#but yes nothing is set in stone and humans are very much a vehicle of change. just because you are one type doesn't mean that won't change

[dourpeep]

wait also there was this one ENTJ Mouche post a while back but also *grabby hands* YES

IN terms of stereotype, Y E S I agree

[lady-exophiliac-musings]

Monsterfucker Mansion: Intro

Note: This will be a multi-chapter work. Requests are wide open. Ask for a monster, and ye shall receive a fucking from it. ;)

This intro contains no sex, just some small worldbuilding and exploration. This story will include impregnation, and probably a lot of it, by all sorts of different exophilia crushes.

There's an old, abandoned building you know of. It's a far trip for you, but the rumors surrounding it are the most enticing things you've ever heard:

Anyone who goes in comes back out changed. In the case of all the women you've heard of, they come back out -- pregnant.

And not with human offspring.

Nervousness and disbelief had kept you away for years, constantly hedging over the validity of the claims and debating over the possible consequences of going there, yourself.

Lots of "what if" scenarios filled your daydreams and nighttime ponderings.

What if the rumors were true? What if you went there and met a vampire? What if you met a demon? What if you met an entire group of satyr brothers? What if a werewolf pack happened to visit it at the same time you did?

What if they fucked you silly and you came back home pregnant with some monster's baby?

How would you care for it? Would you care for it? Would you just go back after the birth and hand it off to the father? Would you keep it? What kind of mother would you be to a little half-demon or half-vampire or half-lycan? Was that even how it worked -- or would the baby take after its father fully?

Several years passed as you argued with yourself over this, constantly checking any reports you could find of continued activity in the abandoned mansion. Dozens of "interviews" were conducted in that time featuring people who'd claimed to have gone in, and they all had one thing in common:

Ecstasy.

They'd loved cavorting in that mansion with the creatures they'd encountered. And while there was nothing saying that they weren't just the lucky ones, that maybe hundreds had gone in and never returned at all, the very real possibility of you finding yourself at the mercy of a who-knew-what for a night and then returning home carrying its offspring was beyond tantalizing to you.

Eventually, you broke. You ventured to the mansion, opting to borrow a coworker's motorcycle for the trip to hide it easier once you got there. After all, you had no idea how long you were going to end up staying and you didn't want your vehicle to attract attention.

No, you'd much rather remain as anonymous as possible until the very end.

Giddy, you drive for well over four hours before finding the path leading into the spooky woods where the mansion waited. And, you soon discover, the path is notably worn by vehicle tread despite being a dirt road.

A lot of people had come here before you.

Even more excited, now, it's a little hard to focus as you continue down the road. By now you don't even need directions or your GPS; the road is so well-used it's obvious where you need to go.

Before long, the mansion comes into view.

And it is a mansion. The few images of the exterior you'd managed to scrounge up don't do it justice.

It's a massive building, four stories in the center and three for the two wings. The road winds left and right, giving you incomplete glimpses of it for a while, but it isn't hard to estimate that there's around fourty sets of windows on the front, implying numerous rooms on every floor.

It's definitely been damaged over the years, some windows badly boarded up and others visibly shattered. An overhang held up by columns create a wide front porch, and one of the columns has splintered and been semi-shredded in the middle. A set of stone stairs lead up to that porch, and chunks have been broken off from it.

Your heart's already pounding as you break free of the wooded area and follow the path as it curves up to the front of the building, a non-working three-tier fountain featuring a mermaid on a shell taking up a place of honor in front of it.

Giddy, you slow to a stop and remove your helmet so you can take a better look. No lights shine from within -- but, then, you'd expect that any monsters that frequent this place would probably be able to see in the dark. They wouldn't need the light.

Excitement hums in your veins. Was it twisted of you to find what comes next all the more appealing because you expect it to be scary?

Taking deep breaths to control the shaking in your core, you leave your helmet and riding jacket on the bike, stuff the keys in your pocket, and proceed up to the door.

It's ajar, you notice, as if inviting you to venture within.

You take out your phone and switch the flashlight on to illuminate the interior before you step inside, getting a lay of the land. After all, if it turns out this place was full of asbestos and tetanus, well -- that would be bad.

You want to get fucked by monsters, not diseases.

The area within is surprisingly clean, given the outward appearance. It's dusty, but more at the edges than anywhere else -- like it's been traveled quite frequently, you note. And there's a definite lack of broken or abandoned furniture as well.

Only a few pieces remain, and they're all visibly intact. A small table in the entryway with an attached mirror; a vintage sofa in a room to your left; a small dining table with a set of six chairs around it; a tall cabinet, empty within but the glass doors intact and clean of dust.

Someone had to be tending to this place, you realize, which means it definitely is occupied.

Now even more excited, you creep inside, the nervous part of you driving you to keep quiet just in case. It's stupid, maybe; you're here to get railed by the creatures that might be living here, yet your voice and actions are suppressed, caution and a constant feeling like you're being stalked forcing you to try and be stealthy.

Not even the recognition that you were definitely not ever going to be stealthy enough to avoid getting caught by monsters can halt the impulse for you to step quietly and avoid anything remotely wobbly.

Plus, you think, you are using your phone as a flashlight. If anything else is in here, it probably already knows that you are, too.

...Yet, disappointingly, nothing shows itself, not even after you've started to get a feel for the mansion's layout. It's a surprisingly intuitive design, actually. You feel like you don't get lost despite the size of it, able to follow the hallways, anticipate turns, and connect the three individual staircases you find without difficulty.

It becomes a secondary form of fascination to you. You even catch yourself testing your guesswork by finding your way back to the front door with increasingly roundabout paths and feeling impressed when you successfully locate it.

Still no monsters pop out at you, but by now you don't mind so much; you're having fun just exploring. And, at last, you decide to expand your search to the second floor, ascending the stairs.

...Every single room up here is, unequivocally, a fucking room.

The first one you find, nudging open the ajar door, takes you by surprise. It's a bedroom with a four-poster canopy, red velvet blankets, and a fur rug on the floor. A fireplace is situated against one wall with a desk and a 5-prong candelabra at another.

Oh yes, and there were leather cords with soft shackles affixed to each of the bed's posters.

A little stunned at the discovery, you move on to another room.

This one had a single mattress on the floor with a trio of pillows at the head and torn, bloody sheets tossed over it. Strangely, there was also a mini fridge in the corner, which -- when you checked it out of sheer curiosity -- was actively running and was full of various kinds of alcohol -- and ice cream.

A third room was dressed up nicely in pastel pinks and lace, including a vanity of pure white with gold trim, a mirror with lipstick kisses on it, and a large wardrobe across from the king-size, comfy-looking bed.

The next was a mixture of black and dark violet, everything styled in a leather-and-chains goth aesthetic, the window covered in heavy black drapes.

It went on and on. One room didn't have a bed, but rather a pile of soft fur blankets and throw pillows in front of a fireplace. Another was pristine and perfect, everything in white, black or grey and cut in sharp angles. The next was in rich blues and greens, a string of pearls embedded in the walls up at ceiling-level, the room itself notably colder than the others. Yet another was more rugged and worn-down, the floor scuffed, the walls scratched, everything in shades of brown, red and orange -- earthy, beastly, rough.

Things definitely were living here, you conclude, and there were a lot of them -- with vastly different styles and personalities.

Now if only you could figure out where the fuck they were hiding.

[chrysochroma]

Futurum: Homo Sapien

Rating: Teen And Up

Words: 3,908

Fandom: Original work

Warnings: Skeletons

previous chapter

read on Ao3

The group had been digging at this site for two years. Most of the paleontologists were considering giving up on the dig. In the two years that they had been stationed there, they had uncovered only a few chunks of amber, and it wasn’t anything helpful, either. The species was one that was incredibly common. There were probably dozens of these fossilized Apis Mellifera in museums and labs all over the world. Still, they were told to package the stones, carefully they said, and continue searching.

Naturally, many of the scientists on the site were losing, or had already lost, hope. Digging for fossils was an excruciating process, and those few chunks of amber had taken them two days of sunburn and snow. Their lust for discovery was gone, and they just wanted to go home. Curiously, though, there were no orders to do anything of the sort. In fact, they would receive no orders at all. For three more years.

10/17/386

“Food’s ready.”

“Thanks.”

Aria hopped down from her perch on the lab’s roof, eager to do something other than stare at the horizon. She walked the familiar path through a patchwork collection of tents, canopies and tarps that had served as their home for the last seven years. Their base wasn’t too bad, though: each crew member got their own tent to sleep in, there was a full kitchen and living space, actual bathrooms, and three state-of-the-art labs. Well- they were state-of-the-art when the crew first got to this island.

On the counter that served both as a game table and dining table sat a plate of sandwiches. Aria took one and began flipping through a leather-bound book. She found an empty page and started to write.

ENTRY #207

Not much more today. Sodar has stopped coming on digs. As usual, nothing was found. No one is making an effort anymore, so what else would you expect? We have a surprising amount of supplies left, although we haven’t gotten a shipment- of anything- since we sent in those bee fossils three years ago. Actually, next Tuesday will be the anniversary of sending in those fossils. I wonder if Franklin will make anything for the occasion.

Andrea, upon doing more tests, discovered that the species Apis Mellifera had been extinct for 27 years. Not that anyone cares. When she announced her discovery, all of the acknowledgement that her work got was a simple nod (given by yours truly). Everyone else looked up for a bit, then returned to their food.

I plan to keep going on digs until Franklin stops. He is possibly my only lifeline to the living world. However, I suspect that the other will stop much sooner.

10/22/386

ENTRY #214

We’ve made a discovery.

It was the first time in a year everyone had been out at a dig site together. The only reason why Paul Sodar even bothered with the thought of coming with was because of the news that the first expedition brought back.

“So you’re sure you found something new, right?” Paul asked. He was still obviously skeptical.

“My god, Sodar. Yes, there's something new. Even if there wasn’t, would it hurt to come outside once and a while?” Franklin said.

“It’ll hurt my work to be away from the lab for so long.” Paul was obsessed with his work. He believed that it would be the savior of humanity, or at the very least, the savior of the seven people at the camp. Everyone else was skeptical.

“Sure it will.” Aria scoffed.

The rest of the ride was silent.

Donna stopped the ATV as they pulled up to a cluster of equipment under a tarp. Immediately after the ATV stopped moving, Andrea hopped out of the passenger seat and jogged to the covered machines. Franklin opened the back door and got out to help her. One by one, the rest of the group got out of the vehicle, with Paul still wishing he was back at the base.

The rest of the group eventually moved over to where Donna and Franklin were fiddling with a set of knobs next to a blank screen. The display suddenly came to life, showing a three-dimensional scan of a 1000 square foot area next to them. Franklin pressed another button and the diagram began to show the contents of that area. On the screen, a thin gray blob was shown surrounded by layers of sedimentary rock. It was towards the bottom half of the scan and took up around two hundred fifty square feet of space length wise, but only about twenty height wise. He pushed another button and the image changed to a cross-section of the blob.

“What is it?” Paul asked.

Andrea consulted the screen again. “We don’t know. We came to this site yesterday and set up the equipment, like normal. This scanner’s new though. Merrick modified our old one. The point is–we’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“So you don’t know what it is?”

“Well– no.”

Paul turned around and started to walk back to the ATV. “I came here for nothing.”

As the others were trying to convince Paul to come back, Aria made an observation. “It looks like a giant chunk of amber.”

Andrea heard her through that fray and looked back at the screen. “You’re right.” She turned a knob, zooming in on the image. The further she zoomed in, the more small blobs were visible. When the screen was showing only a square foot of space, around fifty small blobs were visible.

Aria moved closer to the screen. “What are they?”

“Don’t know.”

“Why don’t we find out?”

Andrea drove the ATV back to their base with almost reckless impatience. When they had barely stopped moving, she threw open the door and ran to one of the labs. She returned a couple of minutes later with a few pieces of rolled up paper and a shoebox. Andrea spread out the pieces of paper, using an empty plate and silverware as paperweights.

She pointed to one of the pieces of paper, showing a diagram of a section of the fossil record. “Okay. So, you guys know how the fossil record shows our past through fossils and the Law of Superposition and all that, right? According to this-” She pulled a dusty book out of the box and flipped to a bookmarked page. “-fossil record, there hasn’t been a chunk of amber–if that’s what it is–of that size … ever.”

Andrea took a flash drive out of her pocket. Before she had hurriedly rushed the group onto the ATV, she had made a copy of the scanner’s data and put it on the flashdrive that she was holding. After plugging it into her laptop, she turned the screen towards the others. It showed the fifty-or-so small blobs that Aria and Andrea had been looking at previously.

“These things,” she said, pointing at one of them with a pencil, “could be chunks of sediment or other debris, but I think that they’re something else.”

She turned the computer back so she could see the screen and brought up another image. Sodar was getting more apathetic by the minute, but everyone else seemed to be interested.

Andrea turned the laptop back so the rest of the group could see the image. It showed a scan from five years prior, when they had found their first and only fossils.

“They look the same, right?” Andrea looked to her audience for a reply.

“Yeah-” Franklin started to respond, but Andrea cut him off.

She switched back to the more recent scan. “I mean, there are a few other organisms that these dots could be, but I think that they’re Apis Mellifera.”

“And you’re probably right. But how could there be this many in one place? In a square foot, there are …” Franklin started to count the dots on the screen. “Fifty seven. And this is only one square foot. We scanned a hundred. That would be five thousand seven hundred bees. Five thousand.”

Sodar spoke up. “Actually, it’s closer to six, which makes it even less likely. You people can’t be serious. There is absolutely no way that six thousand bees died in the same spot, at the same time.”

Donna gave him a look.

Andrea snapped the laptop’s lid shut. “We’d better go prove it, then.”

11/02/386

ENTRY #226

We’ve been digging around the amber for 10 days now. We have only uncovered what Andrea and Franklin deem to be 20% of the amber, but we have definitely made progress. Even Sodar is sure that there are bees encased in that amber and not something else. He still finds a way to be pessimistic, though.

Sodar was rubbing a chunk of the amber with his thumbs. “Every other paleontologist gets to dig up normal fossils, but no, that was too much to ask. Instead, we get six thousand bees.” He took a deep breath. “There’s not even any variation. It’s just a seventy five by five square foot chunk of amber and a bunch of insects. Nothing fun to analyze. Heck- well I’m at it- why must we be in this always-too-cold purgatory?”

“Why bees?” Andrea interjected. She had her own, and much more realistic reason for wanting to avoid the several thousand bees. Fears coated in possible death don’t exactly go away with a layer of amber.

“No other paleontologists get abandoned by their employers.” Donna muttered.

Donna was the one most hurt by the lack of communication from their organization. She had been the one in charge of all of the communications between the team and headquarters. Her spirits were already down when they hadn’t had any reason to have contact due to their lack of findings. They took a nosedive at the realization that headquarters had stopped sending things to them. She was the only one without a designated job and a degree or the knowledge to qualify them for said job.

There was silent, pitiful agreement to Donna’s comment. Sodar nodded, an unusual amount of compassion in his expression. Then people began to excuse themselves, retreating to their tents to get some sleep.

11/14/386

Andrea called another meeting. She said that she had a hypothesis as to the cause of the death of six thousand bees.

“So, after today’s dig, we found this.” Already having a pair of latex gloves on, she gingerly picked up a fossil. “It’s a bone. So, now we know that there was at least one other organism with the bees when they died. I think that whatever this organism was somehow killed all of the bees at once, maybe killing itself in the process.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“You don’t know what it is though.” All eyes turned to Sodar, the resident killjoy.

“No. We don’t.”

“You’d better figure it out, then.” He left.

11/19/386

Aria went back out to the site with Franklin, Andrea and Donna. It was this group’s scheduled day to chip away at the sedimentary rock encasing the amber. They had been going out to the site in groups for thirty seven days, each day making a little progress. Every day, they took back samples of amber and the sediment around it for Paul to analyze. He determined that the pieces of rock and resin were approximately 12,000 years old, which meant that the bone that they found hadn’t been fossilized for very long.

Each of them had an area that they kept to. Franklin was standing at the scanner’s monitor, looking for things that they might have missed. Andrea and Donna were on the edges of the amber, chipping away at the sedimentary rock. Aria picked at the amber itself, taking little chunks out to bring back for testing.

They had been working away in relative silence for an hour or so when they stopped for a break. Franklin had made sandwiches for them, and Aria and Donna set up a table and some canvas folding chairs to eat at.

“How long do you think this will take?” Aria took another bite of her ham sandwich and started chewing.

Andrea shrugged. “As long as it takes, I guess. You guys are good company, though. And thanks for the sandwiches, Franklin.”

Franklin nodded, his mouth full.

“What do we do when we’re done?” This question was asked by Donna. She wanted to get back into her old job, the one she knew she was good at.

Andrea knew this. “We’ll try to contact headquarters. They’ll respond.”

Donna nodded, grateful that she had been given hope. Andrea nodded in response, happy to give it.

Aria stood up, crumpling the napkin that her sandwich was stored in and deposited it in a plastic bag. “Well, we’re never going to be finished if we don’t do anything.” She picked up her tools, sat back down and resumed her work.

Franklin stood up. “She’s right.”

Andrea and Donna put their garbage in the bag and packed up the table and chairs. Donna set everyone’s water bottles on the ground next to the edge of the amber. They both continued working.

Aria finally dislodged a particularly large collection of bees that she had been chipping around for a while. She stood up and went to get a container to put it in, as well as some tissue to prevent it from breaking. She brought the stuff back to her spot on the amber and began to pack up the chunk of fossilized resin. However, after she picked up the stone, she noticed something beneath another layer of resin. She finished packing up the amber and put it in a stack with the rest of the samples they had collected that day. Then she returned to the mystery beneath the amber.

She carefully took centimeters off of the layer of amber separating whatever was under it from the world. After an insanely tedious forty five minutes of work, an off-white surface saw the sun. It was slightly curved and chipped in some parts; a fossil, probably a part of the skeleton that the other bone had come from.

With vague questions about what it was, she started eroding the amber around the fossil.

An hour and a half later, she had taken out a large chunk of resin that the fossil was in. Then she began to break the amber away, defining the edges of the fossil. Within twenty minutes, she had taken off enough amber to recognize the key features: two hollow eye sockets and a set of teeth.

ENTRY #231

We found a skull. It looks human.

For once, not even Andrea was at a loss for words. The skull, still half encased in golden resin, sat on their table. The seven of them surrounded it, staring at the fossil.

“So a human killed the bees.” Franklin said.

“Not exactly. This is a human skull, but not a skull of our species specifically.”

“Get to it.” Sodar intruded.

With a glare at Sodar, Merrick continued. “This is the skull of a Homo Sapien, our predecessors. They went extinct roughly 13,000 years ago, due to a series of natural disasters. The earliest Homo Vesparum were actually alive at the time of the latest Homo Sapiens.” He looked at Sodar, who was getting impatient, and hastily cleared his throat. “If the fossil we found earlier is a part of the same skeleton as this skull, then this human died a few hundred years after the rest of its race went extinct. But, yes, Franklin, there is a chance that the Homo Sapien to which this skull belonged killed the six thousand bees that are now encased in amber.”

Franklin nodded. “But why?”

Sodar rested his hands on the table. “I have a proposal.”

Andrea looked like she was about to punch Sodar. “Now is not the time! We’re trying to do stuff here, so if you could take your sarcasm and leave, that would be great.”

Sodar made no move to leave, although it looked like he wanted to. “I said, I have a proposal. I don’t think that the Homo Sapien killed the bees.”

“Sodar, you’re not making any sense. Of course it did. Now, because you’re not being of help at all, I suggest-”

He cut Andrea off, which upset her even more. “I’ve been researching Apis Mellifera, since we found the first few chunks of amber. They are a passive species, only killing to defend. But the way that they attack interests me. If there is a threat, bees will gather around it until whatever was hostile suffocated or was cooked to death by the bees’ body heat.” The rage in Andrea’s eyes drained out and was replaced with subtle terror. “So, the bees probably suffocated-slash-cooked the human, and then were … somehow coated in resin. Okay, I haven’t figured out that part yet.” The calm in Sodar’s voice didn’t match with the fear in everyone else’s expressions.

There were a few seconds of stunned silence.

“How?” Andrea finally asked.

“If you’re referring to the human and bees, I just explained that. If you’re asking about how I know, educated guessing. It’s a hypothesis. It may not be entirely correct, but I’m probably a little bit right.”

The rest of the group looked to Andrea, the group’s de facto leader. She seemed as out of ideas as everyone else.

Sodar spoke up once again, this time saving Andrea from possible embarrassment. “Let’s go back to the site. More research can’t hurt.”

And so they did.

11/25/386

They were back at the site again. It was the second time that everyone had been on a dig together. Day by day, they made progress. Everyone was chipping at the amber, this time. There were six small craters in the amber, each at least fifty feet away from all others. They stopped for lunch at around noon each day to eat sandwiches that Franklin had prepared.

Each day was the same routine. Wake up, eat, drive out to the site, dig for a few hours, have lunch, dig some more, then drive back to the camp and go to sleep. It was a grueling process, but it was working.

ENTRY #253

Five hours of hitting a piece of amber with a hammer.

I’m tired.

Six days into the process, Franklin noticed what looked like a pocket in the amber. He called everyone over to him and shared what he had found.

“It looks lighter, right?” He asked. “Like there’s a pocket.”

Andrea stood up and stomped on it a few times. Several people scolded her for doing so. The scolding stopped when she stopped, then started up again when Andrea started hitting the resin with her hammer. Within three strikes, a hairline crack had appeared.

Franklin caught her fourth swing. “What are you doing?”

She pulled her arm away and hit the amber again. “Something new.” The crack got bigger.

His eyes flickered to the rest of the group, who looked either concerned or terrified. “Okay, but how about you do something new from over here?” His voice was slightly higher pitched as he offered his hand out to her.

“Deal.” Andrea scooted about three feet back and resumed her task. The other six scientists watched her with a mixture of amazement, concern and confusion.

Soon enough, a piece of the amber broke off from the rest. The seven scientists followed the piece of resin as it fell four feet onto the amber below it. Andrea started to break away smaller pieces of amber around the edge of the hole until it was around two square feet wide. Then, to some’s astonishment and some’s exasperation, she slid through it.

“I’m fine!” She called up. She peered up at the rest of the group through the opening in the amber. “You guys should see this. There are floors.”

Franklin stuck his head through the gap, then turned back to the group. “She’s right. There’s another layer of amber, then floor tiles.” He jumped through the hole, followed by Aria, Donna, Merrick, and Paul.

The cavity itself was about fifty feet wide, forty feet long, and a few inches more than five feet tall. The people inside had to bend their knees slightly to avoid hitting their heads. Merrick, being the tallest, had to squat to be comfortable and being the shortest, Andrea’s head was barely touching the top of the bubble.

The tiled floors that Franklin had mentioned were checkerboard patterned, and there were broken concrete walls making the outline of a room. There were splintered wooden boards and half-melted chunks of plastic scattered around the area, in addition to a bunch of metal splinters. Using only the evening sun’s light shining through the opening in the amber, they explored.

“Why is this bubble here?” Donna asked, tapping on the amber walls.

“I’m going to guess because of this.” Paul touched the side of a ruptured oxygen tank with the toe of his boot. “I assume that it exploded, creating an air bubble. The resin wasn’t hardened yet, and the pressure was great enough to make an air bubble. I think.”

Andrea looked at the ragged edge of the tank. “Makes sense. But why did it-” She gasped and her hand went to her arm.

Franklin was already tense, and Andrea’s gasp made him jump. “What is it? Are you okay?”

She nodded, although her body was laced with pain. “Yeah. Just … bit my tongue.” With her arm now out of sight behind her, she scratched the honey bee stinger out of her arm. No more than a minute later, she began to feel lightheaded, although that could have been from the anxiety of her impending death.

“Guys.” Franklin was crouching next to what looked like a broken table. “There’s a skeleton.”

Franklin had indeed found a skeleton, the skeleton of one of my friends, in fact.

Merrick shuffled over to Franklin. After a few seconds of analysis, he announced, “This is a Homosapien. Same species as the first skull and other bone that we found. These bones aren’t fossilized, though. Something probably along the lines of mummification happened. If what you said about the oxygen tank is right,” He said, looking at Paul. “then there would have been only pure oxygen in here for at least ten thousand years.”

Merrick looked into the skull’s empty eyes. In the now moonlight, the roofs of the skull’s eye sockets cast an eerie shadow on the rest of the bone. The skeleton itself was more of a half-assembled body, with the rest of it in a pile. The bones were shipped and cracked in some places, a few of them being completely broken or snapped in half.

“There’s another over here,” Donna said, across the room and pointing to another skeleton, this one my other friend.

His skeleton was half sheltered behind what used to be a desk, and it was more assembled. The bones still had the same cracks and missing pieces, although not as many of them were broken. The skeleton’s legs were pulled in close to its chest, a position that reminded me so much of whose body it used to be.

“And there’s this one,” Aria said, while standing next to yet another skeleton. This one I knew well, since it was my own body.

[okayto]

Mini-Review: Heaven’s Design Team

In Heaven's Animal Design Department, designers create a variety of new animals daily while contending with the unreasonable requests of their client: God. 

Oh man, this was fun.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He followed them with light, waters, and the land. Then he created the many animals that would inhabit it. Or...that was the plan. It got too tedious, so he outsourced it.”

Shimoda is an angel, whose job is to facilitate communication between the client (God) and the design team. Shimoda knows absolutely nothing about design principles or animals, so his wide-eyed curiosity functions as the vehicle for plenty of explanations about why, for example, large size often leads to problems.

Similar to Cells at Work, you’ll probably learn something while watching the show, but it’s not edutainment.

It’s primarily a comedy show. The theology, such as it is, is there only to support the setup and the jokes: there’s a client who keeps giving weird, difficult and/or vague requests to a team of designers! And the designers all have different ideas about what works or looks good, and each has their favorite pet project! It’s just that the client is “God” and the designers are...not angels, I don’t think, but definitely nonhuman beings.

You have to accept the setup as allowing the joke of the series to shine through. There are no humans, nor is the series fixed in time, as in one episode the team manages to create both an (IRL) extinct creature and a living one.

Many episodes would deal with the process of trying to refine a creation to meet “the client’s” request while overcoming design challenges: “aquatic but a bad swimmer” “cute but not cute” “a bird that looks like a precious stone.” 

And along the way, there are shenanigans: field testing, or what’s theoretically a relaxing spa day. Is this just an excuse to have character and/or animal hijinks in new settings? Yes. Does it work? Also yes.

A fun game to engage in while watching was trying to figure out what real-world creature the design would turn out to be at the end, as they refine something from nightmare fuel or incompatible-with-life quirks into something that can, ostensibly exist.

Of course, anyone who has ever tried to do any kind of brainstorming with a group knows that people can have very different ideas of what is fitting for any given assignment. Each of the designers--all named after the planets--has their own preferences and quirks. Leader Saturn, for example, came up with the horse before the series started, and now (riding that wave of success) tries to incorporate a horse design into every new brief he works on.

Venus and Mercury, responsible for birds and snakes respectively, are in a sort of evolutionary-design arms race to keep their creations from getting eaten by the other’s. Neptune, a big, burly guy who looks like a walking hug machine, likes soft, fluffy and cute things, while small, cute Pluto likes cute creatures...but her definition of “cute” usually involves deadly toxins or parasites.

(Insects, incidentally, belong to a completely different design department, so if you’re squeamish you won’t see much of them.)

Verdict

English Dub? No.

Visuals: Nice and bright! I loved how the colors had a faint texture applied that made it look like they’d been colored in with markers.

Worth Watching? Heck yes. It’s fantastically entertaining, humorous, and can also act like a palate cleanser if you’ve been watching something serious, dramatic, or even just long. (I watched with my roommate after finishing a season of Battlebots and also Snow White with the Red Hair, and we needed something that wouldn’t trap us for weeks.) Also, the theme song is a bop.

Where to watch (USA, as of January 2022): Crunchyroll & VRV

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!

[buttterknifeee]

Final Exam- Teen Titans x Aquagirl! Reader

Masterlist

Request: Helloooooo! I have an Episode request “Final exam” (Season 1 ep 3) with Aquagirl!reader please and thank you very much!

Summary: It's a good thing you have junior life guard training as you face a new force of evil. Will you and your teammates defeat these foes or will you drown in the pressure?

Pairings: Robin x Reader (nothing serious, just some blushing lol)

Word count: 3192

A/N: hey!!! sorry this took a while I was just doing other things lul. Reminder that I'm now on AO3 (username is butterknifee) and that requests are always open! Hope you enjoy!!!

It was an uneventful day in the tower. Cyborg and Beast Boy were rummaging around the living room looking for the TV remote, Raven was reading silently and you were practicing your water skills, balancing an orb of water in mid air.

"It's gotta be around here somewhere!" Cyborg says, rummaging through the whole room. He lifts up the whole couch as Beast Boy sniffs around in dog form.

“How could you lose the remote?” Cyborg glares at Beast Boy.

“What makes you so sure I lost it?” Beast Boy asks, turning back into a human.

“Uh...'cause you're you.”

“Hey! Just because I lost that video game--”

“--And the toothpaste, and my football, and the waffle iron--”

“Things disappear. How am I supposed to know where they go?”

You continued to focus on your bubble, but couldn’t help but notice Raven lowering her book. You peeked over to see her annoyed expression, obviously caused by the two boys.

Cyborg huffs. “Well how am I supposed to watch TV without a remote?” Suddenly, Raven slammed her book, breaking you out of your focus and causing the water you were balancing to drop into a puddle. You stared wide-eyed at Raven as she stood up.

“Simple. You can just get up and change the channel.” she says with a stone cold expression.

“Don’t even joke like that.” Cyborg says. You hover your hands over the puddle, trying to pick it up with your hydrokinesis.

“Do you think you guys could argue in like, the bathroom or something? Cause-” you start, but Raven interrupts you.

“I wasn’t joking”

“Good, 'cause it wasn't funny!” Cyborg says. “Now either help us look for the remote or go back to your nasty old book and--”

“This is a pointless argument over a useless device.” she snaps, her face red from frustration.

“You know what, I'm just gonna get a mop or something,” you mumble. You consider actually getting up to get a mop as they continue to argue.

Robin and Starfire walks in to the three teens arguing and you sitting to the side. You make a pained expression at the two, your way of saying go back, before it's too late.

But Robin steps towards the bickering Titans. “Whoa! Take it easy, Titans! Combat practice is this afternoon!”

“We must mend your dispute by the sharing of unhealthy junk foods. I shall fetch them.” Starfire adds, happily flying towards the kitchen.

Cyborg continues to argue. “I don't need food, what I need is a time machine, I didn't--”

Beast Boy cuts him off. “Back me up here, Robin!! Have I ever lost any--?”

“Ok, ok!” Robin puts up his hands to stop them.

“To stop him from taking the REMOTE!!!” Cyborg yells.

“Hey! Come on!! Settle down! ENOUGH!!!” Robin starts yelling too. You start to cover your ears when a loud noise causes all of you to look up. You see Starfire staring wide-eyed at the fridge, her hands glowing green. Blue mold had exploded from her starbolt, causing it to land all over the kitchen. You made a mental note to start cleaning the kitchen more often.

“Maybe we should go out for pizza,” Robin decides.

.

.

The arguing does not stop at the pizza place.

“Can we please just order something?” Raven groans.

“As long as its vegetarian.” Beast Boy says.

“Come on, man, how can you deny me the all-meat experience?” Cyborg whines.

“Dude, I've been most of those animals!”

“Just no anchovies for me,” You say.

“I suggest a large pizza with pickles, bananas, and mint frosting.” Starfire says with a smile. You shudder at the thought of eating something like that. Robin leans over.

“Uh, Starfire? Not everything on the menu is a pizza topping.” She blushes at her mistake, Beast Boy and Cyborg going at each other again.

“Double pepperoni!!”

“I'm not eating meat!!”

“There's no meat in pepperoni!!”

The sound of a vehicle horn finally ended their argument. You all look up to see a bus barreling straight towards a baby carriage, a baby screaming from inside.

“Titans go!” Robin yells. You, Cyborg and Raven ran to stop the bus while Robin, Starfire, and Beast Boy ran to save the baby carriage. You summon a jet of water from a fire hydrant and shoot it at the bus, slowing it down. Cyborg planted himself in front of the bus, his bulky arms holding it back. Raven uses her magic, pulling the gearshift inside the bus to “park”. When the bus finally skidded to a stop, you three looked inside. No one was there.

“Um… don’t buses normally have drivers?” Cyborg asks.

“And don’t carriages normally have babies?” Robin says nearby. He, Starfire, and Beast Boy were staring at a teddy bear that was inside the carriage. A voice suddenly projected from the stuffed animal.

“Are you pit-sniffers normally this stupid?”

Suddenly, the teddy bear shot lasers out of its eyes, sending the three teens flying into an alleyway. You turned to see the bus next to you be lifted up by a large, hairy man in black and yellow. He smiled and threw the bus on top from the three of you, trapping you under it. You grunt as the weight of the bus begins to press down on your chest. You hear a voice from outside the bus.

“That was too easy. What a buncha cludge-heads. You guys want to get pizza?” The voice matched the one from the teddy bear. You gritted your teeth as you heard Cyborg’s sonic cannon warm up.

“This isn't over!” you hear Robin yells. Cyborg blasts his cannon, sending the bus in the air. You got up with the other two titans.

“We’re just getting started!” Cyborg yells.

“Who are these guys?” Beast Boy asks, stuck in a trash can. “And what’s a cludge-head?”

“We are the HIVE!” the villain who called you ‘cludge-heads’ said. He was a short kid, wearing a green jumpsuit and goggles. He basically looked like an evil Caillou.

“Your worst nightmare!” said the guy who crushed you with a bus. You noticed that he had a large amount of hair on his whole body.

“And this is attack pattern Alpha!” said the last villain, a goth looking girl with pink, hornlike hair. They jumped out of their poses, and towards you. The small guy in green flew forward in a jetpack, shooting lasers at Robin, Starfire and Beast Boy. The lasers hit the alleyway around them, causing a pile of rubble to fall on them.

Cyborg immediately started brawling with the large guy, Raven and the pink-haired girl attacking each other with their magic, and the smaller kid flying around your head. You tried to shoot him down with your blasts of water, but he wove through your shots. He then flew towards Cyborg, holding something metal.

“Cyborg watch out!” you scream, but it was too late. The green kid attached the metal object to Cyborg's back, and at that moment you realized it was a rocket. Starfire recovered from being crushed by rubble just to see him flying through the air.

"Cyborg!" She yelled, flying after him and out of sight. The two leaving so abruptly caught you off guard, so off guard that you didn't notice the burly guy sneaking up behind you. You turned just as he went to kick you, kicking your stomach and causing you to go flying. You hold your stomach in pain and try to run back towards him, but Raven being thrown towards you sends you crashing back towards the ground. You groan in pain as you hear Robin and Beast Boy meet a similar fate. You see them laying next to you.

"Is it just me or are we getting our butts kicked?" Beast Boy asked, the rest of you standing up.

"It's just you," the three of you say at the same time.

"Listen up team, I have a plan," Robin begins, but is cut off by 3 blasts from the short boy's jetpack. Those 3 blasts ended up hitting you, Beast Boy and Raven. You landed behind the Boy Wonder, leaving him to face the HIVE alone.

“Gee, scrum-buffer.” the jetpack boy jeered, lowering himself to the ground. “Sure hope your fancy plan includes getting fried!”

“You’ll just have to find out the hard way.” you hear him say. You watch him stand in a fighting position, beckoning them to fight. However instead of fighting, the three villains stood with a smile on their face. Then, one by one, they hit the ground between them and Robin. You were confused at first, but then realized in horror that they had created a crack in the asphalt, it getting bigger with each hit. The crack traveled up towards Robin and the area around him crumbled. A look of fear set in his face as he fell with the asphalt into the ground.

“Robin!” you yelled, running up towards the hole with Beast Boy and Raven. Through the crumbling hole you saw a stream of dark, murky sewer water. Water, you realized. You turned to the other two Titans.

“There’s water down there. I’ll go get Robin, you two go back to the Tower.” Before they could reply, you dove into the hole, landing into the water.

“Aquagirl!” Beast Boy yelled, but you were gone.

.

The cold water shocked your body, but you forced yourself to shake it off. You floated on the surface of the water, looking for any signs of Robin. When you didn’t see anyone, you dove back underwater and took a deep breath (yes, you can breathe underwater). You shoot through the water, swimming as fast as you can. Up ahead, you saw blurs of red, yellow, and green. It was Robin. You swam up to him and grabbed onto his unconscious body. Then with all your strength, you pulled him out of the water and onto the concrete surface of the sewer.

You laid Robin on his back and started to inspect him. You check for his heart rate by pressing two fingers against the area under his jaw. It was beating, but very slowly. You placed your hands on his chest and started pumping. After 30 seconds, nothing was happening. Tilting his head back, you pinched his nose and took a deep breath. You gave mouth to mouth once, then twice, then-

Robin’s eyes opened while you were giving the third. He jerked his head up and crashed his forehead into yours.

“Owwww” you whine, rubbing your hand on your forehead. Robin backed up from you, holding his lips.

“Hey! why did you-” He was about to finish his sentence but started coughing up water. You roll your eyes.

“Woah, calm down Robin, I’m not trying to make a move on you. The only move I made was saving you from drowning.”

“Oh- I’m sorry,” he says, his masked eyes staring at you apologetically.

You waved your hand. “Don’t worry about it, you had a pretty bad fall.”

“What happened to the others? Where are they? Where are we?” He asked, frantically reaching for his T-communicator, only to realize that his whole belt was missing.

“Oh man, your belt must’ve fallen off when you fell. Last time I checked, Raven and Beast Boy were injured, but fine. We’re currently in a sewer, I’m not sure if Starfire and Cyborg are ok, but maybe we can check.” you pulled out your own T-communicator and flipped it open. Water gushed out and formed a puddle under your hand. You both stared at it as you flipped the communicator closed and slid it back into your belt.

“We need to get back to the others, before the HIVE strikes again,” Robin says, standing up. He doubles over, falling to his knees, clutching his abdomen.

“You’re hurt. You need to rest before we find the other Titans,” you say, sitting next to him. “Here, I can help.” You beckon him to let go of his chest and you sit down with you, which he reluctantly does. You summon a bubble of the murky water and allow it to soak into his shirt. You concentrated, and the water began to glow blue.

“Hmmm… I only feel a rib fracture… this may take a while…” you mutter, hovering your hands over his chest. You were focusing so much on healing Robin’s wound, you didn’t notice the frown on his face, more stern than usual.

“Something on your mind, Robin?” you asked, looking up from your work. He furrowed his eyebrows and stared at the ground.

“It’s just that…” he began. “I really thought that I could take on the HIVE, you know? But they took me out so easily; they took all of us out so easily. How am I supposed to be a leader if I get hurt so easily, if I let all my teammates get hurt-” his rant is cut off by your finger being shoved in front of his mouth. You both stare at each other in awkward silence.

“When I was a kid, I knew all about you and your adventures,” you began, staring at the stream of water flowing next to you. “You were the boy wonder. The Hero of Gotham. The Sidekick. But now look at you; you’re the leader of a whole team of superheroes, who trust you and are here for you, Robin. We know the dangers, and hey, if I would be a superhero on any team, I’m glad I’m on yours.”

He gave you a small smile. “Thank you Aquagirl,” he said.

You nodded and smiled back. “Anytime, Robin.” You looked at his chest again. “How do you feel?”

“I feel great, both inside and out.” he said, standing up with ease. “I think it's time to find the other titans.”

“Great idea, and I know just how to get out of here.” You stretch out your arm and the ground starts to rumble. A giant geyser shoots up from the stream and punches a hole in the roof of the sewer, allowing the setting sun to peek through. You grabbed Robin’s waist and jumped into the water, another smaller geyser pushing you up and out of the sewer.

“Ugh, gross! I’m definitely taking a shower after this,” you say, looking back at the sewer you jumped out of.

“Ok, let’s go find the others,” Robin says, heading in the direction of the Tower, which was peaking out in the distance. “And, I think it’s time to come up with a plan.”

.

You finally get closer to the Tower when you notice something.

“Ummm Robin?” you say. “Doesn’t the tower usually look like a T?” You both stare at the tower, its original shape now being built upon to look like a ‘H’. The HIVE… you thought. You and Robin eventually find the rest of your friends, who were all arguing on the beach. You were about to announce your presence but Robin stopped you, putting his arm in front of you.

“We need to control our emotions,” you hear Raven say.

“Or What?!” Cyborg yells. “Our bad vibes will keep you from meditating??”

“I wish Robin were here..” Starfire mumbles. You see the slightest tinge of pink dust across Robin’s cheeks.

“Well he’s NOT! And neither is Aquagirl!” Cyborg continues to yell. “Don't you guys get it?! They won, we lost! IT'S OVER!!”

Beast Boy looked at him. “Then are the Teen Titan’s finished?” Robin looks at you and nods, you nod back. The two of you step forwards.

“We’re not,” Robin says. The other four Titans turn in shock to see you and Robin, both seemingly fine, standing before them.

“Not if I can help it,” he said, arms crossed.

“Told’ya I’d get him back.” you said. “Now who wants to hear our plan?”

You waited on the roof as Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire infiltrated the Tower. You sat on a ledge of the (hideous) HIVE add-ons, swinging your legs as Robin stood next to you, staring out into the distance.

“You ready, bird boy?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

He smirked. “With you here, I’m more than ready.” He jumped down from the ledge, leaving you flustered above him.

Suddenly, The three villains come tumbling onto the roof and crash into each other, much more uncoordinated than they had seemed earlier today. The belt the pink haired girl had most likely stolen from Robin’s wardrobe goes flying, and Robin catches it midair.

“Sorry to interrupt your victory celebration,” Robin says, clicking his belt back on around his waist. “But like I said, this isn’t over.” The five of you join him, looming above the HIVE.

“It’s just getting started,” Cyborg said.

The trio of villains quickly recovered.

“Attack pattern alpha!” The pink haired girl yelled, sending waves of magic in your direction. You all jumped out of the way, splitting up.

You saw the large guy swing at Beast Boy, so you rushed in to help him. You summoned a long tendril of water from the ocean and used it like a third arm, with whipping the villain in the face. He turns towards you and grabs your wrist, but with a swift kick in the stomach he goes flying across the roof. You see Raven approach him, so you go to assist in taking down the other two.

Soon, the HIVE laid defeated at your feet. The smaller boy was holding a transmitter device.

"Cram it. I'm calling Slade." He groaned. Slade? You thought. Robin lifted the boy by his green jumpsuit.

"Who is Slade?" Robin asked quite aggressively. The boy scoffed.

"Wouldn't you like to know barf-brain?"

.

After you dealt with the villains, you finally came in the Tower after a long day. You flopped on the couch as the other Titans inspected the damage the HIVE had caused in the tower, which apparently, wasn't much. Beast Boy crouched at his music collection, head in his hands.

"My tunes! They've been… alphabetized!" He whined. "How am I ever going to find anything?"

Raven came out of her room holding one of her cloaks. "They went into my room. No one should ever go into my room," she said coldly.

"Someone has disposed of all of our blue furry food!" Starfire gasped. Cyborg lifted the whole couch like he did earlier today.

"You gotta be kidding me! The whole place gets cleaned and I still can't find the-" his rant is stopped by Robin, who points at the coffee table. There, the remote lay in plain sight.

"Ha!" He cheered, flopping down on the couch next to you and flipping through channels.

"Maybe we should let the HIVE take over the tower every once in a while, I think this place needed a good clean," you joke, still strewn across the couch.

"I guess we really oughta be training for battles, tracking down clues, and trying to figure out who Slade is, huh?" Cyborg said, looking at Robin.

"We will. But right now, I'm just happy to be part of the team." He looks at you while saying that and you smile.

"Me too"

[sarcastically-defensive17]

ahhh 25 and 12 or 6 with calum hood please!!

I AM SO SO SO SORRH RHAT THIS TOOK SO LONG I HAD A SUPER LONG HIATUS FOR PERSONAL REASONS AND I HOPE YOURE STILL INTERESTED AND NOT MAD AT MEEE 🥺LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING YOU ABSOLUTE ANGEL LOVIEEE

Help me - C. Hood

6: “Shh, you’re safe. I won’t let you go.”

12: “N-no, it’s alright, come here.”

25: “Please talk to me about it.”

GIF is not mine

TW: DEPICTIONS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE/ ABUSE BY A PARENT. MENTIONS OF BLOOD AND WOUNDS, GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF FAMILIAL VIOLENCE, SELF-LOATHING THEMES AND PHYSICAL INJURY.

If this content can potentially trigger you, please do not read. Your mental and physical health is important, so please, take care of yourself. My inbox is always open.

Original story by sarcastically-defensive17

Please do not copy, reproduce or repost without credit or in a manner than removes my username, and/or ownership from the work. Stealing isn’t cool, peeps.

<><><><><>

Not much was known about Y/N. In the entire school, she was the enigma. She had her friends, she was average in her classes, but still, her personal life was kept out of the general knowledge of the student body. Even the teachers knew little about the girl.

Her parents would come to every interview, every ceremony. She would go on trips, she would join in on the fun. She even attended the two week camp they held last semester, and it was the happiest that anybody had seen her.

Calum often watched the girl. He could see how her smile would drop when nobody was looking, how she would constantly flinch whenever anybody would raise a hand or wave an arm around her. He observed her more often than not, as stalkerish as that made him sound.

He was friends with the girl. They shared English and Math and some of the same friends. He enjoyed speaking to her, he loved to see her smile - genuinely smile.

He couldn’t deny the growing feelings he had for her. She was intelligent and kind, her smile could knock the breath out of him, and had done so many times. He seemed to lose all train of thought around her and the feeling was addictive. He had no idea if she felt the same, but he felt his own emotions grow tenfold every time she placed her hand on his arm, or offered her assistance when he was unsure about something, or simply when she laughed at a horrible joke that slipped from his lips.

She was angelic and he couldn’t put his finger on why such a beautiful person could look so skittish at a sudden movement.

He had his suspicions but he knew better than to pry.

However, his mind couldn’t be set at ease when they were placed into a group together. Their due date for their English project was impending, and as his mother was working from home, he chose not to offer his residence for the pair to gather.

“So, your house?” He was waiting by her car at the end of the day, unnoticed by Y/N as she rushed to her vehicle in the same manner she always did. She hadn’t expected him to be there, so when his voice travelled to her ears she couldn’t help but flinch and shy away. He frowned softly at her, “you okay?”

She blinked, tilting her head to look at him. “Excuse me?” Her keys were clasped tightly in her hands and her gaze kept flicking between her door and Calum.

He chose not to focus on the tension she held in her body. “The project?” He reminded her. “It’s due in two weeks and if we keep showing up with nothing done, Stone will be on our asses until we graduate.” He snorted, the sound bringing a small smile to Y/N’s face.

“I, um, I don’t think my house is a good idea,” her voice was soft - fragile. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do it during study? I can’t be out too late.”

“All of my study’s are designated to soccer practice, sorry,” he pursed his lips, pushing off of her car. “I would offer my place but I think my mum would genuinely murder me. She’s working from home and my sister is in the process of taking over all available space in the house with her loser friends.”

Y/N seemed to think over it for a minute. She knew that it would be a bad idea to have Cal come over, but she had no choice. She sighed, nails working carefully to pick at the skin around her cuticles - a bad habit she had adopted.

“Alright,” she nodded. “Hop in, just, there are rules you need to follow, okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” he smirked, pulling the drivers side door open for her when the lock mechanism clicked open.

Her heart pounded in her chest the whole way home. The mere sight of the two story residence made her feel queasy on a regular day, but the upbeat boy sitting beside her made the thought of being at home much worse. She put the car in park, turning to Calum.

Her eyes rarely met his, he noticed.

“Um, you can’t be here after 5. My parents get home around then and they don’t really like visitors.” She pulled her keys from the ignition, clamping her eyes shut for a brief moment. Sure, Calum was her friend - he was a great guy, and Y/N genuinely enjoyed his presence - but she couldn’t shake the feeling that having him at her house would end horribly. “No shoes inside, we need to stay in the dining room and please, if you use the bathroom, put the toilet seat down.”

She didn’t invite people over for a reason, but she dropped the desire to have friends over when her home began to break more. Y/N could barely remember a time when she fell asleep to anything but the sound of expletives, breaking glass or pure aggression.

Instead of questioning the barrage of instruction as she would expect, Calum simply fixed her with a warm smile, “Your wish is my command.”

She had long wished for her parents to go their separate ways strictly to save her from the fear that enveloped her the minute she stepped foot inside, however, she knew it fruitful because she couldn’t go anywhere but with one of them, and even when apart, they were harmful.

Calum followed her rigid form into the house, kicking his shoes off and placing them on the designated racking as instructed. The house was in pristine condition. It was as if there were no life in the environment unless a human was present - it felt cold.

The house was so different from his own. His mother had made sure to hang photos of both him and his sister, pictures from family outings, vacations. His father bought his mother flowers regularly and they always sat on the kitchen counter. His sister even had her own little belongings in the family areas as did he. Y/N’s house had nothing. There was not even a picture of her with her parents. The house was near void of any sort of familial comfort that it made him feel uncomfortable.

He followed her into the dining room, waiting for instruction. The atmosphere put him incredibly on edge and he could feel that there were many rules to be followed to perfection in the house.

Y/N pulled her bag open, placing her books on the table before stashing the bag into a designated nook in the entry way. The table caught his eye. Only two chairs. Both her parents lived with her, but there were only two chairs.

She returned, taking a seat at the small round table. Her eyes darted nervously to a clock mounted on the wall before softening and focusing on Calum’s standing form.

“Take a seat?” She offered. “We have just over an hour and a half until my parents get home.”

He nodded, slumping down in the seat and retrieving his own items for their project.

The time flew by quickly, it seemed. Calum’s presence was warm and he shone like a beacon in the barren home. She could barely take her eyes off of him for fear that he too would burn out like all who have entered before him.

If she could, she would have captured the moment in its entirety, preserving it for the lypophrenic moments that visit her almost nightly.

She was in the process of laughing at a joke that slipped from Calum’s lips when her eyes absentmindedly crossed over to the wall clock.

It was 3 minutes past 5.

Calum needed to leave. Fast.

She was on her feet, face paleing and her hands working to slam the books in front of her closed. She needed Calum gone and she needed to be in her room before either of them got home.

Calum raised an eyebrow at her, following her movements with caution. “What’s wrong, Y/N?”

“You need to go,” she was breathless despite the meager activity. It wasn’t the actions that made her breath escape, it was fear. She knew what would happen if either of her parents arrived home. She knew what would happen if they saw she was in the dining room, or if she had company. Nevermind if that company was a male.

“Oh, sorry,” he smiled softly, helping her clean. “The time sorta slipped away from us. It’s only a few past 5, I’m sure your parents will understand-“

He was cut off as she shoved his books against his chest, “they can’t know that you were ever here.” She felt horrible for rushing him out; almost as horrible as she felt for her lack of hospitality, but she needed him to go. She couldn’t bear the consequences.

She handed him his shoes, opening the front door and pushing him out. His expression was full of confusion and for an instance she thought she saw hurt flash in his whiskey coloured eyes but her state of anxiety was growing and she couldn’t bring herself to react.

“Sorry about going overtime. I’ll see you-“ the door slammed in his face, footsteps hurrying away from the wooden barrier almost exactly after, “- tomorrow?” He finished dejectedly, slipping his shoes on and starting down the path to his house.

He lived in close proximity to Y/N, but the walk did little to quell the hurt in his chest.

Y/N rushed around as soon as the door was closed. She needed to clean everything up in the dining room before one of them got home, but her efforts were fruitless.

A few minutes after she rudely shoved Calum away, she heard an engine die in the front yard. The door opened carefully and closed very soon after. The sound of heels on the floorboards alerted her to the fact that her mother was home. She was in perfect view, still trying to clean away any evidence that she inhabited the dining room.

“What the hell have you done to my house?” Her mother hissed, the sound of keys being thrown onto the hall table bouncing off of the walls, setting the hairs on the back of Y/N’s neck on edge.

Y/N felt her shoulders flinch, acting on their own accord. “I’m sorry, mum. I just felt like studying down here today-“

Her mother was next to her within seconds, cold eyes scanning over every item in the room. “This is a pig sty!” She growled, despite the only objects out of the ordinary being y/N’s textbook, a single pen and a bottle of water. “I go to work, busting my ass to pay for things you need and this is the thanks I get?”

The laughter that fell from the older woman gave Y/N goosebumps. Both of her parents were vindictive and nasty, but her mother was the worse of the two. Quick with her hands, nastier with her words. She has once thrown a plate at Y/N because she dared to ask to add salt to her dinner.

Her father, on the other hand, was a drunk who would prefer to scream insults at his daughter and wife for anything. Despite this, y/n had less fear of the patriarch.

Y/N stayed quiet, too frightened to say anything or to even move to finish cleaning. Her mother didn’t like that and wound her hand in Y/N’s hair, gazing down at her with malice as she yanked her head back violently.

“You ungrateful little brat!” She growled. “You were the worst thing to happen to me, yet I still feed you, and clothe you and keep you here while you sick the life from me like the parasite you are, and this is how you repay me?”

Tears welled in Y/N’s eyes as she struggled against her mother’s hand, “Mum, mum please,” she pleaded. “You’re hurting me.”

“You hurt me every day that you’re still here, it’s the least I can do to repay the favour.”

Y/N grabbed her mother’s hand, attempting to pry it away from her hair, but in the process, her nail scratched her mother’s hand.

Y/N didn’t realise until she was knocked to the ground after a force connected with her cheek. Her head connected with the floor boards, blood quickly spilling from her brow and her lip and cheek throbbing.

“Don’t you ever touch me again, you little bitch!” Her mother screamed in her face, cradling her barely wounded hand like she would a baby.

Y/N struggled on the floor, slowly trying to climb to her feet despite the ache spreading through the left side of her face. She shuffled back, hoping to get closer to the hall so she could get up to her room. Her mother had other plans.

The sound of the cupboard door opening was evident and Y/N barely pushed her disheveled hair from her eyes to see a glass hurtling towards her, connecting with the wall next to her.

The sound was near ear-piercing, a few glasses catching her arms and shredding the skin in various places. Crash after crash - she finally ran out of glasses, starting to move to the next cupboard.

Y/N took the opportunity to get to her feet and run. Her feet carried her to the door, and she was thankful that she always kept we car keys on her person for fear of moments like this.

Her mother called out expletives behind her, but she didn’t bother to turn, instead allowing her body to act on its own volition, climbing into her car and pulling out of the drive as fast as she could.

Her vision was blurring, tears staining the clarity of her sight. Her hands were shaking so ferociously that she could feel the muscles in her shoulders twitching. Her mind was anywhere but the road, but it felt like she moved between destinations so fast, barely paying mind to the road in front of her until she pulled up at a park in the next suburb.

Her fingers worked on the screen of her phone, acting of their own volition until a voice was sounding through the speaker into Y/N’s ear.

“Y/N?” The voice asked, confused, anxious even.

“I’m at the park, on Macquarie Street. I need help.”

To anybody outside, Y/N would have been a terrifying sight. Blood pouring down her face, starting at her brow, a bruise forming quickly on her left cheek, a slight swell misshaping her lip and cuts all over her arm with their own trails of blood.

For Calum, his heart near stopped when he saw her sat on a park bench with her knees pulled to her chest. The sight was a beat more than terrifying. There were no more tears in her eyes, but her cheeks were wet with recent drops. She was staring out into the green landscape as if she no longer inhabited her body. The sun was starting to set behind her.

It took all of his willpower not to rush towards her, simply so he didn’t spook her. She was as rigid as a scared animal, any sudden sounds causing her to flinch.

“Y/N?” He tried softly, stepping cautiously. Her bleary eyes shifted towards him slowly, looking down at his feet before settling into his eyes. Her face shifted into a small smile as she locked onto the warm brown. “What happened?”

With his words, the semblance of a smile dropped. She frowned deeply, a dimple forming softly on her chin before a sob ripped through her chest. Her breathing heaved her body, rocking aggressively as she poured the emotion onto her knees once again. He walked to her faster, resting a hand on her knee and the other on her head.

“Y/N?” She shook his hands off, flinching away from his touch. “Y/N, baby? What happened? Please talk to me about it.”

She gasped, knees unfurling from her near iron grip. She knew the feeling well, it being her third panic attack since she left her home - not her home - the place she used to live. She couldn’t go back there.

Calum knew the signs. He had helped Michael through many attacks before and he acted beyond thought as he sunk to his knees before her, kneeling between her opened legs. His fingers moved to the side of her face gently, as to not cause her any more fear.

The tears had halted again, but she could barely catch her breath. He pulled her head down into his chest, thankful that with his added height against the small park bench, it was not so much of an awkward angle for the frightened girl.

It took all of 2 minutes for her breathing to balance. It was a trick he learned long ago - sometimes physical contact could help Michael with his attacks, and it had proven to be helpful to Y/N.

The silence that followed was pregnant as she rested her head against him. Her fingers had clasped so tightly in his hoodie that he could barely move until she loosened her grip. Slowly, she began to peel her body away from him.

“I- I’m sorry. There’s blood everywhere. I’ll let you go,” she sniffed, her voice airy as she tried to relax her muscles.

“N-no, Y/N,” he stood slowly, choosing to sit next to her instead of on the ground in front of her. “It’s alright, come here. Only if you want to.” He held his arm out, allowing her to make her decision. Slowly, and cautiously, she moved towards him, seeking the comfort of his soft hoodie and his warmth. She let out a shaky breath as she settled in to him. He shushed her softly, moving his arm to loop around her back slowly. “It’s alright, you’re safe, darling. I won’t let you go.”

She mumbled a soft “thank you,” wrapping her arms around his waist delicately. Her forehead nestled into his collarbone, allowing the lower portion of her face to be angled so she could resume her breath maintenance.

“Who did this to you, daring?” His voice was soft, his eyes anywhere but the girl below him. The mere sight of her eliciting a burning rage within his chest. Y/N was so pure, so happy. So kind. The thought that anybody would dare to hurt her - to him, it was blasphemy. “What happened after I left?”

“It was my mum,” her words were incredibly faint, yet Calum’s attentive ears heard every syllable. He tightened his arm around her slightly. “It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.”

He moved his hands to her shoulders, pulling her off of his chest so that he could survey her face. His fingers were calloused from the strings of his bass, but he made sure to keep his touch featherlight as he ran his finger along her wounded cheek.

It was no, that he finally realized the small scars decorating her eyebrow, her jawline, and even her neck.

“She hurts you?” The thought was unbearable, how could a mother hurt their child in such a way. Y/N was in bad shape, and to know that it was somebody who should love and protect her that did so - he was shaking from fury. “What about your father? Does he-“

“Dads always too drunk to care. He spends his time sucking down beers and verbally abusing us rather than paying attention to the constant crap I get from my mum,” her scoff was full of malice. On the outside, Y/F/N had it all but in reality, her world was a steaming dumpster fire and she spent her time yearning for love. “My parents never wanted me and they have made it obvious. This,” she gestured to her face with a sliced up arm, wincing slightly at the shift of her flesh. “Is because I had stuff in the dining room. Mother prefers I keep my life confined to my bedroom where she can pretend I don’t exist.”

Guilt washed over Calum’s face, “I’m so sorry, Y/N. I shouldn’t have pushed to go to your house.”

“It’s fine, Cal. There was bound to be an issue tonight anyways, it’s just our routine,” she sent him a small smile, eyes full of apology and sadness. “Thank you, for coming to my rescue.”

He let his thumb run across her cheekbone, relishing in the feeling of her skin underneath his palm. “Whenever you call, I’ll be there for you Y/N.” There was nothing in his actions to suggest anything but sincerity, specifically in the way his eyes lingered on hers for a second longer than normal. “You can’t go back there, darling.”

Her head hung slightly. She had nowhere to go but there. Of all of her friends, not one of them would take her in and her closest family was out of state. She had no options.

“That’s the only place I have,” she smiled at him, a miserable smile, but a reassuring one. “I’ll be okay.”

“Come to my house,” he offered, eyebrows raising slightly, a pleading pout on his lips.

“Cal, I can’t impose-“

“You’re never imposing, Y/N.” His brows furrowed. “I’ll always keep you safe, I promise.”

A sigh left her chest, her breathing smoothing and functioning correctly on its own accord, before she nodded. Fighting against Calum was a losing battle, but she wasn’t entirely against the idea. There was something drawing her in to him. Something that she couldn’t identify. Whether it be the damsel-in-distress complex that she had adopted that night, or the butterflies that erupted in her belly when he held her close, she wanted to go with him. She wanted to be safe in his arms.

So she nodded, smiling small up at him, her fingers reaching up to hold his own that were still resting on her scarred face.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, a delicate gesture full of comfort and with an inkling of the love that she so desired. “I’ll always protect you, darling.”

Tag list: @starshonerose @mantlereid @killerqueenishere @snookiebrookie @theanswertoeverythingisl0v3 @another-lonely-heart

[whatudottu]

Because I've held this off for too long, once again it seems that @nukeli has beaten me to the punch with colour schemes. Damn my procrastination or whatever, but I only just realised that I didn't put any mention of the 'fodder' classes (Vehicons, Insecticons and I suppose Autotroopers since I'm including them) and wanted to put down my thoughts before writing this up.

An added bonus here is that certain character have different alts (based on character changes and even the heavier focus of 'robots in disguise' that these Decepticons are after) so it's not just me ranting about colour schemes.

Yes, this was why I was complaining about the wiki altmodes, so deal with the vehicles I found instead. May or may not be due to me using images as references haha.

The Autobots (you are here)

The Decepticons Part 1

The Decepticons Part 2

Going in order of my notes, we begin with Cliffjumper. He’s obviously a 1970 Dodge Challenger and what colours I’ve given him are on the image below. Nothing much to say about a definitely dead character other than I didn’t just wanna make him blue.

Next on the list is good old Doctor Ratchet. I’ve had it in my mind ever since Nuke’s one post that SG!Ratchet was like Medic from TF2, so I guess I took it and ran.

To play an opposite to regular Ratchet, he comes across as affable and friendly but is really just doing the things he loves to people he hates. Autobots, Decepticons, hates everyone. He despises Optimus Prime too, but he can’t do anything unless he wants to be cooped up in his berthroom reattaching his limbs for it. Believe him, he tried.

As for altmode and colours, I spent way too long finding that he resembles a Mercedes Benz G-Class ambulance that I was ticked to find out he wasn’t at all. I special looked for the green coloured ambulance because Synth-En, duh!

Breaking in after the Doctor comes our local wrecker Bulkhead. I don’t have much of a read on this guy, other than the fact that I thought it’d be a cool idea for him to lose a lot of his memories after ‘TMI’, ya know, from the Synth-En recipe? Certainly not set in stone, but it could very well contribute to my accidental theme of memory (which only has some small links in the posts I actually created).

With the help of my car enthused cousin I have given our not so loveable mech a Terradyne Gurkha, a little more military than the wiki’s off-roader Lamborghini that I’m too annoyed to bother to look at. I thought that the military origins and the black colour scheme sorta allude to something something mindless military man. yada yada.

Following him is our ever wonderful Optimus Prime, or maybe Lord Prime? Haven’t thought too much about that. What I have thought of is this master manipulator who mayhaps also be a little bit delusional idk we’ll decide in the car.

I always loved the idea of a smiling SG!Prime, as if there’s still hints of this benevolent leader that the original has, but it’s warped and meant to add fodder to the war, encouraging mechs to fight to their deaths all in the name of not only the Autobots, but their Prime. Also as a warped version of the original, I wanted Shattered Glass Optimus to be deluded in the fact that Megatron will change, change at least, to submit to the real leader. Ain’t happening. That’s sorta there with Ratchet too, but well, you read Ratchet’s piece didn’t you?

SG!Prime is consistently purple and black, and whilst I have found a Peterbilt Semi Truck with that wonderful colour, it comes with white instead. Think about it, this typically evil colour paired with often innocent white, that’s like perfect for what I’m going for.

Fitting that he’s next, it’s time for Prime’s Second In Command Ultra Magnus. I’ve... really got nothing for him. Maybe he’s still by-the-books but like he finds loopholes just to commit atrocities? I don’t know.

I’ve given this boy a Mack Trident alt instead of Prime’s Peterbilt, just for differences sake.

After Magnus, we got our little bug Bumblebee... or is it. Because I wanted to change his colours a bit without going into Beast Hunter territory, I wondered if bees come in different colours and, low and behold, they do!

As for the boy himself, I think he was one of the bots manipulated by Prime himself to join the cause and, given his almost rewritten personality, has only lived through to this point in the war by sheer luck. This mech is an absolute menace, feral and powered by the need for Prime’s approval, tearing others with denta and servo more often than with stingers and blasters.

Now you’ve noticed I haven’t been using his name? That’s because he’s now Blue Band (I just realised he’s still bb haha)! He gets his name from the Blue Banded bee, and I found a Chevrolet Camaro to match.

In line with BB’s younger status, feast your eyes on Shattered Glass Smokescreen! Oh boy isn’t he a delight. His hero worship has essentially turned him to a prime (pardon the pun) candidate for Optimus to form into his perfect super soldier, who already would die for this deranged mech even before laying optics on this grand Prime.

So, he’s an absolute suck up, a straight up spoiled brat that has it harder than Blue Band for Prime’s acknowledgement, and is actively showing off and bragging that he’s Optimus’ favourite (he’s not, he just encourages it because that’s the easiest way to get Smokey to do what he wants).

Almost to reflect that (perhaps another pun) I found this gaudy Chameleon Chevy Corvette that absolutely SCREAMS show off.

Regrettably partnered up with him after the passing of Cliffjumper, Arcee has run out of patience. Not everything she does is motivated by Airachnid (what kind of character would that be? not a fun one) but she does often enjoy killing those connected with her. After Tailgate, she’s gotten a little mad, but her effectiveness otherwise increased so others never bothered to ‘fix’ her.

Having lost both of her partners, when she absolutely hates another (read; Airachnid and Starscream because he still kills Cliff) the best kind of revenge is putting her opponents in her own pedes. Oh, that mech’s growing attached to one of his comrades? Slice and dice them before their optics. Oh, that femme is finally coming out of her shell and making friends? Gore out their spark and hope that humans don’t decide this would be the perfect time to practice what they preach and save the life of that same mech with a hard to perform surgery that may or may not have been lost to time.

Okay so she’s obviously a Kawasaki Ninja (haha that’s kind of fitting) and I was tempted to make her pink like other Arcee iterations, but look at this fancy stuff right here. He hoo glowy look pretty!

Almost in leu of an Airachnid archetype, Wheeljack comes in. Though still quite the wrecker and ever the bomb enthusiast, instead of actively celebrating his impacts and going solo to stop the rust settling in, he’d rather be offed whilst mechs are distracted by his pretty explosion and lay forgotten in the dirt.

I may have accidentally rooted the unintentional memory theme deeply with the wreckers (Breakdown included) and maybe just took it and ran, giving everyone else a little connection, but Wheeljack is probably the most explicit in this idea. He hates nicknames (which i super Ratchet uses to mock him here in Shattered Glass) because that’s like... naming something you’re going to keep to quote that specific fic which, honestly, I can’t remember. Wheeljack split from others to stop them from remembering him and put himself closer to a situation where he can die alone, as morbid as that sounds. No grand death, no stupid death and no straight up suicide (generally that’s a VERY impactful kind of death) so just a mediocre end is what he’s been looking for for a little bit too long.

As for his colours, I apparently have no taste and should not have a car because I really like what this image has going for it. This C3 Corvette is probably one of the few cars that fits the straight up box of a sports car that Jackie’s got, so I’m sticking to it, so no, don’t show me the wiki I’m ignoring it this was too painful to give up dang it!

Okay, finishing off the bots, I have the Autotroopers. Sure, I’m not using a reference of a car to show off the colours, mainly because there’s also going to be flier troopers too, maybe... surely... definitely. Most depictions of them are white, you know, goodie goodie, and I’m tempted to just laze around and do just that. Instead, I think a goldish colour would be fun.

Aside from sharing a key colour with Ultra Magnus, essentially a war lawyer, which is perfect for subjects made to obey, a nice glimmering finish almost feels like they’re all manipulated by Prime to believe in the Autobot cause. I suppose the special devision, if there is one, would be a nice Prime purple, sorta like if it’s Optimus’ personal guard if he actually had any belief they would do their jobs.

Oh boy this is so long...

[transhoverfish]

What are everyone's "abilities" in Survivors? Ryley has good hearing and Milo glows but what do the others have?

!!! YOU HAVE ASKED ME ABOUT MY AU !!! THE FLOODGATES OF YELLING HAVE OPENED!!

OK SO. as u mentioned ryley has good hearing and milo glows. basically,

ryley = good hearing

milo = glowy boy

emily = electric detection (cooler than i describe rn my vocabulary is small)

danby = like emily's but reverse. controls electromagnetic things

roman = night vision

jochi = the most superpower like one, he got quick regeneration.

avery = telepathy!

bart = also kind of telepathy but more like future telepathy. he has future vision.

and i. never thought of one for ozzy actually and at this point i have no idea what to give them that wouldn't have been brought up prior so. u know genetics are weird! they just dont have anything ig. nobody look at me LABDKABDLABD

AND ALSO paul and marg have powers! paul got that peeper enzyme carrier thing, and marg got the very funny power of feeling others emotions. yes that includes the fish. yes this is one of the primary reasons she didnt kill paul over a decade of dealing w him. yes she hates it.

and the vesper haven't been sick long enough to develop anything! or at least thats what im going with bc i havent thought of anything for them yet 😔

AND NOW: LONGER EXPLANATIONS. IM GONNA GET CARRIED AWAY SO ITS UNDER A READ-MORE.

first off on the list: bart! so bart.. kinda has futuristic visions?? but the things he sees are not set in the stone,, as in if he dreams about smth (a lot like ryley can!) it is possible to change those events! most of these visions/telepathy type stuff were bc of the emperor and warpers, and also al-an! once the sea emp died and the warpers all calmed down his powers kind of go away a bit. i think i wrote al-an sort of mentioning it in one chap of awa?? but its only kind of implied. so he has rlly similar powers to avery except he can't tell what others are thinking and he can only kind of tell how his closest friends r feeling. so right now bart pretty much doesn't have powers! he can communicate w the warpers and sea emps much easier than the others tho (he's the only one that can talk to warpers! im not sure he'd get along w them after being hunted down by them for like 12 years though KABDLSBRLSHD)

avery has telepathy! this is because when he first shows up he jokes about having telepathy and i was like "haha. WAIT." and then he got telepathy! i realize its a bad idea to not come up with their powers until as im writing but uhhh well. i never said i was a fantastic writer who's smart. KANROSHROSBF.

he also kind of had marg's empathy ability but wayyy dialed back. he can only tell how other humans are feeling and he can only vaguely understand it as opposed to feeling the emotions himself like marg does. so he can kind of tell how others are feeling and he can tell what theyre thinking about! unless of course for plot convince he can't. strong emotions, especially strong negative emotions (ie. fear) can overwhelm him and makes his powers stop working. and if someone is convinced they're right then he wont b able to tell they're lying/hiding something! yay plot convenience!!

roman has night vision. i have no way of making this sound cool he just straight up can see really well in the dark. like a cat. most of the powers were based off where they originally landed and what would help them in that area! and roman landed in the sparse reef, which is so dark all the time i cry thinking about it. so he has night vision! his poor eyesight is probably all kinds of fucked up now tho.

jochi has regeneration abilities! now i know this might sound a bit much but he just heals from cuts and stuff faster and like. he bones heal fast. and he's more likely to survive smth that might usually kill someone, but its like a 10% higher chance of living nothing too much. he doesn't rlly get scars as much as the others, and its healed his old ones a bit more! this is by far the most unrealistic power of them all, but ya know its alien fish planet game who cares. basically bc his life support systems failed his spine got all fucked up and he got infected faster bc he was barely alive for the first few days and spent a lot of time w bart who was looking after him. power helped fix his back, but he still has a rlly bad limp and pretty much constant pain. big mood there khasar 😔✊

emily can detect electromagnetic waves! works best underwater. kind of like ryley's, but instead of hearing noises she can only hear anything electric, like vehicles or ampeels or heartbeats. gets all fucked up during thunderstorms though sadly. she's the only other one that can kind of hear warpers and can tell when ones about to warp around but she cant actually talk back to them. pretty sick if u ask me tho.

danby has p similar powers to her bc ampeels also spawn in the bulb zone. except he can sense them at a much smaller distance, cant hear warpers, and can control the waves around him! mostly just his own tho. so like, he can quiet his heartbeat or make it stop all together. scary power that he does not know how to control. uh oh. but he can also control other creatures a bit! he's very good at hiding bc of this, which is nice bc he loves to hide from scary things. very big mood once again.

milo is glowing powers! looks a lot like the transparency of a ghost levi or a crabsquid, although he isn't as see through as them. you can def make out like veins but not bones or organs. his powers are activated by touch, the more force behind will create more glow and more transparency! a poke = goes away within a few seconds, a slap = stays for a minute or so. instead of bruises, he just glows until the bruise would normally go away. he's basically a living glowstick. i have another joke for this but i cannot physically convince myself to type it bc its some shit emily would say to him and i cannot embarrass him like that LABDLABDKABAKD

andd ryley's super hearing! can hear basically everything within a mile radius at all times. im bad at math and i don't know the metric system but i think that's like around 1k meters. wait does the metric system use mile already. no. ONCE AGAIN NEVER SAID I WAS SMART.

OK ANYWAYS back on track! this means he can hear about half of the crater at all times. he's gotten p good at blocking out background noise and anything far away. typically only hears everything within like 300 meters of himself. so when he does get back to just hearing everything its like. u ever take out headphones in a busy place and everything kinda hurts for a few seconds bc its so much noise. yeah like that but 500x worse. he's able to concentrate on specific areas within this 1 mile field but if its far away it fucks him up good for a lil while. sorry ryley :(

and then the other two degasi! as mentioned before, paul can carry enzyme like the peepers, but he also can kind of make some himself! only small amounts and it works a bit less than the peeper enzyme does. he does not have to cough it up though thankfully it just like. idk how to describe this idea it can just kind of leave through his skin?? he has like no control over his power at all it just kind does its own thing and he deals w it. this is primarily how he and marg survive for so long w/o dying to kharra!

and finally marguerit! highly empathetic abilities that allow her to feel the emotions of anything around her! i thought it would be funny as hell to give MARGUERIT of all ppl Big Emotion Disease. this is a big reason why she has had yet to murder paul and why she's a lot less murderer like in the au. its hard to kill someone if you. you know. can feel exactly what they are. probably the reason she adopted Dog Bart/Legally Preston Emotionally Not. saw sad puppy and felt too bad to leave him. like paul, she has basically no control over it and is one of the reasons she does NOT want to go back to the survivors base and be around so many other ppl, she'd be feeling like, 13 ppl's emotions at one time. all these powers have fucked up drawbacks dont they??

once again sam, robin, jeff, maxim, and ozzy are (for now at least) not gonna have any powers! mutations are weird and ozzy just didn't get anything, and the vesper haven't been sick long enough for any yet!

OK THATS ALL. HOLY SHIT SORRY FOR YELLING FOR 15 MINUTES. GOT CARRIED AWAY. hopefully that explains everything tho OABEOABROANRJS OK BYE MY PHONE IS ALMOST DEAD

[imjustthemechanic]

The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding Part 11/? - Just Passing Through Part 12/? - Party of Four

A stowaway!

-

In the morning they rose bright and early. There’d been a bit more rain overnight, but it had stopped and the sky had cleared, and everything was fresh and sparkling with dew.  They packed up, and then Jason proudly showed Peggy the equipment he’d been working on.

“I got the gyros and dampeners worked out, I think,” he said, “so unless we’ve got major turbulence it ought to stay pretty level underneath the aircraft.  The readout will be here.”

In the middle of the plane was a device that resembled a polygraph, though without the parts to connect it to the person under interrogation.  Instead, the wires passed through a hole in the floor to the sonar mounted beneath the belly of the aircraft.  Three pens were ready to trace out lines on the roll of paper.

“The blue one will be the top of the ice,” said Jason, “the green will be the bottom, and the black will be the seafloor underneath. Ice, water, and stone all affect the frequency of sounds in different ways, so the timing tells us which is which.”

“What if we encounter something else?” asked Peggy.

“Like metal, or wood?” Jason asked with a smile. “That’ll confuse it.  We won’t be able to immediately identify what we’ve found, but we’ll know we’ve found something.”

So they wouldn’t know if it were a crashed plane or a secret Russian base, thought Peggy… but they could do a wide circle and check it out from above.  If it were worrying, they could return to civilization and alert Daniel.  Peggy knew there was no such thing as a foolproof plan – fools were far too inventive for that – but this one was solid as long as they took no unnecessary risks.

“Well done,” she said.  “This should be just what we need.”

“He was wasted at Isodyne,” said Howard.  He sat down in the pilot’s seat, leaving the door between cockpit and cargo area open, and zipped up his flying jacket.  “Shall we get this show on the road?”

“I’m dying to know what the big secret is,” Jason admitted.

“You may be disappointed,” Peggy warned him.

She and Jason made one last check that their equipment and supplies were secure, and then took their places on the troop benches and did up their safety harnesses.  The propellers whirled to life, and the Skytrain took off into a beautiful blue sky.

“All right,” said Peggy once they were at altitude. “I now have things to explain to both of you… and neither of you are likely to be pleased.  I’m sorry, Jason, but we’re not looking for the Franklin Expedition, although I suppose we may find it by accident.”

Jason nodded, a little disappointed but not particularly surprised.  “You’re looking for the wreck of the Valkyrie,” he said.

“That’s right.  Unfortunately, we’re quite unlikely to find it.  Our source was not a particularly reliable one.”  Peggy paused to arrange the story in her head, but before she could speak, something under Jason’s seat went clunk.

The interior of the plane was open down the middle, so that it could transport vehicles and equipment as well as troops.  The men were meant to sit where Peggy and Jason were now, on benches at the sides.  Below the benches were lockers, and it was from one of these that the sound had just come. Jason undid his harness and moved to the side as one of the doors banged open, and a human being wiggled out.

“No,” said Peggy out loud, as a head of blonde hair appeared.  “Oh, no, no, no.”  This was not allowed to happen!

But it was.  Miss Lake got up and brushed herself off.  She was wearing a knee-length wool wrap coat in black, and as she sat down on the bench next to Jason, she pulled out a matching felt hat from one of the pockets, unfolded it, and put it on her head.

“Hi,” she said to Jason.

“What’s going on back there?” Howard demanded from up front.  He could not see them from the cockpit, although he could hear a little of the conversation.

“Turn around, Howard!”  Peggy stood up and went to the cockpit door.  “Find a place to land, now.”

“I’ve got a bomb,” said Lake.

Peggy turned and looked at her.  “Excuse me?”

“I put a bomb on this plane,” Lake repeated.  “I have the detonator.  If you land somewhere I don’t approve of, or otherwise try to get rid of me, I’ll set it off.”

It was all Peggy could do not to gape at her like a fish. “You’re bluffing,” she said.

“Bet your life?” asked Lake.  She glanced at Jason.  “Bet his life?”

“Who is that?” Howard wanted to know.  He craned his head over his shoulder to try to see through the doorway.

“That is our source,” said Peggy tiredly.  “What do you want, Miss Lake?”

“I want to help you find Captain America,” Lake told her, as if this were the most reasonable thing in the world.  “When Ned got back from lunch, he told me that you’d said he should apologize to me and promise to be less creepy to women in bars. I knew if you were back in town there had to be a reason, so I hitchhiked out here and found you guys working on the plane.  After you went to bed I stowed away, and here I am.”

“How did you know we’d be at Howard’s airfield?” asked Peggy.  “How… how did you even know he had an airfield up here?”

“I guessed,” said Lake.

“You guessed he had an airfield?”

“No, that I already knew.”

“How did you escape from the SSR?” Peggy asked.  She felt like her head was spinning.  She was going to kill Agent Russel, she thought… he hadn’t revealed a single secret and yet he’d still told Lake everything she needed to know.  “Don’t tell me Thompson put you in a hotel or something instead of back in your cell…”

“No, no.  Thompson is smarter than you think he is, but not nearly as smart as he thinks he is,” Lake assured her.  “I tried to seduce him just to see if he’d go for it.  He didn’t, but he also didn’t pay enough attention to realize I was doing it to distract him from me putting Barbital in his chicken soup.”

“What is going on?” Howard demanded from the cockpit.  “Am I landing or not?”

“No landing!” said Lake cheerfully.

“We’re gonna have to land eventually,” Howard protested. “It’s already in the flight plan! We have to land up by Fort Severn to refuel!”

“Then you’re allowed to do that, but not to kick me off,” said Lake.  She got up and went to the cockpit door herself , to take a look at their pilot. “So you’re Howard Stark, are you?”

This was the first time Howard had been able to see their guest.  When he realized she was an attractive blonde, he sat up a little straighter and gave her a charming smile, much to Peggy’s disgust.  “My reputation precedes me?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” said Lake.  “Marie said you fell asleep right after and left her high and dry.  Ksenia said you have the ugliest, wrinkliest testicles she has ever seen on a man, and Olga… not Barynova, the other Olga… said that in the middle of things you kept calling her ‘Steve’.”

Peggy raised an eyebrow.

“That is not true,” said Howard, and added, to Peggy, “I don’t remember any of those women.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Peggy said.  “Howard, Jason, this is Miss Katherine Lake, which is the only name she’ll tell us.”

“Now, that is not true,” Lake said.  “When I first met you I told you my name was Nadine Russel.”

“Yes, but you stole that one from somebody else,” said Peggy.  “Miss Lake is another Soviet agent, like Dottie Underwood but far, far worse. Dottie is merely a madwoman, but Miss Lake has a plan.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Lake said, and went to sit down again.

Peggy remained standing by the door so that Howard would hear what she had to say.  “At any rate, I’m afraid Miss Lake is correct – she was our source.  She dropped the coordinates off in a letter she slipped into my purse while she was impersonating an FBI agent.  Daniel and I discussed it and decided we had to at least take a look, if only to make sure the Soviets have not found the crash site before we did.  Miss Lake is supposed to be in New York, helping Chief Thompson find Dottie Underwood.”

“He’ll be fine,” Lake assured her.  “He’ll have her the moment she tries to sell Vivien Leigh’s diamond bracelet.”

“The one I gave her?” Howard asked.

“Dottie wouldn’t steal that,” said Peggy. “She’s got one of her own already.”

With all the bad news delivered, Peggy sat heavily back down in her seat and folded her arms across her chest.  In the space of moments, her solid plan had turned into a circus.  She was now quite certain they would find something up on Cornwallis Island, but it wasn’t going to be the Valkyrie… and whatever it was, Peggy wasn’t going to like it very much.

- 

They landed in Fort Severn as planned.  The weather there was dreadful, with a silvery overcast sky that hurt to look at, and tiny sharp crystals of snow swirling down to bite into any exposed skin.  Jason stayed on board to check the equipment one more time, while Howard gritted his teeth, tied his scarf tight, and headed out into the cold to arrange for their refueling.  Miss Lake seemed happy enough just to sit in the plane and wait, so Peggy announced a desire to stretch her legs and headed out for a walk.

The wind was bitter, which gave her a perfect excuse to confine her walk to no more than a dozen feet from the Skytrain.  She circled the plane twice, examining the engines, the landing gear, and even Jason’s sonar – anywhere somebody could have inserted something that did not belong.  She found nothing.  Peggy didn’t know as much about planes as Howard did but she knew plenty about bombs, and she was confident that if it were in one of those places, she would have spotted it.

“That was a short walk,” Miss Lake said, when Peggy came back inside.

“It’s colder out there than I thought,” Peggy replied.

She stepped over Jason’s tools and headed up into the cockpit, where she took another look around.  Under the seats?  Behind them? In the floor, where there was a hatch to access the landing gear?  Behind the instrument panels?

“Find anything?” asked Lake.

Peggy was sitting on the floor examining the underside of the dashboard.  She looked up to find Lake in the doorway, looking casually interested.  As if this were anything but a life-or-death situation that she had herself put them in.

“What do you want?” Peggy demanded crossly, only to change her mind a moment later and shake her head.  “Actually, forget I asked… I know you won’t give me an answer.”

“I want you to trust me,” Lake replied.

Peggy took a moment to consider that.  “You want me to trust you, so that’s why you lied to me, sprayed me in the face with a kitchen spice, and are now threatening to blow up an airplane while I’m on board?”

“We were raised to be spies and assassins.”  Lake shrugged.  “They never taught us how to make friends.”

“I’m not laughing,” said Peggy.

“I’m not joking.”  Lake offered Peggy a hand to help her up.  “When we find Steve, I’m going to need you to trust me.”

Peggy had been reaching for the hand, but hearing that, she grabbed the arm of the pilot’s seat instead.  “You may use my name, Kay,” she said as she got to her feet.  “You may not use his.”

When Howard got back on board, the first thing he said was, “did you find it?”

Peggy shook her head.  Jason did likewise.

“What do you want to do?” Howard asked.

“I think the only thing Miss Lake will allow us to do is go on,” Peggy said.

“Kind of a long walk home, otherwise,” said Lake with a nod.

“May Jason leave?” Peggy asked.  “It would be an expression of your good intentions, to let one of your hostages go.”  Jason had been traumatized enough by his previous involvement in SSR affairs.  He didn’t deserve to get mixed up in such a mess a second time.

But it was Jason himself who refused.  “I have to stay to mind the sonar,” he said. “Howard can’t do that while he’s flying the plane, and you ladies don’t know how to fix it if it breaks.”

“All right,” said Peggy.  “Then we go on.”  She wondered what she was going to tell Thompson when they brought Miss Lake back to New York, or whether they’d even have the opportunity to.

[visionsofus]

Wanda and Vision's Mixtape

track #2: Infinity by Jaymes Young

| read on AO3 here | mixtape playlist | send me an ask with your song/prompt request | synopsis: In which Wanda and Vision sneak out of the compound and go on a date and just revel in the act of being together in public. The rest of the team doesn't know yet so they're working had on keeping everything a secret. When they arrive back Vision is so enamoured with Wanda that he trips the Compound alarms, waking everyone up with the fear of a break in at the front of their mind only to find the pair in a compromised position.

darling my soul, it aches for yours

Wanda had lost track of time in the hours that she and Vision had been away from the compound. Around 5pm she and Vision had snuck out of the compound in one of the cars from the garage. Wanda had insisted on driving in order to preserve the secret of where she had planned their date. A forty-minute journey later and she was pulling into the busy car park of an annual attraction along the Hudson River: a month-long winter market.

Wanda undid her seat belt with a slow click and hesitantly looked over to Vision. They didn’t often come out into public like this, just the two of them, but she was hoping it would add a sense of normalcy that neither of them really had in their day to day lives. Plus, she’d brought a disposable camera with her and knew the photos would look gorgeous with the dark expanse of river behind them and the twinkle of fairy lights overhead.

“This is exciting, I’m surprised you managed to keep it a secret from me,” Vision said as Wanda pulled two tickets out of her pocket that she’d ordered in preparation for tonight. She grinned and waved the tickets before her in anticipation.

Vision made to get out of the car but paused and looked down at himself. He was dressed fairly regularly; Wanda had warned him that they’d be walking out in the cold, so he had on a navy sweater topped with a thick black wool coat. The only difference was that Vision was a synthezoid and his complexion was, well, blue and red and silver. Wanda’s heart dropped a little and she watched as Vision closed his eyes and, in a moment, assumed his human form.

“I’m sorry, Vis,” Wanda murmured, almost crushing the tickets in her hands in frustration. Here was the main reason they never went on dates in public – Vision always had to hide himself.

“There’s no need to apologise,” Vision said catching her hand and pulling the two tickets away. “I’m just as much me as always.”

Wanda hummed contemplatively and tried to keep the disappointment from her face, she didn’t want to ruin tonight, not when they had finally managed to make enough excuses to get away unseen by the rest of the team.

“Here,” Vision said pulling her hand up to his forehead. “It’s just me.”

“Yes,” Wanda said brightening at the warmth under her hand and the feeling of his consciousness below that. Somewhere deeper the stone was there for sure but these days she was taking less and less notice of it.

“Now let’s go and have a wonderful time, I have no doubt you have all sorts planned.”

Wandahad planned a fair bit for their date and had been looking forward to participating in the many fair-like activities that occupied the bustling wharf. But, as it always seemed to end up, they instead spent their time at the quiet end content to listen to the sound of each other’s voices and take in the interesting space around them. The bustling market was made up of a collection of stalls featuring independent artists displaying a variety of artisanal foods, art work and other creative wares. Vision was a constant warmth at her side and Wanda realised how much she missed having him pressed to her like this. The constant physical connection between them was usually hidden back at the compound given that they hadn’t found the right moment to tell the rest of the team they were together. Now that they were out away from the watchful eyes of their housemates, they were free to just be themselves together.

As Wanda sipped on the warm cup of mulled wine Vision stuck to her side, one of her arms tucked into his as they walked along the creaking planks of the wharf.

“Have you thought more about telling the team about us yet?” Vision asked casually as Wanda hovered before a handmade jewellery store. They’d both decided to wait but Wanda knew it was beginning to wear both of them down. If being out on this date was telling her anything it was that they both wanted to be this way all the time, and it was getting more and more difficult to hide that.

“I know we said to wait,” Wanda ran her fingertips softly over the pendant of a necklace, not unlike the one that hung around her own neck. A deep red gem hung encrusted in brushed bronze from a silver chain. It was a beautiful piece, even if the price was hefty enough to make her stomach drop a little. “But I don’t know how long we can keep it up.”

“Let’s go over the pros and cons again,” Vision said as Wanda led the way to the next stall. Their list had been growing over the main conversations they’d had on this very topic.

“Well,” Wanda began squeezing a little closer to him as a breeze blew through the stands, making merchandise flutter atop unsteady tables. “Con: we don’t know how the others will react.”

“Based on watching them all react to Mr Stark’s announcement I can’t imagine they’ll disagree with us.”

“Hmm but Pepper and Tony have been together for years.”

“We’ll be together for years.”

Wanda smiled at the warm feeling blossoming in her chest and leant her head against his warm shoulder.

“Con: them knowing could change things between us.”

Neither of them had much to say to dispute this one as it was a common fear for both of them. Deep down both knew that there wouldn’t be backlash to the news of their romantic attachment except perhaps to the newness of it. But things would no doubt change once those they lived with learnt of their relationship.

Wanda was first to break the silence, “Pro: no more hiding.”

“Con: no more hiding,” Vision countered with a conspiratorial smirk.

She looked tilted her head in question at him.

“Oh, come on you have to agree that it’s a little fun keeping this a secret, right?”

Wanda laughed and pushed his shoulder lightly. There was a level of entertainment to the sneaking around they’d had to keep up for the past months, but she couldn’t deny the relief that would come with letting the rest of the team in on their new status.

Before the conversation could be debated further Wanda caught sight of a bench pressed against the railing of the board walk, a backdrop of inky water and dark horizon line lay behind. It was the perfect opportunity for a photo.

“This way, come on,” Wanda said dragging Vision in the direction of the bench. On the way she snagged a kind looking man and asked if he wouldn’t mind taking photos of her partner and her. She relished in saying it out loud.

They posed together, sitting on the bench with arms around each other, Wanda’s head again resting against his shoulder. A few snaps of the disposable camera and the man handed it back to them before returning to his own party of friends.

“Why are you using this one instead of your phone?” Vision asked turning over the camera in his hands.

Wanda thought for a moment. “There’s convenience to instant photos but there’s an excitement to taking a photo of a memory and going to get the photos developed once the camera is full. It’s like saving bits of memory away for later.”

“And this is a memory that you want to save?” It wasn’t really a question, but he waited for her confirmation anyway. “Well, we’ll have to capture some more of this moment then.”

With that he lifted the camera once more and wound an arm around her shoulders. Wanda grinned and leaned in for the photo. They took one of themselves smiling beneath the twinkling lights and then another of Vision kissing her cheek. Though she wouldn’t see the photos for another month when she finished up the roll of camera, Wanda knew how she looked in them and knew that the light shining from her eyes had nothing to do with her powers and everything to do with who was beside her.

Two hours later the market shut for the night and the patrons were directed back to waiting cars. Wanda had had a couple of cups of mulled wine, so she let Vision handle the car – though she preferred driving it automatic, Vision had no trouble setting the Stark car to auto drive and letting the vehicle take them home. It left them free to talk more on the drive.

“We probably should tell them sooner than later,” Vision murmured as he rubbed a gentle thumb over the back of Wanda’s hand.

“I know,” she said gazing at the road ahead of them.

“But we should wait a few more weeks,” Vision said, “I don’t want to share us just yet.”

Wanda smiled and leant over to kiss him tenderly. It was exactly what she felt. There was a distinct special element to their relationship that was being protected by their secrecy and she knew that they’d be under scrutiny the moment the rest of the team were in on it. The more selfish part of her, that she didn’t take a lot of joy in acknowledging, knew that she also didn’t want to have to share Vision. It took a sharp mental reminder every now and then to not be possessive, but the plain truth was that no one at the compound knew Vision like she did, and no one else came close to understanding her the way he did. It was no surprise that their feelings had transformed from platonic affection to romantic. Not with their nearly instantaneous bond and the way it had only been strengthened by a year and a half of living with each other. Wanda’s body and mind and very soul called out for Vision in a way she wasn’t sure she had believed was possible, certainly not since she was very, very young and still believed in happy endings.

“You have reached your destination, please present for identification,” said the mechanical voice of the car as it rolled to a stop before the gates to the Avengers compound. The drive back had been far too quick for Wanda’s liking, but nonetheless she reluctantly displayed her key card to the machine outside her window.

The car had deposited them on the steps of the compound’s residential building that housed the two of them and the rest of the team who lived onsite. Wanda’s hand remained held tightly by Vision as he directed the car to take itself back to the garage and the vehicle trundled off.

“It’s too soon,” Wanda said swinging their entwined hands between them as they turned to the front door.

“Before we go in, I have something for you,” Vision said.

Wanda watched in surprise as he fished around in his coat pocket before eventually presenting her with a small jewellery box. She took it gently in her hands and gasped as the box flipped open to reveal the pendant that she had been admiring at the young jeweller’s store back at the pier.

“How–”

“I saw you looking at it and I know how much your necklace means to you,” Vision said lifting the gift out of its box and Wanda turned around slightly, still shocked, as he placed it to rest around her neck. “I thought you could wear it on missions or when you’re worried about losing the Sokovian one.”

“Vis,” Wanda murmured, fingers running over the fine jewellery. It was funny that this piece, which cost far more than her original necklace, could act as a replacement for the cheap pendant that had come with her from Sokovia. His sentiments were sweet, but she was just as unlikely to want to part with it as the original, now that Vision had gifted it to her.

“Beautiful,” Vision replied, kissing Wanda’s forehead and she knew that he wasn’t talking about the necklace.

A light flicked on a few floors above and they both froze, breaths held, in moments it had gone off again. Wanda let loose a relieved breath and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny,” Vision asked grinning with her as, instead of opening the front door he phased the two of them through.

“Oh, Vis it’s just so silly, all of this,” Wanda said wiping tears from her eyes as she shook with laughter. “Here we are, in a superhero base hiding around corners like scared teenagers, we’re even sneaking in after midnight like we’ve missed our curfew.” She dissolved into hushed laughter again as they made it into the entrance hall.

“Hush, hush,” Vision said as he pulled her down the hall but was trying not to laugh himself, his eyes gleaming in the unlit entry.

Wanda kept laughing despite his hurried attempts to stay quiet and instead pulled him against the wall of the corridor.

“What are you–”

“Shush.”

Wanda kissed him as she’d wanted to all night. Starting softly, he pulled her closer as the kiss deepened. One of Vision’s hands strayed up to brush against the base of her throat, brushing her hair aside. A shiver ran down her spine that was entirely involuntary and nothing to do with the cold. The feeling never got old, and it always left her breathless for more.

“Who’s there?” Came a cry from the end of the hall, leading to the kitchen.

Their heads parted in surprise and they turned towards the voice, squinting as the lights flickered to life overhead.

Wanda’s was still somewhat pressed to the wall and one of Vision’s arms was holding her waist loosely and it took a moment for her to process what was happening.

They’d been caught.

A small crowd had gathered at the end of the corridor, Steve, Tony, Bruce, Rhodey, Clint and Natasha were looking on with a mixture of surprise and amusement. All were in a varying levels of disarray, half clothed in pyjamas and hair tousled from sleep. Bare feet slapped on the stairs as Peter Parker ran down, tugging a sweater over his head and almost tumbling the last few steps.

“Woah what’s going on, I heard the alarms were going off and–” Peter broke off mid-sentence when he caught sight of the scene before him.

“I did not wake up for this shit,” Natasha said turning tail and heading back upstairs before anything more could happen, but Wanda was relieved to see a smile on her face.

“And here I thought it was the teenager causing all the commotion,” Sam chuckled stepping in to join the scene from the kitchen. He nursed a warm mug of something and the dressing gown hanging loosely around his shoulders was cinched at the waist.

“Well, this is unexpected…” Bruce trailed off rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry for disturbing you.”

This was perhaps the most awkward thing that anyone had said so far. Wanda didn’t really know where to look but was conscious of Vision taking a step back as they submitted to the mixed emotions of their friends.

“I called it, Cap owes me 100 bucks,” Tony said crossing his arms before him and turning to Steve who still was struggling to process what was before him. “Pay up.”

Steve didn’t appear to be listening properly and was mumbling, “I never knew. How did I never know? I trained them?”

“Well, this has been sufficiently uncomfortable,” Rhodey said rubbing at his forehead in a way that made it clear he was looking for any way out of this situation. “I guess everyone back to bed. False alarm?”

“Yeah, next time please use the door normally and don’t set off half the alarms in the building. Friday thought someone had broken in.”

“That was my fault, it won’t happen again,” Vision saw owning up to the phasing incident earlier.

“Sure, sure,” Tony said waving his hand and turning to go back upstairs, pushing Peter in front of him.

“But Mr Stark,” Peter whispered, struggling to get another look at Wanda and Vision “what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

The others followed suit, either too tired or baffled to deal with the present situation. They all retreated back upstairs until only Sam was left sipping at his tea with a mixture of amusement and something akin to disbelief.

“Uh… congrats?” Sam grinned tipping his cup to them.

“Yep, yep ok good night, Sam,” Wanda said waving him on his way as he turned back to the kitchen.

She slumped against the wall, glad to be alone with Vision again. He hadn’t moved since pulling away from her and was staring at the ground.

“You ok?” She reached a hand out to his shoulder cautiously. This definitely wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

“Of all the ways I thought they would react, the probabilities I ran, that was certainly not one of them.”

This time it was Vision who broke out laughing and soon they were both close to tears of laughter once more. Wanda clutched at her stomach and hung off Vision’s arm as they headed upstairs together. The delivery certainly hadn’t been ideal, but it was one worry out of the way, one less complication standing between them. Wanda put an arm out to stop Vision as they reached the top of the stairs which lead to the communal living room and various bedroom suites.

As though thinking the same thing, Vision stopped and held his hand out. She didn’t hesitate as she grabbed his and pulled him the rest of the way, their hands intertwined in a way that had Wanda thinking she’d never need to let go.

[volturialice]

whumptober continues

ok so I missed a few days but we’re back bitches

no 5. where do you think you’re going?

On the Run | Failed Escape | Rescue

1,197 words

warnings: none. oops

rating: K

notes: had to live up to my url sometime. disclaimers: very unedited and I don’t speak italian

no. 5: fuori dalla città

There’s a flight out of Florence at 16:10, and she has to be on it, no matter what. Firenze to JFK, JFK to Philadelphia, and then it will be a simple matter to finally, finally find him.

For the first time in her life (that she can remember), Alice packs light. Nothing too flashy; she needs to blend in with the humans when she can. She allows herself the slightest indulgence with the Carolina Herrera dress—she has to look good when she actually meets him, after all.

Her jet-black cloak she leaves behind. Strange, how naked she feels without its familiar weight on her shoulders. (Or perhaps not strange at all. She silences the paranoid corner of her mind that insists it’s Chelsea’s influence at work.)

Bag packed, she waits in the corridor. There’ll be a three-minute window when Felix leaves to check the aboveground post office box—plenty of time to make it to the lobby and feed Gianna some excuse. Alice runs through a few decisions, testing to see which choice will raise the least suspicion. Master wants me out of the way today. Oh, something about keeping Jane happy, you know how she gets. I’ll meet Felix up topside for patrol.

None of her options are exactly solid, but she’s running out of time. Of necessity, Alice’s flight from Volterra could never have been premeditated—not when her thoughts are not her own. Today may be the only chance she’ll ever get.

She seizes it. The second Felix leaves, she’s off like a bat out of hell—which, as metaphors go, is a bit too literal for comfort.

Her heels make barely a click on the marble floor—that won’t do. Too suspicious. She wills herself to walk normally, like she would on any other day. To make pleasant, unhurried small talk with Gianna, like she goes on patrol with the ungifted gray-cloaks all the time. Gianna, who has never once seen her apart from her master’s side (when was the last time he allowed Alice to go anywhere? The rogue newborn incident of ’92, probably.)

If she had a pulse, it would be roaring in her ears as she steps into the elevator. Such a maddeningly slow, human contraption! Get used to it, Alice orders herself. If this works, you’ll have to play human all the time.

She holds her breath until she reaches the city wall, like a child walking past a graveyard. Another uncomfortable metaphor, considering the mass grave somewhere far beneath her feet. She adjusts her sunglasses, flipping through her visions to confirm that yes, the contacts she’s stolen from Heidi will last long enough to get her dark maroon eyes through passport control. And then—America, Philadelphia, Jasper. The words echo in her head, a mantra pulling her onward. Just a few hours more and her life can finally begin.

Demetri will have to be dealt with, of course, but Alice has every expectation of success. Between her supernatural ability and Jasper’s skill in combat, they’ll be able to cross that bridge when they come to it. And in the United States, there’ll be no shortage of vampires willing to come to her aid, too, Alice is certain—Peter and Charlotte, the Cullens. Just thinking their names sends a frisson of excitement down her spine.

She’s never actually had to drive before, but of course she knows how. Even Master’s cosseted dearest ones can jimmy a window and hot wire a vehicle. Alice is pleased at how smoothly it all goes, at the pop of the lock and the purr of the engine. Who knew cars were so much fun?

Intent on the shifting future, she hardly notices the countryside flashing by, and she barely manages to slow down in time to avoid the polizia—wait; make that doesn’t manage. She lets out a string of curses in six different languages as the blue Fiat merges into the lane behind her, but its lights don’t flash—can it be a coincidence? Just her luck, that the officer inside would pick this moment to head back to Florence. No self-respecting vampire drives the speed limit, scoffs an imaginary Demetri in her mind. But there’s no other choice. Alice can’t afford to be pulled over in a stolen car today.

Her hands are practically shaking as she takes the exit for the airport. To her dismay, the Fiat follows—infuriating! It occurs to her that she’s far enough outside Volterra to be allowed to kill whoever’s inside with impunity, and her throat burns distractingly at the though. If only she had the time. It would be best to find some sort of snack before boarding a plane full of humans.

Alice has no memory of what it felt like when her heart pounded—but it must have been something like this, she imagines, turning into the parking garage. Jasper’s gift would be going haywire, if he were only here to feel her!

She parks the car in a shadowy corner, slings her bag over her shoulder, and heads for the elevator. In less than an hour, she’ll be on a plane above the sea. What will it look like? She reaches for a vision and sees…stones? Stone walls—no—wait, that can’t be right—

Ding. The elevator door slides open.

“Hello, dear one,” says Aro.

“Going somewhere, Gorgeous?” quips Demetri. His arm is draped in black fabric—her cloak.

Alice says nothing. A quick series of visions confirm that no, if she bolts to the left she won’t outrun him—and definitely won’t outrun Jane, who smirks from their master’s other side.

Aro heaves a crestfallen sigh. “I did think you might be ready for some more wide-ranging responsibility, after all these years,” he tells her, “but Caius advised me to test your loyalty first. I do so loathe being proven wrong.” He holds out a hand.

Alice sets her jaw, her instincts still raring to fight or flee even as her rational mind recognizes the futility of either plan. She hates the Alice who lifts her hand to slide her fingers into Aro’s. For the first time in nearly sixty years, she feels the urge to flinch away from the familiar chalky, papery feel of his skin.

“Ingenious,” he murmurs without emotion, and Alice almost wishes he would rage at her, be the cruel master she could make herself rebel against.

He does no such thing, of course.

“My poor Alice,” he croons, stroking the side of her face. “So little acquainted with the outside world.”

And whose fault is that? Alice wants to spit. If Aro hears the thought, he doesn’t react.

“If I had known you were suffering so, I would have had the Guard retrieve your mate long ago,” he assures, releasing her hand.

Dread settles in the pit of Alice’s stomach. “That’s not necessary, Master,” she pleads. “You’re…much too kind to me.” (Jane scoffs.) “Truly, I don’t need anything.” Please, please, please leave him be.

“On the contrary, dear one. Clearly I have neglected you for far too long.”

He crooks a finger, and Alice steps into the elevator. Demetri settles the cloak around her shoulders.

.

.

ok it’s very late and I’m slightly buzzed and you can’t even begin to understand how tempting it was to make demetri say “are you lost, babygirl”

[elsanna-shenanigans]

February Contest Submission #12: Life On Mars

words: ca. 3200 setting: Modern AU lemon: No cw: Angst, Horror Elements, Psychological Horror, Mindfuckery, Hospitals, Ancient Alien Wars

“Status update?”

“All systems nominal. Solar charge at 65%.”

Elsa looked at the screen through her glasses, the monitor displaying the rover’s current route as it made its way across the red planet. OLAV was due to be passing over an unexplored sector of the Syritis Major region of Mars today and there would no doubt be a lot of analysis and data gathering to be done. Their rover was going to be the first visitor from earth to visit this largely explored region of the red planet.

“Good, keep OLAV on his present course,” Elsa stated. “Let me know once it reaches the site.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Anna replied.

The blonde rolled her eyes. She never understood why Anna kept referring to the rover as if it was a living being. OLAV was a robot, a mindless automaton. It only knew what it was programmed to know. It wasn’t a true artificial intelligence like the ones from the science fiction movies Anna and her had both grown up with.

And yet, it was always rather cute when Anna did it. It was part of why she fell in love with her; Anna and her seemingly limitless ability to be warm and affectionate to those around her, even to a robot with no real life of its own. Elsa found that very endearing. She and Anna had been dating since college, and Elsa couldn’t have asked for anyone better to help her on this project. Working for NASA definitely was a dream come true.

Anna in particular had a hand in designing OLAV in the first place, even naming him after a cuddly snowman plushie she had back in their college days. Though of course, she justified it by clarifying OLAV stood for “Omnidirectional Lifeform Analysis Vehicle”. All the same, Elsa found it adorable.

Anna relaxed back in her chair, grinning. “So… what are the odds we’ll find life today?”

“Anna, I swear you ask that question every day,” Elsa remarked with a playful roll of her eyes.

“But it’s the question that has haunted scientists like us for centuries, Elsa,” Anna said honestly. “Is there life on Mars?

Elsa had to giggle, knowing Anna was partly quoting the David Bowie song. Her girlfriend was such a nerd and she adored her.

But so far, that particular question still hadn’t been answered. It was a known scientific fact that at one point Mars did once support a much more habitable climate, with vast lakes and rivers. However, the loss of its magnetic field had resulted in the planet becoming the red, lifeless desert it was today.

If there had been life at some point, it was probably only very basic. Some sort of bacteria or another microscopic organism. And yet, if anyone could prove that life had indeed existed on Mars at one point, it could prove that life wasn’t just confined to the little blue and green orb that was the Earth but was out there amongst the stars in all sorts of shapes and forms.

“He’s just coming up to the ridge now,” Anna said.

“How much solar charge has OLAV got left?” Elsa asked.

The redhead looked at her screen. “52%.”

“The steep incline will likely drain the power of the motors by quite a bit. As soon as the rover gets over the ridge, shut him down for the night. The sun is starting to go down.”

“Yeah, he’s earned a good night’s sleep,” Anna said with a smile. She then stared at another one of the screens, showing life camera footage from the rover. Every few seconds a new picture would appear, showing where the rover had travelled every few seconds.

So far, all Anna had seen from the pictures was red sand and large boulders as the rover travelled up the ridge. It was rather basic and yet… it had a certain beauty to it. A hellish beauty one might say.

Mars was a fascinating world, even if it was a vast desert that didn’t really have much variety in scenery. Anna and Elsa and the rest of their team were just merely the latest in a long line of scientists and scholars wanting to discover the secrets of the red planet.

“Think Mars would be a good place for a vacation?” Anna joked. “I mean, there’s lots of sun there. Bet I’d get a great tan.”

“Unless you prefer sunbathing at minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, I don’t think so,” Elsa replied flatly.

“Minus 80? Oh, that’s perfect for an ice queen like you.”

Elsa shot Anna a look and playfully nudged her girlfriend’s arm. “Oh shut it, you.”

Anna giggled. “Okay, okay, I guess that nickname has worn out its welcome.”

“It wore its welcome the week after you started calling me that back in college,” Elsa remarked.

“Well, you used to be so closed off when you were focused on your studies,” Anna retorted, smiling in nostalgia. “You got so into your work you practically cut off all contact with the outside world… and then you met me.”

Elsa smiled, blushing. She remembered fondly the days when Anna encouraged her to get out of their dorm room and get outside on their campus. Science had always been her passion, but she hadn’t truly felt love until she met Anna.

Leaning over, Elsa gave her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek. “Yes I did, and I couldn’t have been more thankful for anything else in my life.”

Anna giggled. “Should you really be making such comments to me here? We are supposed to be working right now.”

“Hey, I’m the project director here,” Elsa spoke with an air of faux haughtiness, upturning her nose slightly. “I think it gives me certain advantages.”

Anna giggled at that. Elsa smiled down at her. The two of them leaned in at that moment, almost kissing… and then something caught Anna’s eye. She blinked again, thinking whatever it was just a figment of her imagination, but no, there was indeed something unusual being projected on the screen.

“Wait… what’s that?” Anna asked.

She looked at the monitor with the live camera feed from the rover. In the corner of the screen, as the rover drove over the ridge, Anna saw a strange shape. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to be a natural rock formation, but it was still too far away for Anna to see.

“You see something?”

Anna nodded and pointed at the screen. “There, right there.”

Elsa pulled down her glasses, leaning in closer. “That looks like a rock.”

“No, I don’t think it is,” Anna said quietly, eyes on the screen in focus. “It seems taller than everything else, taller than any of those other boulders…”

“Hmmm… how much charge does OLAV have left?”

“He just dipped below 45.”

“That should be just enough to get a closer look before we shut down for the night,” Elsa stated. She got up and looked across to another one of the scientists in the control room. “Kristoff, make a course adjustment. Left by about 15 degrees.”

“You got it!” The blonde man called back.

Anna looked at her screen again, seeing the camera view shift slightly as the rover altered its course. For the next few moments, she felt her heart begin to race in her chest. Was the hunch she was having correct? Was this strange object the proof mankind had always been looking for? In the next few minutes, they’d know.

Putting her hand on Anna’s shoulder, Elsa gave her a concerned look. She didn’t like to see Anna stressed like this. “Hey, relax. It might just be a rock.”

“I know… but for some reason, I don’t want it to be,” Anna admitted.

Elsa smiled. “You’re a determined one, Anna Armstrong.”

Anna merely smiled, before looking at her screen again, and then her jaw dropped. As the rover drove up closer to the strange object, Anna could see that her hunch had been right. Standing before the rover was a strange, tall structure. It was a tall obelisk, its surface covered in strange alien runes and hieroglyphs.

As Anna stared at the screen, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Right in front of her eyes was the evidence everyone had been looking for, signs of alien life. But Anna never thought they’d find something like this, an alien relic from a forgotten time.

“What in the…”

Elsa blinked. “That’s…my god, that’s it! That’s what we’ve been looking for!”

There were hurried murmurs and whispers all through the control room as the other scientists saw the image of the obelisk on their screens from the camera feed. The rover was stopped in its tracks, the camera panning up and down, giving the team back on earth a good look at every inch of the strange monument.

“So… what exactly do we do at a moment like this?” Anna asked in wonderment.

“I… I’m not sure,” Elsa said, still awestruck by the fact they had found genuine proof of alien life. After all, how else could one describe what was essentially a stone obelisk built on the surface of Mars. But that’s what indeed it was. As Elsa looked at the markings, she wondered what they meant. A warning? Some prayer to a divine being?

Looking at the screen again, Anna gazed at the strange glyphs. She couldn’t begin to understand them, but the more she looked at them, the more they seemed to be… glowing. Each of the symbols seemed to be glowing a deep, vibrant red, like the colour of blood.

The red glow seemed almost mesmerising to Anna, completely hypnotic. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t look away. As she stared more and more at the strange obelisk, she started to hear whispers in her ear, voices that clearly were not human. Deep, hissing tones that unsettled her completely.

Suddenly, the symbols flashed an even brighter red, as Anna heard the voices start screaming in her ear. Images suddenly filled her mind. Those of a vast empire that spanned what seemed to be the entire cosmos, fleets of ships that travelled to every world, a Mars very different from the one she knew, one of lakes and plant life and a beautiful green sky. And then chaos. Black, monstrous creatures that descended from the heavens, destroying everything in their path.

Anna wanted so desperately to look away from the horrific imagery she was witnessing, of the civilisation, she was witnessing being slaughtered by the black creatures, their world being utterly devastated to the point there was nothing but a red lifeless desert in its wake. Anna screamed in pain, trying to force the images from her mind, but it was no use. Her eyes were glowing bright red with alien energy and were bleeding, as was her nose and ears.

“Anna!” Elsa cried out, rushing to Anna’s side. Her girlfriend grabbed her head, screaming in agony as the alien visions were burned into her mind. Elsa grabbed ahold of Anna, holding her close. She stared at the monitor, seeing the glowing red obelisk.

“Shut the monitors down!” Elsa yelled, alarmed. “Don’t look at the obelisk!”

The other scientists did just that, shutting down each one of the computers until the room was in complete darkness. Anna was still screaming though, suffering in agony. She screamed louder, her eyes glowing the same bright red as the alien glyphs, those same glyphs flashing across her eyeballs.

Elsa felt her heart shudder in her chest, as she watched Anna, holding her close. Nothing in her life had prepared her for anything like this.

“Someone get a doctor, now!”

xXx

It was about half an hour before the ambulance arrived and Anna still hadn’t stopped screaming. By the time Anna had gotten to the hospital, she’d lost consciousness, but fortunately, she was still alive. Throughout all of it, Elsa stayed with Anna for as long as she could.

The doctors hadn’t found anything wrong with Anna, aside from some rather odd brain activity. Elsa hadn’t told them the exact reason why Anna had ended up in this way, telling them she’d merely suffered a seizure. She knew most people wouldn’t understand the truth.

As she was making her way back to Anna’s room with a cup of tea in her hand, Elsa suddenly got a phone call from Kristoff. He’d stayed behind to watch things at the control centre while Elsa escorted Anna to the hospital. She sat down outside the room, picking up her phone.

“Kristoff?” Elsa asked.

“Elsa, thank goodness,” Kristoff said, relieved. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get through to you. Some major shit just went down at the lab.”

“What?” Elsa asked. “What happened?”

“Just after you left, these guys in black suits showed up. They confiscated everything on the computers, including all the data we received from the rover. I think they might have been the FBI or something. They swore everyone to secrecy. I didn’t tell them about you and Anna though.”

Elsa sighed. It seems not only were aliens real, but so were the men in black. But she had to remain calm. Even if those government agents had taken all her data, everything she’d spent most of her life working on, her biggest priority was Anna and her safety.

“Thank you for letting me know,” Elsa responded.

“I’m so sorry, Elsa,” Kristoff told her. “I feel like I should have done something to stop them.”

“You did what you could,” Elsa said softly. “I suggest you go home and get some rest. It’s been… a really long day.”

“I’ll do that,” Kristoff nodded. “How’s Anna doing?”

Looking through the nearby window into Anna’s room, Elsa saw her girlfriend lying on the bed, motionless with an IV tube stuck in her arm. It pained her to see Anna like this. This wasn’t the first time Anna had been in the hospital since she’d known her, but she hadn’t felt this worried about her before either.

“No change in her condition,” Elsa said quietly, glancing back at her comatose lover. “The doctors can’t really explain what happened to her.”

“Damn,” Kristoff said, his face creasing in sympathy. “Well, if she does wake up, tell her I said hi, will you.”

“Sure thing,” Elsa smiled. “See you later, big guy.”

After hanging up, Elsa walked into Anna’s room, closing the curtains on the window that looked out onto the hallway. As she sat by Anna’s bed, she reached over and held her lover’s hand softly, gazing at her unconscious form lying beside her.

The room in the hospital was quiet, save for the ambience of whatever was going on in the corridors outside. As Elsa looked at Anna, she felt tears swell in her eyes. She wasn’t a religious woman by any means, but at this moment, Elsa was praying to god for Anna to make it.

Though as the hours ticked by, Elsa began to wonder if her love would ever awaken. It was at that point that Elsa started to blame herself. She was in charge of the mission and she should have stopped the rover before it approached that obelisk or perhaps she should have chosen a different route for the rover to take.

But at that point, Elsa realised that blaming herself wasn’t going to do anything, nor could she have predicted that something like this would have happened. What had been done was done and nothing could change that. All she could do now was keep hoping that all would be well again, that Anna would wake up.

Her prayers were answered.

“Elsa…” Anna croaked, barely above a whisper.

Elsa’s eyes widened, gazing at the redhead as she finally awakened from her unconsciousness. She held Anna’s hand tighter, staring into her eyes. “Anna!”

Anna looked up at her lover, her teal eyes fluttering open weakly. “W-What… Where am I?”

“In the hospital,” Elsa explained. “That weird obelisk we found on Mars did something to you. I… I was worried for a moment that you might…”

“I… I’m okay,” Anna assured her, weakly raising her hand and stroking Elsa’s cheek. The blonde sighed and touched Anna’s hand, resting her head against it.

“Do you… Do you remember what happened when you saw those glyphs?” Elsa asked. “All I saw was you looking at them and then you started screaming.”

“I… I remember now,” Anna groaned. “Oh fuck… it was horrible…”

“Easy,” Elsa placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Relax for a moment, snowflake. Just take it one step at a time. Everything is going to be okay now.”

After Anna got a drink, she explained everything to Elsa. All the images she’d seen, the voices, how horrible it all felt. Elsa couldn’t begin to fathom what Anna had seen… but she was just glad that Anna had been strong enough to recover from it, a testament to her spirit.

But the whole affair had clearly taken its toll on her girlfriend. Every time she spoke, Elsa didn’t feel that sense of joy and excitement she usually got from Anna. It was as if the Anna she knew and love was gone and what was left was just an empty, emotionless shell.

“What do you think it all was?” Anna wondered.

“Well if I had to make a guess, I’d say when you looked at the glyphs, that obelisk must have telepathically beamed those images into your mind.”

“It all… It all looked so real,” Anna said, her voice still shaking. “It’s like it was a dream and yet I felt like I was really there on Mars, watching it all.”

“We probably won’t be able to tell anyone about this,” Elsa told her. “Apparently, the FBI or someone like them went to the control centre just after I left with you and took all our data.”

“What the hell?” Anna wondered. “Elsa… We need to tell people about this. This is big, really big.”

“I know, but if we try, the government will likely have us arrested,” Elsa argued.

“But people need to be told about this!” Anna shouted. “During those visions… when I saw the Martians get slaughtered… I saw these giant black monsters attacking them from space. I.. I couldn’t help but feel like those things wouldn’t have stopped at Mars.”

Elsa’s eyes widened. “Anna… what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I have this weird gut feeling that whatever destroyed Mars… might still be out there,” she then looked out of the window. “And… they might be watching us here and now… and one day, they might come to wipe us out too. And we have to be ready for them if they do.”

Elsa held Anna’s hand. “That won’t happen, Anna. Not as long as I’m around.”

“You promise?”

Elsa nodded, taking Anna’s hands and leaning in. The two of them touched foreheads and Anna sighed, welcoming Elsa’s loving, tender embrace.

“I promise. Whatever happens, we’ll face it… together.”

[dopescotlandwarrior]

Beauty Chooses II- Chapter 9

My thanks to @statell​ for making my stories flow.

Previous chapters at AO3

Chapter Nine-Recovery and Truth

Each day Jamie had more and more strength and focus. I would leave him to check on the others and take one of the horses out for a ride. When I returned, and after a hot shower, he would breathe in the aroma of my shower gel and cuddle me to him.

“Ye miss bein clean and perfumed, do ye not?”

“Yes, that is the only thing I really miss about 1745.” I looked in his eyes, “I got used to it Jamie and it didn’t bother me that much.”

“If we go back lass, I’ll build ye a proper bathtub so ye can use it daily if ye want.”

I had not spoken yet of going back. Jamie was still weak and I wasn’t sure how the conversation would go. I was pulled back to a time and place that was beautiful and I wanted that. I was tempted to stay in this time because my family, Joe and Baritone, were here and it was safe. It didn’t seem possible without identification for the adults and no birth record for Faith. Four adults don’t just materialize without a history, so it seemed impossible to stay in this time. The only way it was working so well was because we were out in the country with lots of land between us and the world. I wanted to wait until I had made up my own mind and avoided the discussion once again.

When Jamie fell asleep in the afternoon, Joe asked if I wanted to see Fiona and I jumped up from my chair and was pulling him and Baritone out the door. I was so excited to see her and tell her all that had happened. When we walked into the B&B, the smells brought me back and my eyes burned with tears. I searched for her, finally seeing her wide eyes and open mouth, staring at me. I ran to her and embraced the woman who taught me so much.

“Claire…what’s happened…how are ye back lass? I am so shocked!”

She hugged the boys and pulled us to a couch to get her answers. I explained, in short form, how we got back, a bit about Jamie being kidnapped and forced to fight in the uprising and how Joe saved his life.

“Excuse me Claire but did ye say the Dunn Bonnet is here, in this time, now?”

“Yes, he is at Lallybroch, recovering. Fiona, are you alright?”

Her flushed face and rapid breathing was concerning to me and I held her hands while she tried to answer.

“The Dunn….the Dunn….here…now.”

“This is just a bit of hero worship I think. He is larger than life Fiona. You must meet him,” Joe said chuckling.

“Claire, if you could set a date, I will contact my sisters and tell them he will be here. It would mean so much to them after spending their adult lives at the stones twice a year for his benefit. Would that be possible?”

She almost whispered her last question and I felt the enormity of Jamie’s influence on all their lives. It rocked me to the core. “Of course I will, I can call you with the date.”

We spent a glorious hour catching up and I promised to bring Jamie and Faith as soon as I could. I clung to her as we left, hoping to spend more time than just quick visits. She was very special to me.

I thought about Master Raymond on the way back to Lallybroch. Joe told me about restarting his heart after his trip through the stones, his torture and most of his skin burned off. If he knew that would be his fate then he walked taller than anyone I knew, except Jamie. We were unable to find any information about him and I was so sorry I would not have the opportunity to thank him.

The days passed, Jamie continued to recover, the weather was warm and beautiful, and the household was happy. Murtagh had repaired the entire fence and fortified a sectioned off pasture for the horses to enjoy the days outside. When Jamie walked to the barn, he would hug Donus for so long I feared my throat would rupture from my choking heart. Soon after, it was Jamie’s duty to tend the horses, always with the company of Murtagh or me, just in case.

Misses Crook still had not risked a ride in the jeep, so we left her behind with a resting Jamie when we went exploring. I always felt bad for her. When we had returned alive and well so many times, I begged her to take a ride with me and pulled her to the jeep. She looked up at the seat and then at me. I was quick to start the jeep and pull it around to a large rock, then I assisted her climb into the seat. She giggled a couple of times and I thought I heard some excitement in her voice. Once she was buckled in, I started slowly and watched her for a coming meltdown. She was doing fine, so we drove around the estate so she could see other farms and automobiles. She handled it so well I pulled off the road and dropped it into four-wheel-drive so we could bounce back to the house. She had so much fun, laughing and pointing, which was evident by her hair coming undone and flying around her face.

She was teased mercilessly by everyone for being so brave. Only Jamie was quiet and thoughtful, I wondered what was troubling him. Later in the evening, I asked him.

“I dinna need an automobile,” he said slowly to get the word correctly. “I have Donus to take me.”

“The druid sisters performed the ritual at the stones twice a year since they were eighteen years old. For you, Jamie, for your promise. They kept the stones open so we could be together again. They are standing by to fly halfway around the world, some of them, just to see you.”

“I know of no one in this century Claire, I think ye have it wrong lass.”

“Your story, well our story, has been passed from mother to daughter for two and half centuries. The ritual was required on every solstice to keep the stones open until one day we would find each other again.”

I knew he didn’t fully believe, but he saw how I was shot out the stone right after watching Master Raymond melt into it. I hoped he would feel gratitude at the very least and want to meet the sisters based on that.

“You will need to take a ride to see the sisters Jamie.”

“I’ll no be goin then.”

He walked away before I could utter a strangulated word. He was scared of the jeep I figured, and the sisters were getting impatient. I would have to trick him with my Ace in the hole, Faith.

I called Fiona with a date to meet the sisters in eight days. She was thrilled and hurried off the phone to dial the string of sisters waiting for the call. Jamie would eye the beastly jeep each time he walked to the barn but had no change of heart.

On the day we were to meet Fiona I packed a picnic lunch so Jamie and I could take Faith into the fresh air and enjoy a day in the sun. We ate while our beautiful daughter walked from one to the other handing us food and squealing in delight when it was eaten.

I sighed deeply and told no one in particular that I was worried about Faith on the drive to Edinburgh.

“I do hope you don’t fall out of the jeep sweet one. You must remember to hold on tight, especially around corners. Alright?”

I started to get up, telling Jamie to have a lovely nap and then picked Faith up and walked toward the jeep. He was in front of me in seconds like a human wall blocking my way.

“Jamie please, we have to go.” I tried walking around him and he jumped into the jeep, arms out for his daughter. It took all my strength not to click my heels as I moved to the other side and climbed in. I said nothing, knowing Jamie would calm down after a few minutes of driving if he was not dead yet. He held Faith to him and spoke soothingly to her, thinking she was as scared as he was. When the jeep hit a pothole, Faith squealed with delight and laughed uncontrollably. There is something about a baby’s hysterical laughter that breaks the bonds of fear. Each time the jeep bounced Jamie and Faith lost themselves in giggles.

When we walked into the B&B, the living room was packed with sisters. On the couches and chairs and taking up most of the floor. You could hear a pin drop as Jamie stood in front of them. Fiona rushed out with a chair for each of us and I nursed Faith while the questions were respectfully asked, one after the other. Jamie was generous with his answers and even teased some of them because of their questions. It went on and on. The hero-worship in the room was palpable and guests would hush as they walked through, sensing someone great was in the room. Faith slept in my arms while I also answered questions about Master Raymond and how I got us back to this time. I told every detail about my passage and honestly admitted I would not have made it without the aid of our parents who came from the other side to assist me. “I could feel the hunger and desire to feast on flesh and heard the screams of the damned.” There was a warning in my answers, not to treat the stones as benevolent portals to another world.

Jamie let each sister touch him before we left, and I hugged Fiona as she thanked us. She was the last to hug Jamie and her eyes were shining brightly when she let him go. It was a fairly somber goodbye, and as we headed back to Lallybroch there was little talking.

“Sassenach, there needs to be more bouncing.”

“I looked at Jamie and Faith, both bored with the ride back. I engaged the four-wheel drive and took the uncivilized way home, across the fields, through the washes, climbing hills and dipping suddenly like a roller coaster. It was the most fun I ever had in a vehicle.

Faith and her father slept deeply for the next two hours making me hope for some peace to join my husband when I felt hands on both sides of me. Joe and Baritone kidnapped me for a walk in the woods. It was delightful as I pointed out where Jamie and I slid down the hill with bad men at every door waiting to take me into the hills. My tree where Jamie found me nearly frozen to death. We walked to the Grant house, nearly crumbled to the ground, showing only the chimney and one wall. We sat on an outcropping of rock, Joe passed out cans of juice, and the three of us spent time together like the old days. It was wonderful.

Returning to Lallybroch we could smell the rich aromas coming from the kitchen and quickened our pace. When we were all enjoying a lovely meal that Misses Crook made, I asked Joe how he was able to make all the improvements to the house in only two years. He sat back and smiled at Baritone rubbing his full stomach.

“My boy Baritone is in the big leagues, you know? He does half the shows and makes triple the money now that he’s in print. When my residency started he got bored from too much time alone, so he took over the improvements.”

My mouth hung open because I never knew Baritone could do half of this work. He was laughing with his hands up like he wanted to stop me.

“I hired a lot of it out, especially the windows and the painting, so don’t worship me quite yet. I started staying here when the bathrooms were being built and I’d lay on the only bed and wonder where you were in the house. It was a trip.”

I was very touched by that comment and my heart grew for this man if that were even possible. I thanked him for his hard work and for thinking of me.

By August, Jamie was riding Donus, slowly, and his face looked boyish again, grinning and speaking his special language to the horse. I watched his hair blow in the wind and let his ice blue eyes pierce my heart shooting sparklers into my core. I wanted him, in a big way. If he could ride Donus then he could certainly ride me. I put a plan together in my head and disappeared to my bathtub filling it with COCO bubbles that turned the volume up on my arousal. It was time to be a girl again, and that started with shaving everything, something I hadn’t done in two years.

I looked at my body in the mirror and saw my flat stomach had returned but my ass was a bit more fleshy as were my boobs. I covered myself in body oil and blew out my hair before retrieving my shortest shorts and the tight sleeveless shirt that went with them. The shirt stopped several inches above the shorts and the lower globes of my ass hung out. It looked like bumming around in sleep clothes while pulling the eye to all that’s important. At least that is what the saleswoman told me. I had nursed Faith to sleep and pulled the quilt almost off the bed, laying back I pretended to read my book.

“There ye are Sassenach, I’ve been lookin for ye, to ah… see about a walk tonight. But, ah, I see yer readin and ah… probably ready for bed.”

“Hmm?”

“Nothin mo chridhe. I am goin under the water. What is that smell, it’s so good and reminds me of somethin.”

I dared not look up at him or he would have seen my arousal and I was pretty sure his interest was piqued. When the water turned off, I watched him walk through the bathroom with a towel on his head. I was stuck on his expansive chest, thick thighs and flat stomach. Jamie Fraser there is little you can do to stop me tonight. When he dropped into bed, I felt him lean over and look at my book.

“Sassenach, what are ye readin?”

I had a moment of panic that the book was upside down and quickly closed it and fake yawned. Jamie was laid out naked next to me and I thought I might combust looking at him. Obviously, this would need more than a hint.

“I can’t sleep in this heat.” I used my best complaining voice and pulled the little shirt over my head. Then I got up to open the window and stood there filling my lungs with the cool night air. I was praying that Jamie would get stuck on my butt and turned around piling my hair on my head like I was still heated. Jamie was mute and looked like a fourteen-year-old seeing boobs for the first time.

“Leave it, lass,” he croaked. “If it gets cold in the night I’ll close it.” He patted the bed beside him and I exaggerated the swing of my hips walking back to the bed, feeling my breasts move with each step. I swung my leg over Jamie’s body to land next to him and stretched languidly. I felt like I was back in that barn with Jamie, a virgin, trying to lure him to me. He was staring at me but not making a move to touch me, so I ran my hand down his leg and back up his inner thigh.

“Goodnight love.” He turned out the light and exhaled a ragged breath. I gave up in frustration and closed my eyes to sleep. It was sometime later I felt his warm hand move up my stomach and cover my breast. I didn’t move even when he turned the light back on, very low. I took a deep breath and stretched but kept my eyes closed. He continued to touch me; I could not quiet my pounding heart any longer, so I looked at him. He was watching his hand move over my skin like a starving man.

“Wake up love, I need ye.”

His mouth came down on mine and moved quickly to my breast as he pulled my shorts off and pushed my legs apart. He kissed me again and moved between my legs, pushing into me with a grunt. I felt white-hot pain as he moved in and out, heard his loud breathing in my ear, and then he stiffened for thirty seconds, dropping back to my side.

I couldn’t believe it. My Jamie was the most generous lover before and never pleased himself before pulling at least one orgasm out of me. He laid next to me like a lump and did not reach for me. I rolled to my side and swallowed the hurt that was growing exponentially. When I heard him snoring I lost it.

For the next several days I went into my head and stayed away from everybody. If Jamie spoke to me, I gave one-word answers and left the room. He would ask me what was wrong, and I ignored him. The hurt had not left me, so I took long walks in the evening and tried to imagine what had changed him so much. On one of those nights, Joe snuck up and fell into step with me.

“Care to share Pet?”

“No.”

"C’mon, I can’t pretend to sleep over so I can listen to you talk in your sleep. I doubt Jamie would appreciate me laying on the floor while you two got into bed.”

“He wouldn’t notice anyway.”

“Is he still too weak to take you to the stars?”

“He rides Donus for hours and hardly naps anymore.”

“Has he tried?”

“He is very capable but he …”

The silent minutes ticked by as I tried to think of a way to explain it.

“Is it safe to say it’s different now and you don’t like it?”

“Yes.”

“You know Pet, that part of a man, ejaculation, is controlled by the ancient part of the brain. For thousands of years, the way humans had sex was quick, sometimes brutal, and done, rollover, or walk away. It was even selected for in evolution. Those that were quick lived another day.”

“Are you saying Jamie has de-evolved into a cave man?”

“Kind of. He suffered wounds I have never seen before, left for dead on a battlefield he wanted no part of, and was left at Lallybroch, for how long no one knows. And then he expired, luckily within seconds or minutes of us finding him. I’m not sure what that does to a man, but my guess is it’s really big. Jamie is not the same man right now but maybe he could be. It’s obvious he still loves you. My guess is he will remember in time and those skills in lovemaking will come back to him. Or, you could teach him.”

“Teach him?”

“Well, you were the little hussy that took his virginity. How did you show him then?”

“How do you know I taught him anything?” I was feeling defensive. “Maybe he learned it from porn.”

“Not in 1743 Pet.”

I felt empty inside and turned around to go back. I just wanted to be alone, but Joe’s suggestion was bouncing through my head like a pinball. When we neared the house, Joe pulled my head to him and kissed my temple.

“Good luck Pet,” and he walked to the back of the house where his bedroom was.

I closed the house up and turned all the lights off before going upstairs to Jamie. I took my time in the shower and moved over him naked to take my place for sleeping. He was awake, waiting for me it seemed. The second I was laying down he pulled my hips and to get on top of me. I pushed his hand away in disgust and his persistence made something in me snap.

I rolled toward him, pushing him onto his back and straddled him. He stared at me and I moved my hands up my stomach and cupped my breasts, squeezing them and pinching my nipples. With him under me, even with my hurt feelings, I felt the heat coming and moved my pelvis side to side feeling him grow under me. He was transfixed watching my finger in my mouth, shiny with saliva, slip into my fold and move against my clit. I was breathing heavily, getting closer to the prize when he grabbed my wrists and shoved them behind my back.

I watched him suck on my nipples and felt his hand under me.

“Release me please, let me show you.”

I pressed his fingers into me, slowly, and he watched me react to the stimulus. I knew he was ready and so was I. When I moved to put him inside of me, he flipped me to the bed and finished in under a minute. He was asleep before my head cleared.

This was unacceptable. I got up and walked to the barn where I leaned against Brimstone and cried. When I started yawning, I laid down on hay bales and fell asleep feeling tears continue down my cheeks.

Jamie opened the barn door at six in the morning and I jumped up startled. He looked so innocent and happy to see me, but I was too full of his brutish behavior from seven hours ago. I walked past him without greeting and went back to our room to lay down. I held my stomach and rocked myself back to sleep.

Jamie continued to talk to me, and I continued to give one-word answers and avoid him. I would read in a chair until he fell asleep at night and then sleep in the barn. There just wasn’t another room in the house where I could hide from him. So he startled me awake every morning to receive my cold shoulder. It was starting to affect him. He pretty much stopped talking to any of us and went through his day robotically as my heart broke even more. When Joe couldn’t pull him out of himself at dinner I found him holding his bedroom door open and pointing into it after dinner.

I was done being shy or modest with Joe. My husband was hurting, I was hurting, and neither of us knew what to do about it. I told Joe what happened and that I stopped sleeping with Jamie because I didn’t like being raped.

“I’ve hardly spoken to him this week and he finds me sleeping in the barn every morning, so I suppose he’s sad about that.”

“When you see him do you feel happy, in love?”

“For fleeting seconds and then I remember and my heart turns to stone. The last few days he has seemed so lost that I hurt for him, no matter what he’s done. If I’m nice to him he will hurt me again. I don’t know what to do,” I said miserably.

“The first thing you do is stop the progression of hurt, Pet. Jamie has an issue right now but you two love each other and it’s not a normal love, it’s enviable. I have a friend in his psych residency. Give me some time to speak to him about this and we can formulate a plan to keep you safe and loving. Don’t cry Pet. Put your faith in eternal love and remember to call me an idiot every now and then. It’s been awhile.”

I hugged Joe for all I was worth and felt better after my honest disclosure. Joe was the smartest man I knew, and he was going to help. I bounced up the steps and ran smack into Jamie hearing him gasp. I wrapped my arms around him and suggested we take a ride this morning. He looked worried and I pulled him to a couch.

“I’m sorry for being so cold to you this week Jamie. I am working out stuff in my head and I didn’t mean to hurt you. Can we enjoy some time alone to relax and reconnect, so I can tell you how proud I am of you, and how happy I am to be your wife?”

“Aye, lass, thank ye.”

Misses Crook had stopped Glavia from leaving the kitchen when she saw Claire and Jamie talking together. She pointed to the back staircase and prayed for the lovers under her charge.

I walked into the barn an hour later and Jamie looked up at me so sweetly. His smile made him look ten years younger and I remembered him before Culloden. His excitement was contagious, and we mounted the horses for a fun ride through the woods. We were approaching the stream and he suggested letting the horses drink a bit. The cool water on my face felt amazing.

“Time to go Sassenach, I want to show ye something.”

I smiled at his happiness and watched him swing up on Donus without the use of the stirrup. I giggled at that feat.

“Why didn’t you mount Son of Satan like that when he kept moving away from you?”

“Who?”

“The red horse you broke for Murtagh..” It felt like the air was suddenly sucked out of my lungs watching Jamie’s confusion. He didn’t remember.

“Come lass. Ye must see my surprise.”

I could hardly believe what was happening and my head spun until he told me to look up. There in front of us was the remains of the cottage. He described who built it and why, like I had never been here before. He remembered none of our time here and I clutched my saddle to stay on Brimstone. I turned toward home and pushed Brimstone into a trot. I was done with this excursion that broke my heart. I needed to speak to Joe.

Jamie was looking hurt again as he rode next to me and I apologized for leaving abruptly and said I wasn’t feeling well. His hurt turned to concern and pushed Donus into an easy lope with Brimstone happy to follow.

“I’ll put the horses up. You go see Joe and let him doctor ye.”

Normally I would have kissed him in that moment. Instead, I smiled and thanked him. Once out of sight I ran to Joe’s room and pounded for him to let me in. He opened the door and I rushed past him speaking a mile a minute.

“He doesn’t remember Joe, he just took me to see places we have spent enormous amounts of time at. He was showing me for the first time. He doesn’t remember Murtagh’s old horse that he broke.

My voice was losing its volume like I didn’t want to say the words. I sat down, shaking from the shock of it, and looked at my feet.

“He told me a month ago that he loved who I was in 1745 and he loved the woman I was here more. How could he know that if he didn’t remember me then?”

Joe told me to stay put and a minute later he placed a glass of whisky in my hand, toasted me, and threw his back watching me to do the same. He poured us another and sat on a chair across from me, thinking.

“Poor Jamie.”

“Why do you say that?” I was terrified asking the question.

“Okay Pet, all the pieces are falling into place. It’s not a terrible thing, although it probably feels like it to Jamie. It might explain the changes in intimacy as well. Have you heard of battlefield PTSD?”

Joe explained his theory that Jamie had large gaps in his memory caused by trauma, both physical and emotional. Under perfect circumstances, some of his memory would come back over time but he required a stress-free, healing environment. In short, he needed to be loved and free to heal his mind.

“That means sleeping in the same bed Pet. No talk of going back for an extended period of time, I would say at least a year. I’m sorry, I know you want that life again, but it will have to wait, it’s too risky.”

Later, I wandered around the house letting the reality sink in before finding Jamie. I wanted to present a calm port in the storm to him and put my hurt feelings away. They didn’t belong here anymore.

He was sitting on the side of our bed staring into space when I walked in. Something he did a lot of since his recovery. I wanted to cry at the way he looked at me. A mixture of happiness and fear I would not love him anymore. The stupid tears came; I pushed them away and sat next to Jamie.

“Joe says I will be fine once I rest a bit and I was wondering if you would rest with me, so I know you're here, next to me? Sometimes I wake up afraid that you’ve gone away and I can’t go back to sleep.”

I sobbed and he held me close, leaning us back to lay down.

“I am here always Sassenach, right next to ye. Sleep in my arms lass.”

Jamie held Claire while she slept. He knew there were things she didn’t tell him but decided not to press her. Things between them had been strained and cold for the past two weeks and he did not want to risk that again. So he let it be. When she started to mumble, he was still awake and heard every word.

“hurt me… brute hurt… cottage…so old now, remember me.”

He burned the words into his memory hoping to understand them in the future. One thing was clear, someone had hurt the Sassenach and he felt that burden deep inside.

When the September winds blew, we all spent less time outside and our evenings were spent together playing with Faith, reading, or sewing. Baritone was gone for extended periods when he had a show and Joe was acting a bit restless, maybe from missing Baritone. Laying on the floor with Faith one evening it hit me like a smack in the face. I asked Joe to talk with me and we went to his room where I started pulling his drawers open and pulling suitcases from the closet.

“Pet? What’s got into you?”

“You are leaving and I am helping you pack sweetheart. Now, which drawers are yours?”

“You aren’t the boss of me,” he said playfully, “so come sit and talk.”

I looked at him with all the love I felt and recalled the huge sacrifice he had made when we came here, so needy, so sick, so lost without him.

“I don’t know how you will resume your residency at Oxford, but I know for certain that it’s time you do. You have been my hero these past months. You saved Jamie’s life, you gave me strength and stability, you provided everything we needed. It’s time for you to go now.”

He touched my cheek and just looked at me for a minute, then he slowly shook his head yes.

I did what laundry he had while he packed his clothes, medical equipment, and books, putting one book back on the nightstand, like a promise he would be back. He made flight arrangements for the next day and then sat down and exhaled.

I sat in his lap and put my head on his shoulder. He told me the jeep was mine because he bought it from the rental company months ago. He had opened a checking account in my name and loaded it with fifty-thousand dollars asking if I wanted more. He had started these preparations knowing he had to return to his program. No wonder he was restless.

The next day I clung to Joe at the kitchen door where a taxi was waiting. I cried and hugged him one more time, and then we all waved goodbye. He looked straight into my eyes as the taxi pulled away making me cry again. I had left Joe once, at the stones, but since the day we met, he had never left me. Jamie pulled me into a hug, reminding me Joe was only a couple hours away and we would still have Baritone for long visits. I looked up and smiled at his sparkling eyes determined to lighten the mood.

“Suppose you show me what you have been working on in the barn?”

“Not yet, give me one hour and all will be ready.”

Jamie had locked himself away in the barn asking everyone but Murtagh to stay away so he could surprise us. I hadn’t seen Murtagh in two weeks because he was helping a neighbor build a garage. He came back for Jamie’s project and I was anxious to see it. I got lost in playing with Faith’s toys until I heard Misses Crook calling me.

I stood in the kitchen and looked at a large ancient wagon. There was a box seat build from new wood with a foot platform, just like the carriages of our time. Jamie walked Brimstone out of the barn and Murtagh attach the yolk and side rails pulling the long reins over her back and winding them onto the hand break. I could not believe my eyes.

“What’s he doin with that thing?”

“I don’t know Misses Crook, but I think we need Glavia to see this.”

Now we were all standing at the window watching Jamie and Murtagh smile excitedly. Jamie opened the door and asked us if we wanted to take a ride. He took his precious daughter and she picked up on his excitement making her smile. We came around the wagon which was full of straw and Jamie told us to hop in, we were going for a ride. Murtagh was driving so we piled in. None of us could see over the side of the wagon so Jamie whistled to stop Murtagh and jumped out. The hammers came out and the top two boards were pulled off the wagon opening up the view.

Jamie pulled me to his chest and Faith stood between my legs as we lurched forward. It didn’t take long for the wagon to bounce into holes in the terrain as it rambled along. Faith laughed nonstop and got the rest of us going, even Murtagh. It was a thoroughly enjoyable time we spent rolling along the countryside laughing and waving at anyone we saw.

It was getting dark when Murtagh pulled into Lallybroch and set the brake. We all piled out while Jamie and Murtagh unhitched the wagon and freed Brimstone. I hooked my arms around both of their necks, kissing Murtagh on the cheek and Jamie on the mouth.

“That was an exceptional surprise you guys. Thank you.”

The following weekend I decided on a surprise of my own and slipped away in the jeep to purchase what I hoped would be something to give lasting pleasure. I tried to find movies that would show the succession of time and found Marie Antoinette, Napoléon and the French revolution, the American Revolution, Gone With The Wind, and several old westerns showing the lawless towns and the Indian plight. It will be a long winter, and this would keep everyone busy and learning some history. I picked up porterhouse steaks and vegetables for grilling on the way back. Baritone would be home tonight so we would celebrate his return while the poor man will push his plate away.

Returning home, I set Jamie and Murtagh on the project of digging a pit to cook food over setting a bag of charcoal and a grate from the stove where they were working. I checked twice, shaking my head side to side and showing how much deeper it needed to be. They were being funny and mock complaining, but I know how to make an ancient Scot happy, put a shovel in his hands.

I showed Misses Crook how to prepare the vegetables for grilling and we had a pile of broccoli, large carrots, Onions quartered, and full Portobello mushroom caps ready. We wrapped large potatoes with butter and foil to be set down into the coals thirty minutes before the steaks.

I heard a commotion in the kitchen and ran in to welcome Baritone home. I sat in his room while he unpacked, and we gossiped about the shows and everyone I remembered. I knew he missed Joe, but he would be joining his love in London next week and be just as bored as he was here.

We feasted that night and enjoyed the last of the Indian summer. I wished we had a large table outside and Baritone asked me how long? How wide? I wondered if he could make a large picnic table and changed my wish to a table outside next spring.

We would all need warm clothes, jackets, scarves, and gloves so Baritone and I spent a day in Edinburgh buying out the thrift stores. Fiona had been collecting warm clothes from her vast network of friends in Edinburgh, so we stopped there on our way back. It was a Saturday afternoon and the sky was dark with fat clouds. She had a roaring fire in the main room and treated us to hot cocoa and a talk. While Baritone made trip after trip with all the clothing, Fiona took my hand and looked into my eyes.

“Have faith dear Claire. The sadness ye feel will no last.”

Was it that obvious I wondered? Jamie must see it too and that was unfortunate. I waited for him to mention something that would tell me he had gained some of his memory back, but it hadn’t happened yet.

Misses Crook and Glavia plowed through the mountain of clothing while I pulled pieces for Jamie and Murtagh. The blankets would be used to fortify Misses Crooks two dresses, and there were so many cute outfits, coats, and boots for Faith I was delighted. It was all thrown into load after load of wash as the snow started to fall outside. Everyone was at the big window in the parlor watching the heavy flakes fall like a silent blanket of white as far as the eye could see.

[marcuspedersen-nz]

1- Time Crime

(by Christopher Jones)

The year was 2040, nine years after the bust. They had called it the new El Dorado during the boom, but what could they call it now? Greymouth: the open orifice of a corpse humming to the tune of its own death rattle. It was a city trying to hold onto, yet somehow forget, the glory of years gone by; to settle at last to humble death, while the last of its flesh was consumed by collectors, as debtors made a hasty exit, and all those who had come to ride the wave were gone, leaving an overweight economy and too many high-rise buildings to sustain its rotting core.

I arrived during the tumult of a spring storm. There was quite some turbulence but the air hostesses didn’t seem very worried, and that was good enough for me. The one on my aisle was very made up, with tight blonde hair, a sweet chubby face and her skirt came down to just below her knees. They say that when it rains here it really rains, but they also say you get used to it. The pilot had to circle three times waiting for a window of visibility before finally bringing the DC-20 down to land.

I met my rental car agents outside the terminal building. I had ordered a manual four-wheel drive, apparently the only one in town. The mainstream companies which crowded the interior dealt only in the new generation of foolproof automatics, and besides there was a limited supply of large vehicles without prior notice. I knew what I would need, so I looked around on the internet until I hooked up with these guys, Smack Car Rentals, and at the last minute arranged for them to meet me at the airport. Before going outside into the din of the weather I let my local contact, Police Inspector Jack Martin, know that I had arrived. He gave me the address of where to meet him.

The dark day was just coming onto dusk, and I waited there for a moment sheltered from the rain by the large overhead canopy until a small silver Suzuki Swift drove up. A tall, handsome man of about 30 got out, quite a flashy type with black hair and dark brown eyes. He introduced himself as Paul Bartley, “We spoke on the phone, Mr Jones. Sorry about the delay,” he said, putting my cases into the back and opening the passenger’s door for me to enter, “Your Range Rover is at the office. I need to check you in.” It was here that I felt the first inexplicable glitch, like a shudder through my reality that showed I wasn’t there by accident. This was no false alarm.

I got in and he said as the car drove towards the CBD, “I’d apologise for the weather, Mr Jones, but it’s beyond the powers of my control. This is the West Coast, after all.”

“Yes,” I nodded, “It’s a narrow strip of land between the coast and the Southern Alps. When the prevailing westerly comes off the ocean loaded with water, it hits the mountains and dumps its load, leaving the east in drought while the west has more rain than it can handle.” He laughed as though I had told some kind of joke, so I added, “Call me Chris.”

The office on Mackay Street was one of several on the second floor of an old two storey building standing between taller, shakier buildings built during the 2020s. It was accessed by a narrow flight of steps which took us up to a shabby lobby with several doors to various offices. The sign above the door we entered read, “PPS Bartley Real Estate, Smack Car Rentals and P. Bartley Detective Agency”. He indicated for me to stand at a counter which was obviously used for the car rental side of the business, “Would you like tea or coffee?” he offered, and I shook my head.

Looking at the real estate display board, I noticed one property stand out from the others. It had a note saying, “Serious Viewers Only. No Tourists!” which piqued my curiosity. I then recognised the red shed on the photo from my research files as being the location of one of the Blondino murders. The thought of that recognition gave me a second inexplicable glitch; a feeling like déjà vu. I asked, “How is the real estate business doing these days?”

“It’s a good time to buy,” he said, “People shy away from a market in a slump, but think about it. You wouldn’t buy your groceries like that, would you? You wouldn’t wait till prices rocketed before you rushed down to the supermarket. No, you’d grab what you could while everything’s on sale. So why treat real estate any different? There are plenty of good bargains to be had around here.”

“What about this one?” I asked.

“That’s the Thompson property; a real bargain. If you’re interested, come back tomorrow when the office is open and we’ll talk business. You honestly could not go wrong.”

He entered my details into the computer, such as driver’s licence and credit card numbers, and printed off some papers for me to sign just in time for a second, younger man to enter. “It’s all fuelled and ready to go. I’ve put your cases on the back seat,” he said, he looked so similar to Paul Bartley that he was obviously his younger brother. He wasn’t quite so flashy and he wore a wedding band. He handed me the key attached to a bright orange key-ring with the Smack logo on it and said, “Diesel only. It’s just outside.” So I looked nonchalantly at the window as the rain came crashing down even harder, and bade them farewell.

I set the navigator to Power Road and pulled out from the curb. The good thing about cars of the era before everything became self-driving was that you felt like you were actually driving, and not simply a passenger in the driver’s seat. Even by 2040 the majority of cars practically drove themselves, but they weren’t fully driverless so it kind of made you feel like you were there but not there. Of course they already had the technology for self-driving but public suspicion had pushed for legislation that prevented its general implementation. Only vehicles that used special lanes such as freight and taxi were permitted to be driverless.

I took a left on Tainui Street, up past the traffic lights at the railway crossing, and turned right at the roundabout. After a few kilometres Tainui Street became High Street, and the rain eased off to a trickle. It was already full night. I passed the Oasis Hotel on my left, which I was booked into but would check in later, and proceeded for another 3.2 kilometres before turning left onto Power Road as the navigator directed. I drove up a steep hill to the house at number 32, where there was a police cordon in place. A modified white Camry and a standard patrol car with flashing lights awaited there for my arrival.

Reaching into my case for the gaga meter I noticed an umbrella on the back seat, so I decided to make use of it. There were four men, two in uniform and two detectives, standing beside the Camry. They took notice of me as I got out, clutching the meter, fumbling about with the umbrella which didn’t seem to want to open. It came up all of a sudden and almost sent me tripping over my own feet. The detectives walked over to greet me, putting out their hands and the older, obviously more senior of the two said, “I’m Police Inspector Jack Martin, this is Police Inspector David Walton. You must be Special Agent Christopher Jones.” I gave him and his partner the firm handshakes they wanted, showed them my badge, and Jack indicated towards the house, “We didn’t expect you would arrive tonight.”

He wore a thick coat and the water ran off his head but he acted as though it was nothing more than a slight inconvenience, which it probably was. He was a well built man of about 40 years, with a trimmed black moustache and a very friendly manner. David Walton was much thinner and younger, with brown hair and ginger moustache. Jack said, “Forensics were here this afternoon. So far, despite the blood being human, there’s no indication that the murder took place here. The bodies of the residents, Janine Hoffstad and her daughter Susan, were found in bush about 20 minutes out of town, and the blood isn’t theirs. They were strangled, and there’s every indication that they were murdered there. Personally, I wouldn’t have alerted you, even if it does look occult. It’s the computer that does it. It’s an algorithm. I hope you haven’t wasted your time. She’s the daughter of a crime boss.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” I said, “And call me Chris,” but I could tell just by looking at the exterior of the yellow weatherboard house that I had already been there. It’s like the glitches. It’s what we call the ripple effect, and you develop a sense for it when you’ve been in the job for long enough. Think of it like a stone being dropped into a pool of water, and the ripples radiate out from the epicentre, repeating the trauma, which brings about the sensation of repetition. Some call it déjà vu, but for most people only the very strong pulses are felt, where they feel the ongoing effect of a great surge through the fabric of their lives.

Inside the house I switched on the meter and took a reading of the hallway with immediate indication of gaga. Jack Martin pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, “The interesting stuff is this way.” I nodded. “What does that thing do exactly?” he asked.

I said, “It measures gaga.” He nodded.

The lounge room at the end of the hallway came up with very strong readings. The light was dim, but at the turn of a dial Jack made it very bright. There was a pentagram painted from blood on the cream carpet of an otherwise fairly ordinary lounge. A black leather sofa and two matching lazy-boy armchairs were set facing a plasma television screen which took up most of the wall they faced. There was a strong scent of very sweet perfume like an overture to the senses with an undertone of musty dampness, and the rancid stench-like odour of rotting meat barely perceptible. At each point of the pentagram were two items, which mostly looked like they belonged to a woman, or a young girl, or both. “What exactly is gaga?” asked Jack as the meter hissed, almost off the scale.

At the closest point of the pentagram were a Barbie doll and a deck of cards with the golden pick logo of Inangahua Resort Casino at Reefton. The next point in a clockwise direction had a red badge with the picture of Daffy Duck on it, and a lady’s smart-watch with a blue strap. The third point had a postcard of a snowy mountain with three serrated peaks, that is, Mt Owen, and a brown felt hat with splotches of mud and a red flowery band. At the end of the fourth point was a CD album Sugar Sweet Candy Water by the Aloe Veras, and a small plastic daffodil of the type they sell to raise money for cancer research. At the final point was a Lenovo tablet with star and flower stickers on it, and a bottle of Le Frais perfume, with the lid not pressed on properly and so most of its contents had spilled onto the carpet.

I said, “To put it simply, gaga measures the difference between what is real and what is unreal. Think of it as the difference between matter and antimatter. The action of matter normally flows in nominal resistance to the reaction of antimatter, like a wave held in balance. When the wave becomes discordant, shadow waves appear, which is what we call a ripple effect, measured in units of gaga. You follow me?” He raised his eyebrows. “Okay, just think of it as telling me that something illegal has taken place here and the sooner that I deal with it the better it will be for everybody, so it’s good I got here when I did.”

“How bad is it? Should we be worried?”

“It’s bad, as bad as it gets. I need to bag these items.”

“What are they for? It is occult then?”

I nodded, and picked up the brown felt hat. There were strands of long blonde hair on the inside. Turning over the postcard there was, “Dear Mummy,” but nothing else written on it. I turned on the tablet and the screen saver was the same photo of Mt Owen as on the postcard. It asked for a pin and I tried a few basic combinations but they didn’t work.

I said, “Certain items become charged with gaga. We call them talismans. It’s occult in as much as ritualistic procedure was used to create the talismans, but occult is just a layman’s term for the process of manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum, that is, the normal flow of matter and antimatter. Of course it’s highly illegal, but we have our methods. This crime took place here, but not the here as we see it, the here that exists somewhere else. All we see is the exhaust of an event and the only way to fix it is to find the source of the tear and stitch it up.”

“But should we be worried?”

I shrugged, “No, I think we’ve caught it in time. Good work.”

We came away and to my surprise the night had cleared. Everything looked washed, serene, and clean, with a starry sky and the near full moon glowing high above the ranges to the east. To the north the seven towers of Greymouth’s CBD were sparkling like they were something beautiful, to be proud of, but dread filled me because I knew they were more like the embers of a fire that had not quite been extinguished, and just the slightest wind would bring up the flame to consume it all like a dragon’s breath.

The city had been born of gold, and gold had destroyed the city, with a hundred and seventy years between to grow, to languish, and hope for better times. Their motto, “Our time will come again,” seemed like presentiment during the 2020s boom as many believed their time had finally arrived, but the problem with gold is that too much happens all at once, and when the gold is gone everything must collapse back into itself. Back in the 1860s it hadn’t mattered so much because there was only a limited amount that a town could grow with such means as steam ships and sailboats. But it was a different story during the 2020s, as the 2030s proved and the year 2040 was about to conclude; the devastation to be visited upon this city would be more than the sum of its components.

That was “Chapter One” of The Woman in the Brown Hat, a sci-fi fantasy detective novel by Marcus Pedersen.

Available on Amazon as an e-book and paper book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RW59M7G

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For reviews see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56531729-the-woman-in-the-brown-hat

[always5hineee]

The Final Bell - Chapter 3: Baby Doll

Chapter warnings: none  

Word count: 1840

Story is also available under Taffysamg on Quotev and Wattpad.

To see the full chapter list, go to the “Final Bell” Tab on my page.

-----

       Y/N stared out the window, unsettled by what she saw. Everything was dry and windy, and the air was heavy. While she knew pollution must be down, everything had that solid tension about it. Taeyong and Taeil were making small talk, but she wasn't particularly listening. Every now and then, they'd pass an abandoned vehicle or a pile of trash, but aside from that she noticed no signs of life. While she was lost in thought, she was brought to attention by a voice.

       "...Y/N!" She sat up quickly, looking around. Taeyong was staring at her intently.

       "Sorry, I was... thinking."

       "It's fine- I was just trying to let you know that we're here." He said, pointing towards the windshield. Sure enough, there was a small campsite in front of them as they slowed to a stop. There were two tents, a few boxes, a small grill, and a black Toyota Tundra. She was nervous to meet this character, but didn't want to show it in front of her two associates. Stepping out of the van, they walked into the center of the space.

       "Hold on." Taeil said to her, moving to the tent on the right. Stomping in the dirt next to the structure, he said, "Johnny! We're here." After a bit of rustling, the front unzipped, and a man stepped out.

       He was certainly taller than anyone she had met so far- six feet if she had to guess. He had defined features and faded red hair, although- like Taeil- it was evidently not his real hair color. He was definitely thin, but stronger than Taeyong and Taeil. He wore a pair of old jeans, a green shirt, and a leather vest, with combat boots to match. Out of all of this, though, one thing in particular caught her off guard.

       His left arm- or rather, where his left arm should have been- there was a purple, twitching appendage, sewed on with black surgical stitches. While it's nails were clean and the flesh seemed to be staying on fairly well, it was unmistakable: a zombie arm.

       She involuntarily stepped back, but before she could move away, he grabbed her wrists, holding her arms above her head and turning her in various directions.

       "Hmm, interesting." He eyed her up and down, mentally measuring her. "I'm sure I can find something that fits you." Uncomfortable, she jerked her arms, ripping them away from his grip. He looked surprised for a moment, before his face settled into a questioning grin.

       "What's the matter? Can't you talk?" She tried to say something in return, but only managed to open her mouth slightly. Staring at her for another moment, his expression shifted to understanding.

       "Ah, I see. You think I'm turning." He waved his purple arm. "I assure you, sweetheart, you have nothing to worry about." Pointing to the stitching with his good hand, he said, "This isn't my real arm. I made her myself. The wound is closed underneath, so quit your shaking." Well if that wasn't the riskiest thing she'd ever seen, she didn't know what was.

       "What happened to your real arm?" She managed to mutter. He laughed, reaching up to touch her face with his left hand. The skin was disgustingly cold, leaving a tingling feeling wherever it touched. She knew it was probably in her head, but she already felt infected as he felt her face.

       "I cut it off." He whispered playfully. Backing up and spinning on his heel, he pretended as if he had not just been incredibly creepy. "Keeps you on your toes, you know? Reminds you how fleeting this all is. It does have a mind of its own, though." He admitted, evidenced by its twitching. She was more than uncomfortable at this point, staring at the seam between his human and undead bodies. So he had... cut off his own arm, and sewed on this zombie one, for fun? Or as he called it, a 'reminder'. This dude was unhinged.

       "Quit messing around, Johnny." Taeyong said, stepping in and pulling her back. Thankfully, his hands were warm, and undoubtedly human. "We just need new clothes for her, all our stuff at camp doesn't fit well."

       "Yes, yes, I know. Like I said, I'm sure I have a few things her size. So demanding. You won't be leader for long if you act like that."

       "I'm not the leader." Taeyong muttered under his breath, crossing his arms and shifting his glare."

       "Sure. Anyway, I'll return momentarily. Feel free to look around." He offered, turning to Y/N. "You can go wherever, but just be prepared for what you find." With a wink that sent a shiver up her spine, he moved towards the back of the setup to open a box.

       "Don't mind him." Taeil said, sensing her discomfort. "He's just strange like that. Plus, he's probably upset that we didn't bring Mark." She had practically forgotten about Mark at this point- she hadn't seen him since they exited the van the first time. Assumedly, he had gone to his own tent.

       "Why would he care?" She asked. "Are they related, or friends, or something?" Taeil shook his head.

       "Not exactly. Mark's just his favorite for some reason. He's never explained it to us. Still, Taeyong doesn't like them to be together for too long. I think he's worried that Johnny will make too much of an impression." That made sense. Mark seemed like a nice dude, and she couldn't imagine what Johnny could do if he got a complete hold on him. Before Taeyong could cut in to explain further, Johnny returned.

       "Here, I found four complete outfits of your size. It's not exactly ideal, but it's all that'll fit. I guess you guys will just start doing laundry more often, or suffer with ill-fitting attire. There are also two pairs of shoes, some makeup if you're into that, and some sanitary stuff." Holding out a bag, she reluctantly took it. As much as she hated it, it was all stuff she needed. "I also threw a few sets of earrings in there. Wouldn't want your piercings to close up."

       She breathed in sharply. In the few seconds that he had looked at her, he not only assessed her exact sizes, but the fact that she had piercings as well? Not only that, but she didn't actually have jewelry in at the moment, meaning that he had noticed the tiny holes. He was unnervingly observant, to say the least.

       "Do you need any earrings, boys? You've both had those studs in for quite a while."

       "We're fine." Taeil said shortly. Johnny sighed, almost like an annoyed child.

       "Shame. You two are so boring. Still, that reminds me-" He addressed Y/N directly again. "I can do pretty much any tattoo or piercing you might want, just let me know." Scrunching her gaze, she questioned,

       "Can you do a clean tattoo without proper equipment?" Johnny feigned offense.

       "My, do you have no faith? I happen to have done plenty of tattoos post-disaster. In fact, I've done more than a few for your friends over there. Speaking of which-" he walked over to drape his arms across the boys' shoulders. "Is she planning on matching you all?"

       "Matching?" She asked. Clearly without asking them first, Johnny grabbed both their shirts. Pulling up Taeyong's sleeve and the bottom hem of Taeil's shirt, he revealed very similar tattoos. Each was in a delicate script, a list of some kind. Looking closer, she read them.

Taeyong

Jaehyun

Yuta

WinWin

Haechan

Mark

Doyoung

Taeil

Jungwoo

Johnny

       The final two names were slightly brighter, alluding to the fact that they had been added later. The line through WinWin's name was also a bright shade.

       "Do all of you have these?" She asked, eliciting a nod from both of them.

       "We debated on the line, but decided that it would be appropriate. We'll be using it if, god forbid, anything happens to anyone else. Johnny added himself when we went to get Jungwoo added." Taeyong shot an annoyed look at him. "Still, he helps us out, so I have no right to complain."

       "So, will you be adding this lovely lady to your ranks?" Johnny asked, dropping their clothing from his fists.

       "I'd have to talk to everyone, but maybe if she sticks around." He glanced over. "Have you gotten a tattoo since all this started?" He asked. She shook her head. She was already dreading the idea of having Johnny's dead hand anywhere near her, not to mention a discomfort around needles. She would definitely have to think about it.

       "Well, I'm always ready to ink someone up." He concluded, gesturing to Taeil again. "I've done more than a few of his little art pieces." She had to admit, the tattoos covering his body were very skillful. Everything fell silent for a moment, but she was brought to attention by the clap of a hand.

       "So! To discuss my payment." Johnny smiled, causing her stomach to drop.

       "Payment?" Of course. No one gives anyone anything for free. What kind of payment did a psycho like this take?

       "Yes, honey, payment. I have to survive out here! Generally one earns something through the exchange of goods-" He snaked a hand around her waist, causing her to shiver again. "And/or services."

       "You owe us, Johnny." Taeyong said matter-of-factly, gently brushing him off and dragging Y/N back to where he was standing. "We saved your ass when you were clean out of food and three seconds off from getting eaten alive." He put a hand to his chin thoughtfully.

       "Oh, so you're cashing in for the little lady? He must really like you." He said with a shrug. "That's a shame, baby doll, but you'll be back. I look forward to it- you're intriguing." Leading her away from Johnny's camp, Taeil and Taeyong brought her to the van, facing away from the man. Still, he called,

       "Nice meeting you, sweetheart!"

       "Her name is Y/N." Taeyong shot back. "Have some decency." And with that, they got in and began their drive back home. She watched out the back window as Johnny simply stood, staring as they drove into the distance. He stood stone still until Y/N could no longer make out his figure.

       "I'm sorry if that was strange." Taeyong murmured apologetically. "I know he's not... ideal. Still, he generally has anything we might need, and honestly I don't know if we'd have made it without him. I would have talked to him myself, but he needed your size." She shook her head, trying to seem unfazed.

       "It's fine."

       "You'll only have to go again if you need a tattoo or something, other than that you can stay behind if you'd like." She nodded. She didn't really feel like talking anymore, and both the boys respected that. They had maybe an hour left on their three hour prognosis, so things would be busy when they returned. She wondered if she could find some monotonous task to help with to take her mind off the afternoon's events.

Go to Chapter 4

[carriagelamp]

April 2020 Book Review - Quarantine Brain Fry Edition

This month of quarantine was much more challenging for me that last March... I suppose because we’re really in the throws of it, and the “extended spring break” feel has worn off. Between general World Anxieties and the incredible challenges of trying to adapt my work into an online setting, my brain has been absolute mush -- and I have a feeling I’m not the only one. Most of my books this month are either very easy reads (comics and children’s novels) or rereads or both! Honestly, I’ve been playing a lot more Animal Crossing than I have been reading...

So the theme for this month of reading? Treat your brain to a rest, and go reread that favourite comic or picture book or graphic novel from when you were a kid. We don’t have libraries or book stores at the moment, so dig deep into your shelf for something you love that you haven’t touched in a while. Here’s what I read:

Ghost Hunters Adventure Club and the Mystery of the Grande Chateau

I’m going to start with best and most unexpected book that I read this month (although this is actually a New Book and not a reread, so maybe it’s a bad start). It’s a Hardy Boys parody novel, and yes it’s by the Game Grumps. The only reason I even found out it existed was because my brother heard about it and we decided that this would be our next Sibling Read Aloud. It made a great read aloud. I was rather skeptical at first, but it was genuinely very clever and very, very funny. There characters were fucking delightful, as they bumbled their way through the mystery, and we ended up accidentally reading almost half the book in one sitting because we couldn’t put it down once we got to endgame. If you like satire and Classic Youth Mystery then do yourself a favour and give this a go. I am desperate for a sequel.

ISHI: Simple Tips from a Solid Friend

A picture book that was recommended to some of the local elementary children who are dealing with isolation from school and their friends. Its beauty is in its simplicity. It shows Ishi, a very simple white stone, experience challenges that it must then find ways to cope with. Things like loneliness, feeling empty or scared, being sad... all things children (and adults, I very much appreciated this little story) may be experiencing. This is definitely a picture book, not a self-help book, but it’s still very encouraging and makes me want to go and create my own Ishi. There’s a reading of it is online, and if you’re feeling like having a solid stone friend reassure you, I would recommend going to listen to it!

Bone 1-5

So, the first in my long list of books that I reread: I’ve started rereading the Bone series for the first time in years. Hands down one of my all time favourite graphic novel series. If you haven’t read Bone, it’s a classic and one of the best example of American graphic novels imho. It’s about Fone Bone and his cousins who, after being driven out of Boneville by Phoney Bone’s money-grubbling stunts, have found themselves across a desert and in a strange, fantastical valley where nothing makes sense. The three of them get drawn into the strange mysteries and adventures of Thorn, her grandmother, and the village of Barrelhaven. Such a perfect blend of beautiful art, comedy and off-the-wall cartoon-level hijinks, as well as really intense, dark adventure and tension as the story unfolds.

Also created this sequence, which may be the funniest two panels ever drawn in a comic

Here Is Greenwood v1

A charming ‘90s manga from my stash that I decided to reread. Honestly one of my favourite feel-good mangas, because it’s such a simple, pure, good-hearted slice of life without some of the gimmicks that other manga use. It’s about Kazuya starting at an all-boys school partway into the year, and moving into the school’s dorms. The entire book is just about him being constantly pestered by the well-meaning characters that share the dorm with him. It’s just goofy and fun, and has the fantastic aesthetic of a good ‘90s manga. Also, it was one of those books that, while technically not ~queer~ was also ~queer enough~ for my deprived teenage soul.

Blood Of Elves

The fourth book of the Witcher series that I’ve finished. I’ll be honest, not my favourite. I really enjoyed the beginning, the whole espionage thing with Dandelion, and then Ciri with Geralt, the Kaer Morhen witchers, and Triss. That was all really fun. It felt like it dragged a lot more though after Ciri joined Yennefer... And yet I love Yennefer as a character, she is hilariously snide and clever and really sweet with Ciri. But it felt like a scene that could have been done in a couple chapters took up half the book. Maybe that’s just because, as I said, my brain was mush and I couldn’t deal with it. I have the next book and as soon as my brain doesn’t look like chicken noodle soup anymore I will be starting it!

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

You know I love a good animal adventure story, and this is one that I adored as a child. The story of Ralph, a young mouse living with his family in a rundown motel, and how he and a young human boy discover that they can understand each other through a shared passion for vehicles... in particular a red toy motorcycle. There’s just something heartwarming about Ralph racing around a motel on a tiny toy motorcycle that runs when he makes motorcycles noises. I’ll have to find the second one as soon as libraries are open again.

Kit: The Adventures of a Raccoon

Another animal adventure story from my childhood, although this one is more of a chapter book than a true novel. This is a book that I’ve been lowkey hunting for years and finally came across in a school library. It’s a more realistic look at what a raccoon’s life is like, from birth to adulthood. Rereading it, it’s not a particularly exciting book and wouldn’t have otherwise stood out to me, but there’s still something that calls to me. It’s very gentle and makes this raccoon’s growing and learning feel very soft and compassionate, even if there are tragedies and death.

A quick edit because it was only just now that I realized that this is a Canadian lit book! Always exciting to discover that a favourite is Canadian!

Calvin and Hobbes: Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

Calvin and Hobbes, yet one more bullet to add to the list of Comfort Comics that I’ve pulled out to keep my mind entertained while I can’t quite process Proper Novels. I doubt there’s anything I can say about Calvin and Hobbes that hasn’t already been said. You’ve either read these books already, and are nodding along with  me, or you haven’t and therefore are not a human being I can relate to.

Spy vs Spy

I dug out some of the old Spy vs Spy comics we had as kids. They’re basically falling to pieces, but it was fun -- like so many other books on this list -- to revisit something so familiar but which I haven’t looked at in years. These were a very odd experience to reread, because on one hand Spy vs Spy comics have such a simple, goofy premise it’s hard not to just grin and laugh while you read them, but also like... yup they sure are old and kinda ~problematique~ eh? Whatcha gonna do.

The Twisted Ones

The read aloud my brother and I did before Ghost Hunters, although we technically finished reading it at the very end of March, but too late for it to make that book roundup post. Look, I’m not going to defend myself here. Yes, I’ve read an obscene number of Five Nights at Freddy’s books. The first one of this series The Silver Eyes was honestly better than I would have expected. This sequel was not as good, unsurprisingly, but the main character is still so fucking bizarre, so different than the sort of protagonist I would normally expect from a series like this, that I can’t quite bring myself to stop reading them. And when I had a moment of Realization, about what might be in store for the third book, I genuinely screamed at my brother who was reading at the time. So yes. Somehow this youth horror is better than it has any right to be -- not good but better than it should be -- and yes I will be reading the third the second the libraries open again.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Another reread! This was a book I got as a birthday present when I was in... probably preschool? It’s a cross between a large picture book and a chapter book. It’s essentially a “novelization” of the original Disney movie, and it has such cute art to go along with it. Winnie the Pooh has always been a favourite of mine, and reading this old book was like a warm hug. Makes me want to see if I can get my VCR set up so I can watch that old movie again...

Frog and Toad Together

A friend found someone reading this book in a very asmr-style on youtube and recommended I listen because they found it super chill. And they were right! It is ridiculously chill. I’ve never read a Frog and Toad story before, but it’s really just a very cute old book that immediately launches you right back into grade one.

The BFG

This is my first time reading the BFG and it has all of Dahl’s usual charm and quirkiness. A young girl gets plucked out of an abusive orphanage by the Big Friendly Giant, who brings her to the terrifying Land Of Giants... all of which are bigger and crueller than the BFG, and who have an appetite for human flesh. It was quick and fun, and it’s always hard not to fall in love with Dahl’s sweet characters, especially this big eared, dream-catching giant.