#and i only really have like the barest of skeletons for them

[theloveinc]

Hiiiii, i just saw tht post about writing and like formulas to do like big fanfictions/bigger pieces (i struggle too tbh, although it’s more like i struggle w writing in general lol) and even tho it’s not really a formula or something and u might already know it, i still wanna share in case it’s helpful!! Something that seems to make bigger writing works seem less daunting/easier to imagine and write is like, thinking of it like a puzzle. essentially doing very small portions (bc a 500 word/1k little blurbs is easier to write than a 30k, for example) at random/whenever/whatever strikes your inspo and then just piecing them in after you have a ton to make one large work. As for a formula of anything to write romance, i WOULD LOVE for u to share if u crack the code lol, im lost there too

Sorry if this wasn’t helpful bc u knew already and it didn’t really tackle the application of romance but i just wanted to potentially help! you’re one of my fav writers and you are an amazing at it so i know you’ll get there and it will be amazing when you do, like your work already is 🤍🤍

anon!! thank you sm for the tips <333 this is really sound advice... even if i'm gonna have to work my booty off to begin actually practicing it.

not to go off on a tangent, but i notice my struggle really lies in like... actually developing a plot/timeline/climax/intention? i often think of little scenes i'd love to include in something bigger... but i never really get to what that bigger thing is. in terms of other stories i've thought of, i always say... it's like i have point A and point Z... but i don't know how to get from one to the other (alongside like... making all the necessary transitions needed, and doing that properly).

i have started like... physically mapping out a lot of my ideas. from short stuff to long stuff, i write little blurbs of what i want each scene/chapter to be.... but even then, what usually happens is i either get stuck or scared (of whatever work is needed) and stop progressing. and alongside my crippling fear of like... doing a bad job (or not completing something in a way i'd enjoy)......... it's very paralyzing.

but that's just to explain how how i've been handling it (if u have any more tips or even just relate) + to say I AGREE W/ U that i, as well as others, should just... write what comes to me in any order and go at my bigger projects from there.

but....,....... :') i'm sure you already know. difficult.

thank you, thank you for this and the lovely encouragement tho!!!

it always feels berry nice to know you're not alone in whatever you're going thru, esp when it seems like the people around. i always just try to take comfort in the fact that we're all still pretty young... and that (not all but) a lot of my fave writers didn't start writing long things/publishing until WAYYY later. not that i want to do this publicly or anything, but.... there's lots of time for improvement, and to put the same expectations on myself at this point is... clownery tbh. you know?

but ARGHGHGHH if i do figure it out one day, i'll make sure you get the secrets first!!! til then tho, it just means a LOT to me that u like my writing even as is❤️❤️❤️ hugging u forever🥺

[physalian]

Trust Your Own Creativity

This was going to be a “stuck on how to design a character’s personality? Throw them in a fanfic!” post but the meat of what I was trying to say evolved (much like the point of this post).

I have three side characters from book one of a series (ENNS, out 8/25, yeeeee!) that have much larger roles in book two. The problem I’ve been having is that I have no idea what their personalities are beyond the barest that they got in the first book because they just weren’t that important. So I’ve been trying to force something to come together. Along the lines of “well I need a character like this” and “I guess I can make this work” which does not, in fact, work.

Just tossed two of them into a “fanfic” to get to know them, a story completely isolated from the rest of the canon like their own little sandbox to play in, and I’ll experiment and see what castles they build.

So when I say trust your own creativity, I mean that writing and worldbuilding and character creation is far less “active design” and much more “active discovery”. One of my all time favorite things to write is backstory monologues. I. Love. Monologues. While I usually have a rough idea before the big speech, when it comes time to write it, it’s usually written as if I’d improvised it on stage and aside from trimming where needed and clarifying what’s muddy, it’s not only usually good to go, but it’s probably not exactly what I’d planned or envisioned to begin with.

I just let my characters talk, I give them the floor, and I wait to hear what they say. A lot of the time, they’ll say something absolutely brilliant (or stupid) that was not at all planned for them, but works so well it has altered the trajectory of their whole arc. Which wouldn’t have happened if I’d stuck religiously to The Plan.

Which is why it’s really hard for me to outline. Yes, all my books have goals and a skeleton of a plot, i.e. “must hit points A-G in this order” but the story is usually freeform. Whenever I need to make rewrites, the plot never changes, but the story might. I might swap out an argument for something softer or change the tone of a scene where needed, molding my little clay words into the sculpture it will become eventually.

You are a creative. Let your creativity speak, and then listen to it.

[autisticlancemcclain]

“…wonder what he’s thinking about. Who he’s threatening, rather. Hey, Lance.”

Lance startles a little, turning to face his thoughtful-looking best friends. “Hm?”

“What’s up with him?”

“With who?”

Hunk inclines his head to their very own black paladin, who is standing tall with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, face twisted up in a scowl and glaring heavily at the people in front of him. All their new allies give him a wide berth, some looking at him nervously before skittering away and whispering to their dance partners and friends.

“Why does he look like he wants to kill someone? Or, well, more than usual,” Pidge says bluntly. “Are you two fighting or something?”

Lance hums, rocking back on his heels. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Is it just socialization stress?” Hunk ponders.

Pidge shrugs. “Maybe? Who knows. Maybe someone said something dumb and now he’s imagining all the places he can stick his knife.”

Lance snorts. It’s beyond possible.

“I’ll go find out,” he says, handing his plate of fancy shmancy gala goodies to Pidge, who immediately starts eating them even though hey, those are Lance’s, she has her own.

“You do that, Loverboy.”

Rolling his eyes and aiming a flick to her ear (that she dodges), Lance does, strolling up to his boyfriend and tapping him on the shoulder when he fails to react to Lance’s presence. He tenses for a moment, but calms when he realises who touched him. The scowl instantly melts off his face, furrowed brow shifting into something soft and sweet, grin crooked and showing the barest peek of crooked incisors.

“Lance,” he says, and there’s so much fondness in his voice that Lance can’t help reaching over to wrap his arm around Keith’s waist and rest his chin on his chest, tilting his face up to meet bright indigo eyes.

“Hi, baby.”

Keith brushes the hair out of Lance’s face, tucking the barely-long-enough strands beyond his ear and keeping his gloved hand cupped around his cheek. “Hey, yourself.”

Lance tilts his head to the side just enough to press a kiss to Keith’s palm, then looks back up at Keith. He’s well aware that they’re being gross and mushy in public. He doesn’t care. The gagging noises he can vaguely hear from his dumbass best friends behind him only incentivizes him to be mushier, actually.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

Keith brightens immediately, small smile widening into a grin and free hand waving about in the air as he speaks.

“Okay, well, everyone on this planet is taller than us, right? And I was thinking about being tall, and how that leads to bigger skeletons, but not really more joints because then everyone would be bendy. But then I was thinking about how your spine is sort of the tallest bone in our bodies but it’s also the part with the most joints, right, and then I was thinking about joints and I started to think about the skeleton song and how inaccurate it was, so I was trying to sing it in my head but accurately and I forgot how many C vertebrae we have exactly —”

Lance has to bite his tongue as hard as he physically can to keep from bursting out laughing. He doesn’t want Keith to think he’s making fun of him, or else he’ll get all pouty and the excited glimmer in his eyes will go away, and that’s the last thing Lance wants.

But.

But.

The idea of Keith glaring at the air so hard that it’s making an entire gathered planet of people nervous, the fact that Keith has his own isolated little corner in the ballroom because his expression is so frightening that everyone else is too scared to be anywhere near him, the fact that Hunk and Pidge have spent the last who-knows-how-long contemplating what could have possibly made Keith so angry that he’s scowling that badly…and the whole time he’s singing a silly little kid’s song to himself and thinking about skeletons?

It’s funny.

“I love you,” Lance says as soon as Keith pauses to take a breath. He can’t quite keep the amusement out of his tone, which makes Keith narrow his eyes suspiciously.

“I love you, too,” he says slowly. Lance can hear the question in his voice, and chuckles quietly to himself, getting up on his tiptoes right press a lingering kiss to his boyfriend’s mouth. Keith relaxes instantly, his free hand coming to match his other and cradling Lance’s face carefully, tilting his head to improve the angle. Lance tries to sink into the kiss like he usually does, but he keeps picturing Keith’s glaring face, internal monologue singing a song about skeletons, and can’t help his giggles.

“What’s so funny?” Keith mumbles, petulant.

Lance pecks his lips one more time before pulling away. He’s still grinning.

“You’re just cute, is all.”

“I am not. I am cool and menacing.”

“Okay, baby. Whatever you say.”

[flo55i]

Maxiel. 2k. Max as the Grim Reaper. Daniel as the lost soul he’s ferrying to Heaven. Because there are some things you shouldn’t have to do alone. tw: death but it’s as fluffy as I get, promise. And also possibly tw; blasphemy?

Daniel wakes up in the same clothes he died in.  He laughs at the irony of the phrase, ‘wouldn’t be caught dead in’, never believing it would apply to him. The only reason he wore the faded red track-pants out of the house was to collect the bins with. Now they look a deep purple colour in the dark swirly mist thing that the afterlife apparently has going for it.

Suddenly realising he’s dead, Daniel puts his hands in his pockets just to make sure he still has control of all his limbs and is distracted by the fact his phone isn’t in them. It makes sense. But like. He can’t remember the last time he was without it. It was definitely there when he— Quickly, Daniel pulls the elastic band around the waist of his pants back and checks his dick is still there. 

“Thank God.” He mutters to himself. 

“God? Like that idiot has got anything to do with this.” Says a curt and surly voice from behind him.

Daniel swivels and comes face to face with Death. Or at least he thinks it is. The long swirling black cloak and the huge scythe that is taller than he is, is a dead giveaway. Literally. Immediately Daniel’s first instinct is to run, but as soon as he takes off in one direction, there’s a snap of fingers and he’s right back where he started from. 

“Was that fun?” The guy says, scowling down at Daniel from where he landed at his feet. At the sarcasm, Daniel takes his hands off his head and dares to finally open his eyes. He thinks he’s more startled to find that Death has sneakers on than the fact that he’s still alive— Daniel places a hand on his chest, checking— still breathing. Whatever he is. He doesn’t know if he’s technically dead or is he in some kind of Limbo? He looks around. It looks like it could be the land in between heaven and hell. What with the dark clouds and the horizon of agonising nothingness and—

“I can do this all day you know.” The guy says, interrupting Daniel’s freak out by tapping his scythe impatiently on the ground. Then uncrossing his arm, muttering to himself he adds, “Not like I’m busy or anything.” 

Slowly getting to his feet and brushing off the mist still clinging to his bare chest, Daniel asks, “You’re not like, going to reap me and shit are you?”

Death rolls his eyes. “What is it that you think I am going to do? You are already dead!”

The hood falls back off his face as he raises his hands in exasperation and Daniel can see this guy is younger than him, and pretty much human too. At least he is from the outside. He doesn’t look very menacing. Especially with those pouty lips and bright blue eyes. Angel, yes. Evil, no. 

If he really is dead like this guy says, Daniel was kinda expecting a scary skeleton type-a-thing, like how they showed in movies and comic books and stuff. No soul, no eyes. This guy looks anything but evil incarnated, what with the way he’s just waving his scythe around all over the place like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Maybe Daniel got the defective grim reaper or something?

“I mean, I’m not telling you how to do your job or anything.” Daniel starts, trying to be nice. By the sounds of it, this guy has probably had a hard day already. Or Eternity. Whatever. “But like, isn’t this the part where you take my soul?”

“Trust me.” Death says, staring Daniel down pitifully. “I do not want your stupid soul.” 

“Oh.” Daniel doesn’t know whether to be offended or not so he just asks, “So what ARE you here to do then? ‘Cause I gotta tell ya dude, that scythe looks pretty ominous to me.” 

Though the response gets an eye roll, Daniel thinks he can see the barest hint of a smile underneath it. 

Coughing, he then states, all official like, “My name is Max and I am here because it is my duty to guide you into the afterlife.” 

Max holds out the arm not carrying the weapon in invitation and Daniel takes the hint and starts walking. There’s rocks and uneven terrain that he has to climb over and crouch through. There are no trees or birds, no life except whatever he and Max are considered right now. Daniel didn’t know what he was expecting, fire and brimstone? 

They come to a lake and at Max’s gentle look, Daniel moves silently forward. It’s cool and the water laps at his collarbones, coming up to his neck. His foot slips and Max grabs his arm, saving his head from going under. He shivers away from the freezing cold touch. The hands don’t linger, as if Max knows that they feel like having a corpse clinging to Daniel’s body. Body moving again, Daniel refrains from rubbing his arm and tries not to think of the water being made up of thousands of souls who didn’t make it across beneath him.

Suddenly, Daniel can’t stand the silence. He tries a joke. “Why did the chicken go to the seance?” 

“I do not know?” Max looks unsure. But more so at the fact that Daniel is actually talking to him about something so stupid and not because he doesn’t know the answer. He plays along though, finally asking, “Why did the chicken go to the seance?”

“To get to the other side.” Daniel replies with a grin. 

“That was terrible.” But Max is looking at least faintly amused again so Daniel doesn’t believe him. 

They’ve reached the opposite bank now and Daniel steps free from the water. He feels lighter, like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Looking down, his pants aren’t even soaked. He doesn’t feel as cold either even though his skin is just as cold to the touch. It’s like he’s acclimatised and has simply gotten used to being here.

“So where are we going then?” He can’t help but ask. There’s nothing in front of them or beside them now, just a whole heap of swirling mist he can’t see anything through. “Up or down? Stairway to heaven or the Highway to hell?”

Max sighs. “Up.” 

“Yes! Woo hoo! Take that Mr Brown who thought I’d never get anywhere good!” Excited, Daniel starts singing. “And she’s buy-ying a stairway to—”

“If you sing one more word I will cut you down right here.” Max puts the blade right up against Daniel’s neck. 

“Chill dude. Relax.” Daniel tries to reassure whilst gently guiding the scythe away from his throat. It might not be able to kill him, but he doesn’t wanna spend the rest of eternity without a head either. Where was that nice guy with the smile from earlier? Daniel keeps talking, trying to find him again.

“So what’s it like then? Heaven?” He asks whilst drifting his fingers through the puffs of clouds at his hips. It disappears in seconds, like the water, without him feeling anything at all. 

“Is it Paradise like everyone says it is? Comfy digs, all I can eat? That sort of thing?” Daniel hopes the food is at least real. He can’t imagine not eating for the rest of eternity. “And are there hot angels flying around as far as the eye can see?” Daniel adds mostly to get a rise out of the one beside him. 

Max ignores him, long strides taking him slightly ahead. Daniel can feel that there’s some sort of frosty tension now, like Max is actually mad at him instead of just his usual surly and unpleasant self. 

“You know I always thought there’d be more trees and leaves around. More greenery.” Daniel muses out loud to himself since Max has gone quiet. “And like, I’m not going to be by myself up there, right? My family will be waiting, yeah? Cause that would suck, spending eternity alone and every—”

“I don’t know, ok!” Max shouts. Daniel stops when he does. 

“What?” He asks incredulously. “You’ve never been? Aren’t you an Angel? Isn’t that like, home base or whatever?” 

Max starts moving again and him not answering is answer enough for Daniel. “Is it a rule or something? No fraternising with the enemy or some shit?”

“I don’t—” Max starts, and Daniel is unnerved to see Death looking so startled. “I don’t remember.”

“How can you not remember?” Daniel snorts, struggling to keep up with Max’s pace. 

“I have been doing this for as long as I can remember. I don’t know what there was before.” Max whispers sullenly. “It is maybe punishment for something, I think, but I can’t be sure.”

Just as Daniel is about to ask what type of person is charged with leading him to heaven, Max holds the tip of his scythe up to point at something up ahead. They’ve reached the gates now. Actual pearly gates, not a hint of gold in sight. And they only open when Daniel approaches them after Max takes a step back. 

They creak charmingly, like a garden gate he barely remembers from childhood. There’s sunshine shining from somewhere beyond the clouds and it smells like summer rain and his grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies she would always have ready for him when he visited her. And Daniel knows everything that flashed before his eyes as the garbage truck hit him lies within— everything his Sunday school teacher taught him a life of good deeds has afforded him, but he just can’t seem to make himself take that final step. He hesitates. 

“Well?” Max asks impatiently. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

Daniel shuffles on his feet, only now realising he’s barefoot. The entire journey here, rocks and lakes and mountains of dirt and he hadn’t felt a thing. Max did that. Max got him here safely even though he clearly didn’t want to. “But what about you?” 

The question seems to stun Max, like no one has ever asked it before and it makes Daniel think that he has been fucking up his job all this time if the so called ‘virtuous people’ he’s been ferrying across Limbo to the afterlife don’t even have any human decency left to ask. 

“I suppose I will go and get the next idiot who cannot make it across on their own.” Max states bitterly. 

“By yourself?” Max looks away as he shrugs and Daniel can’t help but wonder what the crime was he supposedly committed that would warrant him to spend an eternity of torture having to watch as everyone else got their happily ever after and not him. “But for how long?”

Max is looking into the scythe now, like he can see all the answers to his past in its blade. Daniel can. Its shiny surface reflects the pearly gates and the Paradise beyond made up of everything he ever thought he could want in life. Family, friends, warmth, happiness…. But Daniel’s already had a crack at living that one. And it only ended up with him being sent here to Max.

“Don’t suppose you want any company, do you?” Daniel asks, half jokingly, half not, just to gauge Max’s reaction. He’s never believed in destiny or any shit like that, but who he is to turn down an actual Angel of God looking at him like he is the answer to all the mysteries and wonders in the universe. 

Holding out a hand, he takes the scythe from Max and suddenly Daniel is engulfed in a sea of black fabric. 

“Sweet.” He quips looking down at the same cloak as Max’s that’s now wrapped around him too. With the other hand not holding on to the scythe he holds it out to Max. “How’s about it then? We could call it a double team approach?”  

Looking back at the slightest glimpse of heaven he’s only ever been able to see, Max looks troubled. “Are you sure of this? I do not know if you can go back.” 

At the caution and care in those words, Daniel wonders who could have abandoned Max when he had obviously offered them to the last reaper. ‘Casue Daniel now knows that’s what must have happened. Max couldn’t ever be some heinous butcher or something like that. No one who has so much compassion and longing for human companionship could be capable of something so cruel as that.

“Well I ain’t no chicken.” Daniel laughs in reference to his own joke. “It ain’t all about getting to the other side, you know.” 

This time, the hand that grasps Daniel’s own is warm and full and together they glow a golden colour that makes him believe that this has always been a job better handled with two. 

“But you will not slow me down of course.” Max warns, still looking stunned at the glow. “I actually have a job to do and I can’t be holding your hand the whole time.”

And Daniel knows he’s bullshitting by how hard Max is still clinging to his hand but he lets it slide. After an eternity of dealing with ungrateful souls running and begging to have their lives back when he is only trying to offer them something so much better, Max has earned some faith of his own. 

“Then lead on, oh grimmest of reapers, you.” Daniel says and follows as Max leads them back the way they came.

Hands still tied by the souls that shine bright within, and by the burden of the scythe now shared between them, together they make the long journey back towards oblivion and beyond. 

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

yesss ur response def helps it's comforting to see how i relate to you as a writer, like thinking of myself first as an analyst then as a writer. seeing you break down exactly how you extrapolate a scenario based on yagami's character is RLLY helpful. i think im good at figuring scenarios out, like im such an ideas man, but formulating a plot structure, then staying motivated & finishing that is such a struggle. any more advice there? Everything youve said is help enough though, so thank you sm!

oh!! i'm glad it helped!! :D

i might not be the right person to ask about plot structure because quite frankly i hate that shit and that's why the vast majority of my stuff is oneshots. with oneshots you only need the barest skeleton of a plot. the suggestion of a universe, even. when i feel the rare urge to longfic something, then i break out the outline.

i'm a pantser at heart and a chronic no outline ass bitch. but when i want something to get done, i outline, because then i can get the dopamine hit of crossing things off and it ensures i have, like, important plot points off in the distance to work towards. and my outlines are entirely deranged. they're a hot mess of bad cringe jokes, snippets of dialogue i dreamed up, and plain old "something happens here at a bar blah blah blah."

gonna bare my soul for you here, anon--these are from a couple of finished longfics i had for trigun:

but as you can see i keep it fairly simple--it's just so i know it's there. sometimes i get really involved and print my outlines so i can add shit to them in colorful pens. anything to get my brain on paper so i can have a structure i'm spiraling off of. and then when i finish a point i can strikethrough it on docs and then i get a little dopamine hit :]

hope this helps!! i wish you the best of luck in your writing journey, hehe.

[lambourngb]

a skeleton of something more [2/6]

previously here. malex wip fic. a short serial leading up the premiere.

spoilers for the trailer and promo, will be instantly AU. If I’m going to the trouble of writing a malex fix-it for the season 3 opener, why not fix 2x13 too?

**** THEN **** 

After Alex closed Tripp’s journal, he met Michael’s gaze across the table at the Crashdown. 

His golden-brown eyes were heavy with pain, the reminder of how his mother’s story had ended was still fresh between them despite the span of months since the fiery end of Caulfield. What had resulted in being the fiery end of them, even though Alex hadn’t known it at the time. The look of sleeplessness in Michael’s face reminded Alex, that outside of this small piece of Nora, he had the weight of Maria still in the hospital recovering from the pathogen Flint had released. The press of the Deep Sky ring in his pocket warred with the hesitation to place one more burden on Michael, would the abacus of their fragile friendship balance out?

He flashed to that last argument in Michael’s bunker, a disaster of his own making, thinking he could believe in his father, but thankfully harm was averted at Crashcon. That recent memory was motive enough for Alex to decide. Whatever happened next, he needed Michael on the same page with him.

As Isobel moved to leave the table, explaining to Michael that she needed to check on Max, Alex held Michael’s gaze deliberately. Then he folded his fingers down, until the last three fanned out in a downward W. 

“After what happened with Maria, maybe you should come with me, Michael. You can help me shake some sense into Max,” Alex heard, tuning back into Isobel’s voice. Her eyes moved back and forth between them, a crease of suspicion wrinkling her upturned nose, as she stopped on him. “It’ll be a good distraction.”

Without looking at Isobel, Michael’s eyes remained trained on Alex’s hand. “No, thanks, I’m good here. I’ve had my fill of stubborn ass people who don’t want to listen to sensible advice from me, so I’ll catch up with you later, Isobel.” 

She made a dismissive huff but did not argue, leaving with the barest semblance of a polite goodbye to Alex, but that was typical Isobel Evans. Michael waited until his sister was on the other side of the door, before speaking quietly, his gaze finally moving up from Alex’s hands to his face. “I haven’t seen you flash that sign to me in years.” 

“Glad to know you haven’t forgotten it.”

“You, making the ‘wait for me, I want you now’ signal? Nah, that’s been burned into my brain over the years.” Michael said it with a faint trace of bitterness. “I guess news travels fast, Maria only dumped my ass this morning.”

Alex winced and looked down, swallowing the surprise and spark of hope that welled in his throat at that disclosure. It was better to concentrate on the unique talent he had of stepping on landmines around Michael, than wonder about what had happened with Maria. It looked like he was still good at causing harm without intention, judging by the stung bite in Michael’s voice. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have-”

“No, I’m sorry,” Michael cut off his apology firmly with a wave of his hand, calling a time-out. Alex waited, his teeth pressed into his lower lip as Michael rubbed his eyes with a weary half-smile. “I’m being an asshole right now, and that’s not fair to take it out on you. It’s been a shitty day already, and — anyway, … you definitely know how to get my attention, Alex.” He tilted his head, self-deprecation on his face, “for better or worse, you’ve always been good at that.” 

It had been the sign they had developed whenever their paths had crossed over the years while Alex had been on leave in Roswell, but it had started that summer after high school. After Michael’s hand had healed poorly from Jesse, the last three fingers had been left frozen in a claw, it had been a shared fuck-you to his dad to use it to form their own secret communication. A three-fingered W, turned upward meant it wasn’t a good time, and he would find Michael later; turned downward, well, that meant it was safe to approach him, and it had often ended in a hurried blowjob in his car. Perhaps he should have used more care in using it now, but Michael wasn’t the only one running on the fumes of insomnia and stress. “Sorry, I needed to talk to you, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave with Isobel-”

“It’s fine, really. It’s not a bad memory either, remembering that we had our little secret language.” Michael wiggled his fingers in reassurance, his left hand still wrapped with a bandanna. “I can make that signal a hell of a lot easier now, too. But anyway, what did you need?”

There was still a voice inside Alex’s head that said ‘you’, no matter how long it had been. He shoved that down deep, along with his curiosity about Maria, and concentrated on his purpose. “Your advice on something, and then if it’s not too much to ask, your help.”

“Anything.” 

Alex blinked, nonplussed by the easy acceptance. 

Michael gestured encouragingly, “seriously, anything, just tell me what’s going on because the way you’re hemming and hawing, it is freaking me out.” Suddenly, all expression washed out of Michael’s face as a horrible thought occurred to him. “Did you get deployed or something?”

“Not exactly, not how you’re thinking,” he winced at the earned glare from Michael as he continued to stall while the words still tripped and fumbled around his mouth, heedless to the mounting frustration between them both. He sighed, and regrouped. Pushing the closed journal aside, Alex dug into his pocket and laid the signet ring on the table before Michael. “Let me start at the beginning, I found this in my dad’s things.” 

“Jesse never seemed like a jewelry kind of guy to me.” Michael picked up the ring, examining it closely with a sarcastic smirk. “Other than parading around town with that wedding ring, when everyone knows your mom left him back during the Bush years, Dubya that is.”

“My father is all, was all, about appearances.” Alex placed the photo of the group on the table, sliding it over to him. “That ring marked his membership in this paramilitary group called Deep Sky. Every man in that photo worked at Caulfield, at one time or another.” He tapped his finger over the face of his father, then moved it to the right. “That’s my dad, and that is Ricky Long.”

Michael frowned, pulling the picture closer to squint at the faces. “Wyatt’s dad?”

“No, Forrest’s.”

“Nazi guy? Seriously?” He rubbed at his chin, the stubble longer than usual painting his jawline. Alex dragged his eyes away with effort as Michael considered that information. There was a reluctant understanding in his eyes, having recalled that Forrest Long wasn’t just ‘Nazi Guy’ to Alex, but someone who had expressed interest in Alex. Personal interest. “I guess that’s something you guys have in common then, dirtbag dads.” 

He didn’t look thrilled to admit that to Alex, but it was a mark of how far they had both come as friends that Michael had said it anyway regardless. It was kind of him. It was the same type of empathy Alex had extended toward Michael, when he had expressed interest in Maria. Cut open, bleeding under his skin from all the ways he had squandered his own chances, he had said something similar to Michael once upon a time. That was what love was all about. Then he had kept saying it, until he believed it most days because wanting Michael to be happy was the easier ask.

It was a gracious sentiment that was entirely wasted by Michael when it came to Forrest Long. 

“It would be, uh, something to bond over, if I hadn’t noticed that Forrest wears the same ring now.” 

Michael’s eyes sharpened. “Family heirloom or do you think he worked at Caulfield?”

“I don’t know, but he is an ex-Army vet.” Alex tapped the photo of the members gathered together, “That was part of what I’ve been looking into, identifying everyone who worked at Caulfield right until the end. As for Deep Sky, I don’t know if it’s military service, Caulfield, or a family legacy that ties every member together, I just know that Dad kept in touch with those who were involved at the prison.” 

“Makes sense, Jesse was able to get a hold of the atomizer and pathogen that Charlie developed from somewhere. For all of his strutting around at Crashcon with a uniform on, that didn’t look like it was an official use of government property.” 

“Right, it definitely wasn’t, and before you tell me to leave it alone-” Alex began, remembering Michael’s response to the investigation into 1947. He had considered Alex’s actions back then to be an act of futility, something that could only hurt by being revisited. The past being the past, unable to be altered. 

This time Michael cut him off, “No, I was wrong about that. I, um, I finally realized that just because I don’t see you connected to that place or the rest of your family, doesn’t mean you don’t. And while I wish that you didn’t, Alex, if digging into this gives you some sort of peace over it, then do it.”

Alex looked down, feeling the weight of relief that Michael understood. After his father’s body had been removed, after the questions and lies had been spun, he had spent the entire night sleepless over having been made into an effective weapon to force Michael’s compliance. Helena had known where all the weak spots were thanks to Flint, and had armed herself with a depowering agent. Once Flint was recovered, there was nothing stopping him from employing a similar tactic in the future.

“If anyone’s going to destroy me, it might as well be you.�� Michael had once declared with a bold carelessness that had infuriated and terrified Alex at the time, but that was nothing compared to now having a lived experience to back it up. His mind had easily used the memory of Maria’s collapse after the faintest exposure at the Crashcon and had exchanged her with Michael, being torn apart molecule by molecule, by an invisible threat.

Give him an enemy that he could see any day, especially one that bled. 

“I’ve been fighting so long, I don’t know what peace looks like anymore.” Alex held out his hand for the ring, and Michael gently laid it in his palm, brushing his fingertips over Alex’s skin. A lifetime of controlling himself kept the reaction off his face as he rubbed his thumb over the raised emblem of Deep Sky. “But I have learned recently that when something seems too good to be true, it is.” 

Neither of them mentioned Jesse and his performance from the last few months, but Michael frowned again, “Wait a second, you think Forrest targeted you on purpose?” 

“A member of a secret paramilitary organization just happens to ask me out after I was involved in the destruction of Caulfield? You really think that’s a coincidence?” Alex raised his eyebrow skeptically at Michael, before looking out the window to watch the pedestrians on the street. 

“I think you’re the hottest guy in Roswell, so I’m not surprised he asked you out.” Michael flushed a little when Alex turned back to stare at him in surprise over the flattering comment. “Seriously, you’re a catch, but I will agree, it’s not a good look that he’s got that ring. But maybe it’s crap he wears because of his dad, and he’s got no idea he’s parading around?”

“You’re being awfully generous.”

“Isn’t that what you want? Because last time I checked, you were the one telling me that I should have faith in people, even if they give me no reason to.” Michael flattened his hands on the table, drawing Alex’s attention to the bandanna on his hand again. That damn fight kept echoing between them to Alex’s dismay, but Michael didn’t let him linger over it, “While I stand by what I said about Jesse, ‘cause he messes us both up, all I know about Forrest Long is that he is way too interested in Nazi history and he has good taste in guys.” Michael wetted his lips, nervously to tack on, “I also know that I trust you, and your instincts, so if you say there’s something not right about him, then I believe you.” 

“There’s something not right about him,” Alex repeated seriously.

“Then I believe you, so what do you need me to do?”

“He wants to get close to me for some reason, probably related to what I know about aliens, so I’m going to let him. And I need you to back me up in case something goes wrong, and maybe use that lock pick you have in your brain?” Alex waited until Michael nodded in agreement, feeling the swell of gratitude at his support. Anyone else would probably think he was being paranoid, or that this was a delayed reaction to his father trying to kill them, but Michael, for all of his previous counter-arguments, had never truly believed in the good of humanity. Maybe in a few days, Alex would feel guilty in relying on that. Maybe in a few days, his suspicions about Forrest would be eliminated.

“He’s involved in running the open mike night at the Wild Pony with Maria, so I thought maybe I could perform a song or something? He drives a Prius, and while he’s listening to me sing, you could slip out mid-song and insert this into the code reader of his car.” 

On the table was a small device that mimicked a thumb drive, small and black. It was the type of technology that Alex had used in the Air Force, tracking terrorists abroad. It had taken a fair amount of searching to purchase the equivalent stateside to have on hand. Michael picked it up curiously, turning over his hands.

“It’s designed to download the GPS history of his car,” Alex explained, before rubbing the back of his head in thought. “That’s how I uncovered what my dad was up to, first by tracking his movements. If I let Forrest take me home, I can gain access to his laptop and phone.”

Michael furrowed his brow in concern, “You’re really willing to go that far? And what if he is involved in something shady, what then?”

“My father and brother both used me to get to you, there’s really nothing I wouldn’t do to keep that from happening again and if it means playing along with this guy, letting him lead me to the members of Deep Sky? Then I will.” If anything, his words only deepened the concern on Michael’s face, but Alex had been committed for a long time. Since the red level threat. Since the short ride to the recruitment office. Maybe as far back as his guitar going missing in the music room.

“I’ve slept with guys for worse reasons.”

CONTINUED HERE

[maleficarfic]

A Mutual Pursuit

Pairing: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Rating: Explicit

Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mild Spoilers

Summary: He ached, he burned, he stood back in Nibelheim in the midst of a conflagration, but this time, his skin trapped the flames. In that moment, he knew without a doubt that he would let Sephiroth do whatever he wanted.

On AO3: Link

“Let us defy destiny together.”

Sephiroth held out his hand.

Cloud stared at it. At him. Back at the hand.

Some strange, yawning hunger unfurled within him. Bizarre, nearly overwhelming need drove him to lift his hand toward Sephiroth’s. He—he didn’t want this. He didn’t want to help Sephiroth do anything, and yet—

Staticky, indistinct whispers fogged his brain. He could pick out fragments of sentences—

—union with—

Join—

—me. Embrace—

—but could make out nothing intelligible.

Beneath the words scratching inside his skull, that need churned inside him. It threaded through him like a second skeleton, its desires subsuming his own. He stood on the mental precipice of his own destruction. The only thing standing between him and the utter loss of self was empty air.

Cloud shuddered.

He didn’t want to help Sephiroth, and yet he felt his arm move.

“No,” he snarled, clasping his hand against his arm. His feet slid apart, his body turning to the side to shelter the arm reaching for Sephiroth.

Gritting his teeth, he dug his fingers into his own wrist hard enough to bruise, hard enough that he felt bones grating together. His eyes snapped up, meeting Sephiroth’s steely gaze.

Steely, but not indifferent.

Something sinister and dark lurked behind the startling green of Sephiroth’s eyes. Something hungry, as hungry as the clawing need inside of Cloud.

“Don’t deny me,” Sephiroth said, taking a step toward him.

Cloud tried to move, but the gravity of a thousand suns held him in place. He strained against the hunger inside him, against the need to reach out for the monster taking yet another step toward him.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he drew on every ounce of strength he possessed. He recalled the horrific flashes of Tifa’s anguish. He remembered Aerith’s words before they stepped into the final battle. Beneath it all, he felt his own residual terror and he used his fear to fill his bones with strength.

He let out a howl of fury and denial and pain. He tore himself away from destiny, wrenching his body backward.

And his hand settled in Sephiroth’s palm.

Cloud’s eyes flew wide open. He sucked in a sharp, horrified breath, and that breath exploded out of him with disbelief.

No.

With no air in his lungs, he couldn’t voice that horrified word.

Sephiroth’s head tipped ever so slightly to the side. “You are the last piece,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. The rough timbre of it stroked the raw, visceral hunger that chewed in Cloud’s gut, soothing the indiscernible source of it. “The last piece I need.” Sephiroth stepped closer, pulling on Cloud’s arm at the same time.

The inexorable strength in Sephiroth’s grip pulled Cloud off balance, and he stumbled forward.

Sephiroth caught him with his hand around Cloud’s throat.

Pleasure exploded beneath his skin. He ached, he burned, he stood back in Nibelheim in the midst of a conflagration, but this time, his skin trapped the flames. In that moment, he knew without a doubt that he would let Sephiroth do whatever he wanted. Shatter his trachea, smash his throat, crush the delicate bones of his neck.

And the ecstasy of his agony would be exquisite.

“Embrace me,” Sephiroth commanded.

On some primal level, Cloud understood that Sephiroth didn’t want to be held. That demand was for so much more than Cloud’s arms around him. Though he knew holding the other man wasn’t enough, it was all he knew to do. He reached for Sephiroth with both arms now, sliding them beneath the heavy fall of the other man’s jacket.

Cloud’s hands pressed against the naked skin of Sephiroth’s back, and he discovered a new, profound loathing for the gloves that kept him from touching Sephiroth’s skin.

(No, no, that wasn’t right, he didn’t want to touch Sephiroth, he didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want any of this, he wanted to find his strength, he wanted—)

He wanted to curve his hands around Sephiroth’s shoulders, but Sephiroth’s pauldrons and the tight fit of his jacket through the chest prevented Cloud’s touch.

Sephiroth’s fingers tightened on Cloud’s throat. His eyes narrowed with thinly veiled disappointment, and Cloud’s heart skipped two beats in his chest.

“I—”

“You’re not ready,” Sephiroth said, squeezing harder. Disgust colored his tone, filled in the space between his words. “Not yet.”

No. No, he was ready, he would give Sephiroth whatever he wanted, whatever needed.

(A distant part of him howled in outrage.)

“But we can make progress here.” The barest hint of a smile curled Sephiroth’s lips. “Together.”

Sweet joy coursed through Cloud. “Yes,” he breathed, his voice raspy and rough from the abuse of Sephiroth’s hand.

In a single, fluid motion, Sephiroth took Cloud to the ground. Cloud’s back hit the dirt, and he cried out more in surprise than pain, and then, as Sephiroth’s body settled against his and pinned his wrists by his shoulders, surprise evaporated, replaced by pleasure.

By horror. He was failing. Once again he was failing and once again someone else would need to save him because he was never enough on his own.

“Mmm, no, we can do better than this for you, Cloud.”

Cloud panted beneath Sephiroth, staring up at him with rapture in his gaze.

Sephiroth rolled off him, smoothly transferring Cloud’s wrists to one hand. He dragged Cloud’s smaller frame between his legs, laying Cloud’s back against his chest. Silvery hair billowed around them like contrails in the air, a thousand lines of bullets shimmering around Cloud’s face.

“Much better.”

Cloud fought the fall of his head, he really did. Against his will, it dropped backwards onto Sephiroth’s shoulder. This felt right (it felt wrong). This felt good (if felt awful). The closer he could be to Sephiroth, the less hunger he felt.

No, that wasn’t quite right. The yawning, endless hunger inside him grew increasingly satisfied, but the fiery desire simmering under his skin only burned with greater intensity. Every touch, every moment of contact, both soothed and inflamed, both eased and incited.

Caught in the spiraling dichotomy, Cloud felt small and lost. He was a mortal resting in the arms of an immortal god. Wasn’t this where he belonged? It felt right, so very right.

Sephiroth’s lips drew along Cloud’s temple, and he shuddered in his god’s embrace. Aching heat spread through him and pooled in his groin. Delicious need made his cock stir and harden, and he trembled.

“You’ve come so far for me already,” Sephiroth purred, and sweet relief washed through Cloud.

He’d been fighting against Sephiroth, raging against the creature he should worship above all others, and yet his actions merited praise. He hadn’t been making mistakes. He hadn’t ruined yet another attempt at becoming—something. Someone. At becoming more.

Sephiroth’s hand smoothed down Cloud’s chest, and Cloud’s cock hardened so fast it hurt. Blood pounded in his veins, and he arched almost violently against Sephiroth’s touch. He twisted into the heat of Sephiroth’s hand, desperately aching for more touch, more sensation, more of his god’s caresses.

“Good, Cloud.”

Sephiroth’s praise filled him with delirious pleasure. He could weep from the rightness of it.

Long fingers curved around Cloud’s wrist, lifting his hands to curl them against his chest.

“Hmm? What’s this?” Sephiroth turned Cloud’s wrist in his hand, inspecting the bracer he wore, and Cloud shivered with anticipation and eagerness to know what Sephiroth saw that was so fascinating. “Elemental materia linked to ice—and to fire.” His dark chuckle shook Cloud like a storm. His cock throbbed, his hips rolling.

Booted feet swung over Cloud’s ankles, trapping him and denying him the range of motion he needed to rock his hips again. A weak sound caught in his throat.

“Clever.”

Sephiroth’s lips touched his ear, and Cloud gasped, feeling as though someone had cast thundaga on him.

“Do you know what this allows me to do to you, Cloud?”

He’d equipped his materia like this so that Sephiroth couldn’t do things to him, he remembered that much. He remembered thumbing the elemental materia pieces before slipping them into his armor, equipping them with fire and ice because—because he remembered something else, an echo of before. The same memory as Tifa’s screams of anguish, the same memory as—

Cloud jerked violently in Sephiroth’s grasp, and this time it had nothing to do with Sephiroth’s agonizingly hot caresses.

He had to get away. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of this.

“I won’t—”

“You will,” Sephiroth said matter of factly, yanking Cloud’s shirt from the thick expanse of his belt. He rucked it up, pushing it high on Cloud’s chest.

Warm leather dragged over Cloud’s skin, and he’d have to be a better man not to find that sensation arousing, especially when his cock was already hard and very interested in every way that Sephiroth touched him.

“A demonstration.”

Cloud struggled against Sephiroth’s superior grip. The strength the other man wielded was impossible, even for a SOLDIER. But if SOLDIERs were gods among men, then Sephiroth was a god among SOLDIERs. No force of nature could free Cloud from his god’s grip.

“Let me go!” Cloud snarled, bucking wildly in Sephiroth’s grip. He went nowhere, of course.

A unique scent filled the air. Like mako, magic had a scent, and each spell smelled a particular way. The fire family smelled like embers and charcoal, like a hot and humid day. Lightning materia laced the air with crackling ozone before the magic formed.

Something sharp and cold filled Cloud’s nose. He smelled mountain winds and icy tundras. Frigid mornings had a distinct smell, filling the nose and biting at flesh.

Sephiroth cast blizzard against Cloud’s skin, dragging his thumb along Cloud’s nipple.

Sensation ricocheted down his spine. Fuck, Sephiroth cast blizzard but it felt like thunder, and Cloud gasped, arching into that touch.

A second later, he felt the sweet burn of fire. Sephiroth’s hand dragged across his chest, pulling flame over his skin. Cloud writhed beneath that touch, trapped by Sephiroth’s strength and forced to feel. It hurt, yes, but with his elemental materia absorbing the damage, it felt unspeakably good, too.

“Stop,” Cloud breathed, the protest faint. It rang hollow, even to him, because he didn’t want Sephiroth to stop. No, he wanted the lingering stroke of Sephiroth’s hand again. Wanted to feel ice against his skin in place of the heat.

“Mmm.” For a moment, Sephiroth sounded like he was actually considering Cloud’s request. “No.”

Shock rippled through him as Sephiroth unfastened his belt. He tossed the thick piece of leather aside, his fingers pulling at the fly of Cloud’s pants. “Progress,” he purred in Cloud’s ear, “is made step by slow, exquisite step. I will perfect you, Cloud.”

Cloud trembled as Sephiroth’s hand pushed beneath his pants. He sucked in a hard breath as Sephiroth’s palm ran over the length of his hand cock through his underwear. And he swore, his head falling back, when Sephiroth dragged blizzard-touched fingers over his skin.

Caught between Sephiroth’s chest and his hands, trapped by Sephiroth’s legs laying over his, Cloud could do nothing but feel. And the things he felt—

His head hit Sephiroth’s shoulder. Broken, aching moans spilled past his lips as Sephiroth’s hand closed around his cock. Body-warm leather slid over his skin, the texture a delicious counterpoint to the licks of ice.

One cold thumb dragged over the head of Cloud’s cock, smearing a drop of precum over his skin. Sephiroth’s warm palm dragged down his length, touch hard and firm and rough enough to pulled another moan from him.

And then Sephiroth’s hands weren’t cold, they were burning hot.

Cloud cried out, twisting in Sephiroth’s grasp. The sudden change shocked him, but it diminished none of the pleasure of Sephiroth’s touch. Instead, the heat made him burn more, made electric pleasure dance down his spine.

“Good,” Sephiroth purred, and though Cloud hated that praise, he ached for more of it. His cock twitched in Sephiroth’s hand, and the other man let out a low, dark chuckle against his ear that did as much to twist Cloud up inside as the hand on his length.

A squeeze beneath the head of his cock made stars explode across his vision. A rough stroke made him gasp and groan. A twist of Sephiroth’s wrist and a long drag up his length pulled a sound from Cloud that was almost embarrassing—but it made him feel like he was flying, or falling, or both, and the only Sephiroth’s embrace kept him stable.

“Imagine being this wrapped up in me all the time.” Sephiroth’s lips brushed against Cloud’s ear, and need twisted in Cloud’s gut. He panted, eyes staring into the distance without focus. “Imagine no barriers between us—ever.”

He shouldn’t want that. He knew he shouldn’t want that, but, fuck, he craved it. The very thought of it soothed the violent hunger in his gut at the same time it twisted passion’s knife deeper between his ribs.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

Sephiroth surged forward in a smooth roll. He pushed Cloud’s shoulders to the rocky ground, but Cloud found no complaint in the bite of stone against his cheek, his chest, his knees. The sharp pricks provided a decadent counterpoint to the rough stroke of Sephiroth’s hand on his cock, making the pleasure better. Harsher. Harder.

He groaned.

“Let go, Cloud,” Sephiroth purred, laying himself across Cloud’s back.

Silver moonlight spun into strands of hair billowed and fell about them in twisting coils. Each silky caress against his skin added another layer to the ecstasy Sephiroth painted against his skin.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Cloud rocked hard into Sephiroth’s fist.

Close now, so close. He moved with the other man, hating himself for his own weakness, but desperately needing the release Sephiroth could give him. He chased it with everything in him. The changes between fire and ice didn’t register, didn’t shock him; when Sephiroth switched between one spell and the other, all it did was add more to the sensation, building up until—

Sephiroth’s hand dragged rough down Cloud’s length and applied slow, steady pressure around the base of his cock.

A choking sob burst past his lips as Sephiroth’s rough grip forestalled orgasm but brought with it an utterly overwhelming wave of pleasure. For a moment, Cloud couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know where he was. Didn’t know who he was. Only Sephiroth’s hand on his cock defined him. Only the weight of him at Cloud’s back sketched in the lines of reality.

“Mutual pursuit of the same goal,” Sephiroth said, almost casually, as he released Cloud’s wrists, “is what brings us closer. When we want the same thing, then you’ll be ready for the final reunion. Don’t you want that?”

Did he? Shit, he didn’t know. He didn’t think he should want that, but he didn’t not want it, either.

“Please,” he gasped, hating himself for the weakness. He didn’t really know if he was asking for more or for clarification, but he also didn’t care which it was. Anything Sephiroth gave him now would be better than nothing.

A hand wrapped in leather stroked down Cloud’s side. Sephiroth’s jacket hung around them both, shadowing their bodies and trapping their shared heat. Cloud trembled as Sephiroth’s hand smoothed over his hip, his thigh. He groaned as Sephiroth curved his palm over his ass.

“Pleading, Cloud?” Sephiroth rasped out a chuckle against his ear, dark like midnight and just as dangerous. “Give me more of your pleas.”

Sephiroth’s hand disappeared, and Cloud let out a bereft moan. He couldn’t understand how he’d displeased his god so much that he needed to be punished by the loss of touch.

But then Sephiroth’s hand returned, bare, with no leather glove between their skin.

Cloud shuddered.

Rough fingers ran along the curve of his ass, dipping inward to stroke along his thigh. At the same time, Sephiroth resumed lazily stroking Cloud’s cock, as if he had nothing better to do with his time.

Mutual pursuit of the same goal, Sephiroth had said.

Another shudder ran down his spine.

Sephiroth’s fingers slipped between Cloud’s cheeks in a single, long glide. The callused tips of his fingers ran like pulled silk over Cloud’s entrance, and he let out a shocked gasp, bucking hard into Sephiroth’s fist. The hard drag of leather along his cock was almost too much, and he jerked back to avoid too much of it, inadvertently pushing Sephiroth’s fingers against his entrance.

That stimulation horrified him. Aroused him. Pleasure sparked under his skin like fireworks, and Cloud whined, pressing his forehead against a particularly rough-edged stone. That, too, only magnified the storm of feeling tangling up his body.

He didn’t really know what he felt anymore, just that he wanted more of it.

“Good.” The wicked, crooning drawl of Sephiroth’s voice raked pleasure down Cloud’s spine. Sephiroth had never emoted much—except the rage, Cloud remember the rage, the fury, the hatred, the disdain—but now, he spoke with so much pleasure in his voice. So much anticipation.

One finger pressed harder, pushing into him.

Cloud stiffened and tried to scramble away.

Sephiroth’s fist closed hard around his cock, and the weight of him pinned Cloud in place, but, gods, the combination of pleasure and pain was delicious. Cloud let out a sobbing moan, thrusting hard into Sephiroth’s hand once more.

“That’s it,” Sephiroth murmured, and one finger pressed just barely into Cloud’s body.

The intrusion was foreign, frightening for the alien sensation, but beneath the strange pressure was a delicious feeling of anticipation that made Cloud vibrate. He panted, his hips working slowly into Sephiroth’s hand. The slow push-pull, each retreat pushing Sephiroth’s finger further into him, felt like a drug.

“More, Cloud?”

Cloud’s only answer to that was a strangled moan. He couldn’t manage more.

“We’ll do what we can do.” Sephiroth’s finger drew back as his teeth caught Cloud’s ear. He didn’t tug gently or playfully. But Sephiroth had neither been gentle nor playful. He was a vengeful god; he always had been. Cloud would never expect tenderness from this man, but that was fine. He didn’t want tenderness.

Sephiroth bit down, applying more and more pressure over time, until Cloud’s vision fogged over with speckles and his breath caught in his throat. Only two points of sensation mattered: the visceral ache of Sephiroth’s teeth in his ear and the wicked drag of leather against Cloud’s cock.

Abruptly, Sephiroth released his ear. Cloud groaned, shaking. He heard a quiet hum and then a wet pop. Immediately following that, Sephiroth’s finger, slick with spit, pressed against Cloud’s ass again.

One goal. The same goal.

At first, Cloud thought that shared goal was pleasure. As Sephiroth worked his finger into Cloud’s body, he realized the truth.

This wasn’t about pleasure.

This was about destruction. This was about his destruction, and he didn’t care. Sephiroth wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t tender. He was systematic and brutal.

He worked his finger deeper, stroking, teasing, cajoling with relentless pleasure as he stroked Cloud off. When Cloud got too close to orgasm, Sephiroth’s fist closed hard around his length. The shock of pain knocked him back, but never far. Each time Sephiroth began playing ice and fire over him, he took Cloud one step closer to the edge of a devastating kind of bliss Cloud had started to crave.

Nothing else mattered. Nothing. Not the planet, not Tifa’s past anguish or Aerith’s present hopes. The future lost all its meaning, and the past meant something only because it had propelled him into this present.

Sephiroth destroyed him. That questing finger found something inside Cloud’s body that made him break.

He sobbed the next time Sephiroth denied him an orgasm. Tears burned in his eyes, as much for the same of wanting as wanting itself, and he twisted violently both into and away from Sephiroth’s every touch.

“Burn for me,” Sephiroth demanded, and Cloud did.

Sephiroth cast fire against his skin, and it lit him with blazing light. The materia on his bracer absorbed the damage but did nothing to prevent the flames. They scorched him, devoured him, and his materia prevented what should have been an inevitable demise.

When Sephiroth bit his neck hard enough to make him bleed, Cloud begged for more. When Sephiroth slipped a second finger into him and the stretch became a burning pain that should have been uncomfortable, Cloud pleaded for release.

Words ceased to have meaning. His existence started and stopped with Sephiroth’s hands on his body.

Devastating pleasure crested inside him, bubbled up, spilled over. He came so hard it hurt, too. Everything hurt, but the hurt was so good, so sweet. It swept through him like a tidal wave across the whole of the planet, swamping him, overwhelming him. And then flame followed wave, and what remained of his battered self burned away. He was nothing in the face of Sephiroth’s fire, consumed by it.

In the ashes of ecstasy, he trembled against rocky ground. His cock throbbed with spent pleasure. His body shook. He felt cold and hot and then cold again, barely able to breathe.

“Seven seconds till the end.” Sephiroth murmured the words against Cloud’s ear, and all that pleasure evaporated like so much fog on a cloudless day. “Time enough for you. Perhaps.” He spoke with a wandering tone, a thoughtful tone. “But what will you do with it?” Another dark chuckle. “Let’s see.”

And then Sephiroth was gone, Cloud was alone.

Alone in skin that didn’t fit quite right, with a mind that didn’t feel quite right, wearing clothes that didn’t match him and standing beside friends who no longer occupied quite the same place in his life. He swallowed hard.

Mocking laughter echoed in his head.

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 1, chapter 2

Masterlist | Previous | Next

Content warnings: None, still pretty light here.

It wasn't long before they reached a small encampment where another woman called out to the one who had been guiding Morgan. "Fiona, I swear you're the worst scout we have. There's something following you, you know."

The rogue - Fiona - put her hands on her hips.

"I'll have you know, Akara, that this is an adventurer. He's going to combat our evil."

"And why didn't you send him to the den?"

"I just wanted your blessing, ma'am."

"More like you didn't want to go out of your way." The woman, evidently a superior of some sort, looked Morgan over with a cool gaze. "There's a monster den about half an hour's walk to the west of here. They've been giving us some trouble. If you can exterminate them, we'll talk."

Talking was very low on the list of things Morgan wanted to do. But eliminating a nest of evil creatures - that was a good task, easily defined with no messy human contact. And, of course, it would also contribute in a small way toward restoring the Balance, to fulfilling the request that had sent him out here in the first place. Surely it was more than just one den causing problems, but they likely wanted to test his ability. He nodded to show he'd understood, then turned to go. The two women continued to talk as he left.

"Is he mute, or what?"

"Nah, he talks. But listen, you'll never believe this -"

He stopped listening. There were more important things to think about, like whether or not it would be worth the effort to concentrate on making clay golems instead of using skeletons. He debated as he walked, keeping an ear out for sounds of danger. Skeletons were plentiful in these parts, he'd discovered. So that was convenient. He paused to raise two out of a boggy patch of ground. Two was a good number, enough to draw enemy attention away without draining his energy too much. He could only manage one earth golem at a time, but if other risen skeletons were attacking the Sisterhood... yes, the extra effort was probably worth it to ease future interactions. He could always reserve the skeletons for use away from the encampment, lay them back down into the earth outside their view.

Morgan stopped, crouching down to touch the ground. He sent out a tendril of magical energy, spreading it thin to form a humanoid shape. The earth lifted, obedient but slow, a form rising up ponderously. It took almost a minute to fully form, and Morgan was breathing hard by the end of it. It was a small golem, only a little taller than him but considerably sturdier. It would do for now. He was admittedly a little out of practice, but he resolved to keep working at it. Later, after this den was taken care of.

It was early the next morning by the time Morgan returned to the rogue encampment. The nest of imp demons had presented a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. He'd had to rest afterwards, taking a few hours to meditate. It wasn't quite sleeping, but it was close enough. He'd also remembered to put his skeletons back into the ground outside the view of the little town. A clay golem plodded along by his side; he was just more comfortable with at least one construct to protect him.

A familiar voice raised a call as he approached the town gate. "Hey, ghoul boy's back!" The encroaching forces of darkness must have taken a toll on their numbers, Morgan surmised. Why else would a scout have two watch shifts so close to one another? The sooner he could get to the root of the problem, the better - for all of them.

The gate rolled open and a new woman approached. Judging by her more impressive-looking armour, Morgan guessed her to be some sort of commander. When she spoke, she certainly had the tone of a leader.

"I didn't think we'd see you back here, outlander. Did you clear the den of monsters?"

"They were demons, not monsters." He hung back by the gates, reluctant to enter without an explicit invitation.

"Demons. Monsters. I don't care what they are other than dead. Are they dead?"

"Yes."

"Good. Welcome to the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye - what's left of it, anyway. Fiona says you're here to cleanse the evil from this place. She also says you came out of the woods alongside some skeletons, so I'm not sure what to believe. Tell me about yourself, stranger."

A few more women clad in light armour had appeared, hanging back behind their leader. Not so different from the imps he'd just finished with, Morgan thought - skittish, wary. He decided to keep that comparison to himself. No sense in actively antagonizing them. They were already poised to dislike him based on his school of magic, based on his experience so far. It was possible that whoever had sent the request to his Order had done so in secret. It was also possible that they had passed on already, given the sorry state of things. He tried to skirt the issue delicately.

"I am a follower of Rathma. We are charged with maintaining the Balance between light and darkness. We received word of a source of evil nearby that threatens to disrupt that Balance. I seek to destroy it. If you can direct me-"

"The priests of Rathma are necromancers, are they not?" This was the woman from before, Akara. He hadn't noticed her standing behind the rest of them. He recognized the disdain in her face, her voice. He'd been hoping to avoid this type of interaction, but he'd never been able to figure out a good way to dodge the question without lying outright. And while he could technically lie - there wasn't anything physically or magically preventing it - he had never developed the barest shred of skill in the art of deceit, and it was impossibly difficult to guess what people would or wouldn't believe in any given situation. In cases where the truth would be unwelcome, the best option was usually to try to deflect.

"I don't intend to do you any harm," he tried.

"Answer the question, then. Yes or no."

Well, it had been worth trying. It seemed like Akara knew the answer anyway, and just wanted to hear it from him, for some reason.

"Yes."

Most of the women took a horrified step back, grimacing in disgust or fear. He didn't let it bother him on a personal level - it was easiest to work from the assumption that everyone would have these sorts of feelings toward him, based on either his appearance or his affiliation - but it rarely bade well for situations like this in which he needed information. The commander didn't flinch, which was heartening. She turned to face Akara.

"We can't afford to be choosy right now, Priestess. Whatever his methods, this is the best chance we've had in a while. I'm not going to waste it." She turned back to Morgan. "You'd do best to start by finding Deckard Cain. Word is, he knows just about everything there is to know. If he still lives, he should be able to tell you more about the evil that blights our land here."

He listened carefully as she described this scholar and his last known whereabouts. It was a good plan, to gather as much information as possible before properly facing down whatever evil had rooted there. It would likely take a few days to reach Tristram, which would give him time to work on his golems. He was pleased with these developments until the commander turned to address the women huddled behind her.

"Blaise, you'll go with him."

What? No, this wouldn't do at all. Other people just complicated things. What Morgan needed was the simplicity of solitude with his golems. He raised his hands in protest. "Madam, I really don't-"

"What the fuck, Kashya?" That was presumably Blaise, voicing a much louder objection. "Are you still mad about that thing last week? I said I was sorry, I don't deserve-"

"That wasn't a request," Kashya said calmly. "I think you're the best one for the job, and I won't hear any arguments. Now get your things together for the journey." The assembled rogues huddled in a group, chattering quietly amongst themselves as Blaise turned on her heel and stalked away. Morgan took a few steps toward their commander.

"Please, madam Kashya, I ask you to reconsider-"

"When I said no arguments, I meant it. Two heads are better than one. Now you can wait outside; you're making my girls nervous."

Morgan waited outside. It was clear that the matter was not open for discussion. He guessed that pushing it further would only serve to alienate the single person who seemed at all willing to work with him. One was better than none, so he would try to stay on her good side.

[venialsun]

to begin with, take warning (1/3)

[read on ao3]

1 | 2 | 3

Dick watched Damian physically try to not show his nerves on his face for a full ten minutes—with the success of a trained actor and the failure of a nervous fourteen-year-old playing it off to his older brother—when he caved. They had just driven past the Welcome to Gotham! billboard with “u sure?” and “go back to metropolis cuck!!!” graffitied in looping, hot pink script on the side. It’d be another twenty-five minutes of traffic before they made it to central downtown, and Dick could only stand so much of not-twitchy, not-nervous, I’m-above-this Damian before he burst into laughter and caused some problems.

So he said, “It’s okay to be nervous.”

And from the passenger side, feet up on the dash, looking at his phone, Damian snapped, “I’m not nervous! What is there to be nervous about? It’s an American high school. Big deal. Last week, I stopped a planet-wide catastrophe that would have killed billions in another galaxy, and every night, unless you don’t know, we fight actual monsters and supervillains who actively try to kill us. Some have even succeeded. This is nothing.”

“Yeah,” said Dick, “maybe don’t mention all that on the first day.”

“I know that.”

“And I think you mean ‘my friends and I went to space and stopped a war.’ You know you have to give them credit, too.”

“They’re not my friends,” said Damian. “I work with them. Father isn’t friends with every member of the Justice League, yet he’s worked with near every one of them on League missions. They are my colleagues.”

“So what you’re saying is that you are organizing and leading team missions?” Dick could not keep the amusement out of his voice. “What happened to ‘Teams are unnecessary and a waste of time’? What about the Titans? I know they invited you back.”

“Timothy leads the Titans,” said Damian. “And there’s no room for two Robins on the same team.”

“Mm, don’t know about that, but I also know neither of you would play nice long enough to really try. So no team, okay,” Dick agreed, “and you just happen to be having adventures with other underaged heroes of no relation to you on a periodic basis. And they’re not your friends.”

Damian blinked away from his phone—success!—and scowled. “I do not get your obsession with making friends, Richard,” he said.

Dick splayed his hands on the steering wheel. “I’m glad to see you hanging out with kids your own age, is all. It’s good for you.”

Damian snorted and looked out the window. Gotham’s littered streets and the growing mob of early-morning commuters blurred gray in the smog. In tones of great solemnity he said, “That’s what this whole thing is about, isn’t it? I am going to school to learn how to maintain a secret identity and cultivate a normal public persona. I will be surrounded by kids my own age, and I will be sure to make connections that I will treasure for the rest of my life. These next four years will be the happiest of my life, I know it.”

Dick laughed, and Damian smirked.

“Alright, smartass, I get it. You’re Damian Wayne, haver of too many titles and not leader of any teams, and you’re not nervous about going to high school. I believe you.”

They stopped at a light. Gotham Academy was a few blocks ahead. If they walked, they could be there in ten minutes. Driving as they were in the morning congestion, it would take at least fifteen. Dick didn’t mind. He hummed to himself, waiting. Damian went back to his phone. The light turned green. Dick eased his foot off the brake. They advanced slowly and made it to the front of the line of cars, when the light blinked yellow, then red, and they stopped again.

Damian said, “Father says you were a good student. Well-liked. Studious. Only Robin’s duties caused problems.”

“Bruce said that?” Dick rolled his eyes. “Of course, he did. School was fine,” he said, “though I was mostly focused on being Robin and then the Titans at the time. It was nice, I think. It seems so long ago. But it was hard to have a life there when the most important parts of my life were somewhere else.”

“Wait, Grayson,” Damian said, gleefully, “were you unpopular?”

Dick chuckled, and the light turned green again. “I don’t know what you mean, Dames. I didn’t have that much trouble, and I had a good group of friends. But sometimes I thought it was all a waste of time, time I should’ve spent being Robin. It wasn’t easy hiding parts of myself from my classmates. Keeping the secret meant I couldn’t really be myself or talk to anyone about anything other than school.”

“Until the Titans,” said Damian.

“Until the Titans,” agreed Dick. He glanced at Damian, still with his marginally tense shoulders. “If it counts for anything,” he said, “I don’t think it was a waste of time now. I’m glad I went. I think this is a good thing.”

“Tt,” Damian tutted, but his look was speculative.

“I won’t lie to you and say you will love school. But give it a chance. You might end up liking it.”

“Ever the optimist.”

Dick pulled up into the line of cars for day student drop-off. Gotham Academy stretched across the block, its front tower looming darkly over them in the morning fog. Teenagers in uniform and cheery-looking adults were wandering about, huddling in groups or directing the flow of foot traffic to the entrance and around the side of the façade.

“Got your schedule? Know where you’re going?” Dick asked.

Damian glowered at him.

Dick chuckled. “Right, right, ‘course you do. So I’ll pick you up at four o’clock, okay?”

“And not a minute later,” threatened Damian. And then he set his shoulders, got out of the car, slammed the door, and marched away like he was going into battle.

Dick couldn’t help himself. As he pulled away, he rolled down the window and shouted, “Have a great day at school, Damian! Love ya!”

Without turning around, Damian flipped him the bird.

A whistle blew, and in the rear view Dick saw an upset-looking woman, probably an administrator, point at Damian and loudly scold, “Young man!”

Dick winced, sympathetic yet unrepentant, and merged back into traffic.

Whoops.

•

Yanez knew this would happen, but she had thought it would be at least until midday. Homeroom hadn’t even started. She was busy alternating between threatening her teachers to smile and look happy to be here and smiling half-encouragingly, half-threateningly at students and shepherding them away from their hormonal clusters, when Headmaster Hammer cut a line through the crowd and headed straight to her. A sour-faced Damian Wayne kept pace behind him.

“Good morning,” she greeted, raising an eyebrow, and silently prayed for patience. “Can I help you?”

“Principal Yanez,” said Hammer. He motioned Damian in front of him. “Your student is in need of a reminder of our disciplinary code of conduct.”

Yanez did not miss the emphasis on your. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Hammer was still smarting over his demotion from Grand Headmaster of Gotham Academy, with the full powers that entailed, to “Grand Headmaster” of Gotham Academy, a purely honorary title that delegated tasks to the grammar, middle, and upper level administration that Gotham Academy had been divided into. She ignored him and looked down at the dark-haired boy in front of her. He glared back, defiant.

Ah. One of those.

“Damian Wayne, right?” she asked. “Isn’t it too early to be getting in trouble on the first day of school?”

“That depends on your definition of trouble, I suppose,” Damian said. To her surprise, he had the barest hint of an accent. British, maybe. He stuck out his hand. “You must be Samantha Yanez, the Head Principal for grades nine through twelve.”

Bemused, Yanez shook his hand. “That’s me.”

“I can only hope you are better than your predecessor,” said Damian. He glanced at Hammer and managed to make it seem like he was looking down his nose at him, despite being a full foot shorter. “He left much to be desired.”

“Note that down, Principal. Another perfect example of abhorrent and disrespectful student behavior,” said Hammer.

Yanez frowned. “What happened? Perhaps we should take this in my office.”

Already Yanez could see the curious bubble of students starting to form, talking behind their hands or blatantly recording on their phones.

“Certainly,” said Hammer. “It will help expedite the expulsion process.”

“That remains to be seen, Headmaster,” said Yanez.

She led them back to her office, past the crowds of mingling students and through the arching stone hallway that had been commandeered for the clerical staff. She took a seat behind her desk and indicated for them to sit. She tried not to be too annoyed when Hammer went instead to stand behind her, looming over like a gnarled skeleton.

“Okay,” she said. “Damian. Why don’t you explain to me why Headmaster Hammer has brought you in here? He’s threatening expulsion, but I only reserve that option for the most extreme of cases. Think this merits that?”

“Hardly,” scoffed Damian. “My brother was dropping me off and I flipped him off.”

“You—you flipped him off? You put your middle finger up at him?”

“Yes.”

Yanez barely resisted the urge to laugh and glanced at Hammer. His expression was thunderous. She looked back at Damian and waited, but he did not elaborate. “Why did you flip him off?” she asked.

“He is an embarrassment to me.”

“All brothers are embarrassing to their siblings, especially younger ones. Is there more?”

“No.”

“He has treated every administrator that tried to correct his behavior with rancor and disrespect,” said Hammer.

“Hrm.” Yanez steepled her fingers together. “Headmaster Hammer, could Damian and I have the room? I’ll take care of this. I’m sure you are very busy, and I know Principal Trammer could use the help with the elementary kids.”

Hammer scowled—Yanez knew he hated dealing with the primary school kids—but did not argue and took his leave.

When he was gone, Yanez took a moment to study the young boy in front of her. Petulant and angry, dark-haired, brown-skinned, and light-eyed, something tense and haughty in his shoulders—he looked every bit like any of the troubled kids Yanez had taught over her decades-long career. And yet nothing like them at all. There was something different in the set of his chin, the sharpness of his gaze, his crossed arms, like he was looking for danger and ready to meet it.

“Do you want to be here, Damian?” she asked.

Damian’s mouth twisted. “In this room, wasting my time? Not particularly.”

“Well, we can agree on that,” said Yanez. “But I meant here, Gotham Academy.”

Damian shrugged. “My family insists this will be an enriching opportunity.”

“They’re probably right. But I have looked at your records. You tested out of most of the core subjects, and your home-schooling portfolio is very impressive. Yet you are signed up for the standard ninth-grade honors track. When your Father and I met this summer to discuss the terms of your enrollment, he told me you insisted on it.”

Finally some of the animosity slipped from Damian’s face. He seemed intrigued. “You spoke with my father?”

“Only the once and very briefly,” said Yanez, “but yes. He said re-enrolling at Gotham Academy and coming back to school was your idea.”

Damian scowled.

“So I believe some part of you wants to be here, wants to be a student. Is that accurate?” she asked.

“I already regret it,” Damian muttered.

Yanez smiled. “Not the resounding yes I wanted to hear, but I’ll take it.” She reached into a side drawer and pulled out a quarter-sheet of yellow paper and scrawled down a few details. “If you want to be here, then being a student means abiding by some ground rules. Respect others, respect yourself, respect the school.”

“My respect is earned,” said Damian, “not freely given because of some archaic code of conduct.”

“Then you’re already miles ahead of most of the people in this building,” said Yanez. She handed him the slip of paper. “Respect is earned, yes, but you have to give people the chance to earn it in the first place. That means holding off on rude gestures and comments when it can be helped, which is most times. I am giving you two days of community lunch tutoring for flipping your brother off on school grounds and insulting the administrators.”

“Community lunch tutoring?” Damian echoed, scanning the slip.

“It is similar to detention, but instead you tutor other students and help them with their assignments. Report to the technology atrium during your lunchtime today and tomorrow.”

“Sounds dumb,” said Damian. “Why not just expel me?”

“For expressing your feelings and saying mean things to grown adults?” Yanez chuckled and shook her head. “Damian, this is a high school. If I expelled every bratty kid with no respect for authority and a penchant for dramatics, I would be out of a job. If you want to flip people off and bad-mouth teachers and administrators, that’s your business. It is not in my power to stop you, not fully anyway. You’re a smart kid. If you want to be a delinquent then at least be smart about it. If you get caught or the wrong adult overhears you, then you and I will be meeting more often, the repercussions will not be as merciful, and I will have to do a lot more paperwork. And Damian?”

She waited until she had his full attention, and he looked up, curious.

“I hate paperwork,” she said. “Don't let it come to that.” She waved a hand. “Now get out of my office. You’re late.”

next ->

[ceilingfan5]

Sticker stars has been so wonderful so far and I can’t wait for more!! Also, do have some fun prompts. Apocalypse & Avian au, with taakitz, perhaps? :))

(thinks about my dark wings au past) hm.

Taako’s fucked. Living in the After Times is like being a shark. You quit moving, you die. And Taako’s in no shape to move right now. 

He was scavenging. He and Lup used to scavenge a lot before she went missing, and they’d gotten pretty fucking good at it. They’ve found all sorts of shit. Garfield phones. Tommy guns. A whole cake once, perfectly untouched. They ate it with their hands right then and there and tried to tell each other stories about what they remembered of the Before Times, even though that wasn’t much. And when they both got sick, well, they got sick together. They had each other to rely on. 

That might be what Taako misses most. Then again, there’s no need to rank the holes in his heart. They all add up to empty. 

He was scavenging, is the thing, finding some good scrap here, some useful tech there, and food, even a taste of food was worth the hunt. But he didn’t see the hole in that rotting building’s floor, and he fell a long ways, landing in a scrumbled heap down low. 

And that was it, he figured. The end of ol’ Taako. And when he saw the bird circling overhead, shadow passing through the skeleton of the long-dead building, he imagined himself a Prometheus and closed his eyes to preserve the delusion. As a last thought, it wasn’t the worst he could do. At least he hadn’t made a mess of himself from the pain. 

He never expected to feel himself being moved, but then again, it made sense. The vulture probably wanted to keep his leftovers away from the other sky rats. 

But when he opened his eyes, dizzy with pain, Taako saw a face, not a beak and beady eyes. Soft, deep brown ones framed with long eyelashes, and slightly parted lips, showing a little confusion. And the person--no, he’d definitely seen a bird, what was the truth?--the person said something Taako couldn’t make out through all the ringing, and they picked him up, his leg dragging, the sticky blood leaving a trail. 

“What the fuck?” Taako managed, heroically, before the darkness throbbing at the edges of his vision took over.

He dreams of flying. It’s only a little terrifying. 

When he wakes up, he hurts, he hurts all over. He’s barely together, but together is together, and that’s more than he can say for some people he’s met, trying to survive through it all. He’s fucking hungry, but he’s always hungry, and the pain is turning his stomach. He’s not sure he could keep his scraps down if he had any. 

Wait. His shit. What happened to his shit?

Taako’s eyes snap open and he tries to sit up, which almost evacuates his breakfast, what’s left of it. He’s worked so fucking hard to find all of his nice things, and this fucker’s just gone and taken them?? He won’t have it, even if he can barely move! He tries to find something to pull himself up with, or something to attack with, or something, anything to help him out, and he’s confused by a flutter of feathers and a person rushing over to him.

“Woah, woah, woah, not yet, you don’t! You’re in no shape to be moving around, no sir.” 

Taako squints blearily at the person. Bird. Person with wings? Funny, he’d heard there were mutants, out here in the wastes, but this guy can’t be any younger than him. And Taako caught the barest end of the Before Times. It doesn’t add up. He opens his mouth to comment on this. 

“Heughumyn?”

The birdman frowns and props Taako up against the nearest wall. He’s in what can only be described as a nest of blankets, and they’re in a decent little shelter. Asshole. 

“I’m not sure you’re ready for that, either,” he says. 

“M’fuck’n, ready,” Taako slurs. 

“Mhm, mhm.” His wings twitch a little as he thinks. “How are you doing?”

“Youg’na, eat me?” Taako manages instead. His brains feel scrambled. Maybe more than his legs got fucked up. Damn it. 

The bird man laughs. 

“No, I’m afraid you’re not quite fit for consumption. That’s a little joke. No, I do not eat people, although I’m sure I’ve given you a bit of a scare. I’ll be honest, I just couldn’t leave you there to die.” His wings flutter a little, and he looks sheepish. “I didn’t have much of a plan with regards to rescuing you, and, uh, what would follow.”

Taako squints at him. He is having a very difficult time keeping up. He decides he has a concussion, which unfortunately is going to require some time. But this is the apocalypse. If they can stay safe, they’ve got all the time in the world. 

He’s just going to have to trust a mutant. 

“‘M coherent,” he says, partially to himself, and then, “You got any medicine?” which actually is rather coherent, and he mentally pats himself on the back for that one. Even that hurts, though. 

“Only a bit,” Birdboy says. “I’m not sure it would help, but we could try. I splinted your legs, I know that much, and, well, I’m not quite sure what to do about that nasty bump on your head.”

“Well, whatever,” Taako says, feeling a bit more confident. This guy definitely isn’t going to hurt him. If he wanted something from Taako, he’d have taken it and let him rot. He’s got a soft heart. Big mistake. “Y’got a name?”

“Kravitz,” he says. “Just Kravitz.” There’s an indecipherable look on his face. Or maybe that’s just the concussion fucking with him. “And you?”

“Taako. Just Taako.” 

“Well, I’d say it’s nice to meet you, Taako, but I really wish it had been under better circumstances.”

“S’nice,” Taako says, and he closes his eyes again. If he can trust this guy at least a little bit, he might as well not be awake for the pain. “Goodnight.”

“Woah, Taako, stay with me!”

But the darkness has already come back to embrace him.  

[popatochisssp]

Happy (Belated) Valentine’s Day!

I’m a procrastinator and then also I needed to sleep at one point, RIP anyway

-

Soul Searching

Your partner takes you aside on Valentine’s Day, somewhere nice and private.

You can guess at his intentions, especially when he tells you there’s something he wants to give you, but the chocolates and flowers you’re half-expecting don’t come.

Instead…

Instead, he talks to you, telling more than you already know about monster customs, monster relationships, monster milestones.

He thinks it’s time to do one of those right now, on your cute human love-holiday, a specific show of intimacy and trust like no other.

He touches his phalanges to his chest and his soul—the culmination of his entire being—comes forth.

And he wants you to hold it.

-

Sans (Undertale):

His smile is relaxed and easy, even lit from below by the soft white glow of his soul.

“Are you sure?” you ask him, and his grin widens.

“of course,” he replies without hesitation. “it’s you.”

Sans trusts you, wholeheartedly.

The thought makes you feel soft, and for lack of any kind of answer to it, you reach for his soul.

Your fingers brush against it and you’re immediately overwhelmed with…impressions, feelings, synesthetic thoughts as your mind attempts to translate this thing of pure magic into something you can understand.

A crisp breeze, blowing by your face.

Sliding into a freshly-made bed, rumpling a clean set of sheets for the first time.

The gently spiced sweetness of gingerbread, and the tart burst of blueberries.

A single, resonating chime of a bell, fading out into stillness.

“well?” Sans asks, drawing your attention back to his face. “what do you think?”

It’s said casually but it’s obvious your answer is important.

“I love it,” you tell him. “It’s you.”

-

Papyrus (Undertale):

“I’M! NOT NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, BY THE WAY! IF YOU WERE WONDERING.” Papyrus tells you.

…Which is an obvious lie by the way his leg is bouncing a mile a minute.

But you’re not about to call him out on it.

“It’d be okay, if you were nervous,” you say with diplomacy. “This seems like a pretty personal thing…”

“OH, VERY MUCH SO. BUT,” Papyrus beams at you, just the barest edge of nerves in his smile, “IF THERE’S ANYONE I’D TRUST WITH MY ENTIRE SELF, IT WOULD BE YOU!”

So saying, he nudges his soul forward; closer to you, wordlessly inviting you to touch it.

You’re not nearly rude enough to decline that invitation.

Papyrus is…

Polished marble beneath your fingertips.

Warm, gentle sunbeams on your skin.

The snap of a pretzel and the zing of cold, fresh lemonade, ice cubes clinking against the glass.

Waves, crashing onto the beach, rhythmic and powerful.

“Papyrus,” you breathe. “You’re amazing…”

He blinks at you a moment.

And then he laughs, boisterously, proclaiming, “YES! O-OF COURSE I AM! NYEH-HEH-HEH!” like he knew it all along.

He might not have…but you certainly did!

-

Sky (Underswap Sans):

“…COURSE YOU DON’T HAVE TO, IF YOU FEEL IT’S TOO SOON—I UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY!—BUT I WANTED TO OFFER BECAUSE…WELL, IT’S ABOUT THE GESTURE, AND OBVIOUSLY I TRUST YOU, SO—”

“Sans,” you interrupt, laughing a little despite yourself. “You’re…you’re rambling a little…”

Sans’ mouth shuts, a faint tinge of blue coming across his face.

“I…YES, I WAS, WASN’T I? HEHEHEH… I’M SORRY,” he sighs, a touch rueful. “I’M JUST…A LITTLE EXCITED! I KNOW YOU LACK THE CULTURAL CONTEXT, BUT THIS IS…KIND OF A BIG DEAL?”

You look at the upside down heart, bobbing before you in mid-air—Sans’ soul.

“Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“IT’S JUST…I LOVE YOU,” Sans admits. “SO…I WANT YOU TO LIKE IT…DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?”

“It does. ” And the least you can give your skeleton beau is an honest answer, so… “I am ready. I’ll do it.”

Sans’ eye-lights brighten happily as you reach out and cup his soul in your hands.

Just like he warned you, in as much magi-scientific detail as monsterly possible, it’s…weird, an utterly bizarre sensory experience for your brain.

It’s the soft, cloying sweetness of marshmallow, cut with the sharp, icy tingle of mint.

It’s the tickling bubbles of carbonation from a freshly cracked soda can.

It’s the swoop in your stomach at the top of a rollercoaster, just as you start to fall.

It’s birdsong, ambient and melodious.

It’s Sans.

So, “It’s perfect.”

-

Paps (Underswap Papyrus):

Such a bold invitation from your favorite shy skeleton is unexpected, to say the least.

But far from unwelcome.

The pale upside down heart is like a magnet for your fingers, your hands itching to touch the very core of the man you love so much.

But you have to be certain.

“This is…really okay?” you ask. “You’re okay…with this?”

Papyrus, with his ducked skull and fidgeting hands, looks utterly bashful, but the way he meets your eyes is nothing short of resolved.

“yeah,” he says. “i want to share this with you. i want you to know me…like this.”

He reaches for your hands and you let him take them, pulling them to closer to where his soul hovers.

“it’s okay,” he promises.

So you reach, and find…

The trickling sound of a quiet stream, flowing steadily forward.

Lacquered wood, smooth and sturdy.

A hot shower after a long day, filling the room with soothing steam.

Heavy cream, thick and sweet…with the faintest hint of hazelnut.

It’s probably rude, or at the very least extremely cheeky…but you can’t quite stop yourself from bringing Papyrus’ soul up to your lips for a chaste little peck.

He shivers, an enticing cerulean dusting his face.

Your intent must have quite clear, because he chuckles.

“i…i love you, too…”

-

Jasper (Underfell Sans):

“figured it was about that time,” Sans is saying with a shrug. “one of those things ya’ gotta get to sooner or later, y’know?”

His tone is blasé, perfectly casual; verging on cocky, even.

You might’ve bought it if he hadn’t stuffed his hands into his pockets, trying to hide their trembling from you.

Real emotion—vulnerability—scared the hell out of Sans and you both knew it.

With his soul laid bare before you, utterly exposed in the truest sense possible, he really couldn’t get any more vulnerable than this.

…but he’s showing you anyway.

He chose to be vulnerable to you, for you, and there aren’t words for how special that makes you feel.

“Thank you,” you tell him, hoping he understands what you mean and reaching slowly, carefully for everything that makes him…him.

The magic that settles in your palms feels like dry heat, almost insistently warm.

It feels like static, like peeling apart a pair of socks stuck to each other, fresh out of the dryer.

A puff like cinnamon and the tang of a tart apple, sour and sweet and spice all at once.

A distant rumble, like from a far off storm…

Sans’ eye-sockets go wide when you pull his soul closer to you, holding it against your chest.

You know what it probably looks like, like you’re aiming for an even more intimate type of sharing, but really, you just…want him near to you.

Because…

“Sans…you feel like home…”

-

Pyre (Underfell Papyrus):

“I’M SURE YOU’RE INCREDIBLY FLATTERED. TO HAVE WON SO MUCH OF MY REGARD IS NO SMALL FEAT—EVEN FOR AN EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN SUCH AS YOURSELF!”

He’s probably been talking for a solid two minutes now, blustering about how intimidated you must be by such a bold, romantic gesture; how loved you must feel to have such an amazing partner, willing to trust you with his soul; how he understands if you need a moment to process all this overwhelming information.

If you didn’t know better, you might’ve thought Papyrus was projecting a bit, stalling for time…

But you do know better: surely, the fact that he can’t seem to meet your eyes right now is just to…keep you from feeling nervous.

Surely.

“…AN HONOR, REALLY—”

“I am,” you say, cutting into his long-winded tirade.

Papyrus’ jaw clicks shut.

“I…WHAT.”

“You’re right,” you clarify. “I’m honored. Really.”

Ah, Papyrus hadn’t prepared a script for that response: you can tell by the way his cheekbones go the palest shade of pink, and by how he all but thrusts his soul at you.

“I! JUST…JUST TAKE IT!” he demands.

And well…you’re not often one to tell Papyrus ‘no.’

You carefully grasp his soul.

Sharp spice like ginger, dripping in rich dark chocolate, riding the line between bitter and sweet.

A razor’s edge beneath a fingertip, safe only for a careful hand.

Fine silk that flows and ghosts against your limbs, the barest whisper of touch.

Crackling, like the tamed fire of a well-stoked hearth.

You let go.

Papyrus looks uncertain, too proud to ask for your thoughts outright but obviously dying to know.

You opt not to leave him in suspense, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him down to meet you in a kiss.

Your partner is a fascinating man…

-

Mal (Swapfell Sans):

You startle when Sans grabs your hands in his own, intercepting you.

“Is…Did you change your mind?” you wonder, attempting to pull back. “It’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“NO. NO, IT’S FINE,” Sans assures you. “I TRUST YOU, DEAR. I DO.”

But still, he holds your hands, his grip firm.

“……I don’t—”

“JUST…YOU CAN…GO AHEAD. I JUST NEED…THIS……WHILE YOU DO.”

Your beloved Sans—ever emotionally-constipated—probably can’t do any better than that strained and halting explanation.

It’s a good thing that (you think) you understood it.

You can hold his soul.

He wants you to hold his soul.

…But the faint shred of control in such a vulnerable act, holding onto you while you hold onto him, is something he needs to have, too.

If it helps him feel comfortable, you don’t mind in the slightest.

You reach for his soul, with his gloved phalanges still curled around your hands.

Sans allows it.

A subtle yet persistent hum, background, like a nearly-forgotten device in a silent room.

A…strange sort of sweetness, bitter like licorice, or sour like raspberry—impossible to separate from one another, either way.

Pressure, intense and purposeful, bearing steadily downwards.

Crushed ice, stingingly, numbingly cold…

You’re not sure what to make of it…at first.

But then, you remember the last time you’d felt a wisp of this magic.

When you’d been hurt, not badly but enough to make Sans dart over to scold you, even as green light started to pour from his claws—easing your pain, putting you back to rights.

It was the same.

You release your grasp on Sans’ soul, taking no offense in the way it immediately retreats back into his chest.

You turn your hands in his, lacing your fingers together and squeezing tight.

“Thank you…for trusting me.”

And then, you lean in for a kiss.

-

Rus (Swapfell Papyrus):

You can’t believe it sometimes.

How you ever managed to snag yourself such an adorable, goofy sweetheart of a skeleton.

“i-i mean, if you don’t…y’know, ‘cause, i-if it’s weird, for you, uh…i wouldn’t want you to feel…obligated??? that’s…mmmaybe not the right word…”

Poor Papyrus is absolutely babbling by now in a way that could only be more endearing if he didn’t look so nervous.

“i don’t…i dunno, whatever, uh, whatever you want, to do, i just…wanted it to be…out there, if—………”

He goes dead silent when you make your answer to his proposition clear, taking his soul into your hands.

It’s…not what you expected.

The sensation of a thick plume of faux fur against your cheek.

Lukewarm wax cooling, growing tacky on your fingertips.

What rain sounds like when it’s falling outside, while you’re safe and dry indoors.

Dripping, overwhelming sweetness, dense like marmalade and sticky like caramel.

No…not really what you expected…

But somehow, it suits him wonderfully, this odd, clingy duck of a skeleton you’ve chosen as your own.

Papyrus visibly jumps when you raise his soul up to your face and give it a tender little nuzzle.

“I love you,” is all you have to say to make his whole skull glow violet.

It’s true, though—you really do.

-

Slate (Horrortale Sans):

He doesn’t look particularly…happy…about this.

In fact, Sans looks pretty much the opposite, a grimace on his face and his single red eye-light pointedly averted from the sight of his own soul, hovering there between you.

You manage to tear your eyes away from the sight of it, looking at him instead.

“Why?” you ask.

His frown deepens, confusion obvious.

“Why do you want me to do this?” you try again, hopefully clearer. “If it’s… If you don’t want to…”

“……no,” Sans says at length. “it’s not… you should get to……you…deserve to………to know it.”

“But…if you don’t want me to—”

“not… no, that’s not it.”

Sans looks at his soul, his expression visibly pained.

“i just…wish it weren’t…like this…”

Finally, it clicks.

He’s talking about the state of his soul, littered with cracks and fissures, marks of damage from all the horrible trauma he lived through.

He’s…

Sans is ashamed of it.

His own soul.

…

Something…comes over you.

Without hesitation, you reach out and take the manifestation of the skeleton you love into your hands.

It feels like…

Oil dripping over your fingers, dark and slick.

Plush velvet, soft and smooth.

A sharp burst like grapefruit and the warring bitter and sweet of burnt sugar.

Intermittent cricket chirps, on an otherwise still and silent night.

Just like you thought…

You pull Sans’ soul in, bringing it to your lips to pepper it with kisses—one for every little crack and imperfection on its surface—even as Sans shudders and goes that soft gray-blue color you adore so much.

He only manages to hold back the tears (relief? Joy? Disbelief?) until you speak.

“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

And then, well…you’ve got plenty more kisses to give.

-

Papy (Horrortale Papyrus):

“So! If You’d Like… You Can Just Go Ahead And…”

Don’t mind if you do!

The soft white soul in front of you is utterly enchanting, lovely to look at—and that should be no surprise at all, knowing the man it belongs to.

You lean in closer, admiring it just a moment longer…

“Wait!”

You look up.

Papyrus, his smile gone tight all of a sudden, is reaching for his own soul too…calling it back?

No…

Just…turning it, slightly, a minor little adjustment.

Which is, quite frankly, deeply suspicious.

“Uh…what are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Papyrus assures you. “Don’t You Want To—”

He cuts off abruptly as you lean to the side, testing.

Sure enough, he re-angles his soul for you again, almost on instinct, and when he realizes how badly he’s given himself away, a nervous drop of sweat beads along the side of his skull.

“Papyrus… Why are you trying to ‘dark side of the moon’ your soul?”

“………”

You frown.

“Papyrus.”

“It’s! Not Very Nice, To Look At, Over There,” he confesses, admitting defeat. “Wouldn’t You Rather Just…Look At The Light Side? Like The Moon? The Moon Is Lovely, Nobody Needs To See—”

“I want to see,” you tell him, firmly.

His meddling hands…reluctantly retreat.

Leaving you free to take Papyrus’ soul in your grasp and see what all the fuss was about.

He was right, that the deep scar on the other side of his soul wasn’t particularly pretty—imperfectly healed, a gnarled silver streak across glowing white.

But when you touch him, his innermost self, it’s also…

Soft and impossibly delicate, like holding a single page of scritta paper between your fingers.

Cold steel, stainless and nigh unbreakable, fit to outlast anything.

Malleable marzipan and slippery olive oil, sweet and light and…weird, just a little offbeat.

A steady thrumming, beneath your fingers, like a heart; a strong, steady pulse.

“Thought so,” you say at length, gently trailing your fingers over Papyrus’ soul.

“Thought What?” he asks.

His hands are wringing in his lap, already anxious, so you decide not to make him wait for your answer.

“I love all of you,” you explain. “Not just the ‘pretty’ parts.”

And oh, Papyrus’ eye-sockets sparkle.

-

Ash (Undergloom Sans):

The way Sans looks at his own soul, you’d think he’d never seen it before.

His eye-lights are blown wide in their sockets, that soft shade of gray you’ve come to love so much filled with nothing less than total surprise.

Like he’s not even sure of what he’s seeing.

It doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary to you.

It’s just…a normal monster soul, an upside down heart shape made of glowing white light.

Maybe…he sees something you don’t?

“Everything okay…?” you ask, and Sans finally blinks.

“huh? oh…yeah…yeah, nothing’s……”

He trails off a moment.

“i just……never seen it this bright before…”

Oh.

Oh.

If you had to make a guess, you’d say that that’s a very, very good thing.

…and it makes you want to hold his soul in your hands even more.

“So…can I…?”

“oh yeah, sure. heheh, go for it—just be gentle.”

As if you would do anything less.

You scoop Sans’ soul up, cradling it in your palms.

It feels like…

Standing in the rain without an umbrella, letting the droplets pelt your skin.

A window pane under your hand, cold, flat, and even.

Soft white noise, unidentifiable yet soothing.

A glass of milk and a fistful of semisweet chocolate chips, plain and simple—uncomplicated.

“This is…beyond cool,” you say, because frankly, it is.

Sans smiles.

You love it when he smiles, the way the expression seems to weaken the dark circles beneath his eye-sockets.

Apparently, it also makes his soul glow just a little bit brighter, and you like that even more.

You think you’ll just have to make Sans smile as much as you possibly can.

-

Yrus (Undergloom Papyrus):

“SO…YOU’RE CLEAR, YES? WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN?”

You nod.

Papyrus’ concise explanation of the synesthetic experience that was holding a soul had been as well-crafted as one of his lectures, and just as informative.

Perceiving all of him, through all of your senses at once, is an exciting prospect to be sure.

“AND…YOU UNDERSTAND? WHAT IT MEANS?”

“I think so…” Which of course, makes you wonder… “Are you sure you want me to…?”

Papyrus smiles, the corners of his eye-sockets crinkling with gentle amusement…and a hint of self-deprecation.

“IT’S SWEET OF YOU TO ASK,” he says. “BUT…DO YOU REALLY THINK WE’D BE HERE IF I WASN’T ABSOLUTELY SURE?”

………

He has a point.

You remember how terribly flustered Papyrus would get, back at the beginning of your relationship—unable to hold your hand without starting to sweat and stammering over his words like you’d suggested something lewd instead.

He seems perfectly calm now, not even blushing (…you think—the pale, pearly color of his magic makes it nearly impossible to tell).

“Alright… You’re sure.”

Without further ado, your grasp Papyrus’ soul with careful hands.

He’s warm, steaming chai, sugar cubes dissolving within.

Picking an autumn leaf up off the ground, bright yet fragile.

Fingers trailing over smooth, worn leather.

A soft, slow sound, like breathing beside you in bed in the middle of the night.

You gently stroke your thumb over the surface of Papyrus’ soul.

He sighs when you do, eye-sockets falling shut.

Trusting himself wholly in your hands.

“Oh Dear-Heart,” he breathes, his voice going quiet. “I Love You…”

You know.

The feeling is very much mutual.

-

Brick (Horrorfell Sans):

“So…I just…touch it?”

Sans’ big phalanges curl, his wrist flicking twice—“yeah.”

Seems simple enough, you suppose?

Under Sans’ watchful red eye-light, you reach forward…

“wa—it…!”

You jump, your eyes going wide, and the soul darts away from your fingers but you don’t care about that.

Sans’ pained grimace is far more important to you right now, seeing his knuckles pressed against his throat as if to soothe the ache.

“Use your hands!” you exclaim fretfully with concern, grasping at his claws and pulling them out in front of him.

You’d learned sign for a reason, and it wasn’t so Sans could hurt himself trying to make words out loud with a voice that seared and stung him so painfully.

“i know,” he assures you, looking chagrined. “i know, i… sorry. i…panicked, a little.”

More than a little, you almost say, but don’t.

You’re sure it was hard enough already for him to admit, even peripherally, that he’d been…scared.

“Are you okay now? Because…we don’t have to—”

“no,” Sans signs, forcefully. “i want to. i just…i wasn’t ready. i am now. you can… you can go ahead.”

Well… so long as he’s sure.

You reach again, moving slowly this time so Sans can see exactly what you’re doing, where your hands are going…

Wrapping ever so gently around the faintly cracked white soul glowing before you.

It feels like…

Tightening your grip on a handful of hot sand, making it slip away though your fingers even as the heat starts to hurt.

The high, droning cry of cicadas in the dead of summer.

Wool, clean but unprocessed—a thick tangle of softness just shy of raw.

Earthy rye bread and sharp black coffee, warm and fragrant.

Just as slow and steady as you took it in your hands, you pass it back.

Sans takes it, absorbing it back into his chest.

His grin is crooked, almost sheepish.

“so…what’s the damage?”

You sigh, regretfully.

“I’m so sorry…I don’t know how to tell you this, Sans, but…I think you might be baby.”

“…what,” Sans signs, even as that cute hissing sound you’d come to realize was his laughter fills the air, his shoulders bouncing.

“I’m sure this is very upsetting news,” you continue. “It’s a terminal condition, to be just baby, but—mphmh!”

Sans’ hand settles over half of your face, muffling your words.

But he’s still laughing, so you think you’re alright.

-

King (Horrorfell Papyrus):

“YOU REALIZE, OF COURSE, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS,” Papyrus says.

His needle-sharp phalanges locked tightly around your hands, the stern and imperious look upon his skull as he tells you so…

You’d be hard-pressed not to realize that this was important.

The scarred yet lovely white soul hovering almost hauntingly between you, awaiting your touch, only adds to the gravitas of the moment.

Papyrus releases your hands.

You don’t move.

He stares at you a moment, taking you in.

And then he reaches for you.

The backs of his claws light carefully on your cheek, stroking slow and purposeful.

“…I LOVE YOU, MY JEWEL,” he says, quietly; matter of fact. “THERE ISN’T ANOTHER SOUL ALIVE I’D ALLOW TO DO THIS. YOU KNOW THAT…YES?”

“Yes,” you answer, because you do know it.

As aloof and closed off and even mean as Papyrus once was…once he let you in, you were in, and he never made you doubt that.

You take his soul in your hands.

The sound of wind, gale-force, rushing past your ears.

Pressing down on a healing bruise, testing the fading soreness.

More heat than sweet, peppery cayenne overpowering a faint hint of juicy pomegranate.

Curling your fingers around the stem of a rose, just lightly enough that the thorns don’t prick you.

Papyrus is…a singular sort of skeleton, not the easiest to get close to by any means of the word.

But you’re here, holding all that he is in the palm of your hands, at his own invitation.

You raise his soul and press a kiss to its scuffed and wounded surface, feeding all your intent into the gesture.

I love you, too.

[freshouttaparsnips]

Terror wants to put the universe back the way it's supposed to go, its his whole purpose, his sole reason for existing.

He wasn't anticipating it to be such a lonely endeavor.

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

sorry about the blurry fic cover, but anyways!! we hit 215$ on the Helping-Syndicate Drive, so here’s the 80$ goal reward!! Bad Pap Gang :D

tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Misguided Intentions, hunger, Starvation, LV Issues, Murder, Its a big ole sad poly, Papcest, tell me if it needs more tags

read chapter 1 on Ao3

or read it below!!

(and read about the drive and how to help here!!!)

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

The thing about Papyrus was that, for the longest time, he’d actually had hope. He hadn’t always been like this, a festering being of terror and hopelessness, and something about that made all of it all the worse. Made feeling this way, being this person all the more horrible.

He didn’t relish the thought of tearing the Multiverse apart with negative energy, piece by screaming piece before stitching it back together, but given the fact that none of it belonged, he didn’t feel too bad about it. No one belonged where they were, the Timelines verging on all out spaghettification, and Papyrus couldn’t let that happen. None of them were meant to meet, certainly not.

His name was different, now. Night Terror, Terror for short. Papyrus was a name he’d long since left behind, his identity long since lost to the job he’d set for himself. His brother hadn’t kept his name either, the two of them leaving their past selves behind in a desperate bid to distance themselves from the horrors there.

It was comforting, almost. Knowing that he needed no one, not even his brother, to do what needed to be done.

But doing it all himself had gotten… lonely. He didn’t need anyone, not like Lucid did, but he also craved attention and companionship the same as any monster… even ones who’d lost their way. So he began looking, for lost souls in forgotten timelines, for the lonely and hurt who he’d easily be able to turn to his cause.

It didn’t take long to find his first victim, alone in a snowy field in a desolate Underground… everyone dust in the wind and LV in their eyes.

They introduced themself as Wisp, eyes half crazed and redder than they should have been for an Underfell Papyrus.

“Do you have anywhere to go, Wisp?” Terror had asked them, and they’d laughed.

“Does a killer have anywhere to go? Anywhere at all?” Their voice was cracked, likely from the amount of time they’d been screaming, sobbing, cursing their brother who’d all but left them with the blood and dust of so many in their soul, on their hands.

Terror could feel the “hallucination” that accompanied Wisp, the spirit of pain and sorrow that this universe’s Sans had been reduced to once he’d lost everything, including the trust and love of his sibling.

“I suppose not.” He answered, reaching out his hand. Wisp twitched, eyeing it suspiciously.

“What do you want?”

Terror smiled. It wasn’t kind. “I want your help to put things back to where they’re supposed to be.”

Wisp shifted, fingers twitching at their sides, before they took his hand. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

~.~

The next was a skeleton, a Swapfell Papyrus left in a world without his brother, a world that was slowly but surely dying under the weight of its own sins.

This one had given the grunt of a name, Chain having a gravelly voice and a somber disposition. Terror hadn’t needed to give much of a spiel in the slightest, Chain brightening up the barest amount at the mention of sanctuary before he was standing to his full, truly monstrous height, the jagged hole in his skull seeming to have no effect on his decision making skills.

“If I come with you… you have food?” he asked and Terror couldn’t help but wonder if Chain really though he could hide his intentions.

“I do. As much as you could ever need, to do with whatever you’d like.” He wasn’t cruel, as much as his reputation preceded him.

Chain’s smile was as bright as it could get, these days, and his large hand was dwarfing Terror’s as they shook on it.

Terror well understood that if their deal ever went sour, he’d likely have to kill Chain and wipe his universe to make things right. But for now, for now he’d do his best to make sure it didn’t turn to that.

~.~

The twins are somewhat of an issue to hunt down, given that they didn’t stay in one universe unless they absolutely had to. Two souls born of the same, chaotic magic, two souls intertwined in a desperate bid to stop the child.

Terror had always thought it was a sad attempt at some kind of normalcy, the two of them hanging around the slums of a universe that had no Papyrus. They’d gotten to the Surface in this one, Terror moving through the shadows to find the bar that the twins had found themselves in a scuffle within.

Strife and hardship followed these two, the equivalent of an Underswap Papyrus, and a Swapfell Papyrus with purple hued eyelights.

He only had to step into the light of the bar to get the patrons to settle themselves, eyes staring on in abject horror as he grabbed the two of them and dragged them both outside. They choked on the cloud of dust that billowed as he threw them into the dirt, Terror ignoring their snarls as they backed away.

Their souls shone on their chests, only visible to those with enough LV, but Terror had no interest in killing them yet, despite how easy it’d be.

“I have a proposition.” He said, simply, and the Swap Papyrus laughed derisively.

“Like a fucking Angel from the heavens, huh? Fuck off.”

Terror tilted his head, smile growing sharp. “I don’t know what options you think you have, but only one of them ends with you keeping your head.”

That may have been a bit of a low blow, given their history with a certain LV hungry child, but Terror didn’t have it in him to care much about the flinch he was rewarded.

Blade and Patch, they told him, and the pattern continued.

None of them willing to hold on to an identity that no longer defined them, no longer willing to call themselves by the name of a monster that, in all honesty, had died a long, long time ago.

Terror could only grin.

He’d found what he needed.

[starkeristheendgame]

hey!! im really sorry to bother but i really love your writing & saw that you were taking prompts!! i was wondering if you could do one where tony has a sort of kink for calling peter ‘kid’ in a way, if your comfortable of course! sorry if my English isn’t the best!

I’m so sorry that this got buried to the bottom of my inbox! I hope you’re still around and that you get to see this, and I’m so sorry again that it drowned! I hope you enjoy it and I can only apologise if you hate it 😂

Also; please, please don’t ever apologise for your verbal or lingual ability. Learning another language is hard, and English is noted as one of (if not the most) hardest languages to learn. Being bi/multi-lingual is something to be insanely proud of!

I hope you don’t mind, but all of my prompts recently have been in canon universe, so this is a neighbours AU with no powers. In which Tony is a rich ex-businessman who just wants to tinker on old cars in his (not) retirement and Peter is the high school kid that won’t leave him alone.

TW: ‘Kid’ kink (the term) | Underage character | Underage (SS&C) sex | Daddy kink

Someone had bought the house next to his over the half-term. Peter knew this because the sale sign went down and the garden was immediately de-turfed and a notice was posted through everyone’s door on Wayforest Road that ‘minor construction’ would begun within the next two weeks, from 8am to 5pm daily, save for Saturdays and Sundays.

Peter wanted to laugh in - and then punch - the face of whoever decided to term it minor. Abruptly on the following Monday, almost a full half-hour before his alarm was due to go off, Peter was awoken by deep, loud voices and the clanging of scaffolding poles as the workmen arrived.

Groaning did nothing. Neither did flopping about pathetically on his bed like a beached fish. Burrowing under his duvet and his pillow was also a lost cause; he’d left his window open to keep his room cool in the night.

Seething, Peter flung himself from bed, turned off his alarm, and hopped in the shower. The workmen were gone when he came back, but the house was now a big, ugly grey thing besides his own, and he paused on the sidewalk to eye it mulishly. “If you’re another crabby old man; I’m not helping you walk your groceries up to your porch” he announced loudly to the empty house, and scuttled away to the safety of his own home after being eyed balefully and judgmentally by Mrs. Witkin’s cat.

At the dinner table, the new house and its new occupants were all Aunt May seemed to want to talk about, despite the way Peter’s face resembled less of his usual ‘ :) ‘ and more of a ‘ -.- ‘ as she went on, guessing the features of their new neighbour animatedly around mouthfuls of mashed potato.

Tuesday morning found him jolting awake to a shout of “Jim! Jim! For fuck’s sake, Jim, get tha’ fuckin’ plank!” In a thick, overly loud Irish accent.

By Friday, Peter was ready to forgo just a punch to the face, and was willing to commit all out, planned murder. At somewhere around seven-am every morning that week, the workmen had woken him up with their clanging and their shouting and their existing. Friday evening he stomped around the corner with a glower, fingers tight around his backpack straps. Not even Mrs. Witkin’s mean old cat could deter him from scowling at the house the entire way to his door.

Town rumours be damned; that cat was just old and judgemental, like half the residents there. It was no trapped old lady or cursed young Prince.

Hopefully.

Peter crossed himself on his porch quickly just in case. It could never hurt to be a little superstitious. Especially not after the day that Mr. Herald proclaimed himself immortal and was then promptly wiped out by the tree in his yard collapsing.

By the following Monday, Peter caved and stayed at Ned’s for the night, for the first time in his entire life thankful to hear the music of his alarm and not a series of clangs or yells. It was even good enough that Ned’s snoring didn’t disturb him as much as it usually did. He felt chipper, refreshed. Right up until he turned the corner and found his street lined with vans, the workmen a little late finishing.

The next two months were cesspit of noise and strange men and sleepless days off. Apparently the person who had bought the house must’ve only liked the area and nothing about the house at all, because by week three, all that remained of it was the bare skeleton, gutted and stripped and ugly. But Peter was willing to concede that his new neighbour had good taste.

By the end of the second month the house had been entirely re-built, and Peter was convinced that his new neighbour was some very famous or important person looking for a secret hideaway, or a mob boss. There was no other logical explanation. What had once been a decent but generic detached property with a neglected garden was now a mini-mansion of sorts, all soft creams and light earth tones, with a stonewall front and staggered steps that led onto a half-gravel and half-grass front yard.

Large paned windows were already lined with thick curtains and plants and a sweeping gravel-scape led to a large garage, that seemed to be the most work of the renovation. It was huge, probably taking up over half of what used to be side garden and dead grass. No fence bordered the property, but the difference between Peter’s space and the new person’s space was immaculate and definitive.

“Huh” he mused aloud, blinking. Suddenly, he was less irritated at all those lost half-hours and more curious about who was going to be living there. They had money, for sure. Inheritance? Insurance claim payout? Illegal happenings? Aunt May’s two joking theories were suddenly looking less of a joke and more genuine possibilities.

As it would happen, Peter wouldn’t actually find out for another three or so months. The man moved in on a Saturday, quietly and with a small fleet of sleek SUV vehicles and fancy moving vans. Peter enjoyed a lazy morning, napping until the start of the afternoon and basking in the summer warmth, stretching in front of his bedroom window and looking down in time to see the last of the delivery and moving people packing down their vehicles.

Peter eyed all the bodies curiously, but it soon became clear none of them were his new neighbour, because they all stood around, flipping through paperwork, and then promptly left. Peter lingered under the pretence of dusting at his window ledge, but the street was quiet and empty.

Aunt May was anything but quiet when he finally dragged himself downstairs in search of food. “Peter! Morning, honey. Did you see the vans outside? Very fancy. Big enough for bodies, too, though” May hummed, flipping through the book she was currently reading.

Thirty Ways To Revive Your Youth.

Peter grimaced, and begun to rummage through the cupboards. “Not to question your intelligence, but. Why would a mob boss carry around his victims? Like a few teeth or knuckles ought to serve as good souvenirs. I don’t think carting around whole bodies is practical” Peter pointed out, settling on fruity oatmeal. Aunt May paused in her reading, nose twitching to adjust her glasses as she considered it.

“Hm. Point. Unless they bought the house because they run out of burial room, and these are fairly recent bodies they need the new soil for” she pointed out, and Peter pointed his spoon at her as he passed.

“Point” he agreed.

And so the weeks passed, but the mystery remained. No matter what time Peter tired to linger, or how early he awoke, his neighbour never seemed to be around. Here and there he would catch a figure roaming past the windows, kinda like a ghost, but never a clear view or a face. It was vastly disappointing, but his interest didn’t wane over the months that spanned between his rueful lack of sleep and now.

Now being a hazy Saturday morning, warm but not overly stuffy. Peter was coming back from a morning at Ned’s wherein they’d been steadily chewing away at the LEGO Galactic Supership. He was halfway down the street when a large trailer vehicle begun to drift down the street steadily, heading straight in Peter’s direction.

He paused on the sidewalk, watching it with interest. It was a transportation vehicle, and as it drew closer Peter could see there was a car on the back of it, heavily clamped down and chained to make sure it wouldn’t roll off. The vehicle passed him by some, and he got a clear view of the other car. It looked old, a little broken, rusted. Huge, though. Bigger than all the cars he’d seen before.

It pulled up right outside his neighbours house. Sensing an opportunity, and genuinely curious, Peter lingered, taking a few steps across the sidewalk to eye the car. It was a glossy red, though it had sun fade and was patchy. The chrome was glossy in places and dull, rusted in others. One headlight was missing.

The door of the cab opened, and Peter turned on his heel to see the driver getting out. The friendly greeting died on his lips as toned, thick thighs slid from the cab, followed by trim hips and a long, solid torso only half-hidden under a tank-shirt and overshirt. Broad shoulders prefaced the hottest man that Peter had ever laid eyes on.

He had a shaped jaw that was cut by stubble in a unique style that Peter had never seen anyone wearing before. He had sharp cheeks and dark, deep eyes with long lashes, tanned but not exactly browned and dark, dark hair with the barest flecks of grey at the roots, at his temples.

The man seemed surprised to find him there, pausing mid-way through pushing the door shut and peering around the street before looking back at him. One shaped brow lifted, and Peter stumbled to remember his manners, thrusting out a hand.

“Hi, Mister. Sorry - I was looking at the car. Is it for the new house?” He asked, forcing himself not to blush under the intense gaze. After a brief pause, the man took his hand, palm large and slightly rough, grip firm. He was even more attractive up close, slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes, dark lips and the strong scent of motor oil and grease.

“Would seem that way”.

And Ho-ly voice. Deep and with the softest of rumbles, soothing like a thunderstorm in the far distance. Peter clutched at his jacket when their hands dropped, coughing politely to hide whatever facial expression he’d pulled. The man strode past him and to the car, beginning to work on the many safety straps and chains.

“Did they…Is this theirs?” Peter asked after watching him quietly for several moments with a gesture towards the house besides them. Peter had discovered the house had a second parking bay on the other side, where a glossy black muscle car from the 60′s never seemed to move.

“Theirs’?” The man echoed, pausing in his movements to look up at Peter with curious amusement. It occurred to him then that it was likely some random car recovery guy had seen his new neighbour(s) before he had.

“Uh…Well. I’ve never actually seen them. So I don’t know if its one person, or a whole family, or…” Peter trailed off meekly, looking over his shoulder at the building. It looked as empty as it always did, no lights on and no figures moving behind the windows.

“Townsfolk say its some celebrity having a breakdown. Others say its some old widow using her husband’s life insurance. Even heard from someone that its a mafia lord, settling down in the middle of some quiet ass nowhere town” the recovery man grunted, hauling on a thick, heavy chain. Peter flushed.

Yeah. He was…Guilty of some pretty crazy guesses. But come on. Someone buys a house, spends upwards of hundreds of thousands doing it over, and then…Nothing. No new faces at the grocery store. Never seen, or even heard. Like a ghost.

“They’re not big fans of being…Seen. I guess? I mean, I know a guy with groceries comes around every Monday. Sometimes multiple times a week, but he always puts them in the garage and leaves. And this town is full of judgemental old people - Half of whom probably have mercury poisoning or something. There’s gonna be some pretty wild speculations going around” he pointed out, moving closer to look at what appeared to be a scratch in the paintwork.

The car gave a faint creak as the man released all of the holds on this side, snorting as he rounded the back of the vehicle and went to the other side with a loud, amused snort. Peter followed, and stifled a gasp at the sight of the other car. The man turned, eyeing him for a moment, before nodding.

“Got T-boned by an estate car. But she’s a tough old thing. Heavy metals and good steel; not like today’s cars. She came out better off” he mumbled as he worked on a thick strap, carefully taking apart the various clasps and buckles. Peter approached the car carefully, stretching up on his toes to brush his fingertips over the warped metal. He felt almost….Sad for the car.

He traced the flaking paint and the twisted, dented metal tenderly, and when he pulled away, the man was watching him again, movements slowed as he pulled the material through the metal. “Is this their car? What good is it now if its all broken up?” He asked curiously.

The man ducked his head, moving onto another thick chain. “Its just the one guy. I guess its a…Hobby. Of his. Bought her yesterday at a scrap lot”. He seemed uncomfortable saying it, but to Peter it was like gold trust. One guy. Huh. A big old house like that? That seemed rather lonely. Maybe it really was some rich old person retiring, enjoying a quiet place and a mechanics hobby.

Peter was going to ask more, but the car was freed with a grinding sound, and the man gestured him carefully back with his hand, holding it out in front of Peter to walk him back like a horse, to a safe distance. The man used two remotes to bring the car to the ground, Peter watching in fascination as rotors and rolling mechanisms moved it backwards and onto the tarmac of the road.

“How do you plan on moving it now?” Peter asked, and immediately regretted it as the man shed his over-shirt. Biceps. Shoulders. Forearms. His throat went dry and he could feel the heat rising to his cheeks.

As it turns out, the plan was simply ‘push’. Peter scoffed, but was soon at a loss to anything but stare as the man leaned heavily against the trunk of the car, muscles bulging in the afternoon sun. Heavy or not, the car soon begun to roll, and after a moment Peter dropped his backpack and came up besides the straining man, leaning all his might against the metal.

It probably did fuck all, but the man gave him a wry grin all the same, chest heaving with deep, controlled breaths as they moved the car across the flat ground and onto the side-drive space. Peter’s shoulder ached and his arms and thighs suddenly felt like jelly, but the man slapped him across the back.

“Good effort, kid” and then moved away, heading towards the front door. Peter gaped as the man simply grasped the doorhandle and pushed the door open, and floundered on the drive. “Wait! You’re just gonna walk into his house?” He called, and the man paused mid-step, looking back at him.

“Well. I ought to just ‘walk in’. Its my house”. And with a lewd, perfect wink he was gone. Peter wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself, flailing on the driveway with error logs flashing behind his eyes. That was his neighbour. His neighbour was some rich, late-thirty something hot-hot-hot guy who fixed broken classic cars.

“Oh my god” Peter muttered, stomping down the driveway to get his bags. Four months. He’d lived next to this Playgirl model for four months.

He decided against telling Aunt May. It felt selfish, but it also felt good to know he was the only person to have seen him. Even though he realised not long after reaching his room that he hadn’t even gotten his name. Peter waited by his window for hours, but saw neither hair nor hide of the man again. By morning, the transport truck was gone and the cherry red car was presumably inside the garage.

The damned guy was magic. There was no other explanation. Fuelled, Peter spent the Sunday morning in the kitchen, furiously baking with narrowed eyes and a plan. The muffins were done by mid-day, and Peter iced them carefully before boxing them, and stomping across the sidewalk to his neighbour’s house.

Peter knocked, and waited. Knocked again. Waited. “If you don’t answer the door then I’m just going to sit here” he announced loudly, knocking again before plopping down onto the porch just to prove a point. Several long minutes passed before his neighbour appeared around the corner, from the garage judging by the grease steaks up his arms, scowling.

“Kid. Here’s a life tip; if someone doesn’t answer the door, its because they don’t want company” the man huffed, but his eyes zeroed in on the box with intense curiosity, and Peter shrugged, smug.

“You came out, though” he pointed out, pushing himself to his feet. The man scoffed, but allowed him to follow, leading the way around the building where a small side-door was open.

“I came out about thirty years ago, kiddo. If that’s a congratulations cake, you’re a little late”. Peter tripped over the gravel, fighting his legs to remain upright and his stomach did a weird knot inside him. Oh. Not only was his neighbour hot, but he was at the least male inclined, too.

Very interesting.

“Actually, these are just welcome muffins. Chocolate and orange” Peter murmured, stepping inside the garage. It was bigger than it seemed, and the cherry red car stood in the centre, sanded down and clearly being worked on already.

“Peter, by the way. Peter Parker” he added after a pause, and almost offered his hand for a second time, but settled instead on thrusting the muffin box at the man. He raised a brow, but delved inside to pull one out, clearly eager at the prospect.

“Tony” he offered simply, and Peter tested it on his tongue, enjoying the shape. For now; he’d let the lack of a last name go. Good things in time, after-all. Choosing to invite himself to stay, Peter perched primly on top of the edge of the workbench, electing another raised brow, but Tony’s mouth was too full of muffin to object.

Tony begun to work as he ate, and Peter sat in content silence, watching as Tony and his bulging arm muscles took each wheel off the car and begun to strip it of all its chrome features. Peter checked his phone after a while and was surprised to find that around four hours had passed. May would be home from her sewing group about now. He ought to head home.

“I’ll be back tomorrow” he announced, and jumped at the same time Tony did, the man smacking his arm off warped metal with a shout. Tony whirled on him, eyes wide, gaze flicking between him and the door, before he looked…Confused.

“You’re still here?” He asked, and Peter snorted as he dusted off his pants, heading for the door with a shake of his head. May came home shortly after he did, and Peter supposed he ought to let her know that he’d be visiting Tony again tomorrow.

“So he’s not a mafia boss? Or a celebrity?” She asked around a mouthful of roasted chicken, looking rather disappointed as Peter shrugged and shook his head.

“He just seems…Aloof? I don’t know. Maybe he’s some business tycoon or something. But he seems nice. I’m just going over to help him with this car he’s got. It’s real nice, too” Peter hummed, and Aunt May narrowed her eyes at him.

“Are you sure? I mean, you don’t know him. He’s a stranger. Albeit a hot one, apparently. And you have school tomorrow, too. You shouldn’t be hanging around strangers. Unless…If he happens to be single…I’d be open to his number” May shrugged after a pause, and Peter blinked.

May was surprisingly easy to placate, and he assured her that if she wanted to, she could march right over to Tony and give him a Mother Hen Talk after dinner, but she decided against that, and in favour of a hot bath. School on Monday rolled around quicker than Peter could say ‘garage’ and he decided against telling Ned about Tony.

He wanted Tony all to himself. At least…For as long as he could. It was strange, but he found his heart thumping as he marched down Tony’s driveway and up to the garage door this time, knocking on it loudly. He’d brought lemonade and sandwiches this time.

The garage door opened, and Tony looked equally as startled to see Peter there as he had the day prior, gaze raking his body before frowning, and stepping aside with a sigh. “You’re like a mosquito, kid. I came here to get away from people” Tony announced pointedly, and Peter founded on him with an unimpressed gaze and an arched brow of his own.

“If you truly wanted to get away from people, you’d have moved out in the mountains or something. Now, get back to work. In an hour you can stop for supper. I brought chicken sandwiches” he ordered, taking his seat from the day before and pulling his calculus homework from his bag.

He kept his gaze down as Toy stared at him, mouth opening and closing several times, before he went for his wrench, muttering to himself as he lay down on a wheeled bench and rolled under the car. Peter smiled quietly into his papers. A little over two hours later - he lost count, sue him - Peter pushed himself to his feet and strode over to the car, kicking Tony lightly in the ankle that stuck out.

“We can eat now” he announced, walking back over to his pack and taking out the tupperware he’d packed this morning. He could hear the sound of the wheels moving, and he turned, holding out the box. Tony looked perplexed, but approached and took it, still looking puzzled even as he bit into his own portion.

“Not that the pattern of snacks isn’t appreciated, kid, but…Why are you here?” he asked after he’d swallowed, and Peter actually had to think about it, flushing as his mind conjured up inappropriate responses like ‘I want to lick your arms’ and ‘You look like the hot mechanics in my pornos’.

He settled on a shrug, chewing slowly for more time. “You’re interesting. You’re my neighbour. You’re not a mafia boss or a broken down celebrity” he pointed out. Tony twitched on the last one, but gave a hum and moved away, scarfing down the last of his sandwich and returning to the car. This time, when Peter informed him he was leaving and would be back tomorrow again, Tony neither jumped nor looked surprised.

It became a pattern. Three out of seven days a week, Peter would sit in the garage with his homework or revision and Tony would work on the red car, which Peter came to learn was a 1958 Plymouth Fury. “Just like in Christine” Tony had huffed proudly, and had then been quickly appalled when Peter had simply stared blankly.

That night, Peter had watched the movie, and his next visit was spent talking animatedly about it with Tony, discussing their favourite parts and what it might be like if it was ever re-made. After a month, Aunt May picked her way across the gravel to finally meet the man her adopted son kept disappearing off to be with, and Peter had the unfortunate experience of watching them flirt together, Tony in a cheeky, smooth, outrageous manner and Aunt May like a school-girl. When he begun to gag in the corner, Tony threw an oil rag at him.

One day, a week before the summer holidays, Peter rounded the corner to find Tony stood on the porch, looking angry and tense and talking to a tall woman with red hair, tied up in a ponytail. Peter stopped and lingered, unsure of what to do. Besides him and May, he’d never seen anyone else talking to Tony. Even the grocery delivery guy simply put the bags in the garage and left.

After a while, the woman turned away, looking sullen and displeased, and slipped into a sleek black SUV, pulling off with a screech of her tires and the rev of her engine. By the time Peter reached the house, Tony was back inside, and he knocked quietly, leaning closer to the door.

Tony didn’t answer.

“Mr. Tony? I’m not sure what happened, but…If you’re not up for hanging out today, its cool. I brought soup, but I’ll leave yours on the porch. It might be hot, so…Be careful”. Peter stooped and left the thermos close to the door, before leaving. He felt uncomfortable for the rest of the day, longed to go see Tony, but everything in his gut told him to let him be for a time.

Whoever that man had been, he was clearly someone Tony didn’t like or want around.

Almost a whole week passed in which Tony didn’t answer the door, and by the Saturday, the first official day of the summer holidays, Peter was moping. Not to anyone that asked, but it was clear to even Ned that he’d been a little down lately, declining a celebratory LEGO fest in exchange for slinking up to his room.

No sooner had he toed off his shoes, the doorbell rung. Peter groaned, turning on his heel and abandoning his sweater on the staircase. It was probably another of Aunt May’s Amazon orders. Since she’d discovered the wonders of online shopping, Peter had learned their regular post-man was named Greg, he had two kids and a poodle, and was allergic to shrimp.

“What has she bought this ti- Tony?” Peter paused mid-sentence, eyes widening at the sight on his doorstep. Tony looked rough, dark circles under his eyes, his face looking more lined than before, but he gave a weak smile up at Peter, still stiff and unsure.

“Hey, kiddo. Figured you might…I made spaghetti. And I still have your thermos. Was gonna work on the car a bit”.

Peter recognised it for the attempted invitation that it was, and didn’t bother to fight off his broad grin. “Lucky for you, I love spaghetti. I just gotta grab a sweater on” he beamed, practically flinging himself up the stairs. Tony’s spaghetti was amazing, with some kind of pink-ish sauce, little chunks of shrimp and prawns, all tangy and sweet.

He even let Peter help with the car. Or…Well. He let Peter hold the torch. And the wrench. But still.

He was still grinning when he skipped home that evening, and when he crawled into bed his dreams were filled with oil-stained arms and a low, rumbling voice. He gasped awake in the early hours, cock hard and leaning against his hip, Tony’s voice echoing in his skull.

He shouldn’t.

He bit his lip and reached down, whimpering as he wrapped a hand around himself. He was too hard to last more than a few minutes, stifling his yell of “Tony!” Into his pillow as he came. When he arrived at Tony’s house later in the day, he could barely look the man in the eyes, flustered and shy.

The holidays continued in a similar fashion. They hung out almost every day in the garage, often for an entire day. Peter felt guilty about abandoning Ned, but looking at Tony’s broad smile, listening to his quips, watching his abs flex under his shirts as he lifted things...It was worth it.

By the fourth week of his holidays, after numerous days of lounging together with takeout and Tony helping him with his homework, Peter piped up.

“Peter”.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Peter” he repeated, nudging Tony gently where they lay together on the floor of the garage, staring up at the underside of the car. It was almost complete. Something to do with the clutch, and then all it needed was new paint. “You keep calling me ‘kid’. So. Y’know. In case you’d forgotten” he hummed.

Besides him Tony stilled, only briefly, before relaxing and swatting at him. “You are a kid, though”.

“I’m sixteen. I’m not a kid” Peter huffed, rolling onto his side and kneeing Tony in the thigh. Tony let his head loll, looking across at him with dark, dark eyes, and Peter’s breath hitched. Tony was close enough to kiss. And god, Peter wanted to kiss him. Had spent the past few weeks staring at his body, his mouth when he talked, waking up at night hard and aching.

Peter let his gaze drop, to plush lips outlined by dark stubble, and then he pushed himself up, momentarily hovering over Tony as he got his legs beneath him. “And you’re an old man” he tried, teasing, tugging at a lock of hair at Tony’s temple.

For the briefest, briefest of moments, Tony’s gaze went even darker. Hungrier. Peter thought about it in the shower that night, two fingers stuffed inside himself with too-little prep, mewling against the shower tiles. Almost as if…

He begun to get bolder. Touched Tony more. Stood closer. Any excuse to be in his space. If Tony noticed he said nothing, only giving lingering, unreadable looks and only ever turning away with a poorly hidden smirk whenever Peter said anything just a little too obvious.

On the last week of his holidays, Peter was kneeling half over Tony, dabbing gingerly at a slice on his bicep while the man clutched an ice-pack to his knee. The cherry red car was out, and an old, 1957 Chrysler Saratoga was in. And apparently, angry.

“Kid, seriously. I’m fine” Tony huffed, swatting at him as he dabbed away another crust of blood, peering at the wound. It wasn’t that deep, but it had bled something fierce. Peter lifted his gaze, scowling at him.

“I’m not a kid!” He snarked, pressed a little too hard on the wound just because he could. Watched Tony flinch under his touch and instantly felt guilty. He pulled away the cloth and ducked down, pressed a kiss to the wound before he could ever think about it. Aunt May had always done it for him, kissing his ouchies better. He froze, lips against jagged skin.

“Kid” Tony rasped, looking down at him with wide, dark eyes. Peter jerked backwards, and huffed.

“Keep calling me kid, I’m gonna start calling you ‘old man’“ he scowled. He was about to say ‘Or worse, Dad’, but…That was a bumpy road and he wasn’t ready to loose whatever he had built with Tony. Not yet. The older man snorted back at him, eyes rolling, and reached out, fingers closing around his jaw gently to shake his head a little.

“Look at you. You are. That little baby face. And you’re so small, like a cat. All slender. Couldn’t even lift up the gearbox. All big eyes and too must trust. I could’ve been an old pervert or sex criminal and you just walked right up to me and wouldn’t leave” Tony murmured, voice half-gone and gaze fixed on where he held Peter’s jaw.

“Wouldn’t - Did not” Peter managed, though he was already getting hard, his breathing was already a little shorter. Sharper. Tony gave a deep breath, fingers flexing against his jaw.

“You’re just a kid. A little baby. All soft-cheeked and gentle. You’re a kid now and you’ll be a kid for a long time. Nothing like me”.

And. Huh.

Peter blinked, jaw still clasped in Tony’s grip, and he relaxed his body, inching a little closer. “What is it about that, then? Why is that such a bad thing?”

“Its not. Its not bad. I’m just…I’m the bad one. Christ. Kid. You’re - You sit here doing homework. You don’t even have facial hair yet. I bet you haven’t even popped a stiffy before”. The words startled Tony as much as Peter, both visibly jolting, and Tony immediately looked like he wanted to die.

“Hey! Not true! Every night this holiday I’ve done more than ‘pop a stiffy’ over y-”. Peter bit down on his tongue, hard, watched the way Tony’s eyes widened. Fuck. They both jerked backwards, equally as taken aback by the revelation. There was no doubt as to what Peter had been about to say. Now way he could laugh it off or change it; though the subject was bad enough.

“I…”

“Kid…”

Peter huffed, leaning back on his haunches and dropping the cloth. “What, you got a kink for the word or something, Mister Tony?” Peter grumbled, but he could see Tony physically tense up opposite him, and he looked up, watched the almost shameful way that Tony turned his gaze away.

It hit him.

“You…Do” he huffed numbly.

“Its not…Christ. Peter. I’m not a…I’m not attracted to kids. I don’t know what it is. I just…Fuck. Maybe you should be calling me an old pervert. Fuck. I…Peter. You have to believe I don’t..I’ve never touched a kid. Never. My youngest partner was twenty when I was thirty. She was a hooker in Dubai and…Wait. You’re a fucking kid. I shouldn’t be talking about hookers and swearing and-”

Peter clamped a hand over Tony’s mouth, shaking his head. Jesus. He knew it was true, though. Tony was a recluse and laughably inept at anything social, but he wasn’t some scorned kiddie-toucher banished to a quaint little town.

“I know, Tony. I know. And I believe you. But if its not that, then…What is it?”. Tony only blinked at him slowly, for several beats, and it was then that Peter realised that his hand was on Tony’s mouth, and the man couldn’t speak. Though he could well have moved it himself. He let it drop, flushing.

“I don’t know” Tony croaked helplessly, and he looked so small, so lost. It was instinct that had Peter leaning forwards, gathering Tony in a tight embrace. The older man stiffened, but then relaxed, hand hesitantly falling to Peter’s side, featherlight like he was scared to touch him.

“Its…You’re so delicate. So…Untouched. Like a painting. Pretty. You shouldn’t be touched. Not yet. Not by me. But I want to”. It made Peter’s spine tingle and arch, letting out a surprised breath against the curve of Tony’s jaw. Tony made him sound like the Mona Lisa or something.

“I’m not a good person, Peter. I’m…All these months, you don’t even know my last name. Half the town thinks I’m a murderer or some kind of lunatic. But I’m worse than that”. Tony practically breathed it into his shoulder, head falling. Peter clutched at him, suddenly scared. Worse than those things?

“Tony Stark”.

Peter paused. Was silent for such a long time that Tony tensed against him again, before he begun to pet gently at Tony’s shoulders. “…Who? I mean, the name is vaguely familiar. But…Who?”

Tony pulled away, leaned back, looking up at him with glossy eyes and a ludicrous expression. “Stark. Tony Stark”.

Peter raised a brow. “Bond, James Bond?”

“What? No. The weapons company? Stark Industries?” Tony asked after a pause, like it was information Peter ought to know. After another pause of his mind being ridiculously blank, Peter sat upright, head tilting.

“Oh! Yeah. Stark Industries. But…What about it?”

Tony blinked at him, slowly, like there was a punchline he’d missed, and then he was reaching out, crushing Peter to his chest to the boy fell half over him with a yelp, squeezing him gently.

“You’re - Unbelievable. Never change, kid. I’m…I did bad things. I killed people. Carried on the family name despite spending my life trying to outrun it. I…I was betrayed. So I fixed it, and I left. And I was supposed to keep my hands off anything good. Anyone good. And here you are”.

“Okay. Firstly? You gotta stop calling me ‘kid’ now I know its a kink and you don’t intend to do anything about it. Secondly…I don’t know what you did. Or what happened. But I know what you’ve been since you got here. Who you’ve become. And I think you’re a good man” he breathed, adjusting so he was no longer straining, half-straddling Tony.

“You shouldn’t…” Tony didn’t finish the sentence, and there were a million things he could’ve said. But Peter chose to ignore them all, squirming his way closer until he really was sat in Tony’s lap. And this was more than they’d ever done.

More than the one-armed hugs and lingering touches, more than leaning shoulder-to-shoulder eating noodles. More than Peter listing against Tony’s side in the early morning hours, maths homework forgotten on the bench and Tony sitting still, so still, so as not to wake him.

“I’m old enough to know ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’, Mr. Stark. Besides. This is just…Hugging. Right? Innocent” he hummed, even as he deliberately shifted on Tony’s lap, a little heavier than he ought to, spread his legs wider around Tony’s hips.

“Ki- Peter” Tony huffed against him, fingers tightening around the hem of his sweater. It wasn’t until Peter shifted again that he realised; Tony was hard. Well. Getting there, but hard enough for Peter to recognise it. To feel it, digging into the round meat of his asscheek.

“I don’t touch kids” Tony repeated, and Peter snorted softly, shaking his head as he gripped at Tony’s broad shoulders, muscle honed by years of hard work. Muscle that led up to rough stubble, a sharp jaw that Peter nosed at.

“Good thing I’m not actually a kid then, Mr. Stark. That means you can touch”.

Tony surged forwards on a growl, lay Peter out like a feast on the garage floor; but still hovered over him. Reluctant. Uncertain. Peter lifted his legs, wrapped them around Tony’s waist, tight and steady. “Kiddo…”

“Mm. Your kiddo. Or I could be. If you kissed me” Peter grinned, breathless and bold with the sweet taste of Tony so close. Mere inches. “Kiss me” Peter repeated, and Tony growled as he surged downwards.

When Tony came, it was with ‘kid’ sharp and electric on his tongue. And…Well. Peter felt a little mollified, so naturally, it led to round two, pressing Tony down against the concrete, milking him for all he was worth as a broken ‘Peter!’ cracked on his tongue like a prayer.

The rounds after that were just…Well.

Purely selfish.

[lambourngb]

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💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

I hope that it is romantic, both in language and in structure, though I can't control if that comes across to the reader, and I like to control things. I like order, I like explanation, so I guess I hope my writing is very logical? That the conclusions I lead the reader to make sense in both an in-universe way of characterization and a realistic way?

I know most of fandom hates season 2, and trust me, I get it, but it was a good challenge to write more getting-back-together stories. Finding a logical explanation for the plot line was also a real stretch for my brain. Here’s hoping I have less to do in season 3.

📊 Current number of WIPs

This is truly the cruelest question you can ask.

27

I think. Truly only 3 are active in the last week, "if i woke up next to you" clocking in at 57K- where I try to add at least 500 words to daily, "a skeleton of something more"- attempting 1500 a day on that, and "kingdom come undone" my RNM Afterdark follow up to "don't want no other shade of blue (but you) where Chris comes back to Roswell a year later and has some fun with Michael & Alex. I've never written a threesome before, and I'd like to reclaim that scenario for Malex, hahaha. Wish me luck.

🤔 What is the hardest part of writing fic?

Focus. Using my time wisely, battling my ADHD so I can put my butt in the chair and write without scrolling on my phone or checking discord or reading fic, etc. I count my words daily, but what I should really count is my man-hours. I can spend 10 hours "trying to write" and only come away with 1000 words on bad days. Other days I can crank out 1,000 words in my pre-work writing session that is usually only an hour long. The frustrating thing is, I know I'm capable of writing a 15K-20K story in 10 days, and yet I'm on day 101 of writing LYW sequel and it's still 15K from completion.

The second hardest thing about writing is how hard I know I am on myself, with internal deadlines, with anticipating fandom reception, wiith checking my stats page daily. There's a lot of garbage going on in my thought patterns, it's amazing I get anything on the page.

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

if people want some more of my Deep Sky Forrest- anti-Forlex propaganda fic... "a skeleton of something more" - here's a flashback from 2x13.

After Alex closed Tripp’s journal, he met Michael’s gaze across the table at the Crashdown. 

His golden-brown eyes were heavy with pain, the reminder of how his mother’s story had ended was still fresh between them despite the span of months since the fiery end of Caulfield. What had resulted in being the fiery end of them, even though Alex hadn’t known it at the time. The look of sleeplessness in Michael’s face reminded Alex that outside of this small piece of Nora, Maria was still in the hospital recovering from the pathogen Flint had released. The weight of the Deep Sky ring in his pocket warred with the hesitation to place one more burden on Michael, would the abacus of their fragile friendship balance out?

He flashed to that last argument in Michael’s bunker, a disaster of his own making with his father that had been barely averted at Crashcon. That recent memory was motive enough for Alex to decide. Whatever happened next, he needed Michael on the same page with him.

As Isobel moved to leave the table, explaining to Michael that she needed to check on Max, Alex held Michael’s gaze deliberately. Then he folded his fingers down, until the last three fanned out in a downward W. 

“After what happened with Maria, maybe you should come with me, Michael. You can help me shake some sense into Max,” Isobel finished. Her eyes moved back and forth between them, a crease of suspicion wrinkling her upturned nose, as she stopped on Alex. “It’ll be a good distraction.”

Without looking at Isobel, Michael’s eyes remained trained on Alex’s hand. “No thanks, I’m good here. I’ve had my fill of stubborn ass people who don’t want to listen to sensible advice from me. I’ll catch up with you later, Isobel.” 

She made a dismissive huff but did not argue, leaving with the barest semblance of a polite goodbye to Alex, but that was typical Isobel Evans. Michael waited until his sister was on the other side of the door, before speaking quietly, his gaze finally moving from Alex’s gesture to up to his face. “I haven’t seen you flash that sign to me in years.” 

“Glad to know you haven’t forgotten it.”

“You making the ‘wait for me, I want you now’ signal? Nah, that’s been burned into my brain over the years.”

[mandadoration]

spoils go to the winner

summary: You’re one of the first friendly faces that Cara Dune sees when she first arrives on Sorgan after her early retirement, and now she thinks that this isn’t so bad, especially when you’re so pliant under her fingers.

word count: 3, 971

pairing: cara dune x reader

Warnings: smut, choking, fingering, praise kink, oral sex, overall debauchery, canon-typical violence

a/n: uhhh hehe enjoy 

Read this on AO3

Sorgan was not the most attractive of places, especially when compared to Cara’s home planet of Alderaan. It was too humid in the summer and fall months, and winters were short, villages and towns were spread far apart, and if you wanted any luxury items, you would have to track someone down who was willing to bring supplies to you. The ground was in an almost perpetual state of too-soft, tracking mud wherever you would go. But Alderaan was no more, and the New Republic had designated her to peacekeeping and riot control. That was definitely not what she has signed up for, so she left in search of something else. She dabbled in mercenary work, but soon realized it was just not her thing.

So she would have to settle for Sorgan. 

It wasn’t all bad, she supposes. Nobody thought twice about Sorgan. It was severely underdeveloped and villages and towns were spread all over the planet with a bare skeleton of a proper government. It would be easy to implement herself into daily life. Daily life just manifested itself into a local fighting ring at the tavern.

“C’mon,” the Zabrak growls. He makes an inviting motion with his hands, baring his teeth as they circle each other. He had been the reigning champion in this little town for quite a while, it seems like, seeing as how the villagers cheer for him and how they had bet on his win over her. The locals look at her with some disdain or with distrust, unsure of this new person that had dropped in. That was fine because Cara was determined in proving them wrong. 

Cara uses the harness keeping them together to tug the Zabrak forward. Using that moment of him stumbling, she punches him, and her knuckles catch on the brow ridge. Unfortunately, he lashes out blindly at the same time, and he catches her jaw as he reels back. Cara’s teeth clack together uncomfortably, and she’s dragged forward as the Zabrak backs up. He’s trying to buy time as he tries to gather his thoughts and think past the pain and where she spots a trickle of blood get in his eye. Cara dashes forward, shoving him hard and hooking her feet under his ankles before he can react, and he goes down hard, hitting his head against the table behind him. Both he and Cara freezes when one of his horns snap off against the edge, eyes following its path until it rolls to a stop next to her feet. 

The Zabrak howls, and lunges for her, but he’s telegraphed the move and she just moves out of the way, watching with disinterest as veins start popping out against his skin. Cara vaguely recalls how prideful Zabraks are of their horns. At this point, he’s not only fighting to win, but to exact revenge for his wounded pride. But in his rage, it’s easy to take him down. Cara merely blocks a sidekick, digging her nails into his leg and yanking him forward, slamming her elbow into his gut, following him all the way down and imagines herself trying to break through and hit the ground. The Zabrak goes down easily, the fight literally being beaten out of him as she feels the soft snap more than hears it, and he lays there groaning as the tavern goes silent at her victory. She strolls over to the table where the credits are, and collects them all. 

Cara sits down, winded as she feels the tender spot on her jaw and the ache in her hands. Nothing she can’t handle, and with how she’s counting her winnings, she could indulge in a bacta shot if she really wanted. But the mark of a fight is something she prides herself in. Besides, the Zabrak was looking much worse for wear. A few of his friends, she assumes, is giving him a pep talk as the Zabrak glares at her from across the room with a venomous glare. For a moment, Cara thinks that maybe the Zabrak will come after her at some point during the night, and then Cara is reminded that she needs to find a place to stay before he could try and track her down. A figure blocks her view and a cup of some shimmering blue drink is placed in front of her. Cara looks up, intent on questioning, and comes face to face with a warm, inviting smile of you. Her mouth goes dry and all thoughts of the Zabrak are wiped from her mind.

“Spotchka for the winner?” you offer softly. 

You look absolutely wonderful, with the light of the setting sun framing your silhouette in a halo-like glow. Wisps of hair escape from your carefully swept-up hairdo, sticking to your face and neck as a light sheen of sweat covers your body from the humid heat. To try and combat the temperature, she sees that your blouse is sinfully sheer and open at the top, where her eyes linger as she follows your breathing. Your sleeves are rolled up to your elbows, but she wishes that she could see more. Somehow, you make the awkward frock look good. Your eyes are sparkling, devoid of distrust or malice she’s seen in the other villagers, and Cara is sure you’re drinking her appearance in just as much as she is. If anything, there’s wonder and admiration in your heated gaze. And ever elegant, Carasythia Dune asks:

“What’s spotchka?”

Your laugh makes Cara uncharacteristically flush, face hot as your eyes crinkle. “Spotchka is a local drink on Sorgan. It’s good,” you insist, pushing the cup closer to her. You look around for your boss before you take a seat across from her, leaning forward eagerly. “You’re new, aren’t you?” you ask, voice low. There’s a local accent playing on your lips. “I’ve never seen you here before. Where are you from?” Your face shows such reverence that Cara can’t help but find herself wanting to answer every single one of your questions despite the fact she had come to Sorgan to forget most of her past. 

“I worked with the Rebellion,” she says automatically, and your eyes widen, flickering to the shock trooper tattoo across her bicep.

“Wow,” you breathe. You gnaw on your bottom lip and Cara looks down to watch. Her grin is wolfish as she flicks her eyes back to yours. It’s clear from your curiosity that interesting folks didn’t come through here often, if at all. “Did you arrive today?” She nods. “How long… How long will you be staying?” you ask, leaning on your hand. A drop of sweat disappears into your cleavage.

“As long as you want me to,” Cara finds herself saying, and she preens at how you blush. The redness crawls from the tip of your ears all the way down your neck, and Cara knows she’s still got it. She wouldn’t say that she was a flirt when she was in the Rebellion, but she won’t deny that she had taken pleasure in knowing that there were plenty of individuals vying for her attention. Now, she was giving it to you with the barest of encouragement. “I’m actually looking for a place to stay. You have any recommendations?” You blink.

“There’s an inn a few buildings down,” you tell her, pointing in some direction that Cara doesn’t care to remember. “It’s a modest place, but I know the owner. I could get you a room if you would like.”

“That would be great,” Cara says. Maybe Sorgan wasn’t so bad. If you were here, of course, she could bear to stay for a few months while she got her credits and figured out a solid plan. Wooing you would just be a bonus. “What’s your name?” You give her that wonderful smile again, telling it to her, and Cara repeats it, trying out how it feels in her mouth. “I’m Cara.” She reaches a hand towards yours where it’s lying against the wooden table, and she sees you open your mouth to say something when--

A customer waves their hand and calls you over, interrupting whatever you were going to say. You stand up, and Cara immediately misses your closeness and realizes how close she actually was, having instinctively leaned in while you were talking. “How much do I owe you for the spotchka?” she asks, offering up some amount of credits. It’s definitely more than she actually owes you for a simple mug of spotchka. You push them back to her.

“On the house,” you murmur, and you linger your touch on hers for longer than necessary, feeling how coarse and rough her hands are compared to yours. “For the winner of the match.” You wink, flashing her a bright smile as you turn away to serve more customers.

Cara will win a million matches if it means she gets to see that smile again. 

--

True to your word, there’s a room already waiting for her when she finishes the spotchka and heads over with her winnings. She settles down and puts what little things she has in the corner as she surveys her surroundings. There’s a bed pushed up against the wall on one side, two small nightstands flanking either side. A desk and chair is facing the only window opposite of the door, and a small wardrobe sits next to the door to a bath. Like you had said, modest. She pulls off her armor and strips down to her tunic and pants. At least the bed is comfortable, she thinks as she flops down on it. When she does, a dull pain throbs in her side. Cara has little faith in the medical prowess of such a small town, so she starts thinking of who could bring in medical supplies for her when a knock sounds at the door. Probably the owner, or maybe even the Zabrak she had beaten today. She thinks that maybe if she’s quiet enough, they’ll leave her alone, but scrambles up when she hears your voice.

“Cara? I brought some things for- Oh, hello,” you interrupt yourself, surprised when the door swings open. You’re holding rags and a bowl of water, and there’s a jar tucked under your arm. “Hope I’m not intruding.”

“No, never,” Cara says. She moves to the side and sweeps an arm out. “Come in.” You put your supplies on the desk and pull out the chair, moving it so that it faces the bed. “What brings you here?” You motion for her to sit down. 

“You have a nasty bruise,” you say, shrugging as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Thought I would help you.” Cara laughs softly and takes a seat on the bed obediently. 

“You help out all the winners?” she asks. You shake your head as you pick up a rag and dip it in the warm water, tilting her head up so that you can wipe away the sweat and grime on her face. It’s nice. Your touch is gentle as you focus on the dirt smudged across her nose, dragging the rag down to sweep across the purpling bruise on her jaw. 

“No,” you murmur. “Just you.” 

“Why’s that?” 

You don’t grace her with an answer, just a quiet hum, as you turn around to drop the rag on the table and pick up the jar. Inside, there’s some sort of pale green cream that you take a dollop of and spread over the bruise. It tingles for a moment, but then dissolves into a blissfully cooling feeling as an herbal smell wafts up to her nose. You rub it in for a few moments before pulling away to wipe your hands on the rag. You come back and tilt her head again to see it better in the fading light. 

“Are you gonna kiss it better?” Cara asks, breaking the silence, and although she has a joking tone, she wouldn’t mind if you did. You sweep a thumb over her cheek, a tender look on your face.

“You ask a lot of questions, Cara Dune,” you note coquettishly. She laughs, but the sound is quickly swallowed by your mouth capturing hers in a searing kiss. Cara immediately puts her hands on your waist, bringing you down so that you sit in her lap. Your mouth is wonderfully soft and pliant, willing and open when she prods her tongue in you. She digs her fingers into your hips, ears perking up when she hears you let out a small whimper, grinding down into her thigh. You thread your fingers through her hair, pulling back with a dazed look in your eyes as your chest heaves with each breath.

“Questions, hm?” she mutters, pressing fleeting kisses against your neck. “If I remember, you were the one asking the question earlier today.” You let out a breathy laugh that melts into a moan when she nibbles at a soft spot under your ear. You untangle your fingers from her hair to fully pull away. Cara lets you go with a final squeeze, disappointed but tries to mask it with a look of want. You must’ve seen it anyways because you smile coyly at her as you start untying the bodice of your frock with deft fingers. You had no intention of leaving.

“Lay back,” you tell her softly, slipping the straps off of your shoulders as you let it pool around your feet, leaving you in your sheer blouse and thin leggings. You kick your boots off, following Cara up the bed as she leans back against the pillows and pulling pins out of your hair to let it flow over your shoulders. Cara grabs the back of your neck and brings you down to kiss you again, tucking the hair curtaining your face behind your ears. She’s thankful that the nights on Sorgan are cooler than the days because she’s starting to sweat from how her body burns up. Still trapping you in a kiss, she trails her hands down your body, kneading your breasts for a short moment before she’s pulling at the hem of your blouse. Unfortunately, you have to pull away to take off your top, but you do so as fast as you can so that you can press a kiss to her jaw, the side without the bruise. As you do, Cara slides your leggings over the swell of your ass. She doesn’t bother with taking it off all the way before she cups her hand around your mound over your panties. 

The moan you let out is just sinful. 

You grind into her hand, sighing as you tuck your face into the crook of her neck. “Please,” you muffled voice says. 

“Please what?” Cara asks teasingly. 

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you,” she says, and digs the palm of her hand into your clit. You keen, high and whiny as you pull her hand away so that you can shimmy out of your panties and pull them and your leggings off, flinging them into the darkness of the room. As much as Cara wants to continue teasing you, one look in the dim light at your blown pupils and bruised lips convinces her to bring her fingers back to your clit. A ragged breath forces itself out of your lungs as she rubs it, bringing her other hand to play with your nipples, rolling the bud between her thumb and forefinger. The angle is awkward as you’re on top, so Cara flips you over, somehow managing not to roll the both of you out of the bed as you let out a surprised gasp. 

Your hair splays under your like a halo, and Cara swears that angels must be real with how etheral you look. She resumes rolling and tugging at your nipples as she slips two of her fingers down to your wetness, spreading it all over your pussy as she grins at the hitch in your breath. She slips two fingers in, pumping it in and out languidly and teasing your clit with her thumb as you writhe under her ministrations. “That’s it,” she whispers, dragging her hand from your breast, up your neck where her rough hands wrap around your throat. Your skin is slick with sweat, and you let out a soft swear in a language she doesn’t know when she curls her fingers in you. Your hand comes up to grasp her wrist as the other one fists the sheets under you. “You’re doing so good, baby.” You whimper from the praise, and Cara slips another finger in you. Her pace quickens, rubbing in fast, tight circles as she keeps hitting that beautiful spot in you, marvelling at how you clench around her fingers. With how you’re moaning, you’re close. “You gonna come?” she pants. Cara tightens her grip around your throat, her wolfish grin widening when she can feel your racing pulse under her hand. “You gonna come for me?” Tears are glistening in your eyes as you nod desperately. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” you choke out, hips bucking up as that tight coil in your winds tighter and tighter. “Please, Cara I-- Maker I’m so close--” Cara curls her fingers one last time, pressing your clit as she sucks a hickey right above your left breast as she commands you to cum. White explodes behind your eyelids as you groan in pure pleasure, digging your nails into her wrist as your eyes roll to the back of your head, letting a few tears slip through from the feeling of it all. She lets you ride it out, slowing down the pumping of her fingers as you start to wind down. Her hand releases its grip from your throat. You grab the hand that was just in your pussy, bringing up to your lips and sucking on her fingers, still wet from your cum as you moan around them. 

“Holy shit,” she breathes. You look up at her through tear soaked lashes as you pop her fingers of your mouth. You lay there staring up at her with those doe eyes, chest heaving from the aftershocks, and Cara knows she’s not done with you yet. She pulls away from you light grip and slides down the bed, hooking her arms around your thighs as she drags you down until your hips are hanging off the edge, putting your legs over her incredibly built shoulders. You laugh, and manage to snag a pillow before she takes you too far, tucking it behind your head. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” you say, threading your hand through her hair again. “You’re very beautiful,” you murmur, almost absentmindedly. Cara’s body burns hotter at your words, and she dives right in at the apex of your thighs without any preamble, lapping at your dripping pussy as moans tears themselves out of your mouth. “Oh, stars--” Your toes are curling when she licks a broad stripe up, tugging at her hair. 

“You’re so sweet,” she says. Then a pause. “Literally and figuratively,” she adds, and goes right back to devouring you eagerly. It was almost too much. You had barely any time to rest from your last orgasm, and here Cara was, bringing you closer to that precipice almost immediately. You take your fingers out of her hair to adjust the pillow behind you so that you can somewhat prop yourself up, and you let out another gush of wetness that Cara automatically laps up when you see her other hand has disappeared into her pants, playing with herself as she eats you out. With that image seared into your mind, and with how Cara was playing with your clit with her tongue, eyes dark with lust, it takes no time at all for you cum again, toes curling as you grasp at the sheets underneath you, the breath being knocked out of you.

Cara pauses for a brief moment to suck a mark into your inner thigh. You can see that her face is glistening all the way down her chin, and you curl up to kiss her to the best of your abilities, moaning again at the taste of yourself in her mouth. Cara surges up, pinning you against the bed as the hand in her pants move faster. Her other hand stays strong on your shoulder as she slips her tongue into your warm mouth. You whimper, running your hands over her, sneaking your hands up her shirt to scratch down her back. Cara growls at the action. She sits up, nearly ripping her pants off as she pushes it down her hips. This time, as she goes to down to chase after her own orgasm, you slip your hand down with it, rubbing that tight bundle of nerves as Cara stretches herself with her own fingers. “You’re so sweet,” she gasps, pressing open-mouthed kisses, wet and wanting. “Sweet, sweet girl, so nice to me, so willing--” She grunts, switching to the other side to plant more kisses. “You’d let me do anything, hm?” Even as you’re spent, legs still twitching, you feel more arousal build up. 

“Cara,” you moan. 

“Yes,” she hisses. “Say my name again, say it- say it again.” You call her again, a little more urgently, voice pitches upwards as you speed up until finally she cums, collapsing on you and biting down harshly at the junction of your shoulder as you cry out. 

You lay there, panting as you lazily mouth at her neck, tasting the salt of her skin as you rub her back affectionately and pull your hand out from where it was trapped between your bodies. Sleep tugs at you, but you sigh and gently nudge her. “We have to clean up,” you say. Waking up still gross and sweaty for a Sorgan summer did not sound nice. Your voice is rough, and you’re sure you’ll have hand-shaped bruises and a variety of other colorful marks on you when the day breaks. “Would you like me to draw a bath?”

“Only if you’ll come with me,” she murmurs. Cara props herself on her elbows to look at you, at how you were glowing and still flush from the orgasms she had drawn from you. She frowns as she runs a deft finger over where she hid bitten you. “Sorry about that.” You smile and pull her in for a fleeting kiss before you wiggle out from under her. 

“I like it,” you say quickly, and pad to the refresher, trying to ignore the self-satisfied smirk Cara has when your wobbly legs almost give out from under you. You feel wonderfully sore, and when you catch yourself in the reflection of the water, you see exactly how ruined you look. Your lips are red from bruising kisses, eyes still shiny with tears left unshed, and your hair is an absolute mess. Your neck looks like a battlefield, dark marks forming all the way down to your breasts and the one on your inner thigh. You run a finger over the deepest, darkest one that Cara had put on you. It’s sore as you press into it, but it makes you preen.

As the water heats up, you feel warm hands sliding around your waist, Cara sweeping your hair away and pecking kisses up the back of your neck. You stifle a laugh. “You are insatiable,” you say, but a warm feeling starts bubbling in your belly again. You slip from her grasp and go into the water to buy some time, and Cara follows straight after. She pulls your back flush against her bare chest as her hands start dancing downwards. 

“You think you got one more in you?” she husks in your ear. You grin.

“Anything for the winner.”

[anthropwashere]

Phic Phight: these lofty thoughts are killing me

Prompt from @ibelieveinahappilyeverafter: Undergrowth Sam AU. Sam’s time as mother of Undergrowth’s garden left it’s scars - and scars can go deep. Sam’s always known she shared a close connection with plants, but now she hears them. She knows what they think and what they feel and can control them. On one hand it’s terrifying, but on the other… The ghosts should be a lot more terrified of her now.

@currentlylurking @phicphight

Word count: 4,604

=

Sam tries not to think about then.

Maybe it's better to say she tries not to think about the gaping hole in her memory where then ought to be.

She's hardly the only one in that particular boat. The whole of Amity Park suffers from a ghost-induced amnesia spanning over a week. It's all anyone talks about for ages; where they were when the plants attacked, where they were when they finally woke up again. Trying to make sense of senselessness. And even now, months after the fact, there are still traces of that city-wide attack not yet repaired. Cracked concrete, homes and business too ravaged to salvage, miles of withered vines with thorns like carving knives, enormous mummified plants with mammalian fangs in human mouths, swathes of green-limned ice that refuses to melt even now. 

(Every time one of the three of them finds another frozen chunk of Amity Park Danny moves ASAP to take care of it, since not even anything his parents have cooked up can do much damage to it. The guilt twisting Danny up is horrible to watch unfold across his weary face; made worse still because for all that he and Tucker insist otherwise, it really was her fault.)

There's no hiding it: Amity Park was shaken to its foundations by Undergrowth. Even more so, perhaps, than by Pariah Dark. The Ghost King had transported the entire city directly into the Ghost Zone and did his utmost to run it to ruin with his army of skeleton ghosts. It had been a terrifying and impossible experience, and everyone can agree they only got out of that one thanks to Phantom. But the thing is, everyone in Amity Park can remember Pariah Dark's attack.

But Undergrowth? Flashes and flickers of almosts and maybes at best for everyone involved, and that is somehow so much more terrifying. What did they do? What were they made to do? How many missing and confirmed dead weren't taken by the towering ghost and all its myriad minions, but by one of them? Are they ever going to remember what happened? Is it better if they don't? 

And on, and on, and Sam's right alongside everyone else except in every way she isn't. Yes, she doesn't remember anything. But she knows she's at fault, because Danny told her just so.

Not in so many words, of course. He's too good for that. Too good a person, too good a ghost, too good a hero. He would never lay the blame for anything terrible that happened at anyone's feet but his own. He wasn't good enough, strong enough, fast enough—and on, and on. Never mind that he went and scrounged up and mastered an entirely new subset of powers just to counter Undergrowth—

(and her)

—and never mind the countless lives he did save. People were hurt, and worse, because he thinks he wasn't the hero Amity Park thinks he is. That's just the way he is.

Undergrowth was wrong. Sam knew that. She knew that. He was too extreme, too insane, too insistent on terraforming the entire planet to suit his self-aggrandizing whim to consider the consequences for whatever else lives here. Not just self-centered jerks with their gas-guzzling cars and plastic, one time use lives. There are so many people out there who understand what Sam's trying to do here in Amity, who do so much more to fight the ceaseless grinding up of Earth's finite resources than what one fourteen year old can do on her own. There are good people in the world fighting the evil and corrupt and greedy. There’s good in this world. You can't just—wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

You can't.

=

Sam remembers—the first attack. 

Sam remembers—waking up after it was all over. 

She remembers feeling sick and sluggish. Boneless. Dizzy and swooping like she'd downed too much cold medicine. Limbs slow to react, her thoughts even slower. She remembers her surroundings like a badly dubbed old kung fu movie; everyone moving at exaggerated angles, their voices not matching their mouths. She remembers Danny blinking too quickly, like he was trying not to cry he was so glad to see she was okay.

She remembers thinking with a cold and sullen fury, How dare he? 

What the fuck? had followed right on the heels of that, thankfully, because she’d had no idea why she'd ever in a million years be so angry with her best friend.

She remembers—knowing time had passed. Too much time. A dangerous and scary amount of time. And she remembers looking around and seeing the city halfway destroyed. And she remembers—

—guilt.

Guilt that made no sense until Danny, hours and hours later, faltered through an obviously edited summary of the week Amity Park forgot. She and Tucker had both blinked at him, and at each other, horrified and dismayed to find that Danny had had to do so much all on his own, that they'd been so vulnerable, so useless—

—but there'd been no guilt in Tucker's expression. No sign of the guilt that tangled up her guts in a cat's cradle until she was certain she'd throw up—

—and then she did have to throw up, staggering off to the bathroom in her basement, barely able to slam the door and fall to her knees before the toilet in time. She hates throwing up, hates the sweating and the shaking, hates the smell and the sound, hates how no matter what something always gets stuck in her nose. She'd screwed her face up tight so she didn't have to watch, rode out the worst of it, then sat there breathing wetly and hating life for a minute.

One of the boys had knocked gently on the bathroom door. "You okay?"

"Guh," she replied, throat hurting terribly at the effort. 

Sam remembers—opening her eyes, and the fear, and the confusion, and the certainty that she couldn't tell anyone, ever.

The toilet bowl had been full of flowers. 

=

That hasn't happened since, and—as far as she can tell—there haven't been any health issues that could have sprung up from having an indeterminate amount of flora taking root in her digestive system. 

She hasn't gone out much since then. School, patrol, the ghost attacks that invariably spring up outside of when she's penciled in time for a little extra chaos. She's made up excuses whenever Danny and Tucker invite her to hang out. She hasn't gone shopping or to a movie or any other perfectly normal after-school activity.

She's not hiding.

She's not.

It's just... easier, to not be around people any more than the barest necessity. At least until she feels... settled again. Normal again. For her, and for whatever 'normal' is worth in a town regularly terrorized by bigger and toothier and crueler ghosts with every passing month. It's fine. Danny's got Tucker and Jazz for the attacks that she's slow to arrive for, and Danny is—

Danny can handle himself. He's strong. He's amazing. He took Undergrowth—

(and her)

—down all on his own, no power suit or ghostly backup needed. It's fine.

Her parents seem to have miraculously caught on for once that she really does need some space; after the initial handsy-hugsy panicked relief the first couple days after Undergrowth, they gave her space (and anything else she asked for too, for that matter), only prodding her gently to come inside to eat now and then. Which she's grateful for, really, because she's pretty sure she wouldn't remember to eat at all without some prodding.

Something about eating rubs her wrong, now. The resistance of a carrot clenched between her teeth, the juicy flesh of an orange slice bursting under pressure, rice grains squirming like maggots on her tongue. She made a salad two days ago and couldn't stop thinking of the glamorized crime scenes from all those police procedural shows on TV; oversaturated, garish, someone's life torn open in a tasteless arrangement of stiff limbs. 

A cabbage is not a person. Cucumbers are not people. Almonds are a good source of protein.

Damn it.

Most of the time she hides—relaxes—in her greenhouse. Tucker had cracked a joke about that, though it had gone in one ear and out the other. Something something, bad taste. Blah blah, she's gone native. Didn't I tell you plants are the enemy?

Danny had laughed. Sam had to fight to keep her hands loose at her sides, to let it roll off like it didn't hurt while she tried to remind herself that it shouldn't hurt. That had earned her another tally in the ‘needing time away from people’ column. Not like, total isolation. School. Patrol. Dinner with her parents and grandma. She still does things with people. But every minute she's not in her greenhouse she feels this—this hand around her heart. This tightness that squeezes just enough that she's never not aware of it, and it's become so, so much easier for her to startle, to flinch from loud noises, to find herself overstimulated by her friends laughing as she is people screaming in the wake of ghosts. The hand squeezes until she can hardly breathe, and she thinks of the flowers she'd thrown up and thinks of roots, and thorns, and the fragility of her lungs, and it gets so hard to breathe—

Nobody's caught her breaking down yet. She hopes she can keep it that way. She hopes she can get over this—this anxiety, or fear, or whatever this is. 

But for all that she spends so much time in her greenhouse, the only place she doesn't feel that hand around her heart, she can't really say she's all that relaxed there either.

=

Another day put between then and now. Life around Amity Park is just about back to normal. If she's feeling generous with her definition of normal, anyway. She's made it through school without any issues and now she's free to hide—relax!—for a few hours in her greenhouse before one of her parents will come tapping at the door.

"Hey guys," she says, lackluster.

The whole greenhouse shivers at the sound of her voice.

Yep. That's totally normal. Nothing weird about that at all!

Ugh.

She goes through her after-school checklist by rote memory, biting her tongue to keep herself from the usual silly commentary she used to say along with it. She's learned better.  Undergrowth did—something to her. Something she's lied through her teeth about to Danny and Tucker, assuring them that she's fine, she's normal, there aren't any lingering effects from—whatever it was. Is. She's different now. Not outwardly, not in any of the ways Danny risks being discovered as inhuman every single day. She's not like Danny. She's still human.

She is.

But she can still do inhuman things. Or—not do. Nothing as active as ghost rays or flight or anything fun. But she can—influence. She still has an inhuman influence, and it's all she can do to keep her garden still.

Even with her teeth clenched so tightly her jaw aches and a headache blooms—nngh—at her temples, the slightest graze of her fingers across a leaf makes whatever plant she's touched quiver. When she picks up her pruning shears to clean up the tomato plants she can see them flush bigger and brighter before her very eyes. There's the tiniest, softest—niggling in the back of her mind, an itch on her teeth and goosebumps down her skin.

(mother)

She drops the shears. Before she can move to grab them a tendril of healthy green leaves curls off of the trellis to pluck them up out of the dirt and deposit them neatly in her numb hands again.

"...Thanks," she grits out.

All of the tomatoes swell to the size of tennis balls, their leaves straining to catch up. Two of the nearest ones split their blood red skins open to beam beatifically at her. There are teeth in their dripping grins, or something shaped enough like teeth to curdle her stomach.

"Stop."

The grins shrink, though the seams remain. She resolves to never eat those two. The thought of throwing them out however, is almost as revolting. She leaves without finishing the after-school checklist, opting to hide in the basement bowling alley with her grandma until dinner. It's not half as relaxing as it used to be.

=

She can't avoid her greenhouse. Not even for a day. Her garden needs daily attention. It needed it—before. 

It did.

Now the thought of ignoring it, even for an afternoon, makes her physically ill. So she doesn't know if it's guilt for not finishing her after-school checklist earlier or something—else, something left in her from then—

—she tries, she tries, she tries to remember anything from then, but there's only—

—hunger, and anger, and pride for her—

—her—

—her children. 

Nothing concrete. Nothing real. Nothing she can make use of. All she knows is that she's different, and it's most obvious here in her chil—

—garden. Her garden.

They won't hurt her. No matter what she says or does, this she knows for certain. Her garden will never hurt her.

Somehow, that isn't as comforting as it should be. All she can think of are teeth sinking into meat, and the sound of a scream, and splattering—

And she has no idea if Undergrowth made her order the—the—the children to kill someone, or if he goaded her into doing it personally. And she doesn't know which is worse. 

It's night now. Late. After patrol. Her cell phone is an intrusive blue glow in her greenhouse, the only light she dare use in case one of her parents is still awake. For all that they've been weirdly accommodating since then, she doesn't want to push her luck. It's a school night, after all. It's hardly any light at all to go by, really. She's tempted to pull up the flashlight app at least, but—

(hello hello)

(mother's back)

(we missed you mother)

—it's maybe safer to do this in the dark. For all that her throat closes up when she hears a loud rustling sweep through her greenhouse. For all that her feet feel like dead weights as she drags them across the dirt floor until she's stood in the center. In the heart of her domain.

She breathes. 

"I hear you," she whispers.

The rustling grows louder, and louder still. Tables creak under growing and shifting weights. Shadows move closer into the faint light of her cell phone. A hundred or more whispers settle in some weird space between her sinus cavity and her brain, heard like something from the cusp of a dream. Mother, they all say. We love you, we love you, we're here for you.

Her legs give out, but something cool and dry catches her before she can fall. She clings to it, swallowing a shriek. They won't hurt her.

They won't.

Now she just has to make sure they won't hurt anyone else either.

"That's right. I'm your—ha." She buries her face in her hands, feeling somewhere between playing pretend and outright deranged. "Ha ha! Can—this is—can you call me something else? Please? I'm way too young to be anybody's mom, let alone my own personal—shit, I dunno. All of you. Just—call me Sam."

That earns her a whole bass-boosted chorus of Sam! Sam! Sam! until she lets go of the vine-branch-thing to clap her hands over her ears. "Easy! Jeez! Take it down a notch, okay? I really can't—do this—with all of you shouting at me."

Sam! Sam! Sam! gets a lot quieter. Not manageable, not really, since a bunch of plants are chanting her name like she's a rock star, but at least it feels less like she's laid out in a dentist's chair getting worked on without local anesthetic. 

"Okay. Okay. I—" she giggles. This is so stupid. This is so dangerous. "Are you—Undergrowth?"

Shadows chirp no, no, no at her like hulking baby birds. 

"Are you still his, though? If he came back, would you listen to him instead of me?"

No, no, no, they chirp. Something coils up one of her legs, catching on her bootlaces and tickling the back of her knee. 

"No, you're not his?"

Not his, something whispers right in her fucking ear. She recoils, trips over whatever's feeling up her thigh, and gets caught again by the vine-branch-thing. She's pretty sure it's a branch of her orange tree. It smells citrus-y, at least. Splayed ungainly, she tries to get her heart under control. She feels like she's in the middle of a horror movie. It's way too easy to imagine some know-it-all dipshit yelling at her through a mouthful of popcorn. Get out, you dumb bitch! 

Yeah, yeah. She knows. She knows. Messing around with things she doesn't understand is what got Danny zapped in the first place. It's a long chain of events between the accident and tonight, but every step of it's her fault.

"Okay," she says shakily. "Okay. And if he came back...?"

We're yours, her garden croons, humming all at once and all through her in a way that makes it feel like her muscles are coming loose from her bones. We belong to you, our Sam.

She shivers. "L-lucky me."

=

So this is a thing she's got going on now, apparently, and no obvious way to make it stop. At least, not any way that wouldn't require her to tear her greenhouse apart down to the last garlic bulb, which would be extraordinarily expensive, extraordinarily alarming to anyone who knows her, and extraordinarily too much like a whole lot of murder. Plants aren't people, but these plants sure do like to tell her how much they love her.

So. It's a thing. Talking to plants. Plants that are definitely souped up on whatever ambient juice is leftover from Undergrowth terraforming the whole city. Plants that keep growing mouths full of fangs and strangling vines with thorns longer than her thumb despite her practically begging them to just be carrots, please. It's feeling a little too Little Shop of Horrors for comfort. She keeps emphasizing the strict no meat diet she's got them on, glad that her family's never had any interest in coming in here. You know. Just in case. Thing is though, her concern—so far, anyway—seems pretty unwarranted. Her garden seems happy enough on the perfectly healthy diet of perfectly normal plants. Sunshine, air, water, a good layer of compost. 

They just keep thanking her so feverishly for so little. It's—unsettling. A little bit awful. Maybe more than a little bit. Maybe this psychic connection thing goes two ways, and her garden is influencing her into—what? Feeling guilty? For what? They all seem so happy for the slightest bit of her attention. It doesn't seem like it'll occur to them all that they could ever ask her for more.

Maybe it's not healthy that she's thinking of her plants as thinking creatures instead of some kind of echo chamber for whatever Undergrowth did to her. The longer she lets this go on, the more the voices of her garden feel-sound like her own thoughts. And it's been going on for a while. Long enough that Danny and Tucker have noticed the uptick in her behavior, both commenting in their own ways that they're happy she's acting more like her old self again.

Yeah. Right. Nothing supernaturally weird going on with her at all, no sir-ee!

Still, for all that she can't stop her garden from going the plantae equivalent of full werewolf, she has managed to keep them organized. Well. Bit of seesaw on that. The overcrowding got sorted out by some aggressive behavior. Some very aggressive behavior. She's definitely had one nightmare already, reliving the gruesomely wet memory of having to bodily haul the thing that used to be her prized Venus flytrap off of the thing that used to be her kiwi vine. 

Point is, she has half the number of plants in her garden than she did two weeks ago, which—fine. It's not like she was planning on eating any of them anymore. She's not really—eating much, lately. She's been able to pass it off as no big deal around Danny and Tucker (never in a million years did she ever think she'd be grateful for the Box Ghost interrupting lunch so often, but here she is!), and she keeps reassuring her family that she's gotten into the habit of taking more of her meals in her greenhouse. The truth is she's been eating a lot of cereal and tripling her vitamin intake. Cereal hasn't betrayed her yet, but in a town like Amity Park that's no guarantee.

She knows it's a stopgap measure. Someone's going to find her out, or her garden's going to get ghostly enough for Danny to sense it, or someone will be stupid enough to walk in here and she might actually end up with some real life Audrey II bullshit.

"If any of you start singing, I won't be held accountable for my actions," she threatens one evening, brandishing a trowel. The garden makes a bunch of querying noises at her, tangling around her ankles like an alien's limited grasp of the concept of a pet cat. She's given up wearing leggings entirely, having thrown the last ruined pair away after her parents had gone to bed. She'd bought three pairs of jeans—black, of course—last Saturday when she braved the mall with Danny and Tucker. At least artfully torn jeans are fashionable enough that nobody but her mom is going to think anything odd about it.

"Never mind," she sighs, and gives in to the urge to scratch one of her plants along its spiny sepals. It purrs happily, and soon a whole group of waist-high plants that look like something right out of Poison Ivy's own evil lair are crooning at her for scritches. 

=

She ends up sneaking off on her own to PetSmart an hour before it closes, bailing on patrol for the sixth time since Undergrowth. There's definitely some line between crazy plant lady and weird dog mom she's pole vaulting over, but—whatever.

She buys a lot of dog toys. Her garden especially loves the tug-of-war ropes, but the bright green squeaky bone turned out to be an A+ impulse buy too.

=

It takes a while, and a lot of adjusting, and she still hasn't figured out an alternative long-term diet, but overall things settle. She finds a new balance. She basically sleeps well enough, and her grades are fine, and the ghost attacks don't get too left-field. Danny shoulders most of that anyway these days, more comfortable with his powers and the popularity boost saving the city gave Phantom with everybody. Used to be her and Tucker put in the same hours and effort as Danny—if you don't count the superpowers—but lately? They're better for cover stories and clean-up, which is fine with Sam while she sorts all this post-Undergrowth ghost-plant stuff out. Tucker's just happy he finishes out the semester with the same PDA he started it with.

Of course, all good things are temporary. She really ought to have this figured out by now.

It's a ghost attack that unravels it all, naturally. This one's a new face; some kind of unsettling, skitter-y combination hydra-centipede about the length of a limousine. Its six necks accordion though, and it spits acid. Both are nasty surprises Danny wasn't expecting, and he ends up getting tossed through the front pane of a mom-and-pop hardware store. He'll be fine, though she and Tucker both have to tamp down on their standard panicked 'oh shit our best friend would have absolutely just died if he were normal' reaction to go distract the ghost from going after a minivan. 

They circle around it, shouting nonsensical insults that it probably doesn't understand to get its attention, helped by a few firm blasts of some small ecto-guns they'd pilfered a while back. Only one shot actually gets a hit on something that isn't its purple exoskeleton; Tucker whoops loudly when it screeches in pain. Sam uses the precious seconds to circle around to the other side of the minivan to yank open the sliding door and start manhandling a group of elementary-aged kids in blue soccer uniforms out and into whatever shop is closest. The mom squawks affront until Sam hisses at her to hurry her ass up if she doesn't want to go the same way as the hatchback—thankfully empty—that had ended up wrapped around a telephone pole. That gets soccer mom moving, and they're both just clear of the van before she hears Tucker scream her name. 

She moves on an instinct honed by two years of fighting for her life; she shoves soccer mom hard and whirls around in time to see the roof of the minivan as it comes flipping right at her. "No—!" is all she has time for, throwing up her hands as bolts of neon green strike up in her periphery. The minivan crumples with a horrible shriek of metal and hangs, creakingly, not a foot above her head. She blinks in the sudden shadow, heart hammering in her throat. She expects to hear Danny's voice, either a dry quip or an earnest rush of concern, depending on how hard the hydrapede rattled him.

A nonplussed, "What the fuck," from Tucker is what she gets instead. 

She looks around. There's the familiar ghost-green glow, but it's not Danny's burning hands or headlight-bright eyes. Two thorny vines, thick as tree trunks, have punched through the concrete to catch the minivan before it could crush her.

(mother) she hears them yap at her happily.

Well, shit.

=

The fight wraps up without any other cars or business fronts getting destroyed. Danny makes good use of those ice powers, and in a matter of minutes Tucker's got the thing slurped up in one of the three Thermoses they've gotten in the habit of having on hand, just in case.

Then Danny and Tucker make matched crazy eyes at her and the modern art she accidentally made out of soccer mom's claim to fame.

"Not here," she tells them firmly. If soccer mom figures out there's a chance she could pin her totaled minivan on her—and her incredibly wealthy parents—they'll get stuck here all day. Tucker gets it before Danny does and makes a show of shoulder-checking him pointedly as he jogs off. Danny shuts his mouth and winks out of sight, leaving Sam to jog after Tucker. Which she will, just after she tries something first.

She glares at the two vines—standard curb weeds once upon ten minutes, more than likely—and thinks at them very hard. Thank you, much appreciated, stop calling me mother, go away.

She gets some kind of bizarre-o feedback that feels like chewing on gum with the wrapper still on, and also like skinned knees, but in her brain? Ugh. With a reluctance that shouldn't be so obvious from a couple of plants, the two vines sort of... shrink? Melt? Reverse-grow back into two perfectly normal bits of scruffy green in a totally wrecked stretch of sidewalk.

Good enough! Better than she expected, really! 

Soccer mom starts babbling something very loud about her car, which is Sam's cue to run for the hills. She does so, dreading the conversation she's about to have with her best friends, but also... kind of excited for the next ghost attack?

If she has to deal with having creepy psychic monster plant-making powers, she may as well get some mileage out of them. Right?