#anyway. i know I haven’t exactly sold this idea but. if anyone is interested in discussing/brainstorming. please.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Exit on your left: Part 1.

Um...Mr Kamukura?

I know I probably shouldn't be the one to question your escape methods but...Why are we going THIS way?

...

*Kanata, Fuyuhiko, Kazuichi and Hiro closely follow Uchui as he leads them through the base. Uchui remains stone faced the entire time.

Where exactly...IS this place?

This is the first time I’ve seen the building outside the cells. I figured we were in some kinda institution but...this looks more...

To put simply...it’s a factory. Though, I had assumed you would have come to that conclusion just by looking around.

You don’t gotta be a smartass about it. When did Zetsubou take the time to BUILD all this?

Well, it’s all been built up over the last 10 or 11 years...Since Shirogane came to our reality. But the actuality is Zetsubou secretly sieged this place from a previously existing company, wiping out or silencing all associated with it for their own ends.

Hold on...11 years? But I thought the V3 kids came through 4 years ago?

You really think it would take 4 years to build up this big an empire? Only Ultimate leaders could pull something like that off. And Shirogane is anything but.

But...how...? You said you pulled them through, right? And you only got that idea in the last few years, so how could Shirogane have come through a decade before?

...I don’t know...I do have some working theories, but I assume even if I was to talk about it, you wouldn’t get it.

*They emerge into a room with several monitors and computers.

...I knew it...

Knew what?

Sorry, but truth be told, this is the central security room of this entire base. Before I get you out of here, I just needed to make a quick detour and grab something from here?

THIS is the central hub?

Is that a problem?

...It’s just...for the main security mainframe its...pretty quiet around here.

...Exactly.

...

You don’t think Zetsubou have caught on, have you?

*Uchui starts fiddling with the large keyboard in the middle of the desk.

They’ve been on edge ever since Maki Harukawa went missing. I wouldn’t put it past them.

For real!? You mean they might be looking for us right now!? Then why are we HERE?

Shh! If you make that much noise, then they’ll find us a lot quicker!

Oh! Sorry...!

But if that’s the case...do we really even have a chance at escaping?

*Uchui stops fiddling, then rises and turns to look at Kanata.

I don’t believe in chance, doctor. Chance never saved anyone in the Killing Games, nor did it save me from the hell that was my upbringing.

I believe in the flow of time, and the value of effort. If we stick together, we’ll stay alive...and you WILL see your families again.

Uchui...

Well, in the very least, I can get YOU out of here. Whether or not I get out with you...

You’re not coming with?

No. I still have a lot I need to do here. I still haven’t found a way to destroy what remains of the Hope Serum.

You still haven’t done that!? I thought that’d be priority number one!?

This is gonna sound really cheesy and lame, but I value your safety more than destroying that serum. I got you into this mess...now I’m gonna get you out.

This is just step one of my mission to atone for me and my family’s sins.

...And what’s step two?

...Taking down this whole base...and destroying Zetsubou from the inside out.

And how do you plan to do that?

Not alone. But I don’t want you guys in here when this place crumbles.

And you? How do you plan to get out?

That’s in my interest only.

So much for sticking together...

I...! Gah...

*He grips the edge of the desk.

Look...with all due respect...I betrayed the Future Foundation and cost many people their lives when I sold them out to Zetsubou. There’s no reason for Kirigiri, or Fujisaki, or anybody else in the higher ups to worry about saving MY life. 

What about Reaper? You’re his best friend; you really think he wouldn’t try to save you!?

KURIPA knows that we have priorities. Even he wouldn’t jeopardize such an important mission just to save MY life...

I’m sure...

You don’t SOUND sure...

What’s it to you anyway?

Because I’ve seen that kind of thing before. This overwhelming guilt that makes you think everything would be better off if you were gone, or if you paid for your mistakes in the most painful way. 

*Kazuichi starts to pace the room.

Look, I get it Uchui, but you can’t do this. You think you’re making a heroic and brave sacrifice, but all you’re doing is continuing to have your life weighed down by-

“Terror...?”

GAH!?

!!?

!!?

Oh crap! RUN!

Heh...Going somewhere!?

YAGH!

Heehee! Nice try!

Shit!

*All three entryways in the security room are blocked off as several Zetsubou goons armed with rifles emerge from the blackness! Akira, Celeste and Narumi take one, Yukari and Mikihiko take another, and Tsumugi stands with a few henchmen in the third.

And thus the whole pity party is here. Sorry to come crashing in.

Celeste! Wait, it’s not what it looks like!

Shut it Hiro! You’re not helping!

So this really WAS an ambush?

You don’t sound surprised in the slightest?

I had a feeling when I saw this room was empty that you’d caught on.

And you came anyway? That’s either very brave, or very stupid.

Well, I’m clearly smart enough to have gotten away with it up until now, right?

Au contraire, Kamukura. Maybe I didn’t know about a few details of your plan, which prevented me from stopping you up until now...

But I’ve known about this escape plan and your conspiracy for a LOOOOOONG time...

What...!? How!?

...

...

...

*Nagito and Matta emerge from the darkness in the doorway behind her.

Matta here filled me in on all your suspicious activities. Plus, I didn’t quite trust you, Uchui, from the start. I’m not THAT brainless.

Komaeda, you bastard...!

Don’t misunderstand...! I didn’t-

Mr Gyalusetsu!? You...!? Then...!?

Humans are desperate creatures, Dr Inori. In a world of despair, where there is a light of shining hope, they cling to that hope without thinking of the consequences it might bring.

Which is why, when I offered you that safe room to plan, I knew you would take the opportunity.

Don’t you agree? Komaeda?

...? Um...

You mean you trusted him!? What the hell is wrong with you!?

I...

That man is every bit of a demon as the rest of them! And you let him get inside your head.

Don’t listen to him. Typically, I am not as profound a manipulator as I may seem. Normally, I get the job done, no nonsense.

But ever since I arrived here...It’s been nothing but nonsense. So I decided to play along eventually.

I’m so sorry...

Don’t apologize Doc! It’s not your fault!

Yeah...I kinda figured he was different from the rest too. I guess we were all fooled.

You were also fooled into thinking that the treatment I’ve shown you all until now was the worst I could muster...Now that you’ve attempted this escape...

You’ll see just how NASTY I can be...! Now BACK TO YOUR CELLS!

...

*Uchui carefully shifts towards the desk and swipes something from it.

*SHUNK!*

GAH!

Hey...back away from my PC buddy...

*Akira’s ring weapon shanks the death and very nearly cuts off Uchui’s fingers. He backs away and raises his hands in the air.

What are you doing...!?

Shush! Play along!

So let me get one thing straight...This whole thing about wanting to help me make Ultimate Hopes was just a lie? You really just wanted to stop me from the beginning and destroy the Hope Serum for good?

You really should’ve done that first.

I know right!? I said the same thing!

Hiro, seriously, shut up!

Don’t act like you wanted it for a higher purpose or something.

Normally I would say “you have no idea just how dangerous that serum is to us all!” but no...You DO know, and you DON’T care!

You wanted to create Ultimate Hope’s because you know how much chaos Izuru Kamukura’s creation caused. Even if it spirals out of your control, it will cause so much carnage, it won’t matter!

Not to mention this serum of yours is even worse than the project...Fujimori and Komaeda...Both of their minds were fucked, and they lost sight of themselves and their original goals because of what that damn drink did to them.

...

My father’s batshit crazy work served as the catalyst for everything that went wrong with this world the first time...

And when I brought you to this world, I created the catalyst for the SECOND...The difference is I acknowledge that, and I won’t run away from that responsibility...!

...Well, I’ll give you credit...You certainly didn’t RUN from it...

Junko? Kamukura did something to central security system when he got here. Run a scan and find out whatever virus he downloaded. Akira, help her.

Got it.

On it boss.

*Akira saunters over to the computer to aid Junko, controlling the pieces of his ring to surround Uchui and the survivors, while Zetsubou soldiers point guns at them.

You know...In hindsight...

It takes a great deal of patience and confidence to be the best friend of Kuripa Kurafto...I should’ve figured you would go to such extremes...

Don’t talk to me about extremes, Miss “I’m-gonna-wipe-out-everyone-with-the-power-of-Ultimate-Hope-because-I’m-so-desperate-for-attention.”

Ooh, you kiss your mother with that mouth?

I never knew my mother, asshat.

So what’s the master plan “Mastermind?” You despair-y types always have one, no?

Hm...I could kill you and capture the Survivors again...Or I could explain my master plan and THEN kill you and capture the Survivors again...

...I think I’ll just kill you!

*With a wave of Tsumugi’s hand, all the Zetsubou soldiers aim their rifles at Uchui and the others.

Son of a...!

Hey...Kamukura...!? Please don’t tell me your master plan was us walking into the jaws of death!

It looks like it was a big mistake thinking following this heathen was the best course of action...He’s sacrificed you...then failed you...

I’m not a heathen, you prissy, pink-haired monster...

*BEEP!* *BEEP!* *BEEP!*

I’m a SCIENTIST...

What is that horrid-?

Um...Junko? What’s going on?

Tsumugi! It’s bad! The security mainframe is RIGGED TO BLOW!

NOW! RUN!

*KAABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!*

GAUGH!

Both: AKIRA!?

RRAAGGAGGGGH!

YEEAAAAAHAAAHAAAAAGH!

Both: YUKARI! 

...!?

*Uchui grabs the escapees and they make a mad dash for an escape! The explosion of the computer launches Akira back into the wall and knocks him unconscious, causing the ring pieces to fall and the armed soldiers to fly back too. Additionally, the direct damage done to AI Junko in the system brain fries Yukari, and causes her to collapse!

GO GO GO!

DON’T STOP RUNNING!

EEEEEKK!

WE’REGONNADIE! WE’RESOGONNADIE!

URGH!

*Tsumugi casts out a hand once her ears stop ringing.

KILL HIM!

...

Huh?

*Matta places a hand on her shoulder.

Let him run...

It makes it more fun for me...!

*WHOOOSH!*

[parker-razor]

many a dream about you

afab!reader x mando (no y/n)

5.2k words, 18+, EXPLICIT!! 

warnings: SMUT (extended warnings under the cut), mentions of injuries, unprotected sex (use protection!), very little editing

summary: when you and mando are forced to share a bed together, you end up having a dream that reveals more than you had hoped...

author’s notes: ahhhh! this is my first fic!! i’ll be honest, i got so excited i wrote most of this in one sitting. indulge me in some of my favorite smutty tropes about everyone’s favorite space dad!

extended warnings: oral (f receiving), wet dreams, thigh grinding, mentions of rough sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation... i think that’s it

*****

Stars, you were exhausted.

You had just spent three weeks on the Razor Crest with the only bed available to you being a cheap mattress that might as well have just been a sack stuffed with sand. On top of the little sleep you were running on, you had just finished loading three bounties onto the Crest and into carbonite while Mando patched himself up. Dragging three grown men onto the ship and freezing them took all the strength out of you.

You finally collapsed into the pilot’s seat in the cockpit, catching your breath and giving your muscles a well-deserved break. Your eyes flutter closed as your body decompresses from the hard work and no sleep it’s been put through these past weeks. Mando had hired you just a month ago to look after the ship while he was away on hunts. Not to mention the little green gremlin he had adopted as his own, who kept you company and looked to you to get taken care of. It was much better than the life you had known; growing up on the outskirts of Tatooine was hard enough as is, but when your little shop had been pillaged and ransacked, you had nothing left on the small, desert planet. Mando had shown up just in time, sitting next to you in a dive bar.

*****

You had never seen one of his kind before, and to be honest, you were overwhelmed with the way he carried himself. He was big, towering over everyone he passed on his way to the barstools. You wondered why he even bothered if he couldn’t remove his helmet to drink, but you’d never ask. He sat himself just a few stools from yours, and after stealing a few glances with flushed cheeks, you finally opened your mouth to say something.

“Bounty hunters like you must be pretty busy on a planet like this,” you said, trying to talk over the loud band playing in the corner. “Not too many upstanding people tend to find themselves here.”

Slowly turning his helmet to face you, the Mandalorian said, “What does that say about you?”

Damn, you thought, he was quick to the draw.

“It’s not exactly my choice to live here. I’d give anything to get off this ball of sand.”

He says nothing, just turns his helmet forward again. You figure that’s the end of that, at least you tried. You can now say that you’ve talked to a Mandalorian before.

After a few beats of silence, he finally speaks. “Anything?”

You whip your head towards him, trying to figure out where this was going. Of course you wanted to leave, but you didn’t want to come off too eager in case he wasn’t serious.

“I mean, what do you have in mind?” you ask, trying to act as calm as possibly, but you couldn’t help but get a little excited at the prospect of leaving.

“I have… a son. He’s very small and can’t take care of himself yet. I don’t like taking him hunting, but I can’t leave him on the ship by himself,” he pauses, piecing together his words carefully. “I need someone to look after him.”

“So, I’d be his babysitter?”

“And ship sitter. Just keep it clean, nothing complicated.”

You pretended to ponder his proposition, but you knew you’d say yes almost immediately. There was nothing left for you here; no family, no livelihood, no friends. This was the best deal you had gotten in a long time. Except…

“So, what do I get in return?”

“I’d pay you, as much as I can afford. But you’d have your own bed and food.”

You’re sold.

*****

You’re brought back to the present when you hear Mando’s footsteps ascend the ladder to the cockpit. The child is holding onto him, smiling when he sees your face.

“How bad are you hurt?” you ask cautiously.

“I’ll live. Just a gash.”

“Well, I got the bounties in carbonite. But I gotta say Mando, I don’t know if I can sleep another night in a row on that shitty mattress.” He says nothing, and you haven’t figured out if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.

“Not that I don’t appreciate you making room for me! I’m just saying, I think we both need a proper rest tonight, especially after today,” you backtrack. You hear him sigh, nodding his head in agreement.

“Alright. I passed an inn on the way back here. Let’s see if they have any vacancy, hopefully with a bed better than the one you have.” You blush, embarrassed that you came off as ungrateful.

Mando was a mystery to you. He was quiet, a man of few words. It was especially hard trying to read him without being able to see any facial cues or expressions. Nevertheless, something about him exuded strength. He was much taller than you, but he was also just… big. Especially with all the beskar adding a whole other layer of strength. You couldn’t explain the attraction you felt for him. Something about how he towered over you, his visor boring into your face made you weak in the knees. How could you feel this way for someone who you’d barely talked to, let alone never seen their face?

He made you feel weak, but for some reason you liked that. Growing up on your home planet, you had to learn to fight for yourself. You were strong, with curves and muscles that showed just how tough life had made you. You never let a man make you feel less than or weak, always ready to defend yourself. But you liked that Mando made you feel small. It made no sense, but it also made perfect sense.

Sometimes at night, you’d let your hands wander. One hand wandered up to your face, whether to bite down on a finger or cover your mouth to keep yourself quiet, and the other down the front of your pants. Being around Mando so much made it difficult to wait until after he fell asleep to take care of the burning need you felt for him. You had your fair share of flings with the boys in your village, but none of them made you feel the way Mando did. With the most subtle actions he could make a heat blossom in your stomach and goosebumps spread over your arms. Sometimes the way he’d fly the Crest made you clench your thighs together; he looked so in charge in that pilot’s seat. Rubbing tight circles on your clit, clenching around nothing while angling your hips just right, you would be sent into orbit at the thought of his hands taking care of you instead.

After you and Mando had packed up your essentials, you got Grogu into his pram and headed off to the village nearby. You had no idea what planet you were on, but the flowering trees brought some joy to you. In the past weeks travelling with Mando, you had seen so many new things. You had never once left your home, and things like trees and streams had you in awe. You would never get used to how it made you feel.

The village was small, and it didn’t seem like there was anything else around for miles. You got to the motel, one of the larger buildings in the area. The lobby was small and surprisingly clean, much cleaner than the interior of the Crest. An older woman, the innkeeper you presumed, stood at the desk.

“We’d like two rooms. How much would that be?” Mando asked, not interested in entertaining niceties.

“So sorry sir, we only have one room available. A few of our rooms are under renovation, and there’s only one unoccupied that is fit to house anyone,” the woman said with a sickly sweet smile.

Mando sighed, obviously conflicted with the choice laid in front of him. He turned to you for your input.

“I- I don’t mind sharing a room. We don’t have to if you’re not comfortable, I just thought it be nice to escape the ship for the night.” You rushed your words out, feeling shy at the prospect of sharing the room with Mando. He had his own quarters on the ship, and you had yours, if you could even consider them quarters. After a few beats, Mando put some credits on the desk, and took the key the woman was offering.

Pushing down the excitement you felt, you grabbed your things that you had set down and followed Mando to your room. It’s not like you hadn’t been living in close proximity with Mando for the past few weeks anyways.

But this was different.

And you didn’t fully realize why it was so different until you opened the door to your room and saw that there was only one queen sized bed. Your jaw dropped, as you looked to Mando for his reaction. Nothing, as usual. He just walked into the room as if nothing had changed.

How was this gonna go? Were you just supposed to… share? The bed wasn’t puny, plenty of room for the both of you. But this was crossing a line that you didn’t even realize had been established. You didn’t really know much about each other and hadn’t been acquainted for very long. Not to mention the burning need you felt for him growing day by day.

And now you had to share a bed with him. No big deal.

Grogu’s cries for attention brought you out of your reverie of thoughts. You picked him up from his pram and placed him on the bed, allowing him to take in the room. The love and affection for the child had grown immensely since Mando had first introduced the two of you. You were initially shocked at how silently affectionate Mando was with him. You had never expected him to be the paternal type. You had yet to learn how the curious pair had found each other; a small part of you wondered if Mando looked similar to the child under his mask.

Mando had set his things on the chair in the corner and mumbled something about using the refresher. And as quickly as the door shut, you heard the shower turn on and the sound of beskar hitting the floor.

The realization that Mando was maskless, naked, just a few feet away sent a shockwave through your body. Was he tan? Did he have blond or brown hair? Was he truly strong or did the beskar just add extra bulk? You imagined he had scars littering his body, with chest hair dusting his front. The thought of it trailing down beneath his pants sent a shiver down your spine. Stars, your mind was in the gutter.

The sun had set, and Grogu’s eyes started to flutter and shut on one of the pillows on the bed. You picked him up and cradled him, resting your cheek to his. You savored moments like this; the ones that made your heart warm and full of comforting joy. Grogu’s breathing slowed, letting out snores every once in a while. You heard the shower shut off, and carefully placed Grogu into his pram, closing the top for him to sleep in peace.  

Mando stepped out of the refresher in a thin pair of sleep trousers, a similar shirt and, of course, his helmet. Your gaze made you realize that he was definitely not wearing underwear, not leaving much to the imagination. You felt your face heat up as you looked anywhere but at him, almost positive that your face has turned as red as the setting sun.

“Your turn,” Mando said as he sauntered to the chair in the corner. He placed his things on the ground, sat in the chair, and crossed his arms as if to get comfortable.

“You’re not sleeping over there, are you?” you asked.

“I… just assumed… I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Your blush was back with a vengeance.

“I don’t mind. We got this room to relax, and you sure as hell don’t seem at ease with the way you’re sitting.” He said nothing for a few moments before sighing and standing to walk over towards the bed.

Oh Maker, this is actually happening, you thought. What act was more intimate than sharing a bed with someone? Well, there was the obvious one, but…

You scurried to the washroom, desperate to cool yourself down and collect your thoughts. This didn’t have to be a big deal, and if you kept acting all standoffish like you had been, you’d chase Mando away with the bizarre energy you were emitting.

You splashed cold water on your face to calm your blush, brushed your teeth with vigor, and changed into your pajamas. Granted, they were much scantier than the ideal, but you hadn’t expected to be sharing a bed, let alone a room, with the Mandalorian.

Stepping out of the refresher, you see Mando lying in bed with the lamplight on. Maker, you wanted to nothing but climb in with him and lay on his chest…

His chest. This was the first time you’d seen him without all that bulky armor. Through his thin clothing you could tell he was strong, with broad shoulders and contoured muscle. His helmet turned towards you, and what you didn’t know was that he was eyeing you in your not-so-modest sleep clothes as well.

What you didn’t know was how Mando gazed at you when you held the child, cooing at him as he gently tugged on your hair or stroked your cheek. His helmet protected him from you finding out how often he stared at you in adoration. Your curves, your smile, your silent strength. Stars, he thought you were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But what you saw when he looked at you was a silent T-visor staring at you with no emotion.

After a beat, your gaze met the floor as you walked to the other side of the bed, closest to the window. You crawled under the covers, waiting for some quick comment or a reaction from the man next to you. Finally, he spoke.

“Are you sure you don’t want me in the chair?” he asked.

“Stars, Mando, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’d want to be as far away from me as possible,” you responded, embarrassed.

“That’s- no, not at all. I, uh, just wanted you to feel comfortable,” he stumbled. You had never seen him so lost for words, so taken back.

“I promise, Mando, if anything I feel more comfortable with you next to me.” Oh Maker, why did you just say that? That was the most upfront you’d been with him. Just as you were about to take back your words…

“I feel the same,” he responded quietly. Stars, if your heart didn’t explode at his words.

It was quiet for a few moments, until you said, “Well… goodnight Mando.”

“Goodnight.” He turned off the lamplight and shuffled deeper under the blankets. You were unsure if you should stay as close to the edge as possible or be truly comfortable and let yourself get a little closer to Mando. Before you could make up your mind, exhaustion overtook you and you drifted to sleep.

*****

Mando stirred in your sleep, disturbed by something he hadn’t recognized yet. As he continued to drift in and out of sleep, he heard something that he wasn’t sure was a part of a dream or reality.

Quiet mumblings came from your side of the bed, mixed with indistinguishable groans. His instincts kicked in, becoming fully awake to survey the room for any threats. It took him a moment to realize that as you slept, you had moved closer to Mando – much closer.

Your leg was draped over his torso, with your chest pressed to his side and your arm resting on his chest. But what he noticed most was the way your hips rolled, your core grinding against the side of his thigh. Looking at your face, he could tell you were asleep. Your breaths grew heavier, quiet groans turning into moans. Mando felt his pants grow tighter, not know whether or not to wake you from your obvious wet dream.

Mando froze when he heard you say his name while your hips sped up. “M-Mando, don’t stop… Please…” Fuck, you were dreaming about him. He wanted nothing more than to rub the growing problem in his pants, but he knew that crossed a line.

As your breath started to hitch, he could tell you were getting close. Just as you were about to cum, you jolted awake, breathing heavily while taking in what was going on.

You looked down at the scene you had caused, rendered speechless. Flooded with humiliation, you jumped out of bed and ran to the refresher as Mando shouted your name. You slammed the refresher door and locked it, tears springing to your eyes. Fuck fuck fuck, this was bad. Did you just ruin everything? Mando must hate you now.

“Please open the door, I’m not mad. Let’s just talk,” Mando said through the door, not wanting to reveal how he felt behind a slab of wood. You said nothing, feeling utterly mortified. There’s no way you could look him in the eye (well, helmet) after getting yourself off on his thigh in your sleep. Fuck.

After twenty minutes of Mando trying to convince you that he wasn’t upset and he just wanted to talk, he gave up. Sighing, he pushed himself off the floor and went back to sit on the bed. Though the tension in his pants had gone down, he couldn’t stop thinking about the sounds you made. He looked down to see that you had left a wet spot on his leg, causing him to groan. He had to stop himself from thinking that way, at least for right now while you were upset.

Meanwhile, in the bathroom, you were in shock. You tried your best to recount what had happened, but it didn’t help that you were asleep for most of it. The dream you were having a blur; Mando on top of you, and the intense feeling of being filled to the brim. Then, you remember waking up to Mando staring down at you, putting two and two together, and that was that.

You realized that Mando was awake before you were, which means he was watching you… do that to him. He didn’t try to wake you up or stop you. He was watching you get off. That had to mean… he liked it. He liked seeing you like that. Right?

You slowly stood up from the bathroom floor, wiping the tears you didn’t notice had fallen down your cheeks. Taking a few deep breaths, you calmed your bedhead and opened the washroom door, rounding the corner to face Mando sitting on the bed.

He looked up from the spot on the floor he was staring at as he sat deep in thought.

“Are- are you okay?” he asked, uncertain of what he should say.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I was asleep and I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable,” you admit, eyes glued to the floor. A few moments of deafening silence pass, with you shuffling in the spot where you stood and Mando’s helmet fixed towards you.

“What did you dream about?” Mando asked quietly. The Mandalorian was normally so stoic and strong in his conviction that to hear his voice quiver in nervousness made your gaze shoot up to his.

“It’s… embarrassing. I don’t want you to think less of me.” Your face turned beet red, a trait of yours you didn’t realize you possessed until you met Mando. He was the first person to make you feel shy and flustered.

“I won’t, I promise. I just want to know… I need to know.”

“It was… about me. And you.” Mando rose to walk over to where you were standing, near the foot of the bed.

“What about us, exactly? You can tell me. Tell me everything.” You hesitated to meet his gaze, eyes wide and nervous.

“You were… on me. In me. All over me.” You felt yourself getting breathless as Mando got closer to you, as you retold your dream without getting too graphic yet still admitting that you had dreamt of him taking you.

“And was I gentle, or was I rough?” Mando’s voice grew husky, just as breathless as you. Maker, his voice made you weak at the knees.

“Gentle, at first. But the longer you went you got rougher. Much rougher.” Your voice dropped into a whisper as Mando found himself right in front of you, almost chest to chest. Your eyes dropped to admire his chest, what it’d look like without his shirt. You wanted to trace every scar that marked his skin, kiss him, bite him.

He grabbed your chin with his thumb and forefinger, drawing your gaze from his chest to his helmet.

“And which did you like better? Tell me,” he whispered through the modulator, but there was no filtering out how deep and raspy his voice had gotten, like you had never heard before.

“I… I was just happy you were touching me,” you whispered, in shock that this wasn’t just another dream. His hand drifted from your chin to your neck, caressing every inch of you. You closed your eyes, unable to believe that he was touching you without his gloves on.

Suddenly, both hands came to your waist and pulled you into his chest, your hands finding their place on his chest. You whimpered, never feeling so small, not knowing why you liked it so much.

“Do you want me to touch you, sweet one? Like I did in your dream?” he rasped.

“Please… please touch me, Mando.” He groaned at that, manhandling you so your back turned to the bed and quickly thrown onto the bed.

“I like hearing you beg, love. Beg some more for me.” You whimpered, flushed and embarrassed but in the best way. Mando yanked at your legs so they were hanging off the bed with him standing between your knees. His hands drifted from your stomach up to your breasts, squeezing them while his thumbs rubbed your hardened nipples through your shirt.

Unable to take it any longer, you sat up and yanked your shirt over your head as Mando did the same. His expanse of muscle was all you could think about, the thatches of chest hair made you want to run your hands all over him.

He dropped to his knees in front of you, playing with the waistband of your sleep shorts.

“Tell me, did I eat this sweet pussy of yours in your dream?” You moaned, unable to remember but wanting his mouth on you all the same.

“I want you to, but your helmet…” Mando grabbed the blanket that was at the end of the bed, throwing it so one end covered your stomach and the other fell near the middle of his back. Awkwardly, you saw him maneuver under the blanket to take his helmet off, and then your shorts.

Before you could say so much as a “please,” Mando’s mouth enveloped your cunt with his hot mouth. Your gasp was loud and ragged, not expecting him to feel this good. You felt him moan into you, licking from your hole up to the tip of your clit.

“Am I the one who made you this wet, my sweet one? You’re dripping onto the bed for me,” you heard him rasp under the blankets.

“Please, Mando, you feel so f-fucking good,” you gasp as he puts his mouth on you again. You reach under the blanket to grab his hair to pull him the exact spots you wanted his mouth to be. Maker, his mouth was immaculate. His tongue messily toyed with your clit, groaning in your cunt when you tugged his hair which sent vibrations everywhere.

When he found that one spot, just to the left of your clit, you started to feel that familiar tension in your stomach, the one you’d get when you’d touch yourself in the silence of night in the Crest. You tilted your hips just right as he sucked your clit into your mouth, letting out an animalistic moan.

As soon as you felt him hum into your cunt again, you were gone. You fell over a cliff higher than ever before as everything went utterly white, white in your vision and white noise in your ears.

Maker, you came so fucking hard. And through the whole thing, Mando licked and sucked at you, slowing down when you eventually came down. You felt like you were floating through the aftermath as Mando kissed the inside of your thighs, and through the reverie you were in you felt the tickle of facial hair on your skin. You smiled to yourself, finally able to know something about the appearance of the man you adored so.

Mando quickly put his helmet back on under the blanket before pulling himself over you, stroking your face with the back of his hand.

“Do you want more? Or do you want me to stop?” he asked. As spent as you felt, at the sound of his voice your body began rearing up for more.

“More. I need your cock, Mando, so badly,” you whimpered, feeling a brand new wave of wetness flood at the apex of your legs.

You picked your head up, finally wrenching your eyes open as you felt Mando start to take his pants off. You were very suddenly awake again when you saw his cock spring out. He was big, bigger than the boys you had taken by far.

“I- I don’t know if you’ll fit. I’ve never had a man bigger than you.”

“No, sweet one, you’ve only had boys. I can’t wait to be the first man who wrecks you,” he rasps into your ears as your hands wrap themselves around his neck and down his back. Stars, he was sexy, an odd mix of shy and domineering all at once.

He started rubbing the tip against your cunt, and suddenly you were on fire again. You had never tried to get yourself again after one orgasm, always too spent and high on dopamine to go again. So you never got to realize that once you had one, more orgasms were not very difficult to achieve. Until, Mando’s tip swirled around your clit and you could feel the coil tighten yet again.

“M-Mando, I’m gonna cum again if you keep doing that,” you whimpered, causing him to groan and only put more pressure on your clit.

“Then do it, my love. I want to see your face when you cum for me.” You let out a series of curses until you came again, slightly weaker than the previous one but it rocked through you. Before you could even come down, Mando thrusted himself into you in one go. You let out a yell bordering on a scream, feeling your pussy stretch itself to fit all of him. Stars, the burn of the stretch made you shiver.

“Oh f-fuck, my sweet girl has an even sweeter pussy,” he gasped as he started to thrust himself into you. “S-so fucking t-tight and w-warm, I’m not gonna last…”

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as Mando’s thrusts sped up, slamming into you at an unfathomable rate.

“No no, look at me. Look at me while I’m making you feel good,” Mando growled as he grabbed your cheeks to make you look at his helmet. You tried so hard to keep your eyes open, but as Mando tilted his hips just right, jamming into your G-spot, you lost control over your body. You were saying something, but you were so far gone that you couldn’t decipher what it was.

“Is that- fuck- all you can say, pretty girl? Please? Please what? What do you need, fuck I’ll give you everything you want, just say the word,” Mando rambled, just as drunk on your pussy as you were on his cock.

“D-d-don’t stop, p-please don’t s-stop,” you uttered out, not completely sure if you were having one long orgasm or if it was building to something even bigger.

“I’m never gonna stop, baby, never wanna stop…” Without warning, an orgasm so strong racked through your body. You had never cum just from penetration before, but the way the hair at the base of Mando’s cock was brushing against your cunt as he fucked you sent you beyond the edge.

“Oh my fucking- stars, baby you’re so tight I can barely move… I-I’m gonna-“ Mando gasped as you felt him cum deep inside you, moaning louder than you thought he would.

You both gasped for breath, utterly exhausted from the best sex in both of your lives. Mando pulled out and laid next you on the bed, stroking your hair gently.

“I wish I could kiss you right now,” you croaked, voice almost gone from overuse. Silence fell over the two of you, and you wanted to take back your words, until…

“Close your eyes. And don’t open them. Promise?” he said.

“I promise, I swear I won’t,” you said, shutting your eyes with your heart leaping at the prospect of finally kissing him. After a few moments of the sounds of shuffling next to you, you felt a soft pair of lips meet yours. It was tentative at first, but after a few gentle pecks Mando caressed your face and kissed you with a passion so strong it took your breath away. You felt his mustache tickle your upper lip as he kissed like if he pulled away, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

When he finally pulled away, you reminded yourself to keep your eyes closed as he put his helmet back on. You pulled yourself over him, almost in the exact position you had found yourself in when you woke up from your dream, except this time Mando’s arm was draped under your neck.

“I’m glad we finally did that,” Mando admitted after a while. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first day you started living on the Crest.” You lifted your head from his chest and rested your chin on his right pec, gazing at his face.

“You mean that?” you ask.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

You grinned from ear to ear, thanking the Maker that this wasn’t just because Mando was horny and he had found you getting yourself off on him. He had wanted you, too.

“For a minute I thought…I thought you’d tell me to leave and never come back. I was so embarrassed to wake up like that. But… I guess it ended up helping us out,” you chuckled. You heard Mando chuckle too as his chest shook a bit, warming your heart.

“I will never ask you to leave. I want you to stay, I need you to stay,” he admitted quietly. “Plus, I don’t know anyone else who would take care of Grogu so well.”

“Oh, Maker, Grogu!” you exclaimed, realizing Grogu had been closed in his pram in the corner throughout the entire… act.

“The device is soundproof, he didn’t hear a thing,” Mando explained. You let out a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know, with those ears?” you laughed, hearing Mando laugh with you.

“Maybe they’re more for balance rather than hearing,” Mando replied, causing you to let out a loud laugh, making joy flood Mando’s body.

“We can only hope…”

[makeste]

so let’s talk about the new bak-u-go stuff

hey guys, so long story short, I took all of the bak-u-go stuff out of my weekly liveblog/recap post, and put it into its own separate post so that it didn’t take over the recap completely. so this is my big “all of my thoughts about the second OFA user’s vestige in chapter 304” post, basically.

my opinion going into the chapter

okay so without mincing words, my very controversial stance on this theory going in was more or less, “yes, I do think that maybe that Bakugou-shaped shadow who looks exactly like Bakugou could, in fact, be Bakugou.” not only that, but it strikes me as much more feasible than the alternatives, “Bakugou’s ancestor who looks exactly like him was the second user of OFA for some reason, and Horikoshi keeps hiding his face because... we don’t really know”, or “this is just some random guy with spiky hair, and again his face is being hidden just because.”

like, there is some reason we’re not allowed to know what he looks like, especially at this point. and writing-wise, there are really only three possible explanations for this. (1) it’s a red herring meant to trick us for some reason, (2) his character design hasn’t been completed yet, or (3) something about this character’s appearance is a spoiler, and the reveal is supposed to be a surprise.

regarding (1), I actually think this is the case with the Third. clearly he is not Kirishima as some had speculated. he doesn’t appear to be familiar at all. so if that’s the case, why is his face also being hidden? my theory is that it’s simply to lampshade the fact that the Second is being hidden as well. if Second was the only vestige whose face we couldn’t see, it would be beyond obvious at that point that he was someone familiar to us. having another vestige doing the same weird stuff makes him stand out slightly less.

anyways though, as far as Second himself being a red herring, I guess he could be. but a red herring for what? not to say it isn’t possible, but I don’t really see what the purpose would be.

regarding (2), this is a remote possibility, but imo it would be pretty uncharacteristic of Horikoshi. plus by this point he’s had more than enough time to flesh the design out. all of the other vestige character designs are completed, and we’ve seen all of Second and Third except their fronts and faces by this point. so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this isn’t the reason.

which leaves (3): this character’s identity is important in some way, and is being purposely kept secret. this to me implies that it must be someone we know (because otherwise it wouldn’t be a spoiler). which basically means that no matter what, the possibilities are about to get weird.

my thoughts on the new “evidence” in the chapter

first off, my biggest impression is that there really isn’t much new evidence at all either way lol. but okay, let’s review what we got.

I’m ignoring Third at this point because I honestly have no idea who he is. he may very well be someone we haven’t met yet, so I don’t think there’s much point in speculating. so let’s focus on Second instead.

the hair

first off, his hair isn’t quite right to be Bakugou’s. it’s darker than Bakugou’s hair usually is, at least in the close-up, and also the hair on the nape of his neck doesn’t quite look right; it’s got more of an undercut vibe than Bakugou’s usually does. Bakugou’s hair is usually more out-of-control dandelion puff from the back.

so yeah, I’m not sold by this image. though on the other hand, I will say that as far as the argument that his hair is too dark, that’s undermined by the wide angle panel right before the close-up in which his hair isn’t colored in at all.

so yeah, it could just be something about the lighting in the close-up. also, the RHA scan seems to have upped the contrast a bit more than the original image.

here it doesn’t seem to be quite as dark compared to the wall he’s standing against. I could be wrong, though; we’ll get a better idea when the official version is released in a couple days.

but overall the style of the hair seems more off to me than the color. on the whole, I’m not really convinced either way here, so I’ll move on.

the rest of him

okay so first off, obviously this is not Bakugou’s current hero costume in any way, shape or form. honestly my first thought was “what is Shippuuden-era Naruto doing here in the OFA Mystical Space Land” lol. so yeah, no idea what that’s all about.

however he does have gauntlets! so this is definitely someone with some sort of arm or hands-related quirk. and Kacchan does have a new gauntlet design that we’ll see in movie 3, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that these could be another new design along those lines. that said, these are clearly not his current big ugly grenade-style gauntlets.

last but not least, this person seems older than Bakugou, which for me makes me considerably less enthused about the possibilities here, since I’m a weirdo who likes the idea of a timeskip even less than most people seem to like the idea of time travel, lol. then again there really isn’t much here to support that “he seems older” statement; that’s just the general vibe I get from him, idk.

I will say though that he has Kacchan’s same triangle-shaped torso with the same broad shoulders and upper back tapering down into a more slender build. that stuck out to me right away when I looked at this image. but he really does give off Naruto vibes as well lol, like I can’t unsee it sob.

anyway, and last but not least,

the hidden faces

because so far most of the attention seems to be on their appearances. but those aside, this chapter introduces a very interesting question that this mystery will have to address one way or the other. namely, why are these two vestiges turned around and not interacting with the others?

“so that we can’t see their faces, duh” -- no, I get that, lol. but let’s talk in-story explanation now. why are they huddled in the time-out corner not moving or speaking? what could possibly be the reason for that. we can see them clearly enough, so we know that they’re “unlocked” and fully formed in that sense. All Might’s vestige is the only one that’s not yet visible, and supposedly that’s because he was quirkless?? and so he didn’t have a quirk factor that could be passed down through OFA initially. though I didn’t quite understand all of that part tbh.

but so then what’s the deal with these two losers? are they just antisocial or what? OFA First says that the vestige souls which were chilling out inside of OFA gradually gained the ability to take a physical form as OFA grew more powerful. and these two clearly have taken a physical form. so then why don’t they talk? there are only a few explanations for this that I can see.

(1) it could be that these guys are still alive, just like All Might (who doesn’t seem to be able to speak either, although the other vestiges can communicate with him in other ways).

(2) or, these guys are purposely hiding from Deku for some reason. (or at least, hiding as best as they can in this weird little rock slab floating in space.)

that’s it. if anyone else can think of more possibilities let me know because I’ve been sitting here racking my brain lol. this is all I can come up with. and honestly, either of these explanations would be suspicious as hell, theory-wise. if these two vestiges are still alive, that almost guarantees time travel right there. and if it’s simply that they’re hiding themselves from Deku, then that begs the question of why. which, again, leads us back to “they’re familiar, and Deku would recognize them.” (though that last bit goes against what I was saying earlier about the Third, doesn’t it. honestly I’m just spitballing here now, I haven’t really thought this all out too thoroughly.)

soooo... yeah. that’s pretty much where I’m at. nothing about this seems to make any more sense than it did a chapter ago tbh. though I will end this post by addressing one more thing, just cuz.

“this theory is dumb and makes no sense”

the correct statement to make here isn’t “this makes no sense”; it’s “we don’t know what’s going on yet.” if and when we finally get an explanation, then we can start making judgments about how much sense it does or doesn’t make. but until then we have nothing to base that verdict on.

same thing with “it’s dumb” -- look, “I hate time travel plots because they rarely work” is a valid opinion. but “rarely” isn’t the same thing as “never.” there are good time travel plots out there. idk why everyone keeps rolling with the assumption that this is going to be some cliche plot hole-filled science fiction bs narrative with a tragic ending. we have literally nothing to base that on. we have no answers and a whole lot of questions, is what we have.

maybe it will be disproven! or maybe it won’t, and it will be exactly as awful as everyone thinks and it will ruin the manga entirely. or maybe it will actually be really cool. we don’t know yet. that’s my one and only conclusion here -- that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. but then again I guess it wouldn’t be BnHA fandom if we didn’t. anyway so thus concludes my post.

[miceenscene]

'tis the damn season

frankie/reader | childhood friends to lovers | pre-canon

wc: 1.8k/2.5k

summary: At one point in your lives, you knew Frankie better than anyone else on earth. When did that change?

warnings: none

an: don't let anyone tell you that second person doesn't work from another character's perspective, least of all yourself while editing

Masterpost | ao3

Chapter 2: Who am I Related to?

December 8, 2012 18:57

Hudson’s was a shitty bar just up highway 210 outside of Fort Bragg, the nearest watering hole to the base as the crow flies.

As a result, it served pretty damn near exclusively military personnel. When it changed ownership about four years back, the new management decided to reflect that and so the place looked like the Fourth of July and Top Gun had thrown up on it. Never mind that Fort Bragg was an Army base. Still, they had cheap booze and greasy food that was far better than the commissary, so it was always busy.

Pope had texted the usual suspects a few hours ago that he was heading to Hudson’s that evening, making Frankie immediately ditch his plans of drinking alone for drinking with Pope and whoever else showed up. Most likely just Benny and Ironhead now that Redfly had semi-retired down to Florida. It was a short drive to the bar from the dorms on base, but it was enough to make Frankie groan and press hands to his lower back as he got out of his car and made his way inside.

Pope was sitting at the bar and didn’t look up from texting on his phone as Frankie gingerly eased into the stool next to him.

“Hey, Fish,” Pope said, rereading the email.

“Hey.” At the bartender’s attention, Frankie pointed to Pope’s beer before daring a slight back stretch.

Pope sent his email and then looked over. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just finished PT.”

He chuckled once. “Back still fucked?”

“More tired than fucked anymore,” Frankie managed, shaking his head and wincing. The bartender delivered his beer, and Frankie took a swig. “When did we get old?”

“¿De qué estás hablando ‘nosotros’, viejo?”

Frankie jabbed an elbow and grinned slightly down at his next swig. “Culero.”

“Hey, before everyone gets here–” Pope looked at him, an oddly serious expression on his face for their usual bar. “I found out today you haven’t re-enlisted yet.”

Frankie immediately dropped his gaze to the suddenly very interesting glass in his hand. “Ah, no. No, I haven’t.”

“I’m trying to pull strings to get Benny into our unit full-time. I think he’d fit well with the team. Then Simmons tells me you haven’t signed your new papers yet. So what’s up?”

Frankie glanced over to see Pope still focused on him. “Nothing, nothing. I… I’m still thinking about it.”

He chuckled. “What’s there to think about?”

“We all want out someday, right? If we’re lucky enough to choose when we leave.”

“Yeah, but there’s thinking and thinking.” Pope smacked his shoulder. “What – are you gonna become a real estate agent like Redfly?”

No. Definitely not. Even just the idea of shilling condos was enough to make Frankie’s eyes glaze over. But still–

“Real estate agents make more money than we do.”

Pope made a considering face for a moment then brushed it off. “Yeah, but you’d miss it. You’re like me. We like the rush.”

Frankie nodded slightly. This is why he was still just thinking about it. It wasn’t a small thing to walk away from fourteen years with the Army. Especially since everyone knew the retirement benefits were absolute shit until you hit twenty. But he could already tell, he didn’t have another six years in him. He wasn’t even sure he had another deployment.

“You know the deadline’s New Year’s, right?” Pope said, cutting through his thoughts.

“Yeah, I know. I have some leave I have to take before the year’s out anyway.”

Pope nodded. “Good. Clear your head, get some perspective. See how fucking boring civvy life is, and then come back Jan 2 and join my team.”

Frankie smiled wryly; Pope always could make anything sound easy. “Something like that.”

“You have holiday plans then?” he asked, leaning an elbow on the bar.

Frankie sucked in breath. “I guess I’ll go back to my parents’. My mom’s been wanting me to visit for a while now.”

“How long’s it been?”

“I saw them in DC last summer, but I haven’t been back home… since I joined Delta.”

“Remind me where they’re at.”

“Up north. Little town in the middle of nowhere. Still in the same house I grew up in.” He could picture the wreath on the door, the twinkling lights his dad always strung across the front fence every December. A matching set used to be hung on the fence exactly opposite across the street. Who lived there now, he wondered. Would they put the tree in the front window too?

“Soldier coming home for Christmas. Sounds like a Hallmark movie.”

“Fuck you,” Frankie replied as the others finally arrived.

--

Frankie got his answer as he ducked out the front door of his parent’s house about a week later. His breath immediately fogged as he sucked in a few calming breaths of night air, the pressure in his head slowly levelling. Out in the still darkness, the noise level coming from the living room was finally manageable. Inside, with all of his cousins and his aunts and uncles and the music and everyone talking over each other and the heater set far too high for the number of people inside– he… he just needed a break.

Seven hours was a decent stint for his first day. He’d be around longer tomorrow. Wading in. That was the key. Because he was now the kind of person that had to treat time with his family like running a marathon. Apparently.

He walked down to the twinkling front fence, making a mental note to shovel the front walk tomorrow, and stopped. The house across the street – your house, as it would forever be in his mind – was completely dark. A small sign posted in the front yard announced some sort of home refurbishment company was going to be arriving soon. No doubt they would come in, strip away wallpaper and old tile and heart to paint it all beige and granite for the quick resell.

He hadn’t had the heart to ask his mother yet how long the house hadn’t belonged to your family. No need for another reminder of how much time had passed, how much he’d missed. He had more than enough already.

The front door opened behind him, casting a temporary warm glow across the dark snow, and his dad stepped out, pipe in hand. He meandered down the front steps to join Frankie at the gate, puffing a few times before speaking.

He shook his head. “It’d break his heart to see it so empty, but I understand why she sold,” he said, looking at the forlorn house with him.

“How long ago?” Frankie asked.

“Few months. Not too long after the funeral.” Dad looked his way for a moment. “I’ll give it ten minutes before I tell your mother you left.”

“I… thanks,” he replied weakly.

“Will you be back tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back.”

Dad nodded slowly, leaving just the pipe smoke wafting between them for a minute. “Take it slow, no need to rush.”

“Thanks.” He stepped through the gate, fishing in his pocket for his car keys.

“Francisco,” he said, making Frankie stop and look at him. “We’re glad you’re back.”

Frankie just nodded and went to his car. Even though he couldn’t bear another minute in the noisy press of his loved ones, the idea of going back to his lonely hotel room was truly abysmal. So after some finagling with the ignition, he started the engine and headed to the one bar he’d ever been to in his hometown.

--

There were Christmas lights in the window and a dancing Santa on the bar as Frankie walked in. Some sort of forcibly cheery holiday classic played over the speakers tucked between quirky memorabilia that hung over every square inch of wall space. And even though public smoking had been outlawed by the state well over a decade ago, cigarette stench had sunk into the very foundation of the place.

It was nothing like Frankie remembered. But it would do.

Eyes automatically sweeping across the moderately busy room for a Thursday night, he headed for a stool at the far end of the bar, ordering a beer when the bartender came by. It was just one step up from swill, but comfortably numbing in its mediocrity. He looked across the room again, checking for familiar faces this time and finding none. No surprise there. A decade was a long time, and really he hadn’t been around too much for the years before that too.

There were couples on dates here, friend groups, some sort of girls’ night happening in the corner, a few loners like him hovering at the bar. Most everyone was smiling, talking, laughing so hard their whole bodies shook. A whole world of Normal. And Frankie was a tourist.

Pope was right. He couldn’t go back to this. He couldn’t make it through one whole day with blood relatives anymore. What was he thinking? That he could just settle into a normal life like the last decade of his work was nothing? Get a 9-to-5 and a mortgage and a girl – not that he’d ever had too much luck in that department. Especially when there was one girl that eclipsed all others, and he didn’t even know her phone number any more.

The door opened, making the Santa on the bar dance, and every thought in Frankie’s head immediately stopped. His eyes drew wide as he stared, jaw barely restrained from slapping against his chest. Was it really – course it was, there wasn’t anyone else it could be. A whole century could pass, and he’d still know that face.

It was you.

Live, in the flesh you. Cheeks pinked from the wind, haloed by the street lights outside, wrapped in a truly astonishing number of woolen layers. Not a half-remembered fantasy, but Real and breathing and even more beautiful than his memory had claimed.

He watched you shake a few flurries out of your hair and stomp the excess snow off your boots, shutting the door behind you as you waved to the bartender. Your gaze swung across the bar, completely skimming past him, and landed on the girls’ night in the corner. You smiled. He stared.

You began to head over to the people you were obviously here to meet. On nothing but pure instinct, he immediately got out of his stool and followed you. Falling into step behind you, he stretched a hand forward to hook a few fingers inside your elbow.

You looked back at him, and for a heart-breaking breath there was no recognition in your eyes.

Till he gave you a half-smile and said, “Hey Bo.”

You blinked, mouth dropping open. “Frankie?” you asked.

He nodded.

Your astonishment ballooned so wide it froze your whole face solid for a moment. Then you laughed, out of far more shock than amusement, and gave him a smile all his own. “Oh my god!! You’re here!”

You immediately wrapped him in a hug. And though it took him a moment to return it, for the first time in ten whole years, he was home.

Chapter 3: Not my Homeland Anymore

taglist: @kelenloth ; @darnitdraco ; @gracie7209 ; @616wilsons ; @icanbeyourjedi ; @astroboots ;

[quirklessidiot]

Title: filthy rich [3/3]  Pairing: millionaire!sakusa kiyoomi x y/n [filthy capitalist au] Genre: mystery, major angst ahead, thriller, mafia!au-ish

Synopsis: Just run, Y/N. Don’t look back.

Warnings: dark and yandere themes, toxic relationships, mentions of violence, shady business, class differences, mentions of rape, smoll breeding kink, unwanted pregnancy, mentions of abortion, and sakusa being a manipulative bastard 

Notes: 

Im disappering again for a week or two so as a parting gift, here ya go, im starting a bokuto fanfic soon and posting the reboot of notice me soon too hnnng thanks for the wait guys uwu

A sorta realistic take on a yandere is harder than it looks kssjdn omg anyways here yall go the long awaited last chapter of filthy rich. I’m not sure if I should put like a one shot sequel but so far im marking this series completed. Thanks for sticking by!

previous || series masterlist || blood son [sequel;one shot]

You run your hands through your hair and shut your eyes tight, the quietness and stillness of your shared apartment was something to bask on before you put on a fake mask of happiness. It had been exactly two months since you found out about the birth control switch and the medaide agenda. 

In the span of those two months, you had grown more observant towards your boyfriend’s actions and you knew that it wouldn’t be anytime soon until he actually notices that you were onto him. 

You let out a shaky breath as you recollected some weird things you’ve seem to have noticed, how his brows would furrow when he’d receive a call indicating that something was up and it was serious or how you visited your ex-boss one time a week or so ago along with Kenjiro since you wanted to see how he was doing.

“...Well, he just didn’t come home and sold the place. Apparently he was in a rush to move or something because of family matters so I didn’t exactly see him.” the neighbor gossiped to you two.

“Y/N?”

You jump on your spot as you hear that dreadfully familiar voice.

“Hey,” You greet, walking up to him, you decide to do your usual hug but stop when you notice a small red stain on his necktie, the tie is dark blue and although it wasn’t obvious from afar, it definitely was up close. Your brows are furrowed together, this time in pure curiosity, “Did you get hurt? It’s unlike you to get messy.”

You notice the quick shift of attitude in his eyes, you were seemingly getting good at observing his emotions these days and it looked like he panicked for a second there.

Odd.

“A friend of mine had gotten hurt a while ago, you remember Atsumu Miya?”

A vivid image of a blonde man crossed your mind, he was another conglomerate friend of your boyfriend, another person to be weary of to add to the list, “Oh, is he alright?” you asked, trying to keep it casual as you untie his tie for him as usual.

“Yes. He’s awfully clumsy. You don’t need to worry.”

“Oh…” You mumbled, “by the way, I visited my ex-chief.”

“Ex-chief?”

“Mhm.” you hummed, “You know, my boss from before? Me and a few co-workers decided to visit him since he was a really good boss. Turns out he just left without telling anyone, poor man.”

“Sounds unpleasant. Did you know why he quit?”

“No.” You shrugged as you take the tie out and place it on the side, “He suddenly just quit his job and moved, neighbors said it was also because of family matters. It’s kinda weird because as far as we knew, he didn’t have a family.”

“Would you like me to look into it?”

You almost stiffen when he slithers his arms on your waist but you didn’t want to give away any suspicion, “No. I don’t want to pry. Hopefully he’s enjoying his retirement.” You sighed, turning towards him with a tight smile, “Now what would you like for dinner? I was thinking Mediterranean? I need to lose some weight since I’ve been feeling bloated for a while.”

He leans in for a soft kiss on your temple, “Mediterranean would be fine. Would you like anything else? We could order more.” he hummed, his lips slowly started to dangerously hover on top of yours.

“No, it’s fine.” You give him a quick peck and wiggle your way out of his arms, your stomach doesn’t feel well these days. Whenever you were near Sakusa you had the urge to throw up your innards despite having an empty stomach.

You don’t notice the dangerous gaze on your behind as you pick up the phone for your take-out.

Sakusa hasn’t felt you in a long time and it’s driving him insane, he wants to feel your heat, your body, and everything in between. He wants to fill you up and see you pregnant with his children. He wants everyone in the world to know you were his and his only.

Yet he can’t do that.

You’ve ignored his affections these past few weeks and it had been driving him insane to the point where he had to ask one of his men to put an eye on you to see if you had been cheating on him or seeing someone else.

Yet you hadn’t.

Your routine was the same old one and Sakusa is digging his nails deeply into his skin in his office one day with his tie uncharacteristically untied. Miya Atsumu sits across him, taking a sip from his flask, “Ya look like shit.” the blonde points out.

“Fuck off, Miya.”

“Heard from your cousin that you’re not getting laid by your girl these days.”

“You better be thankful that you’ve got men behind you or I’d be shooting your fucking brains out for saying that.” Sakusa spats, his dark gaze pointedly looking at the blonde across him.

“You should just find someone else then and not yer prude of a-”

“Keep telling me ideas like that and maybe I might just shoot you and chop your body up until it looks fuckin’ unrecognizable.”

Atsumu raises his hands up, signaling that he was giving up, “Gee, omi-omi. I was just giving my advise. It’s so easy to drop her.”

“I don’t want to drop what’s mine.”

“You’ve got issues.” He chuckles, “Haven’t you been switching out her pills and fucking her raw for the last couple of months? I bet yer ass you got her pregnant on that before but ya just don’t know it. Getting her pregnant would definitely secure her spot in her life. Woman’s nuthin’ without ya.”

“She’s...she’s not showing…”

“When was the last time ya two went at it?”

“Two months ago.”

“Ya poor boy.” Atsumu sighs, shaking his head, “Ya sure you don’t want to take a break from being a loyal boyfriend for one night? i bet Y/N wouldn’t notice.”

“And no one would notice if you fucking disappeared. I’ll make sure of it, now get out.”

You may not have been the sharpest tool on the shed but you know that someone’s been tailing you these past few days, you’re not stupid. You could only come to the conclusion that it was Sakusa who was doing such things but you couldn’t get why.

Something just didn’t make sense. It felt like you were missing an important piece in the puzzle, med-aide and the switch of your pills and now a hidden tail?

You furrow your brows together in deep thought  as you sat down next to a teenage boy on his phone, you decided to take the bus today to the grocery store, surprisingly the one tailing you wasn’t around today.

Your eyes slowly shift towards the boy’s phone, it seemed like he was playing a video game.

An otome game, to be exact.

You felt your lips twitch up, you remembered those games a lot growing up. The graphics seem to have massively improved now by the looks of it, “...That looks interesting.” You tell the teenage boy who turns to you in surprise.

“Oh, thanks.” the blonde replied quietly.

“Is that a new otome game?”

“Kind of.” He blinks, his gaze returning back to the screen,  “It’s sort of a remake of the yandere simulator from back then.”

You feel your shoulders tense up.

“A yandere?”

“Yeah.” The blonde nods, “The girl’s awfully creepy in the game, she stalks him, does things to get him. The player has to catch her in the act and evade her at the same time.”

“Oh…” You blink, “I-uh, this is weird… but what’s a yandere again?’

“It’s someone obsessively in love with you. They’ll do anything to have you stay by them.” He says, pushing on a button but suddenly the screen turns red and you feel shivers run down your spine as you hear him curse and the words ‘you’re caught’ appear on the screen.

“W-what happened to your character?”

“He died. Nothing much.” he mumbles, “If the Yandere knows they can’t have you, they’ll kill you.”

You immediately went pale as soon as you heard that. Maybe, just maybe you were being paranoid. He wouldn’t go to that extent, would he?

“How did your character escape the yandere in the game?” 

“Well, I haven’t finished the game yet but based on some anime’s and manga’s I've usually read. They either killed to get away or they moved so far away where they wouldn’t be seen so I think the creator might have the same ending.” The blonde said, he slowly looked to your side, “You’re looking awfully pale, ma’am. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, j-just remembered a horrible game I played back when I was your age.” You gulped in, “Nightmares, you know? The yandere tried to get my character pregnant and tried to get in her way of moving out of the country.”

“Sounds like a very realistic one.”  He mumbles, “What did your character do?”

“I wasn’t able to finish it.” you whispered, loud enough for him to only hear, “I couldn’t really find a way out.”

“The developers of the game must’ve made it hard for you. Maybe your character should’ve ran away,” he advised, “Or better yet, you should’ve killed him.”

“I-well, I don't think there were options like that.”

“Well if I were you and there was no option for killing, I’d run. Far, far away. Change my identity and all that.” he exits the game and stuffs the phone back in his pocket, you get a good look of his cat-like eyes and immediately feel a shiver on your spine with the next words he say, “I mean its a game but you wouldn’t wanna loose and get your character killed, right?”

“R-right.”

The teenage boy hops down without even saying goodbye and you have a scary realization that you can’t break it off like you originally had planned. You needed to run, run far as you can and get lost.

The words that the teenage boy says echoes in your head for the next few days, from that point on, realization dawns upon you that, nothing is certain now. You couldn’t trust anyone, you couldn’t let friends and family be involved in this. Sakusa Kiyoomi is a powerful man so you needed to be careful with how you were going to disappear.

You continue to act nonchalant and the same as you try to lay out your plan but you knew that you had only a week or so to complete this for it to successfully work.

Sakusa Kiyoomi wonders what he should do to save the relationship, he’s tried everything in the book that he could think of but you remained the same. Was this the end of the relationship? For real?

He could never stomach the idea of having you leave him.

It’s eerie that day, something felt different when he came home to an empty apartment. It looked the same yet something felt very, very different. Apparently the apartment guards said you were here since your car hadn’t left the driveway and they hadn’t seen you go out.

He checks out your side of the closet, your clothes remain there untouched and your toiletries were there too. He scans the fridge for your notes but nothing is stuck there. He suddenly feels like something cold was dumped on him.

It couldn’t be, right?

Right?

He runs to every room, checking every nook and cranny and when he finally reaches the last room which was the bathroom, nothing is there.

Everything was in its place except you.

Where were you?

Your bank account remains untouched, your wallet and phone was left in the apartment. It was as if you were returning home, the very least. Komori tells him to calm down, saying that they’re letting the best people find you around the city, they don’t rule out that someone might’ve had the audacity to touch you.

Whoever took you would be given hell to pay, that’s for sure. Was it the triad? Kkangpae’s? Or opposing yakuza’s? Oh, they’ll definitely have their heads on the platter if they tried to harm a single hair on your head.

Sakusa doesn’t even hesitate to notify the police about you already despite the memorandum that twenty-four hours is needed to consider a person missing, it's nothing a little money can fix.

“I hope we find her soon.” Your aunt sighed, “I’ve notified her parents about it. It’s definitely weird that she’d leave all her valuables behind.”

Hinata and Natsu sit there next to their mom, completely sad and worried, “I’ve hired the best people for it already, obaasan. We’ll find Y/N.” Sakusa replies yet his thoughts are in a complete frenzy now.

And find you they did.

No stone was left unturned. He made sure of it. Yet after a month of relentless searching. Nothing came up, it seemed like you had just vanished and Sakusa Kiyoomi had turned the whole underground world upside down for you but nothing came up.

Some say that you disappeared and ran away but that was immediately ruled out, no security cameras saw you in and out during that day and it would be impossible for you to just leave without security cameras on you. The guard had exclaimed that despite the blackout that day, the generators only took a few minutes to power up so they’d definitely catch you on camera in case you ever exited the building (along with the guards since they knew exactly what you looked liked) plus the clothes and such were still there, left untouched.

Some said you died, it was definitely impossible for you to just vanish without a single trace after all since everyone was looking for you.

Yet no one dared to say it in front of the boss, not if they valued their life.

The billionaire had dried out his connections to find you. What good was it to be the most powerful and richest man in the country if he couldn’t find you? Life had no meaning now, you were gone. It felt like a part of him was ceasing to function.

Sakusa Kiyoomi was a dead man walking now.

Unknown to the whole world, you’re in a small town with little to no signal. Your hair is chopped unevenly and your skin is darker from the repeated exposure under the sun, your life is simple and mundane now yet you’re happy.

For the first time in months, you actually felt free.

You shut your eyes tight, the events that transpired this past few months replayed  in your head. Your escape was definitely done as carefully as you can and you didn’t even know if you’d succeed since you weren’t a master in that sort of thing.

You recalled that it was a week before you ran away, a few days after you met that kid in the bus. Someone from the electric company had come to inform you that there was a scheduled black out in the city that day during the afternoon and you felt something bubble up in you. That was the day you’d put your plan into motion.

You knew that the longer you delayed your plan, the harder it would be to escape.

You had a few minutes to actually put your plan to work. The camera’s on the hallways would cease to function for a few minutes according to the guard downstairs as he did a protocol on the building (apparently the generators were quick). So that morning after Sakusa left, you placed only a few clothes and the stash of money you had been carefully hiding in a garbage bag and chopped your hair short in an uneven manner. Burning all the remaining hair on the fireplace and the black hair color that you use with it. The maid uniform that you stole on your floor and a fake name plate that you made was on and you were good to go.

The minute the black out started, you took the garbage bag and walked out. Taking the stairway used by the caretakers, you made sure to just look down and never directly up at the camera’s pretending to work.

When you finally made it out of your building. You let out a stiff sigh and put down the bag, it was only the beginning. If you thought the same way as Sakusa Kiyoomi, you could only imagine that you needed to be more careful from this point on.

You take the newly bought duffel bag that you strategically hid behind some boxes. Thankfully when you had placed it yesterday afternoon, it hadn’t been touched. 

You put on a pair of shorts and a baggy shirt with cheap shades and stuffed the maid uniform in the duffel bag along with your belongings in the garbage bag. You take the other route that led to the busy streets. It was easy to look like a tourist and seemingly blend in the crowd, from that point on, you only had one destination in mind.

When you were younger, you vividly remember an acquaintance telling you about this small town outside of Tokyo where her grandparents were from. It was only an hour away via plane and when you went down another few hours via bus yet if you took the bus route all in all, it would take a few days.

Since it was far, only a few busses actually went there and since you had to leave within the day, you decided to just take the bus nearest to that town and take another bus when you arrived there.

The plan smooth-sailed from that point on.

Except for one minor detail.

You open your eyes and look down at your now small bump. The monster who almost had you trapped left a parting gift, you grip your garden hoe tightly.

A big part of you wanted to kill it.

Yet every time you try to, you hesitate.

The moment you arrived here, you had to pretend to be a weary and poor widow. You just didn’t expect to be a weary and poor expecting widow. You let out an uncharted sigh at the thought, it was hard enough to be alone here with little to no money. 

This child had the demon’s blood in it.

Yes, you may have gone free from his cage but in truth with his seed growing in your stomach day by day, you started to feel quite the opposite.

taglist [thanks for your support ilyasm skkss im so sorry for updating late too :(]

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@kn0xiousnight  

[can’t tag you guys uwu just make sure ur tags are open :<]

[glassesandswords]

Of Wings And Wheelchairs

Pairing: Levi Ackerman & Onyankopon, Levi Ackerman/Hange Zoe (mentioned)

Summary:  Levi and Onyankopon sit in a coffee shop, waiting for Gabi and Falco to return from their small detour during their vacation together. Levi reminisces about the old Survey Corps veterans and their times together as Onyankopon listens. Soon, the conversation makes its way to a person the two knew very well- Hange.

Ao3 Link

“Let’s wait here.”

Levi and Onyankopon stopped at a coffee shop. With so many people bustling about, it was hard to find a place to relax for a while, especially with all the walking they had done. Well, at least all the walking that Onyankopon, Gabi and Falco had done- as Levi had been pushed around on a wheelchair by Falco the whole time. But the kids had spotted an ice cream vendor and left together to buy something to eat, and the older men decided to get a quick drink before continuing on with their journey.

The coffee shop had outdoor seating shaded by giant blue umbrellas that flared briskly over the round tables. A florist sold bouquets nearby. The scent of roses and lavenders wafted through the air, mingling with that of roast coffee.

“Are you sure letting Gabi and Falco go off on their own in a foreign land a good idea?” Levi asked as Onyankopon looked around for an empty table.

“They are fifteen now. They will be alright. Us, old men, shouldn’t be interfering with a pair of love-birds, so let them enjoy this vacation on their own.”

“You might be right about that.”

Onyankopon decided on an empty table on the opposite end of the florist and parked Levi next to him as he pulled a chair for himself. “Fifteen, huh?” Levi muttered, adjusting his wheelchair close to the table. “If they were in Paradis, they would have graduated from the cadet corps. But these two- they have had their fill of the battlefield way before that, being Marley’s warrior candidates and all.”

“Yes. That’s why they deserve to live like the carefree and free-spirited children they are right now.”

“Not that any child needs a reason to live like that. They all are equally deserving of happiness.”

“Of course,” Onyankopon called the waiter over to them. “A black tea and a black coffee, please.”

Levi noted how Onyankopon kept his favorite drink in mind and ordered it for him by default. Over the past three years, the two men had bonded over their shared losses and he had been a constant companion for Levi after the war. Onyankopon had helped him start a new life and set up his own tea shop after he retired in Marley, taking care of all the paperwork and technical details required.

“I heard you spent your childhood in the underground district within Wall Sina,” Onyankopon said as he watched the waiter leave with their order. “I wasn’t allowed there due to the restrictions on the volunteers, but I heard it was a rough place to live in.”

Levi raised an eyebrow. That piece of information was hardly common knowledge. 

“I think I might have an idea of who babbled to you about that,” the face of a certain four-eyed abnormal popped up on Levi’s mind. “Yes. I was raised as a thug in order to survive that hellhole.”

“Did you have anyone close to you at that time? Your parents? Any siblings?”

Usually, Levi would have found it annoying if people dug into his past. But with Onyankopon, he did not really mind. “I was an only child,” he replied, leaning back on his wheelchair, “My mother died when I was young and the closest thing I had to a father was an uncle who abandoned me as soon as he realized that I could take care of myself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s an old story,” he waved his pity off, “I did have two close friends there. Farlan and Isabel. They were as good as a brother and sister to me.” A fond remembrance flitted over his face, as if he could see them in his mind’s eye as he spoke. “The three of us thought life above the ground, in a land touched by the sun would be better. Turns out it is all the same.”

It wasn’t hard for Onyankopon to make out that Farlan and Isabel were probably no more from how Levi’s voice dipped. He changed the topic to something lighter.

“But you finally retired from all your duties and responsibilities. How does it feel to go on vacations to foreign countries?”

“I’m surprised you are dragging me along. Not like I could be of any service anyway, after being permanently bound to this wheelchair,” Levi tapped on the metal armrest. 

“You are too humble, Levi,” Onyankopon shook his head, “I’ve seen you offering guidance to Armin and the others whenever they need it.”

“I help them as much as I can, but in the end, it is nothing more than an old man’s advice.” Levi sighed, remembering a certain someone’s soliloquy in a forest. “Times have changed and perspectives are different. After the rumbling ended, Armin offered me retirement and I took it. But even if I were in top shape, I honestly don’t think I would want to do anything with the Alliance anymore.”

Onyankopon watched Levi as he gazed at the busy road. The man looked broken, like he had lost way too much in life. He reminded him of some of the volunteers who had seen their families killed and hometowns destroyed in front of their own eyes. For previously being known as ‘Humanity’s strongest soldier’, Onyankopon had not seen Levi in action a lot. But the way he held himself together during that day- exactly three years ago, after Odiha- was a testament to his immense internal strength. The man in front of him was a fighter, but the fight had taken its toll on him.

The waiter arrived with steaming drinks and served it on the table.

“How do you drink that bitter bean-juice?” Levi asked as Onyankopon took a careful sip, trying not to burn his tongue in the scalding liquid.

“Six years and you still haven’t warmed up to coffee, have you?”

“I prefer tea, usually that of my own shop.” He sipped his tea, holding it by the rim with his left hand. “But I have to admit, the aroma of coffee is quite enticing.” His voice went back to its hazy tone. “Mike would have liked it. That guy had a sharp nose for things like these.”

Though Onyankopon did not know the details, he knew Mike was probably one of Levi’s previous comrades.

Levi had a habit of talking about his fallen comrades now and then. He did not seem to care if the other person knew them personally or not. Onyankopon assumed that it was to remember and acknowledge their existence and stories, being the last living veteran from his original group.

He heard about the battle of Shiganshina that resulted in the complete decimation of the earlier Survey Corps and wondered if Mike was one of the people who died there. Or maybe he had been one of the many unfortunate victims who were killed by the hands of the pure titans long before. Onyankopon felt a small stab of guilt for following Zeke, who had caused nothing but pain for Levi and the rest of the Survey Corps, but he had his own circumstances. Choosing sides had blinded them from appealing to their common humanity, until Yelena had revealed to him the plan to offer assistance to Paradis before their first scouting expedition six years ago. He had almost convinced himself that the Paradis military would crush them with their titan power before they could put forth that proposal, but then, a certain Survey Corps Commander gave them the warmest welcome they could have received in the island of ‘devils’.

“Brings back memories,” he hummed over his coffee, “Remember, the first time we chatted was over a cup of tea in that tent?”

“Ah yes,” Levi nodded grimly, “Another one of that person’s stupidly optimistic ideas. It was a surprise that you volunteers actually agreed to it.”

There was a silence as Onyankopon knew exactly who he was referring to.

Levi sipped his tea. “Honestly, they’d come up with the most reckless ideas, that Four-eyes.”

Onyankopon gave a small, sad smile. It seemed safe to talk about them. “I have to admit,” he said slowly, “I was shocked when they pointed the barrel of that gun over their one good eye, even if it was unloaded.”

“You don’t know half the trouble Hange caused back in the Survey Corps,” Levi shook his head disapprovingly. “Always blabbing about their latest hypotheses. Putting my entire squad in danger for another titan capture mission. They’d have had their head bitten off by a titan long ago if it wasn’t for their trusty assistant, Moblit. Hell, they went days without taking a damned bath just because something more interesting caught their attention. Sometimes, when I couldn’t bear the stink, I had to knock them out and clean them myself.”

Onyankopon chuckled at his ramble. He had observed Levi and Hange’s inseparable relationship from his time at Paradis. Maybe it was because they were the last ones to survive from their generation, or maybe it extended a little deeper than that. Onyankopon was not completely sure. He gazed at the long scar across Levi’s face, crossing through his one blind eye. If Hange were there, the two of them would have made quite the one-eyed pair.

But Hange wasn’t there as they had sacrificed themself so that he and Levi could sit in peace under a blue umbrella, drinking hot beverages on a sunny day without worrying about anything else.

Levi was still rambling on, “...all those stupid naming ceremonies for the captured titans. At least three Garrison guards used to throw up after each of their experiments. The tantrums they’d throw in Erwin’s office whenever he denied their requests. That Four-eyes once talked to me about titans and their planned experiments for two days straight after we first found out about Eren’s abilities. Can you believe it? Two days!”

There was a bitter aftertaste in Levi’s mouth and he knew it had nothing to do with the tea. A memory of Hange floated in his mind, of them carefully dabbing medicated cotton over Eren’s face after he had kicked the hell out of him in the courtroom all those years ago. He remembered Hange chiding him for having gone too far and declaring that they’d never kill Eren.

His stomach twisted at the irony of how everything played out in the end.

Onyankopon’s voice stirred him out of his thoughts. “It must have been hard for them to pursue their scientific research after they became the commander.”

“It did take a huge toll on them,” Levi agreed, “Erwin’s shoes would have been hard for anyone to fill. But he himself chose them as his successor and they did their job well, even if all odds were against them.” He gave a short sigh through his nose. “But over the years, they changed too much.”

Levi had noticed all the times when Hange had faked a smile to cover up their exhaustion. They tried to maintain their cheerful façade through all the uncertainty to keep their subordinates from becoming concerned about their mental well-being, but from his time with the past two commanders, Levi knew the bone-crushing pressure they were under.

He had spotted the missing tea from his shelf during all those late nights when Hange had fallen asleep on their desk after pulling multiple all-nighters. Although they weren’t new to burning the midnight oil, the commander’s work was grueling. Adding to that, the knowledge and responsibility of dealing with an entire world full of potential enemies weighed them down incredibly. Only he knew how tired and defeated Erwin had looked during his last moments with him. In a way, the role demanded much more from Hange than it did from Erwin himself.

“You mean they were more excitable before?” Onyankopon asked, “I really did not think they could look more starry-eyed than while they were being introduced to all the new technology from Marley.” He chuckled, “The way they whooped after the success of the new improved 3DMG test session was unforgettable.”

Levi set down his empty cup. “Hange was always a vocal advocate for technological advancement. Their inventions helped to get rid of all the pure titans in the island without much loss of human life. When they were given the hope that the rest of the world was not as cruel as we thought it was- but a place where they could learn and discover- that was when I saw them truly happy for the last time. They hoped to make peace when we left off for our first Marley visit. But we both know how that ended.”

Ah, yes that Marley trip, Onyankopon thought as a tense silence settled between them, The time when everything spiraled out of control. To ease the heavy pauses, he decided to bring up some good memories from back then.

“Remember the time when Hange bought that lollipop from that clown just so that he’d stop stalking you? And the time when they tried to feed carrots to a car?”

Thankfully, it seemed to work as Levi snorted. “Shitty-Glasses was supposed to be the smartest of us all,” he said, “Yet, that was still better than the way they squealed after the camera flash the first time we took a picture in Azumabito's place. Now that was just plain embarrassing.”

Onyankopon smiled. When Levi's squad was out drinking, he had insisted Levi and Hange to take a photograph with himself and the Azumabitos as a keepsake memory of their first official trip outside Paradis. Hopes were ripe that night, with the peace conference scheduled for the next day. To keep their optimism up, they had a small dance session in which Hange had dragged Levi with them and had successfully managed two rounds around the ballroom before Levi remarked that it was ridiculous and sulked in a corner for the rest of the night with a wine glass on hand. After which Hange teased him and invited Onyankopon to give them company instead.

When the camera was ready, they were all suited up- with hats placed on their heads despite the fact that it was evening- just for the sake of the photograph session. Onyankopon knew that the Paradisians had never taken a picture before, so his eyes were on Levi and Hange instead of the camera.

Their reactions did not disappoint.

Hange squealed as the flash lit up the room and Levi flinched, grimacing at its sudden brightness. The photograph was quite comical when it was developed: Hange with their mouth slightly open, Levi with his eyes half closed and Onyankopon’s lips in an amused half-smile as he gazed at them.

“To be honest, you looked quite shaken at the flash yourself,” he pointed out to Levi.

“Yes, but I did not wake up everyone in a fifty mile radius within the building.”

“It didn’t seem to wake the kids up, though.”

“What do you expect? Not even Hange can wake up a bunch of hungover brats who had drank all night and ended up passed out on each other.”

“The three of us had to carry them back, didn’t we?”

“Only for Sasha to puke all over the new suit I wore for the photoshoot.”

Onyankopon laughed at that memory. The waiter came over with the bill and he paid it before Levi could reach for his own wallet.

“I told you before,” he said to Levi as he handed over the money, “This vacation is entirely on me.”

“Thanks,” Levi kept his wallet back inside his pocket, knowing that arguing about it would not change Onyankopon’s mind.

They sat in silence for a while, gazing at the people walking around, exploring the shops. Levi got a few quick stares now and then because of his heavily scarred face, but he did not care. He was used to people staring at him; the annoying looks of envy and awe when he was considered as humanity’s strongest soldier, glares of anger from the military higher-ups after he had brought back Armin instead of Erwin during the battle of Shiganshina, and gazes of pity after he had been severely injured due to the thunder spear, thanks to that shitty monkey.

“I wonder what happened to that photograph,” he murmured, his mind wandering back to that day in Marley.

“It was left in Paradis,” Onyankopon replied, “The militants probably disposed of it along with the rest of our belongings after we were declared traitors. It’s been three years after all.”

Levi’s heart sank. That was the last piece of Hange he had left, apart from the scars they had stitched across his face. If everything was disposed of, that would mean that the badges he had collected from the uniforms of his former comrades, his letters, Hange’s research notes, Moblit’s sketches from the night they visited a bar after work, all of their personal belongings- everything had been burnt or destroyed. Apart from Erwin’s grave, there was nothing left for him back in Paradis- the place the Survey Corps dedicated their lives and hearts for all those years.

He masked his bitterness, “It was just a piece of paper anyway.”

Onyankopon did not say anything. The cost of freedom had been incredibly heavy for both of them.

“It’s been three years, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Levi remembered that moment when the spirits of his comrades appeared in front of him as he sat battered and broken. The old Survey Corps, with whom he had spent so many years fighting, resting, experimenting and pushing through every loss, every death and every failure together. He had finally finished their job. He had taken all of their dedicated hearts with him and won for them.

His final salute both crushed his soul and set him free.

A part of him wanted to depart with them. His duty was done, Zeke was killed, the rumbling was stopped and the world was finally free of titans. What use would he be to anyone anymore?

But he knew that the others would want him to live the life that they couldn’t. To explore the world and all it had to offer. To make the dream of world-peace come true.

So, he decided that he would go on, and when his time finally comes, he would stand tall among his noble comrades and tell them stories of the world they never got to see.

Levi hesitated for a moment before turning to Onyankopon.

“Do you think they’re still watching over us?”

Onyankopon didn’t miss a beat.

“I’m sure they are.”

Gabi and Falco reappeared from the crowd, with half-eaten ice cream cones in their hands. The brats had grown so much since the first time he had seen them, all beaten up and bruised on that zeppelin three years ago. Now they looked happy and content, their eyes shining with hope, optimism and love.

Hange’s words from all those years ago played in his mind.

I want everyone to feel safe again soon. I want this to be a world where people can live without fighting each other.

There was still a long way to go for that, but with the threat of the titans gone, they only had humans to negotiate with. Though that probably did not make it any easier, peace was still an option. He’d leave that to Armin and Historia.

Erwin and Hange would have loved it here. All the new places and technology, exotic food, new discoveries; it would have blown their minds. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if that bastard Floch did not show up to shoot holes in that fuel tank. Hange would have been alive, they would have boarded the plane together, they could have seen the flying titan and the previous titan shifters. It might have probably returned them to their normal, curious self again.

They could have survived together.

What would Hange have done now that the titans, their life’s work, were gone forever? The two of them had never really discussed such situations, for they never imagined such a day would actually come to be. For them, a world without the threat of titans was a distant fantasy. But if Hange were alive, they’d have probably headed the peace talks. They were never the one to stay out of the action anyway.

“Sorry, we were a little late,” Falco said as he approached them, “Shall we go?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Falco popped the rest of the ice cream in his mouth before silently pulling the wheelchair by its handle without being prompted to. He was a sweet kid. Erwin, Hange and the rest of his old squad- Petra, Oulo, Eld, Gunther- would have liked him.

Levi picked up a newspaper from a vendor, to see if there were any mentions of the peace committee who had set sail for Paradis earlier that day. As they made their way through the street, he winced as the wheel stumbled over a small pothole.

“I’m so sorry,” Falco exclaimed.

“No, that’s fine,” he rubbed his back. “Times like these are when I really miss Four-eyes.”

Onyankopon laughed, “They’d have come up with a crazy convenient wheelchair, custom-made for you.”

“Knowing them, they would have probably attached an engine and the 3DMG trigger-anchor system complete with a safety belt into the wheelchair,” he shook his head. “Then again, I think they might have also pushed me down a slope as a test run, so maybe I’m safer this way.”

A distant hum of an engine made all of them look above.

A plane, similar to the one they had taken off from in Odiha, flew past the sky, its shadow falling on them as it streaked by.

For the kids, it was just another ordinary plane they stared fascinated at. But for him, something about it felt reassuring.

It was almost as if…

Levi glanced at Onyankopon, who gave him a knowing look.

So, they were watching us after all.

[auncyen]

chasing dumb ideas from work lol

-

Ren’s Palace takes the form of a video game world, bright and zany.  The Shadows have their silhouettes color-coded according to difficulty, the cognitions are NPCs repeating stock dialogue--Mona pops up surprisingly often, considering he and Ren haven’t really hung out since May--and some of the logic used to progress is worthy of a click-and-point game.  Which means it’s lucky they have Futaba with them, since she’s the only Phantom Thief who understands the logic of click-and-point games.  Still, it’s such a breeze that it takes only three hours to reach the center of the stage, and Oracle complains they never even left the hand-holding tutorial.

Ren’s shadow smiles at them when they arrive, and hands Ryuji a controller for the P4Storm his parents took away from him and sold after his arrest.  “Wait--is this the Treasure?” Ryuji blurts.  “We didn’t give you a calling card, though.”

“Hmm...we did talk with him about what he thought the distortion might be, though,” Futaba muses.  “He’s the NPC who knows the most about our methods, so that might have accidentally triggered the effect.  Good thing we moved fast.”

The shadow nods at Futaba’s explanation.  “I didn’t want to give you guys too much trouble.  You’re my friends, after all.”

“Dude, you gave us no trouble at all,” Ryuji says with a laugh.  “You’re way too nice for your own good!”  Still, in this case, he’s relieved it’s not coming to a fight.  Ren’s a friend, and he hasn’t seemed all there lately--they might have curbstomped his shadow if it’d come to that, and wouldn’t that feel awful.

Ren’s shadow smiles shyly, and waves them off before disappearing in bright light.  The PT make their usual escape.  The Palace crumbles.

So does the controller in Ryuji’s hands.

-

Despite the alarm the crumbling treasure causes for the entire group, Ren seems to take his change of heart just fine, doesn’t even throw himself a week-long slumber party like Futaba did.  He stays home from school one day, Futaba reporting that he seems a bit sleepy but nothing too serious, and then the next day, Ren gives Ryuji a fist-bump and smile outside Shujin.  Ryuji grins and tackles him into a headlock.  He’s so glad the change of heart didn’t hurt Ren.  Ren’s his best friend.  The Phantom Thieves might have given Ryuji a reason to stay at Shujin and not drop out, but Ren’s pretty much an honorary Thief anyway, and he’s been running with Ryuji, and helping him deal with the track team’s problems, and he’s just so good at knowing exactly what to say to make people feel better.  Ryuji’s thrilled he could help Ren for once.

And then, days later, he gets a text from Makoto during class, which he knows is urgent because Makoto texting during class: “Ren is still logged in the MetaNav on my phone for some reason.  The location and distortion have been erased, but his name is still there.  Is anyone else seeing this?”

Yusuke starts typing.  Futaba and Ann chime in well before him that yes, they see it too.  Ryuji opens the Metanav on his phone.  Ren’s name is glaring on the screen, a partially-complete entry that shouldn’t be there at all.

“Class was that bad?” Ren asks when Ryuji trudges out of his classroom, prompting the blond to immediately shove the phone in his pocket.

“Uh, yeah,” Ryuji mutters.  “Hey, Ren, can we talk about the--uh--you-know-what?”

“The completely unsuspicious you-know-what, yes, what about it?” Ren answers, because oh good the change of heart gave him his sarcasm back.  Actually--that would be good news.  It means the change of heart worked and the Metanav’s got some random glitch.  “Let’s get off school grounds first.” 

Ryuji manages to only jump a little when his phone buzzes.

When he checks, the Metanav has accepted “school” as the distortion’s location, even though the Palace was actually at the scramble in Shibuya and, more importantly, doesn’t exist any longer.

They go to Leblanc, where Shiho and Futaba are both waiting to talk to Ren as well, which helps Ryuji with the conversation ahead.  It’s...kind of hard to muddle through ‘hey, we were trying to help you with your heart, but something might have gone wrong and we don’t know what’.  It both helps and doesn’t that Ren stays calm the entire time, doesn’t get worried or pissed off that they might have screwed up.  Wouldn’t a distorted person get mad?  Wouldn’t a normal person at least be nervous?

Then again, Ren’s always had nerves of steel underneath the nerdy glasses.  It never made sense to Ryuji why he didn’t awaken to a Persona when Ryuji and Ann and Shiho all could, not until they found his Palace.  He’s got the guts for it.

Futaba openly prods Ren on how he views the school, and he shakes his head.  “This must be a glitch.  You guys have already helped me.  I feel better, and everyone else has only needed their heart changed once.  Why would I be different?”

Shiho purses her lips but then agrees.  Ryuji feels a little antsy, wants to push but also wants to trust Ren, and even if the change of heart didn’t work for some reason, his friend is pushing back now.  Ren’s not hurting anyone.  His heart is his call just like Futaba’s was hers, and even the hacker, for all her curiosity, respects that.  They gotta drop it.

But it stays on the back of Ryuji’s mind for weeks as the entry stays in place, 2/3s complete, and everyone else is worried too because they all like Ren and something does seem a little off about him--like he’s trying too hard to be normal, to convince them everything is fine--and then apparently one morning, right before class starts, Ren startles Ann by leaning over her shoulder and drily reciting: “Ren Amamiya, Shujin Academy, theater”.

The keywords work, Ren supplying them is taken as an implicit request, and there’s a good chance their calling card timer is already running just like the first time, since Ren knows how they work after tagging along for most of the first Palace and helping them with supplies for later ones.  So they go.

-

Ren’s second Palace is a theater.  It’s completely different from the video game world, with dark, muted, traditional colors, yet unmistakably Ren’s, and Makoto has to get their navigators back on task several times because Morgana and Futaba are going nuts theorizing (because who has a second Palace to begin with?).  Luckily Shiho doesn’t have much trouble leading the group through anyway.  Once again, Ren’s Palace is weirdly easy.  The Shadows aren’t color-coded any longer, but they also don’t seem to care about the Thieves as long as they don’t interrupt the show on stage.  It’s...an improv show, Ryuji thinks?  Yusuke says it might be an avant garde direction on a play.  (Ryuji has no idea what the difference would be.)  What happens is Ren’s shadow is always acting, and sometimes a cognitive audience member will leave their seat and join him.  All of the Thieves are there, even Morgana, which the cat seems touched by, plus Mishima, and Ms. Kawakami, and Ms. Chouno, and Ryuji is about to question why Ren has the hots for so many teachers when Ushimaru gets up and that thought becomes cursed, and the newspaper club girl, and that cute gardening club girl, and actually, Ryuji still thinks Ren has some kind of bias for hot girls going on here.  Even if the (former) stalker girl is pushing it.

That’s probably nothing to do with the Palace distortion though, since Ren’s interactions are always a simple back-and-forth with the cognition: they request something of him, even if it’s just to talk, and Ren obliges them admirably, or sometimes he acts as though he’s ignoring them at first, only to swoop in at the last second and give them something even better than they asked for.  It’s interesting maybe the first couple times?  Morgana stands out again because his cognition nags Ren to study and make infiltration tools, something Morgana says he’s never done, which makes sense because Ren is one of those aggravating people who never needs to study to ace exams and Shiho’s always made the infiltration tools just fine.   After Morgana, though, it just falls into a predictable pattern, and the only reason to keep watching is to see who else comes up to stage.  And once cognitive guest stars start repeating, the Thieves are out.  Every improv act has been slightly different, but the flow is so obvious that it’s become mind-numbingly repetitive anyway.

They sneak past security into the back halls and find a dressing room.  Futaba and Morgana both detect the Treasure inside.  There’s a white-and-black domino mask sitting on a vanity in a dark corner of the room that both navigators swear up and down has to be the Treasure.  It almost seems appropriate for a Thief mask.  Maybe because Ren’s seen most of the team’s?  It fits the theater setting, at least, but...

“Are we just...taking this?” Ann questions, with an uncertain look around the dressing room.  “Seriously?  His Shadow’s not even going to talk to us?”

“I would not complain about us being proper thieves and going undetected for once,” Yusuke points out.

“Okay, point, but it just...feels like I understand Ren less than I did before the video game place.”  Ann sighs.  “I thought he was just a quiet guy, but he saw part of Tokyo as a game?  Now he’s acting with everyone at school?  I wish I got what it actually meant...”

“We can ask him about it later,” Shiho reassures her.  “Right now we just have to take the Treasure.”

That suits Ryuji.  They take it.  The Palace collapses.

The mask crumbles in Shiho’s hands as soon as they reach the real world, and she makes a small noise of distress.  Morgana and Ryuji spit out the same curse in a rare moment of heartfelt unity.  Futaba, on the other hand, just whips out her phone.  “Hey-hey,” their navigator says, “Guess who doesn’t want to leave the Metanav?”

-

Ren is sympathetic with his thief friends not being able to steal a Treasure, which feels wildly inappropriate to Ryuji because it’s Ren’s heart in question here.  Ryuji thinks in his shoes, he’d be losing his mind.  Ryuji’s in his own shoes and he’s still losing his mind a little, because the only answer the group can come up with for what’s going on is that Ren’s somehow got three distortions.

No, sorry.  It’s that he has at least three.  Three may not be the magic number.  Ren doesn’t seem to think it is, anyway, because now he puts down his foot.  “I’m not hurting anyone.  I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you weren’t even down for a day like last time,” Futaba mutters, giving him such a suspicious look that Shiho nudges the girl.  Ren is their friend, and he’s been helping them be Phantom Thieves.  They’ve got no good reason to antagonize him.

Ren gives her a long, silent look before shaking his head.  “You guys should be figuring out your next target.”

They should be.

They do.

Ren helps them less with supplies this time.  Ryuji wonders if it’s because of the distortion, and then he catches himself and realizes he’s been wondering if everything with Ren is because of a distortion or not.  It’s probably not even Ren’s fault.  They’re just not talking to him about Thief business as much, since...yeah.  The only upshot might be that Morgana has been making some effort to get to know Ren better.  Because Morgana was a jerk when they first found him--he’s still a jerk sometimes, but even Ryuji would say he’s gotten a lot better--and he pretty much brushed Ren off in favor of people who were actually awakening to Personas, like everyone else.  They never really argued or anything, though, and apparently judging by Ren’s Palace...s, Ren’s fond of him, and Morgana seems to have finally realized that sometimes, making friends is its own reward, even if they can’t wield kickass Personas.  So that’s a thing, now, Shiho passing Morgana off to Ren so they can trot off and do whatever people do together when one of them is a cat (apparently watch movies, get food, fish, and just talk).

And that’s why when Morgana says “I think I know Ren’s keywords” at the start of a Phantom Thieves meeting, Ryuji blurts out “I thought you stopped being an asshole” with a disappointment so deep that it kind of surprises him, because, wow, he really had been expecting that Morgana was just trying to be nice and not obsessed about Palaces and Treasures for once, huh?

Morgana blinks at him across the table.  “I have never been an asshole,” he says, outright lying.  “Though there are a few things I could say about you--”

“Morgana,” Shiho says, heading off that argument.  She looks upset, too.  “We don’t have any reason to pursue Ren’s Treasure.  He’s not hurting anyone.  He...seems to be doing all right,” though the hesitation is audible in her voice, and quickly followed with, “and even if he isn’t, it’s his heart.  You’re not getting a unanimous vote here, and if this is why you’ve been friendlier to him lately, I... don’t know what to say, except that I thought you were better than that.”

There are two Phantom Thieves who can scold Morgana and actually make him feel ashamed: Ann and Shiho.  Sure enough, she lands a critical hit; Morgana’s ears pin back, and he nearly ducks down under the table to escape her stare before stopping himself.  “I’m not asking for a vote,” Morgana says.  “If we took his treasure it’d probably just crumble again.  But I want to check if I’m right about the keywords.  It could be critical information.”

There is a long moment of silence.   As much as Ryuji’s still pissed off at Morgana, he can’t deny being curious.  If they at least knew the keywords, even if they didn’t go in, they’d understand Ren better, right?  Though...after how the last two distortions went...

As it turns in, they go in anyway, because Makoto taps on her phone to open the Metanav, places it in front of Morgana, and when he utters “Tokyo, Metaverse,” the app responds “beginning navigation”, and--

“Fascinating,” Yusuke says.

“That’s not the f-word I’d use,” Ryuji says.

“Huh, Kaneshiro’s Palace is here,” Morgana notes, because that is indeed an effing bank flying through the sky, narrowly avoiding a blimp.  The cat continues getting down to business despite the absurdity of the situation he just launched everyone into.  “That means both that he’s seen it, and that his mental map of the Metaverse isn’t accurate.  It might be based on his most recent memory?  We never brought him in the bank, though.  What do you think, Or--”  He stops when he actually turns to Futaba and sees her face.  She’s paler than usual.  “...Oracle?  Are you okay?”

“My Palace is there,” she says, pointing in the direction where Yongen Jaya would lie.  The golden tip of a pyramid gleams over dozens of other riotously colorful, stylistically mishmashed buildings.  “How does he know what my Palace looked like?  How does he know about any of these?  There’s at least two hundred--maybe three!”

Three hundred palaces is a stupid number of Palaces for anyone to personally remember, but it’s especially stupid for a guy who doesn’t even have the Nav on his phone.

-

the idea: “if persona users simultaneously having a Palace can be justified with wildcards having multiple personas (for one to turn into a shadow while the others remain to use), what kind of shitshow would Ren create if all his Personas just--” and then ng+ shenanigans wandered in

[tuffduff]

My Path to You (Slash x Reader)

Pairing: modern!Slash x younger!Reader

Words: 2,300 (OOPS)

Request: anon! : “hi there! i was hoping you could write a modern!Slash imagine where there’s a considerable age gap (whatever you’re comfortable with) and the two of them meet and fall for each other. eventually slash wants to ask the reader out on a date but is super shy and nervous but she says yes and then they go on a date and it can end however you want it to.”

A/N: MY FIRST SLASH REQUEST Y’ALL!! And I do be nervous writing it lmao. This is entirely from Slash’s POV, I’m not sure if people like that kind of thing but it’s a different way to explore writing. There’s a little coffee shop in my area that has a picture of Slash on the wall, so that was inspiration too. Hope y’all enjoy, thank you for the request! 🖤

What now? It was a question Slash asked himself nearly every day, now that he was newly single. That was a new feeling, one he wasn’t expecting now at this stage in his life; wasn’t he supposed to be married and settled and happy and all that shit by this point in his life? He brushed off the notion, after-all who gave a fuck. He wasn’t a conventional guy. Life is as it happens. But he’d be lying if he didn’t say the idea of getting back out there again intimidated him.

Slash kept to himself in his own world, for the most part. Creating, always with guitar in hand. Especially now being sober, putting himself out there wasn’t exactly appealing. He couldn’t use a dating app, he wasn’t gonna go to a bar or a club, and all of his friends were taken. Where would he possibly meet someone? Dating someone famous wasn’t really what he was looking for, he never fit in with that scene. He wasn’t opposed to dating a fan, but could he ever find someone who wanted him for him?

“Don’t worry, man.” Duff had reassured him. “If it happens, you know, it’ll happen. But not if you’re looking for it. You’ll find her when you least expect it. Just live your life.”

That was smart and Duff was usually right. So, Slash continued to focus on his craft. And he tried to change his outlook, very literally. One night, he wore a baseball cap pulled low and his hair tied back and tucked away in his jacket and hoped it was enough not to get swarmed as he headed out to an art walk in the more historical art district near downtown.

If anyone recognized him, they let him be as he walked down the cobblestone sidewalk, taking in all the creations. The more art and sculptures he admired, the more he stopped worrying about getting recognized.

He was admiring two pieces of wood burned art, a set featuring an artistic interpretation of a woman’s silhouette body.

“These are really sweet.” Slash complimented the artist, who gave a gracious nod.

“Thanks, man. Those pieces have had a lot of eyes on them tonight, thankfully.”

“How much for ‘em?” Slash asked.

“$65 each.” The artist replied, almost sounding sheepish. “...Maybe that’s why they haven’t sold yet.”

“I bet they took a lot of time.” Slash assured him. He pulled out his wallet, fishing out two hundred-dollar bills. “Don’t let people make you second-guess your work.” He passed him the bills, to which the man’s eyes widened.

“Uh, I’m-I’m not sure if I have the enough change.” He said, hastily digging through his small stack of cash from prior purchases.

“It’s cool.” Slash said, smiling and extending his hand. “Thanks again, man.” They shook hands before Slash picked up the two pieces of wood, already trying to picture the perfect spot in his house.

“Okay, I’m back! I’ve got it!” Slash heard someone breathlessly calling behind him. It was a younger woman clasping a wad of cash in her hands as she ran up to the man Slash had just left. “Dipped into my savings but...”

The wood carver gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, they just sold.” Slash watched literal heartbreak wash over her eyes before they flickered right over to him. The dismay in her gaze, the way her shoulders slumped and deflated nearly made his own heart break.

“Oh...damn.” She muttered, tucking the cash back in her pocket. “I really liked them. Oh well. Thanks, anyways.” She said politely. She sent one last glance towards the pieces of art in his arms before she turned on her heel and walked away, head down.

“Hey!” Suddenly, Slash found himself hurrying after her. She stopped in her tracks and turned, her eyes now displaying curiosity.

Uh, what now? He asked himself in his head once he found himself face to face. Up close, she was even more striking, he realized. Beautiful, he’d never seen a face like hers. So expressive, so vivid, so alive with emotions. Her hair framed her face perfectly, her clothes complimented her body well and seemed to be a representation of the woman she was. And he liked everything about what he could see.

“Uh,” he chuckled nervously, looking down. “I, uh, I overheard you had your eye on these.” He said, raising the pieces of art.

“Yeah. I come here to this event every month. I’ve seen those two every time and I’ve been trying to save up. This month I would’ve had enough, but bills—you know.” She rolled her eyes and sighed a little. “Anyway, I saw them tonight and I just couldn’t bear to wait another month or risk them finally being sold, so I ran back to the ATM down the street and pulled out of my savings, not that I really had a lot in there to begin with...” she paused as though she had said too much, shaking her head, flustered. “Sorry. Uh, but I mean, I’m happy for you. Just, take care of them for me.” She chuckled, but her eyes were still stuck on the art.

“I’ll do a trade with you.” Slash proposed. His nerves were playing tricks on him, making him more outgoing than he normally was and then wanting to take it back as soon as he spoke.

“Um, what kinda trade?” She asked curiously. Her nose scrunched a little as she frowned in confusion and he smiled. She was precious. Slash found himself wondering every little detail about her, about the path she had walked in her life so far, and how somehow theirs had crossed.

“I’ll let you have these if you’ll get coffee with me.” Coffee dates, that’s what people did nowadays, right? She blinked a few times at his words and had him wondering.

“That doesn’t seem fair; you paid for those. I’ll pay you for them.”

“No, no. I really don’t need the money.” Slash replied, laughing a little. “How about you keep one and I keep one?”

“...Why?”

“I can tell you really like them.” He said. She bit her lip as she seemed to consider his offer, hesitating.

“And why coffee?”

“I think you’re the prettiest art I’ve seen all afternoon.” Again, her face expressed vivid emotion that most people tried to hide. He watched her lips form a laugh and appreciated the sound.

“I don’t even know your name.” She laughed. He panicked a little in his head. Guess he wasn’t gonna get everything right; it had been a while.

“I guess you can call me Saul.”

“You guess?”

“My friends call me something else.” He mused. A part of him was curious to know if she knew him; lots of people recognized him, not that he was conceited or kept track. Was she a fan? Did she hate his kind of music? Surely, she’d heard of Guns N’ Roses. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N.” Slash smiled; it was like finding the right spot on a puzzle. It fit perfectly and helped him see even more of the picture. “Y/N, I can tell you really like them. I wouldn’t feel right keeping both; I just stumbled upon them.”

“All the more reason you keep them. They spoke to you, like they spoke to me.” There it was. Her voice, her words, it sent a slight wave through his stomach. That warm, fluttery feeling. He extended out one of the pieces to her insistently.

“All the more reason you keep one too.” She smiled as she took the wood carving.

“Thank you so much.”

“So, would you maybe wanna...?” Again, a part of him panicked. “You don’t have to, you know. You can take your half and be on your way if you’re not interested.”

“No, I’d love to! There’s this little local coffee shop I go to all the time—they display local artists’ work and have live musicians Friday nights and stuff. Do you want my number?”

“Uh, yeah. That’d be cool.” He fumbled with his phone, surprised he had gotten so far. That evening he went home with more than just a piece of artwork and a new perspective. He dialed Duff immediately.

“Hello?”

“I’ve got a date, but I need help.” Duff laughed.

“Are you on that date right now?”

“What? No.”

“Oh okay—it sounded urgent.”

“Well, I’m still freaking out a little.”

“Why?”

“She’s a little younger. But she’s so fucking beautiful, dude. She’s just, I don’t know that much about her, but I want to, you know? From just what little I could see.” Slash sighed a little before he walked Duff through the whole story.

“Did she not recognize you?”

“I don’t think so. But I was wearing a hat and glasses and my hair was tied up.”

“It’s gonna be fine, man. Don’t forget who you are, and that’s one badass talented motherfucker. But also, if nothing else, you can take something from this experience and just gain a new perspective. See the world from someone’s eyes. Don’t overthink any of it. If you guys click, you click.”

Slash realized Duff was right. That’s why he appreciated art. Music, especially. There was so much to be said in something someone created, a story they were trying to tell. Listening was something he did best.

He met Y/N at the local coffee shop, not far from where they had first met. The large pot holders outside were adorned with colored mosaic and he stopped to admire them for a moment.

“Hi, Saul.” He turned at the sound of a familiar voice. Y/N was walking up, a bright smile on her face. It was as if his memory were confirmed; yes, she was as beautiful as he remembered the first time.

“Hey, Y/N. This place looks neat.”

“Wait ‘til you try the cold brew. Do you like that?”

“I like those things you get at Starbucks, the caramel things, you know?”

“Caramel macchiatos?” Y/N asked with a laugh. “They have something like that. I’ll order it for you.”

“Okay.” He agreed instantly, smiling at her. “I trust you.” He paid again even though she argued, remembering what she had told him about bills. As they sat down together with their drinks, they broke into what he supposed was small talk, however, it didn’t feel like it. In the meanwhile, Slash couldn’t help but notice the pictures adorning the exposed brick wall behind them. A framed photo of ABBA, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin…and, one of himself, on stage. He laughed a little.

“What’s so funny?” Y/N asked as she sipped her drink. He smirked a little, deciding maybe he should come clean.

“I was just looking at the pictures on the wall,” he replied nonchalantly. “Out of all of these people, who do you think is the coolest?”

Y/N turned in her chair, her eyes passing over the pictures.

“The Rolling Stones are cool...Slash is pretty awesome. Probably one of those two.” He smiled when she turned back around. “What?”

“You think I’m pretty awesome?” He asked as he pulled his shades down. Y/N’s eyes widened and she clasped her hand over her mouth.

“I—you! Are you—” he laughed. “So that’s what your friends call you! Oh my god. I didn’t recognize you with your hair pulled back and the glasses are different, and I didn’t know you had the scruff nowadays—it looks good.” She stopped. “I listen to you all the time, this is so...strange.”

“Is it bad?” Slash asked.

“No!” She laughed again. “But...me?” Slash shrugged, smiling as he nudged her shoe with the tip of his converse.

“You seemed pretty chill.”

“Thanks. Most of the time I’m not.” She grinned.

“Neither am I.” She didn’t try to argue or continue to fawn. She didn’t stare at him like he was a Martian. There was reverence in her eyes, surprise, but more so, curiosity.

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno. It’s kinda like, social media. People only put a small portion of themselves out there, what they want people to see usually. But when everybody knows who you are, they still only know one part of you. And they think they know everything. But here I am...getting a divorce. I’m a dad. I’m just trying to figure shit out like everyone else. Experience life.” He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He laid all of it out on the table, after-all, he couldn’t hide any of those facts if he were looking for an honest partner.

“When it comes down to it, that’s what matters, right?” She mused with him. “Experiences. Not getting it right. Who decides what’s right anyways? I’d rather say I really lived.” It was those words that really stuck with him. It had him thinking, it had him yearning, it had him daydreaming.

It had him asking to see her again.

Slash called Duff before he even made it home.

“Hey, man, how’d it go? How’d she take it when you told her?”

“Good, she really is just the most chill chick ever. She knew who I was, she just didn’t recognize me. But she’s so cool, she’s got all these thoughts, all these opinions that really get me thinking, you know? I can’t wait to pick up my guitar, man, like, I’m that inspired right now.” Duff laughed.

“So, are you gonna see her again?”

“Yeah. That’s the other thing.” Slash paused. “I invited her over for dinner next week.”

“Oh. Right on; good for you, man!”

“But I don’t know how to cook.” Duff was silent for a moment before he laughed.

“Okay...well. I can help.”

[alitaimagines]

“so tell me that you love me, yeah, and tell me that I take your breath away. maybe if you take one more then, I would know for sure. there's nothing left to say, tell me that you love me anyway.”

keigo takami / Hawks - MY HERO ACADEMIA 

note: so the consensus was Hawks according to DMs! the dabi/bakugou imagine should be up tomorrow!

“Edgeshot, oh my God!” you exclaimed bursting out in laughter, “stop, I’m going to pee my pants!” you continued. 

you and Edgeshot had just walked out of the heroes meeting and you plus a few others decided to catch lunch at a restaurant a few doors down. the only two missing were the top two heroes and honestly, you weren’t surprised. 

Hawks and Endeavor ever being seen around other pro heroes for such a copious amount of time was odd. Hawks might’ve been a little more predictable but Endeavor was not interested in any of that. 

during the time, you and Edgeshot more or less became friends. the very secretive ninja hero and yourself tended to sit together at meetings and lunches so it wasn’t really surprising if the two of you were seen together.

that really didn’t sit well with Hawks. 

you had been seeing Hawks for a few months now. it wasn’t really official or anything but between the two of you, there had been very tip top secret meetings. both of you knew each others real names and even spent a few nights together.

being that Hawks was number two and Edgeshot was at number four, he knew about him very well. 

however, during meetings or professional lunches, Hawks was always dragged in seven different directions and hardly got time to spend time with you. your time with Edgeshot didn’t go unnoticed by the winged hero. 

he seen how close you and Edgeshot were and frankly, he hated it. he knew Edgeshot kept his personal life very private and you being the charming girl you are, he didn’t understand why it had to be YOU that was so close with him. why couldn’t it be Mirko or someone else? 

“Edgeshot! ( your hero name )!” you heard paparazzi say, “can we get a picture?” they asked. 

your eyes rolled before giving Edgeshot a sympathetic look and hesitantly agreeing. the two of you stood up as Edgeshot grabbed you by the waist and the two of you posed for the seemingly innocent photo. 

once they took the photo and scurried away, you sighed, “I fucking hate paparazzi sometimes,” you complained making Miruko laugh, “doesn’t everyone? can’t even have lunch in peace!” she added on. 

-

once you got done with patrol and made your way home, you turned the TV on and dug into your dinner. you had no idea what was playing but once you heard your hero name being brought up, you immediately looked to the television. 

“Edgeshot and ( your hero name), getting close, aren’t they?” one of the gossip reporters said, “it isn’t the first time they’ve been seen out together and although this was a group hero lunch, the chemistry, it’s there!” 

you growled knowing the paparazzi that took the photo must’ve sold the photo to the tabloids. you watched the photo appear on the screen and noticed how the female reporters squealed over it. 

“well her and Mirko are some of the youngest on the top ten charts! it’s obvious they’d have men falling at their feet, especially other heroes.” 

you sunk down in your seat before realizing that Mirko was Facetime calling you. you picked it up and seen her laughing at the screen, “are you watching the twelve o’clock news?” you nodded as she continued laughing hysterically, “holy shit, they think you and Edgeshot are together!” 

you sighed, “I need alcohol to continue watching this,” you murmured as you walked into your kitchen, “but to the photographers credit, you and Edgeshot really look like a couple!” you immediately shushed her knowing that she was still at her the agency. 

Mirko for a quick moment panned to the television and you saw that Hawks was watching it intensely, “it seems that Hawks is even interested! what do you think bird? wouldn’t they look cute together?” she shouted. 

Hawks screamed at her to be quiet as she giggled, “clearly her doesn’t think that but seriously, this is funny as fuck! I just wanted to inform you! I’ll see you on Thursday!” she exclaimed before hanging up. 

Hawks had messaged you earlier in the day that he was going to come up and visit you for the night but seeing that he was watching the news, he knew about the rumors now surrounding you and Edgeshot so you had no clue if he was or not now. 

you put your plate into the sink before going to your room to take off the makeup you had on. your house remained silent for a few minutes before you heard rustling outside of the balcony of your house. 

“hey,” you heard a gruff voice say behind you. you turned to see Hawks at the front of the door, “hey Keigo,” you whispered as you tried to wipe the mascara off your eyes. 

he made his way in before slamming the door, “I heard the news today,” he muttered as he leaned back against your desk chair, “I think all of the city has. anyone can take it how they want,” you said as he hummed. 

the room went quiet before he cleared his throat, “you and Edgeshot look friendly is all,” he inquired as you scoffed, “we’re just friends, you know how Kamihara is. he takes his personal life to the grave,” you responded as he hummed. 

“full name basis, huh?” he responded as you finally put the makeup wipe down, “yeah, we are. we’re on first name basis, aren’t we?” you retorted as you walked towards him. 

he sighed as he put his head on your shoulder, “but I’m different. I’ve seen more to you than Edgeshot ever has,” he ran his fingers down your arm as you agreed, “true but Edgeshot as far as I know, he thinks of me as just a friend.”

Keigo growled as he started nibbling on your ear, “than I guess that puts me at a higher position, doesn’t it?” he whispered as you hummed, “does it? we haven’t exactly gotten public and you’re making no effort to make it public. if Edgeshot does ask me out in the future, I truthfully can’t tell you I’d say no.” 

Keigo looked at you in surprise, “what are you implying then?” he stated as you stood up from his lap, “I’m tired of hiding, that’s what I’m implying. I’m tired of hiding the relationship. I understand the repercussions but who gives a fuck? I don’t but you clearly you do. I’m beginning to think that us hiding around isn’t about the villains but more of the fact that you might lose your fangirls over it.” 

his eyes widened at the accusations, “that’s the story you’re using to justify the situation with Edgeshot?” he asked as you nodded, “I’ve wanted to go public for a long time Keigo and if you’re willing to work with me and make it public than fine but if you’re wanting to continue this game of hiding, you can walk out of my house,” you lectured. 

the two of you remained looking at each other before he stood up from the chair. he walked to the balcony and gave you one final look before flying away. 

you sighed as you felt a single stray tear fall from your face. you knew this conversation had to come eventually but his decision hurt your heart. the fact that he was more willing to keep up his public appearance than to actually make the relationship public broke a piece of your heart but it was Keigo you were talking about.

he cared more about himself than anyone else.

-

you were off the following day and if you were being truthful, you were glad. 

your mind remained on Keigo the entire night and you were honestly ready to tell him off once more but you decided against it and left your phone on the stand as you got up to make your coffee and get back to bed. 

after you brushed your teeth and made your coffee, you went back to bed and turned the television on. you were behind on a few episodes of your favorite show and decided to kill them all today. 

before you could even turn Hulu on, your tv had the news channel on and heard your hero name again. you sighed and waited to see what new rumor they were planning on having on you. 

once they got to the gossip portion of the news, your name was the first thing that came up. 

“all the rumors around number four hero Edgeshot and number six hero ( your name ) were false. this morning on the official Instagram of the number two hero, Hawks, he decided to make their relationship public.”

your eyes widened as you yanked your phone from the charger and logged onto his Instagram. true to their word, Hawks had made a public post announcing your relationship.  

it was a picture of the two of you in your hero uniforms and giving each other a peck. you knew which day this was but you had no idea he even had this photo of the both of you. 

“ignore the rumors, this one is mine.” 

you read the caption for what felt like a million times before you seen that Mirko was calling you for the hundredth time. you finally picked up the phone to hear here screaming. 

“YOU AND FUCKING BIRD BOY? SINCE WENT?” 

you gave off a nervous giggle before explaining the entire situation to her. by the time you finished with the story, she was left in shock as you noticed your now publicized boyfriend standing on your balcony.

you told her a quick goodbye before walking over to the balcony doors and unlocking them. he gave you a nervous look as you sighed. 

“seriously Keigo? all that shit last night for you to decided to make it public this morning?” you asked as he chuckled before bringing you into an embrace, “don’t worry, your manager made it public for you too.” 

you gave him a look of confusion as you checked your own account. your manager had posted the same photo to your own Insta and he laughed at your reaction. 

“God, sometimes I wonder why I love you,” you confessed as he kissed the top of your head, “because you do. now, I skipped a day of patrol for today so you owe me cuddles.” 

you sighed as you brought him over to your bed and laid his head on your chest, “shut up and fall asleep. who knows the last time you’ve gotten a decent sleep,” you mentioned as he chuckled. 

you placed a kiss on his head this time as you started to play one of the shows you were watching. 

ALITA

[maddiviner]

Thoughts on the connection of Thelema and the Proud Boys?

This is about this photo, right?

The man in the middle is apparently Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys organization.

I have no idea who the loser on the left of the picture could be, and that doesn’t really relate to the question. The person on the right side of the image is a former Ordo Templi Orientis member who died a few months after the photo was taken.

His hoodie features the classic Thelemic sign off of “93” and the unicursal hexagram used by Thelemites. I’m not sure where the hoodie was made or if it was sold by any particular Thelemic group. For the record, the Ordo Templi Orientis removed the person in question from membership shortly after this photo became public.

Following the man’s death a few months later, there was a movement towards reinstating him as a member post mortem. I’ve no idea if that succeeded or if he was reinstated. I’m no longer a dues-paying Ordo Templi Orientis member, and haven’t been for years. It’s probably not my business whatever they’re doing, trying to do, or talking about. I’m not even a Thelemite these days. And I’m a lot happier because of it.

As you might expect, there was a slight bit of controversy among non-Thelemites and non-occultists about the image in question, which became very public and is often used in articles about the Proud Boys. Some suggested this was a sign of heavy occult involvement among this group.

Honestly, I’ve not seen that outside of the one singular person pictured wearing the unicursal hexagram. As I understand it, the majority of these people in this group are not interested in the occult, and would probably call themselves some vague form of Christian. If anyone else here has any evidence otherwise, let me know and I’ll hold my nose and research this further.

Granted, the Thelemic groups on Facebook, to this day, will see posts of this image with questions about him. I don’t participate in those groups and have left most of them. When this pops up on the one I’m still in, I usually jokingly comment “we have this thread every day,” because I think everyone’s sick of seeing and hearing about it.

That’s all I can really say about the connection between Thelema and the Proud Boys in particular. As to the potential connection between fascism and general right-wing or alt right alliance among Thelemites in particular, the question is a lot more complex.

You’ll find people on Twitter adamantly assuring us that “Fascism has no place in Thelema,” and “Thelema is inclusive,” etc. Now, my husband argues that such people haven’t actually read much of Aleister Crowley’s writings, and says that a particular passage in his commentaries on the Book of the Law clarifies that Thelema is fascist aligned, if not directly, in terms of tenor and general principles.

Crowley himself did write about the evils of “ferocious fascism and cackling communism,” but that’s relatively meaningless as far as I’m concerned. Plenty of people who are very clearly fascists say similar things. How many Facebook people have you met who talk about how they “hate Nazis and commies,” but are generally okay with the alt right?

If you want to know more, I’d suggest just reading some Crowley (particularly his commentaries on the Holy Books of Thelema). I’m not a Thelemite these days for quite a few reasons. One of them, though, is that I saw people struggle to defend the argument that “Thelema is inclusive and totally not fascist at all and we can ignore everything that gives the appearance otherwise,” while many Thelemites (some I had the displeasure of knowing personally) jumped into the alt right headfirst.

When my husband wakes up, I will try to bribe him with food and see if he’d be willing to write a guest post here on his views about the potential Thelemic connection to fascism. He has strong opinions on it. I can’t promise he’ll write one, but we’ll see. He’s sure done enough ranting about this elsewhere, being that he’s still heavily interested in ceremonial magic and keeps running into Thelemites, of course.

Anyways, witchblr, I hope this clears up at least some of the questions about the matter at hand. There’s probably a lot more to be said by better writers and researchers than me. I’d rather not revisit the Thelemite stuff too much, though - it wasn’t exactly a joyful part of my life at the time.

[gallavictorious]

It's such a weird thing to do tho - go gay friends hunting. "Imma be friends with you, but only if you're gay!" Mickey would find that ridiculous, lol. But I'd find it hilarious if Mickey actually made friends with some gay dudes while Ian ended up disappointed because they don't "do it" for him. ;)

While I agree that the sole fact of a shared sexuality isn’t necessarily very much to build a friendship upon, I don’t find it all that strange that gay people living in a heteronormative society would want gay friends: as long as not being straight is perceived as setting you apart and marking you as ‘other’, finding a group and a space in which you are the norm can be quite important. In a world of perfect sexual equality, seeking out specifically gay friends might be weird; in the world we live in, not so much.

However, not every gay person will think having specifically gay friends is important or desirable, and my instinct would be to agree with you on Mickey finding the notion ridiculous. I'd be a little surprised if going friend shopping is his idea, unless something happens to prompt this sudden wish, but who knows? He might surprise us!

No matter who suggests it, though, I'd love for Mickey to find some friends who will adore him because everyone should love him always (even if I tend to think that Mickey isn't only pretty unconcerned about having gay friends but having friends in general)! But to be honest, I'm not sold on the notion of Ian ending up disappointed because he's had a lot of disappointment to deal with already. Yes, he's married to the love of his life and that's not nothing, but it's also not a cure all and I think out boy's been struggling quite a bit lately. Him having some fun wouldn't be so bad, would it?

Still, I could kind of see them getting to whatever LGTB+ space they've chosen and Mickey's still not convinced of this idea, but Ian's excited, all ”c'mon, Mick, it'll be fun, there's gotta be some interesting people here!”

Eyeing the partying crowd with characteristic skepticsm Mickey mutters something about only seeing a bunch of [semi-offensive adjective] [slur] and not knowing why they're even doing this because there's no way they're going to meet anyone even remotly fun here.

Ian shrugs, deliberatedly. ”Well, I mean, you probably won't.”

”The fuck's that supposed to mean?”

”Just saying, you're not exactly a people person.”

”Not a– ! Fuck you, I can be a people person. But in case you haven't noticed, most people are fucking morons. Not worth my goddamned time.”

”Uh-huh.”

Ian's smiling and looking condescending as fuck and maybe Mickey wants to punch him a little, but he doesn't, he takes an aggressive sip of his beer instead, and he's never been good at backing down from a challenge, not even when he knows what Ian is doing, so obviously the whole thing escalates into our favourite husbands heading off to see who can find the most and the best friends before the night is through.

And you know, Mickey isn't wrong about how he can (fake) be(ing) a people person if he's properly motivated and right now he's motivated as hell, so in the end he presents Ian with no less than half a dozen people that he persistently claims are real fucking funny, just great guys, you know, wouldn't mind hanging out with them for the rest of my life.

He's lying through his teeth; he doesn't give a rat's ass about any of these dudes (well, two of the dudes are actually chicks, but whatever, he ain't got nothing against women as long as he doesn't have to fuck them), but whatever it takes to stick it to Ian, right, and of course they should all meet up again for a beer on Wednesday, that sounds super fun, doesn't that sound super fun, Ian?

And they do meet up (somehow... let's not question the corona of it, okay?) and it turns out that these random people ain't actually so bad? Hell of a lot better thant he three potential friends Ian's managed to scrounge up, anyway; that trio quickly reveal themselves to be self-important and boring assholes. Ian readily admits as much and admits defeat – but he's not actually very disappointed about it, because the end result is still them having six gay friends to hang out with. (And part of Mickey will forever wonder if Ian didn't plan it like this, right from the start... but so fucking what if he did, it was still Mickey who charmed them.)

How about it, nonnie? Everybody wins? Acceptable?

[yes-i-have-thoughts]

Veteran AU

Basis: BATIM/RDR2 Inspiration: I played RDR2 again, from the beginning Did anyone ask for this: No Are they getting it anyway: Yes Hotel: Trivago (TW for mentions of cults, war and religion)

So. Our main cast. We’ve got Henry, the soft-spoken war veteran who tried to stay under everyone’s radar; Bendy the midgit child whom Henry saved from some demonic activity but apparently wasn’t fast enough, as there’s something a little off about the kid that only gets worse the longer you look at him; Alice the slightly-less-of-a-midgit girl who was also saved by Henry due to some religious nuts thinking she was the second or third coming of god (and she later proved they weren’t wrong but they weren’t exactly right either); and Boris the wolf. He’s a wolf. End of.

This little found family found each other in...Interesting ways. Aside from Bendy and Alice’s rescues (which wound up soaking Henry’s hands in blood and as such got him on a wanted poster), Boris was saved by Bendy after the poor woofer got caught in a trap and he followed him all the way back to their little campsite before collapsing from his wounds. Henry didn’t have the heart to let the poor bugger suffer but Bendy was already attached to him so he put him back together as well as he could, nursed him back to health, tried to release him and wound up finally relenting and adopting him when he followed him back to camp three times. Where Bendy goes, Boris goes.

There’s a horse in the equation too. Two of them. Henry’s horse is a fuckin’ massive black Shire named Großer Typ (pronounced “groser two”, German for Big Guy) and the red roan Tennessee Walker Alice and Bendy share (much to the little guy’s chagrin) has two names from both her riders: Alice calls her Jacqueline (may God protect) and Bendy calls her Empusa (named after the demon that supposedly eats travelers and has a brass leg and the leg of a donkey). She responds to neither. (Bendy wants his own horse, or even a donkey, but they have neither the money nor the space. Besides, he’s got a pet. Alice doesn’t. He has no place to bitch, let her have the horse leeway)

The trio don’t really go anywhere special, they mostly seem to just kind of muck around. Henry hunts animals for their fur to get money for them to move fuckin’ anywhere but where they are now, Alice helps out by keeping an eye on Bendy and looking after the chores, Bendy’s in charge of the resident wolf and Boris does what Boris does best: eat food. Thank god he can hunt for himself, at least.

They’ll end up with the main gang eventually, but I haven’t figured out how, why or when and I don’t know if I’ll ever touch this again so work that little detail out yourself if you’d like Anyway! Random tidbits!

- Bendy and Alice’s ages are somewhat ambiguous. Bendy’s about 6-7 years old, Alice is 10 or 12. As for Henry and Boris, they’re 57 and 2 respectively. - Henry draws. Every day. Pretty well, too, even if the drawings are a little cartoony. Alice keeps bringing up that he could sell some for money but it would also draw attention to him which is the last thing he needs right now - Bendy’s desperate to make friends his own age, but the kids never seem to like him. Poor little snot’s lonely. Boris and Alice are good company but they can only do so much, y’know? - Alice also wants friends her own age but she’s owned up to the fact she’s probably stuck maturing faster to look after her adoptive brother and the horses. - (Henry really wants to give these kids a break and let them be kids again, at least for one day) - Henry’s a war vet (hence the AU name) and hasn’t walked away from it too well, which kind of makes shooting guns a living Hell but they can’t really live off nothing but berries and herbs - Bendy wants to learn how to hunt with him. He’s probably gonna get his wish, he already knows how to handle a gun - Bendy and Alice may give Henry a bit of grief at times but they do see him as their father-more so Bendy, who was taken from his birth parents as a baby and grew up in a cult so he has no idea who they are or were. Alice remembers her birth parents but despises them since they sold her into her background’s cult - As said before, there’s something...Weird about Bendy. It’s hard to tell what at first glance, he just looks like a normal kid that just so happens to have big black eyes. Very big black eyes. His eyes are way too big. Does he have sclera, or is it just black? Does he have fangs? Is that a cowlick in his hair or does he have horns? Did his hands always look so sharp? - Bendy named himself with the first word that popped into his head. He noticed that Typ’s neck was pretty “bendy” and Henry asked for his name at the same second so that’s what he blurted out. It doesn’t stop Henry from calling him Ben or Benjamin, but he introduces himself as Bendy and corrects others if they call him anything else. - Alice came with her last name (Angel) but named herself much the same way Bendy did--line of sight naming. Whatever her name was in the past, she prefers Alice or even Allison. (Also the name Susie makes her flinch. Who knows why...) - Bendy also named Boris after a character in a book he was learning to read. He’s the nicknamer, that one, Henry’s started letting him name everything since all the names he comes up with suck - Henry was born and raised in Germany before moving to the US as a young adult. Now it seems he’s taking the reverse path; he’s aiming to get Bendy and Alice (hopefully Boris too) to Germany so they can live a more normal life. - Bendy LOVES learning German and constantly nags Henry to teach him new words. He roped Alice into it as well and after about half a year the main language in the camp was German, English only being used for Boris’ and the horses’ sake - When push comes to shove, Bendy will run to either Alice or Henry. If it goes beyond shove they both run to Henry. He’s their surrogate dad and they seem him as a kind of protector, a role he takes very seriously - Alice accidentally found out that Henry was married once and had two kids. She asked him what happened and he dodged the question, asking her how the Hell she found out in the first place. He wasn’t angry, but he was a little intense and seemed to be in a bad mood for a while after that. Alice made a mental note to find out anyway-but avoid asking him about it, since it was clearly a touchy subject...

[maddogofshimano]

Chronicle of Rikiya’s Solitary Fight: Rikiya Sugoroku Event

This one was huge! And very very Okinawa specific! It was really hard to translate! Sugoroku events are board games, so this one had a little chibi Rikiya, which was pretty great. 

I tried to put comments on anything that might be unclear, but feel free to message me if something isn’t making sense. Rikiya is bringing a lot of gay energy to this one, honestly.

Summary: Someone has spread a rumor that Kiryu is here to take over the Ryukyu Market, and it had gotten wildly out of hand. Rikiya tries very hard to keep Kiryu from finding out that everyone kind of hates him, and also tries to get to the bottom of who’s spreading this rumor. It....... doesn’t go great.

Haruka: Whaaaat! Uncle Kaz, you mean you still haven't found one yet? Kiryu: Sorry, I went to the supermarket but didn't see anything, so I was out fishing till now Rikiya: Nice to see you guys! Kiryu: Hey Rikiya. Rikiya: What were you two talking about? Haruka: Rikiya-san, have you ever eaten a gurukun? (Tl note: black tipped fusilier fish) Rikiya: Obviously I have! The gurukun is a fish that represents Okinawa itself! It's name on the mainland is takasago, right? Kiryu: That's right, but it's not very popular there. Neither Haruka nor I have eaten it before. Rikiya: Get out of here! How have you lived in Okinawa and never eaten one?! Well! All three of us are gonna go over to the public market right now! You can get all sorts of fresh fish there! Kiryu: We're going there right now? Rikiya: Yes sir! And I shall be your guide! Kiryu: Sorry, but Haruka and I actually have something to do after this... Rikiya: Is that so... Well then, it's up to me to hike out there and buy a gurukun myself! Kiryu: Is that okay? Sorry for the trouble. Rikiya: Next time though, when you have time, let's go together. In truth, I want you to help me look into the people invading the market even more than I want to show you the fish. Kiryu: People are invading the market? Rikiya: Yeah. Haven't the shop keepers seemed scared to you? Kiryu: Outside of the shops specifically for tourists, the place has a bit of a hostile air towards strangers. Especially around an outsider like me. Rikiya: Those guys are master craftsman, but terrible at talking to people. They're like that to locals too, but still, I don't think this has anything to do with foreigners or locals or mainlanders at all. Kiryu: Is that so? Well then, I look forward to the day I can visit the market with you as my guide. Rikiya: Well, I'm off! I'll be back in two shakes with that fish! <Rikiya in the market> Clerk: Hi, welcome! Rikiya: Blast! Clerk: Ah, Rikiya, what's wrong? Rikiya: You don't happen to have any gurukun, do ya? I want the freshest guy you got. Clerk: Ah, I have just the thing! Though, it's rare for you to be cooking, Rikiya. Rikiya: I ain't doing it. This is for Asagao to eat. Clerk: Asagao...? Rikiya: It's that orphanage down on the beach. My aniki Kiryu-san runs the place. Clerk: Kiryu............... Rikiya: This gurukun looks good. How much do I owe ya? Clerk: Ah, uhhhhhhhhhhh, I just remembered, a different customer actually put a hold on this fish! I'm sorry, you'll have to look elsewhere! Rikiya: What the... seriously? Eh, oh well. I'll just have to hit up a different store! <leaves> Rikiya: Hey! You doin' good? Different clerk: Ah, Riki-chan. Rikiya: I'm after a gurukun. Do ya have any here? Clerk: Ah, I've got a whole fish here. Rikiya: Yes! Kiryu no aniki is gonna love eating this! Clerk: Kiryu no aniki......!? Rikiya: Oh, you know him? Kiryu Kazuma. He's my aniki! Clerk: Get out! Rikiya: Eh? Clerk: The store is closed today! Go home now! Rikiya: Wh-What the hell? Ow! Everything's fine till I mention Kiryu, then everyone starts acting really weird..........?? Tourist: Um, were you just talking about Kiryu...? Rikiya: Yeah. Do you know somethin' about him? Tourist: Well, I overheard this at the market...... If that Kiryu Kazuma person is going to take over the market........... Rikiya: My aniki taking over the market??? What the hell does that mean?? Tourist: I don't know if it's true, but that's the rumor everyone's been talking about. Listen. Clerk 1: Isn't this market under the protection of the Ryudo Family? Wouldn't they protect us even if Kiryu did attack? Clerk 2: What a dumb thing to say, the Ryudo Family can't take Kiryu. You know that Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo? Well, Kiryu took that over in a single night. (Tl note: Tsukiji is the biggest fish market in the world) Clerk 1: Seriously!? But we're way smaller than that... Clerk 2: Mhm, plus it only took him an hour to take over. By himself. Clerk 1: Why I oughta stab that Kiryu guy! When he shows up, he'll have to answer to my butcher knife! Clerk 2: Your funeral. The rumor is that the last guy that resisted Kiryu got sold as mincemeat. Clerk 1: What a horrible bastard...! I should have expected as much from a mainlander! Tourist: I've been hearing rumors like that all week around here. Rikiya: Aniki taking over the market?? These rumor has grown like a dang weed, but who's the guy who planted it?! Tourist: Still... They say there's no smoke without a fire. Rikiya: Eh? What do you mean? Tourist: Oh, there's no deeper meaning to it. Well, I'm off... Rikiya: The hell? That woman.........? Rikiya: Ah, aniki! What's the meaning of all this? Kiryu: Haruka's errands ended up being faster than expected, so I figured I'd come over to the market. Rikiya: Ah, no, bad! You coming here is really bad! Kiryu: Why? Rikiya: Uhhhhhh, well..... They are completely sold out of gurukun! Kiryu: I see. Well, I'd still like to take a look around this place. I want you to be my guide and tell me about that invasion you were talking about. Rikiya: Really sorry! I'm already done with the market and on my way back to Asagao right now! So let's come back to the market some other day! Kiryu: I see. I was hoping to poke around and have some fun... Be safe on your way home. Rikiya: Shit! Stop! .......Dang. Aniki gettin stabbed by the market people wouldn't have been any fun at all....... Well, I was the one who got his hopes up in the first place.... I can't just say "Oh, the market's full of nasty rumors about you right now" now can I? What can I even do here...? Rikiya: Maybe I could persuade every one a single person at a time? But that would take so much time.... But where did these weird rumors come from anyways? I know my aniki's a mainlander, but stil... Rikiya: For the time being I better head back to Asagao. Aniki will get suspicious if I'm back late.... <END>

Rikiya, at Asagao: (Man, it's been a whole week and I haven't been able to do anything to combat the rumors about my aniki........ Well, people say rumors only last 75 days, so instead of freaking out about it maybe I should just wait it out..... Nnn. How many months is 75 days? That's so long....) Haruka: Rikiya-san, it's a shame that all the gurukun was sold out the other day, huh. Rikiya: Yeah... it's a really delicious fish! Haruka: I'm looking forward to eating it one day! I've been really interested in getting to know Okinawan cuisine better lately. Do you know souki? (Tl note: Okinawan stewed pork ribs) Rikiya: Of course! Stewed meat and bone done in the traditional Okinawan style. It's suuuuper tasty! Haruka: Uncle Kaz had some a year ago and said it tasted really good. I was going to go with him to buy some, so why don't you come too? Rikiya: Oh, nice. Which store? I'm glad it got my aniki's stamp of approval. Kiryu, appearing: The market. Rikiya: Hey, aniki. I got it. The market huh.... Wait, the market?! Kiryu: It'd be perfect to explore the market with you as our guide. And I'd like to meet those people you were talking about who were being invaded... Rikiya: Th-That's not gonna work! I mean, we really don't need two people to go to the market! Kiryu: What? Why? Rikiya: Because... it's....! Rikiya: Ain't it just blistering today? Hell, if a mainlander like you goes out in it, you'll get heat stroke in seconds! So just let me handle buying the souki, and just have you two stay put! Rikiya: Here, Haruka-chan, I'm gonna borrow shopping bag! Haruka: Hold on...! <Rikiya runs off> Kiryu: He's a pretty intense guy... <Rikiya back at the market> Rikiya: This sucks. I can't keep aniki and Haruka-chan from coming here for much longer without causing some big problems... Rikiya: For the time being I should listen in on how people are talking here at the market. Maybe the rumor just died..... Clerk 1: The story about this Kiryu person taking over the market all by himself. It's really unbelievable, right? Clerk 2: Yeah... It's impossible to think rationally about a story like that. There's no way just one guy could do that. Clerk 1: That's exactly it. So apparently Kiryu uses some kind of associate to work with him in his take overs. Clerk 2: An associate...!? Who is it? Clerk 1: The ryudo family captain.... Rikiya. Clerk 2: Ah! That evil asshole, he is always running around with Kiryu isn't he! Clerk 1: Right? Poor Rikiya has been completely brain washed by Kiryu. Clerk 2: Well, if Kiryu and Rikiya are working together, aren't they going to attack soon!? Clerk 1: Yeah. You're not wrong. Rikiya, bursting in: Hey! Don't be afraid! Clerk 1: R-Rikiya! How long have you been here?! Rikiya: What kinda dumbasses are you? My aniki has brainwashed me? We're gonna take over the market? Where the hell did ya get that idea! It's totally bull! Clerk 1: Well what are we supposed to think when even now, you, who loves Okinawa more than anyone, is wagging your tail over a damn mainlander! You're following him around and calling him aniki, brain washed isn't a strong enough word! Rikiya: You're wrong! I fell for my aniki's manly spirit! Kiryu no aniki is a man among men..... a real man!! (Tl note: THAT IS......... A ROMANTIC FELL FOR............ LIKE, USED FOR MINE ABOUT DAIGO..........) <Rikiya storms off> Clerk 1: Did you see that look in his eyes! It's the same as my cousins when he joined a cult! Clerk 2: He reall has been brainwashed....! Then he's going to attack alongside Kiryu soon! Clerk 1: Kiryu is going to grind our bones and destroy our business! Rikiya, returned: You guys are real nitwits on this. Yeah, Kiryu no aniki has a real intense look about him... Clerk 2: Hey! Look at that! Clerk 1: K-K-Kiryu......!! <Haruka and Kiryu are holding hands and walking through the market> Haruka: It sure is nice and lively in this market, isn't it Unlce Kaz? Kiryu: Yeah... Haruka: But, what's good to eat here? Kiryu: Ah, don't worry. You can make a lot of things from bones.... Rikiya, running over: Hold up aniki! Why'd'ya come here! Kiryu: Hey, you're the one who was so insistent on being by yourself. Clerk 1: Quick, everyone run! We're all going to die! Haruka: What's going on? Why are all the store owners running? Where are they going? Kiryu: What's happening? Rikiya: This is, uhhh.... a disaster preparedness drill! Kiryu: A disaster preparedness drill? Rikiya: Yes sir. We don't want anyone to die in a real emergency, so we're doing a drill... And because of that, you can't shop here today! Kiryu: Oh, well that's a shame. I wanted to eat that bone and cartiledge souki I had here before. Rikiya: Bone and cartelige.... Kiryu: It was cooked so long that you could even eat the bones. Rikiya: Well when the disaster drill is finished, I'll buy you some and bring it back for you guys, you please go ahead and go home aniki. Kiryu: Ah. I don't want to get in the way of the drill. Let's go home, Haruka. Haruka: Yeah. See you later, Rikiya-san. Rikiya: Whew.... that was close. Clerk 2: .....Huh? That bastard Kiryu, just went home? Was this just a reconnesince mission, and the real attack will be at a later date.....? Rikiya: Are you still on about that nonsense? Clerk 2: It's not nonsense, I heard him! Kiryu said in the market that "he's going to break our bones"! (Tl note: `break` is a homophone with `make` in this case) Rikiya: You're wrong. He was talking about souki... Clerk 2: Don't lie to my face like that! Chinpira: Hey, you all, where's Kiryu? Rikiya: What the? You assholes... Chinpira: We're bouncers. We were sent to protect the market from Kiryu. Rikiya: Sent? By who? Chinpira: I don't think this has anything to do with you, dumbass. Now did Kiryu come here already? Where'd he go? Clerk 2: He already left the market, we went that way. Chinpira: Yes! The hunt is on! Rikiya: Hold up. My aniki isn't trying to take over the market! Chinpira: I know who you are, you're Kiryu's little brainwashed Rikiya! How can you believe a shithead like that guy! Get away from him! Rikiya: If you really want to take on my aniki, you gotta get through me first. Chinpira: Heh... This brat's a lively one! He really is Kiryu's partner in crime! Let's get him! <fight, Rikiya wipes the floor with them> Chinpira: Ughh... s-strong! Rikiya: Tell me before you pass out. Who sent you assholes to protect the market, huh? Chinpira: It was... the market green horn club. Rikiya: Green horn club? Clerk 1: It's a group of all the young people working in the market. They get their hands dirty a lot, but they're extremely passionate about the market. Clerk 2: Yeah for sure. The green horn club were the first to detect Kiryu's invasion too. Rikiya: Hold up, then the source of the rumors is the green horn club? Clerk 2: Yeah, though they clearly aren't just rumors, but the green horn club spread the word around..... Rikiya: (So the green horn club is spreading these lies, but why? Should I try to get to the bottom of this right now? No. I still need to bring aniki that bone and cartelige souki I said I'd buy him. If I dillydally, he'll end up coming back to the market...) <END>

<Haruka and Kiryu in the kitchen at morning glory> Haruka: Ah! The meat is all sticky! Kiryu: That's because of how long it's been cooked, it lets you even eat the bones. Haruka: Rikiya-san, thank you for buying this cartelige souki! Rikiya: Oh, nah, it was nothing, that stuff's pretty cheap. Hehe.... Haruka: What other delicious foods are there? Kiryu: Well next time, we'll have to take a look around the market. Rikiya: (I'm doomed... They both want to go to the market even more... I gotta hurry up and get this rumor dealt with. Guess I'll have to check in with that greenhorn club.) Kiryu: Something wrong, Rikiya? I was going to check in with Nakahara later this evening. Rikiya: At his house? Kiryu: Yep. Apparently he wants to drink awamori with me. Will you be there too? (Tl note: awamori is a traditional okinawan alcohol that has a snake in it) Rikiya: Oh I really wanna but, I kinda got plans tonight already... Kiryu: Really? Why have you been so busy lately? There isn't any trouble, is there? Rikiya: What are ya talking about! There's no trouble at all! Please, just go have fun meeting with my boss for me! Ah, just remember that my boss has a habit of going wild if he drinks too much, and then getting sick. Kiryu: A drunk huh? I'll be careful with him. Rikiya: Well, give my regards to the boss for me! <Rikiya heads downtown> Rikiya: Man, this whole thing has me wondering if I'm even good enough to have Kiryu as my aniki... I really gotta solve this without bothering him. Alright, time to erase these rumors! Rikiya: Buuuuuut... I haven't found hide nor hair of this greenhorn club... Oh, there we go! Greenhorn member: Who's there? What is it this time... Rikiya: You, you're a greenhorn member of the market, yeah? Member: Yeah. I'm the head of... Wait, you! You're that Rikiya guy from the ryudo family! What's Kiryu's brainwashed crony doing here? Are you gonna raid the greenhorn club?! Rikiya: You dumbass. I ain't brainwashed at all. You on the other hand? You spread those fake rumors around the whole market, didn't ya? Member: Kiryu's takeover of the market... Sure, we made sure everyone learned about it. But it ain't a lie... Look at this! Rikiya: Huh? What's all these letters?? Member: These letters were put in the opinion box set up in the market. Rikiya: Opinion box? Member: Customers at the market write any problems and put it in the box. In the middle of all those was this letter. Read it yourself... Rikiya: "Please help me. Kiryu Kazuma is going to take over the market soon! The Ryudo family protecting the market can't compete with Kiryu. That's because... Kiryu is brainwashing their captain, Rikiya. In addition, Kiryu intends to kill the ryudo patriarch Nakahara." Rikiya: ...The hell is this letter! Who put this in the opinion box?! Member: Who knows. It was an anonymous tip. Rikiya: What, you guys just trust this anonymous tip completely?! Member: Hey, we didn't act on it at first. You own the deed to Morning Glory, if Kiryu did anything you could evict him. And obviously Kiryu couldn't brainwash a guy like you. But then, one day it all changed... Member: Out of nowhere you start calling your supposed enemy Kiryu, aniki, and you start pining* after him! (Tl note: to yearn for, long for, pine for, miss, love dearly, adore..... hot damn) Member: There's no way that would have happened besides you getting brainwashed! So that meant the letter was true!! Rikiya: No, that ain't right at all! It's just....! Member: Thought so. We got a new anonymous tip in the box today. Go on. Read it. Rikiya: "Kiryu Kazuma is going to poison the patriarch of the ryudo family... " Huh? Poison? Why the hell would he do something like that! Member: Huh? Hey, look over there! That man walking around... <Kiryu and Haruka walk by> Rikiya: A-Aniki....!? Haruka: Hey, uncle Kaz? Kiryu: What is it, Haruka? Haruka: Are you really going to give this to Nakahara-san for him to drink? Kiryu: Heh... if Nakahara tries to refuse it I'll just *make* him drink it. (Tl note: this sentence is really confusing, intentionally, but basically Kiryu is going to make sure Nakahara drinks something, which could be the poison) Haruka: Well, I guess you're already pretty strong. Though, is it really that potent? Kiryu: Don't worry. This method has been used for a long time. Kiryu: Well, we should hurry. I'm going to be late for meeting up with Nakahara. Member: See! You heard that just now, right?! Rikiya: Now hold on a minute! There's been kind of a misunderstanding! Member: Everyone get out here! Goons: What is it boss? Member: Kiryu is on his way to kill Nakahara right now! Goons: What! Then that anonymous tip we got today was right! Member: C'mon, let's all go and kill Kiryu! Goons: Yeah! We'll catch him before he makes it to Nakahara! Rikiya: Wait! Calm down! Member: Can it, Rikiya! We'll kill you too if we gotta! Rikiya: Go on and try me then! You're not making it an inch further! <Rikiya obliterates them> Member: Ugh... We gotta protect Nakahara.....! Rikiya: Seriously, my aniki isn't gonna kill my boss.... Rikiya: But what exactly were he and Haruka-chan talking about...? Nah, couldn't be. I do want to head after them and see what's up though..... Haruka: I know you said it's been used for a long time, but is that really true? Kiryu: Yeah, I heard the grown ups in ryudo talking about it. Kiryu: If you drink milk before drinking alcohol it coats your stomach, so it's harder to get sick from it... At least that's what they said. Haruka: Hmm! Well, I hope Nakahara-san will drink this milk. Kiryu: Ah, we're just a corner away from the office now. Rikiya, who has been tailing them: Ah... So that's what it was..... <returns to the greenhorns> Member: Huh? It's milk? That's an awful shitty lie, Rikiya! Rikiya: I think my aniki is just... a little scary with his speaking. And his looks. Even when he's talking about normal things it ends up sounding scary. Are you sure the comment box person didn't just misunderstand something Kiryu said? Member: No. There's multiple reports, and they come at different times of day and have different handwriting. You really think *all* those people listened to him and misunderstood in the same way? Don't be ridiculous. Rikiya: That's... well... Member: The real problem is you, Rikiya! Defending Kiryu with such a horribly flimsy excuse! I think you got brainwashed even harder than we expected. Did he embed something in your head? Rikiya: Huh? member: I saw it on TV! They put a chip in your body to control you remotely! Is that what Kiryu did to you!? Rikiya: Uh, no, that's... Member: D-Don't come any closer! You and Kiryu, that's more than we can handle! You guys... You're no longer human!! You're monsters!! Rikiya: Sheesh... This rumor just keeps getting bigger and bigger... <END>

<Kiryu, back at Morning Glory> Kiryu: Shit... I've already beaten (Tl note: punished, tormented) this guy for 2 hours and they're still hanging on. What a horribly stubborn bastard. Kiryu: I guess next I could submerge them in some boiling water? No, I have a hand at stake here... Haruka: What was that uncle Kaz? Did you drop something? Kiryu: Nah, I didn't drop anything. This frying pan has oil stains. (Tl note: KIRYU I THOUGHT IT WAS A LEECH AT LEAST. WHY DO YOU TALK LIKE THIS) Rikiya: (.....He was talking about oil stains...... For a minute there I thought he was torturing someone..... No wonder the anonymous comment box had messages like that, they must have misunderstood what aniki was talking about...) Rikiya: Hey, aniki. Have you ever thought about, uh, speaking in a little more friendly way? Kiryu: Huh? A more friendly way? Rikiya: Well, you've got kind of an intimidating way of talking, you know? It might make people think you're a lot scarier than you are... Kiryu: Has someone been misunderstaning me? Rikiya: No, nothing like that... Though I'd be pretty bad is nasty rumors started spreading about you at the market, right? It's not like you could go to each person in the market individually and clear up that kind of misunderstanding...... Kiryu: I'm not worried about that. Rikiya: Eh? Kiryu: Where do you go to untie a tangled up string? It's the "root" of it that's tangled, not the tip, right? It might look like a massive knot, but the base cause might be a little twist at the base. If you solve that, the rest will follow. Rumors and misunderstandings are the same. Rikiya: I getcha..... So basically, if you solve the first misunderstanding, it'll solve everything else?! Kiryu: Mhm. Everything stems from the root. Both for tangling and untangling. Rikiya: (All I gotta do is find the original person who submitted that rumor anonymously! Time to find them and solve this misunderstanding! Now that I know that, I better go keep an eye on the opinion box!) Rikiya: Thanks! Aniki! Kiryu: ...Hm? What happened to having nasty rumors spread about me? Rikiya: Wh-What are ya talking about! There's nothing like that happening! All the locals know you're a big softie! Kiryu: Speaking of the locals, what ever happened to that invasion of the market? Rikiya: Sorry! I... Gotta go right now! See ya! <Rikiya hurries to the market> Clerk 1: Hey, did you hear? Kiryu's putting chips in people's heads if they oppose him... Clerk 2: So for the rest of my life I'd end up being a brainwashed slave for Kiryu... Rikiya: (This rumor is seriously out of hand... I better hurry up and catch whoever's putting these things in the box. Though... I've been watching the box for a while now and no one's put in any letters... Well, guess I'll just have to camp out here every day until I catch the person behind it... Hm? Those men...?) <goons enter> Rikiya: (They look kinda familiar... That's right! Those are the assholes from the greenhorn club. Are they here to fight? That would make a huge mess here... Wait, the guy on the right has a letter in his hand...?) <goon puts it in the box> Rikiya: (He put it in! Why would the bouncers...? Are they the ones making up these rumors about Kiryu this whole time!? Was all this so they'd get hired as bouncers?! That's gotta be it!!) <Rikiya barges in> Rikiya: Hey, hold up! Goon: R-Rikiya?! What are you doing here?! Rikiya: I just saw you putting a letter in the opinion box, and I'm gonna check it out. Goon: Wh-What!! You can't do that, that's an anonymous message!! Rikiya: I'm pretty impatient about this. Did you put in another bad letter thinking I wouldn't see it? Goon: This doesn't concern you! You're not laying a single finger on that opinion box! Rikiya: Oh? Are you saying I can't see that letter without laying you out? That's fine! Come at me! I'll keep beating you down as many times as it takes! <Rikiya makes good on his word> Goon: Ow....... Don't touch that letter...... Rikiya: I'm gonna ignore your advice. Now let's see, here's the letter you put in... What do we have here~ "A complaint about the greenhorn club. The greenhorn club has not properly compensated the bouncers hired to prepare for Kiryu's invasion of the market. The greenhorn club should pay the bouncers as agreed." ...The hell? Goon: You happy? This is all your fault... The greenhorns said "we're not gonna pay that much to a bouncer who loses to Rikiya"! They went and cut our pay without even negotiating with us... so this is a letter of protest! Rikiya: So, you weren't the one behind the rumors about my aniki... Well, shit. Goon: I have no idea what you're talking about! Rikiya: Whatever, it's fine. You just head on home. If I see you here again though, I'm not gonna be so lenient. Goon: Damnit! <goon leaves, running directly into the tourist woman from the start of this> Tourist: Kya! Goon: Look where you're going, you moron! Rikiya: Are you okay, lady? Tourist: Ah, yeah, sorry. Rikiya: You... We met before, right? We were talking about the rumors about my aniki Kiryu? Tourist: Yeah, it's been a while! Rikiya: I guess you come to the market to shop pretty often. Huh? That in your hand... is that a letter? Tourist: Ah, this is, uh, well... Rikiya: Do ya mind if I take a peek? Tourist: N-No way! Rikiya: It's not decent to read a woman's letter without her permission, but the circumstances are dire... I'll give it back! <Rikiya swipes the letter> Rikiya: What do we got... "A follow up to Kiryu Kazuma's take over plan. Once he takes over the market, he'll start demanding expensive protection rackets from each store. Anyone who can't pay up, he'll kill, and make it look like an accident." ...So you're the one behind this!! Tourist: Uh, this is...!! Rikiya: This "follow-up" is all made up, isn't it!? Lady, who the hell are you!? What's the meaning of all this?! <END>

<directly following the previous one, Rikiya is questioning this tourist lady> Rikiya: Why the hell are you doing thing...!? These rumors about my aniki...?! Tourist: They aren't rumors! Kiryu Kazuma comes to my shop every week. Rikiya: Shop? Tourist: I'm a waitress at a coffee shop on the outskirts of ryukyu. Rikiya: My aniki goes there? But these rumors, it's just not adding up! First of all, why would a normal kid like you even know who Kiryu is? Waitress: Because he keeps calling himself that name on the phone... Rikiya: Phone? Waitress: He's always talking to someone. Every time he answers he says "It's me. Kiryu Kazuma." Rikiya: Okay, yeah, that's how aniki answers the phone, but who's he talking to? Waitress: I don't know. But every time he's always making plans to take over the market... First let's brainwash the captain of the ryudo family... Then let's poison the patriarch... Rikiya: You heard him say the stuff in your letters? Waitress: Yes. I didn't think there would be anyone who could protect the market... but if I could warn them, then at least Kiryu wouldn't be able to kill anyone... Rikiya: So you put a message in the opinion box then. Waitress: Yes. I'd heard that the greenhorn club were pretty strong. So if I could let them know, maybe they'd be able to stop Kiryu.... Rikiya: Miss, the guy you've been seeing at the coffee shop is not Kiryu Kazuma. It's a fake. (Tl note: Rikiya this is a wild assumption. I love it) Waitress: I can't believe that... But, how about you come to the coffee shop right now and see for yourself. Rikiya: What, right now? Waitress: Yes. Middle aged man: Could you wait a moment? Right now, did you say that Kiryu's in a coffee shop? That's strange. I just saw him and the convenience store. Rikiya: Eh? Middle aged man: I'm the manager and was just at the store a little while ago, and I saw Kiryu arrive. Rikiya: Was Kiryu possibly talking on a cellphone? Manager: Yeah. He was talking to someone, I don't know who. It was about a plan to take over the market... So, I eavesdropped, and I wrote this letter on what I heard to put into the opinion box. Man: I wrote the same thing in my letter from when he visited my store. Rikiya: You too...?? Man: He was in my barber shop. I heard him talking to someone on the phone about a plan to take over the market. Rikiya: Hey, hey! Is there a fake Kiryu Kazuma running around town!? We gotta get to that coffee shop! Lead the way, lady! Waitress: Yes! <they go> goon 1: Do you think it worked at the convenience store? goon 2: It went great. The manager was pretending not to listen, but he clearly was! goon 3: The barber too. He wrote down the whole conversation! goon 1: Hehehe... Perfect. It worked even with no one on the other end of the phone. goon 3: Well, think it's time to head back and see what the greenhorn club has to say about these letters? goon 1: Yeah. Seems they hired some chinpira to be their bouncer, but a goon like that can't handle Rikiya. That's something I plan on taking care of myself. goon 3: So, next time they'll hire a stronger guy, right? They're counting on someone to save the market they love so much. goon 1: Well, if they can find anyone that has the balls to take on Kiryu. With Kiryu seen as a threat ryudo family will lose their backing. They're gonna be shaking in their boots. Then the market will be easy pickings for us... the Tamashiro Family. goon 3: Hehehe... Man, inciting the citizens to wipe out Kiryu for us is a great plan. goon 1: Ain't it! We don't even get our hands dirty, they'll do all the hard work for us. We're gonna fly up the ranks of the Tamashiro Family for this one! goon 3: Yeah. But we gotta keep it a secret from the higher ups till it succeeds, I don't want them stealing all the credit. goon 1: Yeah... Alright! Let's head back to the office. Heeey! Check please! Rikiya: Yes sir. Three iced coffees comes out to 15 dollars. goon 1: Sure. Give me a receipt. Rikiya: Right now we're offering a free bonus to all Tamashiro Family members of being beaten half to death. goon 1: Oh, got it. Beaten half to... goon 1: Hey! You! Rikiya of the ryudo family! Rikiya: What made you think this was a good idea. Are you all idiots? Didn't you just join up last year? Your only saving grace is that I didn't tell the higher ups about this plan. If I told them, wouldn't all of you get kicked out of the family entirely? goon 1: What are you saying! This plan is going great! Once Kiryu bites it, the market is ours! Rikiya: Moron. You're the one who's going to bite it. goons: Let's teach this brat a lesson! We'll kill you first! <Rikiya kicks their asses> goons: Sh-Shit...! Don't think this is over! We'll have that market!! <they run> Rikiya: Heh, what a bunch of losers. Waitress: Should you chase them down? They might start spreading fake rumors in the city again... Rikiya: Don't worry about it. After today, no one's gonna believe rumors about my aniki Kiryu. Waitress: Are you going to tell the truth to everyone in the market? Rikiya: Yeah. But I can't be the one to say it. Everyone thinks I'm brainwashed, remember? So, can I count on you to explain things? Waitress: You want me to? Rikiya: You're the one who put in the original anonymous message, so it makes sense. If you tell them the truth, it'll unravel this whole tangled web. Waitress: I understand. I'm going to go tell them the truth. Rikiya: Please do. <she leaves> Rikiya: <answering the phone> Hello? Man's voice: Rikiya, you bastard! You've really done it now! Rikiya: That voice... The greenhorn club's leader? Boss: A surprise attack's a real dirty trick! Rikiya: Surprise attack? What are you talking about? Boss: Right now, you've sent Tamashiro members to take over the market! Rikiya: What?! Boss: I should have known Kiryu would brainwash the Tamashiro family too! goon 1, through the phone: I'm smashing everything! This is Kiryu aniki's orders! Boss: S-Stop it!! Rikiya: ...Shit! Those Tamashiro bastards got desperate! I gotta get that lady back from the market!! <she's back at the cofee store> Waitress: What were you talking about when you called me just now? Rikiya: The Tamashiro family is attacking the market! I gotta go stop them! <at the market> goon 1: Ain't this great! Today this market is gonna belong to Kiryu aniki! goon 2: Protection money starts at 1,000,000 yen! Pay up if you don't wanna get squashed! Clerk: Kiryu brainwashed the Tamashiro family too! If I pay that much, I'll go bankrupt! goon 1: I think you'll be lucky number one to pay up. Unless you want Kiryu to show up tomorrow and kill everyone? I'm sure all of you are adults, you can get the money from somewhere! Otherwise Kiryu aniki will... <Kiryu steps in> Kiryu: Otherwise I'll what? (Tl note: YESSSSSSSSSSSSS) goon 1: Ah, this is Kiryu aniki. One second, I have to talk to... goona 1: ....Eh? Kiryu?! Why are you here?! Kiryu: Am I not allowed to shop? I thought the market was open to everyone. goon 1: Y-Yeah...! This market is for everyone...! Especially for aniki! Hahaha! goon 1: Please enjoy the market as much as you like!! We're just gonna get out of your way..!!! Kiryu: Wait. Kiryu: How about you step aside? Something doesn't feel right here. goon 1: Y-Yes sir. (This is my first time seeing him in person, he's so strong! I'm scared!) <Kiryu looks at the letter submitted> Kiryu: I've brainwashed the Tamashiro Family? I'm going to take over the market? Kiryu: Well, looking back on how Rikiya has been acting and talking lately, I've got a pretty good idea on what the situation has been. Clerk 2: K-Kiryu really did come here!! Please, spare my life...!! Kiryu: I'm not going to take over the market or kill any of you. All of that has been a lie from the Tamashiro Family. Clerk 2: You can't fool me! You're a villanous mainlander! Aren't you going to kill me if I can't pay protection money?! Clerk 2: Well, I'm not just gonna roll over and die! I'll cut you to shreds... with this butcher knife! Kiryu: I'm not going to kill you, are you even hearing what I'm saying? Clerk 2: Yeah. I'll believe you if you just let me stab you quietly! Not like that's gonna happen! Do you have weapons hidden around here? A gun? A dagger? What are you going to kill me with? Kiryu: Nope, I came to this market unarmed. Kiryu: Stab me. The heart's on your right. Clerk 2: I-I'm gonna do it! I'm really gonna stab you! Kiryu: Yep. I'm ready. Clerk 2: Hnn....! Hnnnnnn.....!! Dieee!!!!!! goon 1: (Woah! he did it! That's the end of Kiryu!) Kiryu: ...What is it? Why did you stop? clerk 2: What is this? What the hell is all of this!? Kiryu: I want you to believe me. So, this is what I'm doing. clerk 2: You'd throw away your life for a reason like that...? Kiryu: Believing in someone isn't a superficial thing. Especially when you're a stranger to me, trust is hard to build. But, I have to believe in people. I do it for all the orphans living at morning glory. Kiryu: If I, the caretaker, go behind their backs like this, those children won't be able to keep living here. clerk 2: So this... for those children? Kiryu: Yes. I would gladly risk my life to care for them. clerk 2: You, who only thinks of those children even at risk to your body... Can't be the same person who plans to take over this market... clerk 1: I feel the same... You just aren't the kind of guy I've heard about in the rumors! clerk 2: I've decided! I believe Kiryu! clerk 1: Yes, me too! goon 1: (Shit! This is all falling apart!) Kiryu: Hold on a minute, Mister Tamashiro Family Member. goon 1: Wh-What for..?! Kiryu: I'm not the one that needs anything from you, it's them. Clerk 1: Is this all your doing? You spread these terrible rumors and scared us all? Clerk 2: We'll make you feel just as intimidated as we were! You dirty rat! (Tl note: the actual phrase here is an okinawan one meaning he can't be place upwind cause he'd make everything downwind stink) <fade to black> Rikiya: Ha.. Ha...! Where are they? Where's teh Tamashiro family? Goons, beaten to shit: H-help me...! Rikiya: You're, Tamashiro family? goons: We're never gonna come back to this scary ass market again! Rikiya: They hell is going on??? Clerk 2: Rikiya. Rikiya: Meat clerk? Clerk 2: You really weren't brainwashed... We were all wrong... Please, forgive me! Rikiya: Oookay, why are you saying this all the sudden? Clerk 2: We were all brought to our senses. By that guy's manly energy. <Kiryu walks over> Rikiya: A-Aniki!! What are you doing here!? Kiryu: Shake off that shock, you've got a market to show me around, right? Rikiya: What do they mean by, you brought them to their senses with your manly energy? Kiryu: Don't worry about that. There is one thing I don't understand though. You've known about these bad rumors the whole time. Why did you hide it from me? If you'd told me about it earlier it never would have gotten this messy. Rikiya: That was... I had told you before that the people at the market were all kind hearted, and my pride as your otouto (Tl note: opposite of aniki) wouldn't let me make myself a liar like that... I wanted to solve it myself! I didn't want to bother you aniki! Kiryu: We haven't actually exchanged oaths. You just call me aniki. Rikiya: ................ Kiryu: However, if we were really kyoudai, you should bother your aniki a lot. That's the otouto's job. Rikiya: Eh? Kiryu: You said that's your pride as an otouto? I have the same pride as an aniki. I can't allow myself to be taken care of by my otouto. So next time, when there's any trouble, come to me right away for advice. Kiryu: ......Then I'll be happy for you to call me aniki. Rikiya: Uuu... Aniki! Thank you so much! Clerk 2: Hehe. You got yourself a real fine aniki Rikiya! Kiryu-san, we can't apologize to you enough. I fell for those rumors and thought you were a terrifying person. I'm so sorry. Kiryu: It's all fine. By the way, you run a meat store, right? Clerk 2: Yes. We've got every delicious thing you could want, I'll give it to you on the house! Kiryu: Oh, no. I couldn't impose on your like that... That butcher knife however... Clerk 2: The knife... Wh-What do you want to use it on...? Kiryu: For offing. (Tl note: the specific term is シメる which is yakuza slang for killing someone, based on strangling them) Clerk 2: Offing? Kiryu: Why do people never understand me. I'm going to use it to kill. Clerk 2: But I thought... that you weren't a scary person! H-H-Help me!! <he flees> Rikiya: Hold up, what did you mean by that?! You were gonna kill with it?! Kiryu: Hm? Oh, I just bought this at the fish market... Rikiya: That's... a gurukun!? Kiryu: I came to buy it, since it had been forever and you still hand't brought me one. If you ask the fishmonger for a very fresh one, he'll sell you ones that are still alive. But since it's hard to carry with it thrashing around in the bag, I wanted to just off it here. Rikiya: So that's what you meant.......... Aniki, you remember what I was saying to you a while ago? About trying to speak in a more friendly way? Kiryu: Yeah. I've been working on that little by little. Rikiya: Then what was that! Half of this whole thing is your fault cause you sound like a really bad dude! No one would have believed the rumors if you actually sounded like as nice of a guy as you are! Kiryu: Heh, finally the old, hotblooded Rikiya has returned... Great, now I can finally enjoy Rikiya's guided tour of the market. Please show me around thoroughly. It's time to begin our tour. Rikiya: Wait, aniki! Stop just running off on your own...! Jeez~ I guess it can't be helpeddd~ <END>

Bonus facts: okay this isn’t really a fact but my husband walked by while I was reading this and said it was a Rikiya dating sim

By the way, here’s the word I was kind of losing my mind about. It’s uh. It’s a lot tbh.

He also has thoughts on most of the Y3 cast as he goes around the board, here’s his one for Kiryu.

Kiryu no aniki I had no idea a person even greater than my boss existed... No, greater than anyone in the whole wide world!

[whumpinggrounds]

Febuwhump Day 25: Hostage Situation

another sub because i wasn’t vibing with car accident! also i’m stretching the definition of hostage situation just a little bit but bear with me - it basically applies. anyway, this is a bit more plot-relevant than usual so if you plan to stick around this is a semi-important one :)

tagging @shapeshiftersandfire and @killtheprotagonist !

CW: referenced pet whump, referenced lady whump

“You want to keep 067493?” If Director Hammond’s eyebrows could arch any higher, they might disappear into her hairline. Mara tells herself to stay strong as she meets that steely gaze. She nods, afraid her voice will crack if she replies aloud. “Ms. Langford, you must know how this looks to me.”

No longer can she get away with not speaking. Weighing every word before it leaves her mouth, Mara begins to make her case. “I understand that it looks like…well, like a case of reactive attachment disorder.” Mara gambles on making a psych joke she knows the Director won’t understand – all the more so because Mara is using the term completely incorrectly. “I just think…well, she isn’t being sold, and I think I could really do some good with 493.” Use the number, Mara tells herself. Try to make her believe it’s about wanting a pet. Not about wanting Jude.

“You mean she could really do you some good.” The Director seems supremely unconvinced. Taking a deep breath, Mara lays out her argument.

“WRU’s largest market is for Domestics, yes? And then Platonics, and then Romantics. Romantics are rarer because they’re expensive and, er, particularly suited, but Platonics, there’s just not much demand, is there? They make good companions for the elderly, good minders for children, perhaps a friend for the lonely, but besides that, the market is smaller.”

Director Hammond purses her lips. “Some have been known to purchase a Platonic as a cheaper alternative to a Romantic.” Her implication is clear, and Mara’s lips thin. Hammond might her boss, but that’s still a low blow.

“I…suppose. My point is that I think there’s an untapped market that you’re missing, and I think 067493 could be a good way to…to explore that.”

“Oh?” The Director flicks her hair over her shoulder. “Tell me, Ms. Langford, with locations in every continent save Antarctica and hundreds of personnel, what market, pray tell, do you think we’ve all missed?”

The Director is definitely irritated. If Mara wants to keep her job, far less Jude, she’d better make her case, and make it well. “Therapeutic aids.” Mara says it firmly, and with conviction. She at least thinks she has Director Hammond’s attention, and so she forges on. “Platonics intended for the elderly are often trained in rudimentary caregiving, yes? And all Platonics, and Romantics, for that matter, are trained to be agreeable and pleasant and friendly? What if…” Mara takes a breath, stretches the pause for a moment as she thinks. “What if we took that further?”

“Ms. Langford, I am running out of patience. Speak plainly.”

“There are people who pay for service animals,” Mara blurts, not making her case half as neatly as she’d like to. “Dogs, mostly, that can soothe them when they’re distressed or overstimulated. A person – a pet, rather – could easily and far more effectively serve that role if we trained them to do it. Ma’am.” She adds the honorific belatedly, searching the Director’s face for some sign of emotion.

“Interesting,” Director Hammond allows. “Go on.”

“Many mental illnesses have isolating effects,” Mara explains, voice steady, calm, completely professional. “A trained companion could provide relief from loneliness for struggling individuals, as well as assist with coping mechanisms. Dogs can be trained to provide physical reassurance to their owners or lead them to safe spaces where they can recover from a panic attack or meltdown. A human pet could do all of that and more. If one were trained to recognize facial expression and physical symptoms of distress, we could program a set of responses, perhaps with the owner’s input beforehand. A therapy dog with a much smaller range of abilities can cost fifteen to twenty thousand upfront. Some, upwards of fifty thousand, depending on the tasks they’re trained to perform.”

“A modified Platonic would retail for at least fifty thousand, if not more with the modifications you’re talking about,” the Director points out.

“A dog has about a decade of usefulness a service animal. A WRU pet can last a lifetime.” Mara allows herself to take a breath. Director Hammond is interested despite herself; Mara just knows it. “I know it sounds like I’m trying to get you to give me my ex-girlfriend. I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since Collins talked about that moment 493 had with Tracy Atkins. I just think that maybe…if I had some time with a pet, maybe I could…”

She’s all but holding her breath, waiting for the Director to speak. “Your idea is not without merit,” Director Hammond allows, after what feels like an endless pause. “But Ms. Langford, you’re going to have to make a stronger case than that. We do not let assets worth thousands go, merely for employee experimentation.”

“She’s damaged,” Mara points out, tipping her chin up. “You wouldn’t be able to sell her anyway, and if I could develop this program, it could make the company millions.”

“True. But why does it have to be this pet, Ms. Langford?” Hammond narrows her eyes. “Do not tell me that her past life is irrelevant, because we both know that’s not true.”

Taking a deep breath, Mara wades into the minefield. “Yes, she’s my ex. But Director Hammond, she also knows sign language – that’s a useable skill with a nonverbal owner who may use alternative communication methods. She’s damaged, and unlikely to be sold to anyone else. She has the same empathetic impulse she did before training, we know that much. I can work with all that. I can work with her. I know I can.”

The Director snorts. “And it doesn’t hurt that she looks exactly like the person you used to sleep with.”

Mara swallows. “No. I suppose it doesn’t.”

For a long moment, Director Hammond examines Mara through narrowed eyes. An eternity later, she drops her gaze to her desk and shakes her head. “Go, Ms. Langford. I’m sure you have work to do.” Hesitating, Mara opens her mouth to ask, but Hammond cuts her off. “As for your proposal…you’ve given me much to think about.” Eyes lifting again, she waves a dismissive hand at the younger woman. “So go. Let me do my thinking.”

A protest in her throat, hands clenched into fists, still desperate to keep arguing her case, Mara does, reluctantly, as she’s told.

[newbeginningsforever]

Have you ever wondered what happened after Dracula accepted Lisa as his student? And how they eventually came to be married? 

**Chapter 3 added!** 

Chapter One:

“You’re an idiot! A blasted fool,” the man at the bar berated loudly, turning around, “Spinnin’ fancies and stupid stories like that. Don’t tell this young lady such nonsense, you’ll send her off searching through the woods for some mysterious lord that doesn’t exist, and she’ll probably freeze to death on the way.” He burped unapologetically afterward, making the woman in question cringe, turning away from him and back to the ‘idiot’ telling her stories at the small tavern they were all drinking at. She pursed her pink lips in distaste and took a breath, hoping the brutish man would leave them alone. She very eagerly wanted to hear the rest of this story.

       “I’m not an idiot!” Christian yelled back defiantly. The lanky teenager took another swig of his ale before he focused again on the young woman across from him at the table, “I know it sounds strange, but there are things in this world that are hard to believe. And this place- it does exist. I’m sure of it, Lisa. Positive. My grandfather saw the castle with his own eyes!” He insisted, brown eyes blown wide. Lisa sat a little straighter, her elegant hands gripped around her cup of watery ale.

       “Are you really certain it exists, Christian?” She whispered, not wanting to draw the attention of the other patrons at the tavern. The yelling man thankfully went back to chugging ale at the counter and turned away from them.

       “Yes. My grandpa isn’t the lying sort. Everyone in town knows he doesn’t have a fibbing bone in his body. He saw it, that’s for sure. The only part you can’t be sure of is what or who is inside of that castle... But there are lots of stories.” He nodded, serious.

       “Tell me again, what is this castle described as?” Lisa was not convinced of anything yet. She wasn’t even sure if it was real.

       “It’s a huge stone castle, very tall, with turrets and a hundred rooms, at least. My grandfather said it was larger than the Church in Targoviste but much taller and narrower. He said there were hundreds of glass windows, and the most incredible door he had ever seen, made entirely of metal. But in front of the castle, there were many, many pikes. Perhaps a hundred pikes.” His face turned sour when he remembered that part.

       “Pikes?” Lisa scowled in confusion. Chris took another gulp of ale and nodded, disturbed at the thought. It was such a cruel way to kill people.

       “Mhm. Skeletons on pikes. They were impaled while still alive, you see, so they died slowly on the pike, bleeding out through their midsection. My grandfather was terrified. He said that as he came up the hill, at first he was happy, because he thought he could ask for directions and food. But then as he came closer down, he saw the horrible display of skeletons. The army of the dead, as he said. On the castle’s front lawn.” Lisa tried to picture such a scene.

       “Like the Ottomans do to their enemies sometimes?” She had heard of impalement before. An awful punishment. Whoever had received that torture had surely angered someone serious.

       “Exactly. There was a lot of ‘em, my grandpa said. When he finally got to the nearest town he asked the locals about the castle and who lived there. The barkeep and the villagers said that it was Vlad Dracula’s castle, the Viovode who sold his soul to Satan for unimaginable powers. The barkeep there said that his own father saw him, in person, years past.”

       “Vlad Dracula?” Lisa scoffed, thinking it completely ridiculous. The ruler of Wallachia’s old history was surely dead. But Christian nodded, totally serious.

       “Aye! Dracula himself. He matched the descriptions of old: he is a most terrifying and giant monster. Pale as death. He used to be a man, centuries ago when he was Viovode, but he went mad after he was betrayed, and he sold his soul to Satan so he could gain all the powers to destroy his enemies. That’s how he defeated the Turks- with demon armies given to him by Satan. And because he sold his soul to the Devil, he gained eternal life. Every so often, he reappears, makin’ havoc and killing pretty much anyone who disturbs him. That’s why the army of the dead is there: to keep people away... That’s the legend anyway.” Lisa rolled her eyes, because of course, it was a legend.

       “Well, that’s ridiculous, Christian. Of course, it couldn't be the original Vlad Dracula, he died hundreds of years ago.”

       “But the monster of a man identified himself as Vlad Dracula!” He insisted. Lisa made a face that meant she wasn’t convinced.

       “Is it not true that Vlad the Impaler’s father was named Vlad, too? And his brother? And his cousin? They’re all named Vladislav. If this is a real person, it is almost definitely the descendant of Vlad the Impaler. The original Vlad the Impaler cannot possibly be alive! He would have to be centuries old.” Lisa whispered-yelled at the crazy notion. She was not so superstitious. In fact, she wasn’t superstitious at all. Lisa had never in her life seen anything of the supernatural. She had only heard whispers and nightmarish tales of people claiming they had seen them on the roads, but she had never encountered any monsters herself. Christian leaned forward on his skinny elbows, scratching his stubbly chin.

       “The barkeep said he thinks he’s a vampire,” he muttered under his breath.

       “Of course he did. What a story that makes. Everyone tells tales of vampires, but I’m not sure their even real. Have you ever seen them? I haven’t ever seen one, or known someone who has claimed to see one. They’re probably not real.” The lanky teenager shrugged. Lisa had thought Chris to be one of the most reasonable in town, and quite kind, but she was annoyed to learn that he believed in such ridiculous things as vampires. She did not.

       “Probably. But my grandfather said that the barkeep’s father saw someone come out of there. It’s definitely not abandoned. Someone lives within the castle walls.”

       Lisa thought for a moment.

       “Maybe it is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler.” She shrugged.

       “Could be. There’s definitely someone in ‘ere because my grandfather saw lights and smoke rising from the chimneys. It’s not abandoned. Anyway, there are many stories of what is inside, which is why I’m telling you this. I think you would be interested to know.” Lisa blinked, meeting his gaze.

       “What is supposed to be inside, then?” Lisa wondered, taking a small sip of ale.

       “The castle’s filled with all sorts of wonders, completely unlike anything you’ve ever seen before,” Christian animated, eyes shining, invested in the legend. “Wonderous things.”

       “What? Chests filled with gold and rubies?” She snarked sarcastically. The daydreams of peasants finding gold in old palaces did not interest her. She was no treasure hunter.

       “No, no. The barkeep said his father saw the inside and it was filled with thousands of books! Lots of secret knowledge.” Well. That piqued Lisa’s interest. A private individual having a large collection of books was very rare. Usually the rich only had a few books, a bookshelf at most, not thousands. Not even a monastery had that many. Even if the story was a hyperbole, it was still a start.

       “Really? What else?” She leaned closer so they could whisper.

       “Amazing things! Strange machines and lightning in cages. Genius inventions.”

       Science, perhaps. She was very intrigued, then. A few patrons at nearby tables began listening in to their conversation.

       “Hm. Why would the barkeep’s father enter the castle, despite the stories?”

       “Well, he had seen some people come up to the castle when he was traveling from town, and so he knew that it wasn’t abandoned. Someone was there, and the owner of the castle was clearly having rich guests who came by carriages. The tavern owner’s wife was very sick, and they were poor, so he thought that maybe the owner of the castle would give him some gold or medicine. They were desperate because there weren’t any healers in town, you see. So the man went to the castle and ventured inside, looking for the owner. Inside, he saw all sorts of things. The castle was filled with magic, he said, and glass everywhere. There were mirrors and books and wild inventions. Things moved on their own...” Lisa perked up, delighted to hear of such things. Maybe they were scientific instruments. The man could be a prominent scholar. Perhaps he was simply a recluse or something like that. Not a monster. Monsters didn’t have a home full of books as far as Lisa was concerned. To Lisa, monsters were rouge beasts in the woods. Not men who made inventions.

       “And lightning danced in glass cages. The lighting lanterns lit themselves.”

       “Oh!” That idea captivated Lisa. To have such inventions, the man must be a scientist or an intellectual. She wanted very much to meet him.

       “Are you talking about the castle by Micăsasa, Christian?” Another man whispered, sitting down beside them, beer in hand. Lisa did not know the dark-haired man.

       “Aye. My grandfather saw it. Didn’t your folks see the castle, too?” He wondered, speaking lowly so they wouldn’t attract attention. The other man nodded, unwashed hair falling over his shoulder.

       “It’s true, what he’s sayin’. My family did see it and heard stories of people who had ventured inside, years ago. My father found the castle once when he went to Micăsasa and got lost getting back. It’s huge, he says, insanely huge. My father said he’d never seen anything like it. The man inside is said to be an immortal Lord who knows everything, including the future. He has secret books and devices- all kinds o’ things. I wish I could have seen ‘em with my own eyes. What did your grandfather hear about the man who lives there?” He asked, turning to Christian beside him.

       “He figured the man to be a genius, a scholar of rare intelligence because of his thousands of books and inventions. And perhaps a warlord, too, given the people on pikes out front. Probably his enemies from years past. That seems more likely than a monster. I’ve never heard of a monster who collects books and machines.”

       She huffed. “Yes, of course, he’s not a monster. Probably an old warlord. That’s interesting. What happened to the tavern owner of your story?” She wondered.

       “The owner of the castle said he wouldn’t help him. And he told him to beg for coins elsewhere. He kicked him out of the palace.” Chris coughed over his shoulder abruptly.

       “But he didn’t kill him?” Lisa asked, brow queried.

       “No. He lived to tell the tale, obviously. He said that he thought the man was Dracula, and that he was a vampire. Whoever he was, he was incredibly tall and pale, like a ghost.”

       “Well, it seems like this man never leaves his castle, so of course he would be pale. That doesn’t mean he’s a vampire. Probably just a solitary man…. And this was how long ago? This story?” She tilted her head, considering the tale.

       “Uh, my grandfather saw the castle- let me think... About thirty years ago. It’s not too far from here. He said you have to follow the river to Micăsasa and then travel south another mile or so.” He answered. Lisa considered the story and directions. She would have to travel with a merchant to Micăsasa and then walk the rest on foot, but she could do it.

       “My father saw it twenty years ago. I’m sure it’s still there.”

       “Maybe I’ll try to go. Perhaps I can convince whoever is inside to let me have access to their knowledge…” she drifted off, thinking about the prospect. She had nowhere else to turn, really. And it was the only lead she had of a scholar in the vicinity anymore. The last lead had denied her most vehemently, literally pushing her out of his house by force, refusing to teach her anything because of her sex.

       “You’re crazy, girl. That Lord is not to be messed with. Even my father didn’t dare to reach the door. The road to the castle is lined with a hundred or more people on pikes, left to rot. ‘s a fool’s errand, tryin’ to reach the master.” He shook his head at her.

       “I know you’re desperate Lisa, but it might be dangerous,” Christian warned, “Think of all the people he impaled on his front porch. If you anger him, he may kill you too.”

       “Then I simply won’t anger him.” She declared like it was obvious. “If I stay here, Christian, I might be killed by the church anyway. They’re beginning to think I’m a heretic in these parts.” She already had her troubles with the church.

Click on the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24986407/chapters/66891499 to read more.

[purplesurveys]

1275

When you were younger, did your mother or father ever let you open a few presents before Christmas or your birthday even arrived?  We open all our presents the night of Christmas Eve to begin with; but no, they don’t tease by letting us open a few of them before our usual schedule.

If you could receive a 100 dollar gift card for either blouses, pants, dresses, shoes or purses, which would you chose?  If I could change blouses to shirts, then I would go with that because I’ve recently gotten into t-shirts and sweatshirts and no longer the trendy and preppy tops I used to like haha. But if not, I would go for shoes.

What is your favorite thing to do after crying? Ex: Sleep, listen to music, have some alone time, talk to someone, etc?  It varies as it depends on how much I cried. The harder I cried the more I’d want to sleep it off, because it can actually get pretty exhausting. Sometimes I’ll reach out, sometimes I write. It’s really different every time, but at the end I’m just glad I can no longer even remember the last time I cried out of sadness.

Do you think Trump will be assassinated, or will he survive his term?  Well we know the answer to this. It’s satisfying to notice him disappear off the face of the Earth immediately after his term, though. I don’t have a clue what he’s up to now.

Last time you felt suicidal?  For some reason I felt down last Thursday and I felt the slightest, slightest tinge of suicidal thoughts. No idea where it came from.

Last time you had butterflies?  Ugh idk but it was probably BTS-related hahahahahahah

Biggest asshole you know?  Certain politicians.

Did you ever leave someone because you know you’d hurt them?  No, I was on the opposite side of the coin for this one. I was broken up with because they believed they would hurt me, if not already doing so.

What song did you last listen to?  Hip Hop Phile by BTS.

Ever ridden in a police car?  Nopes.

Ever witnessed a murder?  Hmm, not that I can recall. I do remember having to monitor crime stories for one of my very first journalism assignments and the one time I didn’t tag along to the fieldwork with my classmates, they got to witness a stabbing incident :/ By itself of course it always sucks to have violent situations like those, but as a reporter it would’ve been interesting to see the scene and its aftermath.

Have you ever lied under oath?  I don’t think so, no. I can’t even remember the last time I was put under oath.

Have you ever failed a subject before? I’ve failed exams but never an entire class.

Have you ever had a deadly animal as a pet?  No.

Have you ever kissed someone of the same gender?  Well yeah, I dated one.

Have you ever been in a hot tub before?  Sure.

Have you ever been to a movie that sold out?  I’ve never experienced trying to buy tickets only to find out they’re all sold out, but that’s also probably because we have hundreds of malls in Manila alone and you can always find a theatre that are still offering tickets.

What movie last made you too scared to go to sleep?  I’m not usually that way with horror movies, but I do remember running into a jumpscare on TikTok while I was scrolling at 3 AM. Not fun.

When you’re on a laptop, do you hook up a mouse or use the touchpad?  Touchpad. I never use a mouse.

What’s your mom’s mom’s name?  Agnes.

Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the person you like?  I’m not interested in anyone so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Have you ever been tempted to steal?  Sure, but the urge is never so strong.

What is the main character’s name in the book you’re reading? I’m not reading anything.

Do you have a favorite local band? Who are they? Nah. I did have a Ben&Ben phase, though I haven’t revisited their music in a long time.

Who’s the last person you saw naked, aside from yourself?  I’m not sure about completely naked, probably still my ex. As for partially naked, my dad sometimes goes shirtless at home as most Filipino dads do lol.

Who’s your favorite horror monster/killer?  The most iconic for me would be that porcupine looking ass from Resident Evil 4, I believe it was meant to be for one of the boss stages or something. Anyway, it’s memorable for me just because that fucker had been impossible to defeat and I loved watching my older cousin do attempt after attempt. I don’t think he ever got to beat him and by the time he did us cousins were already adults, lol.

On a side note, we called him ‘Porcupine’ as kids since a shitload of spikes would stick out of him unpredictably during the boss stage, and I thought that nickname had been just our thing; but I’m actually surprised that that villain actually comes up when you do a simple ‘Resident Evil 4 porcupine’ search haha. I guess other people called him the same thing too.

What kind of music do you prefer to listen to when driving?  I usually put on a playlist of BTS’ rapline; I tend to enjoy high-energy songs while driving.

Would you ever own a hairless rat, cat or dog?  I don’t see why I wouldn’t when it comes to the dog. I don’t want a cat or rat. 

All the people you’ve kissed, what did their names start with?  G.

What did you and your ex fight about most?  It was about the deeper, more profound stuff. We never saw eye to eye about the future, if we were helping the other grow, etc. Someone was always scared or insecure about something that the other could never help with fixing.

Don’t you love long hugs?  Sure, I love getting hugs as long as I’m comfy around the one giving it.

And long kisses?  Mhm, they’re nice.

Have you ever purchased condoms?  Only for Angela when she had still been too shy to ask for it herself. 

Have you ever gone on vacation with your boyfriend/girlfriend?  No. We had gone out of town for daytrips, but never for a fully-decked out vacation.

Have you ever trashed your ex’s car after an argument?  I wouldn’t do anything that loud. My resentment’s a lot more reserved and subtle, definitely on the passive-aggressive side.

Would you leave a note on a car claiming responsibility if you damaged it?  If I left like a paint scratch, no. If I was somehow stupid enough to manage wrecking the car then yes.

Have you ever used someone's handicapped parking pass to get a parking spot?  Oh that’s just gross. No. I do remember unknowingly parking over a spot meant for the handicapped once just because the paint was so fucking faded. It was genuinely so hard to tell but in the end I ended up just getting out of the spot and looked for another just to be on the safe, unassholey side.

Are you embarrassed to tell people your job?  Not at all! I love telling people I work in PR and sharing the brands I work with...it’s just a bitch trying to explain what exactly it is I do on a normal day. I’m still blanking out on it now that I’m thinking about it, haha. PR’s a challenge to summarize in one or two sentences.

If you ran over an animal would you keep driving?  I honestly have no clue how I’d deal with it. Ideally I would pull over and help bring it to the side of the road, and try to ask for help from passersby as well. I’m still not sure what I should/would do next.

Where’s the best place to eat a romantic dinner?  French, Spanish, and Italian restaurants always seem to carry a pleasant, date-y atmosphere to them, so any of those cuisines should be ok. I also like quieter restaurants with warm yellow lighting, since that makes me feel at home the most. The place definitely doesn't have to be super popular; I would just want for it to serve good food.

What hobby would you get into if time and money weren’t an issue?  Flying planes.

What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?  Probably something that’s booked with thrill-seeking adventures? Like a day of wakeboarding, paragliding, skydiving, riding an ATV...I would be exhausted as fuck and sleep for the next three days, but I can’t even begin to imagine how fun it would be.

When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with? Writing stuff. < Yeah, essentially. My friends ask me for general life advice too.

Has anybody criticized the way your significant other looked like?  Yeah. But I always defended her.

Have you written or drawn anything for somebody else?  I mean I’ve written long letters, but I haven’t made a poem or song for anyone.

Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished?  These days it would probably be Arlan. He just finished his Masters in Journalism at Columbia and I couldn’t be more proud. I remember wanting to attend Columbia too, but seeing how my love of journalism turned out...I’ve long accepted the fact that that route was not meant for me, hahaha.

What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?  Finish a painting, which can also serve as a callout to me lol.

What would you rate 10/10?  Seafood.

What do you hope never changes?  My relationships with my best friends.

Would you ever have sex with the last person you texted?  No, I barely have a clue who she is and she seemed decades older when she called me up this morning.

Is there anyone that you’d love to just spill your guts to?  I’m good.

Where is the person you have feelings at right now? 

Are you happy with your relationship status?  Yessssssss. I love not having to worry about another person to spend on LOL

When did you last cry? What for?  Two Saturdays ago. The one-year mark of my breakup had been coming up and an overwhelming wave of emotions just flooded me all of a sudden, I guess. There was happiness and relief from not being stuck in it anymore; feeling sorry for myself as I remembered the turmoil and deterioration I went through in the latter part the year; anger for the shit she pulled; and there was also just the general feeling of being grateful that I’m still here after everything.

Do you think you’re wasting your time on the person you love? 

When’s the next time you’ll kiss someone?  No clue. I’m not holding my breath for it and that’s okay.

Were you ever scared to death of anyone you knew? Or are you currently?  Yeah, unfortunately I’ve always been surrounded by at least one person who terrifies me.

What’s the longest you’ve been away from home by yourself?  Nothing more than a day. That’s something I have yet to try out.

Have you ever been made fun of, because of what you look like?  Athenna was relentless in her insults. I dunno why I was friends her for as long as I was.

Have you ever made fun of others, because of what they look like?  If they’re some random person on the internet with disgusting political views, then yeah; but it’s just thoughts I keep in my head and I never verbalized the bullying. But not anyone in real life. Do you think it’s cute when you’re leaving a place, and a guy says “no hug?”  If I’m friends with the person I’ll banter with them for a bit until I give in for a hug. If it was any other guy I barely know...I would be disgusted and throw them the dirtiest glare.

Do you wear short shorts (if you’re a girl)? I didn't know short shorts were specific to females. < LOL same. Anyway no, not these days. I used to but they’re not really a part of my personal style anymore.

Who are you the most uncomfortable around?  Relatives with the wrong political views.

Who has your heart?  Nobody.

Should cloning ever be allowed to happen?  I don’t see the point. No.

Are you impatient with really shy people? If it gets to the point that they seem aloof and radiate very I-could-not-care-less-about-getting-along-with-any-of-you vibes, then yeah I feel like I would get irritated pretty fast. But I was an extremely shy person once too, so I’m typically friendly with them and I would usually be That person who constantly stays next to them so they feel like they belong.

Does your house have air conditioning throughout, or do you have one that sits in your window?  It sits in the window, as with most households here.

What is the most ridiculous band name you’ve heard recently?  I haven’t encountered anything wacky recently.

Would you ever get a fashion mullet?  No.

Do you believe that Jesus lived and is returning?  No.

Do you believe in spiritual gifts?  No.

Do you believe in callings?  Not really, no.

If you were rich, would you get a professional photoshoot done?  Hell no. I get extremely sheepish in front of a camera and a thousand times worse at posing.