching her left breast which he quickly released with an embarrassed squawk, making himself easy prey for her to roll over and pin securely face-down on the mat with a firm grip on his hair and left leg which she pulled toward her. His pained squeaks echoed through the room, and she smirked.

“Mari! My leg doesn’t bend that way!” He squealed.

“Tap out then,” She chuckled, and he slapped the ground twice without hesitation. He breathed a sigh of relief when she let go and rolled him over to sit on his stomach.

“I win.” She beamed.

“You’re insane,” He panted, leaning his head back and spreading his arms out. He could feel the sweat trickling down his back through his gi as he caught his breath.

“And you’re afraid of boobs,” She shot back playfully, wiping sweat from her lip.

“I’m not afraid of boobs!” He groaned.

“Just my boobs.”

“No!” He sighed. “Just…those feelings don’t really have a place between us right now.”

She sobered and let her gaze drop to his chest where she fiddled with his gi. It was an expression he’d learned to pick out on her quickly because it was the same face she wore every time it got brought up. Guilt. He patted her leg and offered up a smile.

“Don’t beat yourself up. I just don’t want to pressure you,” He said softly.

“Maybe if…” She started, biting her lip. “If things calm down. If we can catch the fox…then maybe we can try again.”

“Okay.” Adrien nodded, and she climbed off of him and pulled him up.

“Thanks for letting me beat you up,” She said, offering up a small smile.

“Any time, Bug.” He wrapped an arm around her waist as they walked. “Just don’t tell anyone you beat me because I panicked about grabbing your boob.”

“I make no promises.”

Chloe

Out of all the drama that she’d left behind when deciding to change herself for the better, there was one thing in particular that had never quite mended properly but instead remained a poorly stitched wound that occasionally flared up when things got heated. Of course, she should have expected as much as it was the person she’d been closest to, and therefore, the victim of a majority of Chloe’s less-than-polite mannerisms. But as Chloe sat at a small café, swirling her latte with a coffee stirrer awaiting her arrival, she couldn’t help but reflect on all the good times they shared and wondered if things could ever be that way again.

She was talking about Sabrina. Her ex-best friend who went to therapy to help cope with years of enduring Chloe’s crap. It was doing wonders for her. She was becoming less of a push-over, and even branching out and making friends of her own. Turns out people had more sympathy for the misguided best friend than they did for the terror reigning over her. In a way, Chloe was happy for her because Sabrina was one wrong she regretted most. And she missed her.

“Ahem.” At the sound of a throat clearing, Chloe turned to see the small ginger standing with her hands clasped in front of her, lips pursed in a hesitant pout. “Hello, Chloe.”

“Hey, Sabrina.” Chloe winced under her accusing glare. “Would you like to sit? I’ll buy you a coffee.”

“With what money?” Sabrina scoffed, but she sat down anyways. “What do you want?”

Chloe sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course she’d be skeptical as to why Chloe asked her to meet here. It’s not like they’d exactly talked much in the last 6 months, and when they had spoken it was always less than cordial. Sabrina still carried a grudge, and Chloe’s apology had been half-hearted at best when Marinette forced her to make her rounds. Maybe because Sabrina’s betrayal had angered her the most, and at the time, she wasn’t quite over it herself, not that she ever admitted it to anyone out loud. Things were different now. She was different.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Chloe started calmly, taking a sip of her coffee to give her hands something to do.

“Better now that I’ve removed a toxic person from my life,” She countered with a haughty smirk. This was going about as well as Chloe expected.

“I’m happy to hear that,” She said with the politest smile she could muster. Holding her tongue was one thing she hated about being nice, but she’d already ripped into Sabrina enough over the years, so she supposed this was well-deserved. Sabrina pursed her lips and leaned forward with a critical glare.

“Why did you invite me here today, Chloe? Was there something you wanted?” She demanded, and Chloe let out a breath.

“Yeah, actually. I wanted to apologize. Again. But properly this time,” She admitted, rubbing the back of her neck, a nervous tick she’d picked up from Adrien it seemed. “You and I used to be so close, and I took you for granted. Something I didn’t realize until you left, and I was left to scrape up the pieces on my own. You really did a lot for me, and I just wanted to thank you for putting up with me for so long. I don’t blame you for leaving me.” She let out another breath and met Sabrina’s gaze head-on. “I’m really sorry for how I treated you, and I understand if you’re still angry. I just wanted you to know that I regret using you the way I did, and I’m trying to be better now. So…”

Sabrina eyed her a little dumbstruck, and Chloe drummed her fingers on the table and cleared her throat. She gulped down the last of her coffee and stood up awkwardly.

“So, that’s all I wanted to say. I guess I’ll see you around,” She said. Sabrina remained quiet, eyes trained on her hands laced together on the table, so Chloe slung her purse over one shoulder and moved to leave without another word.

“You weren’t bad all the time,” Sabrina spoke up after Chloe made it a few steps. “Sometimes things were kinda nice.”

She turned back to see a small smile on Sabrina’s lips, one that echoed on her own before Sabrina glanced back at her hands. Chloe took that as her cue to leave, and as she put more distance between her and the café, she felt more weight lifting from her shoulders. Another burden she could finally shake off and move past. One less regret she had to worry over at night. She felt Hunni wiggling her way out of Chloe’s coat collar and heard her tiny gasp as she drank in fresh air.

“That took guts, kiddo. I’m proud of you,” She praised, a rare, but meaningful gesture coming from her, and Chloe felt a wide grin stretch across her face as she surged forward with a spring in her step.

“Me too.”

Marinette

“So, how are things going with you and Adrien?” Alya asked with a smirk later that evening as they worked on homework, and Marinette leaned back, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“They’re fine. Friendly,” She replied shortly.

“Boo, you’re no fun,” Alya teased, nudging her with her elbow. “I wish you’d tell me what’s going on in that brain of yours.”

“It’s-”

“Complicated. I know. You say that every time, but I fail to see a valid reason why you changed your mind all of a sudden,” Alya cut her off. “I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“And as my best friend, you should know that if there is something that I’m keeping from you, I have a very good reason to. I know you and Nino are just trying to be supportive of Adrien, and I get it. You did the same thing for me, but right now, there’s just a lot I have to figure out on my own,” Mari chided.

“Okay.” Alya held up defensive hands, and they resumed working for a minute until she spoke again. “It’s not just for Adrien, you know. Nino and I see the way you both look at each other, how you work together, and we just think that you two could be happy together if you’d just give it a try.”

“I know.” Marinette twirled her pencil between her fingers absentmindedly. “There’s just a lot going on in my head right now.”

“I know everyone’s kind of reinventing themselves right now, and it’s confusing. Nino and I just want you guys to know that we’ve got your back, and we want you to be happy. We’re your friends.” She offered up a small smile that Marinette eventually returned.

“Thanks, Alya,” She murmured, leaning forward to hug her neck. “I know I’m frustrating everyone and hurting Adrien more than he lets on.”

“He does come to us to mope,” Alya admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “But he always respects your decisions even if he doesn’t understand them. That boy is something else.”

“His middle name is Perfection.” They shared a laugh at that.

“I’m not trying to push you into anything you don’t want, M. But I see it in your eyes when you look at him. You still love him, I know you do.” Alya leaned against her fist, and Marinette bit her lip, tapping her pencil on her textbook.

“Sometimes,” She relented. “Other times, I’m not sure.”

“That’s love for you. Sometimes they’re the sweetest things on the planet, other times you wanna ring their neck,” Alya chuckled. “There’s a balance.”

“How do you and Nino do it? You two argue a lot.” Marinette winced.

“When you love each other, you forgive each other. We always either work things out, or we agree to disagree. And there are plenty of times where we get along really well, mostly we just like to tease each other and play devil’s advocate. It actually brings us closer together,” She explained, placing a hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “I think you and Adrien could stand to have a little heart-to-heart about everything. It might help clear your head.”

“Maybe. We talk about it a little, but I know he keeps his true feelings from me because he doesn’t want to push me.” Marinette slumped a little, and Alya rubbed her arm comfortingly.

“Well, definitely don’t rush into anything you’re not okay with, but do communicate how you feel with him. I’m sure there’s ins and outs that Nino and I don’t know about, so talk about them with him, okay?” She brushed Marinette’s nose.

“Okay.” Marinette nodded obediently.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

-      -     -

“Okay, so we need to talk strategy if we’re going to take down this fox. I’ve been studying her patterns over the past several weeks, and I think I have an idea about how we can catch her,” She started in their dream meeting that night. Chloe and Adrien both leaned forward a little bit, listening intently. “She’s been hitting up all of Paris’s pride and joys, the Louvre, the Grand Palais, Notre Dame, always vanishing just when the authorities rush in so she can destroy my pride in the eyes of the people, but our conversation about Hawkmoth a couple months ago got me thinking. We suspect that Hawkmoth must have a limited range based on the area akumas tend to pop up in, so I imagine that this fox is limited in how far it can send a doppelganger away from the source.”

“Meaning?” Adrien cocked a brow.

“For each of the events, the real deal isn’t that far away,” Chloe stated, tapping her chin in thought.

“Exactly.”

“Okay, so how does that help us?” Adrien crossed his arms over his chest.

“We’ve been letting her surprise us which never leaves us enough time to sort out a plan before the fake disappears. So what if we got one step ahead?” She proposed.

“How exactly do we do that?”

“I’ve got a few ideas…We know she’s hitting up landmarks that are important to Paris, each one more sacred to the citizens than the last, so if we can predict which one she’s going to hit up next, we can stage a trap for her. Up until now, we all rush in to try and stop her, but it hasn’t gotten us very far. If we’re smart about it, we can locate the real fox during her next exposition and corner her,” She explained, and Adrien pursed his lips skeptically, so she continued with a huff, “Instead of all rushing in at once, I suggest we send in one of us, preferably me since I’m the one she has beef with, while the other two watch from a distance for any sign of the source. We don’t know the exact range of her powers, and maybe she doesn’t know yet either. We can only hope that she stays close by during the event, if nothing more than to watch us fail.”

“So while you engage the fake, we hunt down the real deal, and then-?”

“Herd her like a sheep. We’ll obviously have to set up a route to keep her on leading up to our trap. It’s going to take a lot of planning, and our first priority should be figuring out her hit list,” Marinette said, appeasing Adrien enough for the time being. “What do you think Chloe? You’ve been quiet.”

“I’m thinking,” She murmured, waving them away. “You said she targets landmarks, but I don’t recall the Eiffel Tower being hit yet.”

“No, I think she’s waiting for the opportune moment to strike so that it has the most impact on me,” Marinette affirmed. “It’s only a matter of time before something happens there, I suppose, but we need a more precise estimation.”

“What if we already have one?” Chloe offered, a sly smile curling on her lips, and both Adrien and Marinette gave her a confused frown. “She wants each event to be as public as possible right?”

“Yeah, I assume.”

“So, when’s the next time most of Paris will be gathered at the Eiffel Tower?” Chloe rolled her eyes as if it should be obvious when they still looked perplexed. “There’s a Jagged Stone concert in a week. It’s the perfect opportunity for her to strike. Paris loves Jagged and the Eiffel Tower, put those two together in one place, and it’s the perfect opportunity to shame you.”

“You think she’d go after Jagged?” Adrien’s eyebrows raised.

“I wouldn’t put it past her, no,” Chloe said, and Marinette tapped her chin.

“Alright. We can set up a route on our patrols tomorrow. If she does show up at the concert, we’ll be ready for her, and if she doesn’t…”

“Then we still get a free Jagged Stone concert!” Adrien whooped.

“The mission should be our primary focus, but yes, we can still enjoy the concert, I guess,” Marinette sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as Adrien pumped his fist in the air excitedly. The scene around them began to crack and splinter, a sign that their time was up. “Good meeting tonight. We’ll meet for patrol tomorrow evening and work out more details.”

“We should come up with an outro for these things like Team Miraculous Out! Or- or-”

Marinette gently pushed them both away before he could finish and blinked open her eyes, a wide yawn stretching across her face as she sat up. They were making headway, she supposed, and she only hoped that they were right to assume the fox would target the concert. It was about time they put a stop to things and put that fox in its place. She picked the wrong bug to mess with, and Marinette wasn’t going to stop until the fox Miraculous was safely returned to Master Fu.

-     -     -

The night buzzed with the sounds of a roaring crowd at the base of the Eiffel Tower as Jagged Stone prepared to take the stage. Strategically spread around the event were Paris’s beloved superheroes, hidden in the shadows as they each scanned the area for suspicious activity. In her ear, Ladybug could hear Chat humming one of Jagged’s songs, and she let out a sigh.

“Chat, focus,” She ordered in a hushed tone, and the humming ceased followed by a quick apology. “Keep an eye out for where the doppelganger originates and remember your routes.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know the drill,” Queen Bee said, and Ladybug could picture her eye roll.

“You’ve only been going over it all week,” Chat added pointedly.

“Sorry, I just really want to end this tonight. It’s bad enough we have Hawkmoth using his Miraculous improperly. We don’t need any more Miraculouses under evil command,” She said, squeezing her yoyo anxiously.

“Chill, Worrybug. Kittycat and I are professionals. Worry about your own mission.”

“I know…” She took a deep breath. “I trust you two.”

Loud squeals of excitement from below indicated that the show had begun and soon the air filled with the sound of electric guitar. A few seconds into the song, Chat resumed singing along, and Ladybug groaned.

“I can multi-task,” He sang in rhythm with the song.

“No, I’m with Ladybug on this one. Leave the singing to Jagged Stone, Chat,” Queen Bee scolded teasingly, and Chat sucked in a loud gasp.

“I am a great singer!” He defended as something caught Ladybug’s eye.

“Movement in the rooftops!” Ladybug blurted. “To the north!”

“On it!” Chat called through the coms.

Down below Jagged was in the middle of his guitar solo when the crowd started cheering louder as the ganger made her appearance. Right where she needed to be.

“I’m going in,” Ladybug announced, readying her yoyo.

“I’ve got eyes on the fox! She’s headed west,” Chat called.

“I’ll flank left,” Queen Bee responded. Everything was going according to plan, and Ladybug landed on the stage next to Jagged with a challenging glare.

“Am I seeing double all of a sudden?” He gaped, shifting behind her.

“You’ve been impersonating me for too long! We know exactly what you are, fox!” She shouted over the noise, and the ganger offered a crooked smile. “You hide behind your illusions, but why don’t you just face me?”

-      -     -

Chat Noir and Queen Bee followed the fox closely, leading her right into their trap just as planned. Just a few more blocks until they would reach the end and corner her in, hopefully swiping the Miraculous in the process. As they neared their destination, the fox glanced back, casting them a wry smile as she jumped right into their trap. The two heroes landed as the fox eyed the tall brick wall between her and freedom, but she seemed to accept her fate as she made no attempts to scale it.

“We’ve got you cornered, so don’t even think about running. Just hand over your Miraculous, and no one has to get hurt,” Chat ordered, though Queen Bee’s eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.

“This seems too easy,” She murmured as Chat approached.

“Turn around and face us,” He continued with the same business-like tone as before, but the fox remained rooted in place with her back to them. Chat reached out to touch her shoulder and when he did, the girl disappeared in a puff of smoke. He jumped back in alarm, jaw clenching. “She was a fake? But where’s the real one?”

“I knew something seemed off.” Bee tapped her chin in thought. “What if she was just the distraction like Ladybug is for us?”

“A distraction for what?” Chat’s eyebrows knitted together under his mask before it clicked. “Ladybug…We have to get back to the Eiffel Tower! Now!”

-      -     -

In a split second, the ganger was on her which caught her a little off guard, though she recovered quickly. Ladybug spun and kicked her off as crowds of people ran screaming from the area, and Jagged Stone was ushered off the stage by his crew. Her pulse drummed in her ears so loudly that she could barely make out what Chat and Bee were saying amidst all the chaos.

“The fox was the fake!” Chat shouted for what seemed to not be the first time.

“What?” She called, pressing a hand to her ear to drown out some of the noise, but the ganger was back on her almost immediately.

“She was a fake,” Bee repeated as Ladybug tussled with her fake.

“I’m fighting the fake,” She grunted, flipping her over her back.

“No, the fox we chased wasn’t-” The ganger landed a kick to Ladybug’s head, knocking her across the stage and dislodging the coms unit from her ear. Before she had time to recover, she was hit again, but she struck back harder, teeth grinding into each other in frustration as she flung the imposter across the stage. If the fox Chat Noir and Queen Bee chased wasn’t the real one then she must have known they would split up, but how? Why would she send two fakes as if she knew what they were planning? Unless…Her eyes narrowed as her ganger shook off the speakers that had toppled on top of her, and she met Ladybug’s gaze head-on with a twisted smirk.

Unless she was the real fox.

“I don’t want to fight you,” Ladybug tried, deflecting a few of her blows. “Why are you targeting me? What have I done to you?”

Her words bore no weight as the strikes kept coming and coming. It was as if she couldn’t hear her, or maybe she just didn’t care. Ladybug’s fists clenched tighter, and eventually, she struck back a few times, putting some distance between them as the fake jumped back a few feet.

“Ladybug!” Chat growled overhead, staff-coptering his way down before striking the ground just shy of her.

“Chat! Think about which one is the real one first!” Queen Bee scolded, hovering down gracefully to land beside him.

“I’m the real one!” The fake declared with a perfect impression of Ladybug’s voice.

“Don’t listen to her!” Ladybug pleaded. “Ask me something only I would know!”

Chat and Bee exchanged uncertain expressions and tapped their chins in thought.

“Who was the first akuma we ever fought together after getting our Miraculouses?” Chat posed, glancing between them.

“Stoneheart! First day of school, a boy named Ivan got akumatized after being picked on about a girl he liked!” Ladybug blurted quickly, grinning triumphantly when Queen Bee and Chat turned and sprang at the ganger, but she dodged easily, a playful laugh shaking her shoulders.

Queen Bee tossed one of her trompos, circling it around her feet with the string and creating a yellow field within its halo. The fake’s jaw clenched as she touched the glowing light, squealing in pain when she was met with a slight shock.

“Stings, doesn’t it?” Bee smirked proudly as Ladybug stepped forward.

“Who are you?” She demanded, folding her arms over her chest. The fake cocked a hip to the side, that sadistic smile contorting her features.

“I suppose you don’t recognize me like this,” She stated, moving her hands vertically as her flute manifested in a flash of light. She spun it counter clockwise, destroying the illusion in a flash as she did so, and two familiar green eyes met Ladybug’s with a vengeful glare that sent the red-clad heroine stumbling back a few paces.

“Lila?” She gasped, cupping a hand over her mouth in horror.

“Told you, you hadn’t seen the last of me, Ladybug,” She sneered her name. “I got my hands on a real Miraculous, so now I really am Volpina, and you can’t call me a liar anymore!”

“Lila, this isn’t a game! If you mess with me, you put people’s lives at stake!” Ladybug pleaded.

“I am Volpina!” She stomped her foot.

“Not for much longer, you’re not,” Queen Bee said pointedly, but Volpina simply smirked and examined her nails.

“You have nowhere to run, Volpina. Give up and hand us the Miraculous,” Chat demanded.

“True, I don’t have anywhere to run, but you three do,” She chuckled, pointing to the newest akumatized victim landing on the other end of the stage. With a sweep of its big arm, the three heroes were smacked from the stage, and Volpina was set free of her prison. “Tootles! We’ll see each other again soon, okay?”

“Lila!” Ladybug growled as Volpina skipped off into the night. “Go after her!”

The akuma blocked their path, and Ladybug slammed her fist into the ground angrily. She’d gotten away when they’d come so close! Unfortunately for that akuma, some sort of lumberjack, all three heroes were pent up with enough aggravation that he didn’t know what hit him. As the purified white butterfly flapped away, Ladybug slumped with a sigh and covered her face.

“This is all my fault. I thought she’d moved past this, I-I…” She whimpered, hands shaking as they ran through her hair. “This is all my fault.”

“No, hey, Bug,” Chat cooed, pulling her into his arms, but she backed away.

“If I hadn’t been so selfish this never would have happened! This is all my fault; I don’t deserve to be a hero-” The sound of Bee’s hand slapping across her face echoed around the stage, and Ladybug touched the sore spot delicately.

“You messed up. So what? Everyone does. Don’t give us this pity-party bullshit,” She grunted coldly.

“Hey!” Chat stepped between them defensively, but Ladybug pulled him back.

“Thanks, Bee,” She whispered hoarsely.

“So, what do we do now?” Bee asked, folding her arms over her chest.

“I don’t want either one of you going near Lila anymore,” Chat ordered, but Ladybug shook her head.

“No. If we suddenly abandon her, she’ll get suspicious. We need to find a way to get the Miraculous back from her now that we know who she is. It’s an advantage we have against her now,” Ladybug reasoned, cupping her chin. “Ladybug may not be able to reason with her, but maybe Marinette can.”

“No! It’s too dangerous,” Chat snarled, but Ladybug stood her ground.

“Our entire job is dangerous! But we still have to do it. I’m not some defenseless little princess; I can take care of myself,” She countered, meeting his gaze head-on. His lip twitched slightly, but he backed down with a curt nod.

“Fine. Just be careful,” He caved, letting out a heated breath through his nose.

“We’ll regroup tomorrow night at our meeting. I’ll see what I can gather from Lila tomorrow at school,” Ladybug declared, reaching for her yoyo as her earrings began to beep.

“Okay.” Chat and Bee nodded before she turned and shot off with her yoyo. Queen Bee moved to do the same, but Chat caught her arm as she passed.

“Keep an eye on her. You’re in that group too, so watch her back,” He said gruffly.

“We all watch each other’s backs. We’re a team; it’s what we do,” She replied, and Chat pursed his lips and released his grip. “Marinette is capable on her own. She’s the leader for a reason. Trust her, okay?”

“I do trust her. With my life. It’s Volpina I don’t trust,” He growled.

“Lila won’t hurt Marinette.”

“How do you know?” He snapped.

“Just trust me when I say that. I spend a lot of time with Lila too, and I know things about her that you don’t, things that Marinette doesn’t even know,” She said bluntly. “I’m with Ladybug on this. Business as usual is the best course of action for us right now.”

Chat turned away and clutched his staff tightly, so Queen Bee let out a sigh before leaping up into the rooftops.

When Ladybug landed back on her terrace, her transformation dropped as she crawled back through her skylight and fell onto her bed with an exhausted groan. Tikki floated down beside her and sprawled across the pillow. Her mind was spinning with questions and recourse plans, but all of them seemed too brash to use against Lila - Lila her friend. There had to be another way to reclaim the fox without revealing who she was as she had a feeling Lila wouldn’t take too kindly to finding out her good friend was also her mortal enemy.

If only she hadn’t been so jealous, just further proof that her hot-head needed to be kept in check. The guilt she’d faced 8 months ago all came flooding back to her, but she did her best to push it away. Lila continuing to harbor a grudge wasn’t her fault. Like Chloe said, she’d messed up, but she’d already attempted to make peace. Forgiveness was in Lila’s hands now, and she just hoped that a solution to their dilemma would present itself soon.

[mitsunari]

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

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

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

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS one - two - three

CHAPTER 4 - OTABEK THE NEXT MORNING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Much obliged,” Otabek replied to his host.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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