#but just imagine an alien going to pick up a human and seeing my chubby ass going That One. I want That One.

[friendly-alien-fucker]

I am choosing to believe that aliens love fat humans in the same way that we love fat cats

[venom-inside-you]

ommmgggg just read that ask ! give us more symbiotic powers during sex Head Canons !

Okay! Y’all asked for it! I am sorry but also not sorry if this is not coherent to anyone else but me but I have a lot of thoughts so this is long, again Nonnie you asked for this. I’m also on mobile and it would be a pain in the ass to put a read-more so sorry about that as well!

(Please note mun has only seen the movie and read a few snippets of the comics regarding Venom so these are completely made up out of mun’s mind and not part of any universe except my own lololol. I also refer to Venom as he/him.)

Symbiote Powers During Sex - Head Canons!

-Before we talk about anything else!!!!! Venom’s species reproduce asexually, so he does not inherently understand copulation between humans nor does he understand the pleasurable aspects of sex. He has Eddie’s memories but that is not the same (will explain later) and understands that is how Earth is populated, but regularly scolds Eddie for being weak to others’ sexuality and needing the human connection in order to survive, constantly criticizes humans for being overly-emotional life forms. Eddie has also not had sex or has had daydreams or wet dreams about having sex with Venom.

-Let’s talk about long distance. This symbiote can stretch out pretty far from Eddie’s body so if his partner/SO/lover/whatever is in another room entirely, small tendrils or even larger tentacles can be used to do whatever.

-Speaking of what the tendrils, tentacles can do, here’s a few suggestions: licking, sucking (with little suction cups like an octopus), biting, tugging, vibrating!!! You name it, Venom can probably do it and with more than one tendril/tentacle at a time.

-Don’t even get me started on texture!! But let’s— Venom’s mass is cool and slick to the touch, but not sticky or too goopy. He does produce a substance so that in his constant shape-shifting, he doesn’t create too much heat from the friction so this could be used as a sexual lubrication. He also produces saliva that is similar to the lube but thicker and a little more sticky. ANYWAY, these tendrils/tentacles can be ribbed, bumpy, ultra smooth, and textured after a real penis (most likely Eddie’s but he’s been in other humans before Eddie so it might sorta be an amalgamation of multiple) among other textures I haven’t even mentioned!

-Foreplay (long distance or not) - tendrils and tentacles EVERYWHERE. Humans (usually) have two hands and two arms— Eddie can only do so much!! But Venom can do anything, literally anything with whatever amount of mass he’d like to use. Multiple tendrils can come together to make one tentacle or one tentacle can be split into multiple tendrils depending on the partner(s) pleasure— yes I said multiple, we’ve got a poly-alien on our hands. The more the merrier but Eddie gets tired so keep that in mind. This also means that he can fashion himself (or even Eddie’s member 👀) after all of those sick-looking Bad Dragon-esque dildos (more on that later).

-Sex can be as spontaneous or as regular as Eddie and the partner(s) and Venom want it to be, but Venom can read Eddie’s mind (and vice versa, sorta) so if Eddie thinks of something Venom may not even hesitate to go ahead and do it. Consent is always key of course!!!

-First time with a partner(s), Venom will most likely stay in the background of Eddie’s mind to experience it happen in real time. He has access to all of Eddie’s memories but it’s something else entirely to be feeling the actual act rather than watching it. Symbiotes are really observant, which gives them the ability to make quick decisions to get the upper hand, so this translates over to sexual acts.

-For Eddie’s sake, Venom prefers if the partner asks or allows Venom to participate. Venom may get more touchy-feely with the partner(s) as time goes on if the physical aspect hasn’t been introduced yet.

-Eddie is up to try anything once. Venom will do anything without hesitation, which could lead to some negative sexual experiences for either side or both if it isn’t handled right.

-To piggy-back off that, Venom does not understand aftercare. In the beginning, if Venom is too rough, Eddie is the one that has to do the aftercare. It may cause some tension between him and Eddie and the partner(s), but more conversations about what’s expected is always a healthy way to approach boundaries and future sexual endeavors! Soon he’ll start to get it, but it will be rough going at first.

-Once a boundary/sexual relationship has been established, Venom will become possessive of said partner(s). He will also touch the partner(s) in public where he knows he won’t get caught and if the partner(s) get into a position where others want to possess the partner(s), Venom will then mark the partner(s) in a place so that others know that they belong to him. And Eddie.

-Venom has observed Earth animals and their mating behaviors (either through personal experience or watching the Discovery channel while Eddie’s sleeping), so he knows that humans do not have a mating season. He does not experience heats or ruts but can pick up on human’s fluctuation hormones and pheromones enough to know when someone is aroused.

-Does Venom orgasm? Yes, I think he does. Just like a xenomorph, I HC that Venom inherits traits from the beings he has been in before. Being in Eddie for so long, he would then adapt the ability to orgasm. When he does, his mass shifts like it does when he hears higher frequencies (see the scene with the airplane and the MRI machine) and he gets a bit feral.

-Does Venom ejaculate? As a symbiote, no. But when he decides that he wants to, he uses Eddie’s cum (whether or not he has to manipulate Eddie’s body to produce more), but this also means that if he has sex with a fertile partner, that baby(ies) will not have symbiotes in them in utero. In order for baby to have a symbiote, he would have to make one but that’s a long story.

-Am I getting a little too lost in the woods here? Maybe I should rapid-fire a few to get my brain straight

-Venom can pin the partner down by any body part and basically anywhere. Weight and size don’t even matter in this context, and Y’ALL HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR CHUBBY PARTS OR ANYTHING YOU HAVE INSECURITIES ABOUT. GENDER ALSO DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL. Whatever he can tease to pull another moan out of you is exactly what he wants.

-He can also LIFT YOU IN THE AIR. I REPEAT— LIFT YOU UP IN THE AIR AND USE YOU AS A FLESHLIGHT. For multiple holes as well.

-Biting— lots of biting. Can draw blood (again, see boundaries) from the body and clean you up afterwards.

-Breath play, choking, blood play, knife play (like he can draw blood from you himself), whipping (think about all those textures!), etc

-If he has too much energy and he can’t use it all on you because he knows he can snap you like a twig, his tendrils can crack like whips around him so don’t be scared! He’s just really excited.

-THE TONGUE. I guess I have to explain this one a little bit but just imagine his tongue as whatever you want it to do, just like the tendrils and the tentacles. Wrapped around a clit, vibrating, corkscrewed around a cock and balls, etc

-Saliva literally everywhere. He doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.

-He may not talk to the partner much but when he does, it’s usually very like proper and straight-forward. As in “You may orgasm now” or “We can feel that you are close to your peak” etc

-PET NAMES. He likes calling you Little One

-Pet names for him? He prefers being called Venom because like duh that’s his name and he doesn’t understand the pet name at first. Whatever the partner(s) is/are comfortable with calling him, he will respond to it after a while. Maybe even get an ego boost from it.

-Is there anything he doesn’t like to do? YES. Vore— sorry y’all. Even if the partner can regenerate, that’s not something I as a writer am comfortable with writing. In other universes, maybe.

Okay so I’m going to stop there or I’ll be here all day. I’m sure I’ll think of some more but if there are any specific scenarios, please ask!! Anon is on so feel free to submit whatever your heart desires!

[closetfanfictionauthor]

every time we touch

i know kaz is out of characte here but.....i don’t care i wanted to write kaz as a dad and i know he’d be a big softie so you can fight me on this. enjoy

also on ao3

Kaz Brekker doesn't do touching. The number of people who have seen his hands out of his gloves can be counted on Kaz's one hand.

But for Inej, he tries. It takes days, months and years to swallow back the revulsion he feels at human contact.

It starts with a brush of fingers until the desire to vomit fades away as Kaz reminds himself that she's not a bloated corpse.

It becomes standing side by side with shoulders touching, and Kaz has to close his eyes until he can bear the feeling without thinking of cold, clammy flesh.

It's Inej straightening his tie when they spend time with her family and Kaz so desperately wants to press his lips to her warm, brown skin. But he can't promise he won't faint and so he refrains.

Until the day he can finally place his mouth on hers and his body melts over her frame the way it's supposed to.

And it's only possible because Inej is brave enough and strong enough to master her own paralyzing reaction to skin on skin contact.

She tries because she can see how it takes every ounce of Kaz's strength to touch her. And she wants him to touch her and for her to be present for every second instead of thinking of the horrors she endured.

For her it starts with hand-holding, which she can manage with only the slightest racing heart. They make it to hugs and it is Kaz who strokes her head when her muscles lock and her breath comes fast. Kaz whose heart she focuses on and tries to match with her deep breaths.

It is Kaz who holds her when she comes through his window on the days her ship is docked in Ketterdam. She can never catch him unaware. The second her shadow falls over his sleeping form, his eyes are on her, as if he's waiting for her.

They are an unlikely pair in Ketterdam, and yet; they make the most sense. For who else would Dirtyhands Brekker see as his equal if not for the Wraith.

And if anyone doubts how devoted they are to each other, because Kaz Brekker would never be caught acting even close to affectionate in public, all they have to think of is the stories whispered in the dark about the time he ripped out a man's eyes for the damages wrought on his Wraith.

But there comes a time when Inej whispers to him in the dark, wrapped in the cocoon of his arms, that there is to be a child. And of course it's Kaz's, for who else could it be.

In the quiet that follows, he is almost frozen with fear. Inej is the only one who's touch he can bear. In that instant, he wishes the child was someone else's even though the very thought of it is enough to send him into a shaking rage.

Because what if he cannot bear the touch of his own child? What will he do then?

He never says as much to Inej, but she has learned every tic and breath and shift of Kaz and what it means and she understands, anyway.

Inej imagines Kaz will be many things as a father: protective, stern but revolted by his own child is not one of them.

Kaz is present when the squalling alien looking child enters the world. Steady and calm, the way Inej needs him to be while she screams and crushes his hands in her grip. Comforting is not a word that has ever been used to describe Kaz Brekker. But while Inej is whimpering in pain, his low voice provides a stream of encouragement in her ear as she gasps for breath. He is solid, never wavering as Inej pushes and pushes and times stretches on.

But finally the child enters the world, their voice piercing the quiet where only Inej's heaving breaths are heard. Kaz's hand is still holding Inej's, but his sharp eyes follow the Healer as they whisk his child out of sight, his ears straining to make sure his child is still making noise.

Kaz is stroking Inej's hair, whispering how wonderful she did, wiping the sweat from her face, fluffing her pillows to make sure she's comfortable because she is the dearest thing in the world to him.

Kaz doesn't get a chance for his heart to stop racing or to think about his fear of being revolted by his own child when a swaddled bundle is thrust into his arm and the Healer is exiting the room to give the brand new parents a moment together. He barely hears the news that he is the father to a daughter.

Kaz freezes in wonder, looking down at the tiny human in his hands. The wriggling and crying stops almost immediately when she is placed in his arms. His little girl has light brown skin and jet black hair and her eyes are big and dark as her head moves from side to side.

Kaz wants to do the exact opposite of drop his little girl, he wants to hold her close, and kiss her and take in that baby smell to make sure that she's real.

His shaky legs collapse on the edge of the bed Inej is lying in and he presents their daughter to her tired eyes.

"She's so small," Inej says sleepily.

"She's going to be my cutthroat little girl," Kaz coos down at her. Inej rolls her eyes and relaxes into her pillows.

"Typical."

"I can't wait for the day she breaks someone's knees," Kaz says, holding the little baby to his chest.

"Kaz!"

"You're right, we'll start her with knives, there's a lot less blood involved," Kaz says solemnly. Inej lets out a laugh, Kaz's favourite laugh, and then groans.

"Healers!" he barks, and they come rushing into the room. Kaz says nothing else. The look on his face is threatening enough, so he moves out of their way as they work to heal Inej and ease her pain.

It takes an hour, maybe more, Kaz standing in the corner the whole time, rocking his child as he lightly strokes his hand over her downy hair while Inej lays with her eyes closed. In the end the Healers tell him that physically Inej is fine, but the exhaustion in her bones is something that will only go away with sleep.

They name her Nina.

The only people who know that Kaz turns into a puddle of mush when it comes to his child are the child in question and Inej. The first couple of years, when the folks of the Barrel see Inej, Kaz, and little Nina out and about, they whisper how lonely the child must feel and how unloved because her father never hugs her or gives her kisses.

They whisper how Nina must be so afraid of displeasing Dirtyhands Brekker, even now, at her young age. They whisper how Kaz must already demand more of this little girl than anyone demands of their child because Kaz Brekker doesn't have time for the underwhelming. They whisper that Kaz Brekker must be planning something because Kaz does nothing without a scheme in mind.

At least that's how the rumours go.

Inej is the only one who's seen Kaz stay up all night, soothing Nina when she wakes up crying, feeding her warm milk to get her back to sleep while he thinks Inej is still sleeping. Inej is there when Nina catches her first cold and Kaz puts on Nina's favourite jacket and hat, and her little bejeweled shoes to go get some hot chocolate while Inej tracks down a Healer.

No one from the Barrel sees the time Kaz puts a band-aid on Nina's pudgy knees when she's just getting the hang of walking and trips and falls. They do not see Kaz when he tells Nina children's stories right before bed to get her to settle down, or the way Nina is sprawled out on Kaz's chest, her own rising and falling in deep sleep. Sometimes she leaves them like that. Kaz passed out while his daughter uses him as a mattress.

He watches Inej teach Nina how to ride a bike first and then she gets her started on balancing on a wooden beam. His face is calm, his features neutral, hands clasped behind his back as he watches the toddler stumble across, her chubby hands clasped in Inej's. On the outside, Kaz is the picture of stern, unconcerned, because they are in public. He appears the demanding father who will not approve of his child not being a double threat with the combined skills of her parents. It is like everyone would expect.

On the inside, Kaz is a mess.

Breaking into and out of the Ice Court was easier than having to sit back and watch his little girl stumble on a wooden beam when she's barely learned to walk. He wants to scoop her up into his arms, press kisses to her face, and take her home with the promise that she'll never have to worry about hurting her little legs.

But he doesn't. Because they are in public. And he knows a child of his cannot be soft in a place like Ketterdam.

Nina, of course, adores him and learns very quickly that she has her father wrapped around her little finger. Kaz will sneak her sweets and ice cream and even toss her in the air while she shrieks with giggles of delight. Inej scolds the two of them for being partners in crime, but in truth, it fills her with warmth.

Kaz Brekker is exactly the kind of father that she knew he would be.

When it's time for little Nina to go to preschool, it's Inej who enrolls her because they both know Kaz would make the administration faint from fear. It's Inej who drops Nina off in the morning, and for the first few weeks, it is the other Crows who pick up Nina from school. The parents are used to seeing Jesper's lanky form and Wylan's curly hair swinging Nina back and forth between the two of them as they take her to their house for babysitting. Once or twice they even see Hanne and Nina, together, pick up the little girl from school and take her shopping to buy her pretty clips and brightly coloured dresses.

And eventually it's Kaz who takes over picking up his daughter from preschool.

The other parents or servants stare at Kaz out of the corner of their eye, their heads bent together whispering to each other about the tall man dressed all in black and a cane in his hand. They wonder who he's here to pick up on his first day and watch in confusion as lovely little Nina comes bounding down the stairs of the school, a smile spread across her face as she spots her favourite person in the world waiting.

"Papa!" she yells excitedly as she comes careening into his long legs and latches onto them like a weed. At first she's perplexed by the solemn look on Kaz's face, an expression she's never had occasion to see aimed at her before, but Kaz gives her a wink, and some of the uncertainty leaves her small shoulders.

Kaz bends down even though it pains his leg and acts as if he is making sure Nina's bag is all zipped up.

"Nina darling, Papa has to be serious when we're in crowds like this, okay," he tells her quietly. Nina nods her head eagerly in understanding. "Think of it as a game okay and act super important."

Nina does not understand completely, but she nods anyway and puts on her most serious face and straightens her shoulders. It takes everything in Kaz not to smile and scoop her up.

The other parents watch them walk away, Nina's small hand disappearing inside of Kaz's larger one. They only hear him ask her if she's making him proud in that severe way of his and their faces form frowns out of pity. Nina does her best to try not to sound excited to tell her papa about her day at preschool. Sometimes she forgets and starts skipping before remembering that she has to act important. Serious.

Kaz feels bad for asking his young daughter to do this, a sensation that he is unfamiliar with. It kills him to have to pretend that he doesn't love her when they are outside. But the business that Kaz works in doesn't allow him to be soft in any capacity, not even when it's his child.

On the way home, he buys the two of them ice cream and they wander by the canals, finishing them together. When they get home, Kaz gives little Nina the hugs and kisses that he knows she's come to expect from him, and his heart tugs at the way her face lights up in delight. In his heart is a steady chant of I'm sorry.

He is not afraid that a target will be put on Nina. Everyone has seen what Kaz has done when a single hair on Inej's head was disturbed. It doesn't even bear thinking about the nightmare that awaits the world if his daughter so much as sniffles out of hurt.

[sizzlingpenguincollector]

Total Drama Island x over rewrite: Prologue: Chapter One

Author’s Notes: This is my rewritten version of Total Drama Season One. Join our favorite 22 campers as they, and 38 characters from our favorite shows from the 2000s and 2010s as they compete for $100,000. The prologue will focus on the auditions of the x over characters, starting with Lilo and Stitch. Enjoy and please leave your reviews. 

"Hey Lilo, Stitch!" Victoria called out, waving her small hand frantically to gain their attention. The sound of feet pattering on concrete grew closer to the two, causing the little girl and alien to spin around, grins plastered to their young faces.

"Toria!" The brunette rushed over to Lilo, pulling her forwards and into her arms. After all the chaos that was their recent lives, it was refreshing to finally have time to relax without the constant fear and stress of dangerous other-worldly beings, including Hamsterville and his Leroy army.

After the short hug, Victoria let go of her friend and rummaged a hand into her back pocket, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. "Look, I got this while I was trying to find you two. Could we check it out?"

Lilo's eyes lit up with excitement as she read over the few words on the paper, "Total Drama Island? 'If you want to be famous and win $100,000, please send in an audition tape to Canada'. That sounds like so much fun!" Stitch jumped up and nodded in agreement, grabbing onto Lilo and Victoria's arms. The trio all smiled at each other, the excitement readily growing as the idea of being on TV bounced around in their heads.

"Ew! You two aren't going to audition for that show, are you?" Mertle gagged, holding the bridge of her nose and waving her hand in front of her. The girls standing behind her laughed, giggling and following their leader brainlessly.

"So what if we are?" Victoria snarkily returned, placing her chubby hand onto the side of her hip.

"Do you have a problem with that Myrtle?" The other younger girl looked at the brunette with disgust in her eyes; clearly, she didn't like being talked back to, and the thought had never crossed her mind that someone would have the courage to do it so bluntly.

"Whatever. I wouldn't bother if I were you, it's not like you'll get in anyway." After sticking her tongue out in mock anger she sauntered off, her posse following suit behind her.

Victoria shrugged her shoulders, turning her attention toward Lilo and Stitch, "Guess she's auditioned too…" As those words left her mouth the three burst out in playful laughter.

"Maybe we should show her how it's done!" Lilo chirped up, her grin stretching from ear to ear. It had now been set in their minds that they would be auditioning for the reality show, so the group of through set out on a search for their two alien friends.

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After what felt like forever, they reached Lilo's house and came across Jumba and Pleakley when they entered inside. "Girls, Stitch, how are you?" Pleakley's voice sounded out from within the kitchen while Jumba sat lazily on the couch in their living room. "I'm just making some human food! Would you like some?" In his hands he had a steaming ladle that held the contents from within the pot – it gave off a pungent odour, causing the girls to grimace, placing a hand in front of each of their noses.

"Pleakley! What is that!?" Lilo screeched curiously, using her free hand to angle the spoon toward where she could see. It looked lumpy, and like the kind of food you would feed a cat or a dog.

"Why it's dog food! It makes its own gravy." The tall alien hummed contently, taking a long and over exaggerated slurp from the boiling dog food. Stitch jumped forward and took the pot off the stove, pouring everything inside of it into his mouth and licking his lips.

"Yummy!" He put the pot back on the stove and looked up at his alien pal. "Sorry, smelled good."

Pleakley sighed, placing the ladle back inside the pot and turning off the stove. "Anyways, is there something I can help you three with?" At those words the three lit up with excitement as Victoria scrambled to pull out the flyer. She held it out in front of her waiting for Pleakley to take it in his hands – once he did he scanned his eye over the words, realizing it was someone used to advertise for something. Was it one of their human shows? "Total Drama Island? Oh, very interesting."

"They're looking for people to audition for it. If we get selected, we'll be staying at a five star resort, or a desert island. And if we win, we can get $100,000!" Lilo bubbled with excitement as she explained it to her one eyed alien friend.

"$100,000?!" Pleakley's eyes lit up in excitement over thinking of what he could do with that money. "I can start my own fashion company!" The thought of Pleakley starting his own fashion company was running into his mind: hiring fashion designers from all over the world to make clothes for every kind of human being. "Jumba, get the camera! We have to help these girls with their 'awe-dish-on'!" Pleakley rushed into the living room exuberantly and shoved the now ripped piece of paper in front of his four eyed friend. The scientist snorted, grabbing it out of the smaller alien's hands and into his own, holding it up so he could read it easily.

"Total Drama Island?" He questioned, looking at the two girls and his creation, "What's that mean, little girls?" Once more, they explained how they were going to record themselves in hopes of being picked for the show; it was something new and exciting to do, something that would be a change of pace from their usually hectic day-to-day life. None of that sounded exciting to the mad alien scientist, as he heard Pleakley talking about those type of shows whenever they were in the house together. But he then smiled widely at the mention of $100,000. "$100,000?! That could buy me the Nobel Prize!" Jumba then thought about using the money to use it for research for a invention that could help the world, earning him the Nobel Prize. "Of course I'll be able to help you! Let me grab a camera! I'm sure I saw one somewhere around here…" While Jumba rushed off to find his high tech video camera, Pleakley brought them through into Lilo and Stitch's rooftop bedroom. Now, the three of them all had to think of what they could do in this audition. They had to show off what they were like as people, but they also wanted to add a little twist onto it by doing something flashy and interesting during it.

"I was thinking of doing a hula dance, but with Elvis music!" Lilo suggested happily.

"Great idea!" Victoria smiled. "I can show off my potato chip collection." She began to dig in her backpack for her collection of potato chips in the shape of celebrities from the 1970s. "Which would you think is better on camera? Stevie Wonder or Carol King?"

"Go for Stevie Wonder!" Lilo happily suggested. "Stitch, what do you want to do for your audition?"

The blue alien began to think of skills he could show off on camera so that they'll accept him. He then grabbed two sticks and twirled them around. "Fire dancing! Like David!" Stitch happily said.

"I'll have to ask Nani about that though." Lilo reminded him. "She doesn't want the fire department called over here like last time."

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After deciding on what to do for their auditions and Jumba grabbed his video camera, Lilo, Stitch, Victoria, and Pleakley began to shoot the audition tapes in the living room. First off was Lilo, who was dressed in her hula costume. "Okay, steady..." Pleakley said, focusing the camera on Lilo's face. "And action!"

"Aloha everybody from Total Drama Island! My name is Lilo!" She started, waving and taking a curtsey before continuing. "I'm six years old and live on the island of Kauai, in Hawaii. I want to be on Total Drama Island because I want to have a fun time."

"Excellent! I can imagine the producers eating up that cuteness!" Pleakley said with a smile. "Keep going!"

"I like to make friends, even though most people on reality shows say that they're not on those type of shows to make friends." Lilo continued. "I live in this house with my big sister Nani, and my aunt Pleakley and Uncle Jumba. I get along with everyone easily here."

"LILO!" A familiar voice rang out, hurting Lilo's ears and making her roll her eyes.

"And cut!" Pleakley yelled as Nani, Lilo's older sister, came downstairs, wearing an angry look on her face.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to take my socks?" Nani asked with a frown.

"I didn't take them this time!" Lilo tried to defend herself.

"Oh, sorry Nani. I actually took them." Pleakley said sheepishly. "I wanted to make more sock puppets!" Pleakley then showcased some creative socks puppets he just made, weirding everyone else out.

"See? I told you!" Lilo spat back at her older sister.

"Okay I'm sorry. Go back to your fun." Nani said, backing away for a bit before turning her head curiously at her little sister. "What are you doing anyway?"

"We're making audition tapes for this new show called Total Drama Island!" Lilo smiled as she showed the flyer to her sister.

"Don't you have to be older to try out for this stuff?" Nani asked with an arched eye brow.

"There's no age limit." Victoria explained. "And besides, Myrtle already auditioned too."

"It'll be fun Nani! Stitch is auditioning with us too! And we could win $100,000!" Lilo smiled.

"$100,000?" Nani then began to smile to herself as she imagined with that kind of money, she would be out of debt forever and not have to worry about bills ever again.

"Nani? Are you okay?" Lilo asked, confused. The older Hawaiian girl then snapped out of her daze.

"Just don't be discouraged if they don't pick you." Nani said as she left the living room.

"Okay, let's run through this again!" Pleakley said as he started the camera up again. "And action!"

"Anyway, I like to do all sorts of fun stuff. Like hula dancing and listening to Elvis!" Lilo said as Stitch started up her record player. The song 'Jailhouse Rock' began to play and Lilo began to dance along to the music. After the song ended, Lilo smiled widely at the camera. "Total Drama Island will rock if you pick me!"

"And cut! Print! Genius!" Pleakley smiled as he turned off the camera. "I think we got a potential winner right here! Who's next?"

"I am." Victoria smiled as she got in front of the camera and began her audition tape. "Hello Total Drama. My name is Victoria, Toria for short!" Lilo gave her friend a thumbs up before she continued. "I think I should be chosen for Total Drama along with my friend Lilo because we're very nice and friendly! You won't have anyone was interesting as us." She then pulled out her potato chip collection. "I also like to collect potato chips in the shape of celebrities from the 70s. This one is shaped like Stevie Wonder. So, please consider me! I'll be standing by waiting for your call!"

"And cut!" Pleakley shouted.

"That's was so good!" Lilo smiled as she hugged her friend.

Stitch leaped forward and pulled the two into a hug using his four arms, "You guys are so good!" He shouted, "So good! So good!". Now it was his turn to be in the spotlight, but for his little act they would need to move outside.

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Once the sun was beginning to set Jumba turned on the camera and held it up to show Stitch, his usual four arms retracted to only show two. In his hands were two lengthy devil sticks with bulbs at the end – they were soaked in some sort of flammable liquid that David had provided them. Of course, he had asked why they wanted such a thing, to which they responded with their ideas and overall goal.

"Okay.", David spoke back, "Just make sure you tell Nani sometime soon." Lilo had agreed with him and promised that she would, so he gave them what they needed and went on with his day. After all, Stitch had really improved with his fire handling, and the way he did tricks with the devil sticks was rather impressive!

"Aloha cousins! I… Am Stitch." The little blue alien motioned at himself, and then held out the two sticks, "And I will be doing some tricks…" He paused for effect as he took out a lighter, setting the ends of one of his poles on fire, "With fire!" Throwing the match on the ground and using the already lit pole to light the other he started to spin them in his hands. It was mesmerising to watch, the sunset in the background mixed in with the fiery oranges that burned at the ends of the poles was beautiful. Following his very dangerous and breath-taking act, he finished with a few words, "You should pick me because I am strong but small! And if I come, Lilo and Toria come too!"

Jumba pushed the off button on the camera and held a thumbs up toward Stitch, "Was great! Very impressive little act."

By then, the sun had fully set and the sky was a gorgeous ebony colour, signalling that the younger ones should be heading to sleep. . Victoria said her goodbyes to her friends and wandered back to her home; she would need to get a good night's rest as the next few days of waiting would be hell. Nani had helped Lilo send the recordings through to the email address that was located on the flyer, and then sent her and Stitch to sleep as well.

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Unsurprisingly, the next few nights were full of restless waiting and little sleep while each of the three anxiously awaited the response on whether they had been accepted into the show or not. After a few days had passed the results had become talk of the town. Now everyone knew about this new show of 'Total Drama Island' which only worsened the trio's anxiety. Sure, they were eager to find out how they had done, but Mertle's constant boasting was putting everyone on edge.

Nonetheless, it was a Thursday, so after Lilo had fed Pudge his peanut butter sandwich she headed off to Hula practice. Little did she know, Nani had been emailed by the Total Drama Island producer, and the three were about to get a surprise from none other than Moses, her Hula teacher.

"But Nani, I want to be with you so I can see the results!" Lilo groaned, pulling on her outfit and sulkily getting into the car along with Stitch and her older sister.

"I know Lilo, but you need to go to Hula practice! This is important too, you know. No dice."

Lilo shrugged her shoulders in defeat and sighed, pushing her face into her hands. A few minutes later they arrived outside the small building – Myrtle was waiting out the front with a bunch of flowers in her hands, and the moment she saw Lilo and Stitch a sly grin came onto her face.

"Look who it is. Weridlo and her ugly dog. So Weirdlo, have you two came to congratulate me for becoming a TV star?" She spoke in an entitled way that really caused Lilo's blood to boil, but what could she do? Nani was with her, and there was no way she'd be allowed to go to the Island if she acted up at something so little.

"Good for you, Myrtle." Lilo replied, pushing on a pained and jealous smile. As her and Stitch passed their bully they spotted Victoria, and rushed up to her. "Did you hear? Myrtle got accepted into the show…" She received an unhappy nod from her brunette friend. It wasn't that they weren't happy for her because really, they were, but the thought of someone like her going and enjoying what they wanted to enjoy just… Stung.

"Thank you girls, settle down!" Moses called out; adjusting the wreath he wore around his head, he spoke "I have a quick announcement to make!" Everyone turned their heads to look at the large man. "I just want to say, well done to Myrtle for being accepted into Total Drama Island." Lilo, Stitch and Victoria frowned, looking between each other before hearing what he had to say next, "As well as Lilo, Stitch and Victoria! Congratulations, you four. You're headed to Canada!"

!" It felt like a burst of life had been thrown into the small group as they jumped up from their previous positions. "You mean we got in?!" Lilo yelled probably a bit too loudly, causing her Hula teacher to wince from the sound.

"Yes, Lilo. And you're leaving tomorrow. The producer has organised your transport, you'll need to do all your packing tonight!"

"What?!" Myrtle asked in complete shock. "How can they pick you three?!" Myrtle's posse then gathered around the small trio and congratulated them, much to Myrtle's displeasure.

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After hula class had ended, Lilo and Victoria were inside the Pekelai household, reading through their contracts and waivers. "Why do we even have to sign these papers anyway?" Victoria asked, feeling her hand getting painful from too much signing.

"It's part of the process. Everyone who works in TV has to sign something." Lilo explained. "Look at this. 'Total Drama is not responsible for any shark bites, bear attacks, and poison ivy spa treatment'?"

"Sounds really cool!" Victoria smiled. Just then, a thought creeped into her head. "What are we gonna do with the money if we win?"

"I'm thinking a vacation to..." Lilo began.

"Graceland!" Both girls replied in unison.

"I'm really glad we both got accepted, Victoria." Lilo smiled. Just then, they heard Stitch snore very loudly. "And Stitch too."

"That actually reminds me: you think that the whole world might freak over seeing an alien on TV?" Victoria asked. Lilo knew her friend had a point.

"Don't worry. I have a plan." Lilo smiled.

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Lilo and Stitch almost couldn't sleep last night, as they were too excited over being on TV for all the world to see. The following day, Lilo, Stitch, and Victoria were being driven by Nani to the local airport. Stitch was disguised as a boy, wearing boy clothes, a wig, and sunglasses. "Now please try to get along with the other people. And don't try to cause any trouble. Believe me. I'll know when I watch it." Nani said.

"Don't worry Nani. We'll be good." Lilo said, making her older sister smile. They finally reached the airport and found a private jet waiting for them. "No way! That's the coolest plane we have ever seen!"

They got out of the car and found Myrtle standing by the jet. "Don't even talk to me when we're onboard." Myrtle snarled, but luckily the trio then even flinched. Myrtle then got onboard the jet.

"Now remember..." Nani said.

"We know! Don't talk to strangers, don't chew with our mouths open, and don't spit on anybody." Lilo said.

"I just wanted to say that I love you both and am so proud of you." Nani smiled as she hugged Lilo and Stitch tightly. "And those things too."

"Let's go!" Victoria smiled as all three of them headed onto the jet, but not before Lilo shared one last smile and wave to her older sister. After that, the jet took off on it's way to Canada.

[zecretsanta]

To: @kiichu

From: @hardcoreprince

Happy Holidays! The more I thought about Left Clone!Carlos, the longer this fic got. Hope you enjoy!

Ao3

It’s late.

Carlos should have been in bed an hour ago but a five page paper has kept him up against his will. University is already proving to be a challenge and he’s just barely started.

The house is quiet around him as he stands in the hall bathroom, eyes half lidded and toothbrush sweeping lazily across his teeth. His reflection stares blankly out at him from the mirror and he’s just awake enough to notice a new pimple on his chin. He’s running a finger over the angry red bump when the first shrill siren pierces the house.

The toothbrush falls from his lips as he starts. It leaves a line of white foam down the front of his shirt as it clatters into the sink.

He groans in annoyance as he retrieves his toothbrush. All he wants to do is go to sleep and now he has to investigate the faulty fire alarm. He’s been telling Maria to change the battery for weeks now.

The smoke hits his nose as he’s rinsing his mouth.

The smell stops him so abruptly he nearly chokes. He whips his head up and is met with his own panicked expression in the mirror.

It’s not a false alarm.

The beeping tears through his ears as he yanks the door open. The hallway is already thick with black smoke. The onset of it is so sudden and so forceful that he stumbles back a few steps. The smoke floods into his mouth and eyes. He coughs and coughs as his mouth tries to form words.

And then the screaming starts.

It’s coming from all around him. He can’t pick out the sounds. He’s dizzy. He can’t see. Suddenly his house, the house he grew up in, is alien to him. He sputters and waves a hand in front of his face, trying to clear the black clouds and the heat, but it’s too much.

And then, loud and clear, as if she were standing right next to him, Maria’s voice fills his head.

“Carlos!”

He takes a step forward, into the black. “Maria!” he manages to choke out.

“I’m in my room! The closet!”

Even though the air is dark and thick and he’s forgotten which way is up, Carlos is drawn like a magnet to Maria’s room. He’s on autopilot when he throws open the door. The smoke pours out thick and fast and the heat licks at his clothes.

Here are the flames.

The bed has been consumed by the fire. The posters on the wall are peeling and cracking. The dresser is a tower of red and black. He can’t imagine how it’s gotten this bad this fast.

“Maria!”

His heart is painful in his ears as he hugs the wall to get past the flames and to the closet. He reaches for the knob without thinking and the metal burns his palm. But the door opens as he yanks his hand away with a shout.

There’s Maria, curled up into herself on the floor, her shirt pulled over her mouth. She looks so small there, alone and vulnerable.

She locks eyes with him and he doesn’t hesitate to scoop her up. She weighs nothing in his arms. The rest of the world blinks out as Carlos turns back to the fire creeping in around them.

The flames lap at him as he rushes from the room and back into the smoke filled hall. Maria clings to him, her arms tight around his neck and her heart beating too fast against his chest. The heat of the house is dizzying and the blackened air is suffocating him but a strange calm presses into him.

It’s this calm that forces him to run.

The hall passes by in a blur. The whole house is burning now. The roof is crumbling above him and the linoleum is melting under his feet. But he presses on until suddenly he’s outside in the cool night air and the shock nearly knocks him over. He sinks to his knees and releases Maria, who coughs and sputters and sobs.

“Mom and Dad!”

Carlos is on his feet the moment he registers those words. They’re still in the house.

He bolts for the door. Maria is screaming behind him. Sirens rip through the neighborhood.

The house folds in on itself before he can reach it.

He stares as the flames consume it. The debris falls all around him but he can’t move. He’s rooted to the spot. This can’t be happening. There’s no way the fire could have moved that fast.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees movement. He turns quick, thinking it’s his parents. Thinking they made it out alive. But standing there, illuminated by the fire, is a man in a long black robe. His hood is up, but he puts it down slowly.

The man has Carlos’ face.

His hair is longer, but he has the same eyes, the same curve of his lips. The same face he just found a new pimple on.

Something flickers into his memory, something vague and sharp that makes him recoil.

A stay board breaks off the house and smacks him across the forehead. The man’s face, his face, is burned into his mind as he passes out.

He’s ten years old.

The air around him is stale and oppressive. The heat has crept into the warehouse and the old air conditioning system is wheezing out its last breaths. The eyes of the adults don’t help.

He’s standing in the middle of the bare floor, dressed in a plain black robe. Clutched in his fist is a short but wickedly sharp blade. His pulse thrums around it.

He’s not ready.

The adults are arranged in a wide circle around him. There are seven, but the spaces between them make it seem like more. Each is wearing the full Free the Soul robes with various tassels and emblems to show their ranks. Those are what he should aspire too. Those are why he is standing here now, in the flickering light of dozens of candles.

“Alright, Left,” one of the adults says. “Are you ready?”

There’s a strange sort of satisfaction in being called Left here and now. It’s his name, of course, but it is all of their names. All of his peers are also called Left. The adults are called Left. If their hoods were down, he could have seen that they all had the same face. The face he will one day grow into. But usually he is called “you” or “that one” or, sometimes, “C.”

His batch had been five babies, each labeled after a letter of the alphabet. He was C. They are not supposed to be individuals, but it can get confusing.

He nods. His hands are trembling.

One of the adults is holding something. He steps forward and pulls back the blanket covering it.

C inhales sharply.

There, under the blanket, is a human baby.

The adult steps forward and places the child at C’s feet before he rejoins the circle. C stares at the small face. His face, from long ago.

The baby is wriggling but not fussy. It stares at C and he has to look away quick. The knife burns into his palm.

“This one is defective,” one of the adults says. He doesn’t look up to see which one. It doesn’t matter. They are all the same. They must be all the same for society to function.

“A bad heart,” another one says. “It happens. But you know how this works, don’t you, Left?”

“Only the strong survive,” the adults say as a group. The sentiment echoes off the empty walls of the warehouse.

“Only the strong survive,” he echoes. The baby is still staring. He raises a chubby fist towards C.

C grips the knife tight, so he won’t drop it.

“Do it quick, Left.”

“Don’t hesitate. Don’t feel sorry for it. It is a mistake.”

“Only the strong survive.”

He can’t breathe. He’s shaking. His heart is stuttering so fast and so loud he thinks the whole warehouse can hear it. The wheezing air conditioner fills his ears. The candlelight magnifies the shadows.

Only the strong survive.

The baby coos.

C kneels. Around him the adults are shifting in close for a better look. He pulls the knife back. He swears he can feel everyone’s breath. The heat is closing in on him like fire. The sweat is beading on his brows.

He swings the knife down and misses wildly. He lets it clatter next to the baby and shoves his face into his hands. Hot tears trickle down his face and he can’t breathe. He’s trembling and crying and his chest is burning.

“Disgraceful,” one of the adults says.

“A pity.”

“He was never the best student.”

“Having to cull one at this age…. Should we let him try again?”

He doesn’t want to hear it but he can’t block it out. He sits back, away from the baby, and curls into himself, knees pressed to his chest.

“Only the strong survive.”

“Only the strong survive,” the rest agree in unison.

Carlos wakes with a start. He is drenched in a cold sweat and his lungs are on fire. He coughs several times and clutches at his chest. He struggles to sit up but he’s dizzy and weak and there are tubes in his nose and he gives up. He lies there, staring at the white blank ceiling as the frantic beeping in the room calms. Even though his brain is fuzzy, he’s aware enough to know he’s in the hospital.

The memory swirls in his brain, clear as if it were yesterday. But he knows he was younger. He doesn’t know how, but he knows he was ten years old.

And there are others like that man. Others wearing his face.

But he can’t think about it right now. The only thing he can think about now is Maria.

He manages to sit up enough to find the call button on the side of his bed and presses it several times until a nurse comes in. She’s tall and impatient with her hair drawn up into a bun.

“Maria,” he sputters, his voice rough and painful. “My sister. Where?”

The nurse adjusts her glasses and clears her throat. “She is alright. I’ll allow you to see her after I run some tests.”

“And my parents?”

She looks uncomfortable and the dread in Carlos’ chest overwhelms him. He knew. He knew they hadn’t survived, but he had to be sure. Her face is all he needs.

Of course, she tells him how they didn’t make it. She tries to be sympathetic, but she’s not good at that. He lets her run the tests while he puts on a brave face. His mind is a buzzing mess, his body is exhausted and all he wants to do is see Maria. He can’t let himself grieve right now, no matter how tight his throat is and no matter how much he wants to fall back into the hospital bed and sob. He needs to be strong when he sees Maria.

Only the strong survive.

The memory haunts him.

Finally, Carlos is deemed fit enough to leave his room. He can’t walk; his body is too weak. Everything hurts, he hasn’t had a chance to catalog his injuries, but he knows they are numerous. The nurse helps him into a wheelchair and pushes him down the hall to another room, smaller than his with only one bed. The curtain is drawn around it.

The nurse wheels him close and then leaves him to it. He draws back the curtain and there’s Maria, asleep. He watches her chest rise and fall and breathes a sigh of relief. She’s alive, she’s okay.

He hates to wake her, so he takes her hand and waits. Without any distractions, the thoughts start creeping up on him almost immediately. He spends a good few minutes staring at the heart monitor, looking at the steady beat of Maria’s heart, but it isn’t long before his mind wanders and the memory slams into him.

“Wake up.”

It’s a woman’s voice. He isn’t used to hearing women. Since he was born, he has been surrounded by the men with his face. The women are there, at the edges, but he rarely speaks to them. All except…

Rebecca. It’s her voice. C opens his eyes and there she is, hovering over him. He startles and shrinks back into the rough sheets. He’s been on edge since the ceremony.

“It’s alright,” she whispers. “We need to leave. Get up.”

He stares at her for a second too long and she grabs him by the shoulders. “Now, boy!”

His face heats up and he nods. He slips out of bed and notices the other boys in the room aren’t stirring. He looks at Rebecca with a question in his eyes and she puts a finger to her lips.

“Hurry, it won’t last long. Get your shoes.”

He doesn’t question her. He rushes to the closet and grabs a pair of shoes at random. They all share the same shoe size. Personal possessions mean nothing to them. He shoves them onto his feet and grabs his coat. For a moment he wonders if he should change, but Rebecca is already shoving him out the door.

“What–?”

“No questions!” she snaps. “Don’t speak.”

He shuts his mouth as she grabs him by the wrist. Out the hallway, the lights are dimmed, casting whispery shadows on the plain grey walls. Everything about the structure is industrial.

Rebecca pulls him down the hall and he’s shivering. He can’t stop thinking about the baby. The baby who is probably dead. The baby who he used to be.

There’s a bend in the hall up ahead that leads to the outside. They’re almost there when Left steps out from around the corner.

Rebecca curses under her breath.

“Rebecca,” the adult says. He looks surprised.

C shivers. Left doesn’t know about their outing. Rebecca is breaking the rules.

“Left,” Rebecca says, bowing her head. “Sorry, was I making too much noise?” Her grip on C’s wrist has gone tighter, a warning to keep quiet.

“No.” Left still looks confused. “Where are you taking that boy?”

Rebecca sighs. “It’s the failure,” she drops her voice on the last word, but C hears. “Delta wanted me to collect him. It’s so rare for them to fail at this age. He wanted to speak with him personally before we disposed of him.”

C swallows. He thinks Rebecca is lying. She must be lying, because if that were the case, she wouldn’t have been sneaking. She would not have knocked out the other boys. But still, the lie scares him. It’s still possible. There is a good chance he will die this day.

The thought turns his stomach.

“Did he?” Left looks doubtful. He looks at his wrist, as if his watch has the answers. It’s in that moment that Rebecca moves.

She lets go of C’s wrist and in the same instant, is on top of Left. She swiftly punches him in the chest with one hand and presses something to his mouth with the other. He struggles in surprise for a fraction of a second before he crumples against the wall. C stares in horror, mouth slightly open.

“Is he–”

Rebecca snatches his hand and she’s dragging him away before he can say anything else.

He hurries to keep up with her fast strides. The door is in reach now. His heart is painful against his ribs and the blood is rushing in his ears. He’s still shivering.

Rebecca pushes the door open and the darkness swallows them. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but he doesn’t have the time. Rebecca is already pulling him forward.

Outside is jarring. C has never been outside at night. He knows the moon exists but he has never seen the yellow orb hanging in the sky. It’s full and beautiful and bright and he could stare at it all night if Rebecca wasn’t pulling him. And the stars… the stars are shining in full force. He has never seen anything so beautiful.

The docks are fresh with the smell of the sea and rotten fish. The wood squeaks under their shoes. Everything is amplified in the dark.

Rebecca stops suddenly and C slams into her. She curses and elbows him away. “Get down!”

C throws himself to the floor as the cry rings out. “Stop right there!”

Several things happen at once. A shot rings out. Rebecca screams, and C is kicked off the docks and into the ocean.

The water is a cold shock. He goes all the way under and its a moment before he surfaces, coughing and sputtering. Luckily, he knows how to swim. Of course he knows how to swim. He has been trained to be a solider.

And he swims for his life. It’s cold and the salt is burning in his eyes and he can’t stop shaking but he swims and swims until his limbs give out and he can’t swim any longer….

“Carlos?”

He snaps out of his memory. He’s drenched with sweat. He feels as if he’s just run for miles. He takes a shuddering breath and looks down at Maria, who’s squinting up at him with concern. He exhales and realizes he’s holding her hand too tight. He relaxes his grip and covers her hand with his other hand.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, his voice rough. He clears his throat. “How are you feeling?”

Maria blinks vaguely. “Okay I guess,” she says. She seems a little out of it. Carlos doesn’t blame her. The nurse told him that she inhaled a lot of smoke. Luckily, she didn’t sustain many injuries aside from cuts and bruises. “You were spacing out.”

“Oh.” Carlos pushes back his hair and forces a smile. “No, I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” Though he tries to appear casual, his mind is racing. He has never remembered a thing from before he was ten years old. His earliest memories are of being found on a beach, then shortly after being adopted. He was lucky.

She coughs but when Carlos leans towards her, she waves him off. When she finishes, she looks at him with surprising intensity.

“Mom and Dad?”

His heart breaks all over again. He opens his mouth but he can’t bring himself to say it. He must be making a face because Maria nods. Her lower lip is trembling and her eyes are shining.

“I… I knew it.”

He doesn’t cry. He feels like he can’t cry now. He comforts Maria until she gets too tired to keep her eyes open. Before he leaves, he promises to come back and see her as soon as he can.

It’s a few days before Carlos is cleared to leave the hospital and a week before Maria can go home. Well, not exactly home.

They lost everything in the fire. The moment Carlos is released, he starts looking for somewhere to live. He needs to make sure Maria has somewhere to go home to.

He collects the insurance money. What his parents have left them is enough rent for maybe a year if he’s really careful. It’s hard to find an apartment complex that will rent to an 18 year old with no one to co-sign for him, but he manages to find a rundown building that takes him, no questions asked.

Even though Maria protests, Carlos drops out of University. He tells her over and over not to worry about it. He insists he wasn’t good at it anyway, for her sake. But in reality it’s too expensive to even consider, even with the job at the coffee shop he’s picked up. But he knows he needs something that makes more money, so he spends all his free time filling out job applications.

Anything to make sure Maria has a normal life. Anything to distract him from the memories.

They’ve been trickling in little by little. He’ll be making a latte for a sleepy eyed salaryman when suddenly he’ll be surrounded by a sea of his own face. Most snatches are vauge. Learning to swim, running with his peers, eating in the mess hall. There’s nothing as concrete as his first memories.

And then there’s the fire.

Flames fill his dreams. He smells the smoke during his idle moments. It gets to the point where the open flame on his stove makes him nervous.

It takes Carlos a year to get his certificate in Fire Science.

It annoys him that the fire scares him so much. He hates that he’s constantly paranoid, so he takes control of it. He learns to fight it.

There is no formal graduation. He’s taken all the classes online and now he’s just done and it feels like a weight has been lifted. Maria, of course, insists on celebrating.

The two of them are at the diner a few blocks from their apartment. It’s a tiny, stereotypical American diner complete with neon lights and checkered floors. They’re tucked into a corner booth with burgers and fries.

“What’s that dog that lives at the firehouse?” Maria asks as she dips a french fry into her milkshake. “With the spots.”

Carlos smiles, but he’s a little wary. Lately he’s been noticing she’s been spacey. He hopes it’s because she’s working so hard in school.“A dalmatian.”

“Oh, yeah, duh,” Maria says brightly. “And do all a hundred and one live there?”

“Um.” He scans her expression for the joke, but she’s totally serious. “No?” He sets down his hamburger and watches her a little more closely.

If Maria notices the scrutiny, she doesn’t mention it. “That’s too bad. I wonder if they ever found homes for all those dogs?”

A bad feeling creeps into Carlos’ stomach. Suddenly he doesn’t feel so hungry anymore. “Maria, what are you talking about?”

She frowns at him. “All the dogs! There were so many. All of the little white ones with the black spots. The lady wanted to hurt them.”

“Maria,” Carlos tries to keep the panic from his voice but her name comes out too sharp. “Are you feeling okay?”

He reaches across the table for her but she pulls into herself. “I’m fine! I just want to know about the dogs!”

She’s too loud. He can feel the diners around them staring now, but he doesn’t care. He opens his mouth to tell her to calm down, but his voice drops off abruptly as she freezes in place.

Maria is unnaturally still for a moment. Her eyes roll back into her head and then her body collapses onto the seat of the booth with a soft thud.

Later, he thinks that incident might have been as terrifying as the fire.

Maria stays in the hospital for a few hours before the doctors release her. Dehydration, they suggest, but they’re not certain. Carlos orders her to drink more water and monitors her intake until she gets annoyed with him.

She’s fine for months and months until it happens again. This time Maria stays overnight. The doctors run more tests. They say maybe its a side effect from the carbon monoxide poisoning from two years ago.

In the meantime, Carlos gets a job at the fire station. He’s in training and it’s hard but he feels good about it. At least something in his life is going right.

Maria has good days and bad days. Sometimes she is her normal self and other days gets lost on the way home from school. Sometimes Carlos will walk into a room and catch her staring at a wall, totally unresponsive.

Years pass like this. Maria goes to specialist after specialist but no one has concrete answers.

Eventually, the bad days start outnumbering the good days and Maria hits her head fainting at school. This time, the hospital suggests she stays for a few days, which turns to a few weeks, and then, indefinitely. But she does well in the hospital. Carlos almost feels better with her being in the hospital, as much as she hates it. Maybe this will make her better, finally.

But it doesn’t. Maria slips further and further away until one day she’s comatose.

It’s 3am when Carlos comes home from his shift.

He can’t remember the last time he came home. He’s been picking up all the extra shifts he can, desperately trying to get extra money, desperately trying to be able to afford Maria’s treatment. The only reason he left work at all was because his boss had realized just how long he’d been on the clock for and ordered him to go home.

The keys scrape against the lock as he struggles to shove the right one in. All the coffee he’s been drinking has worn off, leaving him listless and half asleep standing up. Finally, the lock clicks and he pushes the door open. As he moves to shut it behind him, a boot wedges between the door and the frame.

Carlos stumbles back and swears in surprise as the door slips open to reveal a hooded man in a black robe. The sight knocks the breath from his lungs. It’s been years since he had the first memory, years since he’s seen any sign of the hooded figures and seeing one here, while he’s so sleep deprived, throws him.

It’s been long enough for him to dismiss it all as an illusion, a side effect from inhaling so much smoke. But here and now, as this man lowers his hood, Carlos knows its all true.

The man is older than he is. His face is lined and his hair is graying, but it’s unmistakably his own face staring out at him.

“What are you doing here?” Carlos straightens himself up, adopts a defensive posture. This version of himself looks leaner, less muscled. Carlos has the advantage.

“You’re needed now.”

His voice chills Carlos from the inside out. It sounds like his answering machine recording, the sound of his voice from another source.

“Wha–”

The man closes the door behind him and the click startles Carlos.

“You need money for your ‘sister’, do you not?”

The way he says the word 'sister’ is a curse that makes Carlos narrow his eyes. How does this man know so much about him? Have they been watching all this time?

They’ve been real all this time.

“Yes,” Carlos says, cautiously. “Have you–”

“Of course.” The man waves him off impatiently. “Did you really think we had just forgotten about you the way you’ve forgotten about us?”

A shiver goes through Carlos. He swallows. “How–”

The man (Left, Carlos know his name to be Left) clears his throat loudly. “Please, your questions are pointless. We can get you the money you need. All you have to do is follow our instructions exactly.”

“My parents,” Carlos says, his voice low. He will not be interrupted this time. “It was you who set the fire. You’re the whole reason Maria is sick.”

“Not me personally.” Left doesn’t even look ruffled. “But that was us, yes. All of this has been for a reason, Left. And now the reason is unfolding.”

“Don’t call me that!” Carlos is breathing too hard now. The anxiety is racing through his body, making him feel trapped in his own skin. “Why should I trust you?! You killed them! You… You wanted me to to kill for you! A baby!”

Left is looking at him with a mixture of pity and disgust. He doesn’t flinch as Carlos draws nearer, a wall of hostility. “Yes,” he drawls. “Again. It was not me personally. I am merely the messenger.”

It only makes Carlos angrier that this man isn’t reacting. That he has no remorse, not an ounce of care for the pain he has caused Carlos. He wants to punch Left, but it wouldn’t bring him any pleasure.

Finally, he exhales. He thinks of Maria lying in the hospital bed, he thinks about how exhausted he is, how he hasn’t slept properly in God knows how long, how he can’t keep going like this.

But mostly he thinks about Maria.

“Alright. I’m listening.”

Before he goes to Nevada, Carlos visits Maria in the hospital.

She’s been in a coma for almost a year and he can’t remember the last conversation he had with her. He wishes he could say he did, but it was probably something innocuous and she was probably only half conscious at the time. It hurts him to think of those days when she was so far away from him. And now, lying here, she’s further than she’s ever been.

Leaving her now feels final. He doesn’t know what to expect in what he’s signed up for and, frankly, he’s expecting to not make it back. Anything that Free the Soul wants him to do must be a trap, but as long as Maria gets the money she needs, Carlos is willing to walk right into it.

The room is as blank and white as ever as Carlos takes his seat. He’s given up on trying to brighten the room. It only depresses him.

He takes Maria’s hand and watches her gaunt face, the rise and fall of her chest. And then he starts talking.

He tells her everything, about his past, about how Free the Soul is sending him to Nevada to participate in some experiment. It feels good to tell her when she’s like this, when she’s not awake to worry about it. When it’s all over and he has to leave, he kisses her forehead and promises her she’ll wake up soon.

When he leaves, he doesn’t want to look back, doesn’t want to carry that image of her, alone with him to Nevada, but he does look and it breaks his heart.

DCOM is worse than Carlos could have ever imagined. The whole ordeal simultaneously takes months and mere hours. Death and despair plays out over and over until, somehow, it ends with him standing in the desert, pointing a gun at a man he thinks he half remembers.

“It was always meant to be your choice, Left.”

The name courses through him like an electric shock. Suddenly Carlos remembers where he knows this man from. A memory surges to the front of his mind, so powerful that he can’t push it back. It’s been years since this has happened to him.

“You’ll do great things one day, Left.” They’re in an office. Delta is sitting at the desk, swathed in shadow.

Carlos shakes it off, focuses on the cold metal in his hands. All around him, he can feel the group’s eyes. The eight people he’s been through hell with.

“I trust you, my brother. I trust you to use your best judgment.” Delta spreads his arms wide. His expression is unreadable.

“One day, you will decide my fate.”

The heat is oppressive. Carlos remembers the warehouse. He’s three places at once. The desert, the warehouse, Delta’s office.

“Only the strong survive.”

His hands are shaking around the gun. He tries to think about the pros and cons but he’s sweating and shivering so badly. All eyes are on him. He’s in the warehouse. It isn’t Delta in front of him, it’s a child. It’s a baby, small and defenseless. A living thing.

This is different. This is someone who hurt them over and over. Someone who hurt Carlos as child. Someone who killed children without remorse.

Still, Carlos lowers the gun.

Behind him, the sharp inhales from the others. There’s a small hand on his back and he doesn’t have to turn around to know it’s Akane.

“You’re right, only the strong survive,” Carlos says, turning his back on Delta. He looks out the others standing before him. Akane, Junpei, Sigma, Diana, Phi, Eric, Mira, Sean…

“And that’s us.”

Life after that is completely different. Junpei and Akane help Maria out of her coma and suddenly Carlos has his sister back.

“I remember what you told me,” Maria says one day after she’s finally left the hospital. She’s curled up on his couch, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands. She had been watching TV but now her eyes shift to him. “In the hospital.”

Carlos frowns as he looks up from his phone. “What?”

Maria sets down her mug and looks to Carlos with the ghost of a smile. “About your past. I didn’t understand it at first, but now, being with you, I… I started picking it up. Through, you know.” She motions to her forehead and waggles her finger between them. “I think I get it.”

Carlos swallows. “I didn’t want to tell you. I thought it would be too much.”

She frowns and punches him in the shoulder lightly. “Hey, what did I say about doing that? I know you love acting like everything’s fine, but I can tell when it’s not.”

Despite himself, Carlos smiles. “Watch it.” He rubs the spot where she hit him. “I didn’t… I just wanted to forget about it.”

“But you can’t.” Maria taps her forehead. “You forget I’m really good at doing this now.”

It’s true, ever since Maria has learned to control her powers, she’s been unusually perceptive to his moods. He supposes he should feel violated in some way, but he knows she’s not doing it to be malicious.

“You don’t let me forget,” he teases. He looks away from her for a moment and sighs. “But you’re right. I can’t forget. I’m… Well, I’m one of them. They raised me and put all of that stuff in my head. I’m just… I’m afraid I’m gonna just snap one day or something, you know?”

Maria puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not one of them. If you were one of them you wouldn’t have gotten away.”

“That wasn’t even my choice.” Now that they’re talking, Carlos can’t stop. “They were gonna kill me, and that woman saved me.”

She goes quiet for a moment, as if she’s thinking. “But you had to kill someone and you couldn’t.” She screws up her face and Carlos can feel her energy buzzing around him. “Oh God, it was a baby.”

“Don’t do that,” Carlos says, suddenly feeling sharp and edgy. He doesn’t want her to see that. She doesn’t need to.

“Sorry…” Maria tucks some dark hair behind her ear and looks sheepish. “But that was your decision not to kill.”

Carlos appreciates the thought but he shakes his head. “No, that was my weakness. I was scared, I wasn’t concerned about doing the right thing…”

“What about in the desert?”

This, he’s told her about. He couldn’t not tell her about that. But he hasn’t told her his feelings about it. His recounting of the game had been pretty brief and spared her most of the horrors.

His hands curl into fists. He can feel the metal burning in his palms. “I don’t… I don’t know if that was me either. Delta was the Leader of Free the Soul. What if it’s in my DNA that I can’t kill him? What if he’s out there, making more clones and killing the weak ones…?”

“Carlos…” Maria squeezes his shoulder. “This is why you gotta tell me things.”

Carlos snorts and takes her hand.

“Listen. The reason you didn’t kill Delta or that baby is because you’re a good person. Not because you’re weak or your DNA is messed up, or whatever else you think is wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you.”

Something catches in his chest and he has to swallow it back. Maria is watching him intently but he doesn’t feel her energy probing at him.

“You’re my brother and not anyone else’s okay?”

“Yeah…, okay.”

Maria hugs him and he holds her for a few moments too long as he composes himself. When they pull apart, Maria’s still looking at him with concern.

“You’re not satisfied, but I’m saying that because of your face and not because I’m invading your privacy.”

“Sure,” Carlos says lightly.

“I swear!” Maria rubs the back her neck as she stares off into space for a moment. “What if we stop them?”

“What?”

“Free the Soul. I know they’re not a world ending threat or anything, but they’re still not good, right? You’ve got important friends now, friends that can help.”

“I guess.” Carlos considers this and feels a little stupid for not thinking of it earlier. He’s been so wrapped up in Maria’s recovery and getting updates from Akane about her investigation of the terrorist that he hasn’t even thought about doing something about Free the Soul.

“And you’ve got me. You know I’ll help.”

His first instinct is to tell her no, to keep her as far away as he can from even the slightest bit of danger, but when she looks at him, her eyes are fire and her mouth is set.

“I know you will.”

“Are you sure there’s no one in there?” Carlos says into his phone.

“Positive.” Junpei’s annoyed on the other end. “You have five minutes.”

The line goes dead and Carlos lets his hand drop away from his face. The night air bites at his skin and the salt of the ocean burns his eyes.

He’s back here at the docks, where it all started.

A hand fits into his. “Are you ready?”

At first he had objected to Maria coming with him. Sure, she helped him do the research but this is different. He didn’t want her anywhere near any potential danger. But, somehow, she had talked him into it. She had convinced him it was low risk and that she could handle it.

They’re standing outside the warehouse, the one from the memories he has to live with now. The one where he spent his first ten years learning to be just the same as everyone else. Now he’s here with his sister and a pocket full of matches.

Junpei and Akane have assured him Free the Soul have left this warehouse. After the game, after they let Delta live, the whole cult just vanished. They left everything behind. Beds unmade, food left in the refrigerator, labs still full of Left’s DNA.

It feels too good to be true, it feels like a trap, but Carlos has a good feeling about it. Somehow, he thinks this is Delta’s thanks for letting him live. Of course, he doesn’t let himself think this is the end. He still needs to keep tabs on Free the Soul, but this feels good, it feels like a start.

Maria squeezes his hand before letting go. He nods at her as he dips a hand into his pocket. Everything’s set. There’s a line of gasoline leading right up to the point where they’re standing. The wood of the docks will go first, so they can’t hesitate once it’s alight.

“It’s okay,” Maria says quietly. “I’m right here.”

It’s still odd that she’s comforting him, when he’s so used to it being the other way around, but he appreciates it all the same. His hands are trembling as he removes a match from the box and holds it between his fingers.

He strikes the match against the box and the flame springs to life. He stares into it for a moment, remembering the fire that took his parents, the candles during his ceremony, even the heat of the Nevada desert. All of it, burning in his hands, under his control.

Finally, he looks to Maria. “Ready to run?”

Maria smiles at him. “Yeah.”

Carlos drops the match and takes Maria’s hand in the same instant. He doesn’t stop to watch the gas ignite. The warmth blossoms behind them as they pelt into the night. Maria’s laughing and whooping and Carlos feels so light that he joins her. They don’t stop running until they get to the waiting car. Akane’s behind the driver’s seat and Junpei’s waving them in from the passenger side window.

Carlos slides into the back seat, pulling Maria behind him. She barely has a chance to close the door before the car peels off.

No one says anything as they speed away from the blaze. Carlos doesn’t look back, he doesn’t have to. He knows behind him he will find a swirl of red and orange heat, the literal ashes of his old life. A life that was never his.

Maria leans against him and he ruffles her hair. This is his life, here with his sister and his friends. He was never left. He was always Carlos. 

[v3-killing-harmony-imagines]

Mod Application - Hello!

Mod Iruma~

Discord: kii-baby Skype: bandanimeaddict17 Main Blog: @dangan-noya

NDRV3 Boys and S/0 w/ Children

Shuuichi Saihara

Okay

So you have a lot of neighbors with kids

Busy neighbors

So you find yourself almost every week with at least a kid in your living room

Not that Saihara knew

So imagine his surprise when he heard a toddler’s cry whilst you were talking to him on the phone

“S/O?”

Okay can you come over, I need a hand with Mrs. Green’s kid, he’s a troublemaker and I don’t wanna burn his lunch

He accepts

Shows up to your apartment

And immediately sees how stressed you are

Decides to try to help you

Emphasis on try

Although the food is not burnt, it’s not that good

After several attempts to save the dish and failing, you opt to just go buy something and kindly ask him to stay with the child

Oh no

The kid sits on the couch staring at him and Saihara wishes he had his hat on to cover his eyes

After more seconds of eye contact, the kid finally opens his mouth and says, “S/O says you’re a detective.”

Hetriesbuthedoesn’treallyknow-

Yes, he is

Eyes now wide with wonder, questions start flying

You come home to Saihara explaining a murder case in the most PG way possible

You giggle and slip into the kitchen, leaving him at it

Kii-bo/K1-B0

You were on a walk through the park, hand-in-hand

When suddenly, a small girl walked up to the both of you

You smiled down at the girl kindly but her eyes were too focused to the side of you

Kii-bo looked at the girl, and also offered a smile

This time however

“Robots can’t smile!”

SUCH ROBOT RACISM

And from such a small human too

That’s what your boyfriend had thought, until the girl smiled widely.

“I like you better than the robots in the movies. Wanna play with me?”

You were slightly concerned so you glanced at Kii-bo and

Oh

Wow

He was actually glowing

Like, blue

But the smile he had on

Holy-

He quickly agreed and was dragged away by the girl

You still were worried but you were smiling and laughing in seconds at the sight of your boyfriend playing, not only with the little girl, but also with a group of kids who spotted him.

In a matter of minutes he was showing off his features and talking excitedly about his life as the Ultimate Robot

You almost left him there all day

Almost

When you said it was probably time to go, 8 pouty faces met you

One of them being Kii-bo

Robots can pout?

He finally said goodbye and promised to come back again to play

and you would play with them too, because that pouty face happened to show up again

Dammit

Ryoma Hoshi

You honestly didn’t know how this happened

One minute you decide to go into a store while your boyfriend stood outside to wait

The next, he was in the kid’s area at the mall

It took you a bit to find him, but when you did, you couldn’t help but snort

And laugh

And cackle

Okay you almost cried from laughter at his face

Finally you ceased and walked over, but you were stopped by a guard

:”Excuse me, are coming to pick up your child?”

Oh, this is good

You tell the guard that you are just keeping an eye out on your little man boy

Hoshi was not happy

He was dragged around the whole area by the hyperactive kids

Save him

You don’t

Until half an hour later

He comes back with his beanie backwards, coat disheveled and a blush to his entire face

But the smile on his face when all the kids all aww’d and said bye to him was undeniable

Gonta Gokuhara

You were at an insect exhibit surprised? Yeah me neither

When suddenly

He heard it

The cloud cries of a child

He quickly looked around and spotted a child all by herself with huge tears falling down her chubby cheeks

He took a minute to look around for possible parents but when he did not see them, he approached her

You tried to tell him later that usually, that did not look good to the public eye

“But she was so sad. Gonta wanted to help her. That is what a gentleman would do!”

Kneeling down, he asked if everything was alright

She was scared shitless for a few seconds

So were you when you first saw the guy

·After a lot of reassuring, the girl finally noticed that he was not dangerous

He asked her what was wrong

She had lost her parents

Oh no!

And she was scared of the gross bugs all around her

Oh no

“They are not gross!”

Okay, so he’s taking this calmly

“Let Gonta show you!”

What

The two of you then spent the next hour rushing around and showing the girl the good side of bugs

Well Gonta was

Until the girl seemed less and less scared and was actually laughing

So much so she didn’t even notice her parents calling for her

Her parents almost screamed when they saw your boyfriend with the little girl on his shoulders

You explained that he was no harm

Not really convinced, they took the girl away

Not without a hug from Gonta!

Which she accepted gladly

What a day

Rantarou Amami

He was invited to your family home as they wanted to meet him

He showed and noticed two huge pairs of eyes staring at him from behind a wall

You explained they were your two little brothers and he nodded

It wasn’t until half way through the stay did the kids approach him

“H-hey…if you hurt S/O..:

“We’ll h-hurt you…”

The two were trembling

You were about to scold them when suddenly Amami laughed softly

He then wrapped his arm around your waist and turned to them

“I’m super lucky that your sis decided to go out with me. I wouldn’t even think of it.” He shot them a smile.

After a bit of an awkward silence, your brothers threw themselves at your boyfriend

You just sat there in shock

“We like him!”

Well okay..

Rantarou was more than happy tho

So you didn’t really mind

After some movies and food, you decided things were okay enough to leave them alone

So you went to the bathroom

And when you came back, you found the three of them asleep on the couch

You sighed but a smile made its way to your lips

You quickly grabbed some blankets and wrapped them around them and yourself

Spending time like this with your bros and bf was definitely worth it

The back and neck pain however, said otherwise

Kaito Momota

“S/O!”

You turned around to see your boyfriend rushing over with your cousin in toe

You were at a family dinner when Kaito and your little cousin had disappeared

No worries, they’ll come back

Not like this tho please

Your cousin quickly went into a huge speech about stars, and aliens, and space, and planets and-

You looked at Kaito

What did you do

Although your cousin’s rambling of space kept going for almost your whole visit

The proud look on your boyfriend’s face kept you from being annoyed

It was like a dad looking at his son

Oh

No

S/O noooo

While the laughter of the two reached your ears, all you could think about was Kaito being a father

How cute it would

Brain pls

Momota later asked you why you were so red

You ignored him

Red? I’m not red. What??

But the image of a little astronaut running around your apartment didn’t leave your mind

Not that you minded

Korekiyo Shinguuji

He felt eyes staring at him

Small and curious eyes

Looking up from his book, he noticed a small blonde haired girl staring at him

He tilted his head to the side confused

And so did she

They continued till she almost fell off her chair

Shinguuji then watched as she burst into a fit of giggles

After a few moments, the girl looked at him once more

“I like you!”

He felt his eyes widen slightly

He didn’t really know how to respond as the girl walked over and sat beside him

You wondered what kind of parents this girl had to let her approach a stranger

After she made herself comfortable, she quickly said,

“What’cha reading?”

Now, Shinguuji quickly placed his hand over the title of the book

She didn’t need to know about ways to bring back the dead

Sighing, he placed the book down on the table and began telling her of a child-friendly folklore story.

He wanted to distract her from the shiny gold book

Luckily, he succeeded and began to get pestered by “More!”

And he continued

Until the parents and yourself appeared

Once her parents dragged her away, she exclaimed,

“Bye-bye mystery man!”

Ok that’s cute

You looked at him with a raised eyebrow

But he just shook his head

“Children’s curiosity can be so beautifully dangerous.”

You agreed

Kokichi Ouma

He decided he wanted to go into a store to buy some Grape Panta ‘cause he was thirsty

You were about to comment on his addiction but he was gone

Walking inside, you make your way to the soda aisle

Just to find him looking annoyed at a kid smaller than him

What

You look over the situation and find the issue immediately

There’s only one bottle of Grape Panta left

And both of them want it

“I got here first!”

“That’s cute, too bad.”

You were trying not to laugh

But when it got past 5 minutes, you were now concerned

They were not going to move, huh?

Stubborn af

Ouma took a look at you before sighing and dropping the bottle

“Alright, alright, take it!”

He grumbled and walked away.

“Thank you, sir!”

You followed after him and chuckled at his pouty face

We can get some later, Ouma-kun

“But I wanted some now!”

Sighing, you were about to drag him away when the same kid from earlier walked over to you two.

“What? Gonna rub your victory in my face?”

The kid shook his head before giving him a wide grin

And handing him a bottle of Panta

Huh?

“They were gonna re-stock them but we were in the way”

….

“Hahahahaha!”

Taking the bottle, he ruffled the kid’s hair

“Thank you, kiddo! Hey, you’ve got guts to compete with me!”

The kid smiled widely before rushing off, waving goodbye to the both of you

Ouma-kun, you’re so childish

You CUT ME DEEP S/O - CHAN

And there we go!

[junker-town]

How sports is Seven Worlds, One Planet: Episode 6?

Kei Nomiyama / Barcroft Media via Getty Images

David Attenborough’s new show is epic ... and sports.

We continue our extremely important mission to conduct a scene-by-scene review of the BBC’s new nature documentary, Seven Worlds, One Planet, in order to see how sports it is. We determined that Episode 1, which focused on Antarctica, was reasonably sports. Asia was very sports, as was South America. Australia was more drinking than sports, and Europe was extremely sports. Now it’s time for ...

Episode 6 North America

Scene 1: The Hare Hunt

Unless you’re either exceptionally lucky or exceptionally cynical in your choice of teams, following sports can be a thoroughly miserable experience. Every year, most teams fail, and they fail in heartbreaking ways. A sports obsession is a form of emotional gambling, and the house tends to win. Why do we do this to ourselves? I think it’s because we have to. Humans are fascinated by games, and, once captivated, it’s difficult to escape.

Sports might be a bad bet, but for many people they’re nourishing in a way that — the efforts of political punditry aside — cannot be found anywhere else. Also, while there’s not much joy in watching your team fail, it’s a lot of fun to watch everyone else’s also fail. Sports are schadenfreude.

Anyway in this scene a lynx repeatedly fails to catch a hare.

I spy with my little eye...a snowshoe hare #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/Y2nCQi8tDe

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

I think, if we were somehow turned into wild animals, most of us would choose to be apex predators. Being a prey creature, constantly at risk and having to stay on high alert all the time ... well, that sounds really too stressful. But most hunts end in failure, and barring freakish luck, predators seem hungry all the time, which can’t be any less stressful.

I think the lesson here is not to be a wild animal.

This particular lynx is stalking snowshoe hares in the depth of the Yukon winter. It looks cold, hungry, and miserable, and has to walk hundreds of miles in search for food, and when it finds one the hare just hides in a bush. A second hare also runs away and hides in a bush. Being a hare and getting chased by a lynx can’t be fun, but being a very peevish and hungry lynx would hardly be a good time either.

Aesthetics 10/10

Cats must be nature’s most stylish terrestrial predator. Even the smaller ones, like lynx, move with an instantly-recognisable grace. They’re beautiful creatures, made even lovelier by the pristine snow of the Canadian north.

Good lynx.

Difficulty 8/10

It’s obviously quite hard to catch a snowshoe hare.

Competitiveness 8/10

Frankly the hares seem to have the lynx overmatched, although the continued existence of any lynx at all implies that the contest is closer than it looks from these scenes.

Overall 26/30

I hope we’ve established that failure is, perhaps, the essence of sport.

Scene 2: Chubby Fish Boys

In Tennessee, a fish is building a fortress. And honestly, it’s pretty impressive:

BBC Earth

This contraption is the responsibility of a male river chub. In early spring, these foot-long fish embark on a quest to breed. The males seek out a quiet section of river in which to build a nest. These structures can get rather elaborate — they’re significantly larger than the fish themselves and can contain up to 7,000 pebbles, all placed by mouth. The males, for some reason, also decide to get much uglier:

What you would see looking out from a microwave. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #isitready pic.twitter.com/V64RyDcyUo

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

Sorry boys, but bloated-foreheads-with-weird-growths is very much not my aesthetic. But my opinion doesn’t much matter to a river chub. What matters is the nest. These rocky piles provide shelter from both current and predators, should a female chub choose to lay her eggs there, and so building the best nest becomes fiercely competitive. Pebble theft is common.

Eventually the lady chubs make their choices, the eggs are laid and fertilised, and a new generation of fish is reared as the Mississippi slowly washes away those hard-build nests.

Aesthetics 1/10

These are some ugly fish and I really don’t like them.

Difficulty 4/10

Granted, it would be more difficult and time consuming without arms, but I imagine I could make a pile of several thousand rocks without too much trouble.

Competitiveness 8/10

Fighting over building materials and doing your best to build a very good nest? It’s a cut-throat chub world.

Overall 13/30

This is architecture. Architecture, while cool, is not sports.

Scene 3: Tidal Bears

Thanks to various quirks of geography, sections of the eastern coast of North America are subject to some of the planet’s highest tides. Tide present opportunities for land animals to harvest the rich bounty of the seas, and there’s no more opportunistic land animal than the bear.

Tidal zones might be rich in food but they’re also disgusting, rank places, with the stench of half-rotten seaweed everywhere. You can almost smell it coming through the screens. But we’ve dealt with the turd penguins, so we’ll forgive this bear family their rancid crab snacks. This is, or so we’re told, the cubs’ first visit to the seaside. They seem to be enjoying it:

A fierce hunter retreats with his starfish catch#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/QjLDxWpig7

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

Sibling rivalry...a tale as old as time#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/0zgCE3yKzp

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

However! Much like last week in Europe, the baby bears encounter a male whole isn’t their father, and are forced to flee up a tree to avoid his wrath. Fortunately, just like during the Finnish forest scene, nothing too bad happens. The grumpy male bear leaves a scent mark on the tree — how anyone might smell with so much seaweed around is beyond me, but bears have noses many thousands of times more powerful than ours, poor things — and the family skedaddles back to safety.

Aesthetics 5/10

These are some adorable, bears but while I love the seaside I have a visceral reaction to seeing much exposed seaweed. Gross.

Difficulty 8/10

The various climbs the little bears undertake seem sort of difficult, as evidenced by:

He’s beauty and he’s grace, he’s fallen on his face #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/UYONQtceiT

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

Did I add this just because it’s cute? Yes, obviously.

Competitiveness 0/10

Despite things threatening to happen, nothing actually happens.

Overall 13/30

A stroll down the beach to munch on some crabs is not sports unless someone actually tries to fight the big bear at the end.

Scene 4: Fireflies

If you’re lucky enough to live in a part of the world inhabited by fireflies, make sure you take advantage of those lazy summer evenings when the temperature is just right to draw them out. The little beetles twinkle in the air like borrowed stars, adding magic wherever they go.

BBC Earth

Since this is nature, of course, the flashing of their lights is basically morse code for “S E X M E P L S”, the sort of neon signs one might imagine populating a red-light district, but the lurid nature of the show hardly takes away from the beauty.

And since, again, this is nature, sometimes the lights are a trap. There are some species of fireflies which have evolved the ability to mimic others species mating signals, using their lights to attract an innocent bug looking for a mate and eating it.

This sequence doesn’t show that degree of aggressive mimicry, but we get an accidental one instead, with fireflies finding themselves glowing postmortem in a spider’s web, which summons more fireflies which etc. It’s a very pretty dinner.

Aesthetics 10/10

Yeah this is an easy call.

Difficulty 7/10

This isn’t talked about at all during the scene, but I really wonder how on Earth individual fireflies manage to cut through the noise of tens of thousands of other fireflies to hone in on potential mates. Is their vision short-ranged enough that most of the lights gets diffused into the background? If you tried to get me to pick a specific firefly out of that video I would not do a very good job.

Competitiveness 7/10

Following on from the last part, I’m slightly baffled as to how fireflies differentiate themselves from their firefly competitors. Many mating rituals have an obvious ‘fitness’ component to them, but I can’t tell here. Is it because the world of coleoptera sex is just too alien for me to comprehend? I hope so. (The spider part gives this zero bonus points because that shit is really just too easy.)

Overall 24/30

If humans could glow, synchronised people-glowing would be an Olympic sport.

Scene 5: The Tale of the Naughty Prairie Dog That Only Listened To Its Mother Sometimes

Once upon a time, there were six little prairie dogs living in a hole in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. They were good little prairie dogs, or so they thought. They played nicely with each other (sometimes), kept the burrow clean (sometimes) and even listened to their mother (sometimes). They liked their burrow, and had lots of good grass and seats to eat. The six little prairie dogs had a good life.

They were neighbours with a burrowing owl family, and were good friends with their chicks. They didn’t see them very much, because the owls preferred to come out later, but the chicks liked to play almost as much as the prairie dogs and the mother owl wasn’t nearly as strict as the prairie dogs’.

The prairie dogs thought that their mother worried at little bit too much. She insisted that they not go too far from their burrow — the world was “big and dangerous,” she said, and they were small and many creatures might find them tasty. Their mother also forced them to return to the burrow at a moment’s notice, even if they were having fun playing or had found a particularly tasty patch of grass!

Their mother, the prairie dogs decided, was clearly overthinking things. Surely the world couldn’t be as dangerous as she thought. Nothing scared the cubs.

She is having none of it #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/JHIYxbTc9u

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

So slowly, as they got older, they started sneaking further away from the burrow. Whenever they could, they’d also wait a little longer to respond to their mother’s recall shout. Nothing bad ever happened. The world didn’t seem so big and dangerous after all.

One day, as they were playing, the little prairie dogs noticed the burrowing owl mother driving off a badger. “I wish she was our mother,” the eldest and most rebellious of the little prairie dogs. “Look how safe she keeps her family! Our mother just tells us never do to anything.”

The prairie dogs kept playing, glad that the badger had gone away. They’d never seen a predator before, but something told them them the badger was bad news. But with it gone, they could eat and play all day.

The eldest of the little prairie dogs was wrestling with his youngest sister when they heard their mother shouting for them to come home. “Let’s go back,” said his sister.

“Don’t be such a scaredy-dog,” said the eldest. “There’s nothing here that can hurt us. That badger went away ages ago. Mother’s just being ridiculous again. Stay and play.”

“Are you sure?” said his sister.

“Of course I’m sure.”

So the two little prairie dogs kept on wrestling.

The look your dad gives you when you announce that the whole family is going on a juice cleanse.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/v7DH1OxmyS

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

For the rest of his short existence, the eldest of the now-five little prairie dogs had to live with the guilt of his sister’s death.

Aesthetics 7/10

The prairies are not the continent’s finest scenery, but the little prairie dogs are very cute. And quite tasty-looking.

Difficulty 6/10

The ending wasn’t very difficult, but the badger did a lot of hard work to sneak up on the prairie dogs. The burrowing owl attack was pretty good too.

Competitiveness 10/10

Badger against baby prairie dogs? Not a contest. But a little burrowing owl (8 ounces) taking on a whole-ass badger (20 pounds) to defend her young? That’s the stuff right there.

Bonus point for the, uh, ill-judged prairie dog wrestling.

Overall 22/30

Depressing sports. Also, listen to your mom, kids.

Scene 6: Meep Meep!

Like many others, I was devastated to discover that roadrunners were neither blue nor locked in an elaborate, contraption-fueled feud with technically adept but curiously stubborn coyotes. Roadrunners are, in fact, little brown birds that like to eat lizards. Here is one on the hunt.

Practising for when Coyote turns up.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/vbRCqA2zxW

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

I was also devastated to find out that they don’t actually say “meep, meep”. It’s as though Looney Tunes was lying to me all along.

The roadrunner hunt is really quite odd. It doesn’t go after a gila monster (fair enough), and fails to chase down a couple of spindly-legged speedsters (fair enough), but it totally ignores a half-buried horny toad, and then at one point investigates a tasty-looking lizard of unknown description and instead of catching it lets it run away. And then chases after it.

I’m starting to suspect that roadrunners aren’t that smart. And with the lizard hunt not going very well, this one settles on a centipede. Job mediocrely done — my kind of bird.

Aesthetics 7/10

There’s a pure component to aesthetics, certainly. A goldeneye duck, for instance, is a beautiful bird in any context. But there’s also an aesthetic of time and place, and a roadrunner in the American West just feels right. It’s dusty and dirty chasing, after other dusty and dirty things, and while I might have preferred something blue and meepy, this’ll do.

Difficulty 5/10

Catching lizards in the heat can’t be easy, but there are so many unforced errors here it’s hard to give this a high difficulty score even when the hunt ends up mostly failing.

Competitiveness 8/10

Idiot bird vs. lizard seems like a pretty good fight.

Overall 20/30

Running aimlessly and mostly failing to get the job done? That’s a sport. I mean, I’ve just watched an Arsenal game.

Scene 7: Mullet Hunt

Somehow this is not a hair metal tribute band’s tribute band. I’m sorry if this disappoints you. Instead, we have grey mullet, a medium-sized coastal fish moving south with the currents off Florida. They’re moving south in vast numbers, too, with millions of fish heading towards their spawning grounds.

The mullet stay close to the shore in order to avoid the worst of the predators, yet somehow manage to go more or less undetected by the human sea-goers. But running in-shore only works for so long. Eventually the mullet draw the attention of a group of tarpon, large fish with a very large appetite. And so the hunt begins:

To get close to the mullet in the shallows, the tarpon turn on their sides now the mullet can’t see their shining silver flanks.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/mhgpgzO4Jx

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

The tarpon gorge on the mullet, and are soon joined by sharks and pelicans. But no matter how many predators converge upon the giant school, they can’t make much of a dent in its numbers, and the mullet keep moving south sans a few thousand fish.

Aesthetics 9/10

I very much enjoy the overhead shots of bait fish, and it’s especially fun to see them having to move around predators (the tarpon are magnificent) as well as human interlopers.

Difficulty 6/10

The tarpon, sharks and pelicans have it pretty easy. The mullet are jammed so tight to the shore that there’s nowhere to escape, so they mostly don’t. For the mullet there’s safety in numbers, but only for reasons of sheer probability.

Competitiveness 5/10

Not much of a fight, but I think sheer weight of numbers plays a factor here. The tarpon are trying to reduce a population 10,000 times their size. Granted, they probably think that sounds more ‘delicious’ than ‘intimidating’, but it’s a relatively tall order.

Overall 20/30

Sure. Fishing is a sport.

Scene 8: Sea Cows

America’s swamps aren’t always hot and humid. The shape of the continent allows arctic weather systems to penetrate right down to the south coast, dropping the temperature below freezing. Alligators can go into a sort of cold fugue state, dropping their heart rate to a beat per minute and sticking their snouts above the ice to make sure they can still breathe. But manatees cannot, and so they need to migrate somewhere warmer.

The waters off Florida should still be too cold for them during the winter, but Florida is an unusual place, and that strangeness manifests itself here through some surprisingly benevolent hydrology. The peninsula’s underground river systems are significantly warmer than the sea, and that’s where manatees see out the cold.

Some manatee babies get bored of all the waiting and play an unusual game:

BBC Earth

Yes, that is an alligator

In the depths of winter it’s not sleepy alligators which threaten the manatees. Instead, it’s boats. Florida’s water-ways are obnoxiously packed with motorboats, and dozens of manatees are killed by propellor strikes every year. Many of those that don’t die bear the scars of collisions, which are common even on young manatees.

Maybe learn to sail, Florida?

Aesthetics 7/10

Manatees aren’t cute, but the overhead shots have a sort of dreamy quality, like we’re watching a surrealist film about ambulant gnocchi. Also, the frozen alligator is very cool.

Difficulty 10/10

The baby manatee annoys an alligator. ANNOYS. AN. ALLIGATOR.

Competitiveness 4/10

Ok, let’s be fair: it’s a pretty sleepy alligator.

Overall 21/30

Most of this sequence is not a sport. Annoying alligators? That’s definitely a sport, albeit one I must legally recommend you not partake in.

Scene 9: White Whaling

I knew I shouldn’t have used so many Herman Melville references in the first episode, because we now have a genuine white whale hunt on our hands. Canada is warming faster than any other country on the planet, which has led to some difficult times for polar bears. Used to hunting on sea ice, which gives them a platform and a means to ambush the marine mammals they eat, the bears have had to adapt to a warming climate in which ice is much rarer.

Fortunately, bears are adaptable. Along Hudson Bay, a group of bears has developed a new hunting technique: they go whaling.

Polar bears are so dependent on the ocean, they are officially classed as ‘marine mammals’.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/pZzBtdLbFc

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

Bears, as it turns out, are not very good at chasing down belugas by swimming at them. But the older, smarter bears have a better technique: standing on a small rock, conveniently placed some distance into the water, and dive-bombing the whales as they swing by. This technique proves more fruitful, and one bloody encounter later, the bear is dragging a very dead whale to shore to share with his friends.

Polar bears are fucking terrifying.

Aesthetics 8/10

We’re used to seeing polar bears in icy conditions, so it’s quite nice to see them frolicking somewhere else.

Just a polar bear lying in a flower meadow #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/jiU5WDG7TO

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 1, 2019

As ever, the drone shots are magical.

Difficulty 10/10

An adult beluga can weigh up to 4,000 pounds. Imagine having to kill one in an ambush fast enough that it couldn’t escape.

Competitiveness 10/10

It takes a lot of brains and patience for the bears to overcome the fact the whales are far superior swimmers.

Overall 28/30

Diving is a sport, and it’s even more of a sport if you have to try to kill a whale with your teeth as you dive. From hell’s heart I bite at thee etc., etc., etc.

[lulaniacthemaniac]

Glowbug (the prologue? :|)

So I read this ask post from @mitjo about Jonas being the alien and thought I could try and make a fanfic of that… And I did . I’m not the best writter nor story teller, so if y'all wanna give suggestion. I’m up for it, GIVE ME KNOLEDGE SO I CAN MAKE THIS FANFIC ENGOYABLE FOR U GUYS! Here’s the prologue

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Mitch runs through the trees, seething in anger. Source: fucking Gary. God, how he hates him. How could his mom ever hook up with him, living with that fucker. What he did to his mom and him was just unacceptable, he just wants to to kill that piece of shit. But knowing his mom wouldn’t approve, knew even better that his hormone induced body would go haywire if he saw that fucker again. So he decided to take out his anger by running in the woods, hopefully anger would be replaced by exhaustion from running.

His 15 year old mind just swirling with loath, pushing adrenaline through his legs, forcing his body to go faster, farther away from that son of a bitch. That piece of shi-

His train of thought was interrupted when he tripped over something covered with the forests leaves.

“Fuck, Shit, Fuck.” He hissed a string of swear words, stumbling back up, reeling his leg back to kick whatever was under those fucking dead leaves, imagining it is his stepdad.

With full force he kicked the thing under the leaves. Causing a loud metallic “BANG!”, and pain shooting through his foot. He grabs it, swearing like the foul words will dull the throbbing pain coursing through his toes.

After a few moments of clutching  and cursing at his pained foot, he stood in front of the thing he kicked. There is a bare patch where he kicked, revealing something shiny. Mitch crouched down to inspect further, sweeping the leaves away from the metal. It was egg shaped and silver colored. No bigger than a head.

Mitch stares at his finding, not touching it, he may be  below average intelligence but he has common sense. He walked around the metal egg, when in the corner of his eye something grabbed his attention. He walked toward it and found another silver metal thing. It wasn’t egg shaped this time, it looked like just a broken piece of some sorts. Not too far from it is another piece of metal, farther away is another one and another one.

The teen followed the trail of metal when he got to something that sorta resembled a spaceship, but the technology built is nothing like what Mitch saw in one of those rocket magazines in the stores. It seems……. Alien.

Mitch raised his dangly legs over some logs and other branches that look like they might have been ripped apart by the ship. It was evidence that the crash landed here in the forest. He gets closer to the hunk of metal, looks about 7 feet higher than Mitch and 6 feet in width. He was about to climb it when a hatch like door sprung open on top of the ship. Causing Mitch to fall back into a pile of leaves.

Mitch opened his mouth to curse, but stopped when he saw what came out of the hatch. It was definitely an alien of some sorts.

It had a shape of a human teen, a chubby one, with four arms and firefly like wings on its back. On it’s head was something that looks like it should be hair, but really it looks like a bunch of tentacle like things tangled up on its head, coming out of it are bug antennas. It had brown skin, with patches on his body such as it’s shoulders and elbows where it’s darker brown, his skin just riddled with tiny spots, like someone got a paint brush and splattered paint all over it’s body.

Mitch inhaled sharply. It’s an alien, a legitimate alien. Right in front of him. And it’s sorta…… cute?

Welp, that’s  a weird thought.

Mitch shakes his head, how can he think this bug looking alien is cute? It has four arms for God’s sake!

Almost like the alien can hear him screaming in his thought, it turned it’s head toward him. F*, Its face is cute even with those bug like pincers, Mitch’s face heats up with the thought. Again, why? Is it because of the freckles all over it’s cheeks, how it looks at Mitch with wonder and curiosity instead of disgust.

Hold up! Staring at him?

Mitch focuses on the alien and yep, it’s staring at him. Like HE is the alien, (guess it would make sense) it came out of the ship slowly and carefully while Mitch just stares with amazement or something along those lines. It got off the ship completely and stood in front to Mitch, head tilted.

The teen held his breath as the alien just stared at him, then walked away. Mitch exhaled the oxygen he was holding in, his heart beating fast. Pretty sure it’s because a F*ING ALIEN stood right in front of him, but his subconscious nagged him at the back of his brain that it’s not only because it was an alien.

His thoughts were interrupted by rustling of leaves and clanging of metal. Mitch turned around and saw the alien picking up the chunks of metal that he saw before. The pieces quickly start filling up it’s  arms and Mitch just watches the alien struggle to get just one more piece. It got a hold of it, but fell back to the ground, it made the first noise that Mitch ever heard from it: a series of frustrated clicks.

He decided it was too painful to watch, so he got up and picked up the piece that the alien tried to pick up. Turning to give the piece to the alien he saw an expression on its human like face, surprised with a hint of gratitude.

“Um…hi, I uh, I’m gonna help you pick these up.” Mitch gestures to the metal he held, it seems it’s enough for the little alien to understand. Standing side to side, Mitch can tell that the alien is about a foot smaller than him, making it more cute.

God dammit! Stop thinking like that, he frowned at himself.

The little alien walked back to the ship and dropped the pile of metal next to it, then walked back where Mitch is, who didn’t move at all.

The alien used his arms to show where to get the parts and where to put them, took a couple tries for Mitch to understand what it’s trying to say, but he understood enough to do exactly what the alien wanted.

Both spent a while walking around the woods to find parts of the ship, sometimes having a bit of a communication problem, but they got the job done. Mitch looked up at the sky, shades of red blending with the yellow of the setting sun. A sign saying that it’s almost evening, but he didn’t really have a curfew so it didn’t really mean anything to him.

Clicking noises made Mitch turn away from the sky and focus on the alien. It pressed something on the ship and it illuminated, Like a freaking disco club. It was hard to see, but Mitch was able to make out the metal parts that they collected, float in the air and like paper clips attracted to a magnet, stuck to the ship and sort of puzzle piece all of them together.

Mitch and the alien watched this crazy light show for a few more moments when the light faded away to reveal a whole new ship, like it never once crashed into anything before.

“I guess you’re leaving now?” Mitch said,  he has this lingering feeling. He’s guessing that he doesn’t want the alien to leave.

No, he knew that he doesn’t want the alien to leave.

Not understanding what Mitch said, it looked at the pubescent male. Tilting it’s head to the side in a confused while a puppy.

Dammit! That’s cute!

He didn’t even think twice about it. He took the chance and kissed the little f*ker.

Lips crashing against each other awkwardly, the alien’s lips were surprisingly soft and squishy and to add to the surprise, it didn’t move. Nor did it follow along, just sorta stood there and stared at the teen. It gave Mitch a twinge of pain in his chest that the alien seems to have no interest in the kiss. But being hormonal boy that he is, he went further. Deepening the kiss and letting his tongue like the aliens lips. Begging for an entering.

That seemed to finally grab the aliens attention, it’s pincers pinched Mitch’s face. Reacting to the pain, Mitch moved away from the alien.

“What the f*?” he rubbed both of his cheeks, they stung a pit. The type of sting you get after your aunt pinches your cheeks yellow or somethin.

While Mitch was being occupied by rubbing his face. The alien spread out it’s wings and flew to it’s ship, opening the hatch, starting the ship, and lifted off.

Still rubbing his face, Mitch stared at the ship as it shrinks in the sky. Now why did he do that? Why did he had to go further and ruin the moment? It was a great kiss, even though it was totally one-sided and brief. The feeling still lingers on his lips.

His thoughts were interrupted by something under his foot, he looked down and it was a piece of metal from the ship. Picking it up his blistered fingers feel the smooth cool surface, closed his hand to imprison the metal and shoved it into his pockets.

At least he got some kind of souvenir from all this crazy experience.

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Is it good? Is it ok? Do i have things i should tweak a bit? If so, please comnent. And could u criticise nicely? I’m still a bigginer at this stuff.

And thank u @pondwriter1300 for being my beta.

Creator: @smokeplanet Comic: @longexposurecomic Fanblogs: @mitjo @longexposurestuff

[kestrelsansjesses]

Tiny Judgement

[[Summary: This was all inspired by asking someone if Wren Ryder and Kandros would have children together. After I finished going "AHAHAHA no" I thought about whether they'd be good with children at all. Result: no. No they are not.

AO3]]

A carefully wrapped present tumbled from Wren Ryder’s hand and she cursed, reaching out to grab it just before it hit the ground, almost ripping off the plain paper in the process. “Shit!” Even finding this much spare paper had been half impossible, and she had very, very carefully drawn playful doodles on it- puppies and varrens, mostly, not colored and not really recognizable as such unless you squinted very, very carefully.

“Nervous, Ryder?” Kandros placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a pat, but he couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice and she shrugged off his hand with a huff, straightening out her clothes. They exited down the Tempest’s long walkway into the bustle of Aya’s markets, the sun always pleasantly bright and warm, the air always perfumed with fruit and flowers. It was, above all, a safe place, filled with angara but other species too, former restrictions slowly lifting.

Hugging the parcel closer to her chest, Ryder replied, “hardly,” but her tone betrayed her, and she wasn’t about to die on a hill for an obvious lie. “Look, just… what if they don’t like me?” It hadn’t been a concern in her life for at least a few months now; half her actions as Pathfinder meant that people didn’t like her, and she had long ago given up trying to please everyone. This was different though. This was family.

Kandros pulled her to his side briefly, an arm slung about her shoulder comfortably. “They’re just kids. Four, five years old? They’ll like you fine. You have a present.” The utter strangeness of going to visit Scott’s family settled over her, another layer on top of her own anxious lip-biting.

“They’ve been through a lot of shit already, Kandros. Shit that is partially my fault.” Or entirely her fault. Whether or not children barely old enough to walk and talk could understand what had happened to their parents enough was up in the air, but it felt safer for Ryder to assume they knew. If the human Pathfinder had come to their aid faster, if she had saved mom and dad from the situations that befell them, then they wouldn’t be with their new foster parents in the first place.

There wasn’t a good answer for that, so Kandros didn’t even try. He simply walked by her side, occasionally shooting glares to any angara who wanted to stop and interrupt. Given where Ryder’s head currently was, she was grateful. There were always so many damn questions, and she didn’t have answers at the best of times.

They were a little bit early, but only by a few minutes. It was enough time for Ryder to fiddle with the bow she had slapped on top of the package, playing with it so much that the careful curls she had put into the ribbon were going limp and flat. Before Kandros could swat her hand away from worrying it any further, the cheerful shriek of a child interrupted and a small angaran boy came barreling straight into Ryder’s leg, pausing and blinking up at her, half in confusion and half in fear that he might have done something wrong.

Hot on his heels came Scott, Jaal following some distance behind, a turian toddler in his arms, half-asleep but looking at the newcomers with a guarded, wary expression that seemed far too old for her young body.

Corralling the angara up against his legs, Scott offered his arms for Ryder, exclaiming “Wren!” as he did so. His hug felt good, close and so tight she could barely breathe. She took it as a challenge, squeezing him back until he finally yelped and laughed, stepping back and disentangling himself. Meanwhile, Kandros and Jaal shook hands, thumped each other’s shoulders, and exchanged a look between themselves, Jaal shaking his head ever so slightly.

“This is Ovfan.” He pushed the angara forward and the child took a few steps, glancing between his fathers to make sure that it was safe and okay. Finally, he deemed everything acceptable and offered Ryder his hand gravely, an echo of Jaal’s handshake earlier but less personal, keeping her at a careful distance. His eyes flickered back and forth between Scott and Ryder, seeing the resemblance clearly, before they finally settled on her hair. WIth its bright lavender hue, it matched both Ovfan’s and Jaal’s own skin tones reasonably well, and it was clearly unlike anything he had seen before.

“I, uh, got you guys a present.” Kneeling to present it, Ryder was startled when her present was dismissed in favor of Ovfan toddling forward, one sticky hand reaching up for her hair, touching it gently. When she didn’t pull away or express anything negative (though she did shoot a panicked look to Scott, who nodded and made an encouraging gesture) he reached out and took it firmly between chubby fingers and held it up against himself. Okay. This was going well. Better than she had imagined.

Ahead, Jaal had managed to wake the turian bundled against his chest. “Our daughter is Senvea.” Like Ovfan, and like so many other orphans, her parents had fallen victim to the kett, exploration outside the carefully defined boundaries of the settlements still a risky proposition. There were less kett now, but as of yet Ryder hadn’t found their home planet, and they continued to be a problem that cropped up time and time again, persistent weeds in a galaxy that was otherwise finally beautiful.

Senvea clearly recognized Kandros as one of her own, making insistent arms until he took her from Jaal, holding her slightly away from himself, hastily supporting her bottom when Jaal reached forward with only mild panic to show him how. Now properly held, she reached out for Kandros until he pulled her closer, and with a cry of delight, grabbed his mandibles and pulled. Hard.

Ryder would have laughed were it not for Ovfan’s decision, clearly spurred on by his sister, to grab her hair and make a similar tug, apparently trying to see if he could pull off a clump to take home. It took all her willpower not to curse; she had been warned that neither child spoke very often, and that they were both sensitive to loud noises and raised voices.

“And that means it’s time for lunch.” Scott swooped in, picking up Ovfan, Jaal moving to take Senvea back, both of them moving efficiently and with admirable practice, considering they’d been fathers officially for only a few weeks. Children successfully corralled, Scott planted an affectionate kiss on the side of Jaal’s cheek. “We’ll lead the way.” Aya now had another restaurant, one specializing in food suitable for aliens, bolstered by successful trade between colonies, Nexus, and the now-living Angaran home planets.

Ryder and Kandros trailed slightly behind, far enough so that they could speak to each other in a low whistle. “Do you ever think of settling down, having some kids, Ryder?”

Looking at her brother and the children, at the obvious love and the family cohesion that had already formed, something in her heart panged, but then she shook her head, hand going up to her still-stinging scalp. “God, no. I don’t think I could handle it. Plus, there are so many more star systems to see.” Scott had his life and she had hers- they were twins, but they had always been different, and wanted different things. She was still the Pathfinder, and she couldn’t imagine ever slowing down enough to stay in one place.

“You have never said anything more beautiful to me,” Kandros replied, giving her hand a squeeze. For now,t hey were happy to play aunt and uncle, but even happier to go back to the Tempest and some peace and quiet.

Relatively.

[the-aquilanian-noise]

Greg’s Universes- Chapter 1

(NOTE: This story is an AU, set before the events of the recent Stevenbomb. Also, Tom references @plainolddope‘s OC, Greg’s twin brother. It is his fault that this story exists in the first place so go blame him ;p )

4,403 words

‘Well this just isn’t fair…’ Greg muttered, as he stood alone on the ‘It’s A Wash!’ tarmac. It had been quiet recently. Far too quiet for his taste. He didn’t NEED to wash cars anymore, his royalty cheque had seen to that, but it gave him something to do. Structure to a life that was otherwise… ‘Boring’ Greg said out loud, walking over slowly to his favourite deck chair. It had been a slow morning, followed by a slow afternoon. The lazy sunset made it clear that it was transitioning into a slow evening. Hardly anyone had been by, and Greg had been left with only his thoughts for company. And their focus on Rose made them poor companions.

What was worse, Steven hadn’t been around for a while, livening up the place with his laughter alone. (‘Probably yet another mission…’ thought Greg, before suppressing the thought of WHAT the mission could be…) Even if it wasn’t for very long at a time, his son’s presence made things a lot better.  He was afraid to admit it, but he was… lonely. As much as he loved the other residents of Beach City, they all had their own lives and loved ones. But for him… all of that felt very distant now. And any time he had alone just reminded him of that fact.

With a sigh, lowering himself down into the deckchair, he thought about going to sleep. At least in his dreams his thoughts fled away, didn’t remind him of the quiet. Yes, that would work. Give him some way to pass the early evening, before returning to his van to pass the rest. Greg raised his large hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn, as he relaxed himself a little. If he was lucky, maybe when he next opened his eyes Steven would be there too. That made the yawn move into a smile, as he imagined showing Steven the right frets to strum on the guitar, his eyes closing on that peaceful thought…

BANG

Greg sprung awake, his hair almost standing on end. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out, though the sun had dipped far enough that the shadows were stretching far back, as if they were dark fingers clawing at the walls of the car wash. And it was from there the banging noise originated, Greg realised. Nervously, Greg got himself up, hoping beyond hope that he was hearing things.

BANG

There it was again! He couldn’t shrug that one off, as much as he wanted to. Someone was moving around the Car Wash office, and making a mess of it by the sounds of it. Trying to keep his breath modulated, Greg picked up the closest thing on hand he could use as a weapon... which was a length of unplugged hose. For a second Greg could only sigh. He lived a life surrounded by aliens with their high tech Gem weaponry, and all he had to fall back on was a hose pipe. Then the noises started again, and Greg held it close. Any port in a storm, after all…

Greg approached the Car Wash door, opening it and looking in. It was dark, reflecting the gradual approach of dusk. He could just about make out that some things had been knocked over- invoices, bottles of soda (‘Wait, knocked over or drunk?’) and even a few chairs. As he peered through the glass door observing this, the door at the back of the office swing shut. His heart skipped a beat. ‘Come out! I have a… hose head?’ Greg said, a clear quavering in his tone. ‘Heavy hose head!’ He quickly added. Silence answered him. ‘Calm down Mr Universe… You don’t want to lose any of what remains of your hair through stress. Probably just a cat’ He heard the tinkling sound of a lot of cutlery falling to the floor. ‘A… large cat? Lion?’ Greg whispered, almost inaudibly. No response came, other than another few muffled crashes. Someone was in the break room.

Greg crept reluctantly forward into the building, holding the hose out as the closest thing he had to a weapon, for all the good it would do him. As delicately as he could manage with his large frame, he edged his way through the room, avoiding the pitfalls that its recent occupant had already tripped through. He knew he should phone the police, but how long would they take? And if his wash invader was Onion, he didn’t want ANOTHER charge of breaking and entry put on the kids’ permanent record… God knew that Vidalia didn’t need that right now. So, with trepidation, he slowly edged the door to the break room open, pressing the handle in just the right way to prevent it creaking. Then had to stop himself gasping.

It was a man, rooting around in his fridge! Greg couldn’t see much- the blinds were down, and the only real illumination was the fridge’s own backlight, which only served to make the man appear even broader. And indeed, he appeared to be quite chubby, with long hair braided into some kind of ponytail. The figure was hopping up and down a little… Maybe he had stubbed himself on the chairs he had knocked over? Then Greg realised- the man’s feet were bare. Worse than that, so were his legs! With a start, Greg processed that his would-be thief was dressed in a white loincloth and a dark blue waistcoat. Whoever had broken into the Car Wash had taken his clothes from the Human Zoo! (‘Hadn’t I burned them?’ he thought to himself ‘I mean I thought I had… maybe I got too distracted by my new jean shorts…’) And, annoyingly Greg had to admit, the intruder looked good in them; the fabric of the loincloth seemed to fit really well around the curves of his thighs, flowing in a way he was sure it never had on him. He shook his head out of this reverie- there was a stranger raiding his fridge!

‘Hey, stop that right now!’ Greg said, in his sternest voice possible, throwing open the break room door. The man froze, even ceasing his hopping as he crouched a little. ‘This… this is private property you know! I’ll call the police, if you don’t stop what you’re doing, and uh… leave!’

A pause. Greg tried to remain calm, as he brandished the hose in the closest to a threatening manner he could manage. Nothing happened for a heartbeat, as Greg and the mysterious man held still in silence. Then, with exaggerated care, the man turned around, his long, braided ponytail swinging loose as he did so. For a moment, Greg couldn’t see anything due to the glare of the neon fridge lighting. And then, suddenly, they were face to face. And not just any face. It was Greg’s own face staring back at him!

‘ARRRRGGGGH!’ Greg yelled.

‘EEEEEEEEKKKK!’ the other Greg squealed, dropping a plate containing leftover pizza.

The two stared at one another. Greg tilted his head. The other Greg’s eyes widened in fear. (‘Ok, not a mirror monster… that’s something?’ Greg thought) His… blue eyes. Identical to Greg’s own. Same bald patch. Same beard. Same farmer’s tan. Even the same slight bulge in the nose, from when it got broke as he left home as a teenager. It was as if he was facing his twin again, but a twin who had lived his life.

‘Uhhhh… I’m… not going to hurt you… me?’ Greg said, in as calm a tone he could manage. ‘Oh boy…’ He put down the hose he was almost brandishing. ‘See? Everything’s going to be a-ok…’

‘… Wait, this is a dream right?’ the other Greg said, shaking his head nervously. ‘But why would I be dreaming about myself? The food I understood, but another me…’ Suddenly the other Greg reached out and poked Greg in the stomach, giving it a quick wobble

‘Hey!’ Greg said indignantly, but the other Greg was already back to talking.

‘You feel real, though wait, would I be able to tell the difference in a dream? But if this isn’t a dream, where am I? A new part of the Zoo? Wait, why would they add a new part to the Zoo? Unless it is some kind of new habitat study… But then why are you here? Are you my clone? I mean, they got enough DNA I guess… Or are you a gem that is in disguise as me? Are you replacing me? Don’t replace me! But that wouldn’t make sense… Unless you aren’t meant to be here… Wait, are you trying to CHOOSEN me? Approaching looking like me to make me feel more comfortable? Because you finally figured out my past??’

‘Wait… what?’ Greg said, disorientated by the shotgun barrage of questions and statements that had come at him in his own voice. ‘I’m lost?’

‘I mean, you seem really nice… I mean I seem really nice… But I’m not interested right now!’ the other Greg said, then paused. ‘Well, I might be, but I mean it’s very sudden, and I don’t know why you would disguise yourself as me, but I’m flattered? But not so flattered as to do things right now unless I was told…’

And the other Greg stopped. Reached out his hand to his ear, cupping the purple earring that had gone unnoticed by Greg up until this point. And immediately cried out again. ‘The little voice! The little voice is gone!’ The change was instantaneous. He collapsed, clutching his ear as he curled into a ball, making a slight whimpering sound as he rocked back and forth.

‘Hey, c’mon buddy’ Greg said, trying to understand what was happening as he talked. ‘What voice?’ he asked, already half guessing the answer.

‘The little voice… The routine… It’s… gone.’ The other Greg continued to rock even faster, clearly panicking.

‘Hey, hey, it’s ok…’ Greg said, reaching out and stroking the soft shoulder of the other man. He had a theory now. Either it was a very elaborate practical joke played by Tom, or this person was really someone from the Human Zoo- who happened to look exactly like him. Who had been brought to him. But what that meant, he wasn’t entirely sure…

It was then Greg heard another noise, the sound of sandals slapping against the tarmac. He swung around, looked the other Greg directly in the face, trying to fix his gaze as it wandered in panic. ‘Right, me! Well, you! Stay here!’ The other Greg nodded quickly, evidently a little happier now he was finally being told what to do again. But Greg didn’t have enough time to double check. Because he knew what that sound meant, as he dashed through the empty Reception, and threw the Car Wash door open.

‘Heeeeeeey Schtuball’ Greg called out, smiling widely.

And there was Steven running towards him, the cry of ‘Daaaaaaaaaaaaad!’ carrying in the still night air. Suddenly he was right with Greg, throwing himself into his father’s arms. ‘Oooof, careful kiddo- you’ll take my back out one of these days you know!’ Greg said, not entirely joking.

Steven continued talking without missing a beat, ‘Dad, Dad, you won’t BELIEVE it! We fought this giant –uh- giant gem thing, and Garnet was all ‘Gems, we musn’t let it split us up!’, but Amethyst had already fallen down a hole, and Pearl had been splattered by goo from its babies, so she wasn’t moving, so I had to…’ Greg let the story fade into the background, absorbing every word, as he just enjoyed being there. With Steven. Being alongside his son. Perhaps seeing the Zoo clothes had made him sentimental, remembering how close he had been to never seeing Steven again… That, however, brought the memories of the strangely dressed man back into his head; how was he meant to explain that to Steven?

‘Dad?’ Greg was startled, looked up. Steven had stopped talking, and was instead looking up at him with confusion. He had obviously let the emotions play across his face (‘Stupid, stupid’) ‘Are… you all right Dad?’ Steven said, concern obvious in his expression.

‘Of course, kiddo… I mean, why wouldn’t I be?’ Greg said, wishing for a moment his t-shirt had a proper collar he could fidget with.

‘You look… scared?’ Steven said. Greg froze. He didn’t want Steven to think he was afraid of him, God knew that the kid didn’t need that adding to his plate. But for the same reasons he couldn’t exactly tell him about his… clone? (‘Better than any other explanation I can think of right now…’ he thought). Steven would blame himself, Greg just knew it. And he didn’t want to hurt his son like that. Didn’t want to hurt their relationship any more.

The tinkle of shattering glass came from behind Greg. The moment was broken. Like a shot, Steven was looking past Greg towards the Car Wash, hand moving toward his Gem.

‘Get behind me Dad!’  Steven said, as if by reflex, advancing purposefully towards the perceived threat.

‘Wait, uh…’ Greg mouthed. Unless he thought of something fast, Steven would run in there, and meet… whoever that was… and who knew what would happen! If he couldn’t just think of something, anything…

‘Guitar lessons! I’m giving guitar lessons!’ Greg said, with a start.

Steven stopped moving forward, turning with confusion towards his Dad, the inherited bushy eyebrows drawn together in a dark frown. But at least he wasn’t moving forward anymore

‘Yeah, sorry I didn’t say anything Steven, I was just so surprised to see you back from your mission, so I wanted to say hi, you know.’ Greg said, feeling himself babbling.

Steven wasn’t convinced ‘But, it’s late? And why would your student be wandering around the car wash breaking things?’

‘Uh… They work in the day! And believe me, at this point I am just as confused about the breaking things as you are…’ Greg’s expression darkened, then shifted into a smile as he realised Steven was watching him intently. ‘But that’s students for you!’

Steven looked confused for a second. Paused. (‘Is he buying it?’) Then suddenly smiled knowingly, his face an echo of Rose’s for a moment. (Not long enough…)

‘Ahhhh, I see what is going on here.’ Steven said, grin plastered across his face.

‘You, uh… do huh?’ Greg replied, trying his hardest not to blush as his son scrutinised his face. ‘And uh… what is that?’

Steven just paced back and forwards, shaking his head ‘Yoooooouuu have a secret.’ Greg gulped. ‘Outside of usual hours… You don’t have your guitar on you… You’re sweating…’

‘Yeah… From the hard work of… guitar lessons. The theory of Guitar lessons.’  Greg said, watching the lie become more transparent with every repetition.

‘Daaaaaaad, don’t keep playing games, I know what’s happening here… You’ve got a date!’

‘That’s right Ste… Wait whaaaaat?’ Greg began shame-faced, before choking on his words.

‘I get it Dad, you don’t want me to meet them yet- I mean I didn’t introduce you to Connie at first either.’ Steven said, with an infectious kind of joy in his voice. ‘But I’m proud of you! What are they like?’

‘Steven! Your old man isn’t back on the dating scene, and this is just a… uh… student!’ Greg said, blushing heavily.

Steven laughed. ‘It’s ok Dad, I get it. You deserve to meet someone.’ (‘When did he get old enough to start giving me relationship advice?’ Greg wondered) ‘And speaking of that… someone… I should let you get back to it!’

‘Wait, what?’ was all Greg could get out in response.

‘Bye Dad! Have fun with your ‘student’!’ Steven winked, and then bounced away, even more of a spring in his step than usual.

‘No! It isn’t that! There just… uh… lessons!’ Greg said in vain to the quickly retreating figure. Then sighed, before falling backwards onto the deck chair, running his hand over his forehead. ‘This one’s gonna be a fun one to explain…’ It took him a moment to recover, and remember the reason that this had even come up at all; the sound of breaking glass. He hoped the man hadn’t stepped on anything; he was already starting to feel responsible, and that hospital trip was one he really didn’t need. He turned back to look at the reception, and almost fell out of his chair. The other Greg was there, his face and hands pressed against the glass, stock still.

With a start, Greg pulled himself up, ran towards the car wash, panicking already. As he got closer, he realised the man’s posture was not as unmoving as he thought, his shoulders shaking and reaching hands trembling. The other Greg was… crying? And crying hard.

Greg rushed into the Car wash, pulling the other Greg back with him into the darkened room. ‘What are you doing? You could have been SEEN! I asked you to stay there.’ Greg said, pointing clearly at the break room door which had been left swung open. Then stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to shout at someone who looked so devastated. Greg never realised he could cry so much, or so loudly. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ Greg said. ‘But we need to talk about this… And why are you crying?’

It was a while before there were any noises out of his reflection that weren’t sobs. At length, amongst the sniffles, Greg could just make out the other Greg saying ‘That… that’s Steven. I… never thought I’d see… him… my son… again!’

‘Wait… your son?’ Greg said, backing away slightly.

Then, that shift again. The other Greg had planted himself firmly on the floor, raising his head slowly ‘Why would you do this to me, you gem MONSTER? I thought you didn’t like it when we felt pain? Or is this some kind of experiment? See how much pain a human can feel until we break? Well go ahead take your notes! This is the pain a father feels, kept from his son!’

His anger was so intense, Greg felt like he had been punched. Probably would have been, if the man hadn’t been crying so hard. All the softness had drained from this other Greg, and all that was left was concentrated hurt. Like his skin had been ripped back, nerves exposed to the winds and elements. The other Greg was in pain. Deep pain.

‘I don’t understand…’ Greg said. And he wasn’t lying. He had presumed from the way the other Greg had talked he was some sort of clone, brought up in the Zoo with only stories of Earth. But, he knew Steven… or at least acted like he did…

‘Oh, I’m SURE you don’t. You wouldn’t understand. CAN’T understand. THAT’S AN IMAGE OF MY SON YOU JUST DANGLED IN FRONT OF ME.’ The other Greg was shouting now. ‘The son YOUR Diamond took me away from! And now you think you can just… GO OUT and talk to a version of him with MY FACE?’ He paused. ‘Why would you do that?’ The words hung in the air, biting worse than any cold could.

‘I’m sorry’ Greg said, softly. ‘I’m sorry that I don’t know what has happened to you. And I’m sorry that I can’t fix this.’ He reached out to try and touch his counterpart.

‘Like I can believe that.’ The other Greg said, almost spitting the words, flinching away. ‘Like I can believe a Gem who is taunting me with my son.’

‘You’re right.’ Greg said. ‘You shouldn’t just believe it.’ With a calmness he didn’t feel, Greg walked further into the car wash, looking around until he saw the glass the other Greg broke. Bent down, picked it up.

The other Greg froze, his sunburnt skin going pale, even for this dark light. But he stifled his tears, and glared. ‘Yeah, I broke it. I get it, I’m not graceful like the other Zoomans. But I don’t care. I LIKE me. And I bet you DON’T like you.’ Greg flinched a little at that. ‘Having to steal other people’s forms, and taunt them. I don’t care if you’ve decided I’m no longer worthwhile as an experiment. Do your worst!’

Greg turned, holding a shard of glass purposefully in his right hand. The other Greg held still, teeth gritted against his plump lip. He wouldn’t give a gem clone the satisfaction of seeing him cry any more, or flinch away, in his last moments… Greg raised his arm. The other Greg screwed his eyes tight. Then nothing. Another beat of nothing. Gingerly, the other Greg opened his left eye… then threw them open. ‘You hurt yourself!’ He said, in shock.

Standing before him, Greg had clearly given himself a long cut, down the length of his left arm, blood dripping slowly from the surface wound onto the reception floor. The other Greg looked horrified. Blood was foreign to him, after so long in the padded grounds of the Zoo. And facing him was another him… But bleeding.

‘Gems don’t bleed. They don’t get hurt like humans. They’re not fragile like us.’ Greg gestured down at his wound. ‘Don’t feel like we do.’ And Greg looked up, hopeful. Hopeful he had been understood.

The other Greg wrenched his eyes from the blood, confusion painted across his features. ‘Wait, you said… we… Why… why would you just trust me? After the nasty things I said! All the things I blamed you for?’

‘I don’t understand why. But, I feel your pain. That worry you’ll never see your son again. Because I remember it. I felt it too.’ Greg said, talking slowly, spelling it out in his own head. ‘I think… You’re me from the past.’

The other Greg looked at him with confusion, eyes still wide. ‘What do you mean, the past? This isn’t some sort of Gem experiment in the Zoo?’

Greg shook his head. ‘It isn’t the Zoo, buddy… this is Earth. The real Earth. And I know that you’ve been to the Zoo because I was trapped there, once. Just like you were. And unless somehow you’re a clone with all my memories, the only thing that makes sense is that.’

Both Gregs looked at each other, staring, watching the other turn it over in their head. There was silence, broken only by the sounds of the sea in the distance.

‘I’m home?’ The other Greg spoke first, tentatively spelling out his conclusion. ‘I’m… I’m home! Beach city, car wash, takeaway pizza home!’ His voice became sung, happiness obvious. ‘And… and you’re me from the future? But, how? How do we do it? How do we get back?’

Now it was Greg’s turn to smile, as he replayed the memory in his mind. ‘Steven. Steven saved me… Well, saves us I guess.’

‘So, you mean… Steven comes for me? He comes for me!’ And suddenly the other Greg started weeping again, but this time with a huge grin on his face.

Greg raised an eyebrow. ‘See, it’s not so bad, you don’t have to…’ Suddenly, the other Greg grabbed him in a bear hug, lifting Greg off the ground slightly, an impressive feat. ‘Woah there buddy!’ Greg said, a little alarmed. It felt… weird being hugged by himself. Pleasant even, despite how crushing it was. The other Greg smelt of flowers and nature; synthetic flowers, definitely, but still a lovely scent. He hadn’t realised how soft his belly was, until it was pressed against him by another him, even if he could still feel the bulk beneath it. ‘Now I know how Pearl felt… Maybe I should do a few sit ups… Although I have been given worse hugs…’ He blushed a little- this was NOT the time to be thinking about things like this… about himself!

Eventually, Greg’s wiggling convinced the laughing past Greg to let him go, though the dopey grin wasn’t going any time soon. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just so happy… Steven comes for me… My little buddy comes for me.’

‘He does’ Greg said, with a smile, tearing up a little himself. A smile which froze. ‘I mean, he will… If we can get you… well me back…’ They looked out the front windows, up at the darkened sky in unison. Greg shivered slightly. Usually it felt good to think about how far away the Zoo was. But now… ‘Get you back so we can both be saved…’

***

‘Well that went about as well as to be expected… WHICH WAS APPALLINGLY’ the shrill voice carried annoyingly well in the cramped cave, echoing around the machines that were whirring gently in comparison.

The only figure in the cave shook his head, and spoke in a gravelly tone. ‘We moved one of them to the Focal point. At my age, you take what you can get.’

‘You were MEANT to move six of them, nimrod!’ came the voice again, from a triangular blue glow that was fixed onto one of the panels.

‘And you were the one who said that it was experimental gem technology’ he said, calmly ‘And the fact that it might work at all was hoping for a miracle, specifically considering that it was my “imbecilic human brain” that attempted to put it together from the blueprints.’

‘Well… MAYBE’ was all that came in response.

The man looked around the cave, thinking to himself. Loathe as he was to admit it, she wasn’t wrong. It could have gone better. A lot better. His calculations were that the force the machine generated should have pulled all of the test subjects together. Not just the one from the Human Zoo line. He sighed. It was a long, drawn out and weary one, pulling him deeper into the dark thoughts. The ones that threatened to pull him down, draw him into the huddled up ball on the floor again, like he had been after it first happened. When everything changed…

‘So, what ARE you planning now?’ The feminine voice cut through the silence, causing the man to snap back to the present. ‘The first testing was… less than successful. To be precise. Surely you aren’t thinking…’

The man interrupted. ‘We keep going. We get them all. That’s the only way this works…’ He choked a little. Almost stopping. But never quite. ‘The only way I get him back’

END OF CHAPTER 1  

[solohux]

ahh lottie that accidental pregnancy prompt was great!! ❤️ would you consider doing Kylo's reaction when he comes back at all??!!! I need more your writing is just so good 💕💕

a continuation of this! 💕

Hux closes the door to his quarters with a heavy sigh,leaning back against it and closes his eyes, trying not to focus on the achinessthat seems to be consuming all of his joints. Shrugging off his greatcoat, Huxallows his hands to caress over the firm bump of his stomach, getting somecomfort from the movements underneath.

He’s been told by his medic—the same medic who diagnosed him—that his species isincredibly rare, most in hiding as a result of their famed red hair condemning theminto a life of sexual slavery.

His biological mother had red hair, and Hux wonders whetherthat was what seduced his father to her in the first place. Though the thoughtmakes Hux worry; Kylo has a special fascination with his hair, touching it andcombing it whenever he gets the opportunity. Maybe Kylo’s affection towards himis false because of his stupid hair.

It’s the beginning of his fourth month in his pregnancy andHux knows that Kylo is due back from his mission any day. He’s been recitingwords in his mind, practicing how he’s going to tell Kylo that he’s not fullyhuman, that he’s pregnant…with twins.

He’d cursed the Skywalker genes when two shapes hadappeared on the monitor during his last scan but the negativity had become overwhelminghappiness extremely quickly, imagining himself with his arms full with hisbabies, Kylo’s babies, chubby andperfect.

But as Hux goes over his confession to Kylo again in hismind, the happiness dissipates. Kylo won’t want them, he won’t want Hux when he’s told the truth about hisbiology. He’s alien, likely luredKylo to his bed with his ‘exotic’ hair without Kylo even being conscious ofwhat was happening to him.

Hux sighs, rubbing his belly.

“You’ll always be protected,” he says, undressing himself,leaving a trail of clothes to the fresher door until he’s nude and ready for awarm shower. The water engulfs him, cascading down the sharp curves of his shouldersand over his sensitive chest, nipples perking at the sensation. Picking up hisfavourite body wash, he lathers it over himself, giving his skin asweet-smelling scent, making sure that the stretching skin of his stomach ispampered.

He feels the twins kick against his palms, and he smiles.

“I’ll love you both, regardless of what happens. A mother’spromise is binding after all.”

A warm feeling spreads through his mind and for the firsttime since he’d found out about his alien heritage, Hux feels happy with who he is.

After washing himself thoroughly and feeling relaxed, Huxshuts off the water and grabs the thick black towel from the rail, dryinghimself with soft rubs.

His peace with his children, however, is interrupted by aharsh knocking on the door to his quarters, his contentment transforming intofear.

“What is it?” he calls out, peeking out of the fresherdoor, making sure to use his General Hux toneof voice that’s usually reserved for underperforming officers.

“It’s me, Hux.”

Kylo.

Hux panics, suddenly feeling unprepared for what’s about tohappen.

“You’ve changed the code on your door,” Kylo says,completely unaware that Hux is scuttling around his quarters, wondering what todo.

“Er—yes. There’vebeen some security issues so I changed the combination.”

Convincing. If Kylo suspects foul play, he doesn’t comment.

“Right. Can you open the door? I’m desperate to see you.”

Hux freezes, imagining Kylo on the other side of the door,tired and dirty body pressed against the metal, craving Hux’s touch, the touchof the alien who’s unwillingly seduced him.

Hux sighs, closing his eyes, before turning and headingback towards the fresher. He grabs his black silk bathrobe on the way,fastening over his pregnant stomach as much as he can.

“The code is 091762,” he says, looking at the door, beforelocking himself in the fresher, slumping down the door and sitting with hisknees up.

He hears Kylo enter the main chamber of his quarters,footsteps heavy and eager.

“Hux?”

“I’m in the fresher—don’t come any closer!” Hux shouts,panicking when he hears Kylo approaching.

“You’re scaring me, Hux. What the hell is wrong with you? Ican fucking feel your anxiety radiating through the door.”

Hux sighs, rubbing his hands down his face as he stands up,facing the door, happy that there’s a solid object between him and Kylo.

“Before I tell you, you have to promise me something,” Huxsays, sliding his hand up the door.

“Anything, Armitage. Please.” Kylo’s tone is low, and Huxcan tell that his knight’s lips are practically pressed up against the door.Hux ignores his desire to kiss him.

“Promise me that won’t try and change my mind. I need to dothis, I’m happy to do this.” Heplaces his hand atop his bump, trying to make himself feel less alone. “I’m notforcing you to be a part of this, justdon’t try and force me out of it.”

His demands are met with silence, hesitation, and Hux fears that he’s already lost Kylo before he’seven had the chance to properly explain.

“I promise. Just open the door and let me see you, Hux,”Kylo answers, begging.

Hux takes a sharp intake of breath through his nose andexhales through his mouth, though the calming effect that the breathingtechnique usually has does nothing; his heart still feels as though it’s goingto beat out of his chest.

Unlocking the door and opening it slowly, Hux feels himselftrembling but knows it just a manifestation of his desire to protect hischildren, of his fear of losing the only person who’s ever loved him and chosento stay with him. He watches as Kylo’sgaze is drawn downwards to his stomach, his brown eyes tracing the shape of hisbump.

“What…” Kylo whispers, words seemingly failing him.

“It’s been brought to light that I’m…not fully human,” Huxsays, exactly like he’s been rehearsing in his mind. “My species have theability to both impregnate and be impregnated.And I’m—well. They’re yours, Ren. AndI’m keeping them, you can’t change my mind, you can’t—”

“Ssh, Armitage, calmdown,” Kylo says, taking soft hold of Hux’s shoulders in an attempt to keep himgrounded. “I’m not going to try and change your mind. Why would you think Iwould?”

“Because,” Hux begins, shrugging Kylo’s hands off him andstepping into his chambers. “You’ve never spoken about having children, you’rehardly likely to be wanting to be tied down to family life.”

“Never spoken—?Hux, it should have been biologically impossible, that’s hardly fair,” Kylosays, following Hux closely, grabbing his hand to spin him around. “It wouldn’tbe tied down. I’d be coming home to the one whose soul I feel drawn to, to our children. Don’t you know how much agony I’ve been in whilst we’vebeen separated? My Knights had to slap sense into me one night because I was soclose to blowing our cover just so I could come back to you. I don’t care aboutyour biology, I don’t care about what you thinkyou know about my views on settling down. I care about you, Hux. Andthat’s it.”

Hux stares at him in shock, amazed at the emotion that’sbuilding in Kylo’s eyes, wondering how much he’ll be able to take before theycrack.

“Ren…You don’t understand. I’m alien. My species lure lovers in with their red hair, seducing themto produce the strongest offspring—”

Kylo laughs.

“You really think you’ve cast a spell on me—with your hair—so I’d get you pregnant? Hux. You fool. I love you.”

Kylo pulls Hux closer to him, chests pressed together, Kylo’sstrong hand gently caressing Hux’s stomach. Hux gasps, moans, having wishes to be this close to his knight for monthsduring his absence. Breath warm on his cheek, Kylo leans in, taking Hux’s lipsup in a desperate and fleeting kiss, and Hux’s consciousness becomes filledwith Kylo’s presence once again, connected, never wanting to be parted again.

“…Also,” Kylo says, breaking the kiss for a moment. “Yousaid ‘them’?”

“Mm,” Hux nods, placing his hand over Kylo’s, their palms covering his stomach. “It’s twins.”

Kylo chuckles, smiles, and leans in for another kiss.

Hux has never felt so optimistic about his future–their future.