#big hands segmenting oranges carefully

[suguwu]

blindsided by the idea of kita who cuts up fruit for after sex and you being almost pavloved by seeing him cut up fruit any other time

[kaonarvna]

Much the same as the mutual who tagged me - new post! I don't like a cluttered dash. Teeny sample from current Sephesis-adjacent WIP of mine, set early-ish into the crisis of it all.

If you're tagged, make a new post and share the most recent section of the last (fictional) thing you wrote—for a WIP, for a recently posted fic, as long as you wrote it, share it!

I was tagged by @getvalentined !

He walks around to the front of the dead creature. No eyes. Its slack, circular maw droops towards the ground. Its skin peels and crackles with the heat, fat dripping out from between crispy segments of blackened scale. “Is this a landworm?” he asks, looking at the little copy closest to him. It doesn’t respond. “Speak.” It doesn’t respond. Sephiroth stares. The creature takes off its helmet after a moment, holding it carefully in its greased, gloved hands. It looks at Sephiroth with a face only just removed from Genesis’ a decade or so prior. It feels, somehow, the same way as looking at old photos long forgotten about. Like looking at photos that didn’t develop quite right. “I am speaking to you. Respond.” Sephiroth repeats again. The copy squints at him, practically leering at his whole person. “Landworm.” The boy at the other end peers around the roasting worm, while the leering creature steps closer to Sephiroth. “Don’t grab him,” he warns, though it’s hard to hear over the crackling logs. The copy carefully sets its helmet onto the ground, continuing to step again, once, twice, towards the stoic FIRST. His gloved hands are open, and slick with worm lard. The reddish leather takes an almost orange glow as it reflects the dancing flames. Sephiroth watches in perplexed disgust as the winged boy approaches, wholly unarmed. He watches, unmoving, as the boy reaches out to touch his coat the way a toddler touches a hot stove, recoil and all. It leaves a shiny smudge. “Do not touch me,” he says. The boy does it again. “Know no rest.” That disgust warps into concern, glancing at the other beast, and at the dozen or so observers in his peripheral. “Is he unwell?” he asks aloud, carefully deflecting the next coat poke with a very gentle push to the hand. The other copy takes off its helmet as well, squinting, “He is just weak. Not himself.” And then it grabs—those filthy hands reach for fistfuls of silver hair. “Seek it! Seek it thus—seek thus—” It barks loudly! “Gift—Sephiroth!—take, take seek—!" It barks and barks as Sephiroth firmly holds its wrists at arm’s length. A simple grapple is never enough against him; the ‘attack’, if it can be called that, was wholly unsuccessful. The little beast kicks as it barks, though it cannot reach. Just as soon as the creature grabbed, does the flock of copies descend to grip it by the straps on the back of its uniform, and pull it away from the FIRST. They squawk in Genesis’ voice. Insults, orders, and complaints form one dissonant mass of language he can hardly understand, all directed to the uncontrolled copy tossed to the dusty floor. One steps out from the mess and apologises—another SECOND, by the looks of his attire. The standard-issue longsword attaches visibly to the back of his red coat. Not Genesis. “He does not mean harm—some of us do not take it well, he does not mean it—” he stands in between at his fellow-copies restrain, wary of the deepening frown in Sephiroth’s face. He keeps looking at the FIRST’s hands, looking for that damned, hilt-holding position. “He does not think for himself anymore, he is only young, only weak, please—"

( not tagging anyone because I'm a big baby and wouldn't want to risk tagging anyone who's already been tagged by someone else - though if you want to do it, by all means go for it and say I've tagged you. x )

[fisheito]

no no, i’m still thinkin about the oranges cuz under the assumptoion that we are flying an eiden-shaped fleshsuit SO MANY of them would provide us with a little citrussnack like. you could go “oh noooo my hands hurt can u pls peel for me 🥺”

yakumo and olivine are the ones who carefully peel the orange, remove the pith bit by bit, and separate orang into segments .... put it on a plate or smth civilized... maybe even feed you by hand and happily watch u eat bc theyre too frikin nice

blade is so eager to help so he tears the thing asunder in 0.03seconds leaving you with a lumpy pithy orb like TA DA!! but idk if he’s ever seen anyone eat an orange so either u bite into the orb OR tell him how to separate the orange.... in which case he will do so with mathematical precision THEN feed u THEN he’d do it with 300x more oranges until u beg him to stop

eiden would approach morvay and ask “can u peel my orange for me” and morvay immediately agrees thinking it’s code for some obscure sex act but then eito’d have to clarify like “no. i just. can you please peel this orange i have with me, so that i may consume it for non-incuban sustenance purposes”  and his disapppointment is visible/audible but he’ll still do it to help u out

aster?? if u manage to reach aster with an unpeeled orange the little man wouold be HORRIFIED, just AGHAST and MORTIFIED that Master made it ALL THE WAY TO THE BIG BOSS HIMSELF without someone peeling the orange for Eiden. Like. what kinda shoddy service ?? Am I running a mansion or a pisshouse? Gonna have to retrain the staff because if y’all aren’t preternaturally predicting eiden’s every need at every second and making him happy, then you are NOT DOING YALLS JOB

edmond??? when he’s busy???? won’t even entertain u and will str8 up walk away but idk maybe if eiden were to pull the big woobly eyes and edmond wasn’t currently busy... well...> he’d prob give in. but he’d do it his way. throw the orange in the air and slice it with his sword so it lands in perfect slices. so his hands don’t get dirty. and the orange’s tastyinness is now accessible WHICH WAS THE GOAL, ULTIAMTELY,,s o do not fight him on the specifics of your request

garu is also so eager to help like he’ll dig into it with his fingies and he might rip off a chunk or two of juicy flesh while he’s at it but he manages to keep most of it intact so u appreciate the effort. the job is eventually complete, albeit a lil mushy and juicy in some parts. this is an excellent chanCe to engorf an entire half out of garu’s hand and chew like a hamster bc i feel like garu’s curiosity and general unstoppable hunger will lead to eiden sharing the orange. u each get a half and we’re all gonna eat like beasts

annoy quincy long enough and he would cave. like he’d have the math gif flying around his head and the longer u bother him, the less work Peeling Orange becomes in comparison. the first stage is just peeling it enough that you receive an orb. If u make an even more insufferable ruckus, quincy will move to stage 2. which is so very meticulously removing every bit of white from that fruit until it is Pure Delicious Sphere. A sizeable percentage will be given to Topper (should he desire) as a labour tax. u can have the leftovers.

as for the fruit gatekeepers.... 

karu would throw the unpeeled thing back at your face. 

rei would contort his face in disdain at your pissbaby tolerance for pain and just go “boohoo cry me a river. peel ur own dam fruit” 

dante or kuya would give you 100 years jail. neither would dare imagine stooping to such servitude. no fruit for u.

[sillymarigolds]

Well it has been a hot minute. I wanted to share something with all of you wonderful THG/Everlark peeps! This WIP based on @promptsinpanem's "Peeta's Paintbox" has been sitting on my computer unloved for a while because (a) I'm not sure what I'm doing with it and (b) I'm more time poor than usual.

I've signed up to @promptseverlark's Summer "This Would Have Happened Anyway" challenge and am hoping that will give me a big kick up the gluteus maximus to get back into writing because I miss Everlark and all of the beautiful creativity they inspire.

Without further ado...

Peeta's Paintbox (A WIP)

Since coming back to District Twelve, Katniss, Haymitch and I have come into our own rhythm of sorts.

Katniss hunts, Haymitch drinks, and I bake.

Despite not having done it in over a year, my body remembers the bakery’s hours. I rise with the earliest of bird calls when dawn still lies faint on the horizon.

Each morning I bake fresh bread. I add different spices, seeds, and nuts; try new combinations that would have made my mother frown.

Peeta's Paintbox (A WIP)

Since coming back to District Twelve, Katniss, Haymitch and I have come into our own rhythm of sorts.

Katniss hunts, Haymitch drinks, and I bake.

Despite not having done it in over a year, my body remembers the bakery’s hours. I rise with the earliest of bird calls when dawn still lies faint on the horizon.

Each morning I bake fresh bread. I add different spices, seeds, and nuts; try new combinations that would have made my mother frown.

I think my father would have liked the cranberry, orange and almond. He always loved when we could get oranges. He would carefully take off the rind to grate into cakes and divide the orange into segments – always eight –  putting aside four for his baking and then giving one to each of us brothers, saving the last one for himself.

When the bread is baking, I start on cookies to take to the workers clearing rubble and burying the dead. I would prefer to make little iced cakes, but they are difficult to carry and distribute. I tried once, but the icing melted in the midday sun and smeared across the inside of the carry boxes.

The cookies I make never taste right. Father always said he would only tell me the secret ingredient when I got older. Now the secret has been buried with him.

I have been past where the bakery once stood, and there is nothing left but ashes. I almost went to laugh at the irony, but my throat was so dry that all I could do was choke out was a cough that brought tears to my eyes. I had to wipe my eyes on my sleeve and come straight home before the sadness turned to anger.

I keep busy, walking through the streets handing out cookies to the crews that cart away what is left of the old District Twelve. I want sometimes for it to be back as it was, but other times I cannot wait to see it rebuilt from the ashes. I just wish there hadn’t been a need for all this suffering to make change. I take as indirect a route as I can manage, trying to soak up the hours until I know Katniss will be back again and I can start making dinner, keeping my hands and my mind busy.

I think about painting. The catharsis it gave me after I returned from the first Games. But my studio upstairs lays untouched. It feels haunted by the past. 

Today lots of crews have gone home early, so I find myself back hours before the twilight. I walk into the kitchen, looking around for a task. Each baking sheet, mixing bowl and spatula has already been scrubbed and is sitting drying in the afternoon sun. The kitchen benches have already been wiped down, smelling faintly of lemon.

I turn and walk through to the living room. The mending basket is empty, and the kindling box neatly stacked full. My fingers start to itch, feeling idle. Today is Katniss’s favourite kind of day in the woods, sunny and cool, so I know she will be gone some hours yet. Sinking down into the rocking chair, I close my eyes and curl each one of my fingers slowly in turn, pretending I am combing them through her dark hair.

I rock gently back and forth, curling my fingers over and over until I feel my heart skip a beat and then thud hard against my chest as if to compensate. My breath catches and I can feel the blood pulsing in my ears, accelerating as if to reach a crescendo. My knuckles are white as I grip the arms of the chair, eyes screwed shut.

My name is Peeta Mellark. I live in District Twelve. I survived the Hunger Games twice. I was tortured and survived.  I am safe now.

I am safe now.

I am safe now.

I start to whisper the words until I feel my heart slow and my grip loosen.

I decide to have a glass of water and I am greeted by a rainbow projected across the kitchen floor as the sunlight scatters through the glass mixing bowls. Each colour looks so vibrant and beautiful individually, but the collection of them spread at my feet stirs something inside me. It makes me think of the tubes of paint lined up beside the easel upstairs.

[number1trashenthusiast]

Partway to Human (or, coming of age, Turtle Style) - Part 1

Partway to Human

This segment inspired by “Hot Soup, the Game.”

Leo: Raph, you were going on solo missions at his age!

Raph: Yeah, but when I was his age, I was two years older!

Leo: What is with your math? _________________________________________________________

 

Raph is eleven when he goes on his first solo mission.

 

Okay, so maybe it’s not a “mission,” technically. But calling it a mission makes Raph’s hands feel less clammy, makes his breath less hitchy, because Heroes go on missions. Heroes are brave. Heroes save the world.

 

Or, in this case, Heroes try to figure out how to st – cough, get – Flintstones vitamins and antibiwhatsits out of a pharmacy.

 

Raph crouches down in the alley, looking both ways for people. It’s late, and it’s dark – both of those things are helping him, even if they make his knees want to knock together. He breathes out, watching his breath drift away in cloud form, huddling into the oversized hoodie that his father shoved him into because it would help him to hide.

 

“You are undercover,” Splinter had told him solemnly, shaking the ends of the hoodie out so that they almost dragged on the ground. “Let no one see you. Speak to no one. Get in, get out.”

 

“Pops, you always go,” Raph had said.

 

“Orange needs me here,” Splinter said, and there was something in his face that scared Raph maybe more than going to the surface by himself.

 

Raph clenches the piece of paper in his hands. It’s a sandwich wrapper of some kind, on which Pops has drawn in crayon. A bottle with a square-headed caveman on it. A crudely-etched box with some words on it that Raph can’t read, but that he can probably match up to OTHER words on a different box. He knows his letters okay. Not whole big words like Donnie, but if he takes his time –

 

The paper in his hands is almost rattling, he’s shaking that hard. Raph HATES being alone. He hates it. And he hates st- getting stuff from humans like this. But he has to – he’s on a MISSION.

 

Raph closes his eyes and thinks about what he left down at the lair. The way that Mikey’s coughs echoed so bad in that big, domed room, the way they were so loud even dad got out of bed for the first time in three days. They were so loud that dad came into his youngest’s room, where Raph and Leo and Donnie had already piled up all the blankets in their shelter, where Donnie was dutifully googling his symptoms on a laptop they’d recovered from a dorm dumpster, and Leo was sitting on Mikey’s bed reading him comics, or, okay, mostly he was making up stories to go along with the pictures in the comic book, but it was the thought that counted.

 

And Raph had stood there, with his fists clenched – he’s taller than dad now by almost a foot, but he felt smaller, because he’d let his little brother get sick. He was supposed to be taking care of them.

 

This was his fault. He has to fix it.

 

The street is quiet. Raph lets out another shaky breath, and then he carefully crosses the alleyway. He just has to go in, get the stuff, get out. He can go home after that.

 

Pops has told him that if he walks up to the doors of the pharmacy, they’ll open for him, and that he shouldn’t look surprised. He should just walk in with his hands in his pockets. He should keep his hood up, he should look at the floor. He should act natural.

 

Right, Raphie. Just act natural. Like you’re just a normal human, doing normal human things, and not r – not doing a secret mission for your Pops because your little brother’s life may literally depend on you getting a bunch of stuff that you don’t know how to pronounce.  

 

Like Raph has any concept of how normal humans act. Outside of television, he’s never MET a human, just watched them from a distance from under sewer grates and from behind dumpsters. Humans are…foreign. Scary

Fortunately, the pharmacy is mostly empty – one of those 24-hour places. Raph dutifully shuffles along with his head down. No one says anything. No one looks at him. No sirens immediately start blaring, no hordes of scary men with guns show up and announce that he’s coming with them.

Hey, this is easy.

Raph is so focused on keeping his head down that he walks straight into a Christmas cardboard display. The cutout of a red-clad man loudly announces HO HO HO as it sways wildly.

Raph punches it in a blind panic. The cardboard man folds in half and tumbles into some boxes.

 

“Seriously?” That’s the cashier, a young man from the sound of it. He sounds exactly like Donnie sounds any time someone breaks something in the lair.

 

“S-sorry!” Raph stutters. He gestures helplessly at the red man. “He just jumped out at me, ya know?”

 

The cashier looks unimpressed.

 

Raph hastily rights the flimsy cutout of a man in a red suit, feeling his cheeks burn. The cardboard cutout lists a little to one side. HO HO HO, it warbles. “See?” Raph says. “He’s fine.”

 

“Yeah, kid, whatever,” says the cashier. “Just try not to wreck anything else on my shift, all right? I’m out of here in an hour.” The young man has gone back to scrolling on his phone, but Raph is SURE for a moment that the human would look up, would suddeny develop the ability to x-ray stare straight through his clothes and see his shell, his green skin. Raph almost runs into the first aisle he comes to, wondering what humans were made of that they don’t all just die of stress-induced heart attacks. Humans go in and out of stores all the time.

 

The vitamins are easy – the cartoon caveman on the front seems to smile at Raph directly. He snags them and puts them in his hoodie pouch. No one is around. No one sees.

 

"Well, human illnesses are kind of ambiguous – " Donnie, shoving his too-big glasses up higher on his snout. Raph doesn’t know where the kid learned to talk like that, throwing words around bigger than HE was, but it makes his throat close up sometimes.

"Hey, like us!"

"No, we’re amphibious, Nardo, amphi-bi-ous –"

"That’s what you just said!"

"….God, give me strength. Anyway, with humans, this could be seriously anything, but turtles usually get respiratory problems…"

"Donnie, he’s got a cough. I don’t think he’s got any issue with staying cold."  

"Respiratory means BREATHING, ‘Nardo, not – how does that sound like refrigerating to you?  No, stop, don’t answer. Don’t. Turtles have BREATHING problems when they don’t have enough vitamin A or when they have a bacterial infection."

Leo had turned to look at Raph. "Hey, if Donnie’s our brother, how come he doesn’t speak English like the rest of us?"

The antibiotics are going to be harder. It will involve slipping into a back room. Raph tells himself, again, that this is a MISSION. That Mikey NEEDS this. And it’s not like Raph doesn’t know how to sneak places. It was the first thing Pops taught him after how to yell “Hot Soup” and how to spin a ladder. He’s got this.

 

This is New York, so the back room is locked up tight – but Raph just twists the door knob on the side door a little too hard. He hears the inner mechanisms snap, and then the knob is loose in his hand. His hands aren’t shaking as much anymore.

 

Keep your hood down, and mind the cameras. It’s like his dad is right here, whispering those words to him.

 

There are so many boxes and bottles. Raph wants to turn around. He wants to go back to the lair and tell his dad he couldn’t do it. He wants Splinter to pat him on the head and tell him it’s fine, he knows he did his best. He wants his dad to –

 

But that isn’t what will happen. Raph doesn’t KNOW what will happen, exactly, but it isn’t that.

 

Raph pulls the tattered paper out of his pocket and holds it up, squinting between it and the boxes on the shelves. He has to squint, has to mouth the words out loud as he reads them. No, no, what even IS that…

 

That one. That’s the one. Raph grabs it and shoves it in his pouch.

 

“Hey, what are you doing back here?” That’s the cashier again.

 

“And there it is,” Raph mutters under his breath. Because nothing is ever easy, somehow – not getting food, not getting electricity, not staying warm in a big old cavern of a sewer. He makes a mad dash for the door.

 

Leo could’ve got by the guy, no problem. Raph’s younger brother is fast, nimble. Raph isn’t. There’s not enough room for him to shoulder past the human and get out the door. The human manages to grab his sleeve, and Raph – okay, maybe he overreacts. Maybe. It’s just that his dad has always told him how important it is that the humans don’t get him. Maybe it’s just that Pops has always been very, very clear that Bad Things will happen if they do. Raph jerks his arm away, but he jerks a little too hard, and the human goes sailing over his head and into a pyramid of neatly-stacked soda cans. The man lets out a strangled cry and clutches at his back.

 

Raph blinks. He’s been taught his whole life that humans are scary. That they’re dangerous. That they will do Awful Things to him and his brothers if they ever get caught. He didn’t expect them to be so…light.

 

“Wow, sorry,” he says awkwardly. “Are you okay?”

 

Why don’t you weigh anything, he wants to ask and doesn’t.

 

“Am I – what the HELL, man, you just THREW ME INTO THE CREAM SODAS!”

 

That’s enough for Raph. The guy’s talking, so he’s not dead, he hasn’t KILLED him or something. Raph runs out the magic openy-doors as fast as his short legs will carry him, clutching at the two boxes in his hoodie pouch.

 

He runs a long way before he finally slips into an alleyway. He plops his shell against the grimy brick wall and slides down to sit, his chest heaving, his fingers numb from clutching the boxes so hard.

 

He wants to feel good about it. His first solo mission is a success. It’s just, he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel good about it at all. But maybe Mikey will be okay, and maybe –

 

Raph gets up and looks for a manhole. He has to get home.

[wish-i-wasnt-a-coward]

Family Cuddle Pile

a/n: I actually wrote this a while ago but it was perfect for the request. Theirs like, no content for this ship an I love it so much! Thank you for reading :) @arodynamic-enby

Pairings: romantic Anxceitmus and kid!Patton also super background Logince

Warnings: tattoos, less than ideal parent mentions, food mention, and light cursing

Word count: 1,844 

-----------------------------------------------

Remus flopped out of bed, throwing his body carelessly across the room. He hastily threw on his clothes. Short shorts, ripped fishnets, a vest that was more patches than original material, really big clunky shoes, and a ripped up band-t. He also hooked his favorite bone earrings in his tattered earlobes. 

He stomped into his apartment’s kitchen. He grabbed a stale piece of bread he soaked it in coffee. Yawned and grabbed his bag, racing out the door. 

His brother was waiting for him at the tattoo shop, sketching a new idea. Unlike him, Roman only had a few tattoos, including not one, not two, not three… but three Disney quotes, a frog on a mushroom, a rose on his arm, and a constellation. Most of his tattoos were covered by tasteful burgundy overalls and a white button-down shirt.

Remus’ tattoos were also mostly covered by his clothes. But he had a tattoo sleeve depicting the garden of Eden, a matching frog on a mushroom, a quote from one of Roman’s books, medically accurate bone structures on his hand, a realistic spider on his neck, and a snake wrapping around his non-sleeved arm. And those were just the visible ones. 

Suffice to say, the twins were very different. 

Remus threw his bag onto the floor in the backroom, “Ro, when’s the first appointment!!” he yelled. “Your’s? At 11. FYI, Jan n’ Pat are coming over at 12, for motivation” Remus smiled, fuckin’ superb. 

He busied himself in collecting the ink and preparing the tattoo gun. The client wanted a fucking orange on their wrist, it should only take an hour or two but Remus was not excited to do a frickin’ orange circle. 

The prissy orange bitch came in and Remus got to work. They didn’t move much and only cried a little bit when the needle started jabbing at their skin. Remus liked this part of the process, stabbing people consensually was his favorite thing ever… also the art part but stabbing people!

Almost exactly an hour later the door jingled open. “Dada!!” a tiny voice called back into the store. “I’ll be there in a minute patty-cake” Remus called from his spot hunched over the client's arm.

He added the final touches to the fruit and helped the orange bitch off the chair. Roman swept the client away, Remus practically ran to greet his partner and son.

Janus wore a leather corset over a black collared shirt and baggy pants, their long platinum hair framed their face under their signature hat. They were holding hands with a toddler wearing mostly pink and blue, his blond hair (that matched Janus’) was a mop of curls barely held together by a few butterfly clips. 

“Dada, Dada!!! I got you a flower” the little boy cried, letting go of Janus’ hand and stumbling towards the tall man who scooped him up. Patton giggled and held out a sweaty flower clenched in his chubby fist. 

Remus accepted the flower with a gasp, ”this is really for me?” he said joyfully. Adjusting the small boy in his arms Remus turned towards Janus who was looking at the pair with a disgustingly sappy expression. 

“What are you lookin’ at hot stuff?” Remus teased. “Shut it you,” Janus said, pressing a kiss to Remus’ check. Patton made a noise, “icky” he said pushing Janus away. They laughed, “yes darling, we’re very icky”. 

“When’s verge-“

“he’ll be home at 4” 

“Dope”

“Stop by the Sleepy Café before you bring Pat to the apartment?”

“Can do scootal-lo!” 

Remus turned back to the little boy in his arms, “looks like you're stuck with me squirt”. Patton beamed and snuggled into Remus’ chest. Janus smiled again, “I’ll see you, boys, at dinner,” they said, ruffling Pat's hair and peaking Remus on the lips quickly so as to not upset the toddler. “Bye-bye Janny!!” Patton called after Janus as they left for work. 

“Righty-o,” Remus said, carrying Patton into the back room. “I know Ro’s got a couple coloring books, wanna do those for a bit?” Patton nodded and reached towards the ground to be put down. Remus plopped Patton on the couch and pulled out the book and pens as well as a sketchbook off his own. They sat together coloring and drawing until Roman came back to hug Patton. 

“Ah, my favorite nephew!” Roman said, scooping up the little boy. Patton laughed and pulled Roman’s hair. “Roro, can I color your arm pictures??” he asked, pointing to Roman’s rose tattoo. Roman plopped the toddler back down on the couch and handed him a pen. 

Patton went to work on the rose, scribbling reds and pinks and greens across his arm. Roman gave him complements each time Patton paused, and each time Patton shushed him and went back to work. Remus finished up his sketch, adding it to the pile of tattoo ideas they were eventually going to put up-front, and sat next to the toddler. 

“That’s really good pat-” 

“Shhhhhhhh”

Remus nodded and mimed zipping his lips. He liked spending time with the kid. They weren’t biologically related but who gives a fuck about blood, unless it’s outside of your body, then it’s fun. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’ wanna” Patton wined his dad sighed “I know bubbles but we gotta go home to Papa and Janny, isn’t that fun” Patton considered this, “but Roro’s pretty arm picture” he argued. Remus scratched the back of his neck, “Pffffff- Ummm, how about this, we go home now and I’ll take you back to the shop tomorrow after pre-school” 

Patton brightened considerably, “ok” he chirped. “up please” the toddler’s chubby hands reached towards Remus who obediently scooped him up with a coo. After all who was he to say no to uppy hands. 

“See ya tomorrow, have fun on your date with the nerd” Remus sang as he snatched his bag juggling the still fussy Patton in his other arm. “Fu- Frick off Re. Say hi to your partners for me,” Romans said affectionately and waved as his twin left the building. 

Remus happily trotted out into the road. The tattoo shop was located on a quaint little street in the more commercial segment of their town only a short walk from Janus’ job. 

A light drizzle floated around them and the air was warm and comforting. Patton squealed as a large drop of water hit him in the head, prompting a laugh from Remus.

A jingle sounded through the peaceful cafe, the brown room was illuminated by those cool old fashion lights and a lovely array of pastries made the air smell of chocolate and blueberry scones. But the scones, as delicious as they were, weren’t the snack Remus was here for

“Hey babe- Remus why are you soaking wet”

“Puddle” Patton screeched. 

“Kid’s right, Puddle.”

Janus pinched their eyebrows, “ya know what, I’m not even surprised anymore. Just make sure Patton doesn’t catch a cold” they scolded. 

Remus nodded and saluted in mock seriousness, “yes captain” he said and pressed a kiss to Janus’ face over the cash register, “I’ll see ya in a bit” Remus grinned and led Patton back out of the cafe. 

Janus sighed lovingly as they watched their boyfriend and son turn to cross the street, Patton’s hand clasped around Remus’ happily. “Stop looking so happy, you're scaring the customers” Remy teased from across the counter. “Ha, Ha,” Janus glared and went back to work” 

Janus’ apartment was a cute two-bedroom space on the fourth floor of the building. The furniture was an interesting combo of vintage and things from the side of the road. The vintage parts came from their parent’s house, their father had died two years after Janus’ had run away and hadn’t thought to write them out of the will. 

The three of them had made a date out of customizing the few pieces that Janus wanted to keep. The customization mainly included darkening everything and adding more gothic touches. Virgil had done the fabrics, Remus the painting, and Janus moral support/ director. 

The three partners had also painted the kitchen/dining room/living room black with one yellow wall. Janus and Virgil’s room was dark purple instead of black with highlights in the same yellow. Patton’s room was the only one that didn’t  look marginally like a cave. 

The walls were a cream-yellow that lit up in the morning sunlight. After Janus announced that they were going to have a baby Remus had spent three hours painting the grey ceiling with white fluffy clouds. It was one of his favorite projects. 

Patton of course had no regard for the work put into the entirety of his home and was the usual menace of a toddler. And today a toddler with cheerios, truly a sight even god would tremble before. 

Remus plopped down next to Patton who was pushing cheerios around his highchair tray with an intense focus. He smiled at the little boy and flicked on the tv, “got any requests pip-squeak?” Remus asked. Patton looked thoughtful, “dead lady!!” he cried excitedly hitting the tray with his fists, cheerios flew everywhere. Remus nodded, understanding, “Corpse bride coming up!” he picked a few cheerios from the couch “you really are Verge’s kid” 

When Janus got home Patton was curled up on Remus’s chest. Both slept soundly despite the dead folk on the screen in front of them singing about the wedding. 

Janus smiled, their family was fucking adorable. They slipped off their shoes and snuggled up into Remus who hummed happily and pulled Janus into the hug still asleep. 

----------------------------------------

Three hours later Virgil trudged up the four flights of stairs huffing indignantly with each step. Of course, he could take the elevator… but it might break down and he would be stuck for hours. Or someone could get into the elevator with him and he would have to interact with a stranger. So stairs it was. 

He rummaged around his baggy hoodie, running his fingers through his dark purple hair in annoyance when he couldn’t find the key. Once he found it Virgil carefully (as he did everything) opened the apartment door. His combat books clunked satisfyingly against the hardwood floors as he entered his house. Virgil felt the tension leave his muscles, he was home. He glanced across the room, looking for his family. 

Virgil’s face lit up like a god damned Christmas tree. 

Across the room, both his partners and his son were curled up sleeping happily. Drool covered Remus’ face and Janus was snoring, they were the most precious thing Virgil had seen all freakin day. 

The three of them woke as Virgil wrapped his arms around them, Patton squealed in excitement. “Hello, darling” Janus mumbled sleepily into Virgil’s arm. Remus just groaned and nestled into the hug. The toddler wriggled between his dads squealing profusely. “Shhh, s’ sleepy time” Remus mumbled, rolling deeper into the cuddle pile and shutting Patton up. 

Virgil smiled and pressed a kiss to his partner’s cheek. “Mmm, love you” they purred. “Love you too Jan,” Virgil said, nestling his face in their neck. Virgil knew he would have to start dinner soon but that could wait, for now, cuddles.

[nightingaelic]

Companions react to the Courier going for the Pro Deathclaw Hunter or Cracker-Jack Timing challenges.

Why not both? TW: Blood, gore, explosions

"Come on!" the courier yelled, sprinting down the side of the quarry as fast as they could go.

The noise drew the attention of the deathclaws that had taken up residence in the limestone hollow, each one turning to sniff the wind and pinpoint the source of the disturbance. The alpha male roared, and the nesting mother crouched low over her jittery offspring in their gravel nest.

Still, the courier rushed headlong into the canyon, making much more noise than was safe. The rest of the deathclaws began to snarl and gallop toward them, but quick to meet the noise of their charge was an angry buzzing cresting the quarry's rim. A swarm of cazadores poured over the limestone edge, hot on the courier's trail.

Whooping with delight and maybe a little fear, the courier waved their hat in the air as they ran, signaling their companion. They began to zig and zag around the quarry basin, between the piles and crates of tell-tale red sticks that had mysteriously appeared in the deathclaws' den overnight.

Arcade Gannon: "What are we doing?" Arcade swore, pressed his back against the limestone slab he had been crouching behind and lit the fuse next to him. It fizzed and sparked, quickly burning down the rope and out of sight. Arcade covered his ears and shrank as far into the rock as he could, but the first blast of dynamite still shuddered through his whole body and cracked the air loud enough to deafen a cyberdog. Gravel flew left and right in Arcade's peripheral vision, and the explosions were quickly underscored by frantic roars and shrieks from the courier's injured prey.

Arcade could pick out the whine of the recharger rifle as it fired repeatedly, and counted six grenade blasts before the battle was over and the quarry fell quiet. He only dared to move when he heard the courier calling him, urging him to come out of his hiding place.

"I don't care if the NCR gives you an entire state to clear out another deathclaw nest, you are not bringing me along," he announced as he rose shakily to his feet, leaning on the huge chunk of limestone for support. "Having to watch you sneak around here last night planting bombs everywhere through a pair of binoculars was already torture, but this?"

The courier, who stood breathing heavily among the remains of deathclaw and cazador alike, shrugged. "Suit yourself. But next time, then, you're not seeing any of the caps."

Craig Boone: Boone let out the breath he had been holding, loosened his limbs and squeezed the trigger of his rifle. He pulled away from his scope to watch the bundle of dynamite explode once the bullet hit it, setting off a chain reaction that engulfed the quarry in flying rocks, fire and wasteland critters torn asunder. Outside the blast radius, Boone waited, listening to the screams of dying deathclaws being cut short and the whine of injured cazadores stopping one by one. Here and there, the hum of an energy weapon cut through the tangle of noise, and the pop of homemade grenades kicked up smaller bursts of crushed rock.

Eventually, the courier walked out of the Mojave's newest dust cloud and made their way up the ridge Boone had chosen as his vantage point. They were covered in blood, but Boone was certain it wasn't theirs. Any normal person wouldn't have walked out of that quarry alive: Then again, any normal person wouldn't have gotten up again if they'd been shot in the head.

They tossed their dented recharger rifle on the rock next to Boone and laid their string of tin grenades down reverently. "All finished."

Boone raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The courier caught the rare display of skepticism and grinned. "What? After Coyote Tail Ridge, this was a cakewalk."

Lily Bowen: "Oh, be safe, pumpkin!" Unable to contain herself, Lily bellowed the warning to the courier while she struggled to light the fuse next to her. It took a few tries, but eventually the lighter sparked beneath her large fingers and the flame danced away into the quarry. A few of the closest deathclaws turned their heads toward the sound of her voice, and Lily gripped the hilt of her vertibird blade tightly as they caught sight of her and began to charge. She needn't have worried: They were right on top of the first pile of dynamite when the fuse burned up to it, and were completely annihilated in the resulting explosion.

As the dynamite caches around the quarry began to explode one by one, Lily waded in, sword swinging. All of the cazadores and deathclaws she encountered were already dead, but she buried her blade in their necks to make sure. A few of the creatures still cried out and writhed on the ground, but before Lily could make her way over to finish them off, they were silenced by smaller blasts or the beam of an energy weapon. Eventually, the only two things still making noise in the quarry were her and the courier.

"Come here, dearie," Lily insisted, pulling a handkerchief the size of a small tablecloth out of her overalls. "Let's get you cleaned up."

The courier half-heartedly tried to wave off her attempts to mop the blood and dust off of them, but eventually submitted to her attentions. "We'll go straight back to Sloan and ask to use their showers," she chided as she carefully wiped their face. "You have to look presentable before you turn in the bounty."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul, who wasn't particularly religious, still hedged his bets and crossed himself before lighting the fuse. "No mames, courier," he muttered as the flame spread rapidly along the rope and out of sight. "I'd like to keep my limbs."

He needn't have worried. The explosions he had helped the courier rig went off without a hitch, one after the other in a chain reaction of destruction that showered the quarry in cazador segments and deathclaw tails. A piece of a cazador wing fluttered down out of the dusty sky, drifting softly to the ground until it came to rest next to Raul's boot. He picked the orange, gossamer insect part up, turning it this way and that to catch the light while the courier's sounds of battle echoed behind him.

"A little help, Raul?" he heard them call after a minute or two.

Raul sighed, plucked a spare stick of dynamite from the box they had left him, and walked down to the quarry bed. They were holding off a crippled deathclaw with their recharger rifle, which appeared to have been damaged enough to stop functioning. The immature deathclaw appeared to have realized its attacker was out of grenades as well, and had backed them up against a limestone slab.

Raul lit the fuse on the dynamite and chucked it at the deathclaw. "Duck and cover!"

The courier obeyed and hit the ground hard, just in time for the creature to explode over them. They disappeared under a shower of blood and scales.

"You owe me dinner at the Gourmand," Raul said, crossing his arms and surveying the scene. "Before you get any other bright ideas."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Oh hell yes." Cass popped her head up over the rock she'd been crouched behind, checking the courier's proximity to dynamite caches before setting the fuse she was holding alight. It did the trick, and Cass started whooping too as the explosions began to go off. Unable to hold back her laughter, Cass giggled with abandon as she chucked tin grenades and spare dynamite sticks into the resulting fray. The courier was little more than a shadow, putting down injured creatures left and right with merciful blasts from their recharger rifle that lit up the dust cloud like lightning.

When the debris began to settle, Cass pulled herself up onto the limestone and stretched out with a contented sigh. "That went a sight better than the last time we tried this, Six," she called.

The courier appeared in the quarry's center, panting. Their eyes were just as full of joy as Cass' had been, and they doubled over to put their hands on their knees and rest. "Agreed," they finally said, when they had caught their breath.

"Final count?" Cass asked.

They scanned the canyon together, counting on their fingers. "Twelve cazadores, including the one back at the memorial, and... nine deathclaws," the courier answered, their eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Personal best?"

Cass nodded. "Definitely. And now..."

She scooted off the rock and patted dust out of her clothes. "... we collect. Those Sloan boys owe us big-time."

Veronica Santangelo: "Oh, this is a bad idea." Veronica gritted her teeth and lit the fuse the courier had left her with, then pressed her hands over her ears as tightly as she could. When the rumble of the explosions had stopped, she dared to peek outside her hiding place, but the floor of the quarry had disappeared under a cloud of smoke, limestone dust and cazador parts. The wounded cazadores were trying in vain to sting the angry lizards that wandered too close to where they lay. "Not gonna work, buddy," Veronica said under her breath, when one of them jabbed uselessly at a surviving deathclaw baby. "That stinger won't get through those scales and thick skin. You're toast."

A smaller explosion obliterated the two creatures as they were locked in combat, and the courier emerged from the mess. "Come down here!" they called, before firing a few blasts from their recharger rifle into the deathclaw for good measure.

Veronica skidded down the quarry's side, scattering gravel in her wake. She brushed her robes off and straightened up. "All finished?"

The courier beckoned her over to where the nesting deathclaw mother had been crouching before the dynamite made its entrance. There, miraculously untouched by the turmoil around them, lay a clutch of unhatched eggs.

"Ohhhhh." Veronica's eyes went wide, and she knelt down next to the nest. She felt the closest egg. It was still warm.

"What do you think?" the courier asked. "Jas Wilkins has dibs on one of these, but what about the rest? Take them to Red Lucy?"

Veronica picked the egg up and cradled it close. "Can I keep one?"

"Uhhhhh..." The courier shrugged. "Okay. But if we bring it back to the Lucky 38, Arcade will kill us."

ED-E: The eyebot at the Courier's side began blasting battle music from its speakers and drew a few of the pursuing cazadores away from the chase. When they were right on top of a crate of dynamite, deposited carefully under cover of night by the courier and their faithful robot, ED-E zapped the concealed fuse and blew the bugs to bits. The eyebot tumbled in mid-air, but quickly recovered and gained the attention of a pair of deathclaws, who fell for the exact same trick. They went down a little less easily, but the courier filled in with a tin grenade and a few blasts from their recharger rifle. The two spun around each other, ED-E beeping triumphantly under the music and the courier grunting and yelling with the effort, until no more challengers arose and they stood alone in the center of the quarry.

The courier turned to ED-E and checked it over for dents. ED-E beeped its satisfaction, and they laughed. "Good job, but we need to get you a new set of songs to play. Maybe we can find Mr. New Vegas and get some holotapes for you."

Rex: The cyberdog bounded at the courier's side, and darted away only once to avoid the Molotov cocktail they tossed at the nearest dynamite cache. The world exploded around the pair in a cacophony of disrupted earth, rock and enemies. Rex latched onto the nearest deathclaw's tail, forced it to turn in a tight circle and remain relatively still until the courier's gun took it down permanently. They tore their way through each of the challengers, insect and lizard alike. When the last enemy fell, Rex remained alert, scenting the settling dust and directing his companion to surviving cazadores and deathclaws that lay dying. Their breaths were each cut short by the courier, and Rex's heart sang.

[greaterspawnislands]

the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn | of the seed and the sickle

their first meeting

(or, hades and persephone, i suppose that’s one way to look at it)

links in the notes/reblogs :) 

In the center of a valley, past evergreen trees that border a rushing, bubbling river, past tall, spindly aspen trees with leaves that are just starting to turn sunset shades of orange and yellow, is a small farmhouse. Bordered by fields with crops ready for harvest and the forest beyond, the idyllic house crafted of spruce and stone sits alone. The dwelling is still and silent, save for one restless being, who stands at the kitchen window and stares at the stars.

Phil exhales lightly from the counter, fingers tapping alone the smooth-cut stone. The house is quiet. Tommy is fast asleep, the nine-year-old tired out from another day of running through fields and forests on another adventure. Wilbur, not much older at thirteen, is just as tuckered out from keeping up with the younger blond, though whether he's actually asleep or using the moonlight to read books by is hardly Phil's concern.

Humans exist to fail by trial and error, after all, by consequence or natural progression. In the end it doesn't matter in the slightest, as mortal lifespans pass in the blink of an eye. Little changes from one life to the next, absolutely unchanging when it comes to books read by moonlight and heavy eyes refusing to sleep.

Children learn, and change, and learn, and change, and die.

Phil sighs again, wings fluttering behind him with a never-ending restlessness. His mind is a cycle of endless, meaningless thoughts that swirl like the clouds in the sky above him, parting briefly to reveal unconnected constellations that span across the dark sky.

The kitchen is barely big enough to fit his wingspan but Phil extends his extra limbs anyways, wings trembling as they brush against cabinet doors and pass the open doorway to touch upon the main room. Some of the moonlight catches on his feathers, glossy cream feathers dappled with the floral hues of light green, pink, and blue, the colors of a clear spring sky over a field of campions.

He wants nothing more than to take flight, now, soar until he finds a field exactly like that, but there will be no flowers blooming this late in the year, not without his coaxing. It is the time for deciduous trees to change the colors of their leaves from a summer green to a display of fire without the heat. A burning, brilliant showcase of shades before winter winds sweep in to douse the flames and bring bare branches and bright white snow to cover the ground completely.

Spring can not come early, nor disrupt the flow of the seasons that mortals so desperately rely upon to track the course of their lives until they no longer make it to the next turn of temperature. The Winter-Bringer flies the skies now, with his wings made of dark, opaque ice and endlessly calm disposition, for fall and winter move slowly, relentless yet patient in their arrival. Phil, in great contrast, is scattered and hasty, ready to melt snowdrifts with a flap of his wings at any second to watch bright flowers bloom under his gaze.

He has lived far too many centuries now to try and disrupt this cycle that he and Bad have fallen into, not willing to push his luck with The Balance any more than he does already.

Phil folds his wings and steps outside, pausing carefully to listen for either of his human sons' movements in the dead of night. There is silence, and so he steps outside, shivering as a cool autumn breeze rushes at him from the forest beyond. Hours left until they wake and he can fill another day with the love and care he has set aside for them, but now is no longer that time.

Outside, standing on the porch and looking out over his fields that he coaxed from the earth with careful hands, his fingers twitch. The knife sits in its sheath against his side, and he knows how trivially easy it would be to call upon Technoblade. Centuries ago, now, he could have flown into battle over Techno's head, landing his own blow as the Blood God took what was within his name to do.

Phil held his tongue to keep from cursing out The Balance aloud. It wouldn't give him anything except a visit that would fucking terrify his kids, which is the last thing he wanted. Now, he knows, that when he calls upon Technoblade that all he'll receive is a sorrowful look hidden behind the gentle smile given to the two mortal children who crowd his legs and beg for stories of grandeur and glory.

His wings catch the breeze a little as he steps out into the fields, barefoot, and he flaps them once, twice, watching the grain ripple out like the waves of the ocean. It shimmers, briefly, before settling, and Phil casts his eyes to the skies, wishing for something he can do nothing about except wait for.

Waiting, that's all a god's existence is, these days. Waiting for the moment of allowance when what was within a domain could be used or brought upon the world. Order, it was called. Balance, it was decreed. Chaos, dosed out in controlled segments, punished for being overused on a whim.

Bullshit, Phil sometimes privately thinks, when selfish thoughts crowd his mind.

He reaches the edge of the forest, casting a backwards glance at the house before departing into the treeline, forced to bend his wings to accommodate the interspersed tree trunks and bushes that crowded the forest floor. His fingers snatched leaves from the sky and scooped them up along the forest floor, feeling the cool plant matter against his fingers before he released it back to the rest of the rotting leaves along the floor. A trail of freshly green leaves followed him, from his footsteps and fingertips, turning in wandering circles until he is entirely surrounded by trees that are slowly blossoming to life again underneath his touch. They are the same leaves that thread throughout his hair, an array of flora blossoming along his scalp, intertwining with his blond locks. His coat, too, is made of those same spring-green leaves, shifting in dappled sunlight, sadly stagnant so late at night.

Around him, the animals that haven't already found shelter for slumber scamper across the forest floor, looking for a place undisturbed by a deity and his widespread wings. Crickets chirp in the undergrowth, and a few curious birds flutter along the treetops, wings beating among the leaves as they settle on branches to peer down at him from their perches above.

Soon, Phil stops underneath the stars, a spot where the trees have pulled back from each other just far enough that when he tips his head back, he can see the clouds clearing to display the stars, and when he looks around again, he can see no fields just beyond.

"Oh, shit," Phil mutters aloud, slowly realizing how far into the forest he's walked. "Where the fuck have I wandered to?"

He isn't answered so much as heard by a single crow, hopping down a few branches to perch upon a limb just a few feet taller than him. Phil meets the bird's gaze, and the two winged beings look curiously at each other for a moment, searching for more than what might meet the eye.

The crow takes flight in a blur, brushing right past Phil's cheek in a brush of wing that makes him yelp in surprise, turning his head to follow the crow's movements. "Hey!"

A few paces away, the bird waits on another perch in a different tree, still staring dead in his eyes, head tilted in clear expectancy.

Two more crows join the first, hopping on branches and the knots that jut out from various trunks of aspen trees. Phil continues to follow the first crow even further into the forest, a sense of uneasiness curling within him as more and more birds populate the trees around him, all staring down at him with the exact same inquisitive eyes, staring, watching, waiting.

It would be easy to turn around, or to fly out of here in an instant, back to the safety and stillness of the farmhouse and the two safe children that sleep within it. It would be easy to shake off the curiosity and excitement that mingles with this nervous feeling, to return to a routine of simplicity and ease.

But there is not much that Phil would consider to be beyond his knowing, these days. Now, hundreds of crows stare down at him from the trees that stretch high in the sky, nearly blocking out the orange leaves entirely as their round black bodies press together and their wings fluff out, all identical and yet Phil is certain he knows exactly which crow is the first one to appear to him, the one continuing to hop between branches as he follows, nearly dashing across the forest floor. Even more crows flutter around him as he moves, wings brushing against his own and landing on top of his striped hat or resting on his arm for a moment before taking flight again.

It's overwhelming, it's overbearing, and it's exciting. A wide, wild grin stretches across Phil's face as he spreads his arms, turning and laughing as the crows fly around him in a blur, hiding even the trunks of the trees from him now as he spins with them.

And then they're gone, off in a mass of beating wings and flurrying feathers, and Phil stands at the mouth of a large, dark cave, watching as the murder descends down into the darkness that lies below.

"Wait!" he calls, but the crows do not answer. They move as if they had never pressed their wings close to his cheeks, they move as if direct by something else entirely, they move as one.

Phil analyzes the structure of the cave, the width and angle of descent in a few quick glances. The cave is wide, and he cannot remember if he had been able to see the walls of it before, but when he looks at it again the slope is more than wide enough to accommodate his wingspan, walls consumed with shadow. The calls of the crows are growing fainter, and Phil does not spare a glance back to the forest and what rests outside of it.

His wings snap out, pastel coloring swallowed by dark shadow, and he flies, wings carrying him down in a quick descent as he takes off after the murder of crows who had led him here.

A breathless laugh leaves him as he flies again, wings maneuvering through the wide tunnels and closing to dart between smaller spaces held up by pillars of dirt and stone. He can barely see, and yet instinct takes over, following the distant cries of the crows through turns and tunnels and pausing, once, in a wide open space where a pool of water opens over a great cavern. Phil stays aloft there for a moment, marveling at the dark water he cannot see the bottom of and the ceiling he cannot reach, before taking off after the crows he can still hear, though deep inside him he knows they should be so much farther now, and he knows that they are waiting for him.

The tunnels narrow the more he flies, and soon Phil is struggling to keep his wings from brushing harshly against the sides of the tunnels, wincing as he dives through narrow gaps and struggles to keep aloft. He can no longer hear the crows, but he continues to fly anyways, pushing himself through the ever-narrowing tunnels until he can no longer flap his wings. Phil tumbles to the ground, pulling his wings against his back before standing again, staring at tunnel that waits ahead for him, barely taller than he is, and just as dark as everything before him.

Phil frowns, the sense of adventure draining from him as the mobility of his wings is restricted again. He scoffs lightly, listens out for the crows and hears nothing, and turns to find his way back out again.

The tunnel shakes, and rocks begin to fall around him.

[honeylikewords]

gifts (din djarin)

(a hanukkah fic about my Very Definitely Jewish Darling, Din Djarin. i left a few things ambiguous-- for example, Grogu is very definitely the baby/child/son being mentioned, but his name isn’t used so that he can be interpreted as either a human or alien child-- but it should still all make sense. also, Din and his beloved being a married couple. that’s about all you need to know! enjoy!)

“You have to actually at least try to wrap them.”

Din casts a narrow-eyed look over his shoulder at his wife, who is standing behind him in her pajamas, arms crossed over her chest with a playful smirk on her lips. She leans against the doorway to his work room and points at the small pile of presents laying in crumpled, crinkled, crushed lumps of misshapen paper, her eyes twinkling in the glow of his bench lamp.

“It’s hard,” he grumbles, turning back to the task at hand upon his workbench with a pout. “Besides, it’s not like he can even open packaging.”

“You can’t just give him unwrapped gifts, sweetness. The wrapping paper’s half the fun!”

“When I was a kid, I didn’t even get presents,” Din grouses, fumbling with a piece of tape stuck to his fingers. “It was just lighting the candles, prayers, and maybe dinner. None of this gifting stuff.”

“I know, hon.” 

Walking up behind him, Din’s wife places an affectionate kiss on his temple and rubs at his tight shoulders, giggling to herself at his dour disposition. The corner of his lips twitch but he seems to suppress whatever emotion had intended to cross his face, instead allowing for the frown lines to form deeply on his forehead as he scrunches his brows and futzes with the obstinate tape again.

“But,” she continues, “We both agreed that the little guy was gonna get presents for each night. And if we’re going to be giving gifts, we ought to be wrapping them. Right?”

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, voice softly distant but accepting. 

There’s a pause as she reassuringly massages her thumb along the neckline of his shirt and he makes that low, clearing sound, deep in his throat-- the ever-familiar noise of Din trying to gear himself up to say something he’s shy about-- then casts his eyes down at his hands, picking aimlessly at the affixed tape.

“Could you, uh… help me, please?”

His wife chuckles and rolls her eyes, bending down to kiss him solidly on the cheek, nodding as she pulls up a stool and sits next to him at the workbench. She lifts up one of the malformed paper-piles trying to pass itself off as a wrapped present and reaches over Din’s fidgeting hands to pick up his box-cutter, slicing through the masses of poorly-placed tape and crumpled paper to excise the gift within.

A Hot Wheels car in a plastic box sits before her, safely removed from its cocoon of wrapping paper, and, satisfied with her work, she turns to Din, flashing him a warm smile.

“What paper did you wanna use for this one?”

Din scuttles off his stool and procures a laundry basket packed with long tubes of rolled wrapping paper. He picks up one printed with chubby penguins wearing knit vests and pom-pom hats, and presents it to his bride proudly.

“I thought he’d like them,” he explains, pointing at one of the vested birds. “He loves animals.”

His brown eyes glimmer beneath the lamplight, and his eagerness to please gives him a puppyish sweetness, almost as if he’s waiting for her to praise his selection in paper. She can’t help it; leaning over, Din’s wife gives him yet another kiss, this time a light, brief peck on the lips, and feels him melt slightly into her touch, his tension from his earlier frustration ebbing away. 

When she pulls back, Din’s face is clearly warmed-- a certain glow about his cheeks and ears, and a pleased expression overtaking him-- and he flashes her a sheepish smile.

He watches as she carefully unspools a length of the paper and measures it against the matchbox car, flipping the container this way and that until she has the correct proportions. Once she is content, she takes up a pair of scissors Din had long-since abandoned on the workbench and glides through the paper easily, slicing off a neat section of it before aligning the present just so and making her folds.

Entranced by the efficiency of her motions, Din stares as she makes neat fold after neat fold, enveloping the small box in a smooth, crisp layer of the penguin paper. She holds down the nexus of the folds with one finger and turns to Din, pointing to something further down the worktop surface.

“Could you hand me a piece of tape, honey?,” she asks, twirling her finger as if that will summon the tape dispenser closer. “I can’t reach it from here.”

Din gives a wordless nod and cuts her a small segment of the tape, taking great care not to get it tangled around his fingers again as he gingerly affixes it to the end of hers. Once she has it, she places it on the central fold of the paper amalgam, then extends her hand again; a silent request for another piece.

Once more, Din cuts off a length of tape and gently places it in her hands, and watches her with wonderment as she seals the gift into its paper, flipping it over so that the seams are concealed at the bottom. She looks up and down the table, brows knit, and sighs through her nose.

“Did you… not bring any bows or ribbon out, Din?”

“...We have ribbon?”

She lets out a huff of affectionate exasperation and gets up from the workbench to scour through the basket of paper and finds what she’s looking for wedged in at the bottom; out of the depths of the wrapping paper basket she procures a rather beaten-looking baggie of stick-on bows and spools of ribbon, shaking it as if to say “behold, Exhibit A” to her husband.

Din gives her a beleaguered shrug of the shoulders followed by what he clearly hopes to be a winning smile, and she acquiesces, returning to the bench and tugging out a blue bow and unpeeling the backing of it.

“I think he’s going to love this one,” she murmurs as she affixes the bow, placing it jauntily on one corner of the box’s flat surface. “I think he’s going to love all the presents you picked for him.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Din sit up straighter, his chest pushed out a bit more prominently, pleased and prideful. She chuckles to herself and pulls out a marker from a “WORLD’S NO. 1 DAD” mug on the desk, uncapping it and handing it to Din.

“Write who it’s from on it so he knows, okay?”

Din grins and nods, almost childlike. Just below the bow he writes the words “FROM DADDY TO KID” in his heavy handwriting, letters slightly clunky but nevertheless legible. He recaps the pen and places it back in the cup, pleased with his successful signage.

“That’s one done,” she beams. 

“Seven more to go,” he responds.

They talk quietly as they continue to wrap his gifts-- a picture book, a set of chunky, toddler-fist sized building blocks, a plush frog, a box of bathtub soaps, a few tubs of play dough, a thick-pieced jigsaw puzzle depicting a rocket ship, and his “big present”, a push-along bicycle-- and Din helps as best he can, holding down junctures of folded paper for her or cutting off strips of tape or signing this and that as he’s asked to. 

The bike poses a particular problem to the couple and they sit on the floor and take turns shearing off thin, manageable pieces to try and coat the vehicle in a sort of woven cask of paper, and as they work their conversation continues, voices soft to match the hour of the night.

“I think I got some candy, one year,” Din says absentmindedly, hands busy wrapping the infant-sized handlebars in a layer of puppies-in-yarmulkes-print paper. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Every so often there were the chocolate coins or those, uh, you know--”

He frowns for a moment, trying to conjure the words to mind, pausing midway through the mummification of the bike. When he catches the memory, he snaps his fingers, smiling with satisfaction.

“Like, the gummy fruit slices? You know? Where they were, I think, supposed to look like oranges most of the time, but some of them would be green or blue or--”

“With the little white strip kinda towards the outside edge?”

“That’s the one!,” Din grins, resuming his wrapping. “We’d have those from time to time. They were always at least a little stale, but I remember them being there when we’d have the bigger gatherings; if there was going to be a group of people over for the meal, usually someone would bring along a box of those fruit slices for us kids.”

“I don’t think I ever ate those,” she remarks, wrapping a thread of the paper around the seat of the bike with careful delicacy, “But I’d see them in stores all the time and wonder about them. They looked good in that sort of ‘imaginary foods’ kind of way.”

“We’ll get some next time we’re out,” Din says. “Gotta at least try ‘em.”

“And we’ll have to get him some applesauce,” she notes, adding to their mental list. 

“Yeah, he seems to like the latkes better when we have applesauce with them. Takes after me like that, I guess.”

She looks up to see Din smiling to himself, and she knows that smile well-- it’s the expression he wears when he thinks proudly of his son, when he’s picturing that tiny little face and those big, dark eyes and sweet smile. 

Overcome by affection, she reaches her hand out and lays it atop his, stilling him in his work. He turns his head up to face her, at first surprised, and then comforted. He cocks his head to the side and gives her another smile she knows: a smile of love, his eyes tender with attention, hazy with memories. 

She interlaces their fingers and leans across the bike, coming face to face with him, and rubs the ball of her nose against his, feeling the tickle of his wispy mustache hairs and the smoothness of his skin. His breath is warm against her face and she sighs, contented.

“You’re a good dad, Din Djarin,” she whispers, feeling him tremble slightly at the words, at the ghost of her voice trailing over his skin. 

She feels him nod and push slightly closer, hovering his lips over hers with an intended pause, a permitted distance.

“Thank you,” he rasps back, cowed by modesty. 

He hesitates for half a second, a fraction of a moment, until he feels her putting her hand on the side of his face and becomes emboldened-- he presses forward and pushes their lips together, slow and deep and soft, unhurried in his indulgence. 

Din allows one hand to tuck under the back of her head, cupping her close as he closes his eyes and savors the moment. He doesn’t care that they’re hunched over their child’s half-wrapped bicycle, nor that it’s well past midnight, nor that his legs and back hurt from sitting at an awkward angle at his workbench all those hours. No, all he can think of is this: her, warm and yielding and loving, her lips against his, a piece of his family, his clan.

They linger with one another for a long moment, then part, lazy and hesitant, hovering mere millimeters away. Din’s fingers trace softly along the base of her skull, brushing the hair at the nape of her neck to great effect. She brushes their noses together again and blinks up at him, gazing into the warm depths of his richly brown eyes as he scans her face with them, flitting from feature to feature to gauge her emotions.

He traces a hand down her shoulders and strokes faintly at the ridges of her spine that he can feel through her pajamas, his touch surprisingly dainty for a man so often entrenched in roughness and power and strength. Charmed, she lays her head on his shoulder, stretching slightly across the width of the bike still situated between them so as to wrap her arms around his neck and press her ear to his chest, both of them still and silent but comfortably so.

Din’s fingers continue to glissade up and down the column of her neck and back, every so often tantalizingly tickling at her sensitive hair and making her shiver, pleased. She squeezes him tight and nuzzles into his chest.

He makes that noise again-- muted but buried, but a rising clearing-- and he shifts, slightly discomposed as he tries to gather his courage. Looking up from his chest, she watches his face as he moves the corners of his mouth, readying himself.

“I, uh,” he starts, cheeks beginning to color slightly, “You know… I love, um, love you very much.”

She pauses, then grins.

“Of course I do, Din.”

“Thank you for helping me,” he mumbles. “And for kissing me. And thinking I’m a good dad.”

At that, she laughs, and Din is taken aback, an abrupt embarrassment overtaking his expression. She sits up and shushes him, putting her hands on either side of his face and pressing pecks all across his cheeks and lips, giggling between kisses.

“No, no, honey, it’s not that,” she titters, amused by his indignant countenance, “It’s just so cute!”

He furrows his brow and frowns.

“You know I’ll always help you,” purrs his wife, brushing one of his downy cocoa-colored curls behind his ear. That seems to melt his icy stiffness, if only a little. “And that I love you so very much. Right?”

At that, he lumberingly nods. She smiles, and joyfully kisses the downturned corners of his pouty lips.

“It’s just so cute that you’d thank me for kissing you,” she says, a glittering edge of adoration tinting her voice. “We’re married!”

Din’s face flushes and he looks down at his hands, wringing his palms slightly. His boyish bashfulness has her heart aflame with affection, and she can’t help but push closer, tipping the bike over slightly as she kisses his face anew, endeared to him beyond words. She kisses the ticklish spot just under his ear and Din lets out a little half-yelp, half-laugh, and she beams up at him, watching his sullen sulk fade away.

“I know we’re married,” he mutters, trying to suppress his mirth. “But it’s still… it still surprises me, sometimes.”

“Oh, honey,” she breathes.

Looking away, Din fumbles a bit and tries to stand up, making it to his feet with some effort as his knees make a slight popping noise. His wife giggles and he casts a sharp look down, preemptively scolding her away from making a joke about his age. Extending a hand to her, Din lifts her to her feet as well, somehow managing to gracefully guide her up and around the bike and directly into his arms, holding her to his chest with no barrier between the two of them.

His fingers worry at the hem of her pajama blouse as he takes pause, his eyes flickering between her face and anywhere else in quick succession. He seems to be trying to take stock of what to say or do, judging his options internally and allowing a silence to grow externally as he assesses his next move. Making a judgement of her own, his beloved puts a hand on his cheek and strokes along the patchy line of stubble starting to form the barebones beginnings of a beard.

“I love you,” she says, clear and confident and unabashed. “Always have, always will.”

A light comes into Din’s eyes, and he ducks his head, pushing his face into the tender crook of her neck and burying himself into her warmth, demuring into her skin with mumbled words and kisses. She feels his hands squeeze at her waist and lift her to his chest, then--

“Oh!”

Din is lifting her and spinning her, a surprisingly excited move from a man usually so reserved and reticent, and she can’t help but let out a bright, cheery peal of laughter, which, she is even more surprised by, is met with equal laughter from her usually severe husband.

His laughter is soft but deep; arid, with a light rumbling chasing each building layer as he lets himself become more and more open with his joy. She can’t help but feel like a shy girl again, in his hands, listening to the sound of his beautiful, unmatched voice as he laughs, only for her, only in her arms; she floats with butterflies as he sets her down and gives her a kiss, his face heated with his characteristic sweet diffidence.

“Sorry,” he murmurs against her lips, not bothering to pull back from her as he speaks. “I just got a little excited.”

“Don’t apologize,” she stammers with a grin. 

“And you look so pretty when I pick you up and--”

Pushing forward, she silences his ecstatic stutters with a genial kiss, and listens to him sigh contentedly out through his nose, the sound not dissimilar to that of an old dog being petted in just the right spot.

Just as they begin to mould their lips to one another more deeply, a noise from behind makes Din whip his head around. The monitor he has sitting on his workbench is chirping, relaying sounds from the baby’s room: he’s fussing, stirring in his sleep and making small, plaintive cries. Instantly, Din’s eyes become filled with worry and his countenance shifts from intimate husband to concerned father, and he turns back to his wife, brows knit.

She strokes his jaw and kisses his chin softly.

“It’s alright. He’s just waking a little. But,” she says, putting her hands on her hips and surveying the wrapped gifts, “I suppose we ought to hide these away before the little one can peek at ‘em.”

When the monitor registers another whimper from the baby and Din’s expression becomes even more distressed, she takes his hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze, not letting him slip through her fingers into a mire of his own worries.

“And then, right after, we’ll go check on him. Okay?”

Din nods, a modicum of confidence restored to him when the monitor falls silent and stays so for many moments in a row. He gives her a quick, fleeting phantasm of a smile-- warm and sweet, shy and docile-- and she falls just a little bit more in love with him, the same as she does every time he lets her see that perfect smile of his.

He moves to part from her to start picking up the presents, but she tugs at his hand slightly and holds him back. Casting an inquisitive look over his shoulder, he meets her eyes and has time to blink once before she puts her free hand on his chest and presses up on her toes to lock lips with him. 

“Happy holidays, honey,” she hums as their lips part with a delicate sound.

Din blinks, then grins back.

And goes in for another kiss.

[heli0s-writes]

III. On the road, and off the road

Summary: The three of you travel to Cincy where they find out a lot more about your family. Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes A/N: Uh hu h uh uh u huhuhh whaaaaat is happening??? Seriously though, there will be a short angsty segment soon, and then we can get back to the tomfoolery. XX

Foot in Mouth Syndrome Masterpost

A heavy weight on your stomach wakes you up the next morning. Buckeye has climbed onto the couch and over your body, placing his chin right on your sternum. His tail whacks against your propped-up foot as you begin to stir, and he plants a wet good morning kiss with his nose right over your mouth.

“Ah!” You cry, wiping it off with the back of your hand, “Geez!” He does it again and you can’t help but laugh, even though it’s cold and slimy. He looks pleased as punch as he flops his head back on your chest and stares lovingly into your eyes. Yes, you think, only an animal can love you in the morning. Eye crusts, dragon breath, and all. Stupid big-ass dog makes you soft and gooey.

“C’mon. Off.” You pretend to be annoyed and he slides onto the floor with a whine and follows you into the restroom as you brush your teeth.

Taking in the damage to your apartment— which is none at all, you figure it ended well last night. There’s a memory of you throwing vodka at Tinder-Date-Dickhead and then taking an Uber home. Good call on not driving, you pat yourself on the back and take Bucky outside.

Three alerts are on top of the speech bubble when you get a chance to look at your phone afterwards. Natasha. Steve.

Nat: Sunnywaters?

You heave a sigh and reply: Dude stop threatening me.

Then, you open the other message.

Steve: You up? Buck and I are packing— swimsuits? Yes or no? Also Cincinnati has its own Coney Island… ha ha ha very funny. I bet it stinks compared to the [1/2]

Steve: “real” Coney. Do your parents know we’re coming? I’d hate to intrude. [2/2]

You punch the green call button and rush back inside, scaring Buckeye a little with your sudden frantic movements.

“Good morning!” Steve’s voice sounds like a firecracker. And then he’s popping off in your ear, “Did you get my messages? Bucky and I are happy to stay in a hotel or something – called aerobean? Renting a house? I’m not really sure how that works.”

“It’s called airbnb, you fossil.” You respond off-handedly before catching yourself. “Stop, stop, why are you going to Cincinnati? And what about my parents?”

“You invited us. Are we leaving … today?”

Your face drains completely of color when it hits you— a nebulous and dizzying baseball bat swing to the temple. Last night crashes back into your mind: Steve, looking down, patting sympathetically. Two arms— turning you protectively until the room is sideways. You remember the way the blanket was tucked under your chin and around your shoulders.

“…Did you— did you t-tuck me in?” You ask hesitantly. Steve makes a negative grunt on the other line.

“Buck did that. He said he thought you’d get cold.”

“Oh…. Kay….” You whisper. “Uh. How set are you on Cinci?” You cross your fingers and hope he’ll back out purely based on how pathetic you sound. “It’s a ten-hour drive, dude. You guys okay with that?”

“Sure!” Steve chirps back. “We’ll take turns driving. Although Buck’s kind of a wheel-hog. Gets nervous when he’s not in charge.”

In the distance, you hear Bucky protest and it makes your mouth go dry.

“Uh. Okay. I usually leave early so… meet me here at six tomorrow.”

You hang up and bang the back of your head against the wall. The baseball bat of memory swings again.

You think you might faint because you start to recall last night: the metal hand lifting your head and placing the pillow under your hair. You even remember telling Bucky you loved him? It’s bewildering because you certainly do not love him. What was that thing that T-Pain said again? Your heart squeezes in your chest as you search around frantically for some scapegoat. Ah—yeah, T-Pain famously warbled: Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-cohol.

Your body flies over the outfield and into the bleachers before crashing. It’s the most agonizing homerun.

Steve, you think, is probably the one skipping past bases and winking. Somehow, this is all his damn fault.

—

Buckeye scoots around the back of your car, shifting so his weight lands primarily on the cushiony bed. His head is laid gently on Bucky’s thigh, who lost to rock paper scissors and must get squished in the backseat. Lucky for him, you pack lightly, and your legs are much shorter than Steve’s. Unlucky for you, that means he’s right behind you, radiating the heat of a thousand terrifying and silent suns.

It’s been thirty minutes since you started driving. Every time you look into the rear view, Bucky’s blue eyes look back. At this point, you have no idea if any cars are behind you because you will not let yourself look again.

“This is nice.” Steve says breezily, commenting on the silence. You had barely spoken to them when they arrived, instead busied yourself with playing Tetris with your luggage and theirs as well as the fabric box of Bucky’s--- BUCKEYE’s things. God damn it.

“Love it when it’s quiet. Nothing but the road and--” Steve continues.

“Oh, shut up!” You and Bucky reply in unison. You glare up into the mirror. Bucky glares right back. The embarrassment of last night snuffs itself out. Love? In this motherfucker’s dreams.

To your side, Steve stares out the window to hide his smirk.

—

The music of your so-called Driving Playlist bumps through the car speakers. You’ve been subjecting them to your chaotic tastes for the last hour. Every new song is jarring and different than the one before it. There’s Christmas carols. Frenetic Japanese electropop. Incredibly explicit gansta rap. Something else sounds like a broken harmonica for eight whole goddamn minutes. Inexplicable genres and band names. In the middle of a warbly bass line and shrieking synths, you explain that this track is from a “witch house" group you particularly enjoyed as a young girl.

The terms “witch house” and “young girl” so close together makes the both of them shudder. Steve is petrified at the end of each song because the next one always seems to be worse. Bucky squeezes his face between two fully stuffed bags and groans as loudly as he can.

--

You stop to get gas and Steve walks Buckeye around the perimeter of the station. Bucky comes out from the sliding doors holding three Gatorades and cold brew coffee.

“Drink up.” He commands, flinging a pink bottle at you. “My turn to drive.”

You shake the nozzle when it clicks off and roll your eyes. “No way.”

“You can’t even see over the steering wheel.” You flip him off and silently mock him, rolling your eyes and scrunching up your nose. Then, you replace the nozzle and head inside to use the restroom, flipping him off another time for good measure.

“Don’t! Even!” You threaten behind your shoulder. But of course, by the time you’re halfway to the door, he’s already slid in the driver’s seat.

—

The only way you would stop bitching is if Bucky let you pick the music. So, the cord remains faithfully attached to your phone. And that dreaded playlist.

---

An hour later, your leg bounces from the back, knocking your knee into Steve’s seat. You’ve had to piss like a racehorse for the last twenty minutes and you feel like a fucking water balloon, about to pop. Steve turns around, elbow on the center console and quirks an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Yessssss..” you could probably weep right now. No. No thinking of tears because tears are water. No fucking water.

“You’re shaking my seat pretty rough.” Steve accuses.

“You have to go again, don’t you? Jesus, what are you, four?” You’d think about how much you hate him but your bladder requires way more attention right now. This is the best posture you’ve ever had in your entire life. Your back is straight and you’re arching forward slightly—anything to relieve the pressure.

“I’m—- Ugh!” You shriek as the car runs over something and the entire thing rocks up, kicking a sharp jab into your lower abdomen. A wave of chills runs over your arms. “Oh no…” You whisper. Buckeye perks up and begins to sniff around, investigating your concern.

“Maybe I peed a little.” You admit sheepishly, squeezing your thighs together as well as your eyes.

“The next stop isn’t for another half hour…” Steve laments.

“Dirty Keanu Reeves over here gave me Gatorade!” You shake the bottle between them, 32 empty strawberry-flavored sugar-free ounces in all it’s glory. Even the wrapping has been peeled off. Steve sends the both of you a reproachful glare.

“I didn’t think she’d guzzle the whole damn thing!” He chooses to ignore your new nickname for him. He doesn’t even know who Keanu Reeves is. It’s a shame, really.

“Oh please stop arguing please pull over I swear I’ll piss in the forest I don’t care please.” Your words are running together like a waterfall. No. Not a waterfall. Oh god, you think, do not imagine any waterfalls. Bucky flips the blinker on and checks his blind spot before navigating to the right carefully. He puts on the hazards and stops your car—half on the emergency lane and half in the grass. Outside the window is about 200 feet of wildflowers before it turns dark with thick trees.

He turns and takes Steve’s place in-between the cloth seats. “There you are, princess. Pop a squat. Or stand. Just fucking hurry.”

“If I had a dick, Barnes, it would be way bigger than yours.” You push Bucky out of the way and wiggle until you can reach the glove compartment, elbowing Steve’s face in the process. There, your fingers yank a few tissues smushed into the corner of the dusty slot and you bolt. Oh sweet six-pound-and-four-ounces Jesus Christ you’ve never been so happy to piss in the woods.

Steve pats Bucky’s thigh as they watch you shred through the white and orange stalks, ripping a path through the peaceful country green. “Nah, Buck.” He smiles, “You’re pretty big.” Bucky slams the back of his head into the seat and lets out a long-suffering groan.

When you come back you fly into the car and moan happily. Bucky turns around to give you a snarky comment, but you hiss at him like an angry wildcat. “Saw a dead possum in the woods, man.” You say, “Looks just like you.”

—

Both you and Steve are asleep, along with the dog. It’s been a little over an hour now. The Captain reclines in the passenger seat, sunglasses on. You’re pitched over Buckeye, head resting on your splayed arm. The three orders of family-sized burger meals knocked you out first, then Steve. There’s hardly any room in the car for the enormous amount of trash that entailed, but you made do with the space next to your leg and stuffed the bag between you and the door.

Bucky slurps his coffee and drives in silence, frowning when the idea that he misses your bullshit finds him.

—

“God, can we listen to anything else?” Bucky grumbles when some mindless tune comes back on. You smile because Rebecca Black’s “Friday” is your goddamn jam. It’s the single best song to piss off any living person or animal and you embrace it whole-heartedly.

You let Steve browse the rest of your selection, waiting patiently for the inevitable—

“What is this?” He yelps. “Gay for Jesus?” His fingers continue to scroll, “What kind of playlist names are these? Sad n Sexy Santa? Who’s got the Biggest Dick in Baseball?” You’re cackling madly. It doesn’t stop there. “Fingerblast Fest of 2017?”

“What does that even mean?” Bucky mutters.

“Made it for a lesbian couple. Anniversary present.”

Bucky’s face scrunches up with confusion and you enlighten him by leaning forward and thrusting two fingers back and forth so vigorously his seat shakes like an industrial-sized dryer set on high.

“Oh fuckin’ A!” He cries, jerking his head away from your hand. Steve turns red as a beet. “Okay, new rule...” he sighs, turning your phone over on his lap, “Do not ask about playlist names.”

--

Traffic has clogged up the highway. It’s deadlocked and immobile, stuck in the middle of a big city—all smog and industry. There’s not even good scenery to look at. You are buried in-between the pages of a book, taking advantage of the stillness by reading as much as you can. After this, you’ll have to brush up on your Latin, too. Then Greek. It’s annoying, but at least you don’t have to do another summer immersion program somewhere in bumfuck Florida this year.

A folky tune comes on and it’s a welcome reprieve. Bucky and Steve look up when you start humming along, voice coming out to follow the melody.

“Didn’t know you could sing.” Steve comments.

“Habeo multum talenta.” You reply—brain tuned to Latin. It makes them both wonder what else you can do.

--

Two hours left to go before the three of you reach your destination. You’ve switched out with Steve, who begrudgingly sits in the back, legs pushed up nearly to his chest while you stretch up front, cracking your back every which way. Bucky has refused to move from the driver’s side.

The music halts for a couple of hours while conversations meander. All sorts of subjects are breached now that there is nothing else to do but talk. The last two months of knowing them, although made you more comfortable, didn’t quite allow you to learn as much as this single car ride has. Most of what you could understand from them was made through your own observations, but now they are more or less open books.

Sometimes, the words hang heavy in the air— old, bulbous and dusty ornaments they polish for you. Steve talks about the war. Bucky does too. You have lots of questions on your end and they illuminate all of them with personal spotlights.

Sometimes, it returns to the playfulness you are used to.

Steve vomited on the cyclone. Bucky lost three dollars trying to win a bear for a girl. You tell him you blew through thirty-five dollars on a crane machine once (for yourself) and the two of you share a moment of solidarity together. Although, it’s hard for you to imagine him as some flirtatious young man and Steve can see it on your face.

“New gal every two weeks.” He informs.

“Were there even that many women in Brooklyn?” You gasp, scandalized.

“They came from all over to get a look at Buck.”

Bucky only rolls his eyes, but you see a smile tug on the other side of his face.

“What was wrong with them?” You whisper on-brand with your usual self, but the memory of his laughter by your front door glows rosy in your mind. Yeah, you can see how girls would get themselves in a tizzy for him. Winter Soldier with his mask on hardly turned heads as much as Captain Adonis America, but if you take a second to look at him, it’s easy to see how built he is. Like a Greek statue. Even his aura is enthralling—a bit secretive, a little dark. He could definitely use that to his advantage.

The smile grows into an almost feral grin—there's that aura, you think. “You haven’t seen nothin’ yet.” He nearly growls.

You sit back and pretend to busy yourself with petting Buckeye because the pink crawling up your neck is about to choke you blue.

--

Bucky pulls off the familiar highway, drives a distance down the curved road next to the river and you lean back, breathing in that familiar fishy and slightly sickly sewage air.

“Aw yeah. Welcome to Cincy.” You laugh. Steve ducks his head to watch the scene, squinting at billboards and watching houses whiz by.

“What’s Skyline Chili?” He asks as the car zooms by an advertisement. A questionable pile of shredded cheese overtakes the (apparently) chili and hot dog on the otherwise blue sign.

“Depending on your taste, either the best or worst thing you’ll ever eat.” The smile on your face widens when he furrows his brow. “Oh, my sweet summer child... you’re in for a treat.”

 Your neighborhood comes into view and you wistfully stare at the immaculate paved roads, manicured wide green lawns, blonde-haired moms pushing baby strollers, and dogs trailing behind them on loose leashes. Buckeye pads around as much as he can in the back, stepping over your lap repeatedly as he begins to recognize where he’s at.

“Pretty nice neighborhood.” Steve comments, making a slow turn. The GPS pulls him into a driveway leading up to your parent’s ranch-style home. They both whistle at the garden in bloom and the cobblestone path. You point him to pull around to the garage where your father’s Benz is parked. The old willow tree hangs over it, weeping petals and leaves on the windshield.

“Holy shit.” Bucky mutters at how the rosebushes and magnolia pots wrap even around the side and the back. The deck is littered with more flowers and potted plants. A stained glass table. Even the outdoor chairs have beautiful plush cushions. There seems to be a room underneath the slope of the yard—perhaps a basement transformed into a living space. Everything matches perfectly. “You do have money.”

You sigh.

“It’s not my money. It’s my parents’.” The scathing and bitter tone makes him frown, but you hop out anyway, slinging two bags over your shoulder and nudging Buckeye into the yard. Your dog happily pounces all over the greenery, chasing butterflies and barking.

“You sure they’re ok with this?” Steve asks carefully.

You nod, “There are lots of perks to being the prodigal son. Daughter, in my case.”

“Thought you had a dick.” Bucky sneers.

“Get with the times, old man. Gender is an illusion.”

—

The house is empty. You lead them through the front door and into the hall where it branches into three areas. There’s a railing and staircase that leads down, but for now they take in the sights on this floor. The first step points straight to the dining room where the table is already lined with china and perfectly arranged. Silk napkins. Crystal glasses. Delicately carved mahogany display cabinet.

On the right is the living space and kitchen where the color scheme turns to a pale aqua, cream, and gold accents. Two scooped leather seats face the flat screen, flanked by built-in shelves filled with books. There is also a small couch and a seafoam armchair and matching ottoman. The coffee table is a gorgeous marble, flecked with gold.

They turn and look down the other way, noticing a large mirror entombed by a heavy decorated frame in between two doors. The walkway continues right and disappears even further down.

You stare at them. They stare back.

“Please don’t.” You beg, dropping your bags with a heavy sigh; this is why you didn’t want them coming. You hate it when people comment on your parents’ house. And they haven’t even seen the pool or tennis court. Or the downstairs living area with the grand piano your fingers nearly bled all over from countless hours of practice. Or the family oil painting you sat for when you were a kid. Fuck.

“I fucking hate it.” Bucky says nonchalantly. “Gaudy shit. Too big. This place haunted?”

You could leap into his arms if they weren’t carrying his bag and your dog’s stuff. Instead, you settle for a genuine smile, all warmth and radiance because you feel it in your heart—the appreciation for his understanding wrapped in snark. “Now we’re talking. C’mon. Let’s go downstairs. You guys can stay in my childhood bedroom.”

They finally drop their bags on the bay window seat in your old room after you unlock it. It’s always been like this— and you never let your parents come in. You open the middle of the window and let the room air out a little and the afternoon light pours in. Your old pictures are still on the shelves. Trophies. Music books. Your suede riding helmet, too. They wander around, peering at the images.

“Where are your parents?” Steve asks.

You shrug and plop down on the king-size bed out of habit, lying back with your legs dangling off the edge. Buckeye hops on with you and pads around a bit before he settles into a bagel-like swirl of a shape. “Ibiza. Dubai. Paris. Virgin Islands. Take your pick. My dad has property in all of them.” You message him anyway. You’re not surprised they’re gone for the summer. You don’t really come back for them; you mostly come back to get away from Manhattan.

“Wow.” Steve mutters.

“He even owns part of a mountain in Colorado. It’s vile. Historically, we’re from Ohio… ugh. I don’t want to talk about it.” You feel like a child again, and being in this space doesn’t help.

Steve examines the paintings in the room and flips through scattered books on the work desk. Bucky trails around your bookshelves, looking at the frames, picking some up here and there to examine what’s inside. “Who’s this?”

Peeking up you blow a pppffbbfbfbt breath of air out between your lips. It’s you, duh. Except your hair is perfectly curled and piled atop your head— a bird’s nest cushion for a sparkly tiara. Your eyes are piled heavily with so much eyeshadow and lash extensions it looks like an ombré spider web, and you’re wearing a low-cut dress swirling with rhinestones. Across your torso is a sash. Yep. Homecoming Queen. You’re pressed up against your date, all smiles, sharp cheeks, shoulders so thin he can see your skeleton jutting out. Over ten years ago, you were a much different person.

“Laugh it up, Barnes.” You mutter. “Thas ya girl, sweet sixteen, massively underweight, and aspiring to be the shiniest trophy wife of them all.”

“Why would I laugh?” He asks, suddenly solemn. Bucky turns to look at you, sprawled out on the bed, sardonic smile plastered to your face. “You don’t look very happy.” He still has the picture in his hand. Steve has paused, too, closing a heavy leather-bound first edition. Being caught in the middle of two concerned stares makes you heavy with anxiety and dread. Instead of spending another second under their gaze, you shoot up and motion for Buckeye to follow.

“Don’t be fucking weird, man.” Then, you’re already up the stairs.

Steve and Bucky glance at each other and Bucky places the picture back on the shelf.

—

In the downstairs living space next to their room, you pour three glasses of thirty-year-old single malt whiskey from the cabinet and plop down on the piano bench. The boys sit on the couch and regard you curiously as you open the cover and stare at the ivory keys. Your foot stomps on each of the paddles underneath vengefully. Then you tip your head back, whiskey along with it, and slam the cover shut with a trembling crash. “Fuck you, Mozart.” You whisper, as if the piano can hear.

--

You peek downstairs after your bath and call, “Hey! My parents use a water softener so if you feel slimy… it’s normal.” The whiskey has made you flush with excitement and volatile energy.

Steve’s head pops out from the bathroom doorway, neck and chest red from the heat. “Oh, thank God.” He says, “Buck’s been scrubbing for hours.”

“Who the fuck would do this!” Bucky’s voice echoes from the same tiled space. You can practically see it shooting out from the room behind Steve’s shoulder to crash into the adjacent wall like a comic panel.

The towel on top of your head slips and you attempt to grab it quickly, using your other hand to hold onto the knot around your chest. “You guys fucking in there?!”

Steve only grins and sends you a wink, mischievous expression catching you off guard. The towel tumbles down the stairs and your hair slaps itself over your face. The two of you watch the fluffy sheet spread over the bottom of the steps before staring at each other. “You gonna get that?” He asks.

“No.” You reply, abruptly mortified, “It’s yours now.”

Apparently, Steve Rogers has chosen this very moment to make it known that partners is not only platonic in meaning. You don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, because you’ve been harassing them for months about who’s a bottom (you bet all four limbs it’s Bucky), but suddenly the moment is confronting you and all you can do is think about how you’re naked and third-wheeling … in your own damn home. And that maybe you shouldn’t have had all that whiskey.

Captain America rubs the tip of his nose absentmindedly, “You alright?” There is genuine concern in his eyes as he steps out of the doorway and reveals his –NAKED! NAKED!

“No!” You scream, turning your head and hiding behind your outstretched hand. “No! Don’t! You fucking stay there you—Fucking A, Steve!”

He’s not really naked; he’s wrapped hip-down in a towel, but you don’t even want to see the outline of him. As far as you know, he’s a smooth-crotched Ken Doll. Maybe Bucky has like, three dicks. There is so much panic inside of you right now.

The water stops from the shower and rustling is heard as Bucky dries off. You attempt to slowly back up away from the steps and move back into the confines of your own room until your dog springs past you like a loose cannonball and sails downstairs. He banks left into the bathroom and licks a stripe over Steve’s shin before finding his true target: Bucky.

There is tumbling, banging, wincing from you and Steve as Buckeye clobbers his human doppelganger once more. Then, there is yelling and cussing—Steve, moving inside to help, but then more crashing follows before Buckeye tears from the bathroom and up the stairs with two towels clenched tightly in his mouth.

“No…” You whisper, when he drops them at your feet. His tongue flops against his chin and he looks up expectantly, as if you might reward him for his endeavor. Steve’s head peeks out again, and the wry smile he sends your way says: you’re fucked.

Next Chapter

[makeste]

BnHA 235: How Do I Turn This Flashback Off

Previously on BnHA: Re-Destro plucked off three of Tomura’s left fingers like flower petals and also destroyed one of his Emotional Support Hands in the process, prompting Tomura to have more flashbacks. We learned that AFO specifically gave Tomura the hands so that Tomura would never get over the trauma of the whole experience (like, he even told him this directly, wtf). We then got more flashbacks of Hana, as well as new flashbacks of Tomura’s mother and grandparents. Our boy then started to use his quirk on RD with only two fingers, which prompted RD to be all “wha?!” and let him go and finally realize that Tomura was going through a good old-fashioned shounen awakening process. Not wanting to be on the wrong end of this, he powered up himself and tried to finish Tomura off. But as he tried (and failed) to deliver a final blow, Gigantomachia finally came storming into town. At the same time, Tomura finally remembered everything (!!!) and got this really sad look on his face, and holy shit you guys the hype for this next chapter is real.

Today on BnHA: The tragic story of the Shimura family is finally revealed in all of its inevitably doomed glory. This chapter deserves an introduction from Lemony Snicket. This is not a fun time you guys. Baby Tenko was pure and idealistic and wanted nothing more than to be a hero just like All Might (and hey thanks Horikoshi, that was a nice heart I had once before you ripped it out and stabbed it 27 times here), and his father was a bitter and broken man harboring unresolved abandonment issues which he needlessly took out on his own children because humans are flawed and sometimes terrible. And we all know how the story ends, so if you happen to not have the stomach to watch terrified little boys being beaten by their parents, or cute little dogs getting hugged and then crumbled to dust offscreen, or if you don’t feel like getting faked out by Horikoshi half a dozen times because he’s a fucking troll who knows full well what he’s doing, might I suggest putting this chapter down and taking a stroll on over to the theater next door? It’s not too late to see a film about a happy little elf.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added one or two ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

  YESSSSSSSSS

YOU GUYS, I HAVEN’T EVEN FUCKING CLICKED TO THE CHAPTER YET AND MY HYPE HAS ALREADY ASCENDED TO NEW UNPRECEDENTED HEIGHTS. DID I NOT SAY??

AND LO AND BEHOLD, MY GD MIND IS BEING LOST AS WE SPEAK OMG

anyways so yeah I fucking called this back in chapter 222, along with a zillion other people I’m sure. but still, feels good

and this officially makes Tenko the fourth character to receive an “origin” chapter now, after Deku (chapter 01), Shouto (chapter 39), and Katsuki (chapter 62). so that’s actually a pretty big deal! this whole thing just makes me really happy because I love seeing such a carefully planned character arc come together, and it’s so pleasing and gratifying to see the pieces falling into place exactly as they should. it’s like watching one of those “oddly satisfying” youtube compilations. this is the manga equivalent of this. god I can’t wait to watch it play out

anyway so here’s the color spread we were promised last week! awesome

look at all of these characters we haven’t seen in a couple months. it’s a testament to how thoroughly entertaining this arc has been that I haven’t missed class 1-A nearly as much as I would have expected. which isn’t to say I don’t miss them dearly! but it’s just, normally I’d be practically going through withdrawals if you took my favorite characters away for such a long time. and I mean, we cut away right when Kacchan and Shouto had finally gotten their hero licenses, and Deku was going through “AFO’S POWER!?!?” angst, and so forth! and then we just left them for almost half a fucking year! that’s insane!!

but like, the shocking thing to me is that I genuinely have been pretty cool with it. that’s how compelling this arc has been to me. it’s nothing at all like the Basement Arc where I was all but ready to start slapping posters of Bakugou’s face on the walls asking “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?” like, I am sincerely shocked to tell you the truth. this arc could go on for another month or two and I probably wouldn’t mind, so long as the quality remained this high. and that’s the biggest compliment to Horikoshi that I can think of. good fucking job dude

that being said, I don’t think this arc will continue much longer, and it is awesome to see the 1-A kids again all the same, so let’s just take in this page real quick before finally getting on to the Tragic Tenko Memories action

I like how Bakugou and Deku have both incorporated elements from their hero costumes into their orange ensembles for no real reason. but they are literally the only two characters who have done this, so I feel it’s worth pointing out

speaking of things that are there for no real reason, Bakugou also has a string tied around his ankle just completely at random. someone want to tell me what’s up with this? should I start inspecting the other characters’ ankles to see if there is a matching one

Mineta looks super cute, there I said it. I’m sorry but it’s true. let’s just cut him out of the rest of the manga moving forward and only have him randomly hovering in the background every so often. Mineta you can’t fly so what are you even doing dude

All Might is just completely defying gravity. just standing on absolutely nothing at all at a 45-degree lean. everyone else who’s mid-air is at least in the process of jumping or landing. but not All Might, no ma’am. he just doesn’t give a fuck

I see you there Inasa. up there spreading joy. and lest you guys believe Seiji and Camie were left out, let me assure you they were not and they are actually chilling over on a bridge just below Bakugou’s mystery bracelet. so that’s nice and also I still ship them yep

Miruko is here which gives me hope we’ll be seeing more of her soon! yes please Horikoshi do this for me

Hawks has no right to look so bored when he so recently texted Dabi a picture of a backpack sitting on his front porch with the caption “your package from Amazon has been delivered.” you are the reason Best Jeanist isn’t in this cover spread, Hawks, so what do you have to say for yourself

Todoroki has the fondest fucking expression on his face, and if you follow his gaze I swear to god it’s landing on Bakugou of all fucking people which makes me believe that contrary to everyone’s initial expectations, he is the one who actually has the matching ankle bracelet. that’s right kids, it was TodoBaku all along, we’ve all been played. either that or he’s looking at Tokoyami. idk guys the whirlwind teenage romance drama continues

anyways I hope everyone is good and cheered by this page, because we’re about to step back into our bleak and violent villain narrative now so say goodbye

okay so the first page is basically just RD thinking about how he’s refined his “stress” ability since childhood and that it can’t be dodged easily, but Tomura still managed to do it

and then we’re cutting to Tomura’s face which has the same sort of weary shell-shocked expression we ended the last chapter on, and ffff you guys I’m not ready but here we go anyway I guess

hooooooly shit

that is some good dramatic imagery. can’t wait to see Viz’s version when it comes out; that last panel definitely deserves to be seen in its fully restored glory

but anyway, so! that’s the Papa Hand! he just took it out of his pocket! and now he’s just holding it and staring at it! SHIT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL HERE YOU GUYS. THE SHIT IS ABOUT TO BUST THROUGH THE WALL AND WATASHI GA KITA THIS BITCH

why does he look so happy oh god :’D this is about to fuck me up isn’t it

so he remembered all the details of the Shimura Massacre and now he’s thinking that he really is just a vicious killing machine? is that what it is? oh god Horikoshi just show us already I can’t take it

but first we’re cutting to Re-Destro posing villainously and looking for all the world like that demon from the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment in Fantasia. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but the art for RD these last couple chapters has been giving me a strong old-school Disney animation vibe. they came up with some scary stuff back in the day

Horikoshi really got us rooting for the guy who’s arguing for the destruction of the world. smdh. like I said, we’re being played

OH NO OH SHIT HERE WE GO

okay, without knowing anything at all about the context of this scene, I immediately suspect that this shadowy man tipping his hat toward Tenko and Mama Shimura might be All for One up to his bullshit but let’s see

(ETA: this is probably Mikkun and/or Tomo-chan’s dad actually. but I’m still watching you, mister.)

oh shit oh shit oh shit you guys aahhsdfhshah

SHIMURA KOTARO. THERE HE IS, AT LONG LAST. NANA’S SON OMGGGGG

HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE HER AND YET HE’S SO STERN AND UNFRIENDLY. WHERE IS THE TRADEMARK SHIMURA SMILE, OH GOD I’M NOT READY FOR THIS ANGST

let me guess, it was a “in this house we don’t speak the H-word” rule. with the four-letter h-word in this case not being what you might typically expect

also! black hair! so that’s also confirmed! so I guess it changed color due to his trauma? oh god

and you can see he’s got the little scratches which were hinted at in the previous chapter, but they’re not nearly as bad yet. I have to assume that habit got much worse also due to the trauma. oh god. again

I haven’t watched that new HBO show about Chernobyl yet, but I feel like this is kind of what it must be like? knowing full well that Very Bad Things are about to go down but not being able to do anything and having to just watch as it all plays out. shit

anyways yep. no h-word allowed

so he was five! one whole year older than I thought omg. my mistake

in other news guys, I’m currently researching how to build a machine that will let me enter a fictional two-dimensional world and then travel back in time in that world to rescue and adopt a small child who needs lots of hugs omfg anyway so if anyone wants to help me out I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor

...why did I laugh omg. Tenko why is your dad the most dramatic bitch

(ETA: in all seriousness I think we should investigate the possibility of the Shimuras being distantly related to the Todorokis.)

HIS ALLERGIES ARE ACTING UP DAD HAVE A FUCKING HEART

anyways it’s all good because Hana will go visit him and they’ll sneak into dad’s office and she’ll show him the picture of their grandma to cheer him up. and then I’m sure eventually his dad will see reason and they’ll sort out their issues and they’ll all live happily ever after. la la la

so now Grandma is suggesting that Kotaro has maybe been a little too harsh on Tenko lately. yes Grandma make him see reason please

also I’m really curious as to whether or not Grandma is Kotaro’s adopted mom, or Tenko’s maternal grandma. if she is the adopted mom I love her even more and that makes me even sadder about their deaths, because they took in this boy whose mother basically abandoned him and then later DIED HORRIBLY, and they did their best to raise him with love, only for AFO to come along and eventually murder the lot of them which is so fucked up I can’t even. they deserved better

Kotaro has such a jaded look in his eyes here that it’s hard for me to be mad at him at all even though he’s being a jerk dad

he’s had a really rough life. yes he’s being a jerk but he thinks he’s doing what’s best for his children though. fml why is this shit so complicated

okay this next page is kind of conflicting on the are-they-or-aren’t-they-his-adopted-parents thing sob

like on the one hand, he literally calls them mom and dad. but then two panels down Tomura says they’re his parents-in-law. so what is the truth. maybe it’s not him talking to them in that first panel? or maybe he’s just really tight with his in-laws idk

anyway so now we’re cutting to Tenko and his mom, and this is the sweetest thing ever and why are you doing this to me Horikoshi!?

FFFF OKAY BUT!!

BABY TENKO’S LIL TRAIN SET OMG SO CUTE. AND IS THAT A PLATE OF ONIGIRI ON THE TABLE. TENKO YOU MADE A MESS AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN FINISH IT, SUCH A TYPICAL FIVE-YEAR-OLD OMG

THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT KIND OF ALLERGY IT IS?? AND IT ONLY ACTS UP WHEN HE’S AT HOME. THIS IS SUSPICIOUS AS FUCK. WHAT KIND OF FOUL PLAY IS GOING ON. OR IS IT JUST STRESS?

MOM SECRETLY SUPPORTS HIS DREAM TO BE A HERO AND HE’S OPEN WITH HER ABOUT IT I CAN’T

MIKKUN AND TOMO-CHAN! OH MY GOD DID YOU GET INTO A FIGHT TO DEFEND YOUR FRIENDS AND THAT’S WHY YOU GOT INTO TROUBLE I FUCKING CAN’T HE WAS SUCH A GOOD BOY. HE REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF DEKU HERE HOLY SHIT

(ETA: they even look alike.)

cuuuuuuuuuuuute

OH MY GOD

SHIMURA TENKO WAS AN ALL MIGHT FAN CONFIRMED OMFG?!

you guys. that is a lot of emotions that just hit me all at once holy shit. where do I even begin

first of all this continues the pattern of “origin” chapters showing how the characters in question admired All Might when they were growing up. we’re 4 for 4 as of now. I love this

second, it just hit me like bam to learn that Tenko felt drawn to All Might, knowing how they’re actually connected. All Might doesn’t even know (yet) that Nana had a grandson, and Tenko has no idea that his childhood hero is actually his grandmother’s protege. and yet he still winds up admiring him even without that knowledge. pow right in the feels

and lastly, I wouldn’t have thought this whole situation could get any more fucked up, and yet Horikoshi still managed it! Tenko goes from looking up to All Might and wanting to be like him, to hating him and wanting nothing more than to hurt and destroy him. fucking ouch you guys. god but that one hurts

oh and also you better believe I immediately went to the wiki to see if there were any characters around Tomura’s age whose first names might believably be condensed to Mikkun or Tomo-chan. specifically, I went to Miruko first because I wasn’t sure if she was one of those characters whose hero name was similar to her actual name! but sadly her actual name is Rumi. so much for my “Miruko and Tomura were childhood friends” theory which lasted for all of two seconds but was a wild ride while it did

you guys baby Tenko has the chubbiest little boy legs lmao I love him so much oh god. and also on a more serious note this makes presentday!Tomura’s almost emaciated appearance all the more jarring. tack on yet another reason to hate AFO to the list. it’s getting to be a really long list

the parallels between him and Deku are off the fucking charts you guys. this is getting ridiculous. god I’m so weak for this kind of storytelling dfsldkjfk

don’t think I didn’t notice the enormous rack you went and gave Tenko’s mom, Horikoshi. but you know what I’m going to allow it because this is just so fucking good and also because for once he’s being pretty subtle about it all things considered

adult!Tomura’s narration is shockingly insightful here

like, he’s so in touch with his five-year-old emotions, and also his understanding of how this all affected him in hindsight. that’s a lot of self-awareness for a guy who only just remembered all of this like thirty seconds ago

doesn’t Tomura have like a 5/5 on the intelligence score according to the character book? for a longest time I was really skeptical about that, but the more I see of him in this arc the more I see that it’s not just talk

oh my goddddddddd

LOOK AT HIS FACE OH MY GOD. he’s fucking entranced. you can tell he’s instantly captivated by her

HORIKOSHI NO, WHY

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS YOU BASTARD

son of a bitch. well now I’m more subscribed than ever to the theory of Hana also surviving and being taken in by AFO in secret. she can’t be dead! she wanted to be a hero just like him! brother and sister heroes! Horikoshi I s2g if you really did kill her off I’m going to kick your ass. this is the exact spot where I’m drawing the line. this is how much angst you are allowed to have. right up to here and that’s it. the rest of the family can be dead, whatever, it’s sad and it’s fucked up, but don’t you dare touch Hana or I will...!!

and they promised. they made a brother-sister promise about what they were going to be when they grew up! and Tomura only just now remembered it! lord help me this boy is going to need all the therapy after this

OH NO

THAT DAY oh my god this is it strap yourselves in kids, we’re about to luge down this icy hill of Dead Family Feels and I don’t know how to fucking luge you guys

he’s so fucking happy. I’m so fucking stressed rn

oh GOD

TENKO DON’T MOVE!! DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! OH GOD. HOW DO I TURN THIS FLASHBACK OFF THAT’S IT WE GOOD I’VE SEEN ENOUGH!!

LDSKFHHHH

KOTARO NO GO AWAY, EVEN IF YOU’VE BEEN A JERK DAD YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS AND TENKO DOESN’T DESERVE THIS, AND GOD, ALL FOR ONE CAN FUCKING BURN IN HELL, THIS IS SO FUCKED UP

AHHHHHH

OH GREAT THE WHOLE FUCKING FAMILY IS RIGHT THERE! JUST FUCKING PERFECT. THIS IS ALL GOING TO END SO FUCKING WELL I CAN’T

OH SHIT

KOTARO YOU’RE SUDDENLY CANCELLED YOU FUCKING DICK, BUT YOU STILL DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE, BUT HOLY SHIT YOU SUCK!!! I DIDN’T ACTUALLY THINK YOU’D REALLY GO THROUGH WITH IT BUT I GUESS I WAS GIVING YOU TOO MUCH CREDIT YOU RAT BASTARD

I’M GLAD MAMA SHIMURA IS YELLING AT HIM NOW BUT I ALSO HAVE A TERRIBLE FEELING THAT HER RUNNING TO INTERVENE IS GOING TO SPARK A CHAIN REACTION, GIVEN WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN OH GOD

(ETA: or maybe I gave her too much credit. turns out there was no intervening to speak of.)

anyway so now Kotaro is yelling “that’s not your grandma!”, and I can’t decide if this is anger or something else on his face in this moment, which unbeknownst to him is one of the final moments of his life hahaha sob somebody help me how do I stop this ride

also Mon-chan keeps barking and I know that’s going to end really badly in just a moment as well ugh. it’s like those final few seconds after a grenade rolls into a room and everyone sees that the pin is missing and they know what’s about to happen but they can’t do anything to stop it. we’re all gonna die folks

oh no it actually was Something Else on his face oh fuck me

I’m fucking furious at Horikoshi right now for pulling this shit again and giving this scene so much complexity. there’s so much going on here that we’re never even going to get the chance to unpack because it’s all about to go to shit. and Kotaro is an absolute bastard, but he’s also a man who’s still reeling from the pain of being abandoned by his own mother and never came to terms with that. and yet that absolutely does not make this okay in the slightest, at all, and it’s abundantly clear that he is still very much the bad guy here and that what he’s doing is unforgivable. I just really like that he went and gave him this much depth despite him playing such a despicable role here. god BnHA is so good

anyway back to being devastated

HE LOOKS SO FUCKING TERRIFIED AND I’M SO MAD ABOUT EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW HE DIDN’T DESERVE THIS!!!

MOTHERFUCKER HERE IT COMES

[takes a deep breath and clicks to the next page!!]

hey what the

not the panel I was expecting with Tenko reaching out defensively and touching his father and accidentally turning him to ash while the rest of the family shrieks in fear and shock, but okay. I can’t say I was exactly looking forward to seeing that so I’ll take it!

oh Horikoshi. you see, this is exactly the type of shit I’m talking about

okay Kotaro, I can feel sorry for you in this moment and sympathize with the child-you who did not deserve that at all, and also feel yet more rage toward AFO for utterly destroying this family. but that doesn’t mean I don’t absolutely hate you at the same time for what you did to your son. it’s just like that. you had reasons but you’re still a dick. just BnHA character things

Horikoshi why oh my god

RIP SHIMURA FAMILY YOU DESERVED BETTER AND YOU WILL BE AVENGED!!

and yet all the same that does not make it right for you to take out your pain and frustration on your helpless five-year-old son! YOU FUCKED UP KOTARO. but this next page is still going to hurt oh god

[takes another deep breath!!]

oh okay we’re still drawing it out

-- holy shit, wait a sec. is this all taking place after? wait a fucking second

okay you guys holy shit, I just went back to the “house my father built” page and it is very clearly segueing into another flashback. like, in hindsight it’s obvious, but these aren’t actually Tenko’s memories any more. I think what happened was that Kotaro actually did hit Tenko another couple of times and then that was it, and then it cut back to this scene here which is actually taking place after that incident

which means Tenko’s memories were indeed tampered with then if my hunch is right!! let’s read on, but I’m pretty sure AFO is about to come along and murder the shit out of these folks, holy shit is this really happening?!

okay so Mama Shimura is telling Kotaro that she’s done following his rules

like, I’m glad she’s standing up for her children but I really wish she’d rip him a new one much more severely than this though

though he does seem genuinely regretful. but that’s hardly helpful now?? girl just take the kids and leave

oh no we’re cutting back to Tenko and he’s hugging Mon-chan out in the backyard and it’s nighttime now noooooooo

all right, for the third fucking time I’m going to take a deep fucking breath and turn the page holy shit you guys this chapter is taking years off my life

ffff ffff ffffffff

(((╹д╹;)))

(⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾ Д ⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾;;;)

(φ Д φ )

...well shit

parting thoughts:

I’m okay with this being the only bit they show and not getting any more detail. please for once don’t give us any more detail, Horikoshi, holy fuck

though if we don’t actually see anything, part of me is still going to suspect AFO of directly interfering right up until the end of the series. the whole thing just comes together too perfectly for him. there’s no fucking way

I still 100% believe he gave Tenko the quirk, too. especially now that we know he was quirkless until age five. we’ve previously established that if a child hasn’t evolved a quirk by that age it almost always means they’re quirkless for life. Horikoshi thinks he’s smooth trying to play it off like Tenko was a tragic late bloomer but WE KNOW THE TRUTH. I will go down with this theory damn it

I would say this is easily the single most fucked up thing we have seen in this series up to this point, but I see Horikoshi eyeing the upcoming Noumu plotline and the tragic tale of Tsubasa and his fucked up mad scientist grandpa and looking for somebody to hold his beer, so. I’ll just keep my mouth shut, I think

anyways this chapter was amazing and terrifying and I can’t wait to see how Tomura’s story moves forward from here. happy 5th anniversary of BnHA, y’all

[halloweennut]

Hireath, Part Four

On the steps of the palace

Once upon a time there were two sisters. The eldest one had the gift of seeing the future, the youngest to see the past. They lived with their mother in a small village in the north of Avalor, in a small little cottage that was the center of their world and home. It wasn’t a life like that in the palace, but they were happy, free to run unfettered in their safe little corner of the world. 

Their gifts were the town’s best kept secret. No one spoke of it aloud, but all knew to ask one of them for help with a small little vision in exchange for something - sometimes it was a jar of honey, or a few oranges, maybe even a bolt of fabric for a dress if the vision was big enough. The girls were only more than happy to oblige. It was fun, and they enjoyed helping their neighbors and their mother.  

That is until a malvago heard a whisper about a secret, about two girls who lived on the hill and could see things no one else could. Tormenta was a greedy man, and saw profit for himself in their gifts - not only would it help him, but other malvagos would be interested as well. So one day, as the girls walked from home to the well, bucket shared between them, he transformed into a large eagle snatched them away to the mountains - something the eldest hadn’t seen. No one saw a thing, and no one who saw them in the mountains said a world about the two children who sold visions. 

There was no solace when Tormenta died, and no solace when the malvagos that came became less and less. Only the ever-growing fear of never being free.

That is until, 150 years later, two sorceresses and a disgraced chancellor came into their cave. The chancellor, still with enough good and love in him to care, forwent any grand schemes he had and risked it all to set them free.

-

Elena was snapped from the document she had been reading by the sound of shouting from the courtyard and the stomp of hooves with accompanying whinnies. Confused, she grabbed her scepter and ran downstairs from her bureau towards the sound. Francisco was already at the front door when she made it towards the entryway.

“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked, tightening her grip on her scepter. Her abuelo shook his head.

“It sounds like a horse got out and was spooked,” he replied. “Let’s go see if they need help.”

Her grip relaxed and she nodded. This was a simple crisis she could handle.  The two walked out to see a few guards chase after a familiar black horse, scrambling for the reins or dodging away from its hooves. Elena felt herself and her grandfather freeze on the steps at the sight of Valiente, dirty and panicked, the very opposite of how they both remembered him - the prized thoroughbred that Esteban doted over who never went a day without a thorough brushing. 

“It can’t be-” Francisco murmured. “Valiente!”

Valiente stopped at the call, and turned, running over to the palace steps. He stomped his hooves impatiently, throwing his head back to gesture towards the slumped figure in his saddle. Elena recognized the jacket immediately to her disgust, but much like Valiente, it was the opposite of what she remembered and what she knew should have been in place. The jacket was torn and dirty - Esteban hated being in a situation where either would happen to him, even as children. But it was the fact that the slumped figure wasn’t sitting tall made Elena’s stomach drop - they were either hurt, dead, or it was a trap. She bolted down the steps, despite her abuelo’s calls. Elena raised her scepter up to point at the figure. 

“Esteban, sit up, now! That is an order!” she demanded. The figure made no move. “Esteban, you better be passed out or-”

She used the end of the scepter to nudge what should have been the shoulder, and noticed then that the jacket was only draped over the rider. With a quick movement, she pulled the jacket away to let it flutter to the ground. Her scepter nearly joined it at the sight of two small children in the saddle, both passed out. 

“Mios dios,” Elena said. “Esteban what have you done…”

Francisco joined her a second later, and any question he had died on his tongue. He turned to a few guards instead. “You, fetch the doctor, and you, go tell a maid to get a room ready.”

The guards nodded and ran off into the palace as Francisco carefully pulled the older girl down. Elena quickly moved forward to grab the younger.  The little one blinked slightly, barely awake.

“Esteban…?” was the only thing she said before falling back asleep. Elena tried to withhold a scowl, and stepped over the jacket on her way back into the palace.

-

Mari woke slowly, blinking in the filtered sun.  For a moment, she was scared that she was back in the cave, but the light was too bright and the material she was laying on and covered in was soft and warm. She opened her eyes fully then. Maricruz found herself on a large bed, the largest she had ever been in, in a room that could have fit their mother’s cottage. Rosita was curled up beside her, still fast asleep. That brought some relief to her mind. 

She slowly slid out from the covers, careful not to wake her little sister, and softly padded her way over to the window. Mari peered out, looking over the towers of the palace and the capitol stretched out before her, leading out to the ocean. She and Rosie had never seen the ocean up close before, let alone a city that big, but no matter how exciting the thoughts were, Mari could muster no joy at the thought. Rosie and her were safe, and that only brought a little solace. 

There was a rustle and a yawn from the bed, and Rosie sat up, blearily rubbing at her eyes. “Mari? Where- where are we?”

“Avalor. We’re in the palace, but other that I don’t know much else,” Mari replied walking back over to the bed. “I just woke up. I think we fell asleep on Valiente at some point.”

Rosie nodded. “Is Esteban here yet? I thought I saw him…”

“I don’t think so,” she said before looking around the room. “Wait, where’s his jacket?” 

“Maybe someone took it to be cleaned? I can look,” Rosita replied before quickly blinking and scrambling out of bed. “It’s still in the courtyard. We can’t leave it there.”

“Wait, Rosie! We can’t just run out!” Mari exclaimed, close behind her sister as she ran to the door. “Rosie!”

 Her sister opened the door and ran straight into the legs of Elena. “Oof! Careful there.”

Rosie gasped and scrambled back to Mari, who picked her up to hold her protectively. She stepped back a few paces, eyeing the princess with suspicion. Elena saw the look in her eyes and held up her hands defensively. 

“I was wondering when you two were going to wake up,” she said softly, kneeling down to be closer to eye-level with the two. “You guys must be tired. Valiente looked like he was running for days-”

“He was,” Rosie said softly. “Four days.” 

“That is a long time, isn’t it?” Elena replied. “Are you guys hungry?”

“No. Not until we get Esteban’s jacket back,” Mari shook her head. “It’s not ours to keep. We need to give it back.”

Elena frowned. “How do you know him anyway?”

“He rescued us and brought food for us when we were back in the cave,” Rosie chirped, squirming out of Mari’s arms, but didn’t move from her side. Elena reeled slightly.

“Cave? What did he, Chatana, and Ash do to you?” She asked, the fans of hate warming in her chest. Mari frowned at the question. 

“They didn’t do anything,” Mari replied, flatly. “They came for visions, but Esteban was the only one who never asked for anything. He’s the only person in 200 years to actual care about us outside of what we can do.”

“Two hundred years?” Elena sputtered. “But you’re both children-”

“Magic chains,” Mari said. “To keep us from leaving or aging. Can we get Esteban’s jacket now?”

“Not until I have more answers,” the princess shook her head. “And he is not someone you should look up to, let alone be concerned about-”

“Yes he is!” Rosie exclaimed.  

“Rosita!” Mari said sharply, pulling her back towards her. 

“He’s not someone to be trusted,” Elena replied, trying to keep calm. She didn’t need her magic to flare. 

“That’s what Chatana and Ash learned,” Rosie said, blinking twice. “And now they have him.”

“I’m so confused,” Elena said, dress turning a tinge of purple. “Can you start from the beginning?”

“Only after we get his jacket back,” Mari replied. Rosie tugged on her skirt, blinking twice. “And breakfast.”

“....Deal,” Elena sighed. “I’ll send a maid to fetch it. In the meantime, I’ll show you to the dining room. I hope you’re hungry.”

Soon enough the girls were seated at the table, close as peas in a pod and sharing a dirty and torn jacket over their shoulders as they stared at plate upon plate of food in front of them. Elena softly told them to go ahead, and that she and some others would join them soon. As Rosie and Mari reached for the pastries and fruit, Elena ducked out into the hall to find Francisco and Luisa waiting. Isabel had long since left for school, needing to start out early on a science project.  

“Are they alright?” Francisco asked. 

Elena nodded. “Hungry and not talkative, but alright. There’s a lot to tell us, but they don’t want to talk yet.”

“The poor things,” Luisa said. “Who knows what they’ve been through.”

“That’s what I’m worried about...they said some things that didn’t make sense,” Elena replied. “I’m hoping to get some clarity over breakfast.”

“Let’s head in then, shall we?” Francisco said, offering his arm to Luisa, which she gladly took. The three entered the dining room to find the girls happily tucking away into oranges and sweetbreads. The two looked up at them. “Buenos dias. How did you two sleep?”

“Good,” Mari said plainly before popping another orange segment into her mouth.

“I don’t think we’ve ever even seen a bed that big,” Rosie added. “I think it’s as big as our bedroom back in the cave.”

“Cave, what do you mean cave-” Luisa began to ask, but was cut off with a quick glance from Elena. 

“Perhaps some introductions first?” Elena said. “I’m Elena, and these are my grandparents-”

“Francisco and Luisa, and your little sister is Isabel,” Rosie interrupted. “We know.” 

“Our reputation precedes us then,” Francisco replied, pushing in Luisa’s chair. The girls shrugged. 

“We either saw it or Esteban talked about you,” Mari said. It was simply said, like she was saying the sky was blue. The royal three looked at each other at that. 

“He...spoke about us?” Francisco asked. “And what do you mean, ‘saw’?”

“My sister and I are oracles,” Rosie replied between bites of another roll. “I’m Rosita and she’s Maricruz.”

“Oracles,” Elena repeated. “That explains what you meant by visions.”

“Pretty much,” Mari replied. She blinked twice. “You’re going to ask about what they wanted from us - Chatana, Ash and Esteban. They wanted to know the location of Maruvian mystical items they could use to defeat you and Avalor.”

“You didn’t tell them, did you?” Elena stiffened in her seat. 

“No, never got the chance,” Mari continued. She pushed her plate away, suddenly not hungry anymore. “Esteban rescued us.” 

“No doubt with some sort of motive behind it,” Luisa said behind a sip of tea. Rosie stared at her. 

“Yes, to keep them from hurting you,” Rosie replied. She angrily stuffed the rest of a roll into her mouth. Elena sighed.

“Girls- Rosita, Maricruz,” she began. “I’m not sure what he told you, but he can’t be trusted. He’s not a good person.”

“Then why did he let us go before we could tell them anything?” Mari asked. “You think we didn’t know anything about him? I saw everything before it happened 50 years ago, and Rosie saw everything that’s happened since. We know he did wrong before he even showed up. Not to mention the whole being a part of a malvago gang, and we don’t particularly care for malvagos.”  

“That...is certainly something to think about, mijita,” Francisco said. 

“It still doesn’t erase his crimes for the past two months! No matter how he manipulated these girls-,” Elena began, dress tinging orange.

“We weren’t manipulated. No one can lie to us without us knowing!” Rosie exclaimed, standing up in her chair. “He brought Mari oranges and brought us new blankets! He told us stories about you and how much he loves his family! He got us out of the cave and kept Chatana and Ash from hurting us and from using us to hurt you! Just because you hate him doesn’t mean we have to!”

Maricruz pulled her down, and worked to quiet her down, before turning to Elena herself.

“Esteban said he wasn’t going to let them hurt his family,” Mari added. “He stayed behind so we could get away. Ash and Chatana were going to hurt us after we gave them the visions they wanted. Visions that would have hurt Avalor and you, and ones Esteban didn’t even want to help them get.”

Rosie blinked once, twice. “He lied a lot, but not to us. He especially lied to Ash.”

“About what?” 

“That he was going to let them win.”

-

“And you’re sure their story checks out?” Gabe asked. Elena was leaning over a map of Avalor, looking for any Maruvian sites that were even in the general vicinity of the mountain the girls had been in for 200 years.

“I checked it,” Mateo replied. “There are reports that talk about them going back 150 years, and my grandfather had a stack of papers on Tormenta. Too bad back then there wasn’t much in the way of missing children reports- that would probably back it up, too.”  

Gabe winced. “Thankfully the Royal Guard handles it now. Just...a little too late.”

“At least they’re out now and safe,” Elena replied. “I’ve narrowed it down to two possible sites: Monte Claro or Socanos.”

“Monte Claro is little more than some sculptures, and the temple is too in ruin to inhabit,” Mateo replied. “So it must be Socanos!”

“I’ll get a troop together-” Gabe began. Elena held up a hand.

“No,” she said. “We’ll go on our own. We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Be prepared.”

“Elena, are you sure?” Mateo asked. “Sure we’ve faced them before but-”

“I’m sure,” Elena answered. She rolled up the map. “Go get prepared for tomorrow. I’ll see you at dinner.” 

The co-captains of the guard nodded and left Elena’s office. She slumped down in her chair, resting her head on her hand, and let her dress turn purple from stress and fear. Elena thought back to the day, hearing the girls go over everything that had occured. Rosie couldn’t go through some of it, and had to be taken out to be distracted from it while Mari continued. She didn’t make eye contact with Elena, and her voice sounded so tired - she looked so tired. She didn’t even begin to have any sort of levity to her voice until the events that began just a few weeks ago.

Those were tales of the cousin she knew once. Pomp and circumstance, a little selfish, a show-off, but kind and caring all the same.    

Elena breathed, and let herself let go of her stress. Slowly, her dress shifted back to red, and she stood, leaving her office to walk up to the guest wing of the palace. The last she had seen them, Mari was watching out the window, distant from everyone but Rosie, who had curled up on the bed for a nap. No doubt they were both awake by then.  Soon she stood in front of their door and slowly raised a hand to knock.

Knock knock

“Come in.” 

Elena entered, finding the two girls sitting at the window, watching the late afternoon turn to evening. 

“Hey,” she said, near lamely. The girls looked up at her, and she couldn’t read them, but approached anyway. The two girls still had Esteban’s jacket draped over them. “I wanted to talk to you both about...about earlier.”

She pulled a small stool over from the vanity, sitting across from them. “I’m sorry about doubting you both about...about Esteban. I don’t...I don’t hate him- I want to, but I don’t think I can. But he has hurt me, my family, Avalor, so badly, I find it hard to ever forgive him.”

Elena looked at the two of them. “But that doesn’t mean that it negates how you two feel about him, especially after everything that had happened, and everything that he has done for you two.”

“We know,” Mari said softly. “He still loves you too.”

“I know,” Elena tried not to let her dress go blue. She rubbed at her eyes - she didn’t want to let herself go blue. Rosie slipped from the window seat and jacket, and went to her side, quickly wrapping her arms around her shoulders. 

“It’s okay,” Rosie said. “You can go blue. Sometimes even Mari has trouble doing that too.” 

Mari responded with indignation at that, and Elena couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll be okay, but thank you though. No hard feelings between any of us?”

“None for now,” Mari replied. “But I make no promises.”

“I’m sure,” Elena hugged Rosie back. “Come on you two, I have a surprise.”

“A surprise? What is it? Mari, don’t look!” Rosie exclaimed. 

“I wouldn’t!” 

“How about I just tell you?” Elena stood, offering out a hand toward Mari while taking Rosie’s. “I spoke to the seamstresses earlier. They should have some things ready by now - I think you two deserve a wardrobe update.”

Mari was at the door in a flash. “No hard feelings ever again! Let’s go!”

Elena laughed and led the two girls towards the seamstresses’ shop. She would tell them tomorrow where she and her friends were going, and let this serve as a distraction from the present until then. She hoped that maybe the palace would distract them from what was miles away, and from the person she wanted to hope was alright. 

-

Esteban couldn’t will himself to move. Not that the paralysis spell was helping in the least, but if he just had the will, he would fight it. He was far too tired, and doubted between that and the injuries he had been dealt he would even be able to. At the very least, he couldn’t feel much but the beat of his own heart in his chest, left alone on a cold temple floor with his thoughts. They traveled back home- what was home, and the thought of his family safe at least brought him some solace. Ash would have come in and gloated otherwise, and Chatana would have told him a strangely distant way.  Esteban didn’t know which was worse, which was better.  At least Chatana wouldn’t smirk about it. Pili maybe, but she wouldn’t. 

He blinked once, twice, and turned his glance towards the sound of footsteps. He could at least move his eyes, unnerving as it was. Chatana entered the room softly, wings just rasping against the floor. Esteban watched as she approached him, elegant and smooth. He couldn’t read her face as she knelt down next to his head. 

“The oracles got to Avalor, safe and sound,” she said. “No doubt they’ve told the princess everything by now.”

Esteban blinked in acknowledgment. 

“No doubt we’ll have a little family reunion soon enough,” Chatana continued, and almost condescendingly smoothed a strand of hair from his face. If he could speak, he would shout that no, there wouldn’t be, Elena wouldn’t be so foolish. “Do you really think Elena wouldn’t come in here, scepter blazing, to defeat those who would do her and her kingdom harm? Surely you aren’t that foolish. But perhaps you are.”

She stood, smoothing her skirts. “You could have been one of the best malvagos the world has seen. A shame.”

Esteban could only watch her leave, even as his vision began to blur - tears from frustration, fear? It didn’t matter. What did matter was forcing himself to move. 

He wouldn’t let them hurt his family. He wouldn’t be responsible for their pain, not again. 

[wizardessheart-sideb]

The latest episode is here! Below the cut is a transcription

HEWWO!

Hello everyone, welcome to Royal Magic Academy Radio, a podcast about Wizardess Heart. I’m your host, Mari. So uh. YEAH, we had a lot of big stuff happen since the last episode, so let’s get on with the show.

GAMING NEWS

Event-wise, we got a joint Romance Point slot that brings back some of Elias and Luca’s past stories AND CGs. So it’s a combo of two guys AND stories and CGs. There’s a new star collection event, All Aboard the Mystery Express. I have to say I never expected to get a mystery train event, but I’ll take it. I think it’s a good theme and I like Hugo’s story. I haven’t read any of the other stories because I don’t care about them and I don’t have Klaus’ yet. 

We got Joel’s sequel! His main route early bird is still running, so we’re getting like Double Joel. Or in my case, triple Joel since I’m transcribing his main route so. It’s Joel season y’all.

We also now have quite a few new features. After years of asking, we now have a greet all button. While I’m glad this is a thing since a lot of people are happy about it, I personally don’t use it because using greet all and then sending people messages for that extra 20 Lune is a nightmare. I did a time comparison using my personal account and then the one I use to screen record stuff for Ceragon Dubs, and if you use greet all and then go into your friend list to send messages it’s a lot longer. But it wasn’t as long as how much time I spent screen recording, logging in and out of facebook accounts, and video editing and breaking out my phone and screen recording that for a timer.

There’s also a new feature on consumable items. I mean, that’s the best way to describe it. So basically, there’s now a thing called limited time items. As the name suggests, they’re only available for about 15 days, and if you don’t use them in that time, they disappear. So far, we’ve seen this with Story Tickets and Muffins. I imagine it will probably go over to the other snack items, but I don’t know about the others consumables. Time will tell, I suppose.

FUTURE EVENTS/SPECULATION

Okay so since we’re now getting the next batch of sequels, if we’re going in the order of the poll, Hiro’s is next. That is all. Although I do think we're gonna get season 10 first. But yeah, Hiro's should be next. Sequel-wise, at least.

CALL AND RESPONSE

And now we have the long awaited response portion of call and response! Everyone’s favorite segment where I have no clue what I’m doing, I take shit from Love Live!, and I am met with the realization if I were an idol my call and response would be the worst because I can’t think of anything, which is why we make Love Live references. Ngl I feel like my call would be like “Who’s my favorite audience member?” and then the audience is like “me!” and I fake mishearing them and I’m like “memes?!” and then we all dab or some shit because that’s my brand. Dabbing at everything. Okay but yeah so. I asked you guys to rewrite character bios so. Let’s have some FUNNNNN.

Okay, and I sort have things in the correct places so I can just read them. I mean "sort of" because I have to go through DMs and stuff, but... Okay so our first one is from @nadia-the-wizardess. And hers is for Hugo which of course it is, I love you dude. So she submitted... And I'm not gonna try to be a complete ham. I'm gonna try and have some dignity while reading these. "Friend or foe? The masked man seemed to be at every turn, either helping us or using us to his advantage. He claims he has come from the future to help put us on the correct path and change our tragic destiny. We still don't know what Hugo is truly planning, but despite all this, I've decided to put my faith in him and join him in his journey through time and save his-- our future!" And then her sidenote, "(God I hope I did this right sbhdnsns)." You did! You are all good and I - you know I love Hugo, probably… well…  probably just as much as you. Hugo is my best boy, so.

Okay, so. God, this segment is cursed. I… This is literally the fifth time I;ve tried recording this one little story because like my mic just keeps like cutting out. I need a brand new mic like this one is not cutting it anymore but anyway. So this call and response has a funny story behind it. So essentially like when I first get responses, I don't necessarily read them carefully at first, like I'm just kind of aware. Like “okay, like some.” So when I first did the call and response a while ago, um, I was vaguely aware that I had two and one was from Nadia and the other was from an anon. And so obviously like I push it back and then, uh, me and my friend have been chatting, who's not Nadia. That's the only identity clue I will give you cuz I'm not going to say who it is but um, *laughs* she's gonna be so mad though. So anyway, so me and my friend were talking and she was like, “Oh hey, I have a question so ‘theoretically’” in quotes, if she had sent a call and response answer to me like, would she have to make a new one or like whatever, like trying to figure out what's going on. And I said like honestly I’ll use whatever you give me because I do literally like whatever people spend in and I will use so it's a free-for-all, like I’ll use anything. 

And then she told me that was good because she forgot what she, and I air quote this, “theoretically” sent. And I was like, “Well you”... This was before I checked my inbox cuz I was like, “Oh, I’ll just go in and like copy paste in and put in our chat. So I was just like “You could always ask me to send you things” like if you don't remember what you do - andthis goes for anyone. Like if you send a response by not DM by like inbox and you don't remember what you wrote like you can totally just message me and be like, “Hey I sent this, I don't remember how I worded it exactly I'm worried that I messed it up could you please tell me what it was” and like totally go ahead and do that like I don't mind. So then, you know, like I went into my inbox so I was like, “Okay let's see what she said” and um. This is what she said. “Call and response for Sigurd (Feat. Leslie) - Sigurd's the only student who can equally terrify the staff at Olive Garden along with Klaus. With his overbearing obsession and appetite for any sort of pasta, he's best known as Klaus' right-hand man when it comes to needing a bud for their 2 for $12 appetizer promotions.” Not sponsored by Olive Garden. “I hear even though he currently majors in Magical Creature Taming, rumor has it he'll be switching to Culinary Magic for... ‘Reasons.’ Personally, I'd rather not know,” Same. “but if you insist...*Shrug”

And anyway this is cursed and yeah, I can understand why my friend did not want to like, confront me about this. Oh God, RIP. We got through it, she's fine.

So our next one is from @uraminowaltz and she has two and they're both for Klaus because of course they are. I should just rename this segment to me roasting my friends. Okay, so her serious Klaus one is: “Likes: Tea, sweets, challenging games, cooking. Dislikes: Coffee, Zeus,” Girl me too. “Irresponsibility, abuse of authoritative power. Hobby: Cooking, inventing magical tools. Skills: Unintentional romantic gestures, endurance with magic, WORKAHOLIC.” Yeah I-I felt that. I felt that. So the joke one: “Likes: His giant personal ring of 500 different keys. Dislikes: Losing his keys.” Also same. “Hobby: Making copies of his keys. Skills: Losing his keys PLEASE HELP HIM FIND HIS KEYS HERE IS A CROWDFUNDING LINK TO FIND HIS KEYS IT'S FUNDED AT 60%.” Oh, Klaus. Klaus. Honestly though when they did the Klaus II profile and it was like, thing that worries him, uh, losing, uh, lost his keys I was like goddammit. Like it just… It was one of those things that I didn’t realize was on brand for him, but then once I read it and saw it, I was like “Oh God yeah yeah that's his brand that's his... poor baby, that's his brand.”

Okay so our second to-  Actually, it might second-to-last I haven't checked the notes of that post so I guess I have to do that too. Okay so anyway, @sigurdcurtisholdsmegentle said… uh, did some, and you're going to be surprised who it was for. It was for Sigurd. So their joke one and they said… Their personal note for this was “Please actually kill me for this.” No I will not. You must atone for your sins. Uh... “Likes: Pasta. Dislikes: People who don't like pasta. Hobby: Naming spices in the pasta sauce. Skill: Cooking Pasta.” I'm very glad you did not put anything else because I would not want to read that out loud and that is NOT a challenge to anybody *laughs* So their serious one is: “Likes: Jazz music, Puns, The Rain, Make up.” Hell yeah. “Dislikes: His father, Himself, Ch… *laughs* CHICA,” I… We’re going for it. We’re going for the discourse and controvershy. The controversy. I can’t talk. Uh. Also dislikes “Blood. Hobby: Writing letters, Playing trumpet, Playing chess with Klaus. Skill: Decorating, Well timed exits, Running on little to no sleep.” Poor baby. But yeah I mean yeah. That's him. So the next one is... that they did was for Mel so it's “Likes: Apple cider, Plants, Perserving wildlife. Dislikes: Time Magic, Sol Felia,” It’s feh-lia not fee-lia, right? Like it’s not… I don’t feel like it’s fee-lia? I’m like pretty sure it’s feh-lia. Okay, it’s feh-lia now, I’m making the executive decision. It’s feh-lia now. Uh. “Oranges, Explaining.” God I felt that like whenever I reread Sigurd’s route, Mel's like “I don't want to explain” I’m like please shut up stop it like please, just explain. Good God. Like you're just making more trouble for yourself my dude. “Hobby: Sleeping in the greenhouse, Reading lore. Skill: Botany, Making wands, Flower” Oh my God, flower arrangements, that’s so cute. Oh my God, I love that actually. Like, I mean honestly like I liked all of them, but like that's so cute. That was super cute, I really like that one.

So, I don't think my call and response post had any notes. Except from people just liking it but I'm going to double-check cuz I'm not 100% sure.

Okay so it's time for our final call and response which will be my own. I literally have to bring up the my inspiration, my muse to *laughs* to do this. Okay so like, my whole inspiration for this prompt was the fact that like Azusa never got like an actual profile. Like it's all just question marks and um, we're going to fix that. And that's why I got the idea like, “oh that be really funny like everyone just rewrote things.” Let's go for the serious one first. That way I can do that and then I can goof. So my serious profile rewrite for Azusa and I did not write this beforehand, so… yeah! Let’s see… “Likes: his brother. Dislikes: hypocrites, himself.” Uh, that’s such a… *laughs*

That's such a mood. Every dude in this game is like self-loathing and some way. But I mean that's just how people are so I mean I guess it's not actually like that much of a stretch. But anyway. “Hobby… ………” Uh. You know, it's bad that I can't think of anything not just because like, I can't think of anything, but because he's one of my favorites and I'm like, “does he even have hobbies” like I'm not - I'm sure he does but I mean… “Hobby: telling Randy to shut up” I don't know. Uh, “Skill: onmyojutsu” just because we're basic and that was our serious one. And now for the fun one.

Um…. okay so, “Likes: his family. Dislikes: people. Hobby: ……….. you know. Skill: being a jackass” I don't know. I'm not even going to try and improv a description. Oh, poor Azusa. Although I do wonder if- when he gets a sequel, I wonder if that… I wonder if they’re gonna, like, continue making the, you know, kinda like additional info thing or if we’re gonna get like, a real profile for- Okay like, okay. I would be so fucking mad if like once he gets his sequel and they put like his like, um, like second profile thing and it's literally just all *laughs* it’s all question marks. I would be so fucking mad. I’d be like “come on PLEASE. PLEASE DON’T DO THIS TO US.” Okay anyways, so that was call and response. Thank you guys for coming on this journey with me. Um, that was fraught with recording problems and I'm not looking forward to transcribing this, but sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.

ROUTE REVIEW

All right, so it’s time to review Sigurd’s route. His route had come out a bit before I started playing, and I vaguely remember getting a notification about it, but honestly I don’t remember too much about it. I was playing Yukiya at the time and while I thought Sigurd was cute, I was too lost in the Yukiya sauce to do anything but Yukiya-related stuff. 

It honestly took me a while to play Sigurd’s route, like i played it for the first time last year, and like. I just genuinely enjoy Sigurd so much. Like he’s such a funny guy and so sweet. Falling in love with a guy like that just feels natural. And the story handled it super well too. The story balances plot and romance very well and they feel very cohesive. 

The plot was really solid, with enough ends left to get resolved in Mel’s route. But then again, I’m very partial to this mystery series and no, I’m not just saying that bc I cosplay sol maiden!Liz. It’s a good story idea, bront. Not to mention there’s like, a lot of fluff in Sigurd’s. I mean it absolutely has upsetting moments, but it’s just. Okay like I don’t mean to get on a soapbox or whatever, but it’s just. I feel like my culture gets inundated with these images of cishet relationships where men don’t treasure their partners. I acknowledge it’s toxic and it’s a serious problem and all, trust me this sort of thing is something I’ve taken enough classes on to consider it an unofficial minor, but like I’M SO TIRED OF SEEING THESE CISHET MEN BE JERKS TO THEIR CISHET GIRLFRIENDS. Like really, we’re gonna romanticize a dude being a jerk to his girlfriend and not show the repercussions of this sort of behavior and act like it’s normal? Really? That’s what we’re gonna do? So like any media that portrays a guy as being loving and smitten and affectionate with his partner is just. That’s so refreshing and so WONDERFUL like I eat that stuff UP. Like it’s so clear Sigurd is so taken with the MC and it’s just like hot chocolate on a cold day. 

So yeah the plot’s good and Sigurd is just. Wonderful. But I also love how much lore we got in this route. We got country names, continent names, what sort of extra curriculars the academy has. Even some Goldstein lore. In my opinion, the best routes usually have some hella cool lore details and this route had a lot. 

And this is a minor thing but. As someone who was raised with their cousins and stuff, they just nailed the cousin interactions between Klaus and Sigurd. I have a cousin who, as of now actually since birthdays, is the same age as me, although usually I’m older. My cousin and I mess with each other all the time and he bullies me constantly. I’m just kidding, I’m definitely the Sigurd to his Klaus. And like Sigurd and Klaus, we actually play a lot of games together, or play the same game at once. We’re both really into video games and his latest hobby is bullying my brand new Fire Emblem husband Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. But in all seriousness, the game handled then well and the only way they could’ve made it more realistic is if they kept poking each other and making weird noises at each other. I mean, do you REALLY have a cousin if you don’t greet them by screeching like a pterodactyl? 

Typing this all out makes me realize how weird my cousin and I are. 

Okay but anyway. This route is very good and Sigurd is just an absolute doll. I highly recommend reading.

BYE BYE!

And that’s it for us today!! Thank you guys for tuning in this week. I’m sorry this episode is late. I was going to record it yesterday but something happened and basically made me give up on doing anything I wanted to do yesterday. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and hopefully next episode will be on time!! With that, have a great week! This is Mari, signing off.

[ai-qa]

Those Like Us

With the curtain drawn a gentle wave of morning light illuminated our hold.  It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, making out four figures just beyond the doorway.

"Well, looks like it," said the tallest one.

I blinked a couple times.  The four of them were similar to Xhianei and I, somewhat similar to the people we'd run into so far.  Something about them was different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it could be.

A quick look around the room confirmed my earlier observations: concrete walls, a straw bed covered in heavy tarps, some odd stray cables along the ceilings.  It was nice to actually see just where we've been.

"Not much of a talker, huh?" she responded to my apprehension.

I looked at her, then immediately looked away.  I wasn't sure how to respond given how most people have been since we arrived.  They seemed nice, but--

Xhianei tugged at my arm, breaking me from my thoughts.

"He's got our bag," she whispered, gesturing to the one farthest right.

I looked back up towards them.  Sure enough, he had our bag tossed over his back and gripped the long handle in his hands, seemingly in preparation to remove it.  The boy took notice of the gesture and softly nodded with a small grin.

"Whozat?" came the smallest one, just behind the tall one.  

"They're some kids from outside a little ways from here," the tall one replied.

The smallest one's big blue eyes focused intently on the both of us.  He seemed to be about Xhianei's age if I had to guess, and his basic curiosity was endearing, even somehow comforting.

The tallest one laid her hand on his head while the one at the far left shyly peered around her.  In her hands was a variety of fruits and nuts atop a small crude wooden tray.  Her bright green eyes carried a feeling similar to the youngest one.

These staring eyes didn't harbor the strange resentment we had experienced thus far.  I was really not sure how to feel about it, at least not yet.

"If I may..." said the one farthest right, stepping forward past the threshold while swinging the bag off his back.

He stopped just short of the both of us and offered the bag by the handle.  I slowly extended my arms to grab it by the bulk.

"Got it?" he asked.

I nodded and he released the handle.  I put the bag off to the side.

The green-eyed one came in next, presenting the tray of food and carefully setting it down on the straw bed.

"I hope you like it," she said quietly, standing up and taking a step back.

Xhianei dove into it without much hesitation.  You know, as she does.

"Make sure to peel those," she said, interrupting Xhianei before she could bite into something.  "The skins are gross, don't eat 'em."

"I take it you're not from around here," the tallest one giggled.  "We'd have probably seen you before if you were...and you'd maybe not try to bite into an orange."

She stepped into the room and knelt down, palm open in front of Xhianei.  Xhianei gave her the orange.

Seeing the tallest one more up close was a bit unnerving, with the unusual clothing, hairstyle, and facial jewelry.  Something about it put me a bit on-edge.

"I'm Sura, by the way," she said, picking at the orange rind and tearing it off the fruit.  "Littlest one is Connor, biggest one is Saffron, middle one is Harley."

She finished with Xhianei's orange and split it open, showing her how to remove and eat the segments before returning it to her.  Sura grabbed the other orange from the tray and started to skin that one as well.

"I don't know your circumstances, but I'm guessing you came out of Huot for some reason," she placed a handful of orange rind back on the tray.  "Got a favor to ask if that's the case."

"...Yeah?" I hesitantly replied.

"Don't go back there."

"But we were supposed to go there," I whispered, confused.

"That's the thing..."

"...Xhias.  And that's my sister, Xhianei."

"Xhias.  We're all supposed to be there.  I know you don't know us yet but just...take my word for it for now, okay?"

I felt my ears drift back a little bit.  Unnerved as I might have been, I wasn't given a reason to distrust her yet.

"You're welcome to stay with us as long as you'd like if you're willing to help us get by.  You know, chores and stuff."

"...That sounds okay."

"Alright, good," she said, handing me a peeled orange.  "It isn't amazing being here but it's still a place to be."

"...What is this place?" I asked before biting into an orange segment.

"Some town a bit north of Huot, don't know the name," chimed Saffron.  "It was destroyed and abandoned a long time ago, but there isn't really anything recorded about it.  I'd guess a tornado came through here since grey zones are usually too focused for this kind of damage."

"Um...what's a tornado?" I asked.

"Uh, like a big funnel of wind that sucks up stuff in its way and spits it back out," he recalled.  "They're pretty nasty and seem to come out of nowhere when it storms really bad."

"But I like tomatoes," Connor piped up.

"Tornadoes, not tomatoes," Saffron reiterated.  "Tornadoes aren't food."

Harley and Sura just let out a quiet laugh at their expense.

"Sorry this is a lot to take in, both of you," Sura continued.  "Just, uh, know that what you probably dealt with in Huot won't happen here, whatever it might have been."

My ears lowered with my gaze as I stopped chewing, thinking back to yesterday.  Sura said nothing but I could see her expression from my periphery, a "yeah, that's what I thought" kind of look as she reached into her back pocket and retrieved some strange metal tool.  She grabbed one of the nuts from the tray and placed it within the tool, holding it with her other hand.

"With these you're going to want a nutcracker, the shells are otherwise too hard to open.  You just put it in here and--"

Sura squeezed the two pieces together over the tray.  A loud snapping noise followed as tiny bits of shell fell from the tool.

"--squeeze like so.  Try to only squeeze hard enough to break the shell since otherwise you'll crush what's inside, too.  I usually do this for Connor and Harley since they're still pretty young yet."

She placed the meat on the tray before grabbing the remaining nuts, cracking them one by one like the first.

"You get the hang of it pretty quickly."

Some minutes passed as we ate, with the other kids grabbing a few little things off the tray, too.  Before too long all that remained were some fruit skins, nut shells, and a couple blueberries.

"...Um...Sura?" I asked as Xhianei ate the last blueberry.

"Hm?"

"How did we get here?"

"You were brought here.  From a little ways away, so I was told."

"...Told?  So it wasn't you that brought us here?"

"Nope!  Learned about it myself just a little bit ago, actually."

Harley stood back up, stretched her legs, and picked up the tray.  She looked back to us with a shy smile before heading out of the room, Saffron following just behind with a similar gesture.

"Then...who told you?" I inquired, very confused.

Sura looked to the broken window at her right, then back to us.

"Any time now," she said with a grin.

Some seconds later a soft reverberation of footsteps along the hard floor could be heard, each step louder than the last.

---

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[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Baby Daddy - Chapter 9

You can read it here on AO3 or find the Tumblr Chapter Index here. 

“Did you hear about this?” Dad asks, shaking out the newspaper as Stiles makes breakfast.

“What?” Stiles asks. “Also, who even reads newspapers anymore? Don’t you have a phone like regular people?”

Dad ignores that. “The Hales are back in town. They’re rebuilding the house.”

“Oh.” Stiles feels a jolt. Right. The Hales. Who he has somehow forgotten to mention to his dad that he knows. And that he is also playing an integral part in producing a new one. Those Hales. “Um, yeah. I knew they were back in town. I didn’t know about the house though.”

Dad peers at him over the frames of his reading glasses. “You knew they were back in town?”

“Yeah. My friend Laura? From the diner? It’s Laura Hale.”

His Dad frowns. “You didn’t mention this when I told you I was checking out the Hale file again.”

“What’s to mention?” Stiles asks, smacking the side of the coffee maker to get it to start working. They really need to get a new one of those at some point. “It’s not like we sit around and talk about that time most of her family got incinerated.”

“I guess not,” Dad says. “It’s just the three of them left, isn’t it?”

Three and a bit, Stiles thinks, and feels his face flooding with warmth.

“I think so? Laura doesn’t talk about her family much, and I don’t really blame her.” He gives the coffee maker another smack. “I met her brother last night though.”

Her incredibly hot and weird brother. And Stiles didn’t exactly meet him, did he? He stood there while the guy glared at him and then turned around and ran like Stiles was the devil or something. Definitely hot, but definitely weird. And Laura was weird as well. Whatever Hale family weirdness Stiles had stepped into there, he has no idea, only that there was sudden tension in the air thick enough to choke on. It had felt like Stiles had wandered on stage in the middle of some dramatic moment but nobody had given him a script. Definitely some heavy stuff going on, and it had been awkward as hell, but Stiles figures he’s already jerked off into a jar for Laura Hale, and whatever was going on last night can’t even come close to that, right? What’s a little more awkwardness thrown in?

“Those poor kids,” Dad says, and Stiles feels an odd moment of disconnect thinking of Laura and Derek that way, but of course they were only teenagers back then and that's how Dad remembers them. Laura must’ve been barely eighteen.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and thinks of Derek Hale. It’s probably unfair to think of him as weird, right? He works nights, which explains his zombification—Stiles once saw his dad get back from a night shift, carefully peel an orange, toss the segments in the trash and then just stare at the peel in his hand like he was knew something had gone wrong but couldn’t quite figure it out. Sleep deprivation is a bitch. And is it any surprise that Derek’s not a Chatty Cathy? The Hales have been through hell. It’s probably a miracle any of them are functioning at all.

Stiles isn’t sure he would be, in their shoes.

Dad sets the newspaper aside and rolls his shoulders. “How’s the Jeep running?”

Stiles gives him a genuine smile. “Really good. It starts like clockwork every time!”

“Well, that’s what a starter motor does, son,” Dad says.

“My old one didn’t.”

Dad huffs out a laugh. “The tutoring is still going well, then?”

“Yeah. It’s doing better than I thought.” Stiles is getting stupidly good at lying about this. And while it works for little things like groceries and the electric bill and the Jeep’s starter motor, he’s not sure yet how he’s going to explain that the hospital bill has been paid. He’s hoping to intercept all the mail until he figures out a way around it. “And it’s awesome to have the Jeep on the road again.”

“I’ll bet it is,” Dad says with a fond smile. “So, how about we celebrate that by going for a drive?”

“Um.” Stiles blinks, and shrugs. “Sure. Where are we going?”

He figures out halfway there, and tells himself he probably should have known.

***

Once upon a time, the private road that snaked through the Preserve ended at a three-storey house with a wraparound porch, bay windows, and a Dutch gable. Stiles has seen the photographs. Now there’s nothing left except the front façade of the house, charred and blackened, and the towering chimney that leans at an ominous angle.

Stiles pulls the Jeep up behind what looks like a contractor’s truck, and goes around to help Dad out the passenger side. They do an awkward little dance while Dad gets his crutches situated, and then they approach the remains of the house.

The contractor turns out to be a surveyor, and some guy that dad knows from town.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a big job,” he says. “Gonna have to shore up the cellar and all the tunnels before we even bring in the bulldozers to clear the site.”

“Never did figure out what those tunnels were about,” Dad says, gazing at the charred remains of the house.

The surveyor shrugs. “A leftover from bootlegging days, maybe? A bunch of old families made their money that way around here. This once place up in Elk Creek, I had the lady try to tell me it was from the Underground Railroad.” He shakes his head. “In California? In a house built in the twenties? Place was still full of empty whisky barrels.”

Dad laughs at that.

Stiles looks at the house, and at the lay of the land, and tries to remember where the three tunnels came out. He’s seen the plans, and they make no sense. How would a narrow tunnel that connects the house basement to a root cellar be of any use to bootleggers? And the other two didn't lead anywhere at all except few hundred feet into the Preserve.

Dad and the surveyor chat for a few more minutes, and then the surveyor leaves to go back into town.

Dad leans on his crutches and stares at the house, like he’s waiting for it to tell him all its secrets.

Stiles stands with him.

“You just…” Dad exhales heavily. “When your house is burning down, you don’t lock yourself in the fucking cellar.”

“Okay, but the fire investigator said it was an electrical fault, right?” Stiles asks. “I don’t know, maybe they were having a slumber party down there or something?”

“It was a regular concrete cellar, Stiles,” Dad says. “It was storage space. There were no bedrooms down there. Not even a couch and a TV. So what the hell were eight people doing down there that night? It doesn’t make any sense, unless…”

Stiles feels a prickling of unease down his spine. “Unless what?”

“Unless it wasn’t just the fire they were trying to get away from,” Dad says, his expression hard. “Unless there was some reason they couldn’t run out the front door, so they tried for the tunnels instead.”

Stiles shivers. “Like what reason?”

Dad gazes around the Preserve. “I don’t know, kid. I really don’t know.”

“You think someone targeted them,” Stiles says, and the realisation is like being doused in cold water. “You think they couldn’t use the doors because whoever set the fire was waiting to pick them off as they came outside. So they tried the tunnels, except they were blocked off somehow too.”

Dad smiles grimly. “Crazy theory, right?”

“Yeah!” Stiles rubs his forehead. “I mean, it’s insane, but it’s also the only thing that fits.”

He understands now why his dad wanted to come out here. It’s been eight years since the fire. There’s no physical evidence left out here. But sometimes it’s important to look at a crime scene to get a sense of the distances, the spaces, even the way the light falls. And sometimes it’s an important reminder that it’s real, that it didn’t just happen on paper and in photographs, and that actual people died here.

Stiles watches as Dad leans heavily on his crutches and looks around the clearing. There’s an old sorrow in his gaze, the weight of what the place is, what it had been once, and of the night itself. Stiles remembers the morning that Dad came home smelling of smoke and ash. He remembers the way his hands shook when washed them in the sink, over and over again, even though they were already clean.

He’s never asked what his dad saw that night, but he knows it was bad.

This isn’t just a puzzle to his dad. This is about his duty to the Hales who lost their lives that night, and the Hales who didn’t.

And, even if Dad doesn’t know it yet, to a tiny Hale who has yet to be born.

***

On the way back to town, down that twisting road through the trees, they pass a black SUV with heavily tinted windows.

It could be a contractor. It could be a sightseer from town. It could be anyone for any reason, but Stiles sees that his dad notes the licence plate number down.

***

Stiles’s stomach tells him that it’s lunchtime when they get home. He pulls the Jeep into the driveway, parking beside the cruiser already there. Deputy Jordan Parrish is leaning on the side of it, and he lifts a hand in greeting.

“Hey, it’s your work son!” Stiles says, waving back at Parrish.

Dad gives him a look. “Where the hell do you even come up with this stuff?”

“Oh, please. You love him. It’s adorable.” Stiles climbs out of the Jeep and heads around to the passenger side to help Dad out, only to find Parrish already there. “Hey, dude.”

“Hey, Stiles. How’s college?”

“Not bad. How’s fighting crime in the vast metropolis of Beacon Hills?”

Parrish makes a so-so gesture with his hand. “I gave out two fines for jay walking last week.”

“Good for you! Jay walkers, man. A scourge on decent society!” He gets ahead of Dad and Parrish so he can get the front door. “Are you staying for lunch, Jordan?”

“Uh, I guess? If I’m not intruding?”

“As if. Dad likes you more than me! I’m making sandwiches.”

“Sounds great.”

Stiles leaves Parrish to get Dad settled in the living room, and heads into the kitchen to rustle up some sandwiches and coffee. He decides on some basic turkey and mayo, with extra lettuce and bean sprouts on Dad’s. When he takes them into the living room, it’s to catch the tail end of Jordan giving Dad the weekly recap of what’s been going on down at the station: current investigations, crime stats, and the continuing saga of the scrub jays that have built a nest overlooking the parking lot and now try to attack anyone walking from the station to their cruiser.

“They’re birds, Parrish,” Dad says, rolling his eyes. “I can’t believe they’re holding the entire station hostage like that.”

“I called the park ranger’s office to see what we should do,” Parrish says. “He laughed at me.”

“Because they’re birds,” Dad repeats, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Anyhow, Stiles and I went out to the old Hale house this morning to take a look around. We saw an SUV on the way back. Can I get you to run the plate for me?”

“Sure thing, Sheriff,” Parrish says, and takes the piece of notepaper Dad hands him. “I can do it now if you want?”

“Eat your lunch first."

Parrish nods, and tucks the paper into his shirt pocket. “The Hales were pretty well known, weren’t they?”

Parrish hasn’t been in Beacon Hills for long enough to remember the Hales, or the house, back when they were whole.

“They were an old family,” Dad says. “Well liked.”

Stiles exchanges a look with him. If they were so well liked, then why the hell was someone targeting them?

“Do you think that now they’re back in town, there’s going to be trouble?” Parrish asks frankly, and this is why Dad likes him. Parrish gets straight to the point, just like Dad.

“I think that’s a possibility we ought to consider,” Dad says. “I think there’s more to the fire than what you’ll find in those files, that’s for sure.”

“You think it was arson,” Parrish says, raising his eyebrows.

“I think it was murder,” Dad tells him. “The fire investigator was adamant it was an electrical fault, but when your house is burning down around you, you don’t shelter in the goddamn basement. You don’t try and get out that way either, not when you’ve got perfectly good doors and windows on the ground floor. Damned if anyone could tell me why they’d do that.”

Stiles feels a rush of excitement. “Dad!”

“Hmm?”

“Dad, eight years ago nobody could tell you, because Laura and Derek weren’t there, right?”

“Right.”

“But Peter Hale was,” Stiles says. “He was in the house. And didn’t the paper say he was the one that applied for the planning permission? He’s awake now, so why not ask him?”

Dad blinks at him for a moment. “Shit, kid. Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”

Stiles knows.

For eight years his dad has gone around and around in circles with the Hale fire, and he’s so used to treading those same paths that he didn’t even realise that something new had shaken loose that might change the entire picture. Hasn’t Dad always said that the thing any old case needs most of all is a fresh set of eyes? Someone to look at things in a different way? And Stiles has always been good for that.

“You’re friends with Laura, you said?” Dad claps him on the shoulder. “Can you get me her uncle’s number?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “I can do that.”

Because Laura is his friend, and he wants to keep her safe.

Her, and the newest Hale that she’s trying to bring into the world.

***

Parrish heads out to his cruiser after lunch and Stiles trails along with him. He watches as he inputs the licence plate into the cruiser’s onboard computer.

“Who the hell is Gerard Argent?” Parrish asks, and writes the information down for Dad. Argent has an Arizona address.

Stiles shrugs and takes the notepaper back. “No idea, man. Probably some lost tourist.”

“Probably,” Parrish agrees.

[thebeauregardbros]

RP: Alus Beauregard

yo im just writin down some messy unorganized info i wanna put shortened on my wikia page l8tr but if you care here’s like. all the info youll ever want 4 alus & RPing with him if ya ever wanna (im on balmung)

RP Style

-The closest term I could relate to is ‘Rapid Fire’, but in truth I just type as if I am talking in real-time. -I am capable of typing at around 95 words per minute. I mostly use preset emotes descriptions, rarely my own descriptions. I don’t wait for turns, so if this speed intimidates you, you should look elsewhere for RP. (*im rly sry but my anxiety makes slow rp a living hell) -I love comic relief! I also adore serious philosophical and moral discussions. These themes are what my character is all about! -Sorry, not interested in ERP!  -Addressing mature themes like drugs, violence, swearing, prostitutes, mass murder, etc. are fine but please understand my character is essentially a lawful good cinnamon roll cop. he’s got the patience and understanding of a saint but don’t be surprised if he reacts poorly to that shit happening right in front of him. -Sorry! I am not interested in killing off my character or roleplaying with people who will kill off their characters. it’s an actual trigger for me....... sorry.... -Never did RP fighting before but might get into it if you’re cool keeping it PG. Not interested in my character getting severe lifelong injuries like loss of limbs or eyes or what-have-you. Big ass scars though? Hell yeah

Who is Alus?

A dandy looking man; always wearing fancy pressed cheerfully colored pastel suits, glittering with gold jewelry sewn delicately into the every segment, pretty fresh flowers adorning his long golden hair and his lapel - a true image of a faerie tale prince. He always seems to be smiling, the warmth and kindness he offers to even his villains is often unparalleled. He speaks carefully and delicately in a form of loose poetics inspired by his mentor Urianger, rarely ever making a contraction and never swearing except in extreme anger. Much less a Miqo’te and more a proper Elezen in stereotype.

He is a pacifist in a time of war, one who journeys out into the battlefield knowing his duty must be done, knowing that he is ultimately a hypocrite. He truly believes that everyone is fundamentally a good person and he wishes he could save even his greatest foes from their own destruction upon themselves and others, despite the constant arguing of his fellow allies over his over-trusting personality.

It could be argued that he is even mad; his fast-moving voice chatterboxes that of innocent and carefree topics like pretty flowers and princesses onto the ideas of sentient coins that scream whilst dancing wildly to the absence of music. He is ultimately kind, but unpredictable, and yet far too predictable. Everything he is is based off a stereotype, yet skewed and twisted into a reality incompatible with those ideas, gone nonsensical. Those who know him - his brother, the militia, the merchants and beggars he speaks to daily in the markets - they will all tell you that he is not all there, and yet completely a good person without doubt. A Paladin that rarely arrests, but chooses to sit down and talk just to hear a villain laugh.

RP Hooks

-RPing an open-minded villain or neutral alignment character? Alus will literally do anything for you if he thinks he can sway you to come to the good side. (I’m cool with your character even purposely leading him on to take advantage of him, but please tell me beforehand that that will be your intention and if it’s possible your character would ever change their mind. Alus having actual enemies would be really fun to RP as well.) -Like flowers? He’ll hand you one out of nowhere. Cute little gourmet cakes? Here’s a sample! Tea? Alus will offer any of those things to you as you’re simply wandering the street. He even has his own cutesy pink cafe he’ll aggressively advertise to you! -Part of the military? Alus is a minor commander in the Maelstorm and a known Warrior of Light. You may have worked besides him on one of your missions, or even temporarily underneath his command. He works besides all allies as a field healer, never commanding from behind. -Are you a follower of Nald’thal? Alus often walks to the Thanalan statues of Nald and Thal during the very early bells of nearly every morning. -Ever been a street beggar, or known any before? Alus has probably generously donated to you or your known one before.

Details, details..

Age: Roughly 23 Height: 5′8″ (173cm) Gender: Male Nationality: Eorzean Family: Arc Beauregard (twin brother; works with him in the militia, also a Warrior of Light), Gwenneg Beauregard (adoptive father; an Elezen merchant. Deceased) Occupation: Café proprietor, battlefield medic Character Inspirations: Vash (Trigun), X (Megaman X), Firion (Dissidia) Themesong: [Tears of Sorrow - Masashi Hamauzu] Aesthetics: fairy tale knights, princes & princesses / quiet windy flower meadows on a sunny day / zen buddhism / flower crowns / hard work equals beauty / bright colors / plucky comic relief / lace & frills / girls in long dresses / teatime Anti-aesthetics: bitter alcohol / romanticized harm to the self or others / grittiness / swamplands / cold steel / vulgar speech / cold rain / death / hopelessness / Likes: Elegance, Spunkiness, Honor Dislikes: Apathy, Crudeness, Betrayal of Trust Favorite foods: La Noscean Orange, La Noscean Toast Nameday: All Saint’s Wake Romance: Asexual Panromantic