#at the very least thankfully bullies are not as organized as they COULD be

[katyspersonal]

People that headcanon Maria as butch lesbian and/or Eileen as black woman and still are kind and respectful to different takes are good and beautiful and lovely and Great Ones can't even help them to ascend any further because they are already perfect and they get so many bitches.

People that headcanon Maria as butch lesbian and/or Eileen as black woman and trash on different takes while accusing people of bigotries are terrible and dumb and absolutely repulsive and do not take homophobia/racism seriously if they think having different headcanons on fictional characters is any of these bigotries, they should stop using the pretense of caring about real world issues to get away with shunning, passive aggression, bullying and cruelty in the fandom for the "awful sin" of being different and Rom would never want to be friends with them

People that started to dislike these headcanons just because of bad experiences with toxic fans should temporarily stop keeping track on fandom updates so they can heal and rediscover them, contradictory spirit doesn't make you free from bad people but makes you another side of the bad people coin and true freedom lays in raging individualism, don't let them claim headcanons as their weapons because butch lesbian Maria and black Eileen did nothing wrong to you and exist to make people happy, it is their enforcers who are bad.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

hello! I once heard the opinion that the zutara fandom (the loudest and most toxic part of it, of course, we are not talking about normal people who just enjoy their ship) has features of cultist, sectarian thinking and organization. I haven't thought about it much, but recently a friend of mine who understands quite a lot about cults and sects and to whom I showed the most popular zutara blogs and their meta tags here, tumblr (I didn't push him on this idea, we were just chatting about fandoms) said that according to the type of thinking zutara's fandom has features of a religious cult. this thought seemed interesting to me. what do you think about it?

I'd say it's true, but it does not apply solely to Zutara, or even to the ATLA fandom.

I lost count of how many times I've seen some legit insane news here in Brazil about angry fans of some soccer team violently beating, or straight up murdering, people that were wearing the "wrong" t-shirt after a game.

Harry Potter had the weird thing with the Snape wives, and now has the current cult-like TERF bullshit JK Rowlling encourages on a daily basis.

One of my cousins is VERY into K-pop and told me some WILD shit about some idols literally have to sign contracts that forbid them from dating (or at least publicly dating) anyone because half of the marketing around their persona is "You, regular person, could totally date them!" and faced some ABSURD backlash, including death threats towards them and their partners, when they were revealed to be in a relationship.

Anything, no matter how mundane, can be used by some disturbed people to excuse/encourage awful behavior. It's usually a result of desperate, lonely people needing to find ANYTHING that makes them feel like they belong, are part of a group, of a community, to the point that they shut off from anything else and become obsessed. That kind of thing has always existed, but BOY, has the internet made it sooooooooooo much worse.

I mean, seriously, just look at the things the "extreme" zutara fans do.

Creating whole conspiracies to justify why their was totally canon until some evil authority screwed it over, lying about anything and everything that happened both in canon and in the making of the show, even going as far as creating fake "evidence" of some huge power struggle between Bryke and other writers (mainly Ehasz).

Harrassing, bullying, doxxing and threatening anyone that has a different opinion, and justifying their actions with "Oh, but the people were doing this to ship Kataang/Maiko, which means they're all raging mysogynists, rape apologists, and 100% against interracial relationships."

The constant claims of "Bryke are creepy pedos because they only pushed Kataang because they are attracted to Katara, a cartoon character, and thus are attracted to real-life 14-year-olds! That's even the real reason why Aang is bald! To look like one of them!" that are not only ridiculous but could EASILY lead to a lawsuit, and ignores the fact that Zutara, like any popular ship, has tons of smut of it even though both characters are underage - make it make sense!

And, of course, the classic "This bad behavior people accused some of us of is completely false! I didn't see it, so it didn't happen! Nobody here would do that! Never one of us! Must have been one of them, the evil fans of kataang/maiko/(insert any ship for either Zuko or Katara here)!"

Some of the bad apples in the Zutara fandom are just entitled assholes, but I'm also pretty sure that some of these people legit need to see a mental health professional. There's being passionate about a ship and being upset that it didn't happen, and then there's being downright delusional.

And before anyone tries to pull the ableism card on me: I've been through this shit. Thankfully I've never reached the point of ever harming anyone in any way, but I was a mentally ill child/teenager that just latched onto the media I liked, and it made it my whole life.

I had full on panic attacks because the power went out and I couldn't watch my favorite TV show, and I'd cry for DAYS when something bad happened to my favorite characters. I legit started showing signs of depression because one of my favorite bands had broken up, to the point that my parents were really fucking scared. I got FURIOUS at an annoying classmate in school who talked shit about my favorite singer, to the point that I legit had to get away from them as fast as humanly possible because I was three seconds away from starting a physical fight - again, all because a random kid whose opinion on literally anything else wouldn't have meant a damn thing to me.

That is not being passionate. That is not being a loyal fan. That is a clear sign that something is VERY wrong and that you need some help FAST. See a therapist, deal with whatever it is that is pushing you to act like that, THEN engage in fandom stuff as much as you want. But don't ever make this your whole personality.

[yostresswritinggirl]

Modern Scenarios with Genshin Boys

Brainrot time - be glad, today was supposed to be angst but I had a change of heart.

"Hey, pick on someone your own size!" The first time you met Childe was when you were being bullied by some annoying bullies that had nothing to do but want to pick a fight. It was something you can handle really, and you were about to disperse the commotion when this big guy suddenly appeared as if you were his knight in shining armor. "It's the duty of the strong to protect the weak!" Did he just-?! THE AUDACITY!

Spurred on by your annoyance and your want to prove your strength, you joined the Karate club in your school where you heard he is part of. And in under a month you reached the second tier of the yellow belt. But you needed to become stronger, to reach that guy's black belt status so you can spar with him. He was too high to be directly involved with your training after all.

Finally when the fateful day comes, he looks at you with admiration at the other side of the mat, your determination and fast rank up had him enamored. But you had different plans. When the spar session started, you maneuvered around his kicks and finally did what you've always wanted to do— you wiped your dirty, uncovered foot against his face in a kick. Somehow he fell in love more.

You've been his lover for a while now, and restaurant dates are nothing uncommon in your relationship. And you know his habit of leaving behind his wallet even if he offered that tonight's date would be taken care of. After your lovely dinner session, lo and behold, he DID forget his wallet. But as the considerate lover, you took the liberty to bring your wallet with you even if he said you shouldn't-

Only to realize you brought the wrong wallet, only counting spare change for chicken nuggets. As compensation, you two spent the rest of the night forced to pay off your late bill by doing the restaurant dishes. It was not at all part of your itinerary, but as you start singing to alleviate the boredom and with Zhongli singing along, you had the most fun dancing around the kitchen with soapy arms and loose aprons.

You didn't even know that Zhongli could sing and dance that well! Plates were cleaned faster than any of you expected, and after the IOU contract that you're for sure fixing the next day, the two of your walk home hand in hand with the brightest smile you two had ever shared.

Oh, god, more frogs. Welcome to Biology class! You are partnered to be laboratory buddies with the ever enigmatic, science genius Albedo. He was so epic during Chemistry class, and you were praising the gods for finally bringing this ray of hope to raise up your grades effortlessly. You would think this class would flow by ever so nicely as you finish the plant studies, that is until zoology started and the professor starts talking about dissecting kits.

Your first project was to bring a frog to school to prep up for dissection. Okay, very wack, you thought as you turned to Albedo to ask how you two would even get a frog for the project. Until you saw a curious glint in his beautiful, teal eyes. Next thing you know he was over your house and as you two go around the fields in casual wear.

The fact that stores exist for buying frogs SPECIFICALLY for Biology and dissections was something Albedo held back from you, opting to wish to experience the class firsthand and beyond. It was in all honesty to get to know you better, even if most of the time you tripped on your ass over the mud of the fields trying to chase or run away from a frog. In the end he finally suggested to just buy one, to which you were furious, thankful and elated that you at least got to know the genius more.

Heavily inspired by Driver's License. You've just recently broken up with your boyfriend a day before you got your license to drive, something you were so proud of and excited to exercise together with your lover. But yet here you are crying your eyes out as you drove on the long and winding road of... somewhere. A deserted area with the next stop over or town miles and miles away, so when you happened upon a dejected voyager who clearly needs a lift, you offered him to be a hitchhiker. Xiao was thankful, really, but the ride was ever so awkward with the obvious puffy eyes and tear stains on your cheeks.

At one point, you remembered your ex once again and had to pull over before you end up killing the both of you through tear-stained vision. With sympathy, your hitchhiker offers to drive and a listening ear to your burdens, and it indeed lifted your spirits as he offers helpful advice on your pain. You part when you reached his home with a huge thank you for the lift, and you realized that you were just a town away from him.

The next time you saw him was an embarrassing moment you didn't expect to happen or come by so fast. Awkwardly standing by the roadside where your car was supposed to be, towed away because you didn't realize it was illegal to park there, an motorcyclist with a neon decorated bike suddenly pulled over in front of you. And when he takes off his helmet to offer you a ride, the smirk on Xiao's face doubles the embarrassment. You accepted the offer.

You are a secret agent tasked to assassinate a target you've been following and gathering data on for weeks now, the perfect opportunity happens to be a gathering of high class people, a party or ball even. You thought it would be a quick and easy operation until you realized a man named Kaeya seem to be hovering around your target too closely for your taste and ease. It seems the guy has a body guard in hand. Now your focus was on swaying this bluenette, who was thankfully very, very receptive and welcoming to your advances.

When you finally FINALLY managed to let him off your case and successfully separated him from your target, you hurried over to finish the assassination as you realized you've been lingering for far too long— only to see Kaeya about to stab your target before your interruption. It seems that instead of his body guard, Kaeya was actually a hitman hired to kill your target too, and had been dancing around together with you because he thought YOU were the body guard.

"Woah, this your target too?" "Hell yeah." "Yoooooo!" How ironic, you two laughed the coincidence out nonchalantly as your target bleeds to death besides you both. After escaping your almost jail time when the true body guards came to check on their boss, which made a very awesome action sequence as you exchanged bullets next to Kaeya, you learned that your agency had recruited a new fellow under its ranks. You didn't need a name and face to know who the sly bastard was.

You're not really the type of person to be into parties, not since high-school, and still no in college. Things were already a pain to deal with as the midterm examinations rolling in, but your roommate somehow managed to drag you into a popular college organization's midyear party before unceremoniously dipping to drink with the org members. As you cradle your alibi cup in a corner, staring into the raucous party, you realized someone else who's solo is accompanying you in silent brooding.

The two of you awkwardly introduce yourselves to each other before realizing that you've already met once or twice in campus grounds. "I don't really wanna be here." "Me neither." "Wanna dip?" Your relief didn't even need words to confirm your wants as you two slipped away from the mess, growing in intensity that you wouldn't even be suprised if the local authorities were to be called later on.

A little food date in the local 24/7 fast food restaurant nearby and exchange of numbers made your night a little bit better. So when you two found each other in another party you were dragged in again, your hand was held warm and tight within his as you two snickered, skipping out of the venue to have your own little party.

Hello there, welcome to the start of the fluffy days. Figured you're all sad and broken enough to finally enjoy some good ol' flutters.

@sk1nnyangelic @kookieyachi @bunniesrorange @anormalguyreader @scarletroseneko @albaedhoe @xiaophilia @heisenwurst @moaa @dandelion-dreams @witchsungie @lehra @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @snackgod @rxsalinee @cala-ran @wind-wheel @lilydewi22 @yellowflowre @traveler-lumine @nonniechan @creation-magician @hanniejji @gojos-baby @just-some-stars @volleybloop

[bigboomboi]

Kindered Sparks

This is my entry for @gg9183’s soulmate collab - Oof, I was almost late for your birthday ( I know that I'm technically no where near late, but I put this out so much later than I would've rathered. Sorry, I'm a Virgo, mate.) Anyhoo! Happy Birthday! And congratulations on your amazing Milestone! Thank you for organizing this collab too and allowing me to be apart of it! Honestly, I love soulmate pieces so much, so I was so excited seeing this prompt (I'm excited to read the others as well!) My friend helped me put together an idea for a SM connection and I really enjoyed writing it, hope you do as well :) Happy reading!

Fem!reader x Denki Kaminari

Soulmates au; People are born with a dream realm connecting them to their Soulmate. Warning; harsh language, Hurt/comfort, pretty fluffy, cursing. Implied readerxfemale relationship. BakuKiri relationship (I got bullied last time I didn't say that was a pairing, so, just being safe)

Word count; 4.6K

“Another lonely night in this stupid world.” Y/N grumbled staring up at her dreamy night sky.

A sky she was supposed to share with someone else.

In this wonderful, bittersweet world, you were tied to another person. Destiny decided from day one of your birth who you’d be with for the rest of your life and then set you in a special plane of existence only accessible when you fell asleep, once you turned the ripe age of fifteen. The kindred-plane.

A place specially made for you and your soulmate to meet each night when you fall asleep. It was a place to get to know each other without the prying eyes of all those around. A shared dream land you could even decorate and make your own. It was your partner’s and your safe space.

It was a place you guys could explore together, where your imaginations combined like an amazing world of minecraft. Some people made completely different lives in their heads at night. Others used it to see their long distance lovers. Hell, there was a blog story sharing what sounded like a whole scripted tv show where a woman’s soulmate had set off to save her from an uncompromising kingdom.

Sadly though, your shared safe space could be destroyed in a matter of moments. It wasn’t unheard of for your soulmate to reject destiny’s plan and divide your dreams. You could absolutely reject your soulmate and quite literally lock them out of your dreams. All presence of them would disappear from your dreams within a few nights, sometimes even faster, and you’d be left alone with only your creations.

Of course, being divided from your soulmate hurt. But something hurt much worse.

Your soulmate being unintentionally stolen from you. A divide where you lose your soulmate despite neither saying they’d like to divide. A situation where your soulmate dies.

Y/N sighed at the reminiscent of her once was soulmate. So sweet and kind, someone Y/N fully imagined meeting one day in the daylight. Yet, now at the sad age of seventeen, Y/N had no dreams of ever seeing her soulmate ever again.

She only had the one year of memories they made…

“Class, This Y/N. She will be joining our class for her final year of hero training, treat her well.” Aizawa introduced her to the class of 3-A.

“Thank you, Sensei” Y/N bowed slightly. “Nice to meet you all.”

Not even a moment of silence was granted before the class erupted in questions. Half about her quirk, the other half about where she was from. A few off hand questions about why she transferred. All a mess.

“Enough!” Aizawa shouted, hushing the entire class. “You all can get to know her later, on your own terms. For now, Y/N please take your seat.”

Y/N nodded and scurried back to the only free seat in the back. Between a pretty pinkette and sweet looking round faced brunette. Before she was even seated, Aizawa began his lesson.

Y/N quietly sat through the classes of her day, ignoring the judging looks aimed her way, as the new girl. She could hear the quiet whispers going around, speculating what type of person she was and tried to ignore those as well. She was well aware of the fact that she appeared very off-standish.

Dark eye bags, complete resting bitch face that quite literally screamed ‘I will stab you with a pencil if you speak to me’, earbuds tucked into each ear and a hunched over form that could rival Quasimodo. Thankfully, the aura she set into place actually warded off her new classmates for several days.

Up until a week later in the common room where her bubble was invaded.

She didn’t look up at the person sitting next to her and subtly tried to turn up her music. She felt the presence of several others join her and they all stared at her silently until finally, the pinkette she sat next to on her first day, plucked her book from her hands. Y/N slowly looked up at her dully and raised an eyebrow.

She reached out for her book, but the girl pulled it back out of her reach. She tried again, reaching forwards further, but the book was yoinked by a strip of tape, pulling it across the coffee table. Gritting her teeth slightly, Y/N stood up to reach across the table and the music in her ears paused.

The girl had unplugged her headphones.

“You just have no regard for personal belongings of others, hm?” Y/N sighed, sitting down.

“We just want to get to know our new classmate!” The pink girl grinned. “I’m Mina!”

“Hi, Mina. Now give me back my shit.” Y/N tried to grab her phone, only for someone behind her to tug her ear buds away. “Seriously?”

“We’ll give you back your things if you let us get to know you.” Mina smiled.

“Or, you could just give it back.” Y/N tried to grab her earbuds from the bright blonde behind her.

“Nope.’ He said, a grin on his face as well. “I’m Kaminari Denki, nice to meet ya, beautiful.”

Y/N sighed and rolled her eyes. “Or, I could just take my stuff back.”

“You could but there’s five of us and one of you, good luck.” A bitch faced blonde mumbled, flipping through her book.

“Fine. Here’s one thing about me.” Suddenly she appeared behind the bitch blonde and snatched her book. Another one of her appeared behind the one who taped her book away and grabbed her book mark. Two other Y/N’s came into existence on opposite sides of her seating couch to grab her phone and ear buds. All while the original Y/N sat in her place. “Don’t touch my things.”

“Woah, you can make multiple you’s!” The redhead gasped excitedly. “That’s so manly!”

“That’s so cool! They feel so real!” Kaminari said, poking the side of the one near him. It yelped and swatted his hand.

“They are real! Don’t poke me, I’m ticklish!” Y/N snapped, rubbing her side.

“Woah, can you feel this?’ The tape one reached out to pinch the clone’s arm.

Y/N’s other clone smacked him with her book. “Yes, I can feel that! Ow!”

“So your quirk is duplicating yourself? Boring…” Bitch face rolled his eyes, another Y/N appeared behind him and swatted the back of his head.

“My quirk is omni-replication. I can create continuous versions of myself and others. But they can act on their own.” Y/N sighed, bringing herself her book.

“Woah, make another me!” Kaminari grabbed her arm.

“G-Get off of me!” Y/N shoved him away, ignoring the literal spark between them. “I can’t make one of you now!”

“But you just said-.” Mina tried.

“I have to know your ins and outs. Otherwise I’d just make a weird melty blob of you.” Y/N sighed. “I need to know more about you guys before I can make you. I need to know you, how you fight, how your quirk works, I need to know how to play the game before I can participate.”

“So, what I’m hearing is…” Mina smirked. “You need to get to know us to succeed.”

“Oh god…” Y/N groaned. “I have no choice in this do I?”

“We have a specialty of making friends with people that don’t want to be friends.” The red head threw his arm over bitch face’s shoulder.

And thus a new friendship was born.

“Bakugo, why do you keep moving my pillow in our dreams, it’s so not manly.” Kirishima whined.

“Neither is the massive rock sitting in the middle of nowhere, dude.” Bakugo argued.

“It’s not just a rock.” Kirishima mock sniffled. “It’s a boulder.”

Y/N snickered at the reference that earned the kind redhead a smack to the back of his head. “Are you delivering pizza on it?”

“Yes!” Kiri grinned.

“No! Don’t encourage him!” Bakugo shouted.

“Aye, don’t shout at me. Your boyfriend is a literal rock, he’s encouraging himself.” Y/N laughed, throwing a fry at him.

“Oh yeah, what trash has your soulmate cluttered in your dream world?” Bakugo argued back.

Y/N’s laughter silenced and immediately her lips curled into a scowl. A light switched on and they remembered the one rule they had set in place. No one talks about Y/N’s soulmate. Or lack thereof.

“Bakugo!” Mina snapped.

“Shit, I didn’t-.” Y/N didn’t give him the time to apologize and stood up from the lunch table.

“Wait, no, Y/N! He didn’t mean to!” Kaminari grabbed her arm.

She flicked him in the forehead and pulled away. “No, it’s fine. You guys talk about your soulmate shit, I’m going to the training field.”

“Wait, Y/N, really!” Mina tried. “It’s just, we’re so used to casually talking about it!”

“I don’t care if you guys talk about yours, but you know I don’t have one, so we don’t bring up mine!” She huffed, before taking a breath. “You know what? Never mind.”

Y/N ignored her friend’s protest and stomped out of the dinning hall. She rushed to the training area, stopping by the locker room to change and grab gear, briefly.

Activating her quirk she began fist fighting her clone, taking her anger out on herself. Very early on into her friendship with the group she told them she didn’t want to talk about the soulmate shit. At least not her own. She told them she didn’t have one, leaving them to believe she never did.

They were incredibly understanding after they found that it upset her. So much, to the point that she copied Kirishima to punch himself when he kept asking. After that ordeal and several days of being ignored, they respected her wishes of not bringing it up.

She knocked herself down and punched herself in the face. She turned off the connection to the clone so she wouldn’t feel the pain herself. Disconnected clones only had a few minutes to live really and faded away with enough damage. Once that one faded, she created another in its space and continued pounding away.

“Stupid soulmate bullshit.” She huffed each word with a punch. “Stupid divide rule.” Another clone. “Stupid. Fucking. Erg- Everything!”

Y/N beat her final clone to death and didn’t bring a new one out. She sniffled, the tears she’d been holding back for years now finally breaking her dam. She hated the horrible lonely feeling she had been surrounded by for so long. She missed out on so much sleep, just to avoid going to her dream world. She set alarms to wake her up every hour or so to stay away from it and at this point, she was losing her mind.

She cried more thinking back to the last time she had been in her kindred-plane. She’d avoided it for a few days before exhaustion actually hit her like a bus and made her sleep. This time her plain little dream seemed to have adopted new items in her absence.

A bundle of comic books, a guitar, even a really, really big pikachu plushie.

Not that they were placed anywhere in particular. The guitar was outside of the little home she had reimagined, laying haphazardly on the ground. The pikachu was placed in front of a tree, facing it and the books were strewn across her loveseat couch. It was like her dream realm had become a lost and found for thrown away items from other planes. Which, honestly, Y/N could believe, as she didn’t use it so much.

She wished she could just give away her realm and dream of nothingness.

“Y/N?” She jumped, hearing her name and quickly wiped away her tears, ignoring the way they stung her open knuckles.

“Kaminari, I’m not really in the mood to talk.” Y/N muttered.

“Okay, that’s fine. We both know I talk enough for the both of us.” He joked, coming to sit in front of her.

Y/N turned to look away from his seating and ignored him, but he set off into a spiel about a new game he got. He did what he did best when one of his friends were upset, he talked. And normally that worked, but minutes into his yabbering, she started crying again.

“Hey, no! No crying! Crying is sad!” Kaminari tried.

“I am sad Kami!” She snapped. “I am really fucking sad! Everyone gets to have stupid fucking soulmate but me! And all because mine fucking died!”

Kaminari immediately paused his frantic attempts to calm her. “Huh, I thought you said you didn’t have one?”

“I don’t because she died! My god damn soulmate died literally months after meeting each other damn it!” Y/N yelled, sinking her fingers into her hair. “And now my kindred-plane is empty and lonely and shit keeps getting piled into it like a fucking trash can!”

Kaminari was silent for a moment while she cried. He slowly crawled over, closer to her and pulled her into a hug. This wasn’t a moment for talking randomly and he knew that. So they sat for the rest of the lunch period in silence, save for her soft hiccups.

After that, somehow, Y/N started talking to her friends the next day. She rationalized that it wasn’t their fault she was sensitive about the subject, they didn’t deserve the aggression. So with a tense apology, she was back to sitting with them at lunch and hanging out.

Y/N was determined to not let her disrupted dreamland destroy her outside reality.

“Okay, really?” Y/N blinked at the ugly rug that appeared draped over her bookshelf. “How the hell did you even get there?”

She tugged it down and stared at it in disgusted contemplation. “Guess you get to go in front of the fireplace…”

Y/N walked towards the warmth and paused, noting that it felt like it took a few more steps than usual. She looked around and found that the picture she carefully centered on the wall was no longer centered. Was her house getting bigger? More and more shit was popping up out of nowhere and her place felt spaceyer…

“What the actual fuck universe?” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows and laid down the new rug.

An odd whooshing noise sounded behind her and she turned around to see a lamp fizzled into existence, a hand accompanying it this time. Y/N fumbled over own feet trying to hurry and grab it. Someone was putting shit in her realm and she was about to find out who.

Actually she wasn’t.

The moment she grabbed the hovering wrist, it was like she had rubbed her socks across her new rug a million times and then touched an outlet. The hand shocked her, hard. She yelped and fell backwards on her butt, accidently taking the lamp down too, except when it fell apart it fell backwards toward the floating hand and disappeared from her plane.

Y/N gasped sitting up out of her bed, the shock kicking her out of her own dream. “Ow, what the hell?”

Y/N looked over at her clock, finding that it was five in the morning. She sighed and climbed out of her bed, grabbing her ear buds and phone. There was no school the next day, it was Saturday so she aimed to sneak down to the common room and spend her day dead on the couch, fighting off sleep again.

Not ten minutes after snuggling into a comfy spot on the couch, it dipped slowly as someone sat on the other end of it. She looked up from her book, to find Kaminari on the other end. He held up a bag of doritos in exchange for her company.

“What are you doing up?” She asked, pulling out her ear buds.

“Got startled awake by something in my dream world.” He answered, holding the bag out to her.

“Ah, that sucks.” She hummed apologetically.

“What about you?” He asked carefully.

Y/N snorted. “Kami, you know I don’t sleep.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’ve been up for the past few days.” He sighed, remembering seeing her in the kitchen at three am. “You’re going to trash your health if you don’t sleep.”

“Eh, it’s alright.” She crunched on a chip, before yawning. “Plus, you stay up every night gaming, bite me.”

“Gladly.” He winked. “But seriously, a lonely dream realm can’t be all bad.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he was going to continue this topic of conversation. And he did. “I mean mine’s pretty lonely and I think it’s alright.”

“What?” She furrowed his eyebrows.

“My kindred-plane has but just me since like, forever, and I don’t think it’s that bad.” He shrugged.

Kaminari didn’t have a soulmate? That didn’t make sense, he’d tell them about all the adventures he’d run on in his dream. “You said you were helping some Jill girl fight zombies and stuff, just the other day.”

“Yeah, Jill Valentine. From Resident Evil.” He laughed. “I figured out a long time ago that I could just make her up in my dreams if I played the game until I fell asleep. She’s not my soulmate-.”

“You don’t have one…” Y/N whispered, sitting up.

“Nope, never did.” He offered her more chips, but Y/N just looked at him with sad eyes.

She cried in his arms about her soulmate dying and it turned out he never had one in the first place. “Don’t look so sad, Sunshine. It’s okay.”

“Denki, you don’t have a soulmate. That shit sucks.” Y/N flailed her hands.

“Yeah, but at least I didn’t get attached to mine and then they died. That sucks even more.” Kaminari argued.

Y/N slumped back against the couch. “This soulmate business is quite literal shit.”

“Yeah, but other people are pretty happy with it, so it’s okay to me really.” Kaminari hummed, nonchalantly. “Plus, no one can yell at me for my taste in decorations. That can really make or break a relationship ya know.”

Y/N laughed. “Oh yeah, totally. If my soulmate tried to decorate our space with half the shit that seems to appear in my room I’d have to throw hands.”

“Stuff appears in your dream?” Kaminari asked. “What, like, someone’s statue of Scooby doo?”

“Kaminari Denki, please tell me you don’t have a statue of Scooby doo in your kindred.” She tried not to laugh.

“No!” He said quickly. “I have a statue of Scrappy Doo.”

“Oh my god, no, you don’t!” She gasped.

“Yep! There’s a pond in front of my house and he’s in the dead center of it.” He grinned proudly. “And he looks amazing there.”

“Oh I bet he does.” Y/N snickered. “Bet he pulls the whole place together.”

“As a matter of fact he does.” Kaminari declared smugly. “What about your plane? What’s one big special thing you’ve got in it?”

Y/N hummed and thought for a second. “There’s a really big oak tree just behind my house and it’s covered in string lights, with a small ladder up the trunk. There’s a flat area in some of the branches so I can sit up there and read.”

“That sounds beautiful.” Kaminari said, fondly. “I have a tree kind of like that in mine too.”

“Does yours have a massive Pikachu in front of it?” She taunted, laughing.

She just barely missed the furrowing of his eyebrows before he answered. “I’m not entirely sure, I think, I’d have to take a look. I hope I do though, otherwise, I’d have to come steal yours.”

“Absolutely not! He’s my friend!” Y/N gasped and shoved at his leg. “Stick with your Scrappy Doo statue.”

Kaminari smiled. “Fine, fine. But if I don’t have a Pikachu in my dream, you owe me.”

“Mmhm, sure.” Y/N grinned.

For the next few months, Y/N and Kaminari grew closer, having bonded over their lack of soulmates. While they grew closer, not only did Y/N become happier, her kindred-plane seemed to get brighter, despite all the random things finding purchase in her realm and the fact that it was still growing. It was nice, she didn’t hate spending the night there anymore. She didn’t run into the disembodied hand anymore, but that was okay.

With what was happening in reality, she wasn’t too bothered by her dreams anymore. Instead, she focused on her friends, they were a wonderful reminder that life didn’t go to complete shit. For the first time, she actually let these people get close to her and drag her out of her hole she kept herself in.

… And out into the living room to watch the boys yell at each other over Mario Kart.

Y/N cursed and pushed Kaminari’s face away from her own as he laved his tongue across her cheek. “Denki, I swear to god if you don’t stop licking me, I’m going to bite you!”

“Ooh! Promise?” He flirted, smirking. “What else are you gonna do with that mouth?”

“Hurt your feelings, Sparkler boy.” She laughed, squishing his cheeks.

Kaminari threw himself into her arms, taking her to the floor. “So mean, I thought you loved me!”

“Oh yeah, she totally loves you with the way she made you beat yourself up today.” Bakugo snickered.

“Yeah, dude, she used your quirk against you better than you.” Kirishima pipped up.

“Hey, hey, clones don’t get fried when they use their ultimate! They just disappear and another one pops up!” Kaminari argued in defense.

“Jesus, Denki, you’re heavy!” Y/N shoved at his body, half heartedly. “Get off, you loser.”

“Uhg, fine, only because I have a race to win.” He rolled off her, to grab his switch controller.

“Oh thank god, I was going into the light for a second there.” Y/N gasped, dramatically.

Kaminari pinched her leg in retaliation. “Hey, I’m not that heavy!”

“Your head is though.” She stuck her tongue out.

“So mean.” He pouted as she turned to lay her head in his lap.

Y/N giggled as she pulled out her phone, to scroll through Tumblr for a fic to read. Moments went by before a snapchat notification popped up. Tapping on it, she found a common message from Mina.

‘You guys are too cute.’- Pinkiepie

‘We’re just friends, Mi.’-Y/N

A snap picture appeared in their feed and she tapped it open. There she was laying in Kaminari’s lap and there he was looking down at her, sweetly. ‘He’s giving you major heart eyes.’- Pinkiepie

‘Stop taking pictures of people, it’s stalkery.’- Y/N

‘That’s why you took a ss.’ -Pinkiepie

‘Oh fuck off.’- Y/N

‘Oh come on, just give him a chance, neither of you have sm’s so your not stealing him from anyone.’- Pinkiepie

‘You’re*’- Y/N

Y/N sighed and looked up to Kaminari’s face above hers. It apparently hadn’t been uncommon knowledge that Kaminari was Soulmateless, probably why the group had been so confused as to why she was so upset about it. It was normal to them, because it had always been Kaminari’s story.

Would it be so bad to make her own soulmate? Most divided soulmates stayed by themselves for the rest of their lives, but would it be alright if they didn’t?

“Oh, guys! I meant to tell you; I think I actually do have a soulmate!” Kaminari blurted into the air.

His admission quite literally derailed the entire room. Bakugo drove off the map in Mario Kart, Kirishima completely looked away from the game and Mina choked on her spit and her eyes flew to Y/N who paled significantly.

Sero was the only one who appeared unaffected. “Guys, he’s probably just saying that to throw us off, he’s in last.”

“I’m gonna blow you up, you put me in fourth with your little stunt.” Bakugo threatened.

“No, I’m serious!” Kaminari argued. “Over the last few months my dreams have been changing and stuff. Like it was making room for another person. My house is super spacy now, new decorations have been showing up for no reason, like there was a vase of flowers on the floor near my door, and my curtains changed colour, they’re a cute lavender colour now. Plus there’s a really big pikachu next to a beautiful oak tree in my yard.”

“Woah, dude, really?” Kirishima paused the race and turned to his friend.

“Yeah, totally.” Kaminari nodded, subtly looking down to meet Y/N’s wide eyes. “I was super confused for a while.”

“Holy shit, you’re serious.” Sero laughed. “Have you met them yet? Or are they just leaving surprises for you?”

“Well, I’ve seen her a few times, but I haven’t got the chance to talk to her yet, she wakes up pretty fast.” Kaminari shrugged.

“That’s so good Denki, I’m so happy for you.” Mina said softly as Y/N sat up.

“Me too, Denks. But speaking of waking up, I’m tired, so I’m gonna go take a nap.” Y/N hummed, yawning.

“Okay, see you later, Y/N.” They all chimed as she walked away.

“Yeah, see you later.” Kaminari called, carefully.

Y/N tried her best to contain herself and all but ran to her dorm. Along the way, her phone buzzed, no doubt a message from Mina. Once she was in her room, she flew to her bed, never had she been so eager to fall asleep before.

She quickly responded to Mina, ensuring her that she was alright and actually wanted to sleep. Y/N even sent her a reassuring picture of her smile with a short caption ‘I’m off to go see a Pikachu.’ After that, it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep, but it was too long.

Y/N blinked open her eyes, finally appearing in her kindred-plane and spun around, trying to identify things in her dream house. She hurried to open the door and looked over to her tree, with the ever so famous Pikachu there. She turned and jogged in the opposite direction for the one thing she needed to see to make sure she was correct.

There it was. Scrappy Doo. In the middle of her pond.

Y/N jumped up and down, squealing to herself. It was happening, oh my god, it was happening. Now she just had to wait.

And wait she did. She had run back to her tree and climbed up to sit and await her soulmate. The soulmate she actually had again. Someone to share her dream world with again.

She had a soulmate.

Quietly for the next hour, Y/N sat and read one of her books, waiting almost patiently for him. She’d made it through the third chapter when a voice startled her away from the pages.

“Sorry, I couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me.” Kaminari said, smiling.

Y/N bit her lip and grinned. “I thought you missed my cue for a bit there."

"No, I was just a little too excited to fall asleep." He crawled up into her tree nook. "You see, I suddenly got a new person roaming my world almost like, uh, a forever person or something. What's it called?"

"Mm, I don't know. Kinda sounds like you've got a soulmate there, Denki." Y/N whispered as he came closer.

"Fucking finally." He muttered, leaning forwards to connect their lips.

But before he could make contact he ran into her hand first. “But, really, we are going to have to talk about your decorating choices.”

“Yeah, yeah, we can talk about that after this.” Kaminari chuckled and moved her hand to kiss her.

[narrators-journal]

Hello, I hope you are well, can I ask Yandere Akutagawa who probably hates you for how you make us feel? I may degrade you but get mad if someone else does

I hope this is good and is what you wanted! I'm a little rusty with Yandere content, so it might be a bit subtle here. I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

As a new low ranking mafia goon you had expected some harsh bullying from your coworkers, but that didn't mean you couldn't despise them for it, or have the occassional breakdown in the headquarters bathroom or something. That was actually how you'd met your first friend-like person in the organization, Higuchi had found you fighting to not cry in the bathroom one day, and instead of belittling you for the moment of weakness, she gave you a paper towel to dab the tears from your (s/c) cheeks and assured you that she understood your predicament.

In all honesty, the harassment wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for one specific man. Akutagawa Ryuunosuke.

Akutagawa was a violent, hostile, rabid dog of a man who took any possible chance to insult you without mercy. It didn't even have to be anything that would get you into trouble or annoy him, he would belittle anything he could about you as a person, not just your work for the mafia. It had quickly lost all of the leeway you had for newbie-hazing. At least now you had a reason to blame for the prickly mafioso hating your guts. Turns out he isn't a fan of his fashion being labelled 'hot topic tween goth.' After that, you just avoided him as best you could, which seemed near impossible with how much he continued to pop up in your life, even after you'd insulted him.

Of course, Mori would pair you with the goth pretty frequently despite your reluctance, Akutagawa had a pretty variable set of jobs he could be assigned to and thus would be a good on-the-job teacher for a newbie such as yourself, but after you'd insulted the goth he didn't leave you alone like you might've thought he would. Instead, he seemed to pop up a lot more frequently, even outside of the jobs you were paired with him on. Of course, you would see the pale vampire at the headquarters when you weren't working with him, but now you had gone from seeing him maybe once a week for a task or to retrieve or deliver ill-gotten cash, to seeing him a distance behind you in the hallway of the headquarters almost every other day, or in one of the spare sitting rooms the goons had overtaken and claimed as a sort of 'break room' on nights when you'd stay super late into the night and should've been alone.

However, you couldn't really accuse the hostile man of stalking you just to glare at you or spit insults. After all, Higuchi had always had a very valid point as to why you were running into him when you brought the occurrences up, and you'd be labelled a loon for thinking he'd been trailing you just because you had spotted him in the grocery store. So, you opted to keep your mouth shut and just ignored him whenever you could get away with it.

Though, every once in a while a snide remark or two slipped out, like one had on the day he limped into the headquarters after another spat with his rival, Atsushi Nakajima.           "You look like a cat's half digested dinner," you snorted, watching the wheezing vampire flop into one of the fancy velvet chairs in the empty break room. He was still glowing a pretty vibrant red, with his coat ribbon lashing like the tail of an angry cat, but he ignored your comment and instead focused on wrapping his slashed up arm and leg in bandages. Then, just as you were beginning to leave the room to find your own place to do some paperwork, you felt fabric slither around your neck to tighten into a razor-wire choke-collar and yank you none-too-gently over to the chair Akutagawa sat in.

You weren't likely to cut an impressive figure with your (e/c) eyes wide with shock at the sudden attack, and fear at the feeling of Rashoumon's sharp edges biting into your (s/c) skin to draw blood under your bully's cold, humiliation-filled glare,          "I think you're beginning to forget your place here, newbie." He spat, his raspy growl dripping with venom, "Not only do I outrank you, but I am much stronger than you. You are nowhere near Jinko's strength, fucking Higuchi is more of a threat to me than you are, so the next time you want to feel more significant than you are and insult me, I suggest you have a fucking grave dug beforehand." He got right in your face as he spoke, barring his teeth at you with sin-worthy wrath in his grey eyes, but, just for a moment before the lethal ribbon threw you away as easily as he would a gum wrapper, he hesitated. It was brief, only a few seconds, but Akutagawa's anger lessened, and instead he leaned forward just a hair. Just as quickly as it appeared though, the moment was gone. His fury returned with a vengeance and the ribbon that held you captive launched you across the room, sending you sliding across the floor and into the wall hard enough to crack it just a bit.

You took the hint and scrambled to your feet as soon as you got some air into your lungs, coughing and wheezing as you fled the room before Rashoumon could be sent through your spine next.

Admittedly, being snippy with the vampire after he'd already been embarrassed like that hadn't been a shining example of your best timing, but you tried to move past it, and that weird moment of hesitation, and label it a learning experience. Your fellow goons however, caught wind of your confrontation and did not give you such kindness. They instead turned it into more ammunition for snide remarks about how intelligent you were.

          "Hey! Look who just walked in!" A goon you had yet to learn the name of almost crowed one day when you were eating lunch in the breakroom, just trying to watch some tv before your next job when Akutagawa had come in. "Hey, (y/n), wanna try and see if he'll knock your braincells back into place?" You just glared at the man while he continued to call you stupid and just try to instigate whatever fight he could it seemed. You didn't fall for his trap though, keeping your mouth firmly shut and not responding to his insults or assumptions of how masochistic you were. No, you instead simply returned your attention to the tv and blocked out Akutagawa's existence until you finished your lunch and left for your job.

Thankfully, it was a solo mission, a new extension of trust from Mori, and a prime chance to not only prove yourself, but to get away from the assholes you worked with. So, by the time you returned to the mafia headquarters, you were feeling pretty good and had almost completely forgotten your earlier run-in with that asshole of a goon around your lunch time.

Of course, the sky was dark by the time you returned from the job, so on top of your improved mood, you were also spared further heckling since everyone else had finished their work and gone home for the night. So, you were gratefully able to fly through the report you had to write about the mission, and cataloging of the goods you'd distributed without issue. It wasn't until you stopped by the bathroom to change out of your clothing and into some more comfortable, not-dirty clothes before your walk home that you smelled the stench of blood.

It hit you like a brick as soon as you had opened the bathroom door. The whole bathroom reeked of the dizzying smell of iron and death so badly that it poured out into the empty hallway. All it took was a few steps inside to investigate for you to spot the source of such a strong stench. A corpse huddled into the far corner across from the stalls.

Through your stinging tears, you could see that it was likely one of the other mafia goons, and judging by the one bloody tuft of hair you could see amongst the chunks of flayed flesh...it was the same goon that was messing with you earlier. Since your only identifier was the shredded and blood soaked suit that the heap of shredded flesh and spilled entrails somewhat wore and a bit of hair, you couldn't say for certain, but something in your gut told you it was the same man.

      "You know, you should really grow a spine." You whirled around to face the doorway as soon as the raspy voice spoke, (e/c) eyes wide and your hand instantly falling to the small pistol you had at your hip. But, instead of some demented intruder out to murder any mafia goons they found, you were instead met with Akutagawa. Your worst bully.

For a moment, all you could do was stare in shock, your brain frantically scrambling to recollect its composure under the pressure of an almost primal terror, just letting you stammer out a shakey,         "What?" before your legs began to turn to jello, the thick blanket of coppery blood in the air making your stomach want to escape out of your mouth. However, you put your hand on the cool glass of the sink and bit back the urge to vomit. The last thing you wanted was to give the sadistic mafioso more ammo against you in his harassment, and if he was the goon-slaughtering-psycho, you didn't want to go out because you were too busy retching to defend yourself. However, he didn't attack you. He just stood in the doorway and glared at the mutilated pile of flesh as if it had insulted his family for a moment before speaking again,         "You're supposed to be a mafia member, (y/n), you can't just let people use you as a doormat, it reflects poorly on the organization." he chided with a derisive sniff, "Grow a damned spine and begin to stand up for yourself. No one's going to 'defend your honor' like this..." He trailed off, fixing you with a cold, irritated look for a long moment before he turned on his heel with a huff, "Clean that bastard up, before he stains the linoleum anymore than he already has."

With that, Akutagawa stomped off back to wherever he'd come from. Leaving you to deal with the bloody carnage you'd discovered, and to ask yourself why he had even been here. It was the middle of the night, most everyone should be home by now, but the goth had appeared only a moment after you'd entered the bathroom, how had he shown up so quickly? He didn't bring Mori or anyone else, so it wasn't like he'd discovered the body first...

You got a sick feeling that he'd been the one to leave such a nightmarish scene. And that he'd been waiting for you to find it or something.

[cades-outsider]

Hawk X Reader

Warning: Fighting and mentions of wounds

Distant

Recently Hawk had been very distant with you, and by distant I mean dissing your calls, avoiding you in the hallways, swerving your little talks, literally anything.

You were honestly tired of his complications, you've known Eli since he was little yes. Your relationship goes that far back. Every night you would have sleep overs and Eli would always complain about his features, well mostly his lip.

You always gave him confidence and boosted his self of steam, so of course it's not that you didn't want him to be confident but you more so wanted him to be confident but still be that sometimes shy and sweet Eli.

The first few days were fine as Hawk, but then over the weeks he started changing progressively, and not into someone positive. But someone who now bully's innocent kids and even his own best friend for goodness sakes.

I mean as his girlfriend you were seriously worried that he would hurt someone and cause them more pain than he was caused, but physically.

To top it all off Hawk wasn't just distant, but more angry than he usually was. He was yelling at teacher more often, getting into fights more often, and even ignoring his mother. You knew because she would call you asking if he was okay and with you.

You would lie for him.

I said it, you would lie for him to keep the idiotic boy you love out of trouble with his mom. I mean you would have never expected to lie to your boyfriends mom about him but you would do literally anything to keep him from getting in trouble.

Sometimes you thought that Eli wanted to get in trouble, I mean just by his actions now he got a type of adrenaline from it.

You figured that you would finally stand up and demand for hawk to speak with you, this time you definitely were not going easy on him.... only in a different way than normal but it works to.

So that’s what you were going to do, first you called Hawk just to see if he would answer..... He didn’t. Lastly you just decided to go to the only you place you thought he would be.

The dojo.

Deciding to take your car, just in case, you grab your car keys and rush into your car. Now worried that Hawk may actually be in some real trouble.

The drive was antsy, yeah it was more so worried because Hawk can sometimes be incurred to do worser things that could hurt the people you both love.

Including yourself.

Anyways you pull up to the dojo, Johnny wasn’t there but the door was definitely not locked. Creeping up to the door looking from side to side to see if you could see anything.

Finally deciding to open the door that’s what you do, the bell ringing at the same time. It was silent, the only thing that could be heard were some grunts of pain coming from the back room.

Listening more closely you recognized those groans anywhere and they were coming from Hawk.

You rush/tip-toe to the back and push the door open fully, seeing as it was already kind of cracked. You see Hawk with no shirt and wounds all over his body, supply’s spread all out as he continues to try and help his wounds.

"Eli..?" You say in disbelief causing his head to snap into your direction, he had a busted lip and a black eye forming.

"What are you doing here?" He asks sternly.

"I was looking for you, now shut up and let me help you before I give you another bruise to add" You order, obviously you wouldn’t give him another bruise but he didn’t need to know that.

Hawk shuts up after that comment, letting you kneel down in front of him and organizing the supplies so you knew what to use.

Picking up some peroxide you dab it on a cotton pad and start working on some of the open wounds first, causing Eli to flinch and hiss at the burning contact.

Eli rests on his elbows, looking down at you as you hover over his under-body and dab more open wounds to stop infection and the bleeding.

Grabbing a patch bandaid you rip it from its patching and place some anti biotic on it before gently pressing it against his skin, very focused so you wouldn’t cause him to much more pain.

"Why are you doing this for me?" Hawk asks softly, guilt dripping behind his voice.

You sigh, looking up at him for a minute before adding anti biotic on his closed wounds to heal them faster. "Because, I still care about you" You force out.

There’s a couple more minutes of silence before Eli speaks back up "Y/n I’m sorry I’ve been distant lately... I was just... i can’t even tell you because I don’t know myself" He admits, looking down.

You stay silent for a minute before finishing up dabbing his wounds on his stomach and grabbing a fresh cotton pad applying more product on it before siting yourself up higher so you could do his face.

He was still looking down, ashamed of himself before you grabbed his chin and lightly lifted his face up, his eyes staring into yours as you gently start pressing the cotton pad against his open-busted lip.

Following with a scratch that he had on his right cheek under his eyes causing him to flinch at that. You don’t say anything but you knew he meant what he said so you pressed your lips against his in a loving, blissful kiss.

Being careful because of his lip but still firmly pressing your lips against his, his lips were always so soft even with a busted lip. You knew because he would have busted lips when fighting for the karate championships.

You pull away gently "You’re forgiven but only because I haven’t tasted you in so long" You playfully wink causing Eli’s cheeks to heat up.

You sigh before putting all the supplies back into the box before standing up, "Alright, we’re good to go but could you at least tell me how you ended up like this?" You use hand gestures on his form.

He sighs before sitting up straight, wincing slightly as he does so. "Me and some of the cobra kai's got into with some of those Miyagi do's" He sighs truthfully.

You smile relieved that he told you the truth "alright come on we need to get some ice on that eye" You clap your hands together.

Hawk nods before slipping a shirt on and grabbing his gym bag before limping for the door, you both head to your car and get in "have you ate anything?" You question, while cranking the car up.

"No not yet" He answers honestly.

"Okay then we’re going to get some food and an ice pack" You state before driving off to both of your favorite place.

Going through the drive through window, you order your favorite with a side of nachos, while hawk orders nachos and a pizza.

After they give you your food you asked for a ice pack, which thankfully they had once so you gave it to Eli. “Here you are babe" You reply handing him the pack before driving off to your house.

Once you arrive at your house which only took a few minutes you grab the food while Eli helped and opened the door for you letting you in.

After getting settled in you carry the food to your room, Eli following behind before placing the bags on each side of your bedside, the right side for you and the left side for Hawk.

You turn on Doctor Who and plop on your bed with your food as does Eli. You kiss his cheek lovingly before resting your head on his shoulder "I’m just glad your safe baby" You mumble.

"Thank you for helping me princess" Hawk says bashfully as he lifts up your head and presses his lips against your plump ones.

"I will always help you Eli"

_______________________________________________

This was requested by @ariel-conroy thank you for requesting I hope you enjoyed!!!!

[my-writings-and-musings]

Can I please have a short story of the prompt of the human reader being used as a sheild, and the human has a communicator allowing the bots to trace their signal? And can I please have ratchet, tailgate, cyclones, and drift for this?

I have headcannons for now because I'm spread really thin lately, but I hope you like it! Also I love this prompt in particular because every bot on the ship needs to be told how special and wonderful they are, and what better way to show them than by shouting their praises at an enemy with ample swearing?

Part One: Here!

Part Two: You're Here!

Ratchet

·Your relationship to the medic had allowed some of the restraint he needed for his high stress job to rub off on you, but that's also true of his testiness, so when you reach your breaking point it's quite the sight. The bot that kidnapped you for a ransom learns the loud way just how passionately you adore your grumpy bot when they crack another joke about Ratchet's age and you simply lose it. Held back by your chains, you crack that the bot who kidnapped you couldn't accomplish what Ratchet has if they had a billion years to do so, and what right do they have to insult when they look the way they do? "Call him old all you want, he looks better now than you ever have and ever will!"

·Perhaps it's the fact that the tiny human just insulted their appearance of all things, but the bot is frozen at the communicator, and somehow that makes you angrier. It's clearer to you now than ever before why Ratchet hurls wrenches at the bots that annoy him; nothing would be more satisfying than the "thunk" of a well aimed projectile at this jerk's head. As it stands you're willing to settle for using your words as the only weapons you have. Laughing bitterly, you ask your captor if they're only able to win an argument with bots that can't fight back, which would explain why they need you as a shield AND the corpses they keep as company. The last dig actually gets them moving towards you with a threat, but when they refer to Ratchet as your "rusty old paramour" you get a renewed burst of rage and go off once more.

·"Are you seriously trying to insult Ratchet of all bots?! Do you have any idea what he's capable of?! How many lives he's saved?! What have you accomplished lately, huh?! Besides EXTORTION?!" Feeling a tad bit flushed, it's impossible not to go all out in your tirade, especially because it feels so darn good after suffering in silence for so long. It doesn't hurt that you have so much material to work with either. This raging jerk is living in a corpse filled lair and kidnapping humans to ransom them off for cash, and they're going after one of the greatest medics the Autobots ever had? Cutting them down to size should be classified as doing the universe a favor! If you weren't so incredibly frustrated, and dangling from chains, you might have found this enjoyable.

·"Seriously! Ratchet does more good for the universe in a week than you could do in a lifetime! Plus, you think age is holding him back?! The bot walks right off the battlefield after carving up bad guys like you, only to waltz into the medibay to patch up everyone else, on a daily basis!" Though not impressed, it does appear that your captor is rethinking some things, and perhaps actually realizing they've made a pretty formidable enemy. Had that not been such a flagrantly obvious fact you'd have been satisfied. Instead you just keep going, your intense love for your docbot mingling with your frustration to pour forth in a never-ending stream of loving threats. Only a total power outage cuts off a tangent about how Ratchet's age has not impacted his ability or endurance in "other areas" of your relationship either...

·The darkness is broken by flashing lights and the crackle of energy weapons firing all around, and you just manage to catch some familiar colors flashing through the dark before a very welcome red and white frame swoops in to carefully slice you out of the chains with a laser scalpel. There's just enough time to catch a smile overflowing with emotion before you're taken into gentle hands, and as Ratchet takes you back to the ship you get a glimpse of your very roughed up kidnapper being cuffed by the remaining crew. Your partner takes you straight to the medical bay, fussing over you all the way and asking a thousand questions about your wellbeing, but without any of his usual gruffness as he does so. In fact, he's probably the softest you've ever seen him. The smile never once leaves his face as he insists on getting you fed and rested and to bed where he pulls the covers over you himself.

·In the aftermath he almost seems to melt in your presence, losing most of his grumpy persona every time he's with you no matter how long or difficult a day he's had. Though you obviously don't mind, a couple bots let you know that when you were kidnapped he was the closest to losing control anyone had ever seen him. He'd been shouting and cursing until you had interrupted the latest communication with your captor, at which point he'd been so shocked others had needed to rush in and take advantage of the prolonged signal. Evidently, hearing you defend him as you did had rocked his world in the best possible way. Between working a stressful and often thankless profession, and not ever hearing you shout in such a way before, he's been touched to learn he could be loved by someone who appreciates him as you do. It's enough to keep even the worst of grumpy days from affecting him.

Tailgate

·Truth be told, your greatest concern when you were kidnapped was for your tiny SO, as his propensity for panic could result in some very unpleasant anxiety attacks while he and the others try to rescue you. That worry on his behalf turned to fury when your kidnapper refused to stop mocking the little bot for everything from his size to his age and even for supposedly choosing an organic solely to be taller than someone. It's enough to make you see red, and your limit is quickly reached as a result of the cowardly bullying. Your explosive bout of rage is a scream of frustration that quickly morphs into an unstoppable tirade that pulls no punches. Has this big jerk been planning this for any length of time you ask, because if so, you know a couple of sparklings that could think of more mature insults!

·"Really?! You make fun of bots for being short?! He's also blue, you want to pick on him for something arbitrary, why limit yourself?!" You know it's not the smoothest insult, but darn it all, you can't bring yourself to think straight with all this rage. This bot needs to hear what an absolute creep and bully they are, because seriously who gloats like a real life cartoon villain? When they leave the communicator and try to get in your face you're only further incensed, channeling your tiny partner's courage as you wish beyond the telling of it you could punch the jerk into silence. "If there's gonna be insults, how about I open the floor to some genuine digs? Because your ugly mug is a GOLDMINE of material, okay?! Seriously, does Unicron ask YOU for beauty tips?!"

·There's sputtering in response, which you just take as a go ahead to tear them apart, because at this point you're not sure if you can really stop. After all, record shattering hideous face aside, what does this bot actually have to offer? Tailgate has saved millions! Faced with multiple varieties of death, he took out the guy hellbent on committing species wide genocide, and he doesn't even brag about it! You rub that in your captors face with all the pride you have for your partner spurring you on, hoping that you get a chance to tell Tailgate what a source of inspiration he was in these moments. At the very least you'll have to tell him how your captor froze at the enraged shouting. "Plus, Tailgate has actual friends! People LIKE him, unlike you, who I'm guessing doesn't entertain often based on the corpses you leave lying around!"

·A last ditch attempt to shut you up with a few lame threats just gets you laughing, in part because you can't believe this bot ever thought they were going to succeed at this. "You didn't even bother to check up on who you're making an enemy of, did you? I doubt it, because if you did, you'd know Tailgate has made paperweights out of bots much tougher than you!" Perhaps it's a little macabre, but it's endlessly satisfying to see your captor flinch as you describe what an absolute powerhouse your partner is, particularly how he uses his small size to levy his strength in the most destructive ways possible. It's delightful enough that, as you begin to brag about the benefits of his size relative to yours and his strength working together in more intimate settings, only something like an earthquake stops you.

·Chained as you are, there's no way to get a clear look at your captor as they attempt to flee, but thankfully the ground stills just in time to let you see the cavalry arrive. Lost Light bots pour in to stop the automated defenses from doing much at all, and in a brilliant blue and white blur your kidnapper is punched full to unconsciousness by what might as well have been a meteorite. It's only when said force of nature runs to free you and a tearful blue visor meets your eyes that you recognize Tailgate. The minibot gets you down in a hurry and embraces you in as tight a hug as is safe, talking a mile a minute about his worries and how sorry he is you had to go through all this. After assuring him he doesn't have to beat up your captor any further, you let him carry you back to the ship, getting nuzzled all the while.

·In between far more frequent cuddle sessions from the absolutely enamored Tailgate, you get pulled aside by a couple bots who just want to let you know what an impact your brave speech had on the minibot. While inconsolable during your kidnapping, to the point of swapping between rage and tears every few minutes, he'd been visibly awed once he heard you go off in his defense. That makes you understand everything far more clearly; this bot has been unsure of his self worth for so long, so hearing you face down a much larger foe because you love him so much that their taunting him drove you to frenzy... Knowing he's loved like that changed his entire worldview. You can see it in his visor every time he looks at you, and feel it in every buzzing hug, how grateful he is to have found someone who loves him.

Cyclonus

·Dating a bot capable of triggering enemy surrender with a glance requires a strong will, mostly to endure the endless questions from bots confused as to how you got Cyclonus to ask you out, but today you find yourself facing a whole new level of irritation. Though the bot that kidnapped you is obviously no match for your towering partner, they still mock the big mech through radio like they're some kind of badass, taunting him for debasing himself and growing soft by dating a fleshy. Regardless of how hard Cyclonus has worked to open up to you, hearing the personal jabs makes something within snap and go nuclear, resulting in a war cry your partner would be proud of as you rattle your chains for emphasis.

·"Can you just CAN IT with the insults?! We all know that if this fleshy wasn't here as your shield, you'd be fleeing to the other end of the galaxy!" You waste no time getting right to the heart of what's so infuriating about your captor; their spineless and cowardly nature is so obvious beneath the sneering mockery it makes you literally sick. Seeing how completely they freeze at your jab just proves your point in your mind. What, were they just expecting you to be quiet forever after dealing with THEM for the past few hours? Was the idea of resistance that surprising to them?! The calm maturity you picked up from Cyclonus is matched only by the capacity for righteous fury learned from the same source, and it's the latter that breaks out in glorious fashion.

·"Oh, what, nothing to say? No moronic insults for someone who can actually talk back? Do you need your debate opponents to be silent so you can think of a rebuttal?!" Your almost sarcastic jab actually earns you a demand to be silent, but it's so lacking in authority you can only laugh, despite not feeling any less furious with the situation. It's bad enough to be kidnapped and chained up, but by someone this incompetent? Being a tiny fraction of their size doesn't make you feel any less embarrassed for having been caught by them. It's enough frustration to make you snap again when they start coming in close, especially as another insult is levied at Cyclonus for having chosen a human so unpleasant due to his age and miserable attitude. The words are little more than kerosene on your already burning anger.

·"Do you really think you get to accuse Cyclonus of having a miserable attitude, you inept excuse for a kidnapper?! I'd rather have a conversation with these corpses than you! Not to mention, Cyclonus isn't limited to insulting people whenever he talks, unlike you!" The tirade is perhaps nonsensical with how passionately you begin to praise your partner's command of verse, but you're far too lost in your genuine adoration to care, especially as you begin to relay how wonderfully enticing his singing is to you. Every time your captor tries to command silence you just jump to yet another feature that makes your heart flutter, riding on the high of how incredibly good it feels to rub it all in their flustered face as you go. An attempt at describing his passionate grasp of verse around specific topics is stopped only by a door flying off its hinges in a burst of shattered metal.

·Security forces do nothing as a hulking purple figure enters through the smoke of considerable destruction, and your captor is left paralyzed with fear as they're hefted up by a clawed hand, one you're so relieved to see you can't help calling out their name. Cyclonus is content to toss the criminal to the rest of the crew as they arrive, and actually smiles once he beholds you safe. Freeing you of your bonds, he doesn't drop the chains until they're wrapped about your captor for some poetic justice. After that, you're carried to the nearest private spot on the ship and embraced without hesitation, the giant arms that have held you before almost shaking as he whispers how grateful he is to have you back. For an instant he sheds genuine tears when you hug him in return.

·Though the intensity of his emotions isn't as extreme as when he rescued you going forward, the big bot is far more open about his feelings than ever before, even showing them in full view of others. Surprised but not at all displeased, you are however quite thrown for a loop when someone recounts how incredibly worried he was during your kidnapping, in that he had to be convinced not to go after you alone and gouged some unfortunate furniture as he listened to the communications. Yet the moment you started your tirade, he was shocked to a whole new kind of silence. It's obvious that he hadn't even been able to process it at first, but now is fully overwhelmed and grateful for your love as he never was before. Hearing himself defended by someone he adores more than anything changed his perspective of himself, as well as his outlook on life, for how could he not see the beauty of a universe that had given him you?

Drift

·Sort of an interstellar hippy in his own way, Drift has taught you a lot about remaining calm through meditation, saying that a clear mind and control over anger is key to surviving high stress situations. The same philosophy is what he instructed you to use when others mocked his past, as he claims to be used to it and doesn't want anyone angering you on his behalf. This doesn't stop you from simmering in your current situation, dangling from chains as you might be, and admittedly being kidnapped tends to shorten one's fuse. Perhaps that's why you explode so dramatically when your abductor opens up the communication line just to mock your partner by claiming he hardly should be upset by an organic dying, considering his past, and that this current "relationship" is probably just a redemption stunt. That final mistake sets you off on a legendary tirade.

·"Are you KIDDING me?! You want to talk about STUNTS you wannabe kidnapping loser?! Do you have a projection disorder or something?! Because unlike you, Drift doesn't actually have to PROVE anything!" Never in your life have you wished to be the same height as the bots to this degree, granted though it's only because you want to strangle this jerk purely for the satisfaction of throttling them. Drift has worked to be better, and jabs about his past hurt him deeply, despite what he says. What right does this loser have to use that against him? You're so worked up fear isn't in your catalog of emotions when your captor tries to threaten you with physical harm. All you see is an overhyped grifter who got lucky, and you make that abundantly clear.

·"What, are you going to try threatening me, really? Am I supposed to be afraid of bluster now?!" The sight of a tiny organic growing red in the face with rage actually seems to give the bad bot pause, in part because you're so flushed they have to wonder if humans have a secret explosive ability that you're presently charging up. Admittedly you do feel like you might pop, but that's only because it's impossible to unleash all of your anger in a way that's truly satisfying, and you're left with spouting all the very justified insults that spring to mind. One particular thing that galvanizes your anger; how is this jerk pretending they would stand a chance against Drift?! The bot may be a literal ray of sunshine to you, but you're well aware of what he can do to enemies, and you doubt your kidnapper is in the dark about your paramour's combat prowess.

·"Would you be playing the big tough bot if he were anywhere near here?! Or if you didn't have me as a shield?! Because I doubt you'd last a moment in a one on one!" You shout, your tone of vitriol somewhat humorous considering that the point is a very valid one. While not afraid of Drift in the slightest, you know being on his bad side can be fatal in impressively short order. Perhaps that's why his soft approach to your relationship is even better. It's so special to you that in your current state you can't help but brag aggressively, going on about what a wonderful bot he is and that this loser could never hope to best him in combat or personality. Seeing them rethink it all just adds fuel to your fire, but before you can really get going on how Drift's gentle mannerisms extend to the bedroom you're interrupted by a cacophony of unfathomable origin.

·One of the entrances to the room you're in is sliced open by what you swear has to be ten swords at once, but as soon as it's down and the wielder charges in, you see only two held by a very angry looking Drift. Though accompanied by ample backup, he's an army of one as he reduces the security to pieces and almost dices up your captor. Only some obviously difficult self control lets him immobilize the bot instead. Not wasting time, your partner leaves the bad guy for the others to hurry to your side, his expression beaming with unmatched happiness and relief as he cuts you free and catches you in cupped hands. Shameless kisses and a million questions about whether or not you're hurt are your prelude to an open embrace. Never minding public affection in the past, he's still at a new level all the way back to the ship and in the days that follow.

·It's impossible not to go an hour without a loving nuzzle against your forehead, and whenever you aren't looking Drift is in the corner of your eye with an absolutely lovestruck expression on his sweet face, to the point you halfway imagine there could be hearts in his optics. Rodimus himself tells you in confidence that the unshakable ninjabot was barely able to keep himself steady after your kidnapping, obviously holding back a hurricane of pain and grief within his spark, but that changed in a flash as soon as he heard you. Accustomed to being derided, he'd been unprepared for such a passionate defense from anyone. Hearing you shout his praises had nearly driven him to tears. The pain of his past and the exclusion he faces for it has worn him down, to the point he often believes himself to be irredeemable, but you've made him have hope for himself for the first time in eons. Your love makes him see what he's done right, and from now on, he fully intends to give you and himself more to be proud of every day.

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[themanthemyththeverite]

Crazy

A/N 1: There is some violence and blood in this story(no, there are no surgeries being described out in detail if you’ve already read the first line), so if you can’t stand anything involving that, please read with caution. Thank you.

As an emergency surgeon, life wasn't easy. Gruesome injuries, weird circumstances, and a plethora of blood, gore, and cancer made your job a certain kind of scarlet hell. It wasn't fun to cut open people and dig out bullets and shrapnel, nor was it fun to cut open people to try and stabilize their rapidly failing organs.

But someone had to do it.

"At least I don't have the night shift," you thought as you stepped through your front door. As you let out a yawn, thoroughly exhausted and ready to go to sleep after a quick late night snack (ice cream sounded great), you noticed something on the tiles floor of your kitchen.

A dark spot of something liquid.

Blood?

A rustling sound suddenly came from the living room, startling you, and you quickly grabbed a nearby kitchen knife, preparing yourself for a struggle.

Entering the living room, you noticed it was dark, and nothing seemed out of place until you checked the couch.

There, in all her glory, lay a very asleep Kang Seulgi, looking battered and bruised to say the least, a spoon and an empty quart-sized container of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream lying on the coffee table next to her, along with some blood-soaked paper towels.

Kang Seulgi and you had met under odd circumstances, as she tried to beat up some bullies for taking her things and you trying to step in between as a peaceful mediator. You, unfortunately, did not successfully defuse the tense situation in middle school, but gained a valuable friend in Seulgi when you told the truth to the principal when the bullies tried to get her expelled.

Truth be told, even though she excelled in combat, learning multiple types of martial arts that you could never even try to pronounce, she was never good at fighting what you couldn’t pummel into submission. Namely, calculus, physics, and the tough hand she was dealt with from the beginning.

Though you grew up with a loving household, a full family of 2 parents and 1 older sibling, she grew up with just her father, and one who struggled to make ends meet at that. As a result, she always seemed to have a knack for the crazy and dangerous, which would probably explain why she was lying on your couch, bleeding from places you don’t bleed from without some serious intervention.

"What did you get yourself into now?" you whispered as you knelt by her, trying to examine her wounds without waking her. Thankfully, it was just a couple violent looking gashes in her face and arms. Nothing a few stitches couldn't fix.

Thankfully.

Funny how cuts were the best of injuries that you would see from her. As you tried to move away to get your medical kit, she stirred, a sleepy smile coming across her face.

“Hey,” she whispered, her eyes still closed in their half-crescent shape as she stretched out before wincing, clutching her abs.

“When did you get here?” you asked, concern written all over your face despite your attempts to make her comfortable.

"Just 5 minutes ago."

You laughed at her obvious lie. "You ate a quart of ice cream and fell asleep in 5 minutes?"

She looked away sheepishly, before muttering, "It wasn't a whole quart."

"Fine. Half a quart. Half of my quart.” You rolled your eyes. Ice cream wasn’t the problem here, even though your stomach disagreed. "When did you really get here?"

"An hour or two ago," she said, shaking her head. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming back tonight."

You reached under the coffee table, pulling out a small kit of medical supplies and some needles, much to Seulgi's chagrin. "Again?"

"I'm sorry, Bear," you said regretfully, using a nickname she had very much earned back in high school. "Anesthesia?"

"Nope," she said, giving you a cheeky grin. A decision you knew she would regret, but one she made every time anyways. Was it courage? Foolishness? Whim? Not even you, her best friend since childhood, could fathom what wild things went around in her head.

“So how’s your dad?” you asked, trying to distract her from the sting of isopropyl alcohol seeping into her cut as you disinfected her wound. She winced as she sighed, shaking her head.

“He’s only getting worse.” Your gut twinged with helplessness as you looked up at her, distraught worry written all over her face. “That’s why I’m doing this, after all.” She pointed to her bloodied and bruised fists.

“I could always pay the bill for an operation,” you offered, for what must have been the millionth time, but she shook her head.

“I’ve got it covered. Thanks for offering, though.”

She let out an exhale as you inserted the needle into her forehead, pulling it through along with the thread. You continued this process in silence, her eyes locked on your face as you focused on the task at hand. She had long since stopped grimacing, simply ignoring the pain shooting through her head every time the needle pierced her skin.

“It’s really not a problem, I could pay-”

“And it’s really fine,” she insisted, cutting you off. “I can take care of myself out there. Besides, it’s fun to punch people and get paid.”

“It’s not fun for me to see everything that happens to you at the end of it all,” you replied quietly, averting your eyes from her. “I don’t like seeing you get hurt more than you need to be.”

She could tell that you were being honest, that you were baring your emotions out like you always had, being the one with your heart on your sleeve.

“I’ll be fine.” And just like that, you knew that would be the end of it. That was how it always was. Her crashing at your place for medical attention, you trying to convince her to get help and stop fighting, and her telling you she was fine and would be fine. Yet here you were, stitching up yet another cut on her, putting ointment on yet another hand with knuckles that looked more purple than grapes did. But you were silent.

After you were done with the rest of her injuries, you went into your kitchen again, flipping open the second cupboard to the right, just above the toaster, and grabbing a bag that you had prepared beforehand in case she came. It was filled with aspirin and other meds for her and her father, along with a few bills. She would never ask for it, but she took it every time anyways.

You made your way to the front door, knowing she was already there, waiting for you despite your numerous attempts to ask her to take it easy and sleep off the pain. You handed her the bag, a wistful smile on your face as she opened the door, stepping out before stopping just outside of the frame.

She turned back, a bright smile on her face, her eyes curved back into those classic crescent moons. She waved, looking as cheery and optimistic as ever.

“Thanks!” she called out before she bounded down the stairwell, much to your worry and amusement due to the nature of her injuries.

“Be careful!” you shouted after her, trying to sound as serious as possible but unable to restrain the smile on your face.

You closed the door behind you, rubbing your eyes tiredly. You needed to sleep. There were more guts to cut open, more people to save, more blood to be spilled tomorrow. And as you stumbled into your bed, haphazardly shedding your clothes and attire, feeling your eyes grow heavy by the second, you were glad that your friend had paid a visit, even if it wasn’t on the cleanest or most pleasant terms.

~A few days later~

Everything about the fightclub screamed for you to get the hell out. It was gross. It was crowded and gross. It was sweaty and crowded and, you guessed it, fucking gross.

So why were you here?

The answer to your internal question stood under the spotlight, black hair untied and wearing tight black clothes like she was some sort of vigilante, but before you could see anything else, a man stood up holding a microphone to be heard over the cacophony of voices in the crowd of interested watchers. As he began saying whatever random bullshit he needed to say to hype up the crowd, you turned your attention to Seulgi again, looking her up and down, clearly in her element.

Not a single movement or twitch of anxiety.

It was kind of attractive, if you were being honest.

Admittedly, Seulgi had always been pretty, despite the fact that she was your friend. Every curve on her body seemed to have a certain deadly precision, as if she had been sculpted by hand and not born by some chance happening or mishmash of genetics. Her legs seemed to go on for miles, culminating in a perfectly rounded ass, abs so tight that you felt that you could suffocate when she wore crop tops, not to mention her nicely sized bust. But this?

This brought that to a whole other level, you realized, as you watched her in the ring, unintimidated by an adversary who loomed over her, standing at 6′0 to her 5′3. And though you absolutely abhorred violence, steering clear of it whenever you could and retreating to TV shows and video games, the grace with which Seulgi leaped through the air to deliver a perfectly placed punch to the jaw, or when her whole body seemed to shapeshift in just the right way to land a flying spin kick, was truly something incredible.

And, more accurately, hot.

But your observations were cut short when her opponent retaliated, landing a punch of his own and pushing her back despite her effective elbow block. Another punch came, followed by another one, and eventually, what should have been an effective block turned into a punch to the gut, sickening you to the core. But yet again, Seulgi showed her mettle, recovering from the blow quickly before mule kicking the man, who had foolishly tried to grab her. He teetered on his back foot for a moment, wobbling from the hit, before finally collapsing in a heap on his back, thoroughly bested.

But you didn’t see any of this, quickly rushing outside so Seulgi wouldn’t notice you, and more importantly, to give yourself an opening to throw up all the contents of your stomach you had been holding down for the last hour in the disgustingly sweaty cramped quarters of the audience.

After a few moments, you moved to exit the alleyway to get to your car parked nearby, only to find that you were blocked, a figure standing next to you by the door into the fightclub arena.

“You done?” came a gruff, deep voice, and when you looked at the person, it turned out it was some guy, scruffy looking with a dirtied shirt and jacket on, holding a hammer in one hand. He certainly didn’t look friendly.

“Yeah, who are you?”

He didn’t answer your question, simply punching you in the stomach and knocking you backwards off your feet. You groaned, clutching your aggravated gut, when you noticed two other people behind him; similarly gruff and intimidating looking men.

“Oh shit,” you muttered, much to the amusement of the man with the hammer, who slammed it down on the ground in front of you, eliciting a yell of surprise and fear from you. “Wallet?”

You hesitated, but somehow found the courage to laugh. “You’re dumber than you look, you know.” And somehow, also the courage to taunt him. “You think I would take my wallet out here? I don’t even have any cash on me.”

The man’s eyes narrowed into a vicious glare, a sick smirk twisting his face. “Then I guess we’ll have to get you to take us more seriously.” Pinning you to the ground, one knee on your back, he forced you to extend one hand out, despite your attempts to tuck it under yourself. Holding your trembling body still, he raised the hammer, about to strike when Seulgi opened the door, seeing the scene.

Quick as a flash, she kicked the man holding you down, sending him flying into some nearby trash bags before turning to deal with the other two. Scrambling back, you watched as she dispatched the two of them with ease, breathing heavily and watching them to make sure they weren’t faking, just as the man with the hammer lunged out of the piles of garbage, hammer raised to crush her skull.

In a split second decision, you rush forwards, your heart racing from anxiety and adrenaline, grabbing onto the man’s arm and holding him back, only to receive the pointed end of the hammer yourself, the blunt spikes digging into the skin of your arm like a knife and burrowing itself deep under your flesh, ripping it out of his hands as you fell back in pain.

Your vision blurred, head spinning, and you could just make out the faintest outline of Seulgi beating the shit out of the man before she rushed over you. Thoughts flooded through your mind, a deluge of consciousness coming to the forefront of your scrambled senses as you tried to comprehend the excruciating pain coming from your forearm, the blood-soaked hammer lying on the pavement next to you. Then you noticed the slow but steadily growing pool of blood next to you, Seulgi’s voice fading in the background, before everything went dark.

~a few hours later~

You woke up on your couch, the familiar scent of hyacinth candles drifting by. The scent was a nice distraction, for the moment immediately after you awoke you felt your heartbeat throbbing in your head, your left arm feeling strangely heavier than usual and radiating waves of dull pain. You sat up gingerly, carefully bringing your arm to your chest when you noticed the bloodied gauze wrapped around it, as well as the trail of dark splotches on the tiled floor leading up to the couch.

“Dammit,” you muttered, staring down the annoying task of cleaning large quantities of dried blood off of your usually pristine floor.

“That’s right,” came Seulgi’s amused voice from behind you, sitting on the recliner. “You stole my spot and you ruined my clothes.”

Her black jacket lay on the coffee table, and you assumed that there was blood on it despite the fact that you couldn’t see any of it since, well, it was a black jacket.

She sighed, getting up from the recliner and walking to sit next to you. “Well, at least you woke up,” she shrugged, nonchalantly flipping her hair. “If you bled out I would have beaten you to death for-”

“Yes, yes, stealing your spot and ruining your clothes,” you parroted back, mocking her. “My sincerest apologies.”

She laughed at your antics, looking at your arm. “How’s it feel to get your flesh gouged open?”

“Wonderful,” you joked back. “Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

She laughed again, harder this time, something that made your heart flip-flop in your chest. It really was criminal how her nose crinkled up and her eyes turned into those god-forsaken crescents.

“Well, I’m glad you’re in high spirits,” she said, standing up and cracking her knuckles. “I’m gonna get going and let you clean up that mess over there and clean my jacket.” She made to leave. 

“Wait,” you said suddenly, trying not to stare at her shapely ass swaying as she walked away from you. “Do you...maybe...wanna stay for a drink?”

“Well, maybe, but...” She gave you a teasing look.

“Do you want to stay for a drink?”

She was a little surprised at your tone, giving you a look you couldn’t quite place before her usual joking self was back.

“Oooh, he’s growing up now,” she teased. “Using a deep voice and asking girls for drinks and all.” You scoffed in mock-indignation at her jab.

“I’ll have you know, I’ve asked women out before,” you said, as haughtily as you could before both of you broke into giggles, stopping only when you bumped your arm against the coffee table and let out a pained groan.

“I could use some alcohol for the pain,” you said through a wince.

“Of course, I’ll go get it,” she said, winking at you. “Only for your pain, of course.”

When she came back from the kitchen, having grabbed all the beer you kept in your refrigerator and an extra bottle of wine for good measure, you had already propped yourself up comfortably on the couch, still careful not to aggravate your arm any more than you already had.

“So much for not getting hurt,” you muttered, and Seulgi grinned cheekily at you again as she sat down next to you.

“Yeah, really not one of your best moments,” she laughed as she popped open a can of beer. “Getting mugged and needing me to come and save your ass?”

Then you remembered why you had gotten hurt in the first place, and your eyes narrowed at her. “But I’m the one who had to come save your ass because you didn’t have the spacial awareness or the hearing capable of noticing a man get up from a pile of trash!”

“I saved you and you know it!”

“And I saved you and you know it too!”

She sighed in exasperation, just trying to chug her beer.

“Hey, none of this would’ve happened if you didn’t come to the club anyways,” she retorted before finishing off her second can, placing it on the coffee table. She cocked her head, as a thought slowly passed through her mind. “Why did you come anyways? You’ve never come before.”

You were silent for a moment, quietly contemplating her question. Were you curious? Did you miss her? What was your purpose in going there to see her? Your head thumped painfully as you took another sip out of your beer, thinking silently across from her.

“I guess...I just wanted to see what you did for your side job,” you said slowly, shrugging. “I was worried you might get hurt again.”

You looked up, noticing the slightly red tint to her face, but you just assumed that it was the alcohol. She nodded at your response, shrugging as well.

“How’d I look?” she said suddenly, leaning in close with a flirtatious wink, flustering you. “Was it everything you hoped and imagined it would be?”

Yes, yes, and yes.

“W-what are you on about?” you stammered, blushing red from your internal thoughts and her suddenly close proximity to your lips. “I was worried sick that some guy would crush you!” Not untrue, but also not the whole unfiltered truth.

“Ah, always the gentleman,” she whispered into your ear, sending shivers of pleasure down your spine. Regrettably, she pulled away, seeming deep in thought.

“Is everything okay?” you asked, concerned at her sudden change in character. She didn’t respond for a moment.

“Oh, fuck it.”

With that, she whirled around, a hand grabbing your collar aggressively and yanking you to a stop right in front of her face. 

“What are you...!”

She gently put a hand on your face, caressing the curve of your cheek.

“...doing...” You trailed off as she kissed you tenderly, surprising you at first by the softness of it all, before you reciprocated fully, your good hand moving to wrap around her body. Her lips were incredibly soft and sweet, and as cliche as it sounded, just like fresh summer strawberries. There was a soft smacking sound as she pulled away, her eyes gazing at you lovingly before shifting to the look she had given you earlier, the one you couldn’t recognize until now.

Lust.

But this time, it was combined with the pure unbridled passion of the years and years and years that you had cared for her, doing all that you could to help her, truly wishing her the best even when she loved someone other than you. And you knew even without a word, from that look, that there was no turning back.

She dove back in, her dark locks falling around your face like a beautiful curtain, kissing you hard and breaching the entrance of your lips with her tongue, aggressively pushing you down onto the couch as she made out with you. Your heart raced, pounding heavily in your head for a much different reason this time than earlier in the day, and you felt blood rushing into your pants rapidly as she continued to dominate your mouth with her tongue, plundering it with reckless abandon. She pulled away temporarily, ripping off her shirt like an animal in heat and aggressively pulling off your own while somehow not bumping your arm in the process, not that you would have cared.

Your lips locked again, stealing your breath away in a way that felt so cruel, yet felt so delicious. Every touch of her body against yours was purely electric, and your hands moved to cup her breasts through her bra, kneading them gently and eliciting a moan from her.

Your lips roamed from her mouth to her neck as she cried out at your ministrations, sucking on the sensitive flesh hard enough to leave a visible mark, before moving further down to her collarbone, the warmth emanating from her drawing you in like a fly to a lightbulb. Her hands, ever moving, unclasped her bra, revealing her perfectly shaped breasts to you, which you pounced on immediately, sucking and kissing one while squeezing the other with your good hand.

Before long, however, your hand moved off on its own, snaking down her deliciously toned abs and into her pants, delicately rubbing against her clit and giving her a jolt of friction, causing her body to jerk against yours from the pleasure. Slowly and steadily, you stimulated her, rubbing just around her hard nub before inserting one finger, then two, then three as she moaned and thrashed on top of you, her body melting into a puddle of lust.

But you stopped, frustratingly short of her peak, pulling your hand out of her pants much to her displeasure.

“Why’d you stop?”

You smirked. “You are dangerously overdressed.”

She glared at you, but she shimmied out of her pants anyways, leaving her in just her panties as you shed your pants.

“Someone’s happy this is happening,” she teased, palming your rock hard shaft through the fabric of your boxers, before kissing it gently. She pulled the annoying piece of underwear down, revealing your cock in its entirety, standing at attention the instant her slender fingers made contact.

She stroked slowly, watching as your face contorted in pleasure from every touch. With much suspense and anticipation, you watched as she opened her mouth, her tongue just about to touch the head of your cock until she moved it just to the side, missing it on purpose.

“Seriously?” you whined, giving her a look of incredulity as she laughed at your neediness, but quickly silenced your complaint as she wrapped her luscious lips around your shaft, engulfing you in a veritable hell of pleasure, pulling a soft moan from your lips despite your attempts to hold back.

Her lips rolled down your shaft, coating it in a slick sheen of saliva before she retreated, her tongue stroking up the underside and twirling around your throbbing head. As she continued, she began to speed up, going deeper until you felt your cock slam against the back of her throat, her saliva positively coating your shaft in a thick mess of bubbles and stringy liquid. She pulled back, gasping for breath through a smile as she looked at you, sweat rolling down your face as you struggled to hold on from falling off that precipice.

“You’re so good at that,” you gasped, and she just smirked at you, moving to continue when you stopped her. “Let me finish what I started.”

She shrugged, letting up when you abruptly took control of the situation, flipping her over on the couch.

Your mouth went back to her exposed breasts, sucking on her and making her go crazy from the feeling before you began kissing downwards, feeling her midsection all the way to her hips and her glistening sex.

“Shit, you’re wet,” you remarked, before you dove in, eating her out and preventing her snarky reply with your tongue. You quickly inserted two fingers in afterwards, thrusting them in and out of her with haste as she moaned, trembling from the rapid stimulation. You inserted another finger into her, your other hand digging under her delicious ass as she quivered, her hands reached around her desperately to find some outlet for the electricity coursing through her. Her muscles clenching and unclenching, twisting and turning around your fingers and tongue, complemented by her ever increasing volume of cries and groans of pleasure let you know that she was close.

She just needed that final push.

So you gave it to her, sucking hard on her clit, and she tumbled over the edge, letting out a string of profanities and unintelligible moans as she rode out her orgasm, her hips bucking wildly into your face and her legs trembling as if she was out of her own body for a second.

“Wow,” was all she managed out, breathing heavily before she let out a short laugh, smiling at you in semi-satisfaction. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

She clearly wasn’t as tired out as she seemed, however, because as soon as you let up, she pushed you off, lifting you clean up off the couch and taking you into the bedroom, bridal style.

You laughed at the situation before she leapt onto the bed behind you, pinning you down, and locking lips with you again, making out with you hard as her fingers grasped your shaft, lining it up with her entrance. She pulled away, before inch by inch, you penetrated into her depths, finally fitting snugly inside of her wet cavern, your moans mixing together at the satisfying feeling.

Slowly, she started moving, moaning in pleasure as you pushed deep inside of her, breasts bouncing lightly as she began to ride you, her perfectly shaped ass bouncing against your hips.

“Shit, I feel so full,” she gasped as she sped up, bucking her hips up and down like there was no tomorrow. You couldn’t even manage a reply, as she slammed herself down on your cock, her juices spilling out and soaking your shaft in a slick that only made her go faster.

Your hands roamed her body, grasping her ass and urging her on, before they traveled back to her breasts, kneading the flesh and rolling her nipples, eliciting a cry.

Her mouth was wide open, a thin sheen of sweat covering her forehead as she exerted herself, pushing herself to the limit to pleasure both of you as she continued her relentless movements, riding your cock into oblivion with you.

“Oh, fuck!”

Her eyes squeezed shut as she began to grind herself against you, trying to reach that peak again when you reached a hand down to her clit, rubbing her gently. Her eyes shot open again, the lust and need to cum clearly written all over her face as she moaned wantonly, impaling herself on your cock while you rubbed her clit.

“Fuck, fuck, I’m gonna cum!” she screamed as her legs started trembling again, her pussy clenching tightly around you, triggering your own orgasm as a wave of both your liquids coated around your cock and leaked out of her glistening sex. She collapsed forwards, her head burying itself into the sheets next to you, and you gently caressed her sweat-covered back as she rode down from her high, quiet whiny moans still emanating from her as your cock twitched weakly inside of her.

She rolled off of you slowly, a trail of fluids following her as she laid there, smiling in post-coital bliss. “Shit, that felt good.” You hummed in agreement, pulling her close to you and kissing the top of her forehead gently before you both fell into a deep slumber, forgetting the stress of the day and relaxing into the comfort of each other’s arms.

~The next morning~

You awoke slowly, your eyes opening slowly before seeing a huddled mass of sheets in front of you, black hair splayed everywhere. It took you a moment to remember all that had happened in just one day, but it came rushing back to you in a torrent of memories, and you couldn’t help but smile as Seulgi slept next to you soundly, snoring gently like the bear that she was.

As sneakily as possible, you tiptoed out of the bedroom, grabbing your phone off of the coffee table and typing a quick message to your boss at the hospital. After all, you couldn’t possibly work with an injured arm, right?

Your smile returned, and you quickly and quietly put on some clean clothes before heading out into the kitchen, starting up the stove to make breakfast for the two of you.

As you got into the kitchen, Seulgi was somehow already there, a pan full of eggs and some toast ready for you, wearing one of her own outfits.

When did she get her own clothes?

“Morning! Did you sleep well?” she asked innocently, handing you the food as you stared at her dumbfounded. “Who’s the girl in your room?”

You blinked, confused. “Wait, what?”

She gave you an incredulous look. “You know, the one with black hair and is snoring right now?”

“That was you.”

Seulgi laughed, shaking her head. “What? Why would I be in your bed?”

You were genuinely confused, looking at her like she had grown three heads or something. “But...we slept together last night.”

She laughed even harder this time, doubling over. “Me? Sleep with you? You wish!” You set down the food and rushed back into the bedroom. Sure enough, the black hair and mess of sheets were still splayed there, along with the snoring. You turned to leave the room in disbelief until you noticed something.

The snoring.

It was rhythmic.

Like a repeating track.

You immediately turn around, pulling off the sheets to reveal the prank: the black hair was simply a wig, and the sound of the snoring was coming from a recorded track on her phone that she had looped. You turned, seeing Seulgi in the door, her face red with laughter as she wiped tears from her eyes, absolutely dying at your expense.

“Y-your face!” she howled. “I-It was priceless!” She kept laughing as you approached her, walking closer and closer until you loomed over her crouched form on the ground. “Hey, don’t try anything or I’ll punch you.”

You ignored her, leaning down towards her.

“I’m serious, I wi-”

You cut her off with a kiss, chaste and tender, leaving her breathless as you pulled away, a small little smile on your face. Her cheeks reddened, and she looked away, cutely embarrassed to your own amusement.

“How’s that for ‘priceless’,” you smirked, extending a hand to help her up, which she gratefully took.

As the two of you finally sat down to breakfast, you couldn’t help but ask the one question that you had been dying to ask.

“So...what are we now?”

She didn’t miss a beat with her answer, a calm little smile coming to her face. “I dunno. Maybe you should take me on a date and we’ll find out.”

Then she gave you a devilish smirk, a look of wildness coming to her eyes again.

“Or...”

You swallowed in anticipation, your throat suddenly feeling dry. “Or?”

“...you could fuck me over that kitchen counter of yours just li-”

“Consider it done.”

As the two of you made out and had wild sex, slamming each other into various surfaces with little care for anything else in the world, you realized that was how you hoped to spend the rest of your life. Lounging around with your best friend, talking with her, joking with her, occasionally fucking her brains out. That was by no means the end of your problems. After all, she was a wild and stubborn fighter who literally beat people up for a living, and you would have to patch her up every time afterwards. But crazy was never so bad.

Right?

A/N 2: First story, so advice would be appreciated! I actually have a question for my fellow writers out there who might be reading this: are the time skips like absolutely horrendous? Just curious, because I was thinking about it for future stories and stuff and wanted to know if it might be a better idea not to do as many as I did in this one. Anyways, thanks for reading this lil’ rant paragraph and Happy New Year to all! :)

[sluttbuttsstuff]

BUCCI GANG SKINCARE/BEAUTY ROUTINE (because this is what i care about)

BRUNO:

Probably has naturally perfect skin, because he’s beautiful and perfect

I love tan Buno, even if the anime and PPP make him super pale.  I translate this to the personal headcanon that he does have a natural tan, but he does use sunscreen everyday

He picked it up from being the son of a sailor, and one too many bad sunburns

Probably also loves using products with aloe in them, he knows he can trust them

Probably washes his face at night, but showers in the morning (because Abbacchio showers at night) so he thinks he doesn’t need to wash his face

Probably shaves often enough, but doesn’t cut his skin anymore when he does it because he is GROWN

Doesn’t use moisturizer because his skin is naturally on the more oily side, and thinks he doesn’t need it

He probably ends up getting wrinkles and aging MUCH faster because of this

  ABBACCHIO:

He has “A Routine” for his skincare, but he focuses more on his makeup and hair

If he’s just gonna cover it up with makeup anyways, who cares what his skin looks like

Because of that, his skin is on the sensitive side, i.e. he gets sunburn easily and has a bunch of allergies to chemicals and specific ingredients

Miraculously doesn’t get much acne anymore, just some blackheads on his nose

So yeah he puts a lot more effort into his makeup as a result

Very good at contour and cut creases-dramatic and gothic looks with dark/neutral pallets

Probably loves Kat Von D because of vibes, but also has an impressive collection of more indie brand’s liquid lipsticks and eyeliners

Actually does care a lot about his hair now that it's long

He originally let it grow out due to apathy, but Bruno complimented his hair so he keeps it long now and maintains it regularly

He washes his hair every other day give or take, then blow dries and irons it. It takes about 2 hours

He also regularly uses a hair mask, and protective sprays and oils

Also probably only uses brands recommended by hair stylists like redken and paul mitchell or the italian equivalent

He waxes all his body hair off.  All Of It.

As previously mentioned, he tends to take night showers because lets him take his time

Plus he's obv not a morning person.  He needs like an hour to do his makeup before he’s ready to go out in the morning

Probs wears the most makeup out of the gang

GIORNO:

Giorno is a person who’s carefully created a mask to achieve his dreams, and i believe this absolutely carries over into his appearance

Not to mention with issues of bullying and abuse in his past, he uses his beauty routine almost like a knight uses armor

Needless to say, he’s got the most intense skincare routine

Without fail, will wash his face and do a skincare regime twice a day

Im talking double cleansing, toner, spot correction, serum, essence, eye cream, moisturizer, etc

Spf in the highest protection available and regularly wears face masks at night

Will NOT go to bed without taking care of his skin

He definitely doesn’t seem like it, but might be the most obsessed with beauty and personal appearance out of anyone in the gang.

BUT it's the natural, effortless type of beauty.  The #wokeuplike this type

Wears some makeup, but its minimal, especially compared to Abbacchio

Some bb cream with spf and primer, lip gloss/tint, and eyebrow/lash tint.  Prefers brown mascara as opposed to black, and prefers long lashes as opposed to thick

He washes his hair with all natural products, and lets it air dry except for his donut holes in the front.  He pincurls them and uses as little hairspray as possible.

occasionally uses a straightening iron to add some curls, otherwise he thankfully has nice hair

Doesn’t really grow any facial hair.  Except for some leg/armpit hair, which is super soft and light.

Also uses hair masks and supplements for his hair, and again prefers organic/natural ingredients

I Want What He Has

MISTA:

Oh dear god

Probably one of the worst routines

Naturally has oily skin and hair, which is great for preventing aging, but bad for everything else

He does not know how to take care of himself, and unless it's brought to his attention, or he’s trying to impress/seduce someone, he doesn’t particularly care

That’s not to say that he’s a lost cause, he could probably be a model if he knew what he was doing.

Because he has oily skin, he got a lot of acne as a teen.  It’s getting better the older he gets, but he still gets plenty of white heads and acne.

Mainly on his forehead because of his beanie.

Will pop them every morning, and sometimes show it to Narancia (to his amusement) and Fugo (to his dismay)

After he pops his zits, he will use those alcohol pads

He thinks unless the skincare is actively burning his skin, it isn’t working

He’s recently started using witch hazel after a recommendation from Giorno, and it’s actually helping him a lot.  He’s not a huge fan of the smell, but it’s a start.  

This man needs to take at LEAST one shower a day, sometimes two.  Not just because of his oily hair, but because of his daily activities with passione, he sweats a lot which doesn’t help with his skin or hair

He uses Head and Shoulders , which is a crying shame.

I headcanon that his hair is naturally very dark, thick and wavy/curly, a bit coarse.  

9/10 his hair ends up sweat plastered to his skull by the end of the day after being under his hat

VERY HAIRY.  If he misses even a day of shaving, will grow stubble.  Body hair dark and curly

Also prolly has backne

FUGO:

Two words: Dry Skin

Which is nice because he doesn’t get a lot of acne, except for blackheads on his nose.

His skin is sensitive in other ways though

For one, it shows his blush easily, which can be embarrassing

Also dark bags under his eyes, although that’s mostly because of his irregular sleep schedules

Uses lotion on his hands a lot, because otherwise they can get very dry and cracked.

his lips are almost always cracked and chapped too, sometimes to the point of bleeding

He washes his face and hair daily, but doesn’t use moisturizer because he doesn't know that much about skincare.

He has learned about sheetmasks from Giorno, though, and likes them

He doesn’t do it often though, because Mista and Narancia make fun of him

Uses whatever shampoo or conditioner Bruno buys him, or whatever’s cheapest at the grocery store.  He does like to use mousse to slick his hair back and style it though

He can technically grow a beard and grows facial hair at a regular pace, but it’s so light and patchy that it doesn’t look that good, so he shaves regularly

NARANCIA:

Poor baby gets the painful kind of acne.

His skin is heavily affected by his hormones and diet

Maybe that’s why he prefers fruits and veggies to meats?  All the sugar and greasy food doesn’t do his skin any favors at all

Unconsciously picks at his acne, and doesn’t realize until he sees blood on his fingers that he knows isn’t from “work”

Could probably benefit from getting medication from a dermatologist, but he doesn’t know the first  thing about it, and is too embarrassed to ask Bruno for help

His hair is Dandruff prone, probably because he washes it every day.

Doesn’t use any special products or anything, but his hair is SO SOFT

It does get tangled up easily, unfortunately, and he has a cowlick on the back of his head that won’t. stay. Down.

Doesn’t really grow any facial hair yet, but his body hair is dark and thick, but very soft at the same time

Poor bby needs help with his routine

Got to Giorno, not Mista

[exuberantocean]

There seems to be this black and white thinking in the Nate discourse in the Ted Lasso fandom right now. And I think it is more complex that "if you really hate Nathan right now you are racist because Rebecca was just as bad."

Arguably Rebecca wasn't just as bad, she was worse. Her plans at getting back at Rupert involved destroying the lives and careers of well over 20 completely innocent people. People focus in on the damage she was attempting to do to Ted, but her plans were hurtful to everyone on the team. And while yes, maybe for some people the ability to sympathize with her comes from her whiteness, she also had a few things narratively going for her that made it easier to understand and like her.

1. She had sympathetic motivation but a Scooby Doo scheme. Everyone can, on some level understand the hurt she was feeling. The show made it clear early on that her ex husband was ana abusive bastard who continued to manipulate and abuse her even after the divorce. Even if you have never been abused, nearly everyone has experience with at least a toxic individual. At the same time her plan was less relatable. I mean, person A is upset with person B and so takes control of an organization and tries to run it to the ground is not something many people experience in real life. Finally, we start with Rebecca at her worst and she is steadily improves as a person.

2. Meanwhile the damage Nathan is doing is more targeted, more personal, but above all something many more people have real life experience with. You are unlikely to have experienced someone buying your company and try and run it to the ground as an elaborate revenge plot against your former boss's but you are much more likely to have had personal information about your health or mental health used against you. If you haven't, it is a much more realistic threat in your life than someone doing what Rebecca did. Add to that, we didn't really see Rebecca's journey down to her darkest moments-we started there. For Nate, we are watching him go down that morally wrong path. Add to that Nathan weaponizing Ted's mental health is abilist.

And, at this point, narratively speaking, we are meant to have a certain level of disgust for him and his actions. They are not pretty. Also, as a fellow victim of bullying, I find the victim becomes the the abuser narratives featuring. If you know that pain the way I do, how could you turn it around and inflict it on others? It feels reprehensible.

Now the fact that he is the highest billed character of color on this show makes things fairly problematic. Ted Lasso is a very diverse show in that it's team is diverse but most of those characters don't have much screen time thankfully Sam and Dani has become more prominent this season, but still we the audience tend to follow the struggles of it's white characters more than the others.

And that is my two cents really. We are meant to hate Nathan right now, bit they have also already planted the seeds needed so that, as the story unfolds we will also be able to forgive him in time. The fact that this storyline was given to a nonwhite character is a problem. Hate toward an actor for their character is never right. There is a weird intersection of paratext racism and in-text abilism. It is complicated.

[jui-imouto-chan]

Ouran High School Host Club AU (Inspired by this post)

Yes, I used everybody they offered as the characters (and more!), it’s just a really big club. 

(It will 200% get bigger if I keep writing this, don’t test me)

Ship Tags: MiyaHina, AtsuHina, OsaHina, OiHina, KurooHina, BokuHina, AkaaHina, TsukiHina, UshiHina, AoHina, HyakuHina, NishiHina/NoyaHina, Hinata Harem aka Hinata/Everyone. 

Loosely follows plot, but a few things have been changed to match Haikyuu more, such as:

•Hinata isn’t an honor-student, he’s on an athletics scholarship (and while there are plenty of decent athletes there, they’re all rich enough to not need a scholarship)

•Hinata wears blue-light glasses often. He has good vision but having the glasses framing his vision helps him focus in class instead of getting (as) distracted.

•Yachi and Hinata switch off on some Haruhi stuff but Yachi isn’t the one the guys are all simping for.

•Yachi is an actual honor student but she’s not on the kinda full-ride scholarship Hinata is on. She’s like, partially rich, but not enough for Ouran (so she gets bullied or at least teased.)

•Hinata and Yachi got to be really good friends at orientation since she can sympathize with him better than all the actual rich people, and she helps him with his studies so he doesn’t completely flunk his classes. 

•The Twins, like Hikaru and Kaoru, have the same color hair (brunette) atm

•Hinata’s mom is a drag king to parallel Haruhi’s dad’s sitch

•Oikawa doesn’t let Iwaizumi into the club because he kills his eccentricity and egotism. None of the others can vibe check him the way Iwa-Chan does so that’s why he seems even more unbearable and thus more Tamaki-like.

••

Hinata tried to figure out where Yachi disappeared to, peering down halls and into classrooms through small openings of the doors. “Yachi-saaaan...”

He barely registered the vague scent of roses and sweets saturating the air as he pushed the door softly. 

The wood swung open as though pulled, Hinata stumbling through with a shout. A breeze and rose petals drifted by his face as he opened his eyes, head whipping up to view the silhouettes of the boys not too far from the door.

“Welcome to the Harukou Host Club!”

“Th-The... --What’s a host club?”

Hinata watched as all of the boys’ faces fell into befuddlement. 

“W-What a funny joke,” a brunet, sat upon a throne-like chair, commented, his fingers interlocked beneath his chin. “Isn’t that cute? Trying to win our hearts with humor.”

“But--”

“So, what kind of guys do you like? We’ve got plenty of types to spare, and I don’t think any of them have any problem attending to a male--ah, sorry, what’re your pronouns? That was rude of me to assume.”

Hinata’s instinctive, “He/him,” came out before he could attach his protests at the services offered, his stress elevating as the brunet hopped out of his chair and sauntered over to him, hands extended in shows of eccentricity.

“We haven’t gotten a boy, yet, huh, ‘Tsumu?” one of the guys still in the group commented, his arm draped over the shoulder of his exact copy (sans the parting of the brown locks). 

“No, but that’s because the only boys we’re involved with are each other,” the copy, ‘Tsumu(?), said, grabbing the other’s chin to hold his gaze. They stared into each other’s eyes for a second before their faces got a little green, the two of them separating to mime vomiting whilst laughing.

Hinata had to tune back into the brunet approaching him, who seemed to be going off on a tirade about beauty and elegance. He tuned back out almost immediately, finding even schoolwork to be more interesting.

“’Tsumu and ‘Samu are awful at the twincest-schtick, don’tcha think?”

“Right? I thought so, too. We’d be ten bajillion times better at it if we were identical twins!”

The ravenette rolled his eyes, although he drew in the other smugly. “Identical or not, the reason we work is because I’m a good actor.” Then, placatingly, he amended, “And you’re not hard to tease and smother with affection.”

His silver companion’s eyes lit up. “Man, you’re so cool, Kuroo.”

“Make sure to call me Tetsu when there are girls here.”

“Oooh do I get a nickname? Like, Kouta instead of Koutaro?”

Kuroo grinned, “Don’t give me an offer like that. I’ll call you Honey or Beloved, and while we’re raking in the cash, Akaashi’ll sell a bunch of merchandise with it.”

Another ravenette, probably Akaashi, nodded calmly as he penciled into his notebook. Beside him, a tall blonde smirked, his glasses flashing menacingly as he tapped away into a calculator. Kuroo and the silveret both paled and protested at him, which he seemed to ignore.

Speaking of ignoring things...

“You’ve been talking a long time, haven’t you?”

The brunet, knelt on the floor near a table, glanced over at him like he forgot who he was talking at. “Is that praise of my oratory skills? I’ve always been told that people get lost in my speeches, and it’s no surprise that you’ve gotten so enthralled with one!”

Seems like I wasn’t the only one who got lost, Hinata thought, noting the despondent, glazed eyes of some of the occupants. A short guy with a patch of blonde hair jumped up into a handstand on the shoulders of one of the taller guys in the back with white hair, and it was made evident that, no, some of them just always appeared completely detached from reality.

“So, anyway, what kind of guy is your type, Mr. Athlete? Maybe you like the cool type? The boy lolita?”

“—I AM NOT THAT SHORT—”

“You are quite that short,” the brunette continued, “Or maybe you like the strong silent type? —We have three of those. We also have twins—identical and fraternal— if you’re into the taboo kinda stuff. We don’t kinkshame here.”

“Maybe we should,” muttered the blonde guy with the calculator. His mouth was covered by a silver-haired guy with black ends, whose face betrayed no emotion even as the blonde fought against his palm irately.

“I’m not into this kind of thing,” Hinata said quickly, “Besides, doesn’t it cost money? I don’t think I’d be able to afford something like this, anyway.”

“Speaking of not being able to afford things... Shouldn’t we check up on her?” Probably-Akaashi motioned to a corner of the room with a piano and a familiar blonde girl hiding beneath its bench, sobbing meekly into her knees.

“Yachi-san!”

Hinata raced over to her, her head whipping up at his call. Her teary eyes let loose some sparkling droplets as she leapt at him, although the rope binding her ankles to the bench prevented her from fully reaching him. He thankfully was close enough that he saved her from a tumble to the floor.

“Hinataaaa,” she whined into his shoulder, “I’m going to have to sell my organs!!!”

“What!?”

“She came into our clubroom earlier and broke the vase we were supposed to sell at an auction,” explained one of the twins.

“It was worth eight million yen, and she told us she doesn’t have enough money but that she’ll sell her organs in order to pay us back, which is impressive in the dedication but very concerning.”

“We had Wakatoshi-kun put her on the bench to calm down, but she tied herself to it because she thought she would be our prisoner as a punishment.”

Yachi clearly tuned them out, too busy crying and hiding in Hinata’s arms. The redhead patted her on the head, wondering how things could get this weird in less than twenty minutes of her being out of his sight.

“Yachi-san.”

No response. Her blubbers were even less coherent now.

“Yachi-san!” He shook her by the shoulders until she blinked up at him. “I’ll help you, okay? Just promise me you’ll be more careful. And help me with my homework again!”

“Hinata...”

He grinned at her and patted her head. When he turned back to the group of boys, he could see they parted somewhat to allow the brunet to be visible whilst lounging on his throne that was turned to face them.

“I’ll be taking on Yachi-san’s debt,” he declared. The brunet rested his cheek on his fist and peered down his nose at him, smirk drawing his lips.

‘Kuroo’ spoke up, “Hoh? All eight million? Are you sure you can make it up, Chibi-chan?”

“You couldn’t even afford a school uniform; how do you plan to pay us back?” said the blonde guy, eyeing his white-and-pink tracksuit with no lack of judgment.

“I’ll...” Hinata glanced back at Yachi, her eyes glistening, and steeled his resolve, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Then, Chibi-chan, from here on,” the brunet guy’s voice, initially dropped, lilted upward as his amusement mounted, "You’ll be our bitch.”

“What.”

•

Hinata frowned at the smudges all over his lenses, ignoring the twins (both sets) measured him for his uniform. 

He almost didn’t notice when Kuroo bent down to meet his eye-level and gently grasped the frames of his blue-light glasses. “Alright, Chibi-chan, we’ll be taking these. Though it doesn’t even seem like you need them, huh, since these lenses don’t really have any magnification?”

“Well, no, but since we have a lot of work on laptops here I thought they’d be better to have.”

Kuroo hummed and slipped them off his ears and nose, and all of the twins gawked at him as he blinked up at them.

“What?”

Osamu kicked Atsumu’s calf, and the Miyas dragged Bokuto away with them.

“Nothing,” said Kuroo, “Maybe they just forgot you’d have a face behind these.”

“Oh, I’ve done that before! Like when people are sick for a long time and they wear a mask, I kinda forget they have mouths!”

“Yeah, just like that.” 

•

“What kind of coffee is this?” The brunet, now known to be Oikawa Tooru, asked, beckoning Hinata over with the most obnoxious “come-hither” motion to ever exist.

“Instant. I don’t really understand coffee, but this is what my mom buys. It’s just cheap enough that I still have money for lunch.”

Oikawa sputtered at Hinata’s lackluster funding for his nutrition, although his mind finished processing what was said about the coffee itself before he could really express any amount of disbelief at the former.

“What do you mean ‘instant’? Are the beans already ground or something?”

Hinata blinked. “Coffee’s made of beans?”

Oikawa sighed heavily and drew up to his full height, holding the coffee container skyward as a few girls approached for their hosting appointment.

“Alright, you know what? I’m up for a challenge! I’m going to try some commoner’s coffee!”

The girls in the clubroom gave shrieks of surprise, Oikawa’s announcement drawing the attention of the entire room. Hinata longingly and despondently stared outside at the people running around the track and beginning practices for their various sports, allowing himself to be dragged away by the club president.

“Darn rich people,” he mumbled.

•

Oikawa was very clingy, Hinata found. Every spare second he had at the club was spent with the other nearby, coddling him and encouraging him to learn up close. It was so draining that the Miya Twins and the Fraternals dragging him into their games was infinitely more appealing, but that could also be his bias for Bokuto coming into play. 

Kuroo was cool, too, yes, and the Miya Twins gave him food, but Bokuto’s energy was so perfectly aligned with his that Kuroo whined about his brother being snatched away on multiple occasions.

This time, with Oikawa monologuing as dramatically as ever, Hinata had no sets of twins to free him from the absolutely boring speech. He spaced out so hard, he didn’t notice Oikawa coming closer and hugging him to his chest excitedly. 

He shouted, the fright sending tears into his eyes, and he reached desperately at the tall trio nearby. “Help!”

All three of them instinctively drew closer, but it was the white-haired eyebrowless one who pulled him out of Oikawa’s grasp by the armpits, Hinata’s legs dangling in the air while the brunette sat stupefied. 

“A-Aone-kun, you didn’t have to go so far...” Oikawa tried.

Hinata smiled at Aone in thanks and patted his head gently to express further gratitude. Whence he was placed down, Aone bowed to him, and he bowed back.

•

Nishinoya was a very fun person to be around, although their interactions were sparse. He shone under the attention from the girls, and if Hinata didn’t know the girls were paying for his time, he’d have assumed the reverse was true. But it made sense, you know, since Noya-san was just such a cool dude.

The girls cooed at him and giggled at his jokes, and his dorky personality coupled with his small-but-wild looks made him a charmer. He also offered Hinata cake on a frequent basis, and often accosted the others to make sure they ate up--especially Tsukishima, who seemed prickly enough that Hinata didn’t want to get near him with a ten foot pole. 

Unfortunately, Tsukishima was also the one mostly in charge of handling his debt, so he could not actually be avoided. Hinata was assured by Akaashi that he’d remove any undue charges Tsukishima would add to the debt, although Hinata would’ve preferred he hadn’t said anything about those undue charges and just did the removals with Hinata none-the-wiser, as then he wouldn’t be paranoid about the things Tsukishima would charge him for.

•

Hinata hadn’t meant to attract the attention of one of Oikawa’s most attached clients. She gave off a weird vibe and when he mentioned her to Yachi, the blonde girl went a little paler than usual (which, while a frequent occurrence, didn’t fail to raise alarm bells in the redhead’s mind). 

“She’s territorial,” Yachi managed, eventually, and Hinata had to go through all of the lessons the girl kindly drilled into his head in order to remember what that word meant. 

“Oh. So why would she be interested in a guy at a host club? Isn’t he, like, one step from prostitution?” Yachi choked at that, shaking her head to fight down any amusement.

“I don’t think she thinks those other girls are a threat.” 

Hinata hummed, “Well, she keeps glaring at me, so maybe she’s just a little dumb and confused.”

Yachi pursed her lips, barely able to keep her laughter contained.

•

Hinata wondered why Yachi’s schoolbag was tossed into the pond. Alongside it sat his, and as he began running through the halls to go attend to the issue, he spotted that client. 

Hinata quite pointedly ignored her, continuing down the halls and stairs. He felt a small flame of rage light up in his chest at seeing Yachi’s notebooks scattered across the surface of the water, covers just buoyant enough that the papers were only starting to soak in water, and he prioritized getting her items out and organized before he could even ponder grabbing his own. 

He’d been in the pond for twenty minutes, thankfully having managed to salvage most of her things, before a voice broke through the quiet of the grounds. “What are you doing?”

Hinata didn’t need to glance over his shoulder to know it was Oikawa, his voice light and airy, with a hint of playful exasperation. 

“I can’t find my wallet.”

“You’ll get sick with your clothes all wet. Can’t you just let it be?”

Oikawa didn’t seem to understand the necessity of what he’d likely consider pocket change. “I need the money for food. I’m not going to get paid for a couple days and I don’t want to starve in the meantime.”

There was a lengthy period of silence. He wondered if Oikawa left, trying desperately to make out the shape of his coin pouch amidst the colorful pebbles lining the bottom of the pond. He nearly growled in frustration as a series of ripples tore through surface, though as he heard the telltale sound of someone wading through water, he spotted the brunette with his pants rolled up and bare feet gingerly resting on the stone. 

“What are you doing?” Hinata quarried, eyebrows drawn up in confusion. 

Oikawa’s face was concentrated yet somewhat peaceful as he copied Hinata’s searching motions, fingers gliding across the smooth pebbles. A few strands of hair caught the water and were left with shimmering drips that occasionally fell back into the pond. 

“I’m helping.”

He never turned to look away from the bottom, focused mostly on the task at hand. Even his distant, deeper, and yet airier voice conveyed how little attention he was giving his words, and Hinata could only wonder if this was the most genuine he’d ever heard the other in their past week of interactions.

“Why?”

“Well, why not? I mean, everyone tells me I’m dripping with good looks,” he chuckled, the breathy quality sending something through Hinata that made him duck his head down and resume seeking his funds.

The two sought it out for over ten minutes before getting any results. The small coin purse, shaped like a small black crow, sat cradled in Oikawa’s palm. He proffered the item to Hinata with a wink, the redhead unclasping it and sighing in relief at the dryness of its interior.

“Thanks, Grand King.”

As Hinata beamed up at the other, the reflected light from the water seemed to hit Oikawa’s eyes harder, as though a flare traveled across the distance between the earth and the sun solely for this moment. He held up a peace sign and smiled back at the other, wondering if such luminance could ever be reproduced. 

(If it could, then he’d love to bottle some up and save it for a rainy day, but maybe there was a hint of greed in that thought.)

•

“Oh, dear, I can’t believe someone would do such a thing!” the client across from him cooed. Her face tilted down a bit, and shadows draped across her eyes and cheeks. “Still, I can’t believe you got Tooru to scrape through that filthy pond for you. He always has been excessively charitable.”

“Yeah,” Hinata mumbled, stuffing a bite of cake into his mouth. The sweetness was significantly dampened by the presence of the girl. What was her name, again? His focus shifted to trying to recall it.

“I couldn’t imagine having so little shame that I’d be a charity case, though. I mean, doesn’t it embarrass you to have Tooru waiting on you hand and foot?”

Yachi, who’d been standing just within earshot, turned to their conversation just then, a disgruntled look on her face. Despite the anxiety that spread quivers across her body from her sternum, she frowned heavily and managed to inquire, "Aren’t you just jealous?”

Something flashed across the clients face then: anger, most likely. Hinata was drawn out of his attempt at recollection by her hand shooting across the table to yank him over to her, a scream escaping her as they toppled to the ground. Teapots and cups burst apart upon contact with the pink tiles, some of the tea soaking into the knees of his gifted uniform pants as it puddled.

Hinata’s palms and wrists ached from the way they slammed against the floor, on either side of the client’s head. People were quick to crowd them, murmuring and gazing in horror. 

“Help!” she cried, “He attacked me! He just jumped across the table, I--” she scooted out from under him, and he slowly sat back on his haunches before accidentally falling onto his bottom. The discomfort of his soaked clothing did little to distract him from the confusion welling within. 

She crawled over to Oikawa whence the brunette stepped closer to the scene. He was the first one over, ever keen regarding the club’s new pet, but only after surveying the situation did he close the distance. 

Her fingers clutched at Oikawa’s pant leg, creasing the fabric as she shivered with tears in her eyes. Hinata’s jaw was slack. Did he do something? Did he try to do anything to her while he was spaced out? He was sure she pulled him, but should he have been expecting such a thing and made to avoid it?

He slowly turned his eyes over to Yachi, whose face was creased in an anger he’d never quite seen before. Her meekness took a sideline to the frustration and disbelief drawing together her brows and tugging her lips downwards. 

“Tooru, please, you have to do something. He was like an animal, I--”

Her desperate face fell into shock as warm water rushed across her face and scalp, soaking the top of her uniform dress. Her panting became a squeaking staccato, and she blinked as her brows drew up steadily. 

“Tooru?” she whispered, before whipping her head around to the Miya Twins, who glared down at her, unimpressed. “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear me?! I--”

“God, you pigs sure like to squeal, don’tcha.”

Osamu glanced down at the jug in his grasp. “I oughtta grab another one at this rate.”

“Why did you--” Hinata startled as Yachi stepped in front of him. 

“You pulled him to you! I saw it! You were envious that he got Oikawa-san’s attention and tried to frame him!” she blurted. 

More whispers and gasps spread across their audience easily. Oikawa’s face was steely and impassive as the client stared up at him with a cocktail of hurt and anger. “You can’t believe her, Tooru, I--”

“You really are beautiful,” Oikawa interrupted, his fingers gliding under her chin.  “But nothing more than that. It seems you’re not classy enough for our club, my dear, and so I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, Hinata’s heart clenching with a mild bit of sympathy, before she got to her feet and took off, her broken shout of, “Tooru, you idiot--!” echoing through the clubroom.

“I’m sorry, ladies; regrettably, we’ll have to cut our time short for today.” Tsukishima said with his paper-thin smile. It dropped as Akaashi continued for him,

“All of you will receive a full refund of the costs for today’s appointments. You can also use those same funds to reschedule, if you’d like to. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience.”

The girls cooed and cheered, and Tsukishima barely kept his frown from forming.

Eventually the clients filed out of the clubroom, exclaiming their farewells to the hosts. Hinata and Yachi silently stared after them, not wanting to look back to the hosts surrounding them.

“So, what should I do about you?” Oikawa said, drawing Hinata’s reluctant attention. The appraising look and grasp of his own chin were not reassuring at all; Hinata and Yachi glanced at each other and gulped. “Hmm, Tsukki-chan?”

“Don’t call me that,” the bespectacled blonde groused, before pushing up his glasses and smirking. “Since our guests had to leave and receive refunds, our profits for today are at a zero. And because of the drama earlier, we have a few broken teapots and cups from one of our specialty sets, as well as a table that needs to be repaired. To make up for all the damages and overall loss... Akaashi?”

The ravenette typed into a calculator quickly. Bokuto hid behind a sinisterly-grinning Kuroo with his fingers half-heartedly covering his eyes from fear of Akaashi. Akaashi presented the calculator screen within a second.

“Approximately one hundred thousand yen.”

“H-Hundred...”

“Thou...-sand...” Yachi’s eyes swam. Hinata caught her as she half-fainted, both of them shaking with tears welling in their eyes.

“That’ll be added onto your debt, you two. You’d better hope one of your descendents pays it off.” Tsukishima’s smirk shaved additional years off their lives, and Hinata had to pull Yachi’s soul back from the air to shove it back into her body. 

“Darn rich people,” he whined. Kuroo cackled.

••

That was fun ngl. Like, some things go slightly different than in OHSHC, but overall it has some of the same vibes I think

I feel like Bokuto and Akaashi as Honey and Mori respectively would be funnily fitting despite the roles I have them in here, but I think I’m gonna be fluid and loosey-goosey about who is which OHSHC character most of the time (since Noya isn’t entirely Honey-like and there are lots of people who can fit different roles). Kenma and/or Kuroo can fit Kyoya and Tamaki roles too, now that I think about it. Damn this show for having so many characters.

Also this is a nightmare to tag since a lot of characters have multiple spellings for their names and there are so many characters. Heck, that’s why I wrote all the ships at the top!

Anyway, I hope y’all liked it! Might write more if asked 

Also, should I cross-post some of this to Ao3? 

[drabbles-of-writing]

Necessary Needles

This is part of my Four Years AU

AO3

Masterpost

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The Boiling Isles, like any other place, had its own diseases. Some were unavoidable, like the bright maggots that lived at the Toes who gave you bright disease. Having your organs glow and shrivel up was not fun.

However, like any other place, they had ways to combat most diseases. Schools like Hexside required it. You can’t expect to deal with abominations, beasts, healing, multiple species of plants, and the occasional wayward potion and expect to come out completely clean.

So the worry of Luz having no papers or medical exams to speak of was bound to come up.

 ,

“We need to take her to a healer, Edalyn.” Lilith hissed, crossing her arms. “She’s human, she’s incredibly exposed to everything here.”

“Coming down with a little flu isn’t that big a deal,” Eda muttered, turning her head away and crossing her arms. “She’ll be fine in a few days.”

“She might, but what if it was worse?” Lilith persisted. “Hexside is looking for papers saying that she’s been vaccinated. They could kick her out!”

“Bump is a flexible guy,” Eda snapped. “Look,” She sighed, shoulders slumping. “It’s not that I disagree. Luz could get sick pretty easily. But like you said, she’s human. We don’t know how those vaccines are going to react to her.”

Lilith thought for a moment, pacing the living room. Luz had been sent to bed hours earlier after it’d been revealed she’d woken up with the Centipoodle Flu. Not typically deadly, unless you were very unlucky. But worrying all the same.

“Human biology isn’t all that different from witches, is it?” Lilith asked. “The shots are designed to fit a very broad section of witches, even half-demons can take those.”

“Well, she doesn’t have a bile sac, that’s a big difference.” Eda pointed out. “And…” She frowned.

“Actually, I think that’s the only issue.” She blinked. “I don’t think lack of fangs, rounded ears, and getting excited about hisses and growls do much.” She said.

“Her vocal cords must be different if she can’t hiss,” Lilith nodded. “But I doubt that will be a problem.”

“Okay, er, blood vessels or something?” Eda tried. “Those could be different. If she doesn’t have a bile sac, who knows what else she does or doesn’t have.”

“I really think it’ll be fine,” Lilith insisted. “I doubt that vaccines as modified as these will cause serious harm to Luz.”

“This isn’t a spell that’ll go away after a day, Lilith,” Eda growled, pacing around the living room table. 

Lilith flinched at the obvious reference and cleared her throat.

“As hard as it seems to believe, I do want Luz to be safe.” She said, carefully keeping her voice low. “I understand she means a lot to you. But it will only get worse if she’s left to the elements on her own.”

Eda glanced back, scowling with her ears laying back.

“I’ll think about it.” She finally said. “We’ll see how she is when she gets better.”

“Thank you, Edalyn.” Lilith sighed, the tension releasing from her shoulders.

“But if she gets them, I’m making you take her.” Eda added, pointing an accusing finger at her sister. “Which gives me more leverage to bully you if she hates you. Those things are painful.” She winced at the memory.

“Uh huh, of course.” Lilith nodded, mildly amused. “And because I can at least pretend I’m not a wanted criminal?”

“That too.” Eda agreed. “Also, if you kidnap Luz, it’s on sight.” She warned, eyes narrowing.

“Why in the world would I want to…?” Lilith began to question before Eda gave her a deadpan stare and she slowly shut her mouth again.

“Right, of course. How could I ever forget?” She sighed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep reminding you.” Eda said cheerfully.

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

  ,

Luz had been better within a few days. Still a bit sniffly, but otherwise no worse for wear. Eda had finally relented to letting her get vaccines, and true to her word, Lilith was the only one who took her.

Of course, disguises were hardly needed. It had only taken a year for everyone to recognize the residents of the Owl House on instinct alone. Though Lilith did make illusions to make sure the Emperor’s Coven wouldn’t come around.

And the sheer intimidation of her existence was enough to convince the healers to usher Luz away to get her shots that, in the humans opinion, looked a lot like leeches and hurt way more.

Aside from a somewhat numb arm full of leech bite-marks, Luz returned to the Owl House with no problems, despite Eda’s best efforts to prove otherwise.

Lilith, incredibly smug, said that really, the worst that would happen was that Luz would get sick for a bit and need checkup, but nothing more.

With that, Luz had gone to bed to read her books with King before passing out like she always did.

Eda could never push away a small lingering quiver of worry.

 ,

Eda was awoken at six in the morning to the sound of something, very loudly, crashing down the stairs.

And since she was used to interruptions like these, and heard plenty of muffled giggling and thumping after the fact, she wasn’t overly worried as she pulled herself out of her nest.

“Luz, did you sneak in a baby griffin again?” Eda called, walking down the hallway towards the stairs.

“Eda, Eda,” Luz’s giggling drifted from the bottom of the steps. “Eda I can feel colors.”

Eda paused for a brief moment, slowly processing what she heard her say.

Then she broke into a near-sprint as she stopped at the top of the stairs, spotting Luz in a tangle of limbs at the bottom, giggling like a madman.

Eda hurried down and pulled the kid up, checking for any broken bones or sprains, which thankfully there were none of.

“Eda, colors feel weird.” Luz whispered, looking up at the witch. “Really really weird. But also kinda cool?”

Eda sucked in a breath at the sight, letting go of Luz.

Her pupils were heavily contracted. Like she was staring right into a flashlight. While she spoke, her left pupil had suddenly expanded and began growing and shrinking at the speed of a broken lightbulb.

“Oh boy,” Eda breathed, worry creasing her brow. “Do you feel alright, kid?”

“Thirsty,” Luz said, her head slowly falling to the side before she jerked it back up again. “And excited! I don’t know why, but I am! Everything’s really bright but also not?” She said, looking around.

“Christ, I haven’t seen a trip like this since King ate moondust.” Eda murmured, running a hand through her hair and shaking her head.

“Hmm?” Luz hummed, clearly only half paying attention.

“Just, go sit on the couch, please.” Eda sighed. “I need to get Lilith.”

“Okay!” She said, overly cheerful.

And then she just stood there, blinking fish-eyed at Eda, still smiling.

“Uh, kid? Couch,” Eda said, pointing off towards the door to the living room.

“Oh, yeah,” Luz said, shaking her head and stumbling, slamming into the doorframe on the way out.

Eda watched Luz leave for a few seconds before growling and storming her way back up the stairs.

King had awoken from where he was in Luz’s room and sleepily poked his head out, half-awake.

“Keep an eye on Luz,” Eda instructed him as she walked by. “Don’t let her touch anything.”

“Oh, someones in trouble,” King sang before scampering out of Luz’s room.

“You bet she is,” Eda hissed, stopping in front of the makeshift storage room they had made into Lilith’s room.

She didn’t even bother to knock, she just threw the door open.

Lilith was already waking up from the noise, her hair a mess and rubbing at her eyes. She looked up, saw Eda furiously standing in the doorway, and let out a sigh.

She calmly picked up her glasses from an old table she’d made (Eda had insisted she get her glasses back since she had no reason not to use them anymore), put them on, and slowly stood up, mentally preparing herself.

“What happened this time?” She asked calmly.

“Luz! Luz is what happened!” Eda shouted. “If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought she’d snuck into the Night Market!”

“And by that you mean…?” Lilith asked slowly.

“She looks drugged, Lilith.” Eda hissed. “How long is this going to last, exactly?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a healer.” Lilith shrugged, clearly trying to hide an amused smile. “Let me see her, I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“Don’t eat the glyphs, Luz!” King’s yelling from downstairs reached their ears. “Don’t--Luz that’s fire!”

Eda’s sneer grew and Lilith pointedly refused to meet her gaze.

Without a word, the sisters hurried down the stairs and into the living room, both mentally preparing to have to put something out.

Luz was in the process of eating a ripped up glyph, both pupils blown wide, blitzed out of her mind. King was stuck under one of her arms, holding the other end of the glyph he had probably been forced to rip to stop her from activating it.

“Eda, what happened to her?” King demanded, squirming in the human's grasp. “She thinks the glyphs are pancakes!”

Lilith snorted, stifling a laugh at the sight. Eda gave her sister a glare that would melt Emperor Belos himself, and her smile quickly fell.

“You’re right, you’re right, not funny.” She said matter-of-factly. “Did she wake up like this?” “I assume so,” Eda said, walking over to the girl and picking her up from under her arms. “She fell down the stairs and said she could feel colors.”

“These have a lot of colors,” Luz giggled, pulling the ripped glyph out of her mouth and waving her around.

“...alright,” Lilith said slowly, placing her hands together. “Clearly, the vaccines had more of a side effect on her than we thought.”

“Ya think?” Eda hissed, holding Luz upright as she looked around at everything, her eyes nearly entirely taken up by her pupil.

“On the plus side, I doubt this will be permanent.” Lilith continued. “Most of the vaccines given to her were ones that wear off over time.”

“How long, exactly?” Eda asked.

Lilith pressed her mouth together in a thin line, weighing her options.

“...about ten years?” She said, raising her hand and tilting it. “Sometimes five?”

“Lilith!”

“It’s probably just her body reacting to the small bits of illness and magic,” Lilith said quickly, mildly nervous. “It’ll get out of her system eventually, I’m sure.”

“And how long,” Eda grit her teeth together, grabbing Luz’s hood as she tried to wander off. “Do you think this’ll last?”

Lilith frowned, thinking for a moment.

“A week at worst,” She decided. “If nothing changes by then...we may have to ask in a favor or two.”

“You are so lucky Amity likes you,” Eda growled, pointing a finger at her sister. “Or I’d do worse than send you to Hooty.”

“I didn’t know this would happen!” Lilith defended. “I genuinely thought it would be okay! You think I want her like this?” She said, gesturing to the girl with her hand.

Eda knew very well she didn’t. Lilith could be uncaring and annoyed with practically everyone around her, but she knew better. And, well, even she had admitted that using a child as a shield that one time was a bad move.

And, besides, her apprentice, as far as she knew at least, was friends with Luz. So that automatically put her higher up on Lilith’s list than others.

Didn’t change that Luz was even crazier than normal now, though.

“You insisted on this, you fix it.” Eda finally decided, pulling Luz closer. “This is borderline disturbing, even for her.” She said, looking down at Luz’s glazed, but still happy, expression.

“I’ll do what I can,” Lilith promised. “In the meantime, let’s hope being a little delirious is the worst of our troubles.”

“Don’t jinx us, Lilith.”

 ,

“So, we’re basically on Luz-watch now?” Willow asked, eyeing Luz as she downed her fifth water bottle in an hour like a shot.

“We’re all on Luz watch,” Eda corrected. “Lilith is off trying to find something useful while we gotta sit here and hope she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Like being thirsty is a crime,” Luz huffed, her right eye half-lidded with a contracted pupil. 

“Fascinating,” Gus murmured, poking Luz’s cheek. “I never would’ve imagined something as simple as a few vaccines would cause such a severe reaction in humans.”

“Who knows? Maybe it’s just a Luz thing,” Willow suggested, holding her friend up as she started to heavily lean to the side.

The trio were all sitting on the floor in front of the couch in a semicircle. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were expecting Luz to start coughing up blood.

“There are lights everywhere,” Luz grinned, gazing with drooping eyes around the room. “They kinda hurt.” She said, her smile never falling as she squinted her eyes.

“You better not get worse,” Eda warned, crossing over to the kitchen. “You kids hungry? It’s still morning.”

“I had a snack on the way here,” Willow assured the witch.

“Has Luz eaten?” Gus wondered.

Luz stared at him blankly for a moment before Willow nudged her.

“Mm, not hungry,” Luz mumbled, her left pupil dilating for a moment before contracting to the same size as her other one.

“Are you sure you feel alright?” Willow inquired, frowning.

“Yes and no?” Luz squinted. “I’m like...feeling so great it’s uncomfortable. Does that make sense?” She asked, turning her head to her friend before almost falling over again.

“At least she can talk a bit better now,” Eda muttered, poking her head back into the room.

“Luz is going to get better, right?” Gus worried, peering over Luz.

Eda opened her mouth, shut it, thought about her words for a few moments, and inhaled deeply.

“Yeah, eventually.” She said, praying to the Titan she wasn’t lying. “We just don’t know when.”

“So does this mean I can study her?” Gus asked excitedly, eyes shining.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Willow said carefully, relenting to just always keeping an arm around Luz as she stared off into blissful space. “I doubt she’ll stay still.”

“I want to see what kind of symptoms she has,” Gus defended. “This is the only time I’ll ever get to know what some of our medicine does to humans!”

Eda flinched at the unintended reminder of Luz’s current situation. She was almost glad Luz could barely process any of the words being spoken around her, she was sure the human would’ve noticed as well.

“Just be careful with her, you hear?” Eda relented. “I’m not about to take her to a healer and risk this information making it to the Emperor’s Coven. A little studying will probably help us.”

“Yes!” Gus pumped a fist in the air and conjured himself a pencil and paper. “If anything, think of this as a recording of what’s going on. I doubt Luz will be able to remember all of this in clear detail.” He said, tapping his pencil on her head.

Luz jolted, looking towards Gus dumbly at the sudden touch.

“Hm, pencil isn’t very colorful.” She hummed.

“Where’s rich girl, anyway?” Eda asked, leaning in the kitchen door frame. “I thought she would’ve rushed over here.”

“She doesn’t even know this is happening.” Willow said. “You just called me and Gus, told us to hurry over, and then hung up.” She deadpanned. “We didn’t know the situation until we got here.”

“Eh, fair.” Eda nodded. “Poor girl would probably have a heart attack at the sight of her,” She gestured a hand to her apprentice.

“Amity would definitely have some choice words,” Gus agreed.

“Amity?” Luz suddenly perked her head up, looking around wildly like a puppy who’d been told they were getting a treat. “Amity’s here?”

Willow and Eda shared a knowing glance before turning back to the human.

“No, Luz, Amity isn’t here.” Willow said calmly.

Luz visibly drooped, disappointed. At least they knew she could still feel other emotions.

“Do you want me to call her?” Willow asked the girl.

Luz rose up again, excited. Gus was reminded of an emotional yo-yo.

“Great, more children,” Eda muttered. “You two are handling her inevitable panic.”

“Fair,” Willow nodded, pulling out her scroll. “Gus, take Luz for a minute.”

“Huh?” Gus looked up from taking notes just in time to get crushed by Luz falling over him.

Willow dialed Amity, ignoring the strangled cries of distress from Gus. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, Wills,” Amity crackled through the scroll.

“Amity!” Luz trilled happily, sitting up from where she was crushing Gus.

“Is that Luz?” Amity inquired.

“Yeah, we’re at the Owl House.” Willow explained, holding Luz back from tumbling over her by holding a hand against her face.

“I can breathe!” Gus gasped. “Hi, Amity!” Luz giggled.

“Hey, Luz,” Amity mumbled.

You could see Willow’s will to live leave her body. Eda gave up and went back into the kitchen to grab herself a snack.

“Luz is in a bit of a situation at the moment,” Willow said calmly. “Turns out our vaccines don’t clash well with her.”

“What? Is she okay?” Amity worried, and the sound of shuffling was heard from the other line.

“Yeah, just really blitzed out.” Willow assured. “She says she can feel colors and is excited to an uncomfortable extent.”

“Willow has a lot of calm colors,” Luz grinned, giving up trying to squish Willow and instead dropping her head onto her leg. “I like ‘em.”

“That...sounds concerning.” Amity said slowly. “I’m coming over.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Willow said, before hanging up.

“Yay! Amity’s coming!” Luz cheered, trying to raise herself to a sitting position and wincing. “Ow, too loud.”

“Too loud?” Gus repeated, trying to write something down. “What is?”

“Spoke too loud,” Luz whined, shutting her eyes.

“You...usually speak that loud when you're excited.” Willow raised a brow. “Are your ears alright?”

“Just round,” Luz snickered at her ‘joke,’ cracking open an eye. “Everything about me is round! Round ears, round fang teeth, round face,” She said, proceeding to squish one of her cheeks in her hand.

“Your round ‘cause your squishy,” Willow agreed, helping Luz sit up properly.

“Very squishy,” Luz agreed. “I am the squishiest.” She said seriously. “Is your vision normal?” Gus asked, cautiously leaning closer to his friend. “No more spots?”

“Mm, less so.” Luz said, staring off at nothing. “And I think the couch is alive,” She said calmly.

The friends looked at the couch, and upon seeing it wasn’t moving, turned back to Luz.

“There’s...nothing happening.” Willow said slowly. “I mean, it could be alive, but nothings happening right now.”

“Are you sure?” Luz frowned, squinting intensely at the couch. “I swear the cover is like...rippling.”

Gus looked to the couch, back to Luz, back to the couch, and then back to Luz again.

“So she’s getting hallucinations,” He said, writing it down. “Good to know.”

“She what?” Eda called back, confused.

King poked his head through the kitchen door, his tail flicking.

“Eda wants to know what you said,”

“We heard her.” Willow sighed.

“Hallucinations. Luz thinks the couch is moving,” Gus said, not even sparing a glance up from her notebook.

“Oh, did it wake up?” King asked sincerely. “Eda! I think the couch woke up again!”

“The couch is alive?” Willow squeaked, pulling Luz closer and scooching away from it.

“Ha! Knew it,” Luz weakly waved a fist. “I knew it had to be alive.”

Eda reappeared soon after, double-checking that the couch hadn’t woken up. Gus was about to tell her the same information he told King, but the sounds of Hooty shrieking at someone caught everyone's attention.

They couldn’t make out his words, but it was hard to miss his high-pitched voice. Eda walked to the front door and cracked it opening, fully expecting to see Lilith or some random kid trying to find the Owl House again.

Instead, she saw Amity, hissing with fangs bared and looked ready to punch Hooty in the face. Which was understandable, considering he was continuously bugging her.

“Someone was anxious to get here,” Eda chuckled, swinging open the door and crushing a small piece of Hooty’s body between the door and the wall.

Hooty squawked and started harping on Eda, complaining and turning his attention away from Amity.

“Oh, hey, Eda.” Amity said, calming down and smoothing her hair back.

Eda could visibly tell Amity was trying to not breathe in too deeply, sure-fire evidence at how fast she had rushed to the Owl House.

“In here,” Eda said, letting Amity inside before shutting the door on Hooty’s complaints.

“Hey, Amity.” Willow greeted numbly.

Luz, who had previously been laying against Willow’s shoulder, popped up at a speed that made Gus concerned that her neck might’ve cracked. 

“Hi, Ami!” Luz said cheerfully, her pupils immediately dilating so wide that you could barely see the whites of her eyes.

Amity paused, looking like she was about to be flattered before seeing the state Luz was in. She knit her brow together, clearly even more anxious as she hurried in, getting on her knees beside her friends.

“How long has she been like this?” She asked, hesitantly reaching out a hand before pulling back.

“Since this morning,” Gus said. “Eda said she’ll be fine.”

“That’s a relief,” Amity exhaled.

Eda mumbled something and slipped out of the living room. King was about to follow her before she spoke something quietly to him and left. 

Instead, the demon pouted and sat at the door leading to the staircase hallway, his arms crossed.

“Oooh, you’re really colorful,” Luz said, grabbing Amity’s outstretched hand and pulling it closer.

“I--huh?” Amity stuttered, blushing.

“It’s so pretty,” Luz whispered, sounding not all there as she pressed Amity’s hand to her cheek.

“Don’t pass out on us,” Willow teased the furiously red witch. “I’d hate for you to die at fifteen.”

“Don’t test me,” Amity growled.

“Can you feel these ‘colors’ with other people?” Gus questioned the human.

It took a few seconds for Luz to react but she eventually looked back up at Gus.

“Mmm, yeah,” She mumbled. “Eda’s are weird,” She enunciated, swaying slightly.

Willow slowly held a hand on her shoulder to stop her from toppling. If Luz noticed, she didn’t comment.

“So, she’s really high right now, is what I’m getting at.” Amity said, looking over Luz, who still refused to release her hand.

“Pretty much,” Willow nodded. “At least the vaccines gave her a happy-high. I don’t know if we could handle a panicky or angry Luz.”

“Where’s,” Luz slurred for a moment, her right pupil contracting. “Where’s my, my,” She struggled for a moment, clearly forgetting what she was trying to say.

“You alright there?” Gus asked, trying not to laugh.

“¿Cuál es la palabra para eso?” Luz muttered under her breath. “Capucha...gato...gato capucha…” 

“Is she speaking backwards or something?” Amity asked, alarmed.

“Oh, oh! Luz explained this to me once,” Gus said, perking up. “She said it was a human language...Spanish I think.”

“Hoodie!” Luz finally burst out before wincing and ducking her head, finally releasing Amity’s hand.

“Your hoodie?” Willow blinked. “Luz, you grew out of that four months ago.”

“Did someone say Hooty?”

Everyone groaned as the bird tube himself popped in through the window, happily chattering in his high voice.

“Did you guys miss me?” He yapped on.

Luz suddenly yelped and clapped her hands over her ears, doubling over into a ball. Her friends whirled back to her, startled.

“Is she still all weird?” Hooty continued, circling around them until his head was right by Luz. “Hi, Luz! Are you still being weird?”

Luz whimpered and curled into an even tighter ball, turning her head away from Hooty and squeezing her eyes shut.

“Quit it!” Amity snapped, shoving the birds face away. “You're scaring her!”

“Scaring?” Hooty repeated, though he did move back. “But I didn’t even do anything mentally scarring this time!”

King, who had fallen asleep at the door, was easily awoken by Hooty’s screeching. He noticed Amity pulling a balled-up Luz further away from Hooty, murderous intent in her gaze, and was quick to rush over.

“I’m awake! I’m awake! What happened?” He asked, skidding to a stop.

“I don’t know, but Hooty’s freaking out Luz.” Willow said, reaching out a hesitant hand to the girl.

“Hey! You! Shoo!” King snapped to the bird, waving his paws at him. “Don’t make me get Eda!”

“Alright, alright! Sheesh!” Hooty grumbled, slowly pulling himself back out the window. “I didn’t mean to do anything, gosh.” He muttered, frowning as he disappeared back to the front of the house.

“Luz?” Amity worried, looking down at the shaking girl halfway in her lap. “Luz? He’s gone now, it’s okay.”

Luz cracked open an eye, revealing it had contracted to a disturbingly small size. She slowly removed her hands from her ears and sat up, almost knocking her head into Amity’s chin.

“Are you alright?” Willow worried, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder.

“Loud,” Luz whined, rubbing at her ear.

“Should I call Eda?” King worried, coming up in front of Luz. “I should call Eda. Hey, Eda!” He shouted, turning his head away. “Eda!”

Luz hissed and jerked back, shutting her eyes and covering her ears again.

King jumped back and covered his mouth with his paws. Willow was quick to wrap her arm around Luz’s shoulders.

“I’m so sorry!” King exclaimed, immediately covering his mouth again when Luz’s flinch revealed he’d been too loud again. “Sorry, sorry,” He whispered, taking another step back.

“Luz?” Willow worried.

“Loud,” The human repeated, burying her head in Willow’s shoulder. “It’s loud.”

The other three all looked to each other with concern.

“But...Hooty and King always talk like that.” Amity said slowly. “It...it’s never bothered her before.”

“She must have gotten more sensitive to sound,” Gus said, his voice lowered. “Us talking normally must already be quite loud. And considering King and Hooty are naturally louder when they talk, she must think they’re screaming if they go so much as a few notes up.”

King sat on the floor, his paws still wrapped around his muzzle, his face full of horror and shame.

Rapid footsteps were heard coming down the stairs, and Eda was in the living room in a flash, holding her staff in one hand.

“What happened? Is everyone okay?” She asked, hurrying over.

“Luz is sensitive to sound,” Willow explained softly. “Hooty and King hurt her ears without meaning to, that’s all.”

“Great, another symptom.” Eda muttered, her staff vanishing in a flash of light. “How sensitive?”

“Anything higher than normal talking is painful,” Gus said, quickly writing it all down. “To her, it must sound like we’re already talking loud, but she’s putting up with it.”

Eda sighed and ran a hand down her face. Luz had recovered from King’s shout and peeled herself off of Willow, hands hovering by her ears in fear there would be another loud noise.

“I’m gonna go get Lilith,” She decided, watching Luz pitifully. “I need to know what else is going to happen to her.”

“What?” Luz blinked, looking around. “Why was everyone shouting?”

“Sorry,” King repeated again, shaking his head.

“You didn’t know,” Eda leaned down and ruffled the fur behind his head. “Luz, maybe you should go rest.”

“I’m not tired,” Luz said, becoming cheerful again. “Not at all! Hey, do you think I could climb the Knee and back?” She asked, turning to Willow. “I think I could do that.”

“Don’t,” Willow said, standing up and helping her friend off the floor. “We’ll stay with her.” She assured the older witch.

“I’d say don’t do anything stupid, but we all know that’s going to happen no matter what.” Eda said, crossing her arms. “Just don’t do something overly stupid.”

“Understood,” Amity nodded, scooping up King as she and Gus stood.

Luz paused before whirling her head around, nearly falling over at the force if Willow didn’t catch her in time.

“Ami?” Luz blinked blearily. “When did you get here?”

“This is going to be a long day,” Eda sighed, shoulders slumping with the weight of a sky.

“We’ll try to get through unscathed,” Gus said, glancing at Luz as she started staring at and inspecting her own hands, confused. 

“Key word; try.”

,

“I think I swallowed another light spell,” Luz groaned, face-down on her sleeping bag.

“You didn’t. We would’ve seen it.” Willow said, glancing back at the girl.

“I must’ve,” Luz muffled through the bag. “I feel like it.”

“Huh, so she’s hallucinating sensations, too.” Gus said, sitting cross-legged by the window and writing in another page of his notebook.

“Or she could just feel awful,” Amity pointed out, leaning against the wall behind Luz. “I certainly would, considering the state she’s already in.”

“Please don’t throw up like last time,” King begged, his voice barely above a whisper as he placed his paws on Luz’s arm. “That was disgusting.”

“Water,” Luz mumbled, raising a hand and grabbing at air. “Need water.”

Amity picked up the water bottle on the floor beside her and crawled over, placing it in Luz’s open hand.

“Humans can’t die from drinking too much water, right?” Gus asked, looking up from his notebook.

Luz looked up and tilted the water bottle, never raising her head off of the floor. She opened her mouth and let the water trickle out and into her mouth.

Her friends all watched her, mesmerized at the sight. Luz’s grip on the water bottle loosened after a few minutes and it fell and hit her in the face, causing her to hiss and water to spill.

Amity muttered before pulling Luz into a sitting position by her shoulders. The girl was still staring off blankly, like this outcome was completely out of the blue.

King came back with old clothes Eda never used and Willow mopped up the water with them, barely batting an eye.

“Aw,” Luz finally reacted, mournfully watching her forgotten water bottle which was now only a quarter-full. “My juice…”

“Luz, you're getting soaked.” Amity sighed, grabbing one of the unused shirts and dabbing at Luz’s shirt and face.

“Like it, it’s cold,” Luz said, though she did nothing to stop Amity.

“Cold? Are you feeling too warm?” Willow asked, glancing up.

“Uh,” Luz stared off for a moment. “Yope.”

“Yope?” Gus echoed.

“Nes? Yo? Noes? Sio? Ni?” Luz tried out a bunch of different words, often slurring them together.

“Luz, what are you saying?” Amity sighed, trying to get the worst of the water off her shirt now.

“What’s yes and no combined?” Luz questioned Gus. “You’re smart, you know.”

“Maybe?” Gus tried, raising a brow.

“Maybe?” Luz frowned. “How can you be ‘maybe’ smart?”

“You’re maybe too warm?” Willow reiterated.

“I’m like…” Luz spaced out for a moment before snapping back to reality, both her pupils at different levels of dilated. “Hot and cold?”

“That’s mildly troubling,” Gus spoke, flipping to a new page in his notebook.

“I feel like I have a weird fever,” Luz sniffled, blinking her eyes rapidly. “You know? You know like...like when you're so sick you're too extreme in both temperatures.”

“I think I had that once!” King raised his paw excitedly before quickly lowering back down when he saw Luz flinch at his voice. “I had frostbite on my fur after I ate a fire-twig. I couldn’t stop moving for like, three hours.”

“Mood,” Luz nodded solemnly.

“I’m...pretty sure that’s not an emotion…” King said slowly.

“So, do you want like, extra blankets?” Amity suggested.

“I want to die,” Luz whined, almost flopping over onto her face again before Amity grabbed the back of her shirt and held her up. “And everything smells like those weird street corners.”

“Smells fine to me,” WIllow said, laying the wet clothes on the ledge in front of the window. “Do you want to change into a non-wet shirt?”

“Oh,” Luz nodded after a few beats. “Yeah,” She said, grabbing the hem of her shirt and pulling up.

Amity, who had previously been tossing the damp cloth away, turned back around just in the nick of time.

“Not right now!” She squeaked, frantically grabbing Luz’s hands and forcing her to shove her shirt back down.

The other three whirled back to the girls, startled by the sudden noise.

“Ow,” Luz complained, removing her hands and rubbing at her ears. “Loud,”

“Sorry, sorry,” Amity whispered, jerking her hands back.

Her ears were pressed down, and she was a bright red from the tip of each ear.

Willow rolled her eyes but made no comment as she stood up and offered a hand to Luz. The human stared at it for a moment before Willow took the humans hand herself and helped her up.

“I’ll ask Eda if she has anything that’s not covered in dust,” Willow asked her, gazing around at Luz’s room. “Somehow, I doubt she keeps her clothes on the racks in here.”

“I,” Amity shook her head to clear it. “I think she has a chest in the room down the hallway.”

“I’ll check it out,” Willow nodded, keeping a hand on Luz’s shoulder and guiding her out of her room.

Thus leaving Amity, Gus and King to their own devices.

They all looked at each other.

“You wanna cut holes in Eda’s raggety clothes and stitch them together?” King asked casually. “Yeah I do!” Gus grinned, throwing his notebook and pencil aside.

“I’m picking the fabric,” Amity said matter-of-factly. “You guys will just make an unholy abomination.”

“Says the girl in the abomination track,”

,

“Maybe...if we split my head open...the pain will stop.”

“I’m not cracking your skull like an egg for a headache, Luz.”

“Do you think zombies would like that?” Luz asked, raising a hand in the air. “Would it be like scrambled eggs?” “That’s disgusting, Luz.”

“Not to the zombies,”

Luz was laying across the couch, her head hanging off the armrest, holding a warm washcloth against her forehead. Willow was sitting on the other end, with Gus perched on the armrest beside her. Amity was sitting on the floor in front of Luz with King in her lap, making sure she didn’t slide off the couch.

“Some guy did it once,” Luz continued, her eyes covered by the washcloth as she wildly waved her other hand around in the air. “Some god or something. Head split. Woman popped out. It was a whole thing.”

“Wait, really?” Gus gasped, eyes shining excitedly.

“Gus, she’s high.” Willow deadpanned. “I don’t think we can trust most things she’s saying right now.”

“It was a thing!” Luz insisted, trying to sit up and failing. “Learned ‘bout it...Big Z got a nerdy war daughter. Like…” She paused for a moment. “Like Amity, but a goddess.”

Amity made a few strangled choking sounds, and King glared up at her. Though he didn’t try to move out of her lap.

“I’m writing it down anyway,” Gus said, scribbling furiously.

“How’s the headache?” Willow asked.

“Killing me slowly,” Luz said, rolling her head to the side on the armrest so she was nearly falling off the couch. 

She moved the washcloth further up, revealing her pupils going off the fritz for a few moments before appearing to pulsate in size.

“I wanna run laps and then curl up on the floor,” Luz said, eyes glazing over in that way you knew she was focusing on nothing at all. “I wanna slam into something.”

“Wh...why?” Gus said slowly.

“No idea,” Luz shrugged, her voice sounding far too cheerful. “Maybe if I run into a wall I’ll start feeling normal. I should try that.” She said, beginning to sit up.

“Absolutely not,” Amity snapped, her voice a bit strained as she sat up and sharply pushed Luz back onto the couch. “You’re not getting any more brain damage today.”

“Eda told me she already fell down the last few steps on the stairs,” King piped up.

“Few?” Luz repeated, blinking. “I fell down all ‘em.”

There was a few seconds of silence where everyone soaked in her words.

“You fell down the entire flight of stairs?” Willow repeated. “Yeah?” Luz looked between her friends, perplexed. “What?”

“Didn’t that hurt?” Amity winced at the thought. “You’re lucky you didn’t break anything!”

“I didn’t feel a thing,” Luz shrugged, completely uncaring. “Felt like falling in a ball pit.”

“You fell down wooden stairs, and you felt nothing?” Willow gaped.

“Nope,” Luz smiled.

Her friends stared at her for a few moments, all in different states of concern.

“Oh, her pain tolerance shot up, too.” Gus spoke, breaking the silence. “Her ears and head must either be incredibly painful or they don’t work the same way.”

“I’ve never felt more terrified for Luz in my life,” Willow near-wheezed. “She could have a cracked bone right now and we wouldn’t even know.”

“I’ll be fine,” Luz waved a hand. “Mamás a doctor, I know things...many things.”

“I know Eda is a lot of things, but I doubt she’s a doctor, whatever that is.” Gus said, confused as he looked up.

Everyone froze. Gus realized who Luz was talking about a moment too late.

Luz squinted and stared down at the couch, washcloth slowly sliding off her head. Her left pupil expanded before slowly shrinking. She looked like she was trying to reboot her brain, and swayed slightly.

“Hey, Luz!” Amity quickly sat up, giving her friend a nervous smile. “You wanna dress up King in that weird patchwork shirt we made?”

“Uh, yes,” Luz went right back to smiling.

A silent sigh of relief swept through the room.

“How could you?” King cried, lowering his voice a second into his outburst. “Haven’t you tortured me enough?”

“It was a cupcake, King.” Amity said, standing and scooping up King in her arms.

“And you crushed it mercilessly!” 

Willow glanced back at Gus, who’s ears were flicked back. He was staring at his notebook, looking like a toddler who’d been caught trying to steal food from the counter.

“Sorry,” He whispered when he caught Willow’s look. “I wasn’t paying attention…”

“It’s alright,” Willow sighed, watching as King squirmed in Amity’s hold and Luz tried to sit up. “We’re all trying to get used to it.”

“King, c’mere,” Luz cooed, putting her hands on the armrest and trying to pull herself up.

Before promptly losing her grip and falling face-first off the couch.

“Are you okay?” Amity worried.

“Feeling nothin’,” Luz said, giving a thumbs up as she raised her head. “Never better.”

Amity cringed back at the sight, and King made an ‘ew’ noise, curling closer in the witches arms.

“She gave herself a black eye, didn’t she?” Willow sighed.

“Yeah…”

“Titan save us, she’s not gonna last a week.”

,

“Oh don’t cha dare look back, just keep ya eyes on me, I said ya holding back, she said shut up and dance with me,”

The quintet were all sitting around the kitchen table. It was well past noon, too late for lunch but too early for dinner. But King had gotten hungry and so everyone had eaten at what Luz had called ‘dinunch’ or ‘lunner.’

Well, everyone aside from Luz. She vehemently refused to eat anything. So she’d resorted to laying upside down on her chair, her head on the floor, and singing some human song nobody at the table knew.

“This woman is my destiny, she said oooooh, shut up and dance with me!”

“I’m going to lose it,” Gus whispered, staring at the table with the gaze of centuries of pain.

“Ha! Luz it,” Luz giggled. “McLuz it. Puns,” 

“Shouldn’t Eda be back with Lilith by now?” Willow asked the demon sitting on the table by Luz’s chair.

“Eh, she may have just started studying at the library with her.” King shrugged. “Or they’re busting themselves out of prison, either is plausible.”

“We were victims of the night,” Luz continued humming. “The chemical, physical, kryptonite.”

“At least she’s not whining about headaches,” Amity shrugged.

“Helpless to the bass and the fading light, oh we were bound to get together, bound to get together,” Luz tilted her head while on the floor, eyes closed.

“For your sake, I hope you don’t remember today all that well,” Willow said, rubbing her temples. “Luz, are you keeping that ice on your eye?”

“She took my arm!” Luz trilled, though it was no louder than regular talking. “Don’t know how it happened, we hit the floor and she saaaaaaid,”

“Luz,” Willow repeated.

“Oh don’t cha dare look back, just keep ya eyes on me, I said you’re holdin’ back, she said--”

“Luz,” Amity said, peering under the table.

Luz paused, blinking open her eyes and holding them on Amity. One of her hands was splayed out by her head, loosely holding a wet towel with no ice in it.

“What happened to the ice?” Amity sighed.

“Huh?” Luz blinked, her pupils fritzing out for a moment. “Oh, I ate ‘em.”

“You ate four cubes of ice?” Willow cried, standing up suddenly. “Why? Why in the world…?”

“Wanted to see what it’d taste like.” Luz said earnestly. “Tasted bad,”

“Then why’d you eat all four?” Gus raised a brow, also peering under the table.

Luz looked at him blankly.

“Shut up and dance with me!” She went right on singing. “This woman is my destiny, she said oooooh,”

Everyone at the table couldn’t look more tired. Willow sighed and got up to get more ice for Luz’s black eye, which had swollen to the point where it could only open halfway. 

“Okay, you’re making me nervous from that position, please sit up,” Amity said, getting up from her chair and standing by Luz, who was still singing on.

“A backless dress and some beat up sneaks,” Luz sang. “My discotheque, Juliet, teenage dream! I felt in in my chest as she looked at me,”

Amity gave Gus and King a look of utter pain and confusion before crouching down by the human, snapping her fingers to get her attention.

Luz jolted to attention and rolled her head to the side, looking up at Amity.

Her pupils dilated wide before one flickered slightly smaller.

“Can you get up?” Amity asked her.

Luz opened her mouth to reply before slowly shutting it again. She did this a few more times before turning her head to the side and avoiding the witches gaze.

Amity sighed and resigned to helping her up herself. She picked up Luz’s feet and took them off of the back of the chair, setting them to the side at a very awkward angle, considering Luz refused to move.

“Lost my place,” Luz mumbled.

For a second Amity thought she was complaining about her current position being shifted, but as her friend started singing again, she knew she couldn’t care less.

“She took my arm, I don’t know how it happened,” She hummed. “We took the floor and she saaaaaaid,”

Amity leaned down and took Luz’s hands, pulling her up. She was now facing off the side of the chair, finally sitting in a normal position.

Luz looked up to her, blinking innocently. One pupil contracted and she broke into a goofy grin.

“Take me home tonight,” She sang on, keeping a hold on Amity’s hands and trying to pull herself to a standing position. “I don’t want to let you go till we see the light.”

Amity stepped back, unconsciously helping to keep Luz standing, watching her in confusion. She glanced at the others, but Gus wasn’t paying much attention, just glad Luz wasn’t singing the same lines over and over again. King barely spared them a glance, much more interested in notes Gus was looking over.

“Take me home tonight,” Luz grinned, pulling Amity’s hands back till she was nearly nose-to-nose with the girl.

It likely would’ve been a lot more romantic if Luz’s eye wasn’t swollen and black. Plus her pupils that were still fluctuating.

“Listen honey,” Luz chanted. “Just like Ronnie said,”

Amity slowly drew her head back, beginning to flush brightly. Luz giggled and gave her a lopsided smile.

“Luz...Luz what are you--”

“Be my little baaaaaaaby,” She snickered, placing her head on Amity’s shoulder and continuing to give short laughs.

“Luz?” Amity stuttered, trying to get her hands out of Luz’s grip. “Listen, you--” She swallowed. “You need to sit back down…”

“Is everything okay?” Willow asked, appearing with more cubes of ice wrapped up in a washcloth.

“Oh don’t you dare look back!” Luz suddenly shot back, snatching Amity’s arms and tugging her along. “Just keep your eyes on me!” 

She misjudged the distance between her and the table, smacking her back into and crumbling to the floor, not as steady on her feet as everyone thought.

The back of her head hit the table as she fell. She didn’t make any noise of pain, simply toppled over and landed on the floor before roughly sitting back and knocking against the table leg, looking dazed.

“Luz!” Amity cried.

Gus and King jerked up as Willow rushed over, crouching by Luz along with Amity. 

Luz still looked almost to be in a state of shock, but it was hard to tell from how her head turned and pupils contracted. Willow reached out and turned her head to inspect the damage.

“Yeah, it’s bleeding.” Willow winced. 

“How much?” Gus asked, peering over the table.

“Uh,” Willow pulled her hand back, revealing Luz’s blood coating it.

Amity sucked in a breath and her eyes went wide. She quickly turned Luz’s head to see for herself as Gus and King hurried around to them.

She couldn’t tell where the cut was under Luz’s hair that she was beginning to grow out, but it was bleeding rapidly. A large patch of her hair was dark red with blood gushing out.

“Call Eda, call Eda!” Gus exclaimed as King rushed to Luz, worrying over her.

“Call the healers!” King insisted over the witch.

Luz winced and covered her ears, whimpering at their frantic shouting. Willow quickly pulled out her scroll and began dialing Eda, clearly just as freaked out as the others.

Amity was in a state of shock. She was sitting on her knees at Luz’s side, just staring at the blood beginning to trickle down Luz’s hair and onto her neck. Her pupils were slitted into thin lines, and her breathing had become heavy.

Luz opened her eyes, but kept her hands over her ears because of the shouting. She gave her friends a hurt look before noticing the stilled fear on Amity’s face.

She frowned and nudged Amity’s leg with her foot. When the witch didn’t respond, she turned to King, who was sitting closest to her, and nudged his back with the same foot.

King turned, and everyone's shouting paused.

“Guys?” Luz said, one eye dilating as the back of her shirt grew soaked with blood. “I think something’s wrong with Amity...”

,

Lilith sat on the couch, looking over as many medical papers she could. She finally wore her glasses, and she had notes lay strewn about on the coffee table. She was exhausted, and words were beginning to blur together.

It was almost one in the morning, but she couldn’t stop yet.

After a study session and quick escape from Kikimora yesterday, Eda had been called and informed by panicked teenagers that Luz had hit her head on the table and was heavily bleeding on the floor. Lilith didn’t think Eda could get that scared in such a short amount of time, but you learn something new every day.

Thankfully, Luz had turned out fine. Her head injury wasn’t all that serious, it just turns out humans bleed more from head wounds than witches.

But considering that in just a few hours Luz had managed to get said head injury, a black eye, and traumatize her friends, Eda was quick to shoo them away.

Lilith hated the pained expression plastered to Amity’s face.

She couldn’t be mad at Eda, not really. Her little sister was scared for Luz, and who wouldn’t be? Having to deal with three more kids was far from her to-do list.

Luz had been patched up by very concerned healers, leaving Lilith to insist that, no, they had not drugged a child, she was just having a bad reaction to vaccines.

Her friends had come back the second day, but Luz was on constant surveillance watch by them and Eda alike. Not much had changed from the first day, though Luz had somehow managed to get her head stuck in a cardboard cylinder.

She was glad when they left before dinner. The constant terror flashing in Amity’s eyes worried her beyond belief.

Technically speaking, Lilith supposed, it was the third day now. But she was too busy focusing on finding anything useful to dwell on it.

She heard creaking steps and didn’t bother to glance up. It was probably Edalyn. She was awake at all hours and was probably off to grab a snack.

She heard heavy footsteps and eventually something flopping down at the edge of the coffee table.

A moment later, a head was placed on it.

Lilith looked up then.

Luz was sitting on her knees at the end of the table, her chin resting on the end with her arms loosely dragging in the floor. She had bandages around her black eye and head, and, according to her, making her look like ‘a pirate.’”

“Luz?” Lilith blinked, setting down her pen. “What are you doing up?”

“Not tired,” Luz said, her eyes turning to the witch.

Her right pupil expanded, nearly taking up all the color in her eye.

“Well, you should try to sleep,” Lilith said simply. “I have tea to help calm you down, if you want.”

“Nah,” Luz said, looking back to the papers. “Whatcha doing?”

Lilith, already tired and not thinking completely straight, decided it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to humor the human.

“Studying,” She said simply. “To help you.”

“You are?” Luz perked up, raising her head off the table. 

“Um, yes?” Lilith raised a brow. “I have been for a while now. Did you not know?” “Nobody told me!” Luz shook her head, placing her hands on the table and holding herself up. “You found a lot on the human...human thingies,” She commented, gazing at the papers.

Lilith suddenly understood, and she felt a twinge in her chest. She decided not to think about it for too long.

“Oh, no, no, I’m not studying for that.” She explained. “I’m studying how to make you feel better, not the human realm.”

Luz’s smile instantly fell. She slumped onto her elbows and glomily lay her cheek on the table.

“Oh,” She said sadly, letting out a sigh. “Okay,”

Lilith frowned, her chest suddenly feeling just a bit hollower. She thought she must’ve been feeling the weight of her exhaustion, but she was quick to realize the real issue.

Lilith sighed dramatically and ran a hand through her hair.

Great Titan, she’d begun to truly care, hadn’t she?

She bit her lip and glanced back at Luz, who was still sorrowfully staring at her papers, her pupil now contracted to half the size of a dime.

“But,” She said cautiously, catching Luz’s attention. “I suppose I could help you with that...once you feel better, of course.”

“You will?” Luz shot up again like a rocket. “Thank you!” She smiled.

Lilith gave a small smile and chuckled.

“You’re going to regret all that happened these last few days when you gain control of yourself again,” She said, going back to flipping through the pages of a medical book she found. “I know I would.”

“Why?” Luz asked, tiling her head curiously.

“Wh--Luz, even you must realize you’d never be like this in your normal state.” Lilith said matter-of-factly. “You hate me, remember?”

Luz stared at her blankly for a moment. She crossed her arms on the table and rested on them, giving her an innocent look.

“No I don’t,”

Lilith paused. She slowly glanced over to the girl, confused.

“You do,” She said firmly. “In case you forgot, I used you to lure Eda to the Emperor’s Coven and could’ve gotten you seriously hurt.”

“You did?” Luz asked, before realization dawned on her. “Oh yeah! You did,” She chuckled. “I used to have nightmares about that.” She said casually.

Lilith flinched and turned away, focusing her attention on the paper she’d read over and over again.

There was a stretched silence for a few moments. Lilith thought Luz had fallen asleep, but she was still staring at her.

“Don’t hate cha,” Luz said again, her pupil flickering. “Ya no, al menos,” She mumbled.

“And why’s that?” Lilith sighed. “If you’d care to enlighten me,”

“You try,” Luz said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean, I definitely have favorites,” She said, turning her head on her arms. “But you’re off the hate-list. Hate file. Hate...paper.” She stuck out her tongue.

“Luz, with all due respect, I’m finding that hard to believe.” Lilith said simply. “You’re in a deleriated state, and I don’t trust your words at the moment.”

“I know stuff!” Luz shot back, glaring.

“What’s six times three?” Lilith asked.

Luz stared at her for a moment. She looked down at her fingers and began quietly counting on them.

“...twenty-three?” She suggested hesitantly.

Lilith gave her a deadpan stare before sighing and setting aside another paper.

“My point still stands,”

“But I don’t,” Luz whined, pounting.

“Not to be unappreciative, but Eda is far more deserving of you than I ever will be.” Lilith said simply, ears flicking back.

“Eda’s not perfect,” Luz muttered. “She made me break into the crema...the...tori...prison.” Luz muttered. “Prison break.”

“She made you break into the crematorium?” Lilith jerked up.

“First day,” Luz grinned, raising a finger. “For a...a lil crown.” 

She suddenly lit up, happily facing Lilith.

“Hey, hey,” She started giggling. “Did you, did you know Warden Wrath,” She could barely hold back her laughs. “Wrath had a crush on Eda?”

Lilith’s eyebrows raised, and she searched Luz’s face with hesitant interest.

“I did not…” She said slowly. 

“It was weird,” Luz giggled. “And, and she forgot my name!” She said gleefully. “Had to remind her who I was.”

“She did?” Lilith said, slowly setting her pen down.

“And she laughed at me,” Luz added, resting her chin on the table as she thought. “And told me to dig through trash. And almost killed me while cursed.”

Lilith visibly flinched, turning away. She had never heard that Eda transformed while Luz was stuck in the house with her. 

How Luz made it out unscathed, she wished she knew.

“And she made me cheat at the covention,” Luz continued rattling off. “And Eda swapped our bodies because...petty I think. And made me shove moss up my nose. And she sold some of my old stuff,”

Luz visibly frowned slightly at that one.

“And she taunted me by saying I was fragile. And a bunch of other things,” She continued, her pupil spazzing for a moment. She visibly winced before it calmed to enveloping half her eye.

“That’s...quite a bit.” Lilith said slowly. 

“Yeah,” Luz nodded, before placing her hands on the table again and raising herself up.

“But I still love her,” She said cheerfully. “She did good things, too.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about those, you don’t need to list them.” Lilith quickly assured the kid. “Eda boasts about her accomplishments all the time.”

Luz smiled and began messing with the pen Lilith left on the table, rolling it around as her eye followed it.

“You’ve done good, too.” She said quietly. “I like that you try,” She said sincerely, looking up. “I try.”

Lilith watched the girl for a moment. She offered the tiniest of smiles and glanced down at her hands, looking them over.

“Thank you,” She said quietly, holding her hands close. “I...I appreciate it.”

Luz ditched the pen and held herself up higher, looking proud.

“And if I’m honest, I’d almost think you weren’t as affected as we thought,” Lilith raised a brow in amusement. “Are you sure your not actually high?”

Luz blinked at her, tilting her head in confusion and frowning. She looked down, then looked back to Lilith.

“I’m on the floor,” She said.

“...never mind.” Lilith sighed, shaking her head. “You’re a wonder, Luz, you know that?”

Luz puffed out her chest with pride and brought a hand to it. She was about to say something, but she had been resting all her weight on her hands, and with one removed, she promptly slipped and cracked her chin against the coffee table.

“Are you alright?” Lilith exclaimed as Luz groaned and held her chin, falling onto the carpeted floor. “Ow,” Luz whined.

Lilith muttered under her breath and took off her glasses. She got up and walked over to Luz, helping the girl to her feet.

“At least you can feel pain again,” She murmured. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Luz didn’t respond, but she allowed the witch to guide her out of the living room, still whimpering about the pain. 

Lilith had gotten to the bottom of the stairs when Luz leaned against her side, holding her arms. Lilith looked down at her before wrapping an arm around the girl and gently leading her up the stairs.

Her studying could wait.

,

“Des-pa-cito,” 

“Day three into Luz’s descent into madness,” Gus droned over Luz’s singing. “And I’ve lost my will to continue on.”

“Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito,” Luz sang deliriously, though at least she seemed to be having fun.

The friends were all sitting on the living room floor, with Eda and King messing with some glyphs on the couch.

“Where’s Lilith?” Amity wondered, eyeing Luz, who was laying on her back on the floor.

“Holed up in her room studying on something,” Eda waved her hand casually. “Don’t know, don’t particularly care. Unless it's useful to us right now.”

“Deja que te diga cosas al oído,” Luz hummed. “Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo.”

“When Luz said she was going to distract herself from her headache, I wasn’t expecting this.” Willow said calmly, already glazed over from three days of putting up with this.

“It’s not that much different from yesterday,” Amity insisted.

“Des-pa-cito!”

The green-haired witches expression, however, proved that she was tired of dealing with Luz’s shenanigans as well.

“Quiero desnundar--” 

Luz suddenly cut herself off, staring at the ceiling. Amity glanced over, noticing a crimson on Luz’s face as her unbandaged pupil contracted.

“Luz?” Amity asked.

“Nope, not saying that.” Luz said, still staring at the ceiling.

Amity raised a brow and glanced at her friends. They only gave her clueless shrugs. Not like any of them knew Spanish.

“I’m too hungry to put up with this,” Eda grumbled, getting up from the couch and ditching the fire glyph she was trying to draw. “You kids want lunch?”

“It’s three PM?” Gus said, glancing up.

“Time is an illusion and so are you,” Eda responded, walking by the kids. “You hungry or not?”

“I am,” King said, scampering after her.

“A bit,” Amity nodded, standing up. “C’mon, Luz.”

“Not hungry,” Luz said simply, turning her head to watch as her friends all got up.

“I know for a fact you haven’t had lunch today,” Eda said, stopping and looking back. “You gotta eat, Luz.”

“I’m just not hungry,” Luz whined. “Wake up not hungry, stay not hungry.”

Eda frowned as Amity offered a hand and helped Luz to her feet.

“Didn’t wake up hungry?” Eda repeated. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“No,” Luz said bluntly. “Wasn’t hungry.”

“Luz!” Willow scolded.

“What? I’m not!” Luz huffed, crossing her arms.

“Luz, when was the last time you ate?” Eda sighed.

Luz paused. She scrunched up her face for a moment before beginning to mutter and count on her fingers.

You could see the fear spike through everyone in the room.

“Uh, not yesterday,” Luz mumbled. “Not...yesterday-yesterday…”

“You haven’t eaten anything in over three days?” Gus exclaimed.

“Ow,” Luz grumbled, pointing to her ears before her pupil contracted. “But...yeah, think so. Wasn’t hungry,” She shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Eda groaned, disturbed. “Come on, Luz, you’re eating something.”

“But-”

“No buts!” Eda snapped, grabbing the back of the girls shirt and tugging her into the kitchen. “You not feeling hungry in three days is the most worrying thing you’ve said. The no-pain thing is definitely second.”

“I swear we thought she ate before and that’s why she wasn’t hungry,” Gus said, hurriedly following after.

“Not your fault, I should’ve paid more attention.” Eda shrugged, dumping Luz into the kitchen chair where she pouted. “Add that to the list of vaccine symptoms.”

“No wonder she keeps falling over,” Willow murmured, casually shoving Luz back into her seat when she tried to get up. “I would too, if I was functioning on no food.”

“Shouldn’t she have gotten better by now?” Amity asked, pacing on the opposite side of the island counter. “Eda, when did you say she’ll get better?” “I…” Eda paused, one hand on the fridge door as she thought. “...a week. A week at most.” She said, glancing back. “We’ll be seeing progress between now and the end of this week, I promise.”

She almost winced at her own lie. Which was a rare sight for the con-artist.

“I’m fine,” Luz grumbled, slumping onto the table. “I’ve had worse,”

“While you weren’t inebriated, Luz.” Amity deadpanned. “It’s one thing when you get yourself into trouble on your own, this is worse.”

“Dramatic,” Luz muttered, but didn’t comment further.

“Willow, you're the strongest, right?” Eda asked, turning and placing a bowl of leftover meat chunks on the table.

“Yeah?” Willow blinked. “Why?”

“Hold her down,” She instructed the witch. “Because she will fight back.”

Willow didn’t react for the first few moments, allowing Eda’s words to sink in for Luz. She started to shoot up and make a break for it, but Willow quickly snapped out of it and shoved the human back into her seat with little difficulty.

Luz flailed and even tried to bite Willow, but it did practically nothing. A sharp shoulder squeeze at the human wincing and obediently sitting still.

“Is this...common?” Gus inquired.

“No, not really.” Eda shook her head. “I just figured since Luz was having such an aversion to eating for three days, she probably wouldn’t be inclined to now just because we asked nicely.”

Luz tried to mimic a hiss as Eda set down the bowl in front of her. Gus giggled at the sight, since it was more like her saying the word hiss than the actual noise witches made.

“Every day, I lose more of my sanity in this house,” Amity said, stepping away as Luz tried to struggle again and Eda searched for a fork.

“Welcome to the club, kid.”

,

Luz had been sent to bed three hours earlier. 

It was the end of the third day.

Eda, for some reason, was wide awake.

This wasn’t out of the blue. She was usually up at odd hours due to her curse. She felt less inclined to do so now, but thirty-year-old habits die hard.

She figured she woke up on her own, so she got up to get a snack like usual, and to check on Luz in her room.

But when she left her own room and looked down the hallway, she saw that Luz’s door was wide open.

Panic seized her for a brief moment before she forced herself to calm down. An open door didn’t mean anything, get yourself together.

Eda poked her head inside Luz’s room and looked around. Sure enough, her sleeping bag was left abandoned, and the human was nowhere to be seen.

Her first thought was Lilith. Nothing specific at all, just that Lilith was responsible.

She shook her head and looked back towards Lilith’s ‘room.’ The light was still on.

She opened the door a crack, seeing Lilith was sitting on the floor, ready to pass out. She had books and papers strewn out before her, half of them medical, the other half everything on humans and their realm she could find. Eda knew Luz and Gus had already read through those before.

She felt the tiniest twinge of guilt at the immediate blame before silently shutting the door.

Maybe Luz had just gone for a snack, like her. It wasn’t too unusual for her to creep out at midnight.

Granted, she wasn’t on the verge of toppling over at every step those last times.

Eda walked down the stairs and looked around. She checked every room, seeing no trace of the human anywhere, her anxiety growing by the minute.

She pulled out a fire glyph and lit the candles around the kitchen, forcibly keeping her breathing normal.

“Hello?”

Eda perked at the sound of the girl's voice and pricked her ears up. She saw that the back door was wide open, explaining why Hooty hadn’t noticed anything. He was asleep at this point, anyway.

She could see the outline of someone standing well outside the house, nearly at the treeline.

“Luz!” Eda called, rushing out the door. “What are you doing out here, kid?”

Luz whirled around, eyes wide and scared.

The bandage around her head was gone, revealing the injury on her head was at nasty cotting phase. Her eye was still dark and swollen, but she could open it far better than before. The healing glyphs had sped up the process, while they had been on.

“Luz?” Eda slowed, coming to a stop a few meters from the girl, the kitchen light from the house giving her a shadow that stretched out right towards Luz.

“It...it’s her,” Luz said, slowly turning her head back around to face the forest. “I can hear her.”

“Hear who?” Eda said, taking a step closer. 

“Listen,” Luz said simply.

So, Eda did. She angled her ears to listen towards the forest, silent and still.

The only sound that greeted her was the wind through the trees.

“There it is!” Luz suddenly perked up. “That’s her!”

There hadn’t been a sound.

Eda knew her hearing was well more developed than Luz’s, all witches ears were. So the fact that Luz claimed to be hearing something even she couldn’t was...concerning.

“Kid, I can’t hear anything.” Eda shook her head.

“You’re not listening,” Luz huffed, her left pupil dilating. “It’s her! She’s somewhere out here, I know it!” She said, looking around.

“Who?” Eda demanded. “Who can you hear? What are you talking about?”

“My mamá,” Luz said, still scanning the treeline. “I can hear her.”

Oh.

Eda felt a painful twist in her chest. For a moment, she thought her gem was acting up, but it was still the same inky black as before.

“Luz,” Eda started gently, walking closer to the girl. “Your mother’s not here.”

“Yes she is, I hear her.” Luz said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I think you need your ears checked. She’s somewhere out there, I just need to--”

Eda grabbed Luz’s shoulder and she whirled around, startled. Her eyes flickered and spazzed, reflecting Eda’s face before shrinking again.

“That’s not her,” Eda said softly, looking down at the girl. “You’re hallucinating again, kiddo.” She said sorrowfully. “There’s nobody there.”

Luz looked up at the witch, her brows knitting together in a frown. She suddenly jerked back to the forest, head raised.

“But I hear her…” She said quietly, a crack lacing her voice.

“I know you do,” Eda said, wrapping an arm around the teens shoulders. “But there’s no way that can be her. She’s back in the human realm, remember?”

Luz stared up at Eda with wide, searching eyes. She looked back to the forest, her body tense. Eda knew that look and tightened her hold around Luz’s shoulders, her hand placed just below Luz’s collarbone.

“Mamá!” Luz shouted, straining against Eda’s hold. “Mamá! I’m here!” She cried, raising a hand to grab Eda’s, but she didn’t try to pull her off.

Eda realized that the shouting must’ve been torture to Luz’s ears. She could even see the human wince every time she shouted. And yet, she kept calling.

Luz waited, listening intently. Eda sighed and gently tried to pull the human back.

“She’s not there. She would’ve heard you.” She said. 

“She must be stuck,” Luz insisted. “Mamá!”

“Luz,” Eda breathed. “Please, she’s not--”

“She has to be!” Luz persisted, straining again. “She...she has to be...I can hear her…”

The girl looked back at Eda, tears shining in her eyes and already beginning to roll down her cheeks.

Eda’s ears pressed back and she let out a breath, drawing up her other hand to gently grab Luz’s arm, her expression full of sorrow.

“I’m sorry, Luz.” She said softly. “I’m so sorry, but that’s not her.”

Luz sniffled and hiccuped. She opened her mouth to shout more, but all that came out was a strangled gasp. She quickly closed her mouth again, shutting her eyes as tears freely rolled down her cheeks.

The girl turned and buried her face in the crook of Eda’s arm, her hands tightly clutching Eda’s dress as she tried and failed to muffle her sobs.

Eda enveloped the girl in a hug, feeling every shake her body gave as she wailed. The human flinched at every loud noise she made, but was unable to stop it.

Eda offered hushed whispers, holding the girl up and placing a hand on the back of her head. She stared off into the trees, only being greeted by the empty shadows.

The only sound now was Luz’s cries.

The witch, keeping her arms around Luz, began to guide her back to the house. Luz stayed clinging to her side, her face streaked with tears.

It was awkward maneuvering around her, but she didn’t complain.

Luz’s sobs had quieted to choked cries by the time Eda stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

She debated trying to turn off the lights, since she couldn’t rely on her magic to do that for her, but she decided to let the candles burn themselves out instead.

“Can you walk, kid?” Eda asked the girl.

Luz sniffled and nodded, slowly peeling herself off of Eda’s side.

“Come on, let’s hit the hay, eh?” She offered, nudging the girl in front of her. “When’s the last time we got a good night's rest, am I right?” She said, trying a half-hearted joke.

Luz paused at that, wiping at her eyes as she thought.

“I don’t think I’ve slept the last two days,” Luz said, glancing back.

Eda stared at her, praying that the girl was joking. And as hard it was to take Luz seriously with one pupil blown wide and the other taking up her entire iris, she knew very well she wasn’t joking.

“Great Titan, kid,” Eda sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Alright, my nest. Someone has to keep an eye on you.”

Luz nodded and began to climb the stairs, holding her hands together to try and stop their shaking. Eda stayed right behind her, fearfully shifting every time she saw the girl sway slightly.

Eda caught Lilith’s door quickly shutting when they made it up the stairs. She wasn’t surprised, Luz hadn’t necessarily been quiet.

Luz stumbled down the hallway, Eda hovering right behind her. She looked away for a moment to look at Lilith’s closed door, noting that the lights were off now.

She heard a thud.

Eda spun around, tensing.

Luz had fallen mid-step, crashing onto the floor in a heap. In a flash, Eda was at her side and pulling her up, terrified something bad had happened.

Instead, she was greeted by Luz’s soft snores.

“Of course,” Eda sighed, scooping her up into her arms. “Just my luck you’d pass out before we even got to my room.” She muttered.

Effortlessly, she carried the human to her room and kicked the door shut behind her. She lay Luz in her nest, leaning her head on the edge to keep it propped up.

Eda searched her room for a moment before finding the spare gauzes and healing glyphs she kept for emergencies. It was awkward trying to wrap up Luz’s head, but she managed and placed two healing glyphs on her, one over her eye and the other on the back of her head.

She searched her nest for a moment before pulling out an old blanket she rarely used. She wrapped it around Luz and lay her back down before slipping into her nest beside her.

Luz twitched in her sleep, but aside from that, she didn’t stir.

Eda lay on her stomach, her head squished against the edge of the nest. She glanced at Luz beside her before wrapping one arm around her, keeping the girl close.

“I’m sorry, kid.” Eda sighed quietly. “You never deserved any of this.”

All that greeted her was deafening silence.

,

“Are you sure you feel fine?” Gus asked for the eighth time that morning.

“Yes, Gus,” Luz sighed. “I swear that I am completely conscious now.”

“Guess your prediction was right,” Eda mumbled to Lilith, standing off to the side from the group. “Been a week, and she’s nearly normal again.”

“Thank goodness!” King breathed, slumping over Luz’s crossed leg. “I couldn’t handle being smothered by you again.”

“Sorry,” Luz winced, giving a sheepish smile. “I take it I…” She raised a hand and felt at her eye, which, while less swollen, was still noticeable. “Caused a bit of trouble?” She guessed shyly.

“Your hallucinations weren’t fun,” Willow nodded. “Or your unending thirst for every water bottle you could find.”

“And your refusal to eat and sleep,” Eda added.

Luz rubbed the back of her neck, hunching her shoulders and offering nervous smiles.

“Sorry, guys.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.” Amity assured her. 

Eda casted a sideways glare at Lilith, who looked away and held her hands behind her back.

“At least you’ll get to freely move around the beast keeping track now,” Willow added. “Viney will appreciate the help, I’m sure.”

“Oh, yeah!” Luz perked up. “No more sick day excuses!” She pumped a fist.

“Which means you’re helping out with the trash slugs now,” Eda reminded with a grin. “Because now you don’t have excuses.”

“Getting vaccines doesn’t mean she’s immune to all sickness, Edalyn.” Lilith grit her teeth and sent a glare towards her sister.

“Yeah, but she won’t get, like, ones that’ll kill her.” Eda waved a hand casually.

“Aw,” Luz slumped.

“A moment of silence for Luz.” Willow said solemnly. 

“Do you wanna read about what happened?” Gus asked excitedly, already pulling out his notebook.

“Am I going to regret it if I do?” Luz turned to Amity.

“Fifty-fifty,” Amity tilted her hand. “I’d skip the part with the broken window and dumpster-diving.”

“And the kitchen incident?” Willow added, giving Amity a smug look.

Amity gave a guttural growl and lowered her ears.

“I’m already worried,” Luz said, anxiously glancing between her friends.

“How about we hold off on the trip down memory lane?” Lilith said, walking around and slowly pushing down Gus’s notebook that he was pulling out. “Luz, aside from the usual symptoms, is anything different?” She questioned the girl.

“Uh,” Luz frowned and thought for a moment. “A mild headache is normal, right?”

“Yeah, you got those all the time.” King nodded.

Luz hummed and thought, tapping her fingers on the carpet before perking up.

“Oh, I think I’ve got a better pain tolerance now.”

“I thought that faded?” Amity exclaimed, panicked. 

“That was an issue?” Luz blinked. “I mean, it’s not that bad. I kinda fell down the stairs earlier but all I got was a regular bruise instead of a small gash like three weeks ago.”

“You really need to fix the stairs if this is a common issue,” Lilith turned to Eda.

“Oh, that’s not as bad.” Willow relaxed. “Your pain tolerance used to be so high that when you cut your head you didn’t feel a thing.”

Luz gave Willow a wide-eyed, very concerned look.

“Wasn’t fun,” Amity shook her head, shuttering.

“Yeah, no, my tolerance is nowhere near that high.” Luz assured them. “And I can sort of feel the magic from my glyphs? I dunno, it’s hard to describe.”

“Probably the magic the vaccines had,” Eda shrugged. “That might last a while longer.”

“Cool,” Luz grinned. “Oh, and my vision feels weird sometimes, but I think I’ll be fine after a few hours.”

“Yeah, that's normal. Your eyes acted up a lot.” Gus nodded. “It was really funny, your entire eye would be just black.”

“...human pupils can’t dilate that much.” Luz said, concern lacing her tone.

“They can now,” Eda snickered. “With the,” She broke off in a fit of giggles. “The power of witch drugs.”

“I’m going to admit,” King raised his head. “Now I’m curious what actual drugs would do to you.”

“You have drugs in the Isles?” Luz exclaimed. “Like, illegal ones?”

“Course we do,” Eda chuckled. “You can find them at the Night Market for, what, ten snails?”

“That’s the cheap ones.” Lilith corrected. “The very illegal ones go for fifty or more.”

“And you know this because…?”

Lilith stiffened and cast a fearful glance at the children all watching her expectantly. Aside from Amity, who looked very worried.

“...I used to catch a lot of people selling at the Night Market,” Lilith said, crossing her arms. “It’s hard not to take notice of how much they were going for.”

“Plot twist of the century, ex-coven leader Lilith Clawthorne snorts fairy dust.” Eda giggled. “Oh how the masses would love that.”

“Edalyn!” Lilith gasped.

“Am I wrong?”

“And this is our cue to leave,” Luz whispered to her friends as the sisters began their daily bickering.

Her friends didn’t argue, they just quickly got up and shuffled towards the door. Willow carried King with them in her arms like a football, much to his silent complaints.

Luz opened the door and guided her friends out, quitey shutting out the arguing sisters.

“Hi, guys!” Hooty chirped.

Luz winced and pulled away, rubbing at her ears.

“Ow,” She muttered.

“Are your ears still sensitive?” Amity worried, shooting Hooty a glare that made him shut up.

“Only a little,” Luz offered a smile, stepping away from the front door. “Anyway, what did I miss while I was out of it?”

“Nothing much,” Gus said, beginning to walk off as the rest followed. “Aside from, like, a ton of homework.” “I expect nothing less,” Luz muttered, pain etched into her face.

“You want me to ask Principal Bump to loosen up on you for a bit?” Amity asked.

“Teachers pet privilege,” Willow whispered under her breath.

“I heard that!” Amity snapped.

“Just a little,” Luz nodded. “I’m still emotionally recovering from being basically unconscious for a week.”

“I still have the notes if you want to read them,” Gus said, slowly pulling out his notebook again.

“On one hand, yes,” Luz said. “But on the other hand, I’m scared of what I’ll find.”

“It’s mostly just filled with you falling over a lot and singing random songs on repeat.” Willow shrugged.

“I have all of them stuck in my head at the same time and I can’t get them out,” Amity whispered, looking horror-stricken.

Luz chuckled nervously, rubbing along the edges of her black eye.

“You know, I think I’m glad I don’t remember much.”

[peppersonironi]

Duke Thomas VS The "Good Child" Stereotype Chapter Three

Wooo! Chapter Two (not including the prologue) is up now for my @dukethomasbigbang fic! Today's art is by @a-sketchy-character and you can find the glorious piece HERE

thx again to my betas @queerbutstillhere & @theycallme-ook

Today has a special thanks to @batgirls-appreciation who dropped out as a beta, but this chapter couldn't exist without her!

Summary:

Duke pursed his lips, not quite sure why Cass had come down to the basement, only to look into his soul, shrug, and leave. But that didn’t matter right now. As Bruce would say, “The mission comes first.”

Read on Ao3

Duke frowned down at his empty pad of paper, trying to brainstorm. It had been a mere twelve hours since the failed Rick Roll (though, the Rick Roll itself wasn’t a fail. Duke would be daydreaming about the chaos for years to come), and the day shift bat was itching for a way to make up for it.

Alas, the creative juices were not flowing that day. Duke had tried everything - taking a walk, training, meditation, writer’s sprint, and even resorting to watching prank compilations on YouTube. But nothing worked. So, he found himself watching the target Bat - Bruce - in his “natural habitat.”

Also known as the living room, mid lecture.

“But I don’t know what I did!” Tim pleaded desperately, trying to convey to Bruce his confusion.

Bruce shook his head. “No, you do, Tim. Dick told me you all will appeal to my affection to get out of the consequences for your actions -” wow, Duke remembered Dick using that exact tactic just yesterday, and it worked - “So I will not allow you to shirk the punishment.”

Tim groaned. “This is tyranny! I’m an emancipated minor, I don’t need to deal with this.”

“Actually, yes you do. You will be doing chores for Alfred for the next two weeks, and you aren’t allowed to run off to Mount Justice.”

“Then at least tell me what I did wrong!” Tim cried, throwing his hands up in the air. Bruce rubbed his temples, then glanced briefly at Duke.

“You know what you did, and how it affected those around you. And you’re grounded because of it. No room for arguments. Now go work on the sprinklers, Alfred has mentioned they’ve been finicky.”

Tim scoffed and stalked out, soon after followed by Bruce.

Duke considered relocating as well - he couldn’t very well observe Bruce if said wild furry wasn’t present. But something about that conversation that sent a light shiver up Duke’s spine, some small spark of inspiration.

An idea began to form in his mind, and Duke smiled slowly.

*****

“For all Bruce’s waxing poetic on the merits of high tech stuff, this pipe organization is seriously ancient,” Duke muttered under his breath as he glanced from the blueprints he had secured to the mess of pipes and spigots and nozzles in front of him.

Though to be fair, this wasn’t the Batcave. Duke was in the basement of Wayne Manor - yes, he was just as surprised to find they actually had one of those that wasn’t dedicated to the dark and mystique training of Gotham’s Protectors. And impromptu Mario Kart challenges, because as Tim had once told Duke “We all know that’s the real reason Bruce got a giant computer setup.”

Duke cursed softly under his breath when he dropped a wrench that began to clang around in the messy cage of metal. He set the blueprints aside atop the gallons of paint he had chosen, and reached around and down to get the wrench. When he came back up, he found himself face to face with his sister Cassandra.

Oh shit, Duke thought, as he tried to figure out how to cover for what he was doing in the plumbing of the Manor.

Cass squinted at him and, not for the first time, Duke felt like he was an onion trapped beneath her gaze, slowly being peeled back layer by layer till the young woman before him knew every little detail about him. Every thought or plan he ever had.

Duke began to sweat, unable to keep his panic under wraps. Cass was scarier than Bruce, that was just a fact.

Cass tilted her head a fraction of an inch, and Duke thought he was a dead man. But, much to his relief and confusion, Cass shrugged and turned. She walked lightheartedly out of the basement and to the stairs, whistling tunelessly as she went.

Duke pursed his lips, not quite sure why Cass had come down to the basement, only to look into his soul, shrug, and leave.

But that didn’t matter right now. As Bruce would say, “The mission comes first.”

*****

As all members of the Wayne family knew, the Library was one of the best places, period. Aside from the living room which was always a mess of pillows, bean bags, inflatable dinosaurs, spare semi-automatic weaponry and knives, the Library was the most personal room in the expansive home that was the Manor. Sure, it was cleaner and home to fewer surprise nerf gun fights, but It still had an air of warmth about it. It was the place that they would go to to rest after a difficult patrol. Where you could find Jason reading some book in a corner, Tim busy with WE work at the large table, Damian trying to teach Alfred the Cat and Titus to read picture books, Cass and Steph trying to be subtle about making out (though to be fair that was only half the time, other times Cass was working on reading with Steph helpfully giving her guidance). Dick would always be trying to decide what to read and but he would never actually succeed, Bruce would sit in his tall armchair in the corner overlooking every small detail of his children with a not-quick-smile-but-pretty-darn-close on his face.

Duke himself also had his own spot that he would work on writing poetry, or just surf Tumblr. It was a window seat at the far side of the library which was technically big enough for three people, but Duke had a strict policy that it was his and his alone and no he totally wasn’t bullied by Cass that one time to snuggle. Why on Earth would you ever consider such a thing?

It was in this spot now that Duke was situated, though he was not alone. Titus - yes, Damian’s dog - was draped across his lap. Now, Duke didn’t mean to steal his little brother’s pets, but it just happened. Titus was in need of snuggles or belly rubs when Damian was away with Jon or on patrol at night, and Duke just happened to be the only one that said canine could bully into granting him.

Thankfully, like all bats were, Duke was a multi-tasker. He wasn’t put off by having to scratch a dog behind the ears whilst simultaneously checking the twelve blinking dots on his laptop screen that represented his family members.

Duke stared intensely at the diagram of the Manor as all the dots slowed down and finally stayed in their predetermined positions. Huh, Tim was right. Stalking family members did pay off!

The dots suddenly stopped blinking, and Duke snapped out of his self congratulations. It was go time . He switched windows, then quickly pulled out his phone and pressed a button.

There were several screams that echoed throughout the ancient halls, those screams spoke of terror and surprise, and passed along the message that something was very, very wrong in the world. The status quo had been broken, and there was no returning from this.

Duke smirked down at his computer, where a dozen different squares displayed camera footage of the real time happenings of the Manor. Said footage was showing several members of Duke’s family drenched in paint. The same paint that Duke had meticulously divided and poured into the ceiling sprinkling system that the Manor had for some totally-not-plot-related reason. The same paint which had been primed and ready to be sprayed out of the spigots coating each bat with the perfectly calculated, even layer.

The paint had just finished being deployed, and yet several people were for some reason trying to fight it off like it was an attacker. Duke noticed that the swinging of bo staffs, AK-47’s and katanas were altogether unsuccessful. Honestly, the people who were standing completely still in shock, or who were trying to shake off the paint were having much better luck.

But then everyone finally realised that they weren’t being sprayed anymore, and a collective sigh spread out across the Manor. The onslaught was done, and they could finally gather together and grab the pitchforks to hunt down the responsible party.

It was then that the glitter was deployed.

The chaos immediately multiplied tenfold, and the screams sounded up again. The air was filled with the sparkly dust that was way too thin to swat away. (No, Duke totally didn’t spend extra time researching to find the world’s finest glitter)

Duke was outright laughing at this point, so hard that he almost fell off the window seat. Titus barked suddenly, and Duke sobered enough to get back upright and watch the finishing up of the chaos. He had to admit, this felt wonderful. If he had to describe his current state of thrill in two words, he would have admitted that he felt altogether too close to the Hellmo Meme.

Unfortunately, Duke was not Stephanie, and ran out of glitter eventually. The vents stopped blasting the film of fairy dust, and the bats were given a reprieve.

Though the break was short lived, as just then, Bruce’s loud bellow sounded throughout the giant house.

“ALL OF YOU GET IN HERE!”

Duke chuckled as he scooched Titus over and set his laptop to the side so he could get up. This was all working perfectly! He’d arrive at Bruce's interrogation completely free from all paint or glitter, which would immediately prove his guilt. And if that didn’t work, then he supposed he could outright confess. But that wasn’t the point of this. The point was for Bruce to come to the conclusion on his own.

He walked down the hall, completely carefree. So happy and confident in his own abilities that he never even noticed that Cassandra’s paint or glitter didn’t go off. That she wasn’t even present where the tracker he had subtly placed on her earlier that day said she was.

*****

Duke hummed to himself as he skipped along the carpet, past the antique vases and random finger paintings, past the drawing rooms and bathrooms, and towards Bruce. All was quiet.

Though that began to trouble Duke, as he got closer to one of the rooms which was very special. It was where Cass had been situated, playing with Selina’s cat Isis, for the past hour. Now, Cassandra was quiet, sure. But not that quiet. And besides, wouldn’t the cat be screeching right about now? Cass didn’t seem like the person to give a nerve hit to an animal just because it was being loud ( cough Jason cough ).

He slowly entered the room and looked around, but was surprised to find it completely empty. Not just of girl and cat, but of paint and glitter too.

“You were mistaken.”

Duke whirled around to find Cass sitting in an armchair, wrapped in shadows, and stroking Isis in a manner not altogether different from that of an Evil Mastermind™.

“Uh…” Duke replied, “about what?”

Cass smirked, and Duke felt a shiver run up his spine. “Actions have consequences. ”

Duke frowned. Wait, what? He glanced around again, trying to figure out what Cass meant. On a surface level he understood, but there was something about the way Cass was eyeing him that told him something else was up.

The only thing he could find that was out of the ordinary, however, was the camera he had placed just yesterday. Huh, now that he thought about it, he was at just the right angle to see it. Which meant he was in direct view of the camera itself. Pretty darn to close to where he had been planning Cass would stand, actually.

Then a faint spitting noise came from above him.

Oh.

*****

Duke trudged forlornly into the room where the rest of the bats - except Cassandra, who had disappeared after the glitter had deployed onto Duke - had gathered. He was one of the last to arrive, muttering curses under his breath, so all eyes were on him as he opened the door and joined them.

Though that also meant that Duke could see them. He had to admit, that as disappointed as he was, it was still hard to keep a grin from spreading across his face. Boy, he had done a great job with color coordination, hadn’t he?

Bruce was front and center, covered in a dark gray paint which had the sheen of yellow glitter. Dick had black paint completely covering him (much more than Duke planned. Did Dick roll in the stuff?) along with blue glitter. Jason had both red paint and glitter on him. Tim had started off with a lighter colored paint - this time red - and then the look was finished by black glitter. Damian looked like a small Christmas tree in his green paint and red glitter. Harper had blue paint then covered in purple glitter, both of which were the exact shades of her hair. Duke wasn’t a monster ; he knew how to match colors.

The cousins - both honorary and actually - had also been present. Bette had been appropriately targeted with a flaming orange and gold combination. Kate had black paint and, instead of red, Duke had picked a rainbow glitter for her. From the slight glint in her eye, Duke supposed he had chosen correctly. Jean-Paul had been doused in yellow paint and red glitter, and he honestly looked like a very large and human shaped version of his sword. Luke was covered in silver paint and an electric blue glitter.

Bruce, however, didn’t give Duke a second glance, covered in yellow paint and black glitter (which had been meant for Cass, but honestly, it fit Duke quite well), though he was.

“Good, now we just have to wait for Steph,” Tim remarked, rolling his eyes.

Duke frowned. “What about Cass? She’s here too.”

Everyone gave Duke a weird look. “Uh, no she isn’t. She’s been hanging out with Selina and Babs all weekend.”

“Then your intel is wrong,” Duke countered. “She was just here! I planned on her being here!”

The silence in the room was palpable. Before, where there had been bickering and accusations, the quiet had taken over. Everyone stared at Duke with suspicion in their eyes.

Finally, Duke thought, sighing in relief.

Bruce opened his mouth about to question Duke’s statement when the doors to the room banged open.

“What’s up, Bitches? The Waffle Queen has arrived and looks as fabulous as ever!”

Duke stared, completely amazed that she actually seemed to like the purple on purple combo Duke had picked for her. Oh, yeah, now that he thought about it made perfect sense that Steph was the only one to like this.

“Wow, whoever did this really got my colors right!" Steph continued as she waltzed in and posed in front of everyone, her hip cocked and arm thrown up dramatically.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, and he began to growl at her. “This is not funny.”

Steph pouted. “What do you mean? I sure think it is!”

Oh boy, she didn’t notice she was digging her own grave, did she? From the looks of the other bats, they shared Duke’s sentiment.

“Stephanie Brown, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Stephanie smirked. “Yup! I look way better than you, you old fur- hey wait! Are you blaming me ?!”

Bruce glared even harder, and Stephanie started to protest, claiming that she was but an innocent victim of these pain-filled proceedings! It was not her fault! Nor was it her fault that she happened to get colors that she liked better than everyone else.

Bruce refused to hear what she said, and told her to go get changed. “You will be cleaning up this whole mess, and no patrolling until it’s done.”

Bruce turned and stalked out, and Steph was left speechless - for once - in the hall. She backed away, seeing the angry stares from the others. The only one who didn’t seem mad at her, was Duke himself. He opened his eyes wide, conveying pity. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed silently.

Instead of being reassuring, however, Steph squinted in suspicion. Oh shit, that probably hadn’t been the best move.

Just moments after Steph left, Jason threw up his hands. “Okay, who wants to have a water gun fight to clean off?”

There were several cheers of assent, but Duke quickly made his own escape at that time. He honestly wasn’t in the mood to get splashed in the face with water. Now was not the time for fun, as the failed prank still hung over him.

Now was the time for plotting.

*****

“Okay, but why on earth do you have a fully functioning sprinkler system in every room?”

“Yeah, Bruce, even for you that’s paranoid! What caused you to think that was necessary?”

“You.”

[shadowsfiguresfigments-blog]

A good place to die Chapter 26 (smut)

Warning: Harsh language, violence, smut

He was all over me, literally. Whilst he kept my lips and tongue busy with his, his hands roamed across my body, gently caressing every square inch of it. The last tattered remains of my clothes fell off, but his silken gloves kept me warm against the cold air. I sucked on his lower lip to encourage him further, and in response he leaned into me. The sensation of his touch multiplied, and during a breath pause to draw breath I opened my eyes. Penny had sprouted another two pairs of arms, giving him a slightly spider-like appearance.

Whilst he played with my hair, he simultaneously worjed my erect nipples, kneading them; pinching them just enough to illicit a sweet stinging pain. And all the while his hands wandered down further, along my hips, in between my thighs. I pressed harder against him, the familiar desperate yearning overcoming any sense of self-control I had left. There needn’t be any more barriers between us, nothing to separate us – I had been inside him, literally, for fuck’s sake – and I tore at his clothes, fighting against the last veil of silk that stood between us.

His chuckle was barely audible, more of a deep rumble that went through his body right into mine. The hands in my hair disappeared and the pressure against me lessened, but before I could protest his fingers slipped inside me. My insides clamped down on him in an unconscious effort to pull him further along, and their effort was rewarded; Penny’s finger went deeper and deeper into me, as if they were growing in length. The weirdest sensation filled my stomach – his gloves, he must have popped his gloves – and a heartbeat later he touched that sweet, sweet spot.

I screamed as the orgasm hit me like a sledge hammer, but Penny was nowhere near done. His body pressed back against mine, finally rid of clothes and all decency, and he held me so tight I was no longer able to breathe properly. He was still mercilessly working my pussy, but another hand made its way between my ass cheeks. I briefly and very feebly thought about protesting, but in response he pressed against my G-spot again. Whether it was because I was dripping wet or by some transformation of his, his fingers quickly spread some hot liquid around my asshole. Then he inserted one.

One moment, there was the sensation of having soiled myself; then he pushed through the barrier and there was some pain. It didn’t last long, though, as having him inside both front and back quickly overwhelmed me. Still, it wasn’t enough for him. His tongue swelled up, almost forcing my jaws apart, and picked up the rhythm of his fingers as it thrust deeper and deeper into me. As he had swallowed me whole, enveloping me completely, he now filled my up with himself in every way possible. I no longer could feel any ending to my body, nor the beginning of his; all of my senses were filled with him alone.

Again, there was a brief pause as he withdrew his fingers from my pussy, then he shoved his dick into me. I came immediately, and this time it lasted. Wave after wave hit me, eroding my sense of self further and further. Something was different from all the times we had had sex before – something inside me had changed. It resonated with Penny in a way that was difficult to understand – like two sound waves with just the right frequency to suddenly amplify each other.

That resonance almost tore me apart, and I screamed on the top of my lungs as Penny shuddered and came.

The following week was entirely governed by the last minute preparations for both Bee’s return as well as the store opening, which would coincide. With Auntie’s help I fought my way through the rooms and seemingly unending layers of garbage and dirt. Thankfully Bee had already declared her intentions to renovate the whole apartment by herself, and she had spent countless hours picking colors and some new furniture from catalogs. The little insurance money she got wouldn’t allow for much more, but her DIY-attitude had significantly improved over the last days. We just made sure the dirt was gone and that the facilities worked; which they did. Still, by the time I was done every evening I did little more than hit the shower and fall into bed.

Penny found his own way to keep me company – he usually waited in my room, made good use of the phone I had gotten him, and occasionally accompanied me on my ways in the form of a big orange tabby. At night he would cradle me in his arms, making our fight seem like nothing more than a bad dream.

I didn’t have the energy to discuss it any further, either; nor could I bring myself to tell him I still felt rather overwhelmed by the sex we had had. It was a weird, uncomfortable balance that I just couldn’t deal with.

He had carried me home that night, wrapped into silk-like sheets he had miraculously produced, and he had washed me in our tiny shower. I was still entirely beside myself – I didn’t even spend a thought on auntie – and just stood there as he rinsed away his cum that poured out of my body.

He even tucked me into bed.

When the big day finally arrived, I was too tired to feel the least bit excited. I almost fell asleep twice during school, but fortunately no one noticed. It was Friday, and I was excused for the last lesson (P.E.), so I got to leave early. That also meant there was no chance of any potential bully waiting for me, and I didn’t bother checking my bike for any manipulations, as there hadn’t been any for quite a while. Of course, that didn’t turn out too well – somebody had opened the valves of my tires, and by the time I got to the shop, there was no air left in them. I didn’t care, though, as I had to prepare the little buffet auntie had organized for me (nothing major, just some tea and coffee, and some cupcakes she had surprised me with in the morning). After I finished that, I went through the registry and my documents for the last time, in a desperate attempt to not think about Penny and focus on the task at hand.

A quick glance at my watch told me that I had about fifteen minutes left before the official opening hours started. I briefly wondered whether anyone would show up at all – Auntie and I had invested in some flyers, and we had distributed them both at her working place as well as my school. I had also thrown the remaining ones into random mail boxes on my various ways. Despite that, my reputation might very well end up keeping any potential customer from actually seeking the store – my store, I reminded myself – out.

For the first time in a long while I thought back to Yaneesha, Shot and the other idiots that despised me so much. The reason for their unwavering hate was still very much of a mystery to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to wish them harm. After all, they had ultimately suffered bigger losses than I did, and ever since Yaneesha had left school, I hadn’t been physically attacked anymore.

At least not by humans.

I sighed and unlocked the doors.

To my big surprise a couple of people entered while I was putting out the huge board I had painted. They roamed around the shelves, and a tiny silver-hair lady even told me how happy she was that the store was open again. I vaguely remembered her face and came to the conclusion that she was one of the very few somewhat regular visitors. Didn’t she have a fondness for novels? I directed her towards some new arrivals, which prompted my first successful sale.

It was somewhat difficult to believe, and the whole situation felt unreal. Something about the ordinariness was quite at odds with the crazy circus my life had become. I answered questions, recommended books, and made a couple of other sales. It wasn’t much, but still a whole lot more than what I’d expected – nothing.

Auntie joined me after I had been open for ninety minutes, and I could tell how tired she was. We both forced smiles, and despite my best efforts, she insisted on staying with me, though her face grew paler by the minute. Just when I had convinced her to sit down and stop fussing, her face lit up with recognition.

“Oh, you didn’t tell me he was coming. How nice!”

I whirled around just to see Benny-Penny standing outside the store, a red balloon on a string in his hands. For some reason that really touched me – I was just glad auntie sat behind me, so she couldn’t see the stupid smile spreading across my face. I rushed out and grasped his hands.

“I’m so glad you’re here”, I gushed. “I can’t believe you’re willing to go through this… Are you okay?”

He nodded, a familiar twinkle in his eyes, and handed me the balloon. It even read “Congratulations” on it. After quickly wiping my eyes I ushered him inside, ignoring the weird vibrations that built up in my stomach.

Penny looked utterly out of place, a wonderful mixture of awkwardness and otherworldly beauty that was just a tick off – probably not enough for anyone to realize but enough to cause the other visitors to show signs of unease. It was almost comical – a guy in a rather fancy suit started fiddling with his tie, a young girl put her jacket back on, and a group of teens moved closer together. Despite the fact that it wasn’t a good thing unnerve the people who I was supposed to sell to, it was still entertaining to observe. And I couldn’t help myself but marvel at his human form; the way his muscles visibly moved beneath the thin, tight sweater he was wearing; the way that ass looked in that pair of jeans; the way his movements were still the same as in his clown form.

I quickly went into the back room and tied the balloon to my backpack, not wanting to leave Penny alone for too long; but by the time I had returned he sat beside auntie and they chatted away merrily. He laughed – that wonderful, over-the-top crazy laugh of his, and shook his head. Auntie smiled, said something and started chuckling. For a moment she looked much younger, the stress lines fading, and my heart started hurting again.

How I wished I could see her like that every day.

I joined them, but I admittedly didn’t pay much attention, nor contribute much to the conversation – I was just content to see auntie and Benny-Penny happy. My odd behavior wasn’t noticed, though; Benny told one joke after another, and soon, my costumers had circled around us, joining in on the laughs. From time to time I could have sworn I saw a glint of something in Benny’s eyes, but it always disappeared so quickly I couldn’t be sure.

It was a rather pleasant experience to have him around. Time flew by quickly, and making sales felt like something I did on the side whilst I was mainly focusing on Benny. Finally the last pulk of people left the store, and I waved after them. Auntie stood up and started cleaning the buffet table; throwing away crumbled napkins and stacking plates. I offered to help, but she refused me; so I started counting the money I had made. When she left to bring the plates upstairs to the apartment, I dropped all pretence and threw myself into Benny’s arms.

“Thank you for coming”, I whispered, somewhat at a loss at how to convey the deep gratitude I felt.

He just patted my head, but I could feel how exhausted he was. I understood all too well – being around other humans and having to act normally was difficult enough for me, and I was part of their race. I reached up and cradled his cheek in my hand.

“I will make this up to you, I promise.”

Benny’s head shot up so fast I didn’t realize he had moved for a second.

Something was wrong.

His face had become devoid of emotion, the smile that had just been there completely gone, and there was an orange hue in his eyes. He stood utterly still.

“What’s the matter?”

“One of them is coming closer.”

“Who?”

“One of them.”

It took me a second to put his words and his behavior together.

“You mean… the ones that hurt you?”

He nodded, his eyes turning ever more orange. I took his hands and pulled him around to face me.

“Listen, if you need to get out of here, go. But I don’t think you’re in danger – you look like a human, you’re in a fucking bookstore, and besides, I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, okay?” That had absolutely no effect whatsoever. He was still as tense as before. “Penny, I promise, you’re safe.”

He slowly lowered his eyes, exhaling loudly. Not even a second later, he tensed up again. This time, he was watching someone outside. I turned around and saw two young men walking down the street. They held brown paper bags and yelled loudly, pushing each other constantly. My somewhat rusty instinct for bad situations told me they were trouble.

“They want to trash your shop.”

I didn’t even question him; I was too focused on the fact that they had changed direction and were now clearly walking up to us.

“I won’t allow that.” I reached into my pocket for my phone, with every intention to call the cops, but this time, Penny grabbed my hands. He had the weirdest little smile, and his left eye started drifting to the side. For some reason, I got goosebumps. I could only watch as he left me and stood in front of the duo. They shouted something, he replied, and the three of them walked away.

What was I supposed to do? I still had my phone in my hand, and I contemplated dialing 911. But what should I say? That I had possibly evaded big trouble? That my killer clown boyfriend had just left with the troublemakers and they’d better start searching for the leftovers, if there would be any? And that Pennywise might be in danger? Hello officer, you know, there’s this creature that kills and feeds on humans, and I love him very much, and he got spooked, so could you please start an investigation, and by the way, clean up after him?

“Where’d he go?”

Auntie had come back to me and looked out the door. I shook my head, gathering my jumbled thoughts.

“Oh, his mom called, he’s supposed to help her with something.”

“It was nice of him to stop by.”

“Yeah, very nice.” I still stared at the corner around which they had disappeared, as if I could make my gaze bend around it to follow them and make sure everything was okay.

“Is everything alright? Did you quarrel?”

“Oh no, I guess I’m just… a little overwhelmed with everything.” My attempt at a reassuring smile was bad at best, but somehow auntie bought it.

“Oh well, it’s been some hectic weeks for both of us.”

I nodded. A quick glance at my phone told me it was time to close down. That, thankfully, wouldn’t take long. However, there was still-

“Look who’s come!”

For the second time that day, a very welcome visitor approached the store. This time it wasn’t my favorite alien killer clown, it was Bee; with a large suitcase in hand and a warm smile on her face.

[megumis-lashes]

Love, but make it Magic!

Werewolf! Hwang Hyunjin x Reader

*Contains*: mentions of blood/fighting, slight angst (if you squint), bullying, fighting, slight swearing, Enemies to lovers if you squint, school based on western standards, werewolf Hyunjin, witch/vampire reader

Nothing too bad overall. Mainly fluff. I sometimes use italics for emphasis. I use typical quotes for speech :)

Narrators POV

In today’s society, supernatural beings like vampires and werewolves are believed to be mythical creatures. Few people believe in their existence and have many false stereotypes surrounding these creatures’ existence. In reality they do exist. Supernaturals or whatever you like to call them, live a life hidden from society. They play the role of innocent humans in a world where they aren’t accepted. In certain areas, schools and housing are built to house strictly supernatural creatures. Despite their separation from the world, they still have many disputes between each other.

Name’s POV

My life has never been easy. From a young age I’ve been pressured to fit into a society that I was not designed for. I’m half witch, half vampire, a deadly combination in today’s world. Not only am I hated by humans but I’m also hated by other supernaturals due to some dumb disputes among species. I lived among humans for the the first portion of my life. I was constantly in fear for what might happen to me if I was discovered. I had to live and act exactly as a human, which was never an easy task. Thankfully, for college I was able to go somewhere I better fit in, an all supernatural college, NX University. My parents were opposed to me going due to their meek status against humans, but I needed a change in lifestyle. Thankfully I managed to get multiple scholarships to the school.

I had been living on campus for a few months. Everything was going smoothly. My stress and anxiety of blending in was long forgotten and I was able to express myself through my supernatural abilities. I took courses on witchcraft and alchemy, things I never would’ve had the opportunity to learn in human society. I shared a dorm with a fellow witch from my classes. Her name was Sunghee. She was what could only be described as text book beauty. She had glowing ginger hair that flowed over her shoulders and large green eyes. Her face was littered with freckles and she was rather slim. To go along with her innocent looks came her witchcraft. She was what humans would describe as a ‘good witch’. She practiced strictly healing and protection magic and had made a pact with herself to never engage in battle. She often spent her days collecting and researching herbs she discovered around campus.

After a long day of classes I was heading back to the dorm. I had what could be described as an infinite amount of homework and I wasn’t exactly excited to lose sleep working on it. As I approached the door I noticed something.

“Hmm? The door is locked? That’s strange. Sunghee usually leaves it open...” I mumbled to myself as I shuffled through my bag, searching for my spare key.

“Maybe she went to the shops for more herbs..”

As I unlocked the door and entered, I was greeted by emptiness. The place was sparkling clean, which was very unusual for Sunghee. She was more like the ‘messily organized’ type so seeing the place so clean was shocking. As I approached the small kitchen table, I noticed a crinkled note taped to the fridge. It read :

‘Hey name! Sorry for the sudden departure but I had some family business to attend to. I’ll probably be back by the end of this quarter. As an apology for leaving so fast I tidied up the place! Also, you don’t have to worry about caring for my plants and such! My friend Hyunjin will be staying here to take care of them! Hopefully you won’t mind!

- xoxo Sunghee ♡︎

“Only Sunghee would do something like this so suddenly and think nothing of it.” I sighed. I guess I had to get used to living with someone else for a while.

“I should really start my homework....I don’t want to be up all night.” I shook my head.

My head had been buzzing with witchcraft and algebra work for what seemed like hours. I was so focused on finishing my work before the clock struck midnight that when a knock on the door sounded through the dorm, I nearly fell out of my chair.

“Who in their right mind would arrive at this hour...” As much as I disliked the idea of talking, I still ran to open the door. As the old wooden door creaked open, the sight behind it almost made me fall over again. Standing at the door was a tall and lanky boy with longer blonde hair tied up in the back. He was beautiful and his perfection was accentuated by the small birthmark under his left check. I couldn’t put a finger on his name but I had definitely seen him before. He was deemed the school’s ‘pretty boy’ from what I could remember.

“Excuse me but what do you need? It’s quite late and I’m not exactly sure what you want from me?” I questioned as I leaned on the door frame in exhaustion.

“Oh hi. You must be name. I’m Sunghee’s ‘childhood friend’ you could say. She asked me stay here for a while to watch over her plants or whatever.” He shrugged as he pushed his hair back. Now that I looked at him closely I noticed he was carrying a large duffel bag packed to the brim.

“You? Stay here? There must be some sort of confusion. I thought a girl by the name of Hyunjin would be staying here?” I blinked in confusion.

“Oh she never explained fully then huh?” He chuckled. “My name’s Hwang Hyunjin. I’m not exactly a girl but I understand your confusion. You were probably thinking of Kim Hyunjin. She’s a girl in the shapeshifter division.” He suffled around awkwardly. “So are you gonna let me in?”

“Hoooold on there. I have no idea who you are! You expect me to just casually share a place with you for months? When I’m just meeting you for the first time now? Plus you’re a werewolf aren’t you? Bold of you to assume I could naturally just trust you!” I was beyond shocked at his audacity.

“Come ooonnn! I’m just tired ok! It wasn’t exactly my idea to stay here. Sunghee kinda sprang it on me this morning.” He sighed once again, rubbing his neck.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? If you’re trying to convince me to stay with some guy I just met than you’re doing a terrible job.” I chided.

“Look, we don’t even have to see each other or talk to each other. Ok? I’m just as unenthusiastic about this as you are but I know Sunghee would skin me alive if I didn’t care for her precious plants.”

I huffed. “I’m honestly too tired to continue with this conversation. Fine you can stay, but you better keep the place sparkling! Pull your weight in chores and maybe I won’t kick you out.” I didn’t plan on caving so easily but I was exhausted and needed sleep. I let the boy inside and then shut myself in my room for the night.

The next few weeks were....rough. Living with a teenage boy was hard enough but with him being a werewolf it was even worse. Despite trying to keep the place clean, everyday the place would be in shambles. He slept on the couch but would often shift to his wolf form while sleeping and ravage the place. Even with his sudden outbursts, Hyunjin did try his best to keep true to his deal. He rarely bothered me and the only time we really had a conversation was when he accidentally ate Sunghee’s herbs and needed information on which ones he should buy in replacement. One thing I did notice about Hyunjin was his habit to get home quite late. I was typically up into the late hours of the night doing homework so I always heard him come home. He would always be panting and out of breath, as if he had been chased back to the dorm. I did wonder what he was up to but I never confronted him about it, that is until one specific time.

It was a dreary Friday night in early October and I was finishing my physics homework for the week. Due to my growing hunger I decided to make some popcorn and maybe watch a movie later. As I was pouring the popcorn in a large bowl, I heard the front door slam open. Hyunjin must’ve been home. I didn’t greet him, as I didn’t typically do so but I could tell something was off by how he was breathing. He was panting much heavier than I had ever heard and seemed to be groaning in pain. I decided to ask what was wrong and finally discover what was happening. When I turned to question him, I was shocked by his appearance.

Standing in the doorway was Hyunjin. He was drenched it what appeared to be a mixture of blood, sweat and rain as it had been storming outside. What shocked me the most were the large scratches and cuts scattered throughout his body. The most noticeable of them were placed near his heart, from which blood seeped into his shirt. He also appeared to have some bruises forming on his face and his nose was bleeding. The last feature I noticed were the pitch black ears and tail that sprouted from his head and lower back. He was in partial wolf form.

“What the hell happened to you?!” I exclaimed. I wasn’t exactly expecting a bloody Hyunjin to walk through the door.

“Uhh....” he spun around, eyes wide in shock. He was like a deer caught in headlights. “I got into a small fight...” He mumbled, scratching his neck awkwardly. He wasn’t expecting me to be home.

“Bullshit! You wouldn’t look like walking road kill if it was just a small fight! Tell me what really happened!” I huffed. I wasn’t usually one to get mad easily but I had been suspicious of Hyunjin for a while and wanted answers.

“Fine...fine... I guess I owe you an explanation at least...” he stumbled forward out of shock and exhaustion. I quickly set the bowl down and went to help him walk to the couch. He was still badly injured.

“Fine but before you explain we better fix your injuries. You may be a werewolf but those wounds are deep. Without treatment they could get infected.” I quickly jogged into Sunghee’s room to fetch a first aid kit.

“Unlike Sunghee, I’m not a herbs and healing witch. I’ll have to patch you up the old fashion way.” I snickered. This would’ve been a lot easier with Sunghee.

“Fine, just get it over with.” Hyunjin sighed. I could still sense his distress from his previous experience.

I started with the cuts on his face. I washed them with a damp cloth followed by alcohol wipes. Hyunjin cringed in pain. I placed small bandages over the wounds and moved on to his chest. As embarrassing as it was, I was forced to lift up his shirt to access the scratches. Any other day the blonde would of teased me for being shy but he was currently in too much distress to do so. The wounds were deep but just shallow enough to not need stitches. I applied the same treatment as I did with his face but used a wrap of bandage instead.

“Ok Hwang, explain.” I crossed my arms as I huffed.

“Fine, fine.” He shuffled in his seat, cringing in pain as he felt his injuries stretch.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I got into a fight, but it was definitely more serious than usual. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now but I usually get home late and after a run in with some not so great people. They’re a group of vampires and shapeshifters that are a part of my gym class. I do excessively well in that class and I guess they were jealous of that so that’s why they first approached me. They wanted to ‘knock me down a peg’ and put me back in my place. It probably would’ve ended there but I’m so terrible at controlling my wolf form that I snarled at them. They chased me home after that. The past few weeks I’ve tried to avoid them, more for their safety than mine. I would sprint home each day in hopes of not starting any drama. Today was the one day I didn’t run home and those punks took advantage of it. They picked a fight with me and out of exhaustion I partially turned and swiped at them. They were pissed. My accidental turning led to them ‘beating me up’ except I was far stronger and managed to do more damage.”

“Wow.” Despite my suspicion I was still a bit shocked to hear the whole story. “I never would have pictured your lazy ass to be a fighter Hyunjin..” I chuckled. “That’s hilarious.” I subtly laughed into my hand. My exhaustion combined with the fact that Hyunjin ran away out of embarrassment made the situation seem hilarious to me.

“Don’t laugh! Hey! I try to keep the place clean! I do my best!” He chided, dramatically waving his hands around in exasperation. Now that I focused on him I realized he was still half turned.

“Hyunjin..” I giggled “You dumbass! Your ears are still out! Can you even tell?!” At my examination he quickly slammed his hands against his head, feeling that his ears were in fact still showing.

“Dammit! I swear these things have a mind of their own! If it weren’t for these dumb ears, I could’ve avoided all that drama!” He groaned as he tried to push his ears back into his head. I giggled and rolled my eyes. “You really do suck at controlling your wolf! As much as it pains me maybe I could help you out?” I stifled my laughter as I wanted Hyunjin to take me seriously. “Oh really? And how do you plan to do that?” He questioned, tilting his head to the side like a lost puppy. “I’m part witch! don’t you remember? I could make you something that can help you control your wolf better! For the time being I can cast a spell on you to alter your appearance! I’d have to be with you during school though...” I mumbled. Despite being ‘roommates’ I didn’t consider us to be close friends

“You’d really do that for me? Ya know you’re a lot cooler than you let on.” He chuckled.

“Hey!”

“Could you maybe tutor me while your at it?”

“Don’t push your luck, pretty boy!”

Over the next few months, Hyunjin and I spent a lot more time together. Initially it came as a shock to the rest of the school. He was a werewolf and I was part vampire, both species that had strongly disliked each other for years. Along with this, the blonde was far more popular than I was. I was more the ‘nerdy witch’ type, who’s only care was grades. Despite all our differences, we got along extremely well. Someone who had never met use before would’ve thought we had been friends for years or even lovers. Due to our tight knit relationship, it was a common task to deny relationship rumors. As promised I did start working on a formula that would help Hyunjin with his transformations. For the time being, I simply cast an illusion spell on him each morning and would check with him throughout the day to assure it was still in effect. Throughout my growing relationship with the boy, I began to feel confused. I felt strong emotions for him, emotions I had never felt before and didn’t understand. I finally figured them out when on the phone with Sunghee. As I described to her my new found friendship with Hyunjin and how much I wanted to hang out with him, Sunghee pieced together that I must’ve liked him , or in her words had a ‘crush’. I immediately dismissed the idea, but over the following week I noticed just how much I liked his company. There was no other way to explain it. Thankfully it didn’t appear to hinder our friendship at the time so I simply pushed the thoughts to the back back of my head.

Currently it was approaching the end of October meaning both finals for that semester and Halloween were in the upcoming week. Hyunjin was stressed to say the least. Despite all the tutoring I gave him, he was still adamant on needing my help to prepare. I decided to make a deal with him. For my witchcraft class I had a final project which required a non-witch partner. If he agreed to do the project with me I could tutor him again for free.

“Wait so what is this project again?” Hyunjin questioned as he took a bite out of pumpkin pie. We were sitting in the kitchen discussing our study plans for that week.

“Well it’s for my witchcraft class, it’s my final project. I need a non-witch partner and I thought you’d be perfect for for it!” I chided, throwing my arm over his shoulder.

“The premise of the project is to develop the three main elements of witchcraft through a secret mission into human territory-“

“What?” His eyes widened in shock as he choked on the pie he was practically inhaling. I patted his back to help with his coughs. He sighed and wiped his mouth. “What do you mean human territory?! It suuuuper dangerous over there! How could they assign that as a school project?!” He was surprised to say the least.

“Look Hyunjin I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not like I didn’t live half of my life surrounded by humans. Just because you’re some rich prince boy who has never seen a human in their life doesn’t give you the excuse to back out on me now.” I sighed as I rubbed my temples.

“The majority of humans are pretty chill. They won’t notice anything if we keep a low profile. All we need to do is collect an item for each element of witchcraft, that’s three in total. We’ll be in and out of there in no time!”

“Ughh... As much as I hate the idea of us walking directly into danger, I can’t afford to fail this test. Plus with all the things you’ve done for me, I think I owe you one.” He chuckled.

“Then that’s settled! Well leave tomorrow!” I clapped my hands together. “Better start packing Hwang!” I shouted as I dashed to my room.

That night I packed the necessities I would need for the small trip. I packed a map, money, a change of clothes, water, snacks, and some tools for spell-craft. Hyunjin and I were to be disguised as travelers who were stopping at the nearest town for some materials. The disguise had to be convincing so I told Hyunjin to wear old, battered clothes and bring nothing too flashy. The only downside to this town was their utter fear of supernatural beings. Many humans could care less but for some this fear had evolved into hatred. If any supernaturals were discovered in or near the town, they would most likely be executed on the spot. In order to keep our cover from being blown, I could not risk the use of the spell I typically used on Hyunjin. He questioned me about it before leaving.

“Wait! What about the spell? You know I still suck at control right?” He questioned, lugging his tan backpack from his bedroom.

“I can’t risk anyone noticing. You’ll have to survive without it for one day. Just wear a hoodie or something to cover your ears if they happen to appear.” He nodded, nervous as ever. “Don’t worry it’ll be fine!” I smiled. “Let’s get going.

The beginning of the project went perfectly. We were able to slip into the town with few people noticing our presence. For the grade, I needed to collect three objects to represent the three elements of witchcraft : defense, offense and recovery. The recovery object was the easiest so we decided to gather that item first. We stopped at a small tea and herb shop, which they surprisingly had, and I bought multiple bags of herbal tea along with healing incense. We did get some strange looks in the store but nothing crazy, they probably weren’t used to teenagers visiting a dusty shop like that. Next was defense. It seemed easy enough. Hyunjin suggested we buy a plank of strongly crafted wood and have it shaped into a shield. He went and gathered that part of the project while I purchased solvents from a scientist that I could use in defense spells. The final element was definitely the most difficult. Offense or in short, something that could kill. Sure we could’ve found a sharp stick or snatched a spear from some old museum but those wouldn’t get me a good grade. I needed something special.

“Hey Look! A weaponry shop! That’s exactly what we’re looking for I chided, pulling him behind me by his sweatshirt sleeve. “We can probably get a gun or something here...” I mumbled. As we entered the small shop we were greeted by an old man. He didn’t say anything directed towards us but a simple ‘Welcome. Shout if you need help’.

“Let’s go quick Hyunjin. I wanna get out of here as soon as possible.” I whispered to the boy as I signaled him to follow me into the store.

“Okay, okay. What do you want me to look for?” He whispered back.

“Find a dagger or knife of sorts, I’ll find a small handgun. Don’t buy anything too gaudy though, we don’t wanna draw attention on the way out.” I walked to the back of the store that was labeled as the gun section. I picked out two small handguns along with a couple packs of ammunition, keeping in mind how they would fit in my pack. I quickly met Hyunjin at the front counter. He had picked out a dark green Swiss Army knife along with what appeared to be a hunters knife. If the store owner didn’t walk out at that moment, we probably would’ve slipped out without paying.

“Hello! Is this all you want today?” He questioned. We both nodded placing the weapons on the counter. He wrapped the items lightly then packed them into a small bag. He handed the bag to Hyunjin as I shuffled through my bag for cash.

“Why you both look pretty young! You wouldn’t mind showing me your weapons license by any chance right?”

Shit. I didn’t think of that. I shuffled through my bag in despair.

“Umm you see sir I think I must’ve lost it while traveling....” I rubbed my neck, hoping he would buy my childish lie.

“I’m sorry but I need to see it in order for you to buy these weapons miss.” He smiled, an eerie smile at that.

“I’m so sorry sir but I can’t find it....” I awkwardly smiled back.

“Well then missy, you’ll have to give those back!” He reached and grabbed at the bag which Hyunjin had handed to me. Out of instinct I pulled it back towards me, effectively loosing my balance and stumbling back into the blonde. It didn’t take long for us to trip over each other and fall to the floor.

“You...you monsters! I knew something was up with you!” The man at the front screeched, flailing his arms about wildly. I furrowed my brows in confusion. It made sense when I finally caught sight of the boy beside me. The fall had effectively knocked the hood of his head and thanks to our luck, his ears were out on full display. We were screwed.

“Dammit Hyunjin!” I yelled throwing myself up from the floor and grabbing at him to get up. “Time to run!” Finally grasping the situation, the blonde sprang up from the floor and dashed out the door beside me. As we sprinted through the city, we heard what sounded like gunshots. I assumed they were signal flares, something to notify the people that supernaturals were there. It didn’t take long before a group of crazed humans were chasing after us with spears and guns. Just as the gunshots began to sound, I managed to put up a protective barrier around us.

“Hyunjin we gotta get out of here as fast as we can! We can’t risk dying or letting them know the school’s location!” I huffed. Running was hard. “I can only keep this barrier up for so long! Do you have any ideas?” I desperately shouted as we made a mad dash away from the town. His eyes seemed to sparkle in excitement at me asking for his help. He had an idea.

“You might not like this idea but I think it could work!” He shouted back.

“What is it?”

“I’m gonna need you to trust me fully! On the count of three, I’ll transform into full wolf form and run out of here with you on my back! There’s no way they could catch up to us!” He panted, his golden eyes shimmering in the sunlight.

“You’re really crazy sometimes Hwang, but this time I’m willing to trust you! Just don’t let us get killed ok?!”

“Alright it’ll take me a minute to transform fully! If you can hold up this barrier for that long we should be fine!”

“Alright!” We stopped suddenly. I closed my eyes in concentration as I chanted the spell for the protective barrier. As I did so, Hyunjin transformed into a beautiful, sleek black wolf.

‘Hop on!’ I heard him speak to me through subconscious thoughts. It didn’t take another word from him for me to swing my legs over his back and latch onto his fur. “Go Hyunjin!” I shouted, causing the wolf to sprint forwards, almost three times as fast as the pace we were previously at.

We ran for what seemed like years. The sounds of gunshots and angry shouts seemed to fade into the distance long ago. We had lost them. Upon passing the school gates, we both collapsed on a grassy area, Hyunjin returning to his human form. I rolled onto the ground in exhaustion. I wasn’t exactly the ‘athletic type’ and that amount of exercise was painful. I chuckled as I saw Hyunjin collapse beside me.

“What are you laughing at?!” He jeered.

“Heh, at least we didn’t die! Now you won’t fail your finals since you are guaranteed my help in studying! Aren’t you happy about that?” I chuckled again.

“Ignoring the fact that we almost died, that was the most fun I’ve had in years! Who would’ve though you to be my best friend-“ I was cut off by the sensation of warm lips against mine. Hyunjin was kissing me. I could feel my face heat up but I kissed back. His feelings were clearly reciprocated. Upon breaking the kiss, I faced away for, him and covered my face in embarrassment.

“Huh? Is that the great and fabulous name being shy at a simple kiss? You’re so weak!” He laughed as he rubbed his face against my neck, similar to how an animal would treat its mate. I chuckled. Two could play at that game. I faced him again.

“Is the great, dumb wolf Hyunjin in love with me?” I smirked as I saw the slight blush bubble up on his cheeks.

“Well maybe I am!” He chided. I smiled

“Well maybe I love you too.”

AN: This was from Halloween buuuttt imma post it now cuz y not 😗. Also I watched the Skz concert this weekend and it was AMAZING. I am currently still in post concert depression buttt maybe I’ll have some motivation to write again soon! Peace out ✌🏼

[blueluneacy]

Otome Game

The first place fic for @pezahut ! It’s just a La Squadra/Reader!

Yes I’m naming it Otome Game because that’s all it is

3k words

Warnings: non con touching

You wondered if this really was your best purpose on La Squadra. While you couldn’t complain, exactly, I mean you weren’t exactly sure if you could really kill people, but when you were assigned here, this wasn’t exactly what you were planning on doing. Maybe cleaning countertops was easier than doing the dirty work the men of the team specialized in. Maybe it was better this way, just to clean. You had become quite good at getting blood out of fabric, though you were still working through what you only hoped was a hunk of mold in the bathroom. Yes, you probably got off a lot better than most people who had the misfortune of dealing with Passione.

Though estranged for years, a family member had used you as collateral and wracked up massive amounts of debts with Passione, before finally kicking the bucket through what you could only assume was mafia justice. Of course, that death apparently wasn’t even enough, and you were collected to repay the debt. With little choice, you ended up here, working with la Squadra for what could only be considered meager wages. But hey, it wasn’t all bad. What you assumed were going to be rough mafiosos were… Well, still rough mafiosos, but they weren’t all bad. They seemed nice enough, even if they were all weird. So, you continued to clean the countertops, hoping that you at least were doing that well enough. This base was always so busy, with people coming and going and eyes on you. 

Currently, you could feel Sorbet and Gelato’s eyes poring into you, the way they always seemed to look at other people the way a cat would taunt their prey. It was creepy, but you took at least a little solace in knowing they weren’t after you. They were lovers after all, and you weren’t going to get in the way of that. Of course… There was the time that Gelato seemed to get a little too close, touching your hair and commenting on it.

“It’s so soft, bella. You should let us tug on it more often~” He commented, leaving you to quickly back away while Gelato laughed like some sort of hyena. Sorbet just stared at you, his eyes practically bearing into your soul. He rarely ever said anything, and when he did, his voice was low, gruff. He only ever said sweet words to Gelato. You assumed that Gelato was just the teasing type, the type to enjoy watching someone squirm and try to wrangle themselves in from their own fear. They worked well together that way, both of them unnerving you in different ways. Occasionally, Sorbet would ask something of you, pressing his hand on your shoulder and speaking almost directly into your ear.

“The meeting is soon. Bring tea.” You sometimes noticed that when you shuddered from how close he was to you, Sorbet would smirk just the slightest bit. But you supposed they were nice enough, just trying to compliment you. Just trying to be nice in their own, weird way.

Then there was Formaggio. He seemed nice, but overly so. He was rough around the edges, for sure, but he seemed to work hard and be good at what he does. 

“What are we doing today, carina?” His voice was always a bit of a purr, and he tended to speak to you as if you were some sort of small animal. He tended to enjoy coming behind you and wrapping his arms around your waist, resting his head on your shoulder. The first time you squirmed and tried to get out his grasp, Formaggio pouted like a child.

“Come on, sweetie, I’m just trying to love on you a little bit. You’re so uptight sometimes.” He would complain, but your protests never deterred him much. Formaggio was certainly affectionate, but you assumed it was just a cultural thing. Italians tend to be a lot more touchy, after all. Formaggio seemed to have some weird inferiority thing, from the way you saw him interact with the others, so maybe he just felt powerful startling you the way he always did. You could never really tell.

Illuso seemed… Oddly curious of you. You swore, he always showed up the weirdest of times. You quickly had become aware of Illuso’s voyeuristic tendencies, from an incident when you were brushing your teeth. He just popped out of the mirror like some sort of ghost, but you hadn’t even said his name three times. When you scrambled back from him, shocked and honestly a little straight, he just laughed at you. 

“Oh, don’t be like that. Am I not allowed to visit now?  It’s not like you’re busy. But if you insist, I could visit you in your room. You know, you look so peaceful when you sleep…”

“You watched me sleep?!” 

“I was just checking up on you! After all, you’re part of La Squadra now? You should be thankful, the way I’m caring for you because you can’t pull your own height and protect yourself. I only want to make sure our resident sapling doesn’t get crushed.” He would always laugh at your discomfort, as if it were some sort of game. You supposed that Illuso did care, it was just in his own odd way. You did your best not to take it seriously. Though occasionally, you noticed his face next to your reflection, or him peeking out of a drinking glass. You decided just to turn the mirror in your room when you slept. Just in case.

Pesci liked to try and help cook dinner, but he wasn’t ever very good at it. You had quickly learned to keep a first aid kit in the kitchen, because god was this guy clumsy. But he was always so earnest about it, you couldn’t help but like him. You remember when he burnt his hand on a pot, forgetting about the pot holders you had put out. You just sighed, watching the way Pesci held his hand to his chest, taking it and looking at the burn.

“Thankfully, it isn’t that bad. Go run it under some cool water, but don’t wrap it up. It’ll keep in the heat.” 

“You… You’re not mad?” 

“Why would I be? It was an accident. I’m just glad you’re okay.” You turned and smiled at the man, not noticing how his face heated up. He was rather quiet for the rest of the time the two of you spent together cooking. You figured that Pesci was just a bit shy and less than confident with himself, the way he seemed to get bullied by the other members of La Squadra. You went out of your way to be nice to him, hoping that it would at least lift his spirits. Whenever he could, he still tried to help you cook dinner. Pesci had told you that one day, he wanted to cook for you by himself. You just smiled and told him that you were looking forward to it.

Prosciutto seemed to regard you at an arm's length. He was probably the most professional out of those in La Squadra, for better or for worse. Apparently, he believed that you shouldn’t be in the base at all, that it was too dangerous for you, a person without a stand. You didn’t exactly understand what a stand was, but apparently they were important, and made a person strong. You supposed that your weakness would be a pretty good reason for the entirety of the group to fuss over you the way that they did, but Prosciutto really wasn’t the type to fuss. He seemed to just regard you kindly, but he was also harsh, often criticizing your work cleaning.

“This is still a mess. These spices aren’t organized at all.” He once told you, looking over your cabinets after a day of going through and getting rid of all the expired stuff, putting together a true grocery list.

“Well, it’s the best way for me to know where all of them are. It may look a little chaotic, but those spices are the ones that I use the most, so they need to be up front. To have them any other way, it would just be a mess every time I needed to cook.” You explained, but Prosciutto just crossed his arms, looking down at you.

“That’s not really good enough. If anyone saw this, what would they think? What would our reputation be?” Ah, reputation. Prosciutto was always concerned with how he and the others appeared to the outside, his reputation as a mafioso meaning the most out of everything. Honestly, you didn’t really care. Although you were technically a mafioso, you barely acted like one, and you weren’t going to change yourself any time soon just for something as silly as fulfilling a stereotype.

“I think they would see that we use a lot of cilantro. Besides, I’m the only one who ever opens this cabinet. You guys are too busy with missions, so I doubt anyone but you would notice.” You replied sharply. While Pesci always seemed to bend to Prosciutto’s will, your tongue was quick. Prosciutto would stare at you for a moment, hoping that you would break, but to no avail. So, he would just pull at his collar, shaking his head.

“You don’t act proper in the slightest.”

“I was never trying to.” You never noticed the way your fire seemed to make Prosciutto’s face heat up. You always assumed that he was just mad at you.

Melone was extremely interested the moment he heard that woman was joining La Squadra. According to Formaggio, he had suggested to Risotto that you were assigned with him so that he would always have a mother for Babyface on hand. The thought actually… Disturbed you a little bit. He didn’t ever make a good impression on you either. He was definitely the loosest and most touchy of La Squadra too, the way he would drape himself off of you and the way he would look at you like a man starved. You could tell that maybe his intentions with you weren’t all that innocent, but you pushed the thought away. After all, he was your coworker! Nothing like that could ever happen between the two of you. 

“Oh, (Y/n)~! What’s on the agenda today, bella? Are you busy?” He would ask you almost every morning, his voice ringing out like a bell. You had gotten used to it at this point, Melone’s weirdness simply being just the way you started your day now. If anything, it would feel weird if he wasn’t there and he didn’t call you like that.

“The usual. Cleaning. Are you ever going to let me into that bathroom of yours so I can clean it, or are you still trying to scrape all the lipstick off the walls?” You found it easy to have a banter with Melone. The two of you bounced off each other easily, and you could find it easy to really just talk with him. Even if he was flirtatious, it all felt laid on way too thick to be truly serious. In all honesty, you weren’t even sure if Melone was into women.

“It’s not ready, I haven’t moved everything. Though, if you do want to help me, I just have the tiniest little request, just the tiniest thing that would barely take half an hour, if you would just be so kind-”

“No Babyface. Remember what Risotto said. I’m not supposed to go out on missions, remember?” You replied, easily seeing through Melone’s tricks. He wasn’t really good at fooling you, or maybe you had just gotten a lot better at seeing through his tricks. Either way, you saying that easily made him pout, leaving him to cross his arms just a little bit.

“You’re no fun. And who’s to say I want it for a mission? Maybe I just believe that we would make beautiful children together, is all.” He replied, leaving you just to laugh.

“Yeah, right. I’m not really looking to become a mother quite yet, thank you though.”

“Mmm. I’ll seduce you yet, (Y/n).” He told you, before slinking off. You never took it seriously, after all, that was just the way Melone was. You shook your head and chuckled.

“I look forward to it.” 

Ghiaccio was basically a ticking time bomb. You had gotten pretty good at figuring out when he was going to explode, but you didn’t really make much of an effort to avoid him when it happened anymore. He was basically all bark with no bite, and the littlest things tended to set him off. Apparently, he’s pretty much always been like this. Screamy, I mean. Like that one time he caught you reading a crummy romance novel late at night, and Ghiaccio had to let you know exactly how he felt in your taste in literature. 

“It’s not only unrealistic, but it puts up this standard for people that makes things absolutely unattainable, not to mention-!” He went on. It had been probably about 10 minutes now, with you half listening as you turned the page in your book. You were surprised someone else didn’t come in and tell him to shut up yet. Ghiaccio really didn’t have any in between volume, rather, he was usually a low grumble, or screaming. You were at the point where you had figured out how to listen to both. However, you were getting a little bit tired, and you wanted to go to bed sooner rather than later. This lecture was probably going to last another hour if you didn’t cut in soon enough, you were going to be here forever.

“I.. I get it, Ghiaccio, really. Thank you for your… Helpful advice.” You did your best to smile, but Ghiaccio only scowled. 

“Were you even listening to me about all this?! It’s important, you know!” He snapped back, but you sighed, crossing your arms.

“I was. But I don’t agree.” You held your ground fairly well against him, leaving Ghiaccio to be taken aback a bit, silent only for a moment. You took the opportunity to make your point, lest Ghiaccio fall back into his tangential rant.

“I mean, maybe it’s not entirely realistic all the time, but romance also makes people want to fall in love, and to be loved. I think it gives people a bit of a goal to strive towards. Yeah, maybe I’m not going to find a knight in shining armor, but I don’t expect that. All I want is to find someone I’m happy with.” You explained, leaving Ghiaccio a tad speechless. 

“Well… I still don’t like it. You should read something that’s actually realistic.” He told you, leaving you to sigh.

“Well, how about this? Why don’t you pick out a book for me to read, and I’ll read it and let you know what I think?” You smiled warmly, leaving Ghiaccio to sputter just a bit.

“I-I… Y-Yeah! If it’ll show you what real literature is like, then sure! I’ll make sure to pick something out that’ll blow you away!” Ghiaccio told you, leaving you just to laugh and smile. Even if he was loud and occasionally obnoxious, you could tell he had a good heart. And in the end, isn’t that all that really mattered?

Risotto was… Well, you couldn’t really put your thumb on it. You would call him cold, but that really wasn’t the right word. Stoic, maybe. The two of you really didn’t spend much time together, but he always seemed to be around, watching over you, and occasionally butting in when he felt like you were in over your head. You remembered the first time you met him, sitting across from him, recoiling in your chair. You felt like you were face to face with death itself, those red eyes bearing into you in a way that almost made you vomit. 

“So, no combat experience? No stand? No skills of any kind?” He asked you, leaving you to shiver just a little bit.

“No… B-But uh… Well, I don’t know, really. I’m not sure why I was assigned here, really, b-but… W-Well, I promise to work really hard at whatever you assign me to do! I know I’m not really strong, or brave, or cunning like a lot of other people, but I really want to try by best at everything that I do. I promise you that no matter what, I’m going to at least do my best, even if it isn’t good enough.” You told him. The way you spoke seemed to make Risotto’s eyes light up a bit. Even if you were scared and small and weak, you still wanted to at least work hard. This burden was put upon you when you didn’t deserve it, and yet you took it in stride. There was a small pang in Risotto’s chest, a thumping of his heart. He looked over his papers.

“Well… We need someone to take care of the base. Someone always has to be here, after all. It’ll be easy to make sure everything is in order with you here, so… Just take care of the place. That’ll be your duty. If anyone needs help, help them within reason.” He told you, leaving you to gasp a bit. Risotto… He seemed like he was cruel and unforgiving, but he really was a kind person. You smiled at him, nodding a bit.

“I promise I’ll work hard then, Mr. Nero! I won’t disappoint you!” You told him, leaving the man just to smile a bit. He reached over as you stood up, taking your hand and pressing his lips against it. 

“I know you won’t. Welcome to La Squadra, and feel free to call me Risotto.”

Yes, the men of La Squadra really were weird, weren’t they? And yet, you found yourself caring about all of them, wanting what’s best for all of them. While you didn’t really understand their weird ways of interacting with you, different from how they interacted with the others of the team, you had noticed, they all seemed to care about you greatly. You smiled as you finished up cleaning the counter, moving to get started on cooking for all of them. Soon, all of your boys would be home, and plenty hungry. While it may be difficult to navigate what fate had put forward for you, you decided to take it all in stride and see what would happen next. After all, who knows? There’s always twists and turns in every romance novel. Maybe all of that would bleed into real life too.