#and somehow this became the thing TA-DAH

[god-fucking-dammit-mizutani]

you’re the cherry on top

Rating: G | Word Count: ~3,200 Pairing: Ruri Mihashi/Chiyo Shino’oka  Tags: Future Fic/Apartment AU, Dog AU, Artist AU, Workaholic!Chiyo, Dog moms, Aged Up Summary: Chiyo only wants one thing when she knocks on her neighbor’s door in the early hours of dawn, but what she gains is perhaps nothing short of a family.

Hi DC! ( _ghost_type @twitter??)(Sorry I have no idea how to link or tag back to you!!!) But I was your pinch hitter for @oofurixmas!! I was so elated to see rare pairs being asked for, especially ruri/chiyo because I’ve never thought of them before?? And it was so cute I immediately wanted to write a million things, but I compromised and squished two of them into one haha. I hope you enjoy this and that you’ve been having a great start to your year!!!

Read Below or on A03!

~*~ Overhead, something clinks repeatedly on her ceiling— back and forth, back and forth— and something in Chiyo snaps.

Every tap of her feet on the cement steps sends a cold ache up her already tired legs. Chiyo mourns her decision to leave her slippers behind on her way out, thinking it would be inconsequential to her short plight. She had remembered her coat at least, pulls it in taut around her like one would a blanket. Despite the blistering mornings and muggy nights inside in her room, Chiyo had been aware how much chill lingered outside in the early summer nights, had trudged through it without a single extra layer on her way home from work in the early hours of today.

Her eyes sting as she moves forward and up, sleep as foreign to her as another country, but the searing hot determination in her belly brings her to her upstairs neighbor's door. Cicadas cry through the quiet morning, like her own personal war song.

She knocks.

It is after the deed, that Chiyo worries she may have woken them. That she has come to the wrong door. That she shouldn't have come at all.

But half way through her panic, the door opens.

“I live beneath you and I have to be at my next job in three hours,” pours from Chiyo’s mouth. She'd been rehearsing it in her head the whole way up, but her voice catches in a way she had not planned. Still, she pushes forward, squeezing her eyes shut, “And I can't sleep and keep hearing the barking and the scratching and the running and I've been wondering all week—”

“I'm so sorry!” the voice of another woman starts, panicked. “It's just—”

“—Can I please pet it?” Chiyo rushes in a hushed whispers. She cracks her eyes open, hands squeezed before her to beg, back ready to bow.

The woman before her stills for a moment, then seems to trip over her own feet despite not taking a single step. Chiyo fears that if the door slams shut she'll never get another chance.

But the woman blinks at her, bewildered, wispy waves of brown hair framing her cheeks. “I'm sorry,” she murmurs, eyeing Chiyo skeptically. “What?”

*

“So soft,” Chiyo sighs. In her arms, the little orange-brown dog wiggles. She buries her face into the warm, silky fur. Her mother's voice in the back of her mind reminds her to never put her face near a dog's she doesn't know, but when the little corgi finally pushes away, it—she— leaves several, slobbery kisses to Chiyo's face.

“I know we're not supposed to have pets here,” the other woman—Ruri— says. Her voice is still quiet, as if she's afraid someone else might hear, “But I found her wandering the streets, fur matted, skin and bones and I couldn't leave her out there.”

Chiyo let's the corgi hop down from her lap. She doesn't go very far from her, curling up in a small pile of pillows and blankets against the kitchen wall. Chiyo turns and smiles up at Ruri who's sat at the kitchen table, working on something Chiyo can't see, just the flick of her wrists and the pointed end of a painting brush. The surface is messy, she notes, with an assortment of items Chiyo doesn't quite recognize and a giant mirror in the center with lights so round they make her think of bubbles.

“I think you did the right thing,” Chiyo says, rubbing at her eyes. Ruri smiles back down at her. “She looks happy.” Through the blinds Chiyo can see the stirrings of sunrise, little strips of sorbet pinks and oranges sitting so peacefully on the other’s cheek, highlighting her hair. “Should make posters, though. Put ‘em up. See if she belongs to someone…”

Chiyo leans back, her head meeting the thigh of the little dog and nuzzling it's fur once more. She gives Chiyo a short kiss, curling inwards until her little black nose touches Chiyo's own. It feels like her heart could burst and with a deep yawn, Chiyo closes her eyes.

*

Ruri shakes her awake some time later, cool fingers wrapped gently around Chiyo's upper arm. She blinks herself to awareness, but doesn't move. The little corgi is still tucked around her, soft and warm, and Chiyo breathes in deep. It feels like months of stress have suddenly vanished in—

“How long was I asleep?” Chiyo shoots up. The dog follows her in a clamour, little claws tapping on the tiles.

“Just two hours,” Ruri grins. Chiyo feels her shoulders droop in relief. Ruri helps Chiyo to her feet and collects the corgi in her arms. At the door she waves a little paw at her, wishing Chiyo a good day at work.

It's a lovely sight, Chiyo thinks as she waves back. It's a sight that keeps her smiling through her shift at the restaurant, a pretty woman and an adorable puppy seeing her off. She wonders if she'll be brave enough to knock again.

*

But Chiyo doesn't have to wait. She doesn't even need to take the initiative. When she opens her door later that evening after a barrage of knocks, Ruri greets her with a wide grin.

“Good morning!” Ruri says, cheekily, backlit by dusk. She calls attention to the bag strapped around her arm. “Got any time?”

Chiyo steps aside to let her in. The bag rustles and she jumps. As soon as the door is closed, Ruri holds a finger to her lips and unzips the very top.

“Oh!” Chiyo gasps. The corgi comes jumping out, shaking herself momentarily and huffing. Chiyo kneels down, the corgi excitedly running between her legs, mouth open and panting excitedly. “You came, too!”

Ruri pulls a few more items from the side of the bag. Chiyo notices the sketchbook tucked under her other arm when she brings it forward to sit on her lap. “I've been thinking about what you said,” she mentions, tapping the cover of it.

Chiyo stares.

“Posters,” Ruri giggles. “You gave me the idea last night. Figured you knew something about them,” she continues, ruffling at the dog's ear as Chiyo strokes the chin. The corgi looks like she's in paradise. “And I figured you might want to see your friend again.”

“Oh,” Chiyo repeats.

They settle at the kitchen table, markers littered here and there, and a fresh sheet of Ruri's notebook open, drafting the information at the top. The puppy rests it head down on the surface where she has a close-up view from Chiyo’s lap, watching with barely opened eyes. Chiyo strokes her from the head down.

“You should get a picture of her printed,” Chiyo mentions. Ruri looks up at her, surprised. They've only met twice now, but Chiyo finds her focus admirable. “That way her family can find her,” she explains.

“How would I…” Ruri purses her lips. In the dim kitchen lighting the red of them are vibrant and beautiful. Chiyo never wears lipstick, but she licks at her lips and wonders if the brand is flavored, if it would taste like cherries.

Chiyo's heart pounds as she rushes to say, “You can send me one. One of my jobs is near a printing place, I could get the copies done there.”

Ruri beams at her. “Excellent!” She grabs one of the brighter markers from the table and takes Chiyo's hand. Her fingers are warm, eyes focused, and Chiyo's pulse skyrockets. When Ruri pulls back she points at the series of numbers now going up the length of her arm. “My phone's at home, so text me later and I'll send one over.”

Chiyo stares at the pink numbers, feels her cheeks turning a matching shade. “Couldn't I have just… texted you with my phone, though?”

Ruri smiles bashfully.

*

True to her word, Ruri sends over a photo of the dog, small little snout open mouth smiling at Chiyo through the camera. She gushes over it for the whole night, sets the corgi as her background.

And then she awakens to several more.

I couldn’t choose, Ruri writes her with a worried little emoji. One of the pictures has the  corgi fast asleep in the new bed they had gone out and bought together, another of her draped over the back of Ruri’s couch. Chiyo’s heart thuds over the cutest picture of the pup, cradled in Ruri’s arms. It’s angled just so that most of the woman’s face is in view of the upper left. They both look so happy and if Chiyo saves all of the images to her personal phone gallery, that’s absolutely only her business.

“We should come up with a name for her,” Chiyo says one night a few days later, kneeling on the carpet of her living room. Ruri looks up from her sketchbook. Chiyo breaks eye contact long enough to toss a ball for the corgi. It’s tiny little tail wobbles as it gives chase and Chiyo clamps her hands to her mouth to keep in a squeal.

“Should we?” Ruri asks, adjusting her feet on the edge of the couch cushions. Her toes flex as she considers it. Ruri frowns, tapping her pencil to her chin. “We’ll just get more attached.”

“I know,” Chiyo sighs as the dog drops the tennis ball in her lap. “But I feel bad having nothing to call her.”

Ruri’s eyes on her are intense, and Chiyo has to turn away. “Ai,” she says finally. The light scratching of her pencil on paper starts back up.

Chiyo swallows. “Ai?”

“Because she’s a lovebug!” Ruri says. Chiyo blinks at her. Ruri’s cheeks are bright, darker than the rogue she’s wearing and it causes her own pulse to hammer. The corgi—Ai— decides that fetch is over for the evening and hops her way up on the couch, nuzzling under Ruri’s bowed arm and resting her little head on the woman’s leg. Ruri laughs, ruffling her hair and adjusting further into the couch back. Chiyo can still hear her drawing, but the sketchbook is now too far raised to see Ruri’s face. “And because she brought you to me.”

And Chiyo’s very glad that Ruri probably can’t see her face, either.

It’s a week before either of them has time to run by the printers before they’re closed; Ruri says she’s in the middle of a big job and is hardly home, and Chiyo doesn’t have work on that side of the city until the weekends. But on Friday night she bypasses her own floor and heads straight to Ruri’s apartment. It takes a minute to open the door with the spare key without dropping any of the papers, but Chiyo’s in catering and so  she manages to slip in without issue. Ai greets her, hopping at her legs and Chiyo slams the door shut before anyone can see in.

“Have you been a good girl while I was gone?” Chiyo asks, smiling. Ai lets out a small oof noise as if to let her know that, yes, she’s been very good.  

“Good, good,” she continues as if they were actually conversing. She pulls out one of the posters and shows it to Ai, bending over and petting her atop the golden crown of her head. “Do you like it? Think your people will be able to find you?” Ai wags her little tail and Chiyo just giggles at her.

She slips off her sandals in the foyer and pads down the hallway as Ai follows behind her, leaping at her heels. Down the hall she can hear light humming and Chiyo asks, “Is your mommy home today?”

Ai sits down on the carpet, looking up at Chiyo and tilting her head.

Chiyo stops and realizes, “I meant Ruri.”

“Yes?”

Chiyo looks for the source of the voice, but she doesn’t find who she wants. What she finds is nothing short of horrific and Chiyo lets out a shriek, every single last poster flying up and scattering in the air.

*

Ruri looks like an artist, the paintbrush and canvas kind, with her wild hair tamed into a top bun and splotches of what-could-be paint marking up her cheeks and neck. Her overalls are caked in whites and browns and glitter just above her knees where she's wiped off excess powder. In her left hand is what looks like a single, long claw. Ruri holds it up, grinning. “Ready for some horns?”

Chiyo musters up a nod as Ruri begins coating the base in a glue-like substance. She then takes the seat right in front of Chiyo and places the horn directly to the side of her forehead, holding it there for a short while.

“This is what you do for a living?” Chiyo asks, awed. Ruri nods, still grinning as if she’s having fun applying monstrous extensions to someone’s face.

“I’ve always had a passion for art,” Ruri says. She turns back around and reaches for another horn just a little bit of a ways down her kitchen table. She coats that as well in glue and places it on the symmetrical end of Chiyo’s forehead. “But I was watching horror movies with my friend Kanou one day and I saw the kind of monsters people could make and it got me thinking: Someone has to design those creatures. Someone has to execute that somehow. And since then getting into special effects makeup was my dream.”

“That’s amazing,” Chiyo breathes. Ruri’s grin widens, showing off the dimples on the far edges of her lips. She dabs Chiyo’s face with a purplish-gray little sponge and the wetness makes her wrinkle her nose. Ruri giggles, padding the very tip with her sponge before turning back to apply more—paint?— humming as she goes.

“My grandfather didn’t really like it,” Ruri says, making a face. “He’s always been kind of controlling, but he couldn’t say anything if I spent my own money on supplies.” She gestures at her apartment. “And I pay for this place myself. It’s cheap and small, but I like it. That’s what matters.” Ruri frowns, “But I wish they’d allow pets. Probably why it’s cheap, though.”

Ruri’s so animated, in her own world, telling Chiyo about all the sets she’s worked on, grabbing at brushes without a thought as she talks. Under the kitchen lights, Ruri’s eyes shine brightly. This close Chiyo can see the little flecks of gold hidden between the amber browns, the quiet hum of hazel freckling around her pupils. It is intoxicating and humbling to be the center of Ruri’s attention, and Chiyo thinks she could become addicted to this.

Ai makes a low whine over Chiyo’s shoulder.

“She’s dreaming,” Ruri tells her, reaching for another prosthetic. She holds it up on several parts of Chiyo’s face before deciding the perfect application spot. “Speaking of,” she says, licking at her own lips, “how about you?”

“I cater on the weekends,” Chiyo says. “And I have work at a local restaurant three nights a week.” Ruri watches her, eyes furrowed as Chiyo continues listing, “Sometimes I assist at the library, and I have a part time secretary job, Monday through Thursday.”

Ruri sits back. “Wow. No wonder you passed out cold on my kitchen floor. But what I meant was,” Ruri says with a little laugh, “what’s your dream?”

Chiyo colors. She wonders if Ruri can tell under all the makeup on her face. Chiyo breathes in, Ruri’s eyes still sharply regarding her, and finds the courage to say, “I want to be a sports announcer. Specifically for baseball!” Chiyo feels excited momentarily as she continues, “I was the manager of my high school’s baseball team. We made it to Koshien— Oh, Ruri, it was beautiful.”

She can almost see the field in her mind’s eyes, remember the brilliant summer sun beaming down as they took their victory and pride swells anew in her chest.

“I’ve wanted to go back ever since,” Chiyo admits. “I’ve wondered what it looks like, from the top.” The last bit comes out as a mumble, “But I need to save up to get my bachelors.”

“I see,” Ruri says. “So you’re here because you’re saving up.”

Chiyo nods. Ruri turns away to grab at a dark palette on the other side of her light up mirror. The brightness of it burns Chiyo’s eyes and she looks away. Ruri readjusts in her seat and opens the top to show an array of powdery colors. She dips a brush into one of the darker blacks. When she looks back at Chiyo, Ruri stills for a minute. “It seems kind of like a shame,” she mutters, “to hide such a pretty face.”

Ruri smiles, rosey cheeks caked still in a ghastly white with smears of red, and it is almost too effervescent to stand. When she tells Chiyo to hold still the command is irrelevant because she can barely even breathe.

The end result is terrifyingly realistic and somehow, hauntingly beautiful. But Chiyo still screams when she sees her own image in the mirror, devil horns and bruised skin.

*

Ruri lays across her lap, eyes straining backward to watch the first cascade of snowfall that winter. “Your hair’s grown longer,” Chiyo notices as she runs her fingers through it. Ruri turns her gaze on her, smile as vibrant and as red as one of the first days they had met.

Ai sploots along Ruri’s stomach, dozing softly. Her head perks up to hear Chiyo’s voice, dark brown eyes blinking tiredly, before draping back over the other woman’s side. Both of them laugh.

“It’s a shame no one’s claimed her,” Ruri remarks, poking one of Ai’s pointed ears. It twitches lightly and Ai whines at the distraction from her sleep.

“Yeah,” Chiyo sighs, reaching over to run her hand along Ai’s back. Ruri sits up suddenly, maneuvering the dog seamlessly into her lap.

“It’s cold,” she mutters, reaching for the old gray throw blanket Chiyo keeps over the couch. She holds it open, staring at Chiyo in question. She nods and Ruri grins, burying the three of them underneath the quilt. Ai sighs, but Chiyo thinks it might in gratitude. This close to the window brings in quite a chill, but bundled up together brings its own warmth and the dark sky filled with flurries and city lights is perhaps Chiyo’s favorite part of winter.

Ruri hums next to her. “Are you still thinking about starting school this Spring?”

“Maybe,” Chiyo laughs. She grabs for her mug of hot chocolate, tempered now from where its sat against the windowpane, collecting the outside chill. The chocolate is still delightful to taste. “But I don’t know how I’ll afford school and an apartment on my own.”

“And a dog,” Ruri adds, leaning her head onto Chiyo’s shoulder.

“And an illegal dog,” Chiyo agrees.

“My lease is up in the Spring, you know?” Ruri grabs her free hand under the blanket, squeezing it gently. “We should find a place where dogs are legal.” Ai sits up in her lap, her little cold, dark nose poking up through the quilt’s edge. She pants excitedly, as if she understands, too, and agrees.

“We?” Chiyo's heart pounds and she smiles at the pretty woman and her—their?— dog and her heart accelerates. Ruri nods, eyes bright when she looks at Chiyo. Ai settles back down, her weight distributed evenly between both of their laps. Chiyo breathes in, the rush of her heart against her rib cage feels like a war drum pushing her forward and she finds it in herself to press her lips to Ruri's and is ecstatic to find that, yes, her lip gloss does taste like cherries.

[lovesanmotion]

yandere!ateez as fanboys

Hongjoong: 

The moment he hears one song from your latest album, it immediately swept him off his feet from the ground and made the decision to stan you. You are his favorite soloist. The moment he hears your latest comeback album, he immediately listened to all your other songs and made his research about you that night. Of course, the caffeine boosting him. 

He made a lot of social media accounts just to follow you. Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, you name it. He would follow your every move and post. But is still didn’t feel the same. To Hongjoong, he felt like he was still missing a large chunk of your life and he didn’t want that. The next night, he pulled a couple of strings and ta dah! had access to your very personal information. And he felt so complete afterwards. 

To you, Hongjoong was just one of your few male fans that you adore. I mean, the guy makes covers of your songs. And part of you agreed that when he made his own remix of your songs, it would sound 10000% better than the original. However, you just didn’t noticed the subliminal messages and tones he inserted in his remixes. 

Seonghwa: 

Seonghwa was one of those rare male fansites you have. Being in a 7 member girl group called Starlight, you are the group’s visual, main dancer, lead vocalist, center and face of the group. Once your group made its debut, fame automatically found you. 

Endorsements here and there, landing yourself in various commercial films and even coming to be a guest of variety shows. Your popularity instantly swept off and in a blink of an eye, the whole of South Korea knew your name. And your name tasted delicious in HwaLight_Y/N. Seonghwa’s fansite name dedicated to you. He thought of a name that would connect him to you. Hwa meaning star, replacing the english word and thus the birth of the fansite name. 

With his good looks, he too became known amongst the fans. He was known as your handsome fansite master. And since he was one of the rare male fansites you have, you would immediately recognize him from afar. Smiling at his camera and waving at him. Much to Seonghwa’s delight, he felt like there was already a deep connection between you two. And he wanted more of that. 

He started coming to your unofficial group activities. Slippiing his way inside the venue just to be able to feel your presence a few feet from him. He started purchasing flight and hotel information from other “fans” and would purchase the seat closest to you or the room nearest yours. 

Didn’t noticed those red beaming lights hidden inside your hotel room when you’re changing clothes or taking a shower? Click click! Or you were dead asleep tired from rehearsals when someone barged into your room? Click click! Ever noticed how your favorite red lace underwear went missing only to come back with a stain? Click click! 

Yunho: 

At first, he wasn’t entirely dazzled by you. Yunho was just a regular idol manager who would follow you into your every activities and schedules. He needed the money, plus, companies like him for his tall and muscular physique. The kind of person that can ward off creepy or scary fans that tried to get close to you.

You, on the other hand, is an ex member of your former girl group but found fame as a solo artist. Your debut song swept the charts and immediately won every single music show chart. Topping music chart billboards in every country. Despite all the glitz and glamor that followed you, you felt lonely and desperate for human touch. 

It wasn’t supposed to be how Yunho, naked and in between your legs. How such alcohol can make you two do things that violates his contract with you. One night was all it takes for him to see a completely different side of you. And he wanted more of that. 

Yunho became more protective towards you. Becoming more aggressive to anyone who dares lay a hand on you. Even going as far as sleeping in one bed with you as he thinks “its completely necessary, who know, someone might be barging into your room in the middle of the night?”  You can never get away from him. Companies like him, remember? With his clean records, your company would do anything to keep him signed with you. 

Yeosang: 

Channel YNbyYS is a youtube channel run by Yeosang. It’s the platform wherein he posts his dance covers to your group’s songs. With a bit of his dancing elements and the original choreography of your group, the blend came out much nicer than what everyone expected. His heart leaped more at the idea of you endorsing a chicken brand. From that day forward, he became a regular of the certain chicken brand nearest to him. 

Yeosang may seem like a complete innocent and harmless fanboy. But do you ever what he is behind his dance covering youtube channel? Why, he is the second most influential person in your company. The son of your own CEO. He had his very own place within the company. And he uses it to the extent of getting closer to you. 

The gifts that came into your company? Those are ALL Yeosang’s gifts for you. From the dresses to the shoes. He shamelessly threw away other gifts’ that were for you because according to him “he is the only relevant and special person that can offer you gifts”. Anything else is directly to the bin. 

And you wonder how your “fans” know your taste in fashion. 

Mingi: 

Mingi, before being blacklisted by your company, was just a regular fanboy of your group. You were the group’s main rapper and the lyrics to your bars spoke volumes to him. He was just casually listening to your verses and mixtapes until one day, he realized that he wanted to be more than just your fanboy.

It started slowly when he would attend your group’s fansigns and even follow you towards the airport. But the bodyguards prevented him from coming anymore closer to you. And so he did the unthinkable. Knocking down a bodyguard that was shielding you and enveloping you in his arms. His heartbeat raced and he felt a second heartbeat between his pants. With you in his arms, he only realized how petite yet handful you are. Hands running all over your body, burying his nose in your hair inhaling that soft and sweet strawberry shampoo that you use. 

Despite being blacklisted, he never cared about going public and meeting you at your group or individual activities. Instead, he resorted to barging into your dorm. Whether you’re home or not. 

 San: 

You are your group’s maknae and visual. Dubbed as Korea’s IT Girl, your face can be found anywhere in Seoul. From commercial films to leading Korean dramas, releasing your own solo album and attending fashion weeks, you are always the talk of the town. Whenever your name comes up, its always met with praises. Of course, the people loves you! You are a crowd and fan favorite. 

And you had managed to capture the eyes and heart of San. Calling himself as your number 1 fan. He was never absent in any of your activities. Getting front row seats in your concerts, being present at your variety shows and even buying products that you endorse - soju, cosmetics, literally anything. 

To your fans, he is the biggest fanboy you ever had. And it was quite entertaining to watch him profess his love to you. You even chuckled a few of his pick up lines that he threw at you during your fansigns. When asked if you had anything memorable that a fan ever did to you, the answer would always be San. 

Behind closed doors, San kept a dirty secret. Remember how he always gets front row seats to your concerts? He hid a camera in his clothes to film your upskirt. Beating his meat every night to his own collection of your tight and revealing clothing. Remember how you would endorse anything? He’d buy it and imagine how ripping it off your body feels like. His greatest possession? Your black lingerie. Too bad, you’re never getting it back. 

Wooyoung: 

ForYN is a website account run by Wooyoung. He regularly updates his content - from posting your pictures that are uploaded today, to your daily activities, the products you use and a little sub website from his channel wherein he writes poems and graphical fanfiction of himself with you. But of course no one would ever read between the lines. The way how Wooyoung would write would be so poetical and endearing that it? doesn’t? have? any? hidden? meaning? 

He only came once to your fansign and gave you a pink teddybear. It wasn’t the best gift you owned but you liked it somehow. There was something about the teddybear that you didn’t know why you’re into it. Its just a plain gift but everytime you look at it, its as if you’re drawn to it. 

Maybe becuase you didn’t noticed how it has camera eyes? 

Wooyoung’s love for you deepened when he caught you humping on the pink teddybear. Cum splattering all over its face. It was just one gift, but it was everything to you. 

And Wooyoung’s working on the next entry for his fanfiction. 

Jongho: 

For today, you were having your own vlive. Doing what you called a YN mukbang. As the convenient food store you bought was placed on the table, you began to greet yours fans, asking them how they are feeling before digging in your food. Among the hundreds and thousands of viewers, Jongho was one of them. 

He was engrossed in two things: one, how adorable and beautiful you look despite just eating. Second, the rude comments that were popping up in your live video. Rude remarks of body shaming were what caught his attention. He took his time digging deeper into someone else’s username and IP address. Once he got a hold of their information, he would report those comments and head out. In his disguise while hunting the people who made disguisting remarks at you. No one should ever make such remarks to a goddess. 

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

It would be cool if they did another 400 days type mini series with some characters. like showing us the beginning/middle/different parts of the apocalypse from the perspectives of: Marlon, Louis, Violet, Sophie, James, and Lilly. I think it would do well

I think something like this would do well, too. We talk about this a lot and I keep hoping that if we continue to talk about it, they’ll somehow hear us and actually do it haha. 

Just think of the possibilities- a game with each episode dedicated to following a different protagonist during a different time in the apocalypse, telling a previously unheard story. They could even do more character-driven stories that focus more on that aspect rather than the walkers and outside dangers, y’know? 

Really the only downside I could see if they actually did this is that people outside the fandom would be whiney about it? I mean, people who casually played Telltale games would look at Skybound like “Rehashing old characters who aren’t muh Clementine? Pass.” Y’know? And to be fair, I could see people within the fandom being disappointed, too. 

But a majority? I think we’d all be happy to just have another twdg installment if Skybound wanted to make one... as long as they leave Clementine alone. That’s my one condition haha. 

Leave her alone, Robert. 

I’ll even throw out a bunch of possibilities for episodes-

Carley and Doug - I would love an episode that starts with Carley working as a reporter just as the walkers come. We could meet her crew, go through when they were attacked and explore the trauma she experiences after watching her producer get eaten alive in front of her. 

Then, in comes our hero: Doug. Doug saves her life, and the two of them manage to escape and hideout. This is the perfect time to explore Doug’s character, too, as well as the relationship he and Carley had before they met up with the drugstore crew. 

We can learn more about how Carley came to be so good with firearms and more about Doug’s technical background. Not only that, but it would be interesting to see these two actually interact since, y’know... they canonically have romantic feelings for one another. 

Then the episode could end with them meeting Glenn outside, who brings them back to the group at the drugstore. 

The St Johns - Here me out, but I would totally be on board for an episode about these people and how they starting picking off their farmhands for food. We don’t even have to play as any of the St Johns, we could play as a farmhand that actually escaped that fate after discovering what these people were doing. 

It could definitely be more horror based, too. Like a cat and mouse sort of chase scene with the protagonist and Andy or Danny with them escaping with their life at the end and journeying off. 

We could also see more of the bandits and how that agreement came to be with them. We could see more of Jolene, too. 

Lilly - Okay, I want to know what the hell happened to Lilly between s1 and s4. From what I’ve gathered and inferred, Lilly wandered alone for years before finding the delta, the first place she ever considered home since... well, the motor-inn. Which... is nuts. 

Then there’s all the trauma of losing Larry on top of what a piece of shit he was. I know I laugh at her for being all “No more ice cream, no more hair dryer” when she was telling Clementine about Larry cutting their power but we don’t know much about just how abusive Larry was. 

Plus, we don’t know what happened to her mom. Larry still carried her wedding ring even into the apocalypse and died with it in his pocket. There’s just... a lot of things. 

So I think an episode about Lilly by herself could be an interesting exploration of her being her own enemy, y’know? When I say character-driven, I mean solely character-driven with Lilly having flashbacks or nightmares or talking to herself or even hallucinations. Think Michonne, but even better executed. And with no ghost children. Maybe a ghost Larry, though. Which is arguably worse. 

And it could end with someone from the delta finding her. 

Christa and Omid - I feel like this is an obvious one since everyone loves these two and we’re still salty that they never brought Christa back. So it’d be cool to see these two either before meeting Lee’s group, or their time with Clementine between s1 and s2.

This is the only time I’ll allow Clementine to be here. If they feel they have to plop Clementine into this, then do it this way. We could explore Clementine’s guilt of what happened to Lee and the trauma she suffered while with the stranger, we could explore Christa’s pregnancy and learn more about her and Omid’s relationship. 

We could see some dad moments with Omid as he and Clementine bond, perhaps dive into the fear and anxiety of a baby that’s coming, too. 

Kenny and Sarita - So... while Kenny’s not my favorite person, I can’t deny that I’d be interested in seeing him after he apparently escapes the walker horde after killing Ben and what he went through before he met Sarita. 

Hell, have an episode where we play as Sarita as she stumbles upon Kenny and how she saved him from the restaurant he was hiding in. We could get a glimpse into Kenny from Sarita’s point of view and what they went through during their time together. We could learn about Walter and Matthew, too. 

Honestly, I just want to know more about Sarita as a character rather than a plot device to die in order to further Kenny’s development, y’know?  

Bonnie - Yeah, yeah, I know. No one likes Bonnie and “who wants to play as Bonnie again?? she sucks??”, but damn it... I want them to redeem how badly they fucked up with her story in 400 Days. 

I want an episode about her struggling with her drug addiction and how it affected her when the dead started walking. What she was willing to do to get her fix, y’know? Bring back Leland and Dee and how they helped with her road to recovery.

Leland himself even said that when they found her, she was still so stuck on those drugs. I think exploring that could be a fascinating experience. 

Jane - An episode about Jane and Jamie? An exploration of Jane’s struggle with keeping her sister alive while having that internal survival instinct trying to take over all leading to her finally giving Jamie what she wanted- to leave her. Then how that guilt and loss took a toll on Jane and hardened her.

And like, I know Jane is kind of in the same boat as Bonnie where a lot of people [specifically Kenny followers] absolutely hate her and would whine about an episode dedicated to exploring her character, but I don’t care. I’d play it, I’d love to understand Jane more, even if I don’t particularly like her. 

David - This one is here for selfish reasons. I want an episode all about David. I don’t care what you do, but I want to see David’s struggle of literally losing his entire family in a single night, as well as losing the world to the apocalypse and having to move forward.

Like... seriously, remember what Kate was all “I bet David was happy when the world ended” or some shit? I actually disagree, Kate, since the day the world ended, he lost his father, mother, brother, uncle, his fucking children, and you, his wife within a night.  He spent years thinking you all were dead while traveling with Ava and his unit, fighting the dead and trying to survive.... but no, the day the walkers came was probably super great for him. Ugh. 

The bonus is we get more Ava, too. Also, I don’t think anyone would oppose if you threw in the whole “David and Lingard might’ve had a thing”... just sayin’. We stan bisexual David. 

Javier - Throwing this one in there because I think an episode about Javi, Kate, Gabe, and Mari would do incredibly well. Everyone misses the Garcia’s, everyone was bummed that we ever got a follow up to what Javi was up to after ANF. 

Y’know... since ANF was a mess, they probably didn’t feel they could do a follow up because people wouldn’t play... but I’m telling you, we’d play another adventure as Javier Garcia. I don’t know what kind of story you’d tell, but it doesn’t matter. Well, it does... but ya get me. 

Plus, more Gabe and Mariana content. C’mon. 

James - *slams fists on table* I want my James and the whisperers episode damn it!! And I’m gonna keep saying it until someone either makes it or pays me to shut up. 

I don’t care if you like James or not, you can’t deny how fascinating it would be to have an entire episode dedicated to the whisperers. On top of that, we’d get to see James and Charlie and how their relationship suffered during their time with the whisperers, as well as James realizing what a monster he became. 

Maybe we could have a scene where James actually makes his famous mask, or a scene of James escaping them and leaving Charlie behind. It could end with James in his camp until he hears gunshots one night. When he goes to investigate, he finds Clementine and AJ trying to escape Lilly and Abel and we get him intervening from his perspective. 

There ya go, there’s a second Clementine cameo that doesn’t fuck everything up. Ta-dah. 

Sophie and Minerva - A popular one that most of us would want. Them after they were taken away and how they suffered within the delta. It’d be cool to play as Sophie, and tragic since we know how that would end. But we could be the one who acts out and tries to escape all while doing our best to keep Minerva from giving into them... which again, imagine the heartbreak. 

The Ericson crew - Like with the twins, this would be a popular one that most people would want to play. While I’d rather they kept their fingers off Louis and Violet since they’re bound to fuck them up, I can’t deny that I want to know what happened at the school during the first days. 

We could even play as Ms. Martin as she chooses to stay and take care of all these kids, how she bonds with them before inevitably meeting her fate in the greenhouse. 

And c’mon, you know you want to see baby child versions of our Ericson kiddos. Imagine Louis and Violet at these young ages? Seeing other kids we never got to meet? We’d eat it up! ...Well, assuming they did a good job with their characterizations. Y’know. 

---

Those are all the major ones I’d like to see, but hey, if any of you had other ideas for episodes following characters I didn’t mention, feel free to share! 

[thiswasinevitableid]

hello! Not sure if you’re still taking winter prompt requests, but 34 seems like it has strong NSFW OT4 potential :o)

Here you go! It is indeed NSFW

34. we’re stuck together on a group project and everyone is tired and frustrated so you suggest we take a break and build a snowman 

There are lots of things Joseph likes about attending UWV Kepler. For starters, it’s one of the oldest schools on the Interplanetary University System, meaning he’s surrounded by students from Earth and its sister planet, Sylvain. The first gate between the two worlds appeared in Kepler, giving the whole area an air of mystery that he relishes. And, at the start of the summer, the cute Sylph in his lit class asked him out. 

Barclay is soft spoken, an amazing cook, and part of a whole community of Sylphs who live on Earth full-time. Sometimes, when they’re cuddled up watching the X-Files or he’s helping Barclay in the kitchen, he looks at the other man and is awestruck that he’s chosen Stern as his boyfriend. 

As much as he loves being at school, it has downsides. For instance, while the spring semester on Sylvain uses more experiential means of testing students, the fall semester on earth ends in finals weeks, just like high school did. He’s good at tests, so while they’re a pain he doesn’t hate them. Projects don’t often bother him, but when they’re group projects he gets flashbacks to his junior year of high-school and develops a sort of pre-emptive anger at the people he knows wont pull their weight. 

The final project for his Community Development class started off well. Barclay was in the class with him, and is one of his partners. The other two in the group are Duck and Indrid, another Sylph/human romance, and in the midst of their first planning session Indrid let it slip that he and Barclay hooked up during the Sylph equivalent of high school. Duck was wholly unbothered, though that may be more to do with him being even-keel in general, and Joseph got a little distracted imagining the two of them together. 

Between his organizational skills, Duck’s environmental knowledge, Indrid’s knack for art, and Barclay’s ability to incorporate different elements, their plan for the hypothetical sustainable community center on Sylvain was chugging along. Even if Duck and Indrid kept cuddling up or stealing kisses whenever they could. It’s just a little much, in that it makes Joseph wonder what it’d be like to be between them, Indrid’s wiry frame wrapped around his back while that wide smile pressed into Joseph’s neck while Duck gave him that crooked grin and pushed his legs apart with strong hands…

Focus. He needs to focus. 

Because they have been trying to put it all together for two hours straight and have made no progress.

“...just think this bit is gonna read as convoluted. What do you think babe?” Barclay points his pen at the section in question.

“We could probably do without it.”

“Maybe” Duck pulls up the directions for the fortieth time, “I’m worried if we over-edit we’re gonna fuck up section five on the rubric. I still don’t know what he means by those last two bullet points.”

“Not sure reading them over yet again will reveal anything new.” Joseph rubs his forehead, “Indrid, what do you think.”

No reply, just a scratching pencil. 

“Indrid?”

“Earth to ‘Drid.” Duck nudges his boyfriend, who abruptly shakes his head. 

“Apologies, I got caught up in a future. How can I help?”

“Does this need to be cut?” Even Barclay sounds on edge.

“...maybe.”

“‘Drid!”

“It does not strike me as having a large impact on the grade either way.”

“Someone please just make a decision.” Barclay groans. 

“Hold on” Duck leans back to look out the window, “it ain’t snowin as hard. So, here’s what I’m thinkin; how about we take a break and get some fresh air. All four of us.” He looks pointedly at Stern, “seriously Joe, you been outside in the last two weeks?”

“Only to get from point A to point B.”

“C’mon” the shorter man hops up, heading for his coat, “last one out has to make the next pot of coffee.”

Soon they’re tromping across the lawn near Indrid’s house; because he’s a seer, the silver-haired man is in high demand by universities, governments, and businesses, which resulted in one paying his tuition and another for his house. 

“I have to do a stint as court seer anyway, I may as well take advantage of it.” Had been his explanation the first time he showed them the building, so at odds with his unkempt appearance that Joseph wondered if it was a practical joke. 

He still has no idea what kind of Sylph Indrid is, as he keeps a human form at all times. Barclay also leans that direction, but when he’d offered to show Joseph his Sylph form and Joseph practically jumped for joy before, during, and after the reveal, he became more comfortable wandering around as Bigfoot (“a bigfoot, babe”) at home. 

Indrid pauses mid-stride, turning to Duck, “An excellent idea, love.”

“Gotta let me say it first, sugar.”

“Apologies” Indrid kisses his cheek. 

“The snow ain’t turned to horrible slush yet, so: who wants to build a snowman?”

Twenty minutes later, they’re standing before a six foot tall snowman. It’s very well engineered, if he does say so himself. 

“Wonder if we can get it higher.” Duck contemplates the structure. 

Barclay winks at Joseph, slipping off his bracelet and rolling up another ball.

“Hell yeah!” Duck whoops and Indrid claps with an appreciative chirp.

“I’m going out on a limb and saying we’ve maxed out height.” Joseph shields his eyes as the snow falls in larger clumps. 

A wide grin cuts across Indrid’s face, “Not necessarily. Allow me.”

He hands his glasses to Duck and Joseph gasps; standing before them is creature coated in black and grey speckled feathers, save for his arms that are a smooth, dark grey chitin. Feathery antennae and glowing red eyes complete the picture.

“Holy shit.” 

Indrid trills, seemingly pleased by Josephs awe, and gathers a ball of snow before flapping into the air. 

“Ta-dah!” He bows, still flapping, having brought their sculpture to what must be closing in on nine feet. 

“It look a little rickety to you?” Duck whispers to Joseph.

Barclay, yelling over the sudden burst of strong wind, calls, “Indrid? You might wanna land buddy.”

“I suppose you’re--oh damn it.” 

The storm picks up, sending the top layer of the snowman straight onto Indrid, knocking him the rest of the way to the ground. 

“Fuck” Duck moves faster than Joseph’s ever seen “you okay ‘Drid?”

“C-cold, b-but otherwise f-fine.”

“Thank fuck.” With that Duck wheezes, shaking with laughter, “you shoulda seen your face.”

Indrid snickers, then sneezes. Which they all take as a sign to head inside. Having been the last one out the door means Barclay goes to start coffee, while Duck steps away to call his friend Juno to be certain she has a safe way of getting back to their shared apartment in the storm. Which leaves Joseph to be the one helping a very damp mothman dry off. 

“Why not just take your human form?” He scrubs the fantasy wicking towel along Indrid’s back.

“It would probably let me dry faster, you’re right. But I’m nervous that water droplets would stay in the feather somehow and freeze, which is unpleasant.” When Joseph finishes his head and back the Sylph poofs up, then  shakes his feathers back down. 

“That got a great deal of it, thank you. I can do my inner wings, if you’d rather go warm up.”

“It’s alright, I’m happy to help. Same motion?” He takes up position by Indrid’s extended right leg as the Sylph spreads his wings.

“Yes. Ah, be careful towards the innermost fourth. They’re sensitive.”

He nods, sets to work. As he glides the towel over the eye-spot, he murmurs, “I’m amazed you keep this form hidden.”

“It tends to alarm people.”

“Even Duck?”

A small laugh, “Only the first time, because he wasn’t expecting it. And I turned up at his window to warn him about a fire that was about to start in the dormitory.” 

“I think you look incredible.” The sincerity in his tone registers at the same instant their physical closeness does.

Indrid smiles, “So you do share Duck’s proclivities.”

“I, um, I’m not sure what you mean” He busies himself cleaning.

“You are attracted to me.” Indrid replies, folding both sets of hands in his lap. Startled, Joseph moves his hand too far in and Indrid chirps, higher than normal. 

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s alright, as I said they’re sensitive, but that does not mean they’re painful to touch.” The smile tinges with mischief and Joseph is ready to toss the rag aside and ask Indrid to let him put his fingers there when a drawl comes from the doorway. 

“Makes an even better sound if you play with his antenna.” Duck pushes off the doorframe, sauntering over as red eyes stay locked on him, “see?”

Indrid trills as Duck rubs the tip of one antennae between his thumb and finger. 

“Careful, sweet one, don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Joseph doesn't know if he wants to take Indrid’s place or Duck’s, just that he’s wringing the towel so tight it’s tearing. 

“Coffees ready.” Barclay pokes his head in, chuckles, “or do you two need me to put it in hold until you’re done fucking in front of my boyfriend.”

“We would do no such thing without permission. Yours and his.” The way Indrid says it, as if Joseph is merely something can give or revoke access to, makes him cross his legs in a hopeless attempt to turn himself off. 

“Joseph?” Barclay’s voice is gentle as he joins him on the floor, “it’s up to you, babe. I’m happy to get my hands on some feathers again while you get your hands on those two but, uh, if you don’t want to or, uh, or need time-”

“I…”

Duck, blushing, sticks his hands in his front pockets, “Sorry, didn’t mean to come on too strong, was tryin to flirt a little-”

“Yes.” Joseph tosses the towel into the laundry hamper, “yes, I want this, you, all off you, oh my lord I haven’t been this turned on before. And that’s saying something” he turns to Barclay with a smile and gets a kiss in return, beard scratching his skin as the other man trails his lips down his neck. 

“That worked out nicelEEEEH, ohohyes” Indrid leans against Duck as the human plays with his antenna. Joseph crawls forward, eager to get his hands on Indrid’s wings, only for a clawed hand to come palm-up towards him. 

“Ah-ah, I didn’t give you permission to touch me, pet.”

He moans, hears Barclay growl, pleased, as Indrid chuckles. 

“Goodness, Barclay, you didn’t say he was that submissive.” Clawtips rest under his chin as Indrid keeps him in place. 

“Hold up, you two been comparin notes on fuckin humans?” Duck raises an eyebrow as Indrid nods, unashamed and Barclay goes bright pink. 

“Oh yeah? What’ve you been sayin about me, sugar?” He teases, tugging on the antenna. Indrid releases Sterns face and growls, pivoting onto his knees to trap Duck against the wall.

“That you are the finest, most accommodating human in either world and you make such lovely sounds when I bite you.”

“Sounds about right.” Duck kisses Indrid’s forehead, “but if you wanna see how Joe stacks up, I ain’t gonna complain. Long as I get a turn with him too.” He looks past Indrid to Joseph, “been wantin to know what you look like under the whole buttoned-up nerd thing.”

“No time like the present.” Joseph pulls his sweater off, grumbles as he remembers the shirt beneath it has buttons. As he undoes them, Indrid cocks his head. 

“I have an idea. Duck, remove your pants and underwear and whatever else you see fit. Barclay, stay clothed for now. Joseph, take everything else off.”

“I’m working on it.” 

“Then work faster, pet. I’ve been wanting to do this since you first touched my wings. Ah, there we are.” He purrs as Joseph kicks his boxer briefs away, “come sit in my lap.”

He does as he’s told, sighing as feathers tickle and caress his skin, “this form is even better from this angle.”

Indrid chirps softly, tongue darting out to lick his cheek as he closes his wings around him, “there will be ample time to explore it later, I promise. Right now, there is something that requires your attention.”

“OHmylord” his fingers sink into Indrid’s chest feathers as something thin and undulating teases between his legs. Two more appendages join it, one the same size and one thicker.

“To answer the question you’re about to ask, the shape has various, ah, biological functions.”

“And means you can get fucked more’n one way at a time.” Duck chimes in with what is obviously a happy memory. 

“Very true. However, for your first time, I think you can be a good boy and take the whole thing.” 

“FUCKohmyfuckinggod.” Down comes loose in his fingers as all three tendrils thrust inside him at once, twining into a single, ridged form that wastes no time in fucking as deep as it can manage. 

“Good boy.” Indrid tips his head back, purring louder, before turning his attention to Barclay, “Enjoying the show, sunburst?” The Sylph term of endearment gets a pleased rumble in reply, and Joseph steals a glance behind him to see his boyfriend palming himself through his jeans. 

“You know it, gorgeous. Seems like Duck is too.”

“Hell fuckin yeah I am.” Duck is rubbing his dick, the sight making Joseph lick his lips.

“Such an eager little human, my sweet.” Indrid glances at his boyfriend, “I think that deserves a reward.” He grips Josephs jaw with an upper hand, forcing his lips apart and his face up, “come and get it.”

Joseph moans, wiggling his hips as Duck’s two hands replace Indrid’s one. 

“Fuck, you look so goddamn good like this Joe.” He strokes his cheek, cock temptingly close.

“I don’t know, the view fromAH god, from down here is great.” He kisses Duck’s thigh, relishing the sweet smile the compliment gets him. 

“Gonna look even better in a sec. Now” he shoves his head forward, “suck my dick, pretty boy.”

He whines against slick skin, brings the hand keeping him balanced up and around to grope Duck’s ass. He loves the shape of it, and will tell the other man as much the moment his mouth is free. 

“Barclay, come here dearest” Indrid’s lower hands remain on his hips, but the upper two lift to do something he  can’t discern until there’s a zip of metal and an appreciative trill. 

“Yeah, you like the look of it little moth? Ohfuck, Indrid, baby, fuck that feels good.” A wet, rythmic sound suggests Indrid is blowing him, but when Joseph turns to look Duck jerks him back, fingers tightening in his hair. 

“Uhuh, ‘Drid gave you to me as a reward, so you’r gonna fuckin focus until I cum. Fuckin christ, wanna see just how good you look when I cum on your face, pretty boy. Nnn, fuck, bet your mouth feels even more amazin when your cummin. ‘Drid?”

“‘On ‘oment” 

A high, sharp chirp echoes through the room and Joseph can see Barclay’s hand from the corner of his eye, jerking up and down near the base of Indrid’s antennae. 

“Yeah, fuckyeah, Indrid, that’s it, fuck, can’t believe you’re lettin me cum on your feathers, god it’s gonna look so good, fuck, fuck, yeah.” Drops of cum hit the back of his next as Barclay howgrowlpurrs, Indrid’s tongue-tied reply sounding pleased with itself. 

A thud as his boyfriend drops to the floor, “Fucking-A, forgot how fast I cum from that.”

“It’s very gratifying. As for you, sweet little pet” all his claws dig into Josephs skin, the delicious pain sending whimpers up his throat, “I believe it’s time I made you cum.”

He yelps, muffled, as Indrid fucks him roughly, one tendril slipping out stroke his dick.

“Here, let me help.” Four thick fingers push in and he whines, Barclay kissing his shoulder and still letting out little growls of effort. 

“How’s that, my sweet?”

“So fuckin good, goddamn Joe, you feel fuckin perfect when you scream, heh, someone’s got a praise kink” he smirks as Joseph grabs him harder at the word ‘perfect.’

“C’mon babe, take it, you wanted all of us, remember?”

“Oh, I’m certain he does. And he’s going to feel it in the morning, I’ll make sure of that.” The tendrils still inside him curve just right and he cums, clinging to Duck’s legs as it ripples through him. Barclay pulls his fingers back, but Indrid continues fucking him, thrusts turning short and erratic as Duck grinds into his mouth. The other human cums with a groan and a string of curse words, stroking Josephs hair as he finishes. 

There’s a trill and Indrid’s wings flex, sending Duck stumbling backwards and Joseph pitching against the Sylph’s chest as he spills into him. It takes longer than usual, even accounting for the times it’s been with Barclay in his Sylph form. Just as some it drips out and down his thighs, there’s a final pulse and then the tendrils retract.

“Mmmmmmm” Indrid closes his arms and wings around him, “that was spectacular, pet.”

“Goddamn, came so hard I can’t feel my legs. You okay, Barclay?” Ducks fingers appear under Indrid’s...armpits? Wingpits? He’ll have to ask later.

“Uhuh.” A scuff as his boyfriend cuddles up with them. 

“......wait, we don’t need that section, we cover the rubric points Duck’s worried about in our ‘considerations’ portion.” Joseph sits up.

Duck guffaws, Indrid gives an amused tilt of the head, and Barclay leans over Indrid’s wing to kiss Joseph on the cheek. 

“What? Post orgasm clarity is a documented phenomenon.”

“We can fix it soon.” Indrid rubs his face, “I for one need to bathe, and given the storm will only intensify overnight and leave you all stuck here, we have ample time to fix it.” He flutters his wings shyly, “would anyone like to join me?”

An hour later they’re all clean and dry, the project is at a stopping point, and Barclay’s made fancy coffee for three of them and eggnog for Indrid. They settle in on Indrid’s nest of a bed to watch T.V, Duck in Indrid’s lap and the Sylphs wing draped over Barclay and Joseph. The weather outside chills and darkens the world, but as he nestles against soft feathers and warm fur, Duck’s hand in his, he’s got plenty of love to keep him warm. 

[donobionic-sardonyx26]

( I wrote this based off where I work and stuff. Nothing specific but it does take place in Beach City. Just imagine some retail/grocery store in Beach City lol)

Balloons (a spinel x reader fic)

It was 3pm. The sky was a light blue, the air a nice breeze; not too cold, but not too warm, and the sun was shining lovely rays through it all. Sunny, autumn weather. The type of weather to jump in a pile of leaves, or go the fair with some friends. You could be out enjoying it all, however, you were trapped in this hell hole you called a job.

Well, hell-hole was a bit much. The job sucked, sure, but there was some good too it. You got things at a discount, people could bring in service animals or regular pets, so, that always brightened your day. And the job also allowed you to have a certain someone accompany you when you just weren’t able to leave her by herself.

Suddenly you heard a cat-call whistle from your right.

“Well, hello nurse~” the voice purred.

“Too bad I don’t see a price tag on you! I’d definitely take you home with me! Hold the receipt!”

You rolled your eyes at Spinel who leaned against your register, winking at you.

“Spinel, you see me everyday.” You tried to suppress your smile.

“And everyday feels like the first time~” The pink gem sighed lovingly leaning her head on the conveyer belt. It triggered the censor causing her head to move along with it before her head hit your register.

“Ow.”

You covered your mouth to hide your snicker.

This was one of the good parts about work. Since people in beach city seemed to be nicer than the average joe, your manager was more than understanding about your situation with Spinel. He allowed you off on some of her worsts days when she really couldn’t handle being home, but ultimately he allowed her to accompany you to work, just so long as you stayed focus and she didn’t cause too much trouble.

It was a nice deal. You and Spinel were able to enjoy each other’s company while you worked, and her being there was definitely entertaining.

You shook your head as you watched Spinel rub her head, pouting slightly.

“What just happened would be avoided if stood behind my register and not in line,” you said as you ran your hand through her hair.

“Well, you stand in line if you wanna buy something right?” Spinel smile at you.

“Oh, really, and just what do you wanna buy with my money?”

Spinel smile even wider as she handed you a little baggy of latex balloons.

You sighed mentally. Ever since Spinel learned your store blew up balloons with the helium tank reserved for it, she practically became obsessed. Ever since she first accompanied you to the store she would take a balloon with her every time you both left from your shift, which you would have to run back and immediately pay for.

She stopped soon after you explained that not could the apartment only house so many balloons, but also that buying a balloon everyday was starting to rack up in money.

But that didn’t mean her love of balloons ever ceased.

“You know I can’t blow these up with the helium tank, right? I can only do the ones on display.”

“I know! I just wanna try somethin’ with ‘em.”

You looked at her skeptically.

“It’s not bad I promise! Look, I have it all thought out, doll face!” Spinel waved her hands. “These have 15 in a pack, I can blow em up myself, and you can do so much more with these than the others!”

It’s not that you didn’t trust Spinel, it was more of the fact, trouble seemed to just find her. And even the most innocent tasks of buying her balloons made you second guess.

But the way she used those pink puppy dog eyes along with batting her eyelashes was enough to sway you into scanning the balloons and shoving your own debit card into the chip reader.

“Now move, you’re holding up my line.” You teased tossing the items to her.

After few minutes passed from you tending to other customers, you turned back to look at Spinel.

You watched as she happily tore open the plastic bag that held the balloons. She pulled out a long pink balloon and stretched it out before inhaling loudly and blowing into the latex. It stretched out and you realized that those weren’t regular latex balloons.

They were too long and none too circular.

Spinel tied the end of the balloon into a knot before slowly but carefully beginning to twist and turn the pink balloon in different knots before exclaiming:

“Ta-dah!!”

You blinked in amazement.

“It’s a bunny!” She explained handing it to you.

“I-I know what it is... since when could you make balloon animals? Did they have these at home world...?” You asked hesitantly.

“Oh no!” Spinel blew up another balloon next before using it to tap her chin.

“I think it was a couple of days ago. You were sleeping. I had one hand holding the phone and the other wrapped around you, of course,”

Your cheeks slightly flushed as she continued to talk.

“I was searching stuff like balloons and I saw that not only do so many different balloons exist but you can make em into stuff! Like this!” She showed you another balloon animal; another bunny, this time blue.

You gave her a bemused look as you took the second bunny.

“Got anymore tricks?” You asked.

She blew up another animal balloon, once more a bunny, but this time yellow.

“I may have only watched videos on how to make bunnies...” she admitted making you laugh.

She’s so cute in the easiest of ways...

“Well, thanks. Here, you can watch some more tutorials on my phone while I’m working. I’m not using it anyway.”

“Don’t mind if I do! Thanks, toots!” She smiled giving you a peck on the cheek before you turned back to your register.

You greeted the elderly customer who smiled back at you as she finished setting her groceries on the conveyor belt.

About three more customers passed. It was almost 3:40pm.

“Yes, almost quitting time.” You sighed stretching your arms over your head.

You were about to tell Spinel before another customer came up to your register.

A young lady, who looked pretty tired. You watched as she tried to stop her little girl in her shopping cart (around the years of 2 or 3) from hitting things on your register with a wooden spoon.

She looked at you apologetically but you just smiled and asked her how her day was going.

“Long.” She breathed out before making you both chuckle. She continued to place her items on the machine and you bagged them with speed, very eager to leave.

“Alright, your total is $32.50.” You told her. You watched as she pulled out her wallet before you noticed the toddler still holding the spoon.

“Did you get the spoon from here, ma’am?” You asked.

The lady looked up before looking back at her daughter. “Oh, yes, we did, I’m sorry. Sweetheart give the nice lady the spoon.”

“But... but I wan’ it.”

Here we go...

“She’ll give it right back sweetie, I promise!”

The toddler looked at you, and you internally cringed.

You could see it, the tiny hands balling into fists, the mistiness in her eyes, the frown along with the pink hue that formed on her face.

Here comes the tantrum.

The toddler kicked her legs as she started to scream, fresh tears streaming from her face. You were used to this, babies and tots just couldn’t comprehend the fact that you were just trying to do your job. You were used to the little pouts and glares you would receive, only to turn into smiles once you did, in fact, give the item back to them.

However, this kid was determined not to give you the spoon. Which wasn’t even a toy you might add.

If only you had the scanner gun like other store had.

“Hey, there, little lady! What’s the matta?” You heard Spinel ask from your right.

The girl stopped crying and hiccuped out a response.

“I wan’ the spoon...” she said before pouting at you. Somehow, you felt guilty.

“Well, here, hows about we do a trade? You give the nice lady here, the spoon and I’ll give you this!” Spinel smiles revealing a pink and yellow balloon flower.

“A pretty flower for a pretty gal, like yourself!”

The girl who had stars in her eyes all but thrusted her arm with the spoon at you before Spinel handed her the balloon. Quickly you scanned the item and handed it back to the little girl as the mother began to pay her total.

“There, see, now you have the flower AND the spoon!” Spinel booped her on the noise making her giggle.

“Now, what do we say?” The young mother looked at her daughter, gently.

“Tank you.” She smiled looking at you and then spinel.

The mother waved and gave a silent “thanks” as well before she strolled off with her cart of groceries and he daughter.

You quickly turned off your light before anymore crying kids could come up to your line.

“Wow, you’re better with human kids than me.” You turned back to the pink gem.

“Well, makin’ smiles was what I was made for! Though, It’s a little easier to make kids happy then the diamonds anyway.” She muttered rubbing the back of her head softy.

You took notice of the sadden look on her face.

“Well, with just one action you made three people happy. You made the little girl happy, her mom, and you made me very happy everyday. So, thank you.” You gave her a kiss on the nose.

“A-aw, gee, what are friends for?” She blushed, hands behind her back, moving her foot sheepishly.

You smiled. “C’mon. I gotta clock out in the back and then we can go home. We’ll Watch even more balloon animal tutorials.”

Spinel smiled as she grabbed your hand, the other holding on the balloons she bought.

“Sounds like a great way to spend the day, toots!”

End.

(Yeah, that’s all I got.)

[nadziejastar]

“It’s okay—go! I’ll catch up.” Naminé nodded and jumped into the gateway.

“So you’re trying to play the hero now, too?” Saïx said flatly, staring hard at Axel.

I see what you mean. Reno did become reduced to just comic relief, in an exaggerated way, too. They are very similar, although I think Axel had his dark backstory hinted at more often. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it was about Axel/Lea’s arc that felt the most unsatisfying, and for me it comes down to this. I like that he was a humorous character. Lea was a funny kid. I don’t mind that he felt less dangerous after he became a good guy. I liked seeing the side of him that was just a normal person. And his friendship with Roxas and Xion was cute, but they were always the special ones. That was their purpose. They were special Nobodies. Axel was the always ordinary one in their group. He knew he wasn’t the strongest fighter, but he still wanted to feel special in some way. 

And I feel that’s what his arc was missing in the end. Especially as a main character who awakened a Keyblade. He wanted to be a hero. “Dark Rescue” was his middle name. Got it memorized? But in the final battle, he got pushed into the background and Roxas and Xion had to step in and be the heroes. Within the sea-salt trio, I feel like he’ll always be stuck as just the comic relief. Roxas and Xion fans want them to be the heroes. Axel always gets overshadowed by them. When Saïx ran into Axel and he was protecting Naminé, he was really angry that he was trying to “play the hero” now, too. As if that’s something he used to do a lot.

“Hmph. I don’t have time for these games.” Darkness welled from a rift behind Saïx. “Run along and help your dear hero.” With that, he disappeared.

He calls Axel a “dear hero” later. I think that’s because Isa was the person who Lea would always try to act like the hero with. Which is another reason I loved what Isa would have contributed to Lea’s character arc. Roxas was a strong fighter and competitive. He wanted to be a hero himself. Ventus was supposed to be Terra’s hero. Isa didn’t seem competitive or like he wanted to be a hero. He probably always felt Lea was special because he could connect with others and instantly become friends with them, while Isa was shy and could only open up with Lea. I got the sense that Lea liked to show off for him, and Isa felt safe with him in a way he didn’t with anyone else. And that made Lea feel special. It’s his own special identity he could only get outside of the sea-salt trio. 

“You’re not as tough as you seem.” Riku laughed softly.

Axel scowled and closed his eyes. “Not everyone in the organization is as strong as Roxas,” he mumbled.

Roxas and Axel both had a desire to be tough. And when it came to pure fighting skill Ventus/Roxas would win. But Lea still had a need to be seen as tough and dependable. That’s what made him happy.

Maybe, this is the last time I’ll see Saïx, too. Thinking, Axel looked at the seated Saïx’s back.

“We’ve known each other for a pretty long time, haven’t we?” Ignoring Axel’s words, Saïx continued typing on the keyboard.

“Say something. Have you even thought that maybe I can’t erase Roxas?” Axel said, in a playful tone, and Saïx finally looked up. “It’ll be all right. Cause I’m tough.” Axel puffed out his chest.

“How stupid,” said Saïx, and for a moment he smiled.

When Axel thought it might be the last time he ever saw Saïx, he chose to brag to him that he was tough. And Saïx smiled a little. It gave me the impression that Lea would try to impress Isa when they were human. He might not have been the toughest person, but he was still able to make Isa feel safe.

“Yo! Roxas. You haven’t changed! Fight fight fiiight!” Roxas turned, and standing there was… Axel.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Axel walked casually towards him. “What’s the matter? You look kind of dazed there,” grinned Axel, and he laughed, just like always.

“…They said all the members who went to Castle Oblivion got annihilated…”

Axel stuck out his chest. “Well, I’m pretty tough.”

I feel weird, somehow. But I know. Axel probably… isn’t really as strong as he says. “…I was worried, okay.”

When Axel came back from Castle Oblivion, he said he was tough. Roxas was really glad that he was okay, but he knew Axel was not as tough as he says he is. He likes showing off and talking big.

Axel flopped down into his own bed, and stared at the ceiling.

“What happened to the report?” Saïx had appeared there. Axel sat up, and looked at him.

“Not even a word of slight appreciation?”

“I’ve heard that Naminé’s whereabouts have become unclear,” said Saïx, not showing any sign that he had paid any attention to Axel’s teasing words.

When Axel talked to Saïx, there were two things he was concerned about. He tried to joke around these issues, but you could tell they were serious matters for him. The first was that Saïx didn’t thank him or show any words of appreciation.

And yet, Axel couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his response. “Well, nice to know where I stand.”

He said it with a grin, but the hint of a frown tugged at the scar between Saïx’s brows. Apparently, the joke wasn’t very funny. “You made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

“You made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

Were you worried I wouldn’t? Axel almost said, but he didn’t want to deal with putting him in an even fouler mood.

The other was that Saïx didn’t act like he was worried about him while he was gone. I think Axel’s joke about being tough was associated with a time in the past when Isa was worried about him, and when he was really grateful to Lea and made him feel like a hero. He’s upset about these two issues, because as a human, Isa was worried about him, and was grateful to him for his help.

“I’ll go to Agrabah. Then there’s no problem, right?” Axel’s voice was a little deeper.

“Can you really defeat the Heartless in Agrabah?”

“It’ll be fine. I’m tough, you know.”

“But, you can’t collect its—”

“I’ll just keep the thing in check for now,” Axel interrupted.

He used the “I’m tough” line again when he was trying to cover for Roxas and Xion.

“Your performance was quite forced,” Saïx muttered, noticing Axel’s gazing at him.

“What is this about?” asked Axel, cracking his neck.

“I’m not all that impressed.”

Sensing an incoming lecture, Axel started walking away. “Well, I’m off to Agrabah. I’ll be back.” His figure vanished into a corridor.

And Saïx coldly shut him down. Instead of joking around and finding his bragging endearing, he basically told Axel that he was a loser and he wasn’t impressed by him at all. It seemed to really hurt Axel’s feelings.

“How was your mission?” he asked. Axel frowned unconsciously.

“Why the hell do Heartless have to move around so annoyingly, you know? Got my ass kicked. Literally,” he added, rubbing the sore spot in a slightly exaggerated manner.

“Didn’t you say you were tough?” said Roxas, laughing.

Axel shrugged, winking. “This and that are two different things. Hey, how did your mission go?”

Roxas turned to Xion. “Ta-dah!” he announced, and Xion made the Keyblade appear in her hand.

“Oh—”

“It’s all thanks to you and Roxas.” The Keyblade disappeared as Xion smiled.

He was in a really depressed mood that day. He got his butt kicked. Roxas jokingly brought up Axel bragging he was tough and he admitted that those are two different things, with a wink. He was apparently referencing some event from the past with Saïx. Roxas and Xion were extremely grateful to Axel. But he couldn’t feel happy about it at all.

“It’s all thanks to you and Roxas.” The Keyblade disappeared as Xion smiled.

“I didn’t do anything,” said Axel, a wry smile pasting itself on his face.

“You made it so we could go on a mission together this morning, didn’t you?” said Xion, and Axel looked away.

When I’m smiled at with such a happy look… I feel uncomfortable.

“Maybe Xion wouldn’t have been able to make her Keyblade come back, if it weren’t for you, Axel,” Roxas added.

It actually made him really upset. This is what he looked like when they thanked him. He couldn’t even look at them.

“Thank you, Axel,” they said, in unison.

This is why… this feeling is so hazy. Scratching his head unconsciously, Axel looked away from the two of them.

“Then how about a sea salt ice cream?” Axel asked, his back still turned.

“Huh?” Roxas asked.

This was Axel compromising, grudgingly. Don’t think I can take any more of those thank-yous.

He hated being smiled at with a happy expression and being showered with thank-yous. It was because the feeling was hazy for him. He asked for ice cream to get them to stop. Although Lea was not the strongest person, he was probably very protective of Isa, and it seems like he helped him out of a bad situation in the past. Probably got his butt kicked in the process. But Isa was extremely worried about him and grateful to him. And it made Lea really happy. It’s probably why on this day he said that as long as he had memories, he’d never have to be apart. In the end, Lea needed some way to stand out and be special. Someone who he was able to become the hero for. That’s what was taken away from him in KH3 and why his character arc fell so flat.

[cyb-by-lang]

Shell Game (17/?)

Kei tries to stay within the bounds of baseline human capabilities and considers the efficiency of explosion-based propulsion.

This is probably the last daily update for a while. Need to build a buffer again.

There were more than two hundred kids on the field. There were about fifty with Quirks useful for destroying the robots from the Hero course entrance examination, concentrated heavily in 1-A and 1-B for good reason. Between Todoroki’s initial AOE ice attack and the robot roadblock, most of them were crowded together and hesitating in the face of opposition. Shinsō was one of them, but mainly because he couldn’t guarantee his or his mind-controlled “allies”’ safety without someone else acting first.

Kei strode to the front of the crowd, hands in her pockets.

There were also only about three dozen robots, in whatever configurations were left over from the school’s clearly ridiculous budget.

“Those things are considered obstacles?!” demanded whoever the hell was the fifteenth seat in 1-C. Some guy whose name Kei hadn’t learned.

Which was about when Todoroki, first on the field and still the closest to the homicidal hunks of steel, swept his arm out and turned the robot trying to crush him into the metal heart of a brand-new ice cube. Ice crystals the size of people gleamed all across the robot’s surface, icicles making the angle of Todoroki’s attack and looking like the result of a hideous midwinter storm. The robotic victim was already teetering as Todoroki ran through the gap between its legs.

Present Mic screamed, “And 1-A’s Todoroki puts the villains on ice with one cool move! He’s taken the lead!”

…Oh, that will be an actual, genuine problem. Kei’s “Quirk” stopped where Todoroki’s began, it seemed. Despite her many abilities, Kei wasn’t a waterbender and couldn’t control it in solid form. She didn’t have Ice Release as a bloodline limit, even if she’d fought someone who did during training. That wasn’t going to be a fun match.

And Todoroki, it seemed, was capable of about the same one-attack output Kei was, at least within the bounds of Quirks.

Knowing this does not change the nature of the task in front of us.

Does change how close we’ll go to him, though.

The frozen robot toppled forward, collapsing hard enough to make the ground quake and ripple beneath everyone’s feet. Kei fended off the billowing dust with her sleeve, not missing a beat as she continued to walk toward the mess.

“Excuse me, Midoriya-san,” Kei said as she passed him, the dust barely beginning to settle. “May I?”

Midoriya relaxed his defensive posture once he recognized her voice, though his expression was still pinched from stress. “Oh, Gekkō-san… Um, you don’t need to ask? What are you going to do?”

“Who fucking cares, Deku!” Bakugō snapped, his palms already shooting nitroglycerin-fueled sparks.

Kei ignored him and squared her stance as the other robots loomed. Two boys from the Hero course burst from the guts of the one destroyed robot, but that was fine. If they were busy getting out of the zero-point robot, then they were effectively clear.

Ready, Isobu?

Oh, yes.

Kei brought her hands together. Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique.

The air cracked as the vapor in the air was ripped from it, water swirling up and around Kei’s feet in a brief warning before the force of her chakra asserted itself on reality. What started as a trickle became a geyser, became a storm, and that formed a waterspout at least twice the height of the stadium. At its base, it was hardly wider than the span of Kei’s now-outstretched arms, but that didn’t matter.

And while the children behind her stared as though she was the next natural disaster looming over them, Kei turned the vortex on its side with willpower and a gesture identical to swinging a baseball bat.

Or, in her case, a sword.

The immediate cacophony was a combination of rushing water, the howl of a tornado, and hundreds of thousands of kilos of metal crashing horribly against itself and anything else it touched. Water blotted out the entire view ahead of the crowd as Kei’s ninjutsu ripped the robots to pieces exactly as she’d done in her entrance exam a few months beforehand. The debris stirred up made it impossible to tell exactly what was happening as the targets were pulverized.

“Wh-wh-what the hell is that Quirk?”

“Isn’t she supposed to be a General Studies student?!”

Kei snapped her fingers, and then it was over.

Water lapped at the ground as Kei cut her control, forming soft beach waves as it went back to being inert. The track directly where the robots had stood was noticeably scoured, leaving a half-meter-deep trench twenty meters across. The leftover water flowed off in places, into specialized drainage ditches.

Todoroki, unless Kei missed her mark, was also looking back. She’d been careful not to hurt anyone, including him, by twisting the vortex almost in on itself like an ouroboros, though it did reduce the effectiveness of her attack. Even the boys who ripped their way up through the robot were staring at her in shock.

Every zero-point robot lay shredded, but piled high in the center of the course as though shaped by massive, invisible hands. As the silence reigned, the Jenga pile of robot bits toppled exactly like the iced robot had, flattening into something more stable.

Ta-fucking-dah.

“Class 1-C’s Gekkō sweeps all the frontliners in the Robo Inferno away! That’s a wash for the robots!” Present Mic’s grin was nearly audible over the airwaves.

A ringing endorsement, really.

Kei broke into what was, for her, a sustainable run. When the one-, two-, and three-point robots came after her, in the way only truly fearless opponents did, she ducked and weaved through their grasping claws. Water trailed off her fingers more for effect than effectiveness, and she likewise kicked up spray as she dashed across the half-flooded track.

Her work here was done. The kids could take care of the rest. They’d had to in order to qualify to be hero-wannabes, after all.

Shortly thereafter, manufactured metal started to lose to vicious teenagers. Horribly.

The sound of a cannon shot told Kei the students were having fun, even before other robots behind her were torn limb from limb by enthusiastic students. Kei supposed most of the other kids were, if nothing else, practiced masters at using their Quirks. Even if Invisible Girl couldn’t punch a giant robot to death, there weren’t more robots than there were students to happily dismantle them.

It was kind of heartening, actually. Nobody with robot minions would last long against these kids.

Speaking of whom, Kei spotted the tape kid, bird-headed kid, and Bakugō careening overhead before any of them noticed her. Well, again. It was hard not to notice someone who flooded the track and tossed robots around like matchsticks once the destruction phase got underway.

“Move your ass!” Bakugō snarled as he landed near her. He threw himself into a run, explosions boosting his speed in much the same way they’d allowed him to leap over obstacles. “You’re in my way!”

Kei considered this suggestion on its merits, then decided to ignore it. Instead, she let chakra move freely through her limbs like it did during training, dug her heels solidly into the track as her feet fell, and ran.

Even if Kei hadn’t been on a team taught and operated by Namikaze Minato, she would have known how to reach supernatural speed. She wasn’t Iida with his biological engines, but she didn’t need to be. She’d been running her whole life, and one explosive brat wasn’t enough to keep up.

Kei heard, “GET BACK HERE, SEAWEED HEAD!”

Kei flipped him off as she pulled ahead, leaving him swearing furiously in her wake. And it was nearly a literal wake—kicking up water out of nowhere was one of the many ways she could subtly hint that her Quirk was responsible for her speed and strength.

The next immediate stretch of track was mundane. Between the robots and other kids, whoever organized these events clearly thought some good old-fashioned running could help people work up a sweat. For some people, like Shinsō before his training, this might’ve been the most difficult part of the race in some respects.

And then they reached what Present Mic gleefully called, “The Fall.”

“Oh, that’s pretty impressive.” Kei said aloud, eying it critically. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a hell of a jump distance, but somehow the event organizers had managed to basically stick a miniature version of the Chinese stone forest mountains in a single location. That kind of handiwork was really rather impressive. Even without the trees.

Of course, she also wanted to know what UA thought would save them from lawsuit hell if any kid actually plummeted to the bottom of the crevasse, but that was apparently one of those things she wasn’t supposed to think too hard about. Maybe Power Loader had just worked overtime to get this done?

“GOT YOU NOW, YOU ICY-HOT BASTARD!”

Bakugō didn’t even stop to land. Instead, more explosions sent him rocketing over the obstacle while Kei admired it, shouting threats both at her and at Todoroki. Mostly Todoroki, now that he thought she was out of the race. Without even being punched?

That was definitely a kid who didn’t stop to smell the roses much.

Present Mic cackled. “And class 1-A’s Bakugō surges ahead to take second place! How are the other competitors going to keep up? How’s Todoroki going to keep his lead?!”

“Do you even need me here?” Aizawa-sensei’s dry voice countered.

Kei could see Todoroki’s retreating back and the crumbling remnants of the ice he’d left all over the ropes to cross. It would’ve made for an unfortunate fall if Kei took that route. She did, however, have a plan that did not involve putting herself at risk quite like that.

On a good day, this particular obstacle also reminded her of a certain nasty, spike-filled crevasse in Konoha. And on a good day, Kei would have avoided the problem or flown over it with Tsuruya’s help. But, well…

Isobu chuckled in the depths of her mind. Desperate times?

Desperate measures, Kei joked back.

Chakra flooded into her limbs and, once she’d made the correct hand seals, she thought, Water Dragon Bullet. And then she leapt onto the nearest intact rope and hurled herself into the air.

Once again, the force of her power slapped water vapor from the air in a massive burst, drenching everyone within twenty meters in a sudden rainstorm, Bakugō and his explosively-propelled self included. Directly behind her, a miniature waterspout twisted out of the air and formed a gaping dragon’s maw. As it threw itself between her and Bakugō, shoving him aside with the mass concentrated in its swirling coils, Kei stuck her arm directly into the side of its head.

Liquid fangs bit deep into her gym uniform sleeve, jerked her off her feet, and surged over the massive pitfall at more than forty kilometers per hour. She and her construct—which she called “Haku” on a whim—practically flew across each gap in the ground, pausing only so Kei could land for a split second and gather more water without having to split her attention. It wasn’t gliding in the least—instead, the sheer force of the water she was keeping in the air were tugging her along like a banner ad behind an airplane.

You hardly seem to need the crane, now.

Say that again when we’re actually trying to travel somewhere!

“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” shrieked Bakugō, having to redouble his efforts to stay in the air.

Kei didn’t so much as spare him a glance, with her dragon hauling her by her collar toward Todoroki.

“What’s this? Gekkō from 1-C and Bakugō from 1-A are neck and neck, neither giving up second place! Todoroki better watch his back with these two destructive competitors gunning for him!”

I can’t decide if Present Mic makes it worse. The Chūnin Exams didn’t have announcers.

He makes it worse.

Another lazy curve emerged from the other side of the horrible drop-off, and both Kei and Bakugō landed within seconds of each other. While Bakugō stumbled for a second longer as Kei’s Water Dragon Bullet clipped him on its way to dispersal, Kei dashed after Todoroki with…somewhat less energy than the other competitors were showing off.

It had nothing to do with the spirit of competition. Kei just didn’t want to get her feet iced to the ground this close to the endgame. Especially while her clothes were still wet.

Dirt and rock gave way to cement as Kei ran onward, following the curving track around the bend even as Bakugō trailed her, screaming constantly about something and exploding so much she couldn’t really hear him. Nonetheless, she kept just far enough ahead of him to avoid either backlash or a silly comment from Present Mic.

It was about that point where Todoroki must’ve reached the third obstacle, because Present Mic’s voice blared loud and clear: “And now, we’re finally approaching the last obstacle!”

Great.

It had better be interesting—

“Everyone had better tread carefully!” Present Mic went on, while Kei kept pace with Bakugō. “You’re stepping onto a minefield!”

Are you shitting me right now?

It appears not. Look.

Stretching out for another long dirt stretch about as wide as the rope-lined Fall had been was, of course, a literal minefield. The ground was dotted with raised lumps Kei presumed were the mines, badly disguised and clearly designed for a high school competition.

Kei knew better than most what an actual minefield looked like: Nothing, until the first explosions started tearing the earth apart.

“If you look carefully, you can see where those little bombs are buried, so keep your eyes on the ground, folks! By the way, those landmines were specially designed for our competition, so while they’re loud and flashy…they’re not very powerful.”

Kei totally understood the disappointment in Mic’s voice.

“JUST ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU WET YOUR PANTS!”

She understood that a little less.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Aizawa-sensei said, truly embodying the spirit of the times.

What do people even do if there is no one with a running commentary of events? Let them pass in confusion?

Hell if I know. Kei ducked an explosion from Bakugō and slapped his hand away as he tried to pass her by force, and nearly got a second blast to the face before she made half a hand seal and spat a gob of water the size of his head to engulf it.

It didn’t last, but sputtering meant Bakugō had to let her go on ahead, just for a little. Certainly it made him stumble far enough away that she could think.

Minefield, minefield… It wouldn’t make it that much better if she just flooded the area, would it? Besides, the mines themselves were relatively harmless. And obvious.

Bakugō chose that moment to rocket past, apparently trusting that being able to make explosions basically made him immune to those caused by others. That wasn’t an assumption Kei was willing to make, for reasons mainly pertaining to how many limbs one could lose that way. But, hell, Bakugō was already yelling at Todoroki as though Kei didn’t exist, so what did she know?

Other students started to trickle in, and by that point Kei just shrugged to herself and darted into explosion hell. Another Water Dragon Bullet had her shooting through the air above the competition, one arm locked in its jaws and her other hand balanced against the curve above its eye. At the same time, the end of the dragon’s coils slammed down on the course, triggering extra mines and swamping anyone caught in the blast.

Bakugō and Todoroki, meanwhile, were trying to get each other killed. Explosions and ice flew, and Kei commanded her construct to curve wide around their little conflict.

“Just like that, a new student takes the lead! The media here is going wild! There’s nothing they love more than an upset!”

Sounded about right.

Iida raced forward, trusting his sheer speed to get him past the mines. Other students were avoiding mines, detonating them under their opponents, or what-have-you. Kei didn’t much care.

Right up until the moment a massive pink explosion went off at the start of the minefield, disrupting Haku-chan’s liquid tail. Todoroki and Bakugō looked up, spotting Kei—which annoyed her, because she’d been planning on using the sun’s position better than that—and a rapidly arcing Midoriya, surfing the blast wave with a piece of robot as his woefully inadequate vehicle.  

Kei probably could have reached out to help him land. But he did have a plan, right? He had to.

Midoriya fell past her, toppling slowly forward.

Um.

He does not have a plan.

Below, and now behind, Todoroki and Bakugō set aside their differences to chase the two students now in the lead. Bakugō, at least, had a plan. It was explosions.

And Todoroki iced the fucking minefield.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Kei wasn’t on the ground or technically in Todoroki’s line of sight. At most, he should have created a safe walkway against being launched skyward by landmines. However, he’d seen her and his frost wave arced upward, trapping Haku-chan’s tail and crawling directly up its back.

Kei ripped her arm free just as the ice reached her and coated her body from fingertip to waist on the same side. It even leapt to her leg, locking her right knee in a bent position as though in a cuff of some kind.

And she was still about ten meters above the ground.

Fuck you too, Freezer Burn.

While Bakugō and Todoroki chased Midoriya, Kei used her free left hand to make hand seals against her frost-coated right.

Water Release: Water Trumpet. Turning her head, Kei blasted her frosted arm with water before moving it out of the line of fire, and aimed all the rest at the minefield below as soon as she could move her fingers again.

She didn’t bother being cute about it. When she hit the water feet-first, the ice coating her knee burst under the force. Kei’s water blast had dampened the field to little effect, but Todoroki’s ice path was still there. And since water was the only thing that made ice slippery at all, Kei tore after the three new pack leaders without hesitation.

Ahead, she saw Midoriya plummeting to earth to land head first and started to wince. That wouldn’t be pretty.

At which point there was another massive pink explosion, because Midoriya took his metal surfboard and slammed it down like a fucking sledgehammer into the nearest mines, using Todoroki and Bakugō as stepping stones for leverage.

Kei bit back a laugh. Someone had definitely turned their self-preservation instincts off.

I knew I liked that kid.

I can see why.

Kei got third place out of the pack of four that entered the stadium in those first few seconds, edging out Splodey by a nose. She spent the cooldown period laughing too hard at the irony of beating him only to lose to rocket-propelled Midoriya to even listen to Bakugō’s threats. In the end, explosions really had made the difference. Just not the way she’d thought.

While the other competitors trickled in—scorched, muddy, and various levels of exhausted—Kei congratulated Midoriya with as much enthusiasm as his classmates couldn’t muster. Todoroki and Bakugō went ignored. She didn’t stop chatting with him until Iida and Uraraka had both arrived, looking happy to see friends around.

And when Shinsō made it, in twenty-seventh place, Kei gave him a fist-bump. Checking the leaderboards over her shoulder, he reciprocated.

“I almost didn’t believe your Quirk was that strong,” Shinsō remarked, shaking his head slowly. “Shows me, I guess.”

“And now you know how I got in.” Kei said. “Robot-killing powers and nothing else.”

“Sure you did.” Shinsō rolled his eyes. In a comically threatening tone, he added, “I will get the literature unit through your head if it kills me.”

Kei laughed.

[idolish7rabbitchats]

Momo: Holiday Collection 2018 Rabbit TV Part 3

Okazaki: Good work you two. I received gratitude messages from “G-RiT” saying that it became a huge sensation!

1000: That Christmas coffret one? I see posters anywhere I go now.

100: We saw it when we moved a little while ago too!

1000: Was it? Maybe it was.

O: I saw it too many times, I don’t even know where I’ve seen it anymore.

O: But, because of Momo-kun’s appeal in the interview, fans upload lots of pictures on SNS! It became an opportunity to know about the coffret!

100: Let me see… I’ll check it!

100: Oh, this person took a picture with Yuki’s poster, while holding my card!

1000: This person took a picture while putting the Re:vale set’s nail polish on their nails.

100: There are people who get happy to be receiving these as a gift!

O: It’s good point bringing up that on SNS we can see their actual reactions.

O: The two of you, please get ready to move. We will have a party at the Takanashi agency office after this, but we are a little bit behind on time.

100: Oops! We should go there soon!

1000: I need to carry the appetizer I made….

100: Yuki prepared many things this morning huh. I’m looking forward to it.

1000: Yeah. Preparing for that many people was tough.

O: About the food, we will visit Yuki-kun’s house to bring it. I prepared many huge cooler boxes, so it’s fine!

100: Okarin, you are ikemen….! As expected of our manager!

O: ….Somehow I’d thought both of you didn’t consider how to bring it. Then, let’s go!

100: Maneko-chan! Thank you for renting us the office’s practice room today! Wasn’t it hard to adjust the schedule too!?

T: Not at all! To Momo-san too, thank you for hosting the party even though you were busy!

1000: I was looking forward to being able to see everyone’s faces.

7: We worked hard on the decorations! The tree is also amazing!

3: I put my soul into today’s food! Please eat a lot!

5: I helped too. Let’s put the parts that Tsunashi-san and Yuki-san made over here.

4: So-chan… Somehow the inside of the pot is red…

6: OH! Iori, please look. There’s an illustration of Kinako drawn on that cake. It’s like a character cake!

1: Cu- Cough. This quality. As expected of Nii-san.

9: The cake looks delicious. It looks beautiful; it’s too good to eat.

2: Cleaning the practice room was harder than I expected… I wanna drink already…

10: Thanks to Yamato-kun too! Good work. Everyone should relax and drink today!

2: Yeh! Oh, is this the champagne Yaotome chose? Then let’s pass this around for cheers.

8: For minors, have this non-alcohol one.  Here, this is for Tenn.

100: Does everyone have a drink? Then, let’s do a Christmas-like cheers!

100: The one to take the lead is… Representing the Takanashi agency, I’ll ask for IDOLiSH7’s center, Nanase Riku-kun!

7: Me?! Um… Then, everyone, good work on the preparations for the Christmas party!

7: As a reward for working hard all year, let’s enjoy as much as we like tonight!

7: Cheers! Merry Christmas!

Everyone: Merry Christmas!

7: Momo-san, what’s wrong? He told me to wait here a bit even though it’s during the middle of the party...

3: Riku. We were told to gather near Riku by Momo-san though…?

7: Mitsuki was called too? Early, Momo-san told me to stand here too!

9: Me too. Which members is it supposed to be.

8: Me too. ...I have no idea.

100: Oh! Everyone’s gathering huh!

100: To all the good kids, there are presents from Momo-santa!

7: Presents? I get it, the common point of the people gathered here is that we’re “good kids”!

9: I wonder.

8: Why are you looking over here? I’m a good kid.

7: Tenn-nii, I was a good kid all year this year!

3: Momo-san, what is this gathering?

100: Ta-dah! This!

7: This… A santa costume?

100: Yeah! It’s a Christmas party and I wanted Santa~!

8: Are we the ones who’ll dress up as Santa?

100: I have one for everyone but I thought I wanted to do surprise with these members first!

7: Waah! I haven’t done this kind of thing before, I wanted to do it so bad!

3: I’m more like someone who’s done it a lot.

9: What a coincidence. It was the same for me.

100: Is it an older brother thing!? I did it a lot for school and clubs but, what about Gaku?

8: I haven’t done it much. A hat and a beard huh...

7: It really fits!

7: It’s looks like the soba man who came in a Santa costume for delivery!

100: Heeh! The person who looks like Gaku would be ikemen! I want to meet him too~.

3: Are we ordering soba now? We would see him if we are lucky.

8: They prepared the food for us, I think now’s good.

9: Yeah, we can eat it on New Year’s Eve soon.

7: Please come to eat New Year’s Eve soba too!

100: I wanna go but, won’t it be troublesome to always be taken care of by Takanashi Agency?

100: This time too, even though I was the one hosting the party, we rent this place...

3: We are totally fine! ….Even though I don’t have the right to say it, our president is quite generous, so I think it’s fine not to mind it!

100: I’m happy~! I should say hello to your president later!

8: We’ll have to go afterwards too.

100: So then, let’s go with everyone as Santa!

9: Like this?

3: Surrounding the president with Santas sounds chaotic.

7: Sounds fun! It’ll probably be a shock but I think the President will surely be happy too!

8: Then, I think it’s better with many people.

100: Certainly! With our gratitude, let’s sing a Christmas song with everyone as Santa!

7: Sounds good! I wonder if someone would do something for me if I was President?

3: A president who’s surrounded by three idol groups from different agencies is quite rare.

100: Then, let’s make the others change too! I’ll talk to Yuki about this too…!

8: …..Momo-san is an entertainer by nature.

3: Really, it’s a present that will make not only us but everyone around us happy huh.

9: Maybe, he’s happy about it too.

7: Momo-san really is like Santa-san!

3,8,9: I get it...

[skia-oura]

Furry Talk

A/N: Hammered out in about an hour or two after Zoey opened their mouth and this came out. 

Ao3

Basically, Bentley gets stuck on homework, and Dipper and Torako take it upon themselves to...help. 

          Bentley stared at his blank sheet of paper, pencil limp in his hand, then back up at Torako and Dipper’s expectant gazes. “I have no idea what my furry would be. Can we stop. I need to write my final paper, half my grade depends on it.”

           Torako groaned and flopped back, splayed across the ground of the living room floor. She did not, Bentley noticed, show her own sketchbook. “This is why we’re figuring out furries! You’re supposed to take a break and have fun, goddammit.”

           “My paper,” Bentley said.

           “You’ve been staring at your reader for about three hours,” Torako said, “And we’ve been seeing you decline on the essay-writing front for about a week now. Hence the furries.”

           “I don’t know furries,” Bentley said. He lived a very deliberate lifestyle of trying to be ignorant of Torako and Dipper’s furry-related shenanigans. So far, ignorance really was bliss.

           “We can always figure out what your furry is together,” Dipper said. Bentley raised his eyebrows at Dipper, who was uncharacteristically wearing a lime-green…suit? Bentley didn’t know how to classify it. He did know that he didn’t like the gleam in Dipper’s eyes, or the way his smile edged a little too far at the corners. It was his sneaky smile.

           “No,” Bentley said, flat.

           Dipper and Torako moaned in unison. Bentley glanced at the time display on the opposite wall—after eleven, he really needed to write that paper—and made a decision. It was probably a decision he would come to regret, but he needed to stop relaxing and get working, and the faster he got this over with the faster he could get his paper done the faster he could lie in bed and think about how much his teacher would hate it. Bentley also knew, from experience, that Torako and Dipper were tenacious little shits who would keep distracting him in the name of relaxation until he gave in. There was no avoiding his fate

           Bentley huffed and ruffled his hair. “Fine,” he said. “Just—show me yours, I guess. For reference. You first, Torako.” It would be better to get the more chaotic of the two over and done with, he thought. For his own sake.

           Torako sat up in a feat only possible through the power of her impressively toned abdominal muscles. She was beaming. Dipper pouted on the couch next to Bentley, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he clutched his datapad closer, having insisted on ‘newfangled technology’ instead of paper.

           “I love you,” Torako said. She lowered her eyelashes and grinned a grin that made Bentley tense in preparation. “Are you ready to see it?”

           He took a deep breath, tried—then failed—to relax, and nodded. “Go for it.”

           “Right then, drumroll please!”

           After a beat of silence, Dipper opened his mouth. A staccato beat of several kinds of drums all at once spilled forward, discordant. Bentley suddenly wondered if he really was going with the more chaotic one; Dipper was the actual demon.

           “Knew I could count on you buddy,” Torako said, winking and throwing Dipper a finger gun. “All right, so, my fursona is a…”

           Silence. Bentley waited for Torako to speak, then quirked an eyebrow when she didn’t follow up immediately. That seemed to be the cue she was waiting for, because she turned the sketchbook around and thrust it out. Bentley squinted at the black scribbles. It was a lopsided circle on top of another lopsided circle, which had two lines sticking out the bottom and two vaguely triangular shapes sticking out the top.

           It was not a tiger, which was kind of surprising but also maybe kind of not, thinking about her sixteenth birthday and how some kid had tried to get her to go out with them using tiger-themed everything. It had not been a great move. “…a…bird?* Bentley said.

           “Almost!” Torako said. “It’s a crow! Caw caw, oystershuckers!”

           “…not a tiger?” Bentley said, half because he was curious, and half because he suspected it might make her go off into a rant. A crow was horribly benign and he was afraid of whatever monstrosity was in Dipper’s grasp. He would pay for his miscalculation, but only if he didn’t manage to distract them. Asking about the tiger was a good start. Hopefully.

           Torako groaned and set the sketchbook down, face-up, on the coffee table. “Ugh, no, the kanji in my name is completely different! Anyways, I’m not a tiger, I’m a crow. Crows are way cooler.”

           Bentley opened his mouth to argue that point. He had a whole counterargument based around the inherent strength of tigers versus crows planned out. “My turn!” Dipper said, the sound of his voice momentarily equivalent with the destruction of all of Bentley’s hopes and dreams.

           “Okay,” Torako said. She stuck her pencil between her upper lip and her nose. “As long as it’s not a crow. If it’s a tiger, you’re welcome to it, because it’s not my fursona, no matter what Bentley might think.”

           Bentley did not actually think her fursona was a tiger, for the record. He didn’t know what her fursona was, but if she wanted to be a crow, she could be a crow. Dipper, on the other hand…

           “Ta-dah!” Dipper said, grinning wide and sharp, the tablet shaking a little in his excitement. Bentley stared at the display. Then, he squinted.

           “What,” he asked. He couldn’t even regret it, because if he didn’t ask, then Torako would have. Bentley saw no escape. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

           “This is my fursona,” Dipper said. “He’s a cat who’s half demon half angel half ninja—you can tell because of the shuriken on his forehead—and his name is Emperor Kingsly.”

           Bentley chanced a glance at Torako. He could swear the gleam in her eyes was actually the reflection of the flames of purgatory. “That’s so creative,” she breathed, dropping the pencil into her waiting hand. Bentley despaired.

           “Thank you!” Dipper said. “ He’s the strongest dragon pirate ever, and he can breathe ice as well as fire and his ship is made of gold and—”

           Bentley blinked. The colors of the image shifted, but unfortunately not all to something that Bentley could comprehend with his mortal human brain. “D—I, uh, Dipper, what color is…this?”

           “The colors should be incredibly clear,” Dipper said, frowning. “I spent a lot of time picking the best colors.”

           They’d been sitting down for five minutes. Bentley closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “There’s—okay fine, I understand some of them, but the ones in the feather sticking out of his shuriken aren’t really anything but smell, and something around his left foot is just a vague feeling of…discontent?” That might be just Bentley, but still.

           “Disgruntlement,” Torako said, like that changed the meaning of the word significantly. “Tragic backstory?”

           “Yes!” Dipper said. “Of course! See, when he was about two months old, his parents were set on fire and even though he tried to save them with his budding samurai skills, he—”

           Bentley interrupted. “I thought we were making…fursonas?”

           Torako stared at him. “Yes…?”

           “I don’t know a lot about fursonas,” Bentley said, “but that is not a fursona.”

           Dipper gasped. Torako gasped with him. “How could you!” Dipper said. “You dare you question Lord Sparklecat Emperor Kingsly the Nine-Hundred-and—”

           “That’s not—let alone full anything, it’s not even half anything!” Bentley gestured at it, somewhat manically. “There were more than two halves in whatever ridiculous bio you spouted off just now.”

           Dipper sniffed and clutched the tablet close to him. “Half-demon half-angel half-ninja half-unicorn half—”

           “That makes less sense than his name does,” Bentley groaned, dragging his hands down his face. “And his name makes no sense at all, I just—Emperor Kingsly?”

           “Lord Sparklecat Dowager Emperor Kingsly the Nine-Hundred and Fifty-Seventh-and-a-half,” Dipper said, like it was the most mundane, most self-understandable thing. “Didn’t know we had a professional furry critic in here, Mr. ‘I don’t know what my furry is because I’m lame’.”

           “Fine,” Bentley hissed, snatching his paper off the table and snapping it to harden so he could draw on it. “I’ll make my own ‘furry’ and it’s going to be better and more logical than yours and—Torako what are you doing.”

           “I had to change mine,” Torako said, tongue poking out of her mouth as she drew. “Dipper opened my mind to the possibilities. I needed to do this.”

           Bentley closed his eyes. “I don’t want to know,” he said.

           “Done!” she said. “It’s a crow mermaid! Except, you know, reversed so that it’s the fish on top!”

           He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He contemplated how the machinations of the universe had been set against him, to have everything lead up to this moment in time, and many moments like it in the past, and unfortunately many moments yet to come. Bentley considered calling his dad to complain, but then realized that his dad would undoubtedly beg Bentley to send him a copy of Dipper’s fursona so that he could psychoanalyze it, even if only for his own benefit. He’d probably also beg Bentley for his own fursona.

           Bentley closed his eyes, and counted to ten.

           “Torako, do you take constructive criticism?”

           “If it’s constructive, of course,” Torako said.

           Bentley exhaled, long and slow.

           “So, your fursona reflects you, right? I love the mercrow, or the flying fish, but—but it’s not buff. You’re buff, and that is not a buff fursona,” said Dipper, who was apparently somehow a half-angel half-demon half-ninja half-unicorn who was the strongest dragon pirate ever and could breathe both ice and fire and whose left foot was a color that emanated a vague feeling of disgruntlement.

           Torako gasped. Bentley heard the scrape of graphite against paper. “You’re right, it needs abs and biceps,” she said.

           Bentley wondered if Professor Lancaster would grant Bentley an extension if he cited roommate insanity.

           (he ended up retreating to his room and finishing the paper in a fit of rage-fueled inspiration after Torako’s fursona became an arms dealer—because their arms grew back after becoming sufficiently buff enough to shed, and philanthropy was all about giving people good things, right? Professor Lancaster gave him full marks and mentioned that it was one of the most well-reasoned essays they’d seen in a while.)

[thisgirlhastales]

Heyo! So, I was curious: in the "Objects In Motion" universe, I was wondering exactly what kind of things Lance and Keith do to make each other flustered and embarrassed and stuff like that. You said Lance became a master of "Making Keith Lose His Cool In All Ways ;)", plus he had some SERIOUS game on the pirate adventure, and that kinda peaked my interest XD

Ah, now that I have angsty space cowboy stuff done, I can answer your question :D Sorry for the delay, honey! *ponders* 

Well, I’m just gonna focus on Lance for a sec: Lance is already pretty confident in his flirting, as we’ve seen in canon. He’s definitely over-the-top, and he doesn’t always know when to turn it off, but his charming cheesiness definitely has an effect on some people (i.e. certain mermaids, and a couple of alien shoppers ;D). But it’s a little different with Keith, since they’re already dating … 

Basically, this is what happens …

Lance actually likes arguing with Keith. He’d discovered this a while back, before they started going out, but now it’s extra fun — there’s always a smile playing at the corner of Keith’s mouth, their insults are far more creative, playful, and sometimes even flirty. Keith can flirt, and Lance is really, really bad at hiding how much that gets to him. And Keith knows it, so even if he’s kind of awkward about it sometimes, Lance still blushes and stammers, and it’s not fair.

That is, until, he discovers that he has his own power over Keith. And then all bets are off.

“Man, that was a steep drop,” Keith complains, rubbing at his hip. “Pidge could’ve waited to turn the gravity back on.”

“Ah, angel, did it hurt?” Lance asks, grinning widely as he takes off his helmet, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead. “You know, when you fell from heaven?”

Keith gapes at him. “Really? Really, Lance?” 

At the time, Lance chalks up the red flush in Keith’s cheeks to the wild fight they’d just been through, to the use of yet another silly nickname in Lance’s quest to find the perfect one, but then, later on in the kitchen …

It was too much fun to prompt that irritated look on Keith’s face, and so Lance holds Keith food up over his head, because he can, because that one and a half extra inch of height makes a difference, and Keith just glares at him, arms crossed. It’s too damn cute, and Lance winks at him, saying, “Listen, it’s important — I gotta tell you that if you were a fruit, you’d be a fineapple.”

And then he presents Keith his bowl of pineapple flavoured goo with a wide, proud grin on his face.

Keith is blushing while he snatches his food away and huffs his way to a table. Lance is delighted.

Oh, it’s on now. 

 “Hey, Keith!” Lance calls across the hanger after they’ve landed on a new planet for yet another diplomatic mission. They’re dressed formally, and Keith looks especially nice in simple Altean finery. He shoots Lance a quizzical look.

“You must be peanut butter because you make my legs feel like jelly.” 

Pidge and Hunk each take a turn smacking the back of Lance’s head as they pass by, but Lance is too happy watching Keith flustered and floundering for a comeback to care.

Keith complains about the nicknames, but the pick-up lines he rarely comments on. He just glares while blushing, or gapes as his ears go red, or tells Lance to knock it off, we’re in the middle of a Galra base, holy crap, Lance, focus. 

That changes when they’re sitting together on the observation deck’s couch, on one of their casual dates; Lance lights up as he remembers yet another fabulous line while staring at Keith’s feet resting on a pillow. “Oh, hey, lemme tie your shoe laces!”

Keith sits up straight to stare at him. “Um, my boots don’t have any —”

“’Cause I don’t want you falling for anyone else,” Lance finishes happily.

That familiar light dusting of pink starts at Keith’s cheeks, spreads to his neck and ears. Lance is laughing, and then Keith blurts out, “Are you joking around, or … or do you actually mean it?”

Lance stops laughing. “Wait, what?”

“I mean, I get that you’ve always been … but now that we’re together, are you just, like … unable to break the habit, or something?” Keith drops his gaze to his lap, trying to act indifferent. “It’s fine, by the way, even funny sometimes, I just wonder —”

“Um, Keith, I don’t flirt with people I’m not attracted to?” Lance says, confused and somewhat alarmed. “A habit? … Yeah. Yeah it is. As in, I habitually flirt with the hottest person in the room. And that’s always you.”

Keith lifts his head up, eyes wide. He’s red, absolutely fire engine red, and Lance thrills at the sight, feels himself warming up as Keith blinks and says in a hoarse voice, “Oh. Okay.” He clears his throat. “They’re terrible lines.”

Lance smiles, honest and affectionate as he replies, “Yeah, but I mean every word of them. You are stupidly fine, you routinely give me weak knees, and I want you all to myself, so please ignore any number of charming aliens who might try to steal you away.” He wraps his arms around Keith, pulling him into his chest so he can kiss the top of his head. “I’ve always been kind of jealous of how cool you are, but now I’m also aware of how pretty you are too, and it’s kinda unfair, dude. How dare you?”

“You’re the handsome one,” Keith mutters against Lance’s neck. “And you know it, jackass.”

Lance laughs into messy black hair. “Then trust me — it takes one to know one.”

Keith snorts and shifts in Lance grip. Somehow they’ve ended up reclined, Keith half on top of Lance, and he lifts himself up using his arms on either side of Lance’s shoulders, looks down at him so fondly that Lance feels a pleasant ache start up in his chest.  

“Hey, Lance?” he says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“I was feeling a little off today … But you definitely turned me on.”

Lance goggles at his boyfriend for what feels like a solid minute before he cracks up and drags him down by his shirt collar. It ends up with him wheezing as Keith crashes his full weight into him, and Lance’s arm is weirdly pinned between them, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing the smile on Keith’s face, giggling into his mouth. 

And he keeps on practicing his one-liners, his honest, no-holds-barred compliments and sweet promises, relishing each and every hitched breath from his boyfriend, until Lance is probably smooth enough to pick up any hot alien from here all the way back to Earth … But Keith, Keith is the only one he ever wants to use his flirtations on because, as he tells his boyfriend one day, “You know, pudding-pop, you may not actually need a nickname …”

“Oh really? Does that mean this torture will end?” Keith flashes a quick teasing grin.

Lance winks back. “All I want to call you is mine.”

And there’s the blush, and the stutter, and nothing in the universe makes Lance as happy as charming the hell out of his Red Paladin.

Ta-dah! Look at how stupidly fluff this is. This is what happens when I write angst non-stop and then switch over to happier things. It’s like I need to be ridiculously overly sweet to compensate. *sighs* Well, I hope this worked for you! I had to look up those pick-up lines by the way — I definitely do not have the right mind to come up with stuff as wonderfully cheesy as that ;)

Edit April 2020: Now posted on AO3 :)