#c’mon GLITCH you can’t do this to me

[t4r0tc4rdz]

Ok so one time I took a nap and had this incredibly vivid dream that I was scrolling through Twitter and GLITCH had posted a teaser image for Episode 6 and it was just a picture of Thad standing in the woods, watching. He stood kinda limp and had the wide DD smile on his face

GLITCH please bring my boy back I’m BEGGINGF

[cheralith]

to a heart's content — 「 single father!miguel o'hara x reader (part ii) 」

content warnings ; fem!reader, implied fem bodied!reader, use of she/her pronouns, reader wears dresses and makeup, mild violence mention

contains ; single father!miguel o'hara, boss!miguel o'hara, assistant!reader, angst, angst with some comfort, some fluff if you squint

word count ; 4.3k

notes ; at long last, here's the much waited part two! truly didn't expect the first part to blow up like it did, but i'm ever so grateful for all the support and the patience for those still here!

parts ; one two three (tba)

“Lyla, show me the nearest florist from here.”

“The nearest flower shop? That’s gonna be Business is Blooming on 27th Street—”

“27th Street?!” Miguel exclaims, his shock at the distance startling him and making his hands accidentally tighten the belt he was fixing much too tightly. He lets out a strangled choking sound and quickly loosens it before his legs lose oxygen, a feat that he’d hate to do just minutes prior to an event that could possibly change his life for the better. “That’s at least fifteen minutes away and on the opposite side of Clark! I’m already late, aren’t there any other ones closer?”

Lyla’s smaller holographic form pieces together on top of his full-body mirror that displays him in a formal-casual attire consisting of a cream turtleneck, black dress pants buckled with a coffee brown belt and topped altogether with a sepia overcoat that hadn’t seen the light of day since he bought it all those years ago. She puckers her grinning lips, a little amused at the rarity of Miguel in such an outfit and thinking he looks like a cup of coffee.

“Well, there’s always that crowded grocery store on Main?” she suggests as she examines her fingernails, instantly changing the pattern of them with a snap of her fingers. “But that’s gonna cost ya another twenty minutes and you’re already what—? Ten minutes late?”

Miguel fights off a groan at her teasing. “Lyla, I’m serious. Are there genuinely not any other ones around here? Any local ones? C’mon, this is Nueva York, there has to be at least one.”

“You could always try the marketplace. But then again, it’s Sunday so might not really be wise to take your chances,” Lyla shrugs.

Miguel even wonders if men these days still even have the dignity to give their partners flowers after realizing there is a significant lack of florists in today’s day and age. He wouldn’t be like them; flowers are a timeless gift everyone enjoys and he thinks if he can’t get it for you, he might as well not call himself a man at all. 

His eyes go to spot the window in the reflection of the mirror where the sun is beginning to finally set and the city’s nightlife is rising from the dead. Buildings of all heights buster from every corner and the open road that eradicates much of the land dissolves a weary pit in his stomach, obviously annoyed at the many obstacles that block his path. Miguel takes another glance at the clock, the minute hand inching closer and closer and closer to 6:00. The initial plans were to leave the apartment by 5:30, acquire some gifts for you and then travel to the restaurant by 6:00, but seeing as how he’s still trapped in his abode, Miguel thinks that he can only do so much.

But he realizes that’s for Miguel O’Hara, renowned Alchemax geneticist and full-time father. Miguel O’Hara, an everyday citizen, couldn’t possibly crunch so much in such little time.

For Spider-Man, however…

Lyla eyes him suspiciously and purses her lips when Miguel looks at his wrists and then at the window again. “I don’t think that’s wise, Miguel.”

“What’s wise?” he replies coyly, going to quickly shovel off his clothes to replace them with a familiar blue and red attire.

“I know whatcha gonna do,” Lyla says and glitches around him as he searches for his suit. “But it’s not gonna end well, I’m tellin’ ya right now, mister!”

Miguel shakes her caution off, too occupied with shuffling on his superhero suit onto his body before neatly tucking his other outfit into his hammerspaced pocket. “It’ll be quick, I swear. I just need to get her some flowers and then I’ll be on my way. Lock up the house for me, yeah?”

“You’re not gonna make it,” Lyla shakes her head. “Just ditch the flowers and get her something on the way instead.”

But the last of Lyla’s words don’t make it to Miguel’s ears, as he’s already slinging and gliding himself out of the window and toward the given address of the florist. Lyla can only watch in artificial disdain as Miguel’s figure grows smaller and smaller through the passing seconds. She sighs, rolling her eyes as she flickers off the apartment lights before disintegrating.

The roar of the city life grows louder and louder the more Miguel comes closer to the center of it where the flower shop lays. People gather in clusters bustling about all over, making him a little weary of himself as he stares at them from above a high tower. He’s not exactly an ordinary passerby that can easily maneuver their way through so easily—especially not with this getup. Spider-Man is also a name that rather became widespread across the city of Nueva York, meaning that even if one person were to see the flash of blue and red, he’s up for trouble. 

The evildoers tonight seem to be at cease, thankfully. He hasn’t heard of any malicious plotting or future events that will take place today by any of the supervillains that hunt him down like deer recently. Then again, there’s always smaller crimes still waiting to be stopped, but he’s sure the cops will come around for those. Miguel convinces himself it’ll just be a one time thing.

Yet when the familiar song of police sirens blare through the city, he twitches at the thought of leaving such miscreants in the hands of police when he’s sure he can take them down like an army of ten men.

But the police have ten men on them, so truly he can just leave it alone, right? He’s essentially in front of the flower shop that’s seated below an apartment building. All he has to do is just jump down, get the flowers, and leave in the nick of time. He doesn’t have time to dilly dally with low-rated criminals. 

Then again, when he spots the gang of robbers in two white vans speeding down the road at a blistering speed without any caution for pedestrians, Miguel grits his teeth. On their tail is a rally of five police cars that keep gaining and losing them by the second and Miguel isn’t sure whether the irritation was from his indecisiveness or the fact that if he didn’t do anything, there will be consequences.

Perhaps do both to ease his mind? No, he can’t do that. You’re most likely on your way to the restaurant, all dolled up and fresh-faced. He still would need the time to fix himself up in some dingy public bathroom. A cop car that’s been hiding in the corner joins the chase—that’s surely more than enough to take care of them?

Miguel’s eyes go back and forth... back and forth between the two sights. Anxiety is doing little to help his situation and a mist of sweat begins to form on his skin the more the seconds tick by, making the innermost part of his suit much more uncomfortable and moist. A clock hangs by an awning nearby that displays the haunting time of 6:03 PM, just twenty-seven minutes shy of the designated 6:30 meeting time.

He glances one more time at the chase, swallowing a thick lump in his throat when he sees the vans hurdle full speed toward an open street of walking pedestrians, all ignorant of the fact to what beholds them in just mere seconds.

Miguel curses under his breath.

It’ll only be this for today, no more after that.

Fatigued eyes go to watch as the last people leave the restaurant, leaving you isolated in your little corner both embarrassed and hungry due to the heavy lack of food served on your platter for tonight. The other waiters begin to scrub the tables and booths free of crumbs and topple the chairs onto them, indicating that tonight has drawn to its close. You think you’ve memorized the entirety of the menu at this point, considering it’s really all you’ve been averting your eyes towards to avoid the looks of others.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you can see the waiters and waitresses pitifully gossiping about you and a heat flashes onto your face by how incredibly desolate you’ve looked in the past three hours. Internally, you thank them for their patience and how they’ve tolerated your excuses for your date’s tardiness-turned-absence, knowing that it must be a pain to look after someone that hadn’t even ordered anything besides water for the time she had been here.

You don’t even wait for your waitress to come to your table for the nth time tonight, going by your own initiative to pack up your things. Your phone is still devoid of any notifications from Miguel, as well, even after the four calls, occasional text checkups, and last minute voicemailed question of a needed rescheduling if he so desired. 

What remains is just a grayed out Read, 7:47 PM underneath all the text bubbles.

“I… sincerely apologize if I loitered at all,” you murmur with your head half-down to the young host who shuffles the menus back into the lectern. “This was truly the last thing that I had expected from him…”

You instantly take back that statement the moment it leaves your lips. If anything, you should’ve known that this would’ve happened. Foolish you were—you’ve been with Miguel for the past three years, this was everyday behavior for him. You suppose this is how Gabriella must feel constantly and another heartache pits itself within you at the shared feeling.

The host shakes his head sympathetically. “You wouldn’t be our first case, I’m sure you didn’t have any ill intent. If anything, I’m the one sorry that he made you wait that long,” he replies with evident pity. “Whoever he is, he must be a dick for leaving such a pretty thing like you alone all night, ma’am.”

“Oh, he’s—” you fall short on your words, not even having the energy to sorely defend Miguel’s name. “Never mind…” you mutter.

“Do you need a cab?” asks the host, “Well actually, I’m about to clock out for tonight. I can drive you home, if you want. It’s the least I can do for you after tonight.”

You’re about to reply to him to turn down the offer, as you suspect he’s the type of guy to use women in these situations to his advantage, but the doors suddenly burst open to reveal the one and only in a hazy state and what seems to… flowers clutched in his hands? The petals, however, are corrugated and some have even completely drooped down from their stem. The paper that is supposed to guard them is wrinkled and torn at the corners. Almost all of the bouquet is wilted, much like your own composure for tonight. 

Miguel isn’t much better. Hair and clothes a little damp, he’s frazzled and evidently guilty, as his face pales when he sees your contrasting appearance. You’re adorned in an a-lined, half-sleeved royal blue dress that made you look so regal in comparison to your daily white blouse-black pants outfit that he's seen too much of. Not to mention additional details of your styled hair and accessories just brought out the best of your beauty that was wasted on essentially nothing this evening. 

“Mr. O’Hara…” you breathe when he passes through the door. The first thing that you notice automatically when his face properly comes into view is a sharply jagged, yet thin cut on the side of his cheek. “Did someth—”

“(Y/N), I’m so… so sorry,” he chokes out. “Something c-came up at work and they asked me to help them out… I’m sorry, I know I should’ve said no, but they were kind of on my ass about it and I got so caught up with it, so I wasn’t able to text you and—”

“She waited three hours,” the host drones and juts his thumb toward the dining area where all the chairs are laid atop the tables. Its lights flicker out, leaving only the foyer and smaller hallways lit so dismally in the night. “Until closing. She didn’t order anything in the meantime, so not only you left her alone tonight, you left her alone and hungry.”

“Hey listen, bud,” Miguel snaps at the host. He points a finger at him with irate in his eyes. “Not your business, so stay out of it.”

The host scoffs with a smirk on his face. “Not the first time I’ve heard that and certainly not the first time I’ve seen this happen. Guys like you always—”

You raise a hand to stop their bickering, afraid of what might happen if things escalate further as you really didn’t desire to do anything more than just sleep off your feelings. Both men stop and turn to look at you with concern on their faces.

“Do you still need that ride home?”

“Are you still hungry?”

A frustrated head shake finally silences the both of them. 

“I’m fine, thank you for the offer, though,” you say quietly to the host. You turn to Miguel, who swallows at the sight of your tired eyes. “May we talk outside? I’d hate to stay here any longer than I need to.”

Miguel attempts to excuse himself one more time, but when you begin to pace yourself toward the door without waiting for him, he realizes he can’t exactly make any more decisions of his own any more this evening. Not after choosing his heroic duties again and again for tonight instead of tending to you.

The moon and stars tonight have made their presence with the special guest of light rain coming in for a visit. The whisper of a drizzle ghosts itself on your goosebumps skin and the chill of a wind nips at your flesh. 

Miguel is quick to follow you. “I’m really sorry again, (Y/N),” he utters so softly that it makes your heart ache with familiarity. It’s the same tone of voice he’s used with Gabriella when at times, he wasn’t able to make it to her events or practices like he promised. “Are you still hungry by any chance? I know a good 24/7 diner that’s pretty close here.”

Without turning around, you politely shake your head and begin to search for any cabs coming your way. “I’ll be okay. I think I have some leftovers in the fridge that can suffice.”

The thought of you eating alone like he did on a night that you shouldn’t be sends shivers of guilt down Miguel’s spine. He curses himself at his past actions—deciding that it was stupid to catch those robbers who didn’t even put up much of a fight, to stop that gang brawl that was happening on the corner of 5th that was resolved the moment the elderly shopkeeper began to yell, to help that old lady that was certainly taking her sweet time to cross the street. They were such unbelievably mild crimes that he didn’t need to attend to, but did anyway even with the thought of you in mind.

Perhaps he should’ve had more faith in technology, because he’s sure Lyla was going to have much fun taunting him for the rest of the week. 

“You can keep the flowers, too,” you say softly when a cab begins to pull up. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t think I have a vase to store them in unfortunately.”

Miguel’s grip on the dismal bouquet tightens, not even trying to fight your refusal as you get into a cab. He stops the door from closing just as you’re about to, trying one last time to make up for his actions. 

“At least let me pay for your cab,” Miguel whispers.

You know he’s sorry. You can see in his eyes the familiar gleam of woe that he’s given to his daughter. Your eyes go to flicker at the cut again, but you know that if you ask, he’s sure to give one his many excuses because it isn’t the first time he’s shown up with an injury before. And you don’t want to put yourself through that wall of verbal familiarity. 

With sorrow gentleness, you pry his fingers off the edge of the car and shut it, putting a physical barrier between you and Miguel. The eyes of the driver goes to pitifully glance at your state before beginning to rev up the engine.

You don’t even have the courage to share a glance towards Miguel one last time before the cab begins to drive off—your wallow of disappointment is deep enough as it is.

The rest of the week is agonizingly slow; Miguel dares to say it’s torturous, even.

He’s thankful you’re still acknowledging his existence and talking with him, but your conversations lack the usual warmth and gentle playfulness they often had. It was already lonely enough dealing with the lack of a third person like him at home, but the feeling of isolation felt even more scarring this time because when he came home late after your babysitting session, you didn’t bother with small talk with him, the only thing that made him realize he didn't have to do everything by himself alone.

You didn’t ask how the late shift was, how were the bosses treating him, if he was getting enough rest… no, you only kept him updated on his daughter's schoolwork and any future events regarding her and her only. Your words never included him or you, only finishing off with a goodbye and have a nice night.

At least you were still kind enough to fix him the usual leftovers.

Work itself wasn’t much better. Conversations were brief and the lab in which you two worked privately was filled with silence that was only broken with the occasional demands and directions of lab work. Sometimes a forced cough would sneak its way through Miguel’s lips if the silence began to disturb him too much. He attempted to make some at the beginning, asking how your day was and whether your father was on your tail again, but he was met with short, sharp responses. 

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m not sure.”

Never have such words been so agonizing before. Ironic that they are because Miguel often hated it when people rambled and preferred it when conversations got to the point. He supposes, though, you get to the point too fast for his liking nowadays.

When he tried bringing up an explanation for Sunday’s events, you’d quickly shut it down as tenderly as possible, saying things along the lines of “It’s alright, your schedule is hectic. I can understand.” or “I just hope your work didn’t give you too much trouble.” You’re so polite about it that it hurts him. Miguel would much rather have you lash out and insult him than have you soften the landing that does barely anything to ease him because it feels like you’ve put on that mask you put in front of others—professional and orderly—and Miguel didn’t want to be seen as just a mere coworker, let alone your boss, to you.

His pride bites at his ankles. Lies coming out of his lips too regularly, he had to fib to Gabriella the morning after her sleepover when she asked about the date that you had fallen sick and weren’t able to make it. The disappointment on her face mimicked yours too eerily. She asked him if they were going to reschedule it. Miguel could only shrug his shoulders—he wasn’t even sure if you wanted anything to do with him after that event. 

At least nothing changed with you and his daughter. He’d still home to an apartment with you helping with homework or her helping with dinner or tucking her into bed. That’s all he could ask for right now.

Miguel still had the chance to redeem himself this week. There was the annual banquet held at a banquet hall to celebrate the yearly achievements Alchemax and those associated had accomplished, as well as discussing major plans for the future. It was a boring, yet formal event used for connections and idle chatter, something Miguel usually didn’t look forward to. Lyla suggested to him to convince you to go and that Gabriella would just have a one-time babysitter while you got to enjoy (or in your case, put up) with his company as he redeemed himself best as possible. You’re not one to talk with others you’ve never met, so he knew that you would most likely stick by his side for a sense of familiarity. 

It took a while, but you murmured you’d go under your breath to shake him off your tail. Miguel was elated, but it was quickly shut down halfheartedly by the reminder that you were still somewhat upset by Sunday’s incident, saying you’d take a cab to the banquet instead of driving with him like he offered.

No matter, as long as you were there by his side.

Miguel made sure that this time, he’d be out the door much earlier than the last, promising to never keep you waiting longer than a minute. A text on his phone pings that you’re near the back entrance, where the parking lot was so it’d be easier to find you. He swerves a little too harshly into the lot—either from nervousness or excitement or both—at the mention and had spotted you near the staircase adorned in a floor-length blushed, ivory pink halter gown with luminescent tulle, making you look like the human embodiment of an ocean pearl.

His eyes are so fixed on you that he didn’t realize he almost knocked himself straight into an oncoming BMW. The owner, a crabby old man he recognizes from human resources, swears and honks at him, making Miguel hide his face before hurriedly parking a little more safely. 

When he approaches you, he drinks you in your full glory. Everything about you is so fresh… so exhilarating. You’ve done your hair with a couple of clips this time, with more subtle jewelry this time. Your makeup looks tidy and perfect and Miguel enjoys the way it emphasizes your best features instead of morphing them. If only he was wiser on Sunday, he would’ve been able to savor a different version of you in blue. 

Nevertheless, you still manage to take his breath away with just a simple breath like you always have. It’s just that it was only recently had Miguel realized you had that ability and he’d be alright experiencing it again and again if it was with you.

“Mr. O’Hara?” you say and wave a soft wave in front of his face to break his trance. Somehow, you begin to grow self-conscious. Perhaps he didn’t like it? Maybe it was too revealing… the slit at the halter neckline did somewhat peek at your cleavage and you weren’t used to baring your shoulders out. “I-is everything okay?”

Miguel blinks a couple of times. His surroundings finally come into focus like your figure, making him realize how long he had been staring. “Apologies. I… never got to tell you this on Sunday, but I hope to do it now, (Y/N)... ” he clears his throat and straightens his posture, remembering to act everything out as practiced, before softly whispering with evident fondness that, “You look beautiful, tonight.”

A spark of surprise shocks your features for a brief moment, before your usual modesty is displayed again. Eye contact is broken, for you can’t fathom the thought of someone like Miguel O’Hara, favored in every possible way, would be complimenting you so casually. “Oh um. Thank you,” you choke out halfheartedly. 

Miguel leans over slightly over your figure and tucks a lock of stray hair behind your ear. If he wanted to truly make up for what happened, he was going to have to go all out tonight, even if that meant rocketing out of his comfort zone. He just barely catches you hitching a breath at the semi-intimate of physical contact as he tries his best to hide his own when he murmurs in your ear again. 

“I’m not saying it out of manners, I’m saying it factually,” he mumbles, eyeing the passersby that stare in wonder at you. Some ego swells inside of him at the jealous looks that are given to him. “You’ve bewitched me and many others already.”

You stray your gaze away at him with your hands fiddling at the skirt of your dress. “You didn’t have to, but thank you for the dress, by the way,” you murmur timidly. “I’ve never heard of a brand called Lyla, but I admit, this dress of theirs is rather nice.”

Miguel furrows his brows at the mention before Lyla briefly appears on your head, giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up before disappearing. It doesn’t take Miguel long to realize that Lyla had shipped something so pristine to you without his permission, though he supposes that she had done him and you a favor given how majestic you look tonight. 

He lets out a soft breath of a chuckle before shaking his head. Maybe he’ll give her some upgrades in return.

You turn your head behind you, not knowing what he was looking at. “Is something wrong? Is there something in my hair?”

“No, no. Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts…” Miguel interjects before offering his arm to you. “We should get going. I’d hate for a dress like this to go to waste for only my eyes.”

Internally, Miguel wanted to be selfish. He wanted to be greedy and have you all for himself, savor your every move tonight, have you and him be the only ones in this place. He didn’t want anyone to look towards your direction and have you look at anyone else besides him. A little venomous thought of people not realizing you had so much more potential than they realized embeds in himself, and that their awe for tonight was too artificial. He wanted more and to give you more, but then again, he’s still Spider-Man at the end of the day, the impossible man that somehow does it all and faces the consequences head on. He can only offer a regular day citizen like you so much.

But for now, he’ll make do with what he can. Not as Spider-Man this time, but as Miguel O’Hara.

a/n ; hi yeah don't panic, there'll be a part three lmfao i lied lolol. most likely it'll be the last part to this little series i've got going, too, since i think making it a fully fledged series would kind of lead some things astray for me. that doesn't mean the end of the miggy o'hare writings, however! still will most definitely attempt to write for him bc bro's GLORIOUS

thank you all for the patience for part ii, and i hope to see that part iii comes out asap! i'll give updates for it as always, but in the meantime, thank you for reading and likes/comments/reblogs are always noticed and infinitely appreciated ( ˘ ³˘) ♡ !

taglist ; @secretlyrexlapis @urbimom @p1nkliquor @julesclues @averagefloydlover @apurpletrashcan @toofsfairys @raeisthebae (for those with strikethroughs, i'm not able to tag you for some reason :(!)

[gaybananabread]

tadc headcanons perhaps? Any character, lee or ler

☆—TADC Main Cast Tkl Headcanons—⁠☆

~How about all of them? This took forever; I live in shame. But hey, they're done now, so…yay! LONG so prepare to read for a sec. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you Enjoy!~

💙Pomni🃏

General:

This wet dog of a clown definitely loves tickles.

She just thinks it’s nice that there’s a way to just laugh without needing to think about anything else: a way to just disconnect and enjoy oneself.

A lee-leaning switch. Loves being tickled, but occasionally wants to make someone else giggle and squirm.

Lee:

She gets lee moods pretty frequently, though she rarely tries to fix them. Girl is way too anxious to actually ask for what she wants

Sometimes, one of her fellow players will notice and step in and help, usually Kinger or Ragatha.

She’s a squirmer for sure. Make sure you’ve got a good grip, or she’ll wriggle away (not for long, but still)

If you get her really good, she’ll squeak like a stress toy. It flusters the hell out of her if you tease about it.

Worst spots are her sides, which get loud squeaks if you squeeze them. Navel is sorta bad as well, but she can handle it a lot longer.

Melt spot is her neck, specifically under her chin. She can and will fall asleep if you stay there too long.

Ler:

She’s a softer ler to everyone but Jax. He deserves it honesty-

Gentle tickles, small teases, compliments. Her goal is to make you happy.

“Wow, you’ve got a really pitchy laugh. No, don’t stop, it’s nice.”

“Thanks for not squirming away. Oh, c’mon, I can tell.”

“You’re so soft… I’ve gotta do this more often.”

Really easy to fluster if you can think through the giggles; a quick compliment or praise has her burning.

Her ler moods are usually spurred by something else, like walking in on a tickle fight or hearing the t-word a certain way.

To fix a mood, she’ll usually just go up to Ragatha or Kinger and wiggle her fingers. They usually get the message pretty quickly.

Pretty decent with aftercare. She’s a cuddle bug, but if you’re not big on touch, she’ll find a blanket for you. Other than that, you’ll have to ask.

🦷Caine🎪

General:

The chaos man is a pure switch.

Once he finds out that tickling can affect him and works oh-so-well on his friends, he makes sure to abuse that knowledge whenever possible.

I mean, laughter is better than abstraction, right?

Lee:

The first time he’s tickled is the most confusing moment of his existence.

Like, what? Someone wiggles their fingers somewhere, and it feels like little fuzzy zaps under his digital skin? Crazy.

Once he gets past that, though, the toothy man loves every bit of the odd sensation he can get.

He’ll provoke the players, casually throw the t-word into speeches, or make NPCs to do the job for him (nobody knows about these guys though)

He tries to hold still, but don’t be surprised if he randomly teleports mid-tickle. It always flusters him when he has to go back and ask for it to continue.

Worst spots are his sides and underarms. He’ll screech.

He’s not really all that ticklish anywhere else though, each spot only getting little giggles and titters.

Doesn’t really have a melt spot, though he loves belly tickles. It’s not a bad spot at all for him, but he likes feeling “normal” and connected to the players in that sense.

Sometimes, if you really get him laughing, the sound will glitch. It’s utterly adorable to hear.

Ler:

Run as fast as you can, my friends.

Ler moods come to him for completely random reasons. If he sees someone sad or stressed, if they laugh just a bit too sweetly, if they’re being too sassy: they’re done for.

He uses his digital powers to subdue lees. If you’re hiding? He’ll teleport to you. Fighting him off? Bubbles come and snag your wrists. If you genuinely don’t want him to, he’ll let you go. Other than that, good luck.

“Oh my! You’re quite ticklish, aren’t you?”

“You can’t, hmm? Can’t what? Can’t handle it? Can’t tell me to stop? I’d love to know what’s going through your mind, dear!”

“It tickles, does it? How about I add a few feathers; I hear they’re all the rage among humans!”

He’s really hard to fluster when he’s tickling. Teasy lees, you might have met your match.

Sort of okay with aftercare? He doesn’t understand it at first, but he tries. Head pats and water are his go-to, but he’ll do more if you ask.

💜Jax🐇

General:

Sassy rabbit feels like a ler-leaning switch.

He’s always willing to wreck a bitch, but doesn’t mind the occasional laugh or two for himself.

When he’s feeling lonely or touch starved, tickles are his go-to in either direction.

Lee:

While on the rare side, his lee moods are intense.

Blushes, small giggles, antsy demeanor, flinching from small touches: not exactly discreet.

If another player notices (which almost always happens), he’ll deny and fight it ‘til the cows come home. You’ve gotta fight to give him what he wants.

He’s a flailer for sure. Donkey kicks and stray elbows are his specialty.

Worst spots are his ears, specifically the bases. They get him cackling almost instantly.

Melt spots are the tops of his knees. Nobody really ever targets them, but he goes nearly limp if a few spidering fingers land there.

If you get him just right, he’ll thump his feet against the floor. He dies if you tease him about it.

Ler:

Evil son of a gun, so watch your back.

He lives for a good chase. Will probably try and tease you into running, just so he can trap and catch you.

Very verbal and teasing. He has zero shame in turning you red as a rose.

“You got ten seconds to run, doll. Better make ‘em count~”

“Aww, what’s the matter? Can’t bring your arms down? That’s alright; I’ll make sure you have some fun~”

“You sure do scream a lot, sweet cheeks. I’d cover my ears if they didn’t sound so cute.”

Very smug man, not an easily flustered ler. It really takes some confident prodding or skill to get him.

He uses his tall man advantage every time. Holding a lee up by their arms, using his legs to keep them sitting, putting something on a tall shelf and attacking whenever they try to get it: the list goes on.

He’s actually pretty good with aftercare, even if he doesn’t like to admit it.

He’ll make sure you’re okay and get you water, though he’ll act like it’s such a chore. After that, it’s either cuddles because you “look like death warmed over,” or a special snack to “keep you from annoying him.”

❤️Ragatha🪡

General:

She’s a switch, not really leaning in one direction or the other.

Loves tickling because it can make the other players laugh, which they all desperately need. She knows she does.

Lee:

She’s incredibly shy when she gets in a lee mood. Good luck getting her to do anything productive or coherent until she’s helped.

While she tries holding still, she can’t help but curl up. You’ll need to hold her arms above her head or get used to moving with her.

I like to think she’s got a louder, more obnoxious-sounding laugh (no projection, you have 0 proof-)

Lots of snorts, cackles, and little hiccup-squeaks.

Speaking of which, the easiest way to fluster her is to compliment her laugh. She’s self-conscious about it, so literally any praise will have her coming apart at the seams (hehehe pun)

Worst spots are her neck and back, specifically her shoulder blades. She cannot handle massages around there.

Melt spots are her belly and thighs. Some gentle traces or pokes in either of those areas has her in giggle heaven.

Ler:

She's incredibly sweet, though she's got a different way of doing things for certain people.

With most of the circus members, she's soft and playful. Light touches, quick scribbles and small teases.

“You're such a wiggle worm, giggles. Try to hold still for me, will you?”

“Aww, look at that adorable blush. I'm glad to know you're having fun!”

For select individuals (Jax and anyone misbehaving), she's playfully mean and a touch ruthless. Fast squeezes and very teasy attacks.

“Aww, that spot’s pretty sensitive, huh? I should tell the others; I'm sure they'd love a chance to see you like this!”

She's surprisingly strong, able to pin pretty much all of the players. If you wanna try escaping, get ready for a good fight.

She's amazing with aftercare. She'll make sure you're alright, get you a drink, and swaddle you in a soft blanket for cuddles.

If you aren't big on touch, she'll get you the finest digital cuisine (basically asking Caine for your favorite food) and whatever else you can think of.

🎭Gangle🎀

General:

This ribbon girl is very much a lee.

If she does tickle anyone, it’s an extremely rare one-off occasion.

She’s just more comfortable with being tickled, for a number of reasons.

Doesn’t want to risk pushing someone’s boundaries, uncomfortable touching them, or just a general not-wanting-too feeling.

Lee:

Lee moods are about as rare as pebbles for her. They’re pretty obvious, too.

Tightly coiled posture, a giddy look on her face (biggest giveaway), and very nonchalant staring at people’s hands.

Needless to say, everyone is clued in almost immediately.

She has no shame in wiggling around and unraveling, though she does actually want to get away. It’s fun, and it usually gets her ler to tease her.

Worst spots are the inner parts of her midsection ribbons. She will absolutely try to unravel and slip out of your arms if you try it.

Melt spot is her mask, specifically the back of it. As long as she’s wearing it, she’ll feel the tickles. Girly melts into a giddy puddle in your arms.

Her laughter is really pitchy, with plenty of squeaks and squeals to go around. Kind of like a mouse on helium (great way to tease her, as long as it’s done kindly)

Gets flustered VERY easily. You won’t have to try hard unless you really want to.

♚Kinger🪲

General:

The softest lee-leaning switch you'll ever meet.

He loves tickles, though you won't catch him openly admitting it. It's too embarrassing for him

He gets lee moods frequently, though he's willing to help a friend with theirs if they need it.

Lee:

He's decently shy, never coming out and asking for tickles. He usually just suffers in silence until Ragatha notices.

On a rare day where he's stable and confident, he'll tease Pomni or the ragdoll to try and provoke it.

It rarely works how he'd like, but they almost always realize that he's in a lee mood. Failed successfully.

He'll squirm around like a literal worm, though he can't help it. Lucky for his ler, he's pretty much a walking tickle spot.

If one spot is blocked, another opens up.

His worst spot is his stomach. He goes silent when anyone gets him there, save for the occasional squeak or gasp.

Melt spot is the top of his head on the little cross thing. He'll lean right into it, maybe even fall asleep.

He's got a really squeaky, pitchy laugh. If you get him really laughing, he'll start to snort and flap his hands.

Ler:

If one of his fellow players is close to abstraction or just needs some cheering up, he'll be there.

He's got a very soft, lightly teasing style. Doesn't really push anyone to their limits unless they really want him to.

“Of all the bugs in my collection, I must say I have a favorite…the Tickle Bug!”

“Those are some cute giggles, friend. So glad you could share them with me!”

“Of course I can help with your…predicament. Now, arms up for me, dear.”

Kind of the dad of the circus. He's always there to help if need be.

Super great with aftercare. 80% of the time, he'll tickle you in his fort. That means pillowy cuddles afterwards and a nice nap.

If that's not your thing, he's more than willing to accommodate. As long as you're happy, he's happy.

🎡Zooble🪀

General:

This preschool toy mashup gives me strong ler vibes.

They don’t seem like someone who’d like to be tickled unless the ler was EXTREMELY close to them and knew their boundaries by heart.

Ler:

They’re an absolutely despicable little shit.

Worst spot targeting, slightly mean teases, and the CHASES!

They could throw their arm at the fleeing lee, and it’d all be over. The thing could latch onto their worst spot and wiggle away, leaving the lee unable to do anything but wait for Zooble to catch up.

It doesn’t take a lot to provoke them, but if you want a proper wrecking, you’ll have to work for it. They don’t get annoyed enough to destroy someone easily.

VERY teasy, almost unfairly so.

“Tickles, does it? Maybe if you hadn’t been such a pain in the *boink*, this wouldn't be happening.”

“You brought this on yourself, ya know. Every unbearably ticklish second of it.”

“What? Not my fault this is your worst spot. Get less ticklish.”

Have you seen that lobster claw thing? You can’t tell me that thing wouldn’t tickle like crazy.

For aftercare, they try their respective best. They’ll pat your back, maybe give you a head rub.

After that, they’ll typically bring their undoubtably exhausted lee to Kinger’s pillow fort for a much-needed nap.

[in1-nutshell]

Bot Buddy being Swerve's older sibling on the Lost Light

SFW, Platonic, hint of romance, Cybertronian reader

MTMTE

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

After being on the Lost Light for a couple of days Buddy was still figuring out their place on the ship. Thanks to Swerve and his friends they were slowly finding their place amongst the crowd.

But Buddy hates leaving Swerve alone for too long. After spending so long in stasis and listening to his messages, Buddy figured it was a good idea to be always close by Swerve.

Swerve didn’t mind it one bit.

One was never too far from the other.

But some of their friends started to get irked by this, mainly being Whirl.

Swerve standing in front of Buddy talking their audial off as they stand stoically listening to everything he has to say.

“Look at them.”--Whirl

“Umm… why?”--Tailgate

“Look at them! If something happens to the other, ones gonna go berserker!”--Whirl

“You do have a point there.”--Skids

“But that’s not a bad thing, right?”--Tailgate

“My sweet Tailgate, you have to expect the unexpected at all times.”--Whirl

“Oh! I get it its like that one time Cyclonus wanted to—”--Tailgate

“That’s not a conversation for the table.”--Cyclonus

“Then its settled then Buddy needs some space from Swerve.”--Whirl

“This isn’t going to end well…”--Cyclonus

So, with a little help from Skids, Chromedome and Rewind, they managed to get Swerve busy giving Buddy enough time to drag Buddy off. It worked for a bit until Buddy insisted on checking on Swerve and began walking the other way.

“C’mon Buddy lets go for another round in the range!”--Whirl

“I’m sorry Whirl I’ve gotta go.”--Buddy

“Buddy don’t make me do this.”--Whirl

“Do what? Whirl what are you talking about?”--Buddy

“You’ll see…”--Buddy

Whirl had been expecting this.

It was time to deploy Plan R.

Plan Rodimus.

As Buddy was walking back to the bar, Rodimus walked up to Buddy. His job was just to distract Buddy and make sure they didn’t reach the bar until Whirl said so. Rodimus was a bit hesitant about this plan but decided that this was way better to do this than Magnus’s reports.

“Hey Buddy!”--Rodimus

“Rodimus? Is there something you need?”--Buddy

“Yes! I need a sparring partner.”--Rodimus

“A sparring partner? I would assume Drift—”Buddy

“He’s busy with Ratchet. Anyways I want to spar you.”--Rodimus

“Spar me?”--Buddy

“Yeah! Unless all that training in the Elite Guard was a hoax—”--Rodimus

“You’re on Captain.”--Buddy

Meanwhile Swerve was beginning to get anxious as it was getting late, and Buddy wasn’t around. As much as Skids, Chromdome, and Rewind tried humoring with stories and hearing his rants, it was clear that Swerve’s anxiety was starting to get the best of him.

“Hey, Whirl your going to have to get Buddy over here soon.”--Chromedome

“Why?”--Whirl

“Swerve’s looks like he is going to have a glitch if Buddy doesn’t get here soon.”--Chromedome

Whirl commed in Rodimus.

He didn’t answer.

He tried again.

No answer.

At this point Whirl guessed that Rodimus was probably dead after Buddy’s sparring session.

Something Whirl had jokingly suggested to him to ask Buddy to do. He didn’t expect him to do it.

As Whirl walked towards the door, he saw Cyclonus and Tailgate watching from the doorway. Curious he also took a peek inside.

Turns out Rodimus was still alive.

But the positions they were in…

Rodimus was flat on his back looking up at Buddy who was in a straddling position with a winning smile.

Rodimus looked at Buddy as if his optics had just seen the Matrix coming towards him.

“Looks like I win again Captain.”--Buddy

“I guess you did, huh?”--Rodimus

“What?”--Buddy

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice that you were holding back.”--Rodimus

“Yeah, if I didn’t, you’d be a smear of red paint under me.”--Buddy

“Oh really?”--Rodimus

“Absoluetly Captain. That’s just a fact.”--Buddy

“How about next round I flame up? You think you’d handle the heat?”--Rodimus

“Such little faith you have in me Captain. You’d think after I beat you all those times you’d get some idea that I can definitely handle you.”--Buddy

“Its one Buddy… as soon as you get off me… you’re kind of crushing my spoiler…”--Rodimus

“Oh! Sorry!”--Buddy

Buddy helping Rodimus up.

“Best out of 60?”--Buddy

“You think you can keep up?”--Rodimus

“Just watch me!”--Buddy

“Cyclonus…I think we came at a wrong time…”--Tailgate

“…Let’s leave them…”—Cyclonus

Whirl, Cyclonus, Tailgate walking away from the sparring room.

“Why were you guys even here, anyways?”--Whirl

“We heard a lot of slamming, and it sounded like someone was dying. Turns out it was Rodimus just getting beaten up by Buddy, during their ‘practice session’.”--Tailgate

Whirl has gained a new ship and there was nothing stopping him from making this thing work. A little bit of integration and some closets and the two will be together in no time!

Now the minor problem was telling Swerve without him glitching out…

[yenqa]

APPLE CIDER!

thank u @soov for helping me pick the banner!

sypnosis : you haven’t experienced much love in your life. well reciprocated romantic love, your first “boyfriend”, was only with you because a bet. until you unexpectedly meet jay, a frat boy whose known for breaking hearts. you’d be a fool to give him a chance right? too bad you both like apple cider.

or

when a heartbroken girl meets a heart breaker and they bond over apple cider.

featuring : enhypen, chaewon of lsfm, eunbi, one member of txt (EL OH EL THERES LIKE NO ONE)

warnings : literally the most cliche story ever, swearing, underage drinking, food, parties, crying, kissing (not in detail), being drunk (not reader), crying, angsty, reader hates parties, mentions of hooking up/sex, mentions of weed, reader has bad habits, blood, i think thats it?

wc : 7.9k (only 900 words over the expected amount!!)

pairing : jay x fem!reader (uses she/her)

a/n : hey guys… this fic is the most cliche shit ever and idk how it happened,,, u would think this would be like original but its not 😂 🤣. heres the playlist i listened to while making it! and everyone thank @wonieleles and @redm4ri for proof reading it !! anyways,,, enjoy!

READ PART TWO HERE!

cut glitch pls spare me

001 THE INVITATION

“c’mon y/n! i know you’re not over hyun-woo but please! one party! it’s been like a month since you broke up, and yeonjun personally invited me to this party!”

“way to put it lightly chaewon,” you’re tempted to leave and sit somewhere else. can’t she just understand you don’t want to go?

“please! i’ll get you um- coffee for a week!”

you scoff at her suggestion, but after thinking about it, it does seem like a pretty good offer. i mean, it will be  just one party right?

“when’s the party ?” you ask, almost persuaded.

“it’s this friday, i can pick you up, and we can get there at nine. the party starts at like eight, but everyone goes at nine.” she pauses for a moment before continuing.

“if you’re uncomfortable, we can leave right away! plus, your beloved chaewon would be right next to you the whole time! isn’t that tempting?” she elbows you softly, and you give her a disgusted look before changing back to your normal one.

“fine. but! you have to let me borrow a dress because i don’t really have any party dresses.”

“you have that one green one! that’s like a v-neck!” chaewon shapes the dress out with her hands, trying to prove her point.

“it’s too big,” you point out, taking a bite out of your forgotten lunch.

“okay fine… i’ll pick you up at seven, and we can get ready and stuff at my house! i’m not lending you any makeup though.” she picks back up her fork, stuffing her mouth with food.

“fine with me.” you shrug, taking a sip of water.

chaewon’s voice suddenly goes quiet, “y/n, you know those really popular guys? well one of them is looking at you!” she whisper-shouts, trying her best to hide her expression.

“so? you’re popular too, maybe he’s staring at you.” you brush it off, why would it even matter anyways?

“no y/n- that’s jay park. he’s like- he has some major beef with hyun-woo.”

“and what does that have to do with me?”

“jay is a heartbreaker, maybe you’re his next subject to get hyun-woo mad or some shit because i know sunghoon told him about you two.”

“so? hyun-woo didn’t even like me, nothing bad will happen,” you reassure her, patting her shoulder. okay, but who the hell is sunghoon? you wonder.

“whatever you say. but stay away from him okay?” she looks at you seriously.

“okay but what does he even look like-?” you whip your head around to see a group of guys laughing. one shamelessly staring at you. he smirks at you, a wink coming soon after. you look at him in disgust, turning around.

“why did you look y/n!” chaewon whisper-shouts again.

“what? i was curious. how am i supposed to stay away from him if i don’t know who he is?” you put your hands up in defense.

“okay fine…” she groans.

“you’re still going to the party right?”

“yeah sure, whatever.”

002 FIRST MEETING

you enter your last period of the day, which also happens to be your least favorite, math. you never really understood why it was necessary in the real world, when would you need to figure out what the integral of a function is? but it’s not like you want to retake math in your senior year. so you get your notebook, and mechanical pencil out, clicking the end a few times before writing the date at the top of the page.

as you’re writing the date down, you can hear the repeated taps on your shoulder from the person behind you, so you turn around to face eunbi.

“hey, are you going to yeonjun’s party?” eunbi asked curiously.

you don’t know why she asked considering you two weren’t the closest of friends, and honestly, you thought she trusted people too easily, which included you. but it wouldn’t hurt to answer right?

“yeah i’m going with chaewon, are you?”

“yeah, me and hyun-woo will be there,” she says almost teasingly. eunbi gives you a genuine smile like she had no clue that you and hyun-woo ever dated. but in reality, she didn’t.

you and hyun-woo kept it on the low, so no one really knew about you two unless they saw you on dates. maybe he did that so he could cheat on you at parties you didn’t go to without anyone knowing. but you tried not to think about him anymore. it’s not like he’s going to beg on his knees for you  to take him  back.

“oh, well i think class is starting soon, but i’ll make sure to say hi at the party.” you notice how your voice almost deflates after she mentioned him. and eunbi almost notices it too. until her train of thought is broken when your math teacher, mrs. lim, walks in.

one thing you had forgotten was that jay was in your math class. he seems to be having the time of his life on his phone, and sometimes during that period, it’s obvious that mrs. lim catches him, clearly typing away under his desk, but she never seems to point it out. 

you never seemed to be mrs. lim favorite. but you definitely weren’t her least favorite. you participated sometimes, usually getting the answers right, and you never really talked or interrupted anything in that class. it was obvious to you at least, that jay was mrs. lim’s favorite. he never got detention for being late, didn’t even have his laptop charged a majority of the time, and he never seemed to look at the board. any of this would’ve easily gotten you detention with an email to your parents, but unless mrs. lim had been doing this on the down low (which she never does), then it’s obvious she favors him over the rest.

mrs. lim had this annoying thing where she would write three questions on the board, and would draw sticks with each person's name on it to see who would answer the question. and to your luck, you were the second person to be called.

you step up to the whiteboard, trying to solve the equation as efficiently as possible so you could quickly sit back down. she calls out the next person's name to which you didn’t really care, it’s not like it would change anything. well until you saw a familiar sharp jawline, standing right next to you. whatever side fate was on, it wasn’t on yours because just as you had suspected, he had no idea what to write.

“y/n right?” he whispers closely to your ear, making you scoot away, “can you help me solve this?”

“no i can’t” you smile sarcastically, “maybe if you’d pay attention you would know.” you finish writing the answer as you place the cap back onto the marker, walking back to your seat. he smirks at your interaction, writing his solution on the whiteboard. okay, so he did know how to solve the equation? he just asked me for fun i guess. you internally groan, realizing that chaewon was right, you truly were jay’s new target.

003 THE PARTY 

friday rolled around more quickly than you would like. you told your parents previously that you were going to sleep over at chaewon’s house, and luckily they allowed it. so, you grabbed your makeup bag and everything you needed to stay the night, (including some medicine in case chaewon got a hangover). you wave goodbye to your parents when you see chaewon’s car parked outside your house. as you head to her house, you start to regret even agreeing to her deal. was a week’s worth of coffee really worth going to some stupid fuck-boys party? it was already too late when you started to put on your makeup, deciding to have some slightly brighter eyeshadow than your usual going-out look.

“no one will notice my eyeshadow, right? i feel like it’s kind of bright.” you turn to face chaewon, who’s picking an outfit out for the both of you.

she scans your eyes, stopping with an outfit in her hands.

“put more on your left eye, to balance it out.” she replies, laying out the clothes on her bed.

you touch up your eye, adding your eyeliner and some lip tint to your lips as you turn to see all the outfit options.

“ta-daa~ do you like these?” she gives you jazz hands, picking the clothes up and imagining they’re on you. in the end, you both chose the outfit with the skirt rather than the dresses. chaewon picked out her outfit, and you both left the house. luckily, chaewon’s parents were taking a vacation somewhere for a week. you two sang your hearts out, laughing at whatever joke you guys made, or every time one of your voices would crack or sing completely wrong. you thought you enjoyed the ride more than whatever the party had to offer, (which wasn’t much). 

you could hear the music booming once you entered the small neighborhood. it played softly as you entered, soon becoming much louder as chaewon parked her car. when you finally exited the car and entered the house, you felt like you could go blind from the rainbow lights moving around as you and chaewon tried to navigate your way through the dancing crowd and to the kitchen where all the drinks are. you enter the kitchen, which happens to be much less crowded than the living room.

“it’s so loud in here, why would you bring me here?” you joke, projecting your voice as she shrugs.

“whatever! but i’m going to go find yeonjun, bye! don’t take drinks from anyone!” she yells much louder than you did, walking away and trying to spot her familiar ‘friend’.

you groan, she said she wasn’t going to leave me here. you decide to get a drink, looking at each bottle to find your favorite one. soon, you turn one to see the words “sparkling apple cider”; you smile, grabbing the drink and pouring it into your own.

“not a drinker?”

you turn to see the infamous jay park next to you again. 

“not really no, someone has to drive home, and i just really like apple cider,” you take a small sip of the carbonated drink, feeling the fizzy feeling in your throat. jay pours himself some apple cider, looking up while drinking it.

“yeah, i enjoy sparkling apple cider a lot too, i don’t really like the taste of any alcoholic drinks too much, i only really take shots, unlike my friends.” he chuckles at his sentence, sneakily placing his hand on your waist, looking slightly down at you. you slightly flinch at the contact, taking another sip of the cider to cover your reddening cheeks.

you hum, acknowledging his sentence, he continues. “you look nice in that skirt, you should wear it more often.” he flashes you a wink, to which you roll your eyes.

“maybe i’ll wear them less then,” you answer, escaping from his grasp; you grab the bottle of apple cider again and pouring more for yourself. he smirks at the scene, leaving you confused.

“what’s so funny about me pouring apple cider?” you defend yourself, giving him a confused look.

“nothing, you just pour it weirdly, honey.” he flashes you a smile, pushing back his hair.

“don’t call me that, and i’m just pouring it? what’s the difference?” you ask, bewildered by what he said.

“i’ll show you, can you pour it for me?” he hands you his cup, gesturing you to give him some.

“is this a trick for me to pour your drink for you?” 

“just do it apple,” he chuckles at your accusation. you place the cup down and pick up the bottle with both hands.

“apple? why that nickname?” you ask, pouring some cider into his plastic cup.

“isn’t it obvious? you love apple cider so much so why can’t it?”

jay notices how you didn’t exactly deny his request for a nickname. apple it is, he thinks as you roll your eyes and place the bottle down, turning to face him. “what is so wrong with how i pour the drink?”

“here let me show you.” he grabs your hand, guiding it with his hands on your own, tilting both items towards each other. letting the bottle spill out into the cup.

“that way, there are fewer bubbles on the top babe,” he continues, taking yet another gulp of his apple cider.

“i-i’ll make sure to wash my hands after this.” you try to make a rude remark back at him without sounding flustered.

he feels giggly at your flustered state. wait, what is wrong with him?  he softly lifts your chin to face him, a teasing smile evident on his face.

“why so flustered apple?”

he stares at you, waiting for your answer.

“what?”

“i said,” he maintains eye contact with you, “why-”

“y/n!” you quickly push jay away from you, turning your head to see eunbi, waving at you. you wave back, smiling at her. next to her, was hyun-woo, you noticed he had been trying to keep eye contact with you, which you avoided.

“i love your skirt y/n! where’d you get it?” she checks you out, grabbing whatever clean cup was near to pour herself a drink. you give a knowing look to jay smiling at her.

“i actually have no idea,” you chuckle, “i’m wearing chaewon’s clothes because i had nothing to wear, but i can ask her for you! she might be a little busy with yeonjun though.”

she pats your shoulder, “it’s okay hun! i’ll ask her later, but it was nice talking to you! come on hyun-woo let’s go back to the dance floor.” she grabs his arm walking away. you let out a sigh of relief, forgetting jay was there.

“i told you that skirt looked good on you.” he confidently adds, putting your hair behind your ear.

“it’s different when it comes from the school's heartbreaker, you should know that with your reputation and all.” instead of being offended, he looks at you in a flirty manner.

“and what do you know about my reputation?”

“i know you’re probably toying with me right now like you’ve done with countless of girls, yet somehow you have a bunch of fangirls waiting in line for their chance,” you pick at your skin, watching as the skin turns a dark shade of red.

he’s almost stunned at your reply, sure he did have a pretty bad reputation with girls,  but since when was he that easy to read?

you acknowledge his silence, nodding in acceptance. walking away from the conversation before it could get any worse. he's tempted to follow you before he sees you walking up to chaewon, begging to go home. however, yeonjun and chaewon insist that you two would stay, as the party hasn’t even started yet. you were stubborn as always, walking outside, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, and waiting for chaewon to leave. jay almost thanks yeonjun, for making you stay longer. this way, it would be easier for hyun-woo to spot you two together again. making jay’s job even easier.

he starts thinking of what to say, to maybe change your view of him. so he stands in the doorway, he notices how you shiver in the cold, but you ignore it, putting all your focus on stopping your finger from bleeding more.

jay gracefully takes off his jacket, walks over to you, and places it on your shoulders, you pause the round you were playing, looking at him in annoyance. you take off his jacket, placing it back in his hands.

“i don’t need your jacket, i’m fine.”

jay continues your previous conversation, handing back his jacket and firmly placing his arm around your shoulder, so you wouldn’t take it off.

“what could i do to prove i’m not trying to break your heart?” jay asks, trying his best to look saddened at what you had said earlier.

this time you’re the one left stunned, however, you quickly pick yourself back up, “by leaving me alone,” you answer, continuing the game you had just paused.

he chuckles at your response, leaning towards you, “you know i can’t do that apple.” he flirtatiously replies. you for the nth time that day, roll your eyes at him. you scoot away from him, coming up with a bright idea.

“then can you take me to chaewon’s house then? i am so sick of this party.” jay smirks at your reply. 

“are you sure i’m the one who wants to hook up with you so bad?” he gets up, grabbing his key, “but yeah, i’ll drive you to her house.” 

you smile at him, texting chaewon that somebody offered to take you home and that she’d have fun. Then jay leads you to his car, making some small talk on the way. he opens your door for you, letting you in. “wow, what a gentleman.” you sarcastically say, stepping into the car. he just smiles.

 “just trying to prove that i’m not trying to break your heart.”

in his car, he luckily had a bandage, which you gladly accepted. 

while he was driving, jay almost felt bad he was playing you. i mean you had just broken up with hyun-woo weeks ago, or was it months ago? whatever, it’s not like i care. he thought as he stopped at the red light. he looked over at you, smiling while watching whatever was outside the window. he turned back to the road, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach as he listened to your directions. 

“oh! take a left at the next light.”

he nods, and the lights turn green. his car blends in with the crowd by keeping up with the pace. jay places his right hand on your thigh. he notices how your legs tense at the feeling, slowly relaxing.

jay usually never made the first moves, usually, the girl made the first moves and he played along with it.  he didn’t seem to realize why he was so consistent with you. usually, if the girl left,  or played hard to get, he gave up on her. for the reason that he could always find another girl.  this is to get back at hyun-woo. he thought. but did hyun-woo really deserve this? jay definitely thought he did.

he remembered how distraught he was when hyun-woo was chosen by the coach to be captain of the rugby team. not that he was a bad player or he was a sore loser, but jay thought that hyun-woo was such a stuck-up, which was probably why he was chosen to be captain. the whole team truly believed jay would get the role. he always knew how to pull the team together and get them to play their best. hyun-woo however, always seemed to bring the mood down. after hyun-woo started to continuously mock jay for not getting captain, he knew that his time with that team was over. so he left. even now, a majority of the team still talks to jay, the few who he was close to, told him that hyun-woo was always talking shit about him.

he didn’t care at first. it’s not like it’ll do anything to my reputation. he assured himself, continuing to ignore every time he was told hyun-woo said that stuff. but when sunoo told him hyun-woo felt guilty for breaking your heart and how he only dated you because of a bet. jay knew he had to take the opportunity and seize the girl. he didn’t think this would backfire on him feeling guilt. but here he was, driving you home from a party he desperately wanted to stay at.

you remember suddenly why you were so warm inside and outside the car, you quickly take his jacket off placing it in the middle of your seat.

“you can return it to me on monday, just in case you get cold over the weekend” he sends you a flirty smile, quickly turning back to the road.

“are you sure? i mean it looks pretty expensive, and it seems special since it had your initials on it.” you flip the jacket around, showcasing to him the large letters spelling P.J. 

“yeah, i’m sure.” 

“and if you’re fangirls see me with your jacket, they’ll go crazy and think we’re dating! i don’t want that, so please take it.” you almost beg, holding the jacket near his shoulder.

“why would they think we’re dating?”

“oh, i don’t know. maybe it’s because your initials are on the back of it? and you’re in the rugby team and it says decelis rugby team under it?” you sarcastically answer.

“well i’m not on the team anymore, but also it could stand for peanut butter and jelly for all they know. so who cares?” he chuckles at his own joke, as you look at him in disgust.

you wonder if hyun-woo would care, hopefully, he did. hyun-woo had always been a jealous man. well, he might’ve been faking it for all you know, he was faking it the whole relationship, why would that be different? you quickly pull yourself together, responding to jay’s joke. “very funny. take a right at the light then turn left on the first turn.” you almost forget your job, quickly directing him the right way and placing the jacket on your lap.

he nods, moving through the road until you spot chaewon’s familiar brown house. you point at it, “that’s hers,” you say, as he pulls into the driveway. 

you exit the car and wave goodbye as he drives away. you look at your hand and realize, shit, you’re holding his jacket. you must’ve picked it up when getting out of the car. damn it! now you have to deal with jay, one more time.

004 TEARS

when you had gotten onto chaewon’s bed after washing up, you couldn’t but feel saddened by the deja vu you were experiencing.

every second you were talking to him, you were reminded of hyun-woo.

his flirty words, his smirk, his infamous charming smile, his party boy persona. all lead you back to hyun-woo.

all jay did was remind you of hyun-woo.

you don’t even know when you had fallen so deeply for hyun-woo. maybe it was because he noticed things nobody else did. maybe it was because of his stupid smile. his stupid smile that made you fall in love.

when you got to the party you two were meeting at and he drunkenly admitted to the bet he had made, you knew you should’ve listened to what everyone had said, to what chaewon said. chaewon was always right. and you should’ve known that.

so with tears slowly trickling down your face, you opened his contact. looking through old text messages since you didn’t dare to text him. you ignored the ones where you were arguing since they weren’t the most comforting. but the more you read, the more blurry your eyes got.

deciding it was time for you to go to sleep, you roll over plugging in your phone charger and staring at the ceiling of chaewon’s room.

005 CONFRONTATION

the monday of, you believed the math gods were testing you every day. who decided to make you take calculus and then put jay park in my class? if you could ask your homeroom teacher to change your schedule, you would do it in a heartbeat, if he wasn’t creepy.  but that's beside the point, whatever curse was placed on you, it was working.

you sit down in your usual seat. doing your usual routine as eunbi sits behind you. you turn around, feeling bad she always started the conversations. 

“hi eunbi! did you have fun at the party?” you ask, knowing she probably loved it much more than you.

“yeah i did!” she leans towards you, quieting down  “you know the guy i was with? hyun-woo?” you nod, praying that they didn’t do much together. “i  made out with him.” she giggles at her sentence, as your face falls, quickly changing it to a smile, “congrats girl!” you clap a little bit for her, “i thought you were already dating, to be honest.” you didn’t think that, but it wouldn’t hurt to be nice sometimes.

“i wish, i have such a huge crush on him. what about you? do you have a crush on anyone? i won’t tell anyone i promise!” she pulls out her pinky, you don’t bring yours, as you don’t have a secret to tell. you glance at jay walking in, and eunbi’s eyes follow yours.

“you have a crush on jay park?” she whispers shouts, looking at you in disbelief.

“no!” you quickly exclaim, earning the stares of classmates around you, you apologize, quickly immersing yourself back into the conversation.

“i literally don’t even like him-”

“who don’t you like apple?” of course, jay joins your conversations, moving the seat next to you to sit down. you glare at him, “why are you even here? go sit at your seat.” you signal him to move away, to which he doesn’t listen. “well you have my jacket don’t you,  princess?” eunbi watches the scene in shock as you pull out his jacket from your bag, handing it to him. “don’t call me that, i barely even know you,” you add, zipping up your bag.

“it won’t be like that for long, i'm sure,” he replies, moving the chair back as he sits in his assigned seat. eunbi, still in shock from the scene, hits you on the shoulder.

“what was that y/n?” she covers her mouth with her hand, laying her other hand on your shoulder. you hear the bell ring, meaning your conversation is over, “i’ll tell you later,” you whisper to her, turning to face the front.

when you told eunbi you would be telling her later, you didn’t mean her and chaewon. chaewon was waiting for you outside your class like always, when eunbi asked what happened between you and jay as you passed by the doorway she knew she had to join in.

“wait so jay did what?” chaewon asks, almost disappointed.

“while you were busy dancing your ass off with yeonjun, i was talking to jay in the kitchen and he kept flirting with me so i told him i knew he was playing with me and left. then i went to you and ya know, asked to go home. you declined so i went outside and sat on the sidewalk. he followed me outside and was like what can i do to prove i’m not playing you,” eunbi snickers at your imitation of him, as chaewon nods, letting you keep talking. 

“and i guess he noticed i was cold so he gave me his jacket. anyways, i was like leave me alone and he was like no! so i was like okay can you drive me to your house?” you point to chaewon, so they know whose house it was. “and he did, and i tried to return the jacket and he was like no keep it and i was like no! but i accidentally brought it out of the car so i returned it to him today.” you finally finish, taking a deep breath.

“also chaewon you forgot my coffee today.” 

“y/n, i told you to stay away from him! not ask him to drive you home!” chaewon disappointedly mentions, as you roll your eyes.

“that wouldn't've happened if you drove me home!” you counter, as eunbi watches the scene unfold.

“hey why don’t you give jay a chance? he might’ve changed his ways.” eunbi suggests, shrugging at your little argument.

“eunbi, we’re talking about jay park here. he wouldn't randomly just change his ways because of one girl.” you mention, reminding yourself of hyun-woo.

“you never know! maybe he will!” eunbi argues.

“yeah right, eunbi” you almost scoff.

006 ONE CHANCE

when you finally lie down after getting home, you feel a little vibration coming from your phone. you look at the notification, thinking it was a text from chaewon or eunbi, you open it.

unknown

hi apple, this is jay. are you free this saturday?

read 3:24pm

you

how’d you get my number?

jay

i have my ways 😉

are you free?

you

i am,,, i think, why?

jay

because i want to take you out

you

no

jay

we can go to the drive in, watch the movie yk

you

what movie?

jay

spirited away

you

no

jay

cmon it’s just one date

you

whatever

jay

i’ll pick you up at 7 apple ;)

read 3:32

the fact you knew you were going on that date almost infuriated you. it’s like you were begging for another hyun-woo situation. you didn’t want to say this was different, but something about it was. you had heard that jay doesn’t make first moves, so why was he so keen on you? what was so different about you that he wanted?

you couldn’t think of anything, nothing really made you special from anyone else, and you were fine with that. 

but maybe, you could give jay a chance, just one.

007 THE DATE

the week felt much quicker knowing your date was on saturday, not like that was a good thing. you weren’t sure how you felt about the ‘giving jay a chance’ thing, but if this date goes well, hopefully, you wouldn’t be as opposed to it as you are now.

you looked in the mirror, deciding on your outfit. which took a lot longer than necessary. after about ten minutes, you chose your outfit, sprayed on some perfume, and packed things in your purse. the familiar sound of your phone vibrating filled the room, as you checked your messages, seeing that jay was outside your house. you rushed to the front door, carefully putting on your shoes and locking the door. in your driveway, you spot jay inside his familiar black car. you stepped inside, placing your bag on your lap.

“hi apple,” he smiles at you, backing out of the driveway, “you look nice,” he says, looking through the back window.

“thank you.” you return his smile, picking at the skin on your fingernails. he quickly notices, grabbing your hands and encasing it in his.

your face turns warm, as jay keeps his eyes on the road. “stop picking at your hands, i don’t have enough bandages for you.”

you side-eye him, turning to the window, watching each tree and car as they pass by. “have you watched spirited away before?” you ask, keeping your head facing the window,

he brushes your hand with his thumb, “i have when i was younger, i haven’t watched it for a while though.” he replies, turning the steering wheel to the left.

“i’m so excited to watch it!” you squeal, letting your excitement out. he chuckles, slightly turning down the music he played.

he turns into an open field, with a huge screen at the end of it, he continues to drive forward to find a spot and parks as carefully as he can, to help others park near him too.

he glances at you, then your lips only for a second, and looks back to your eyes. he leans forward as you stay frozen. was he trying to kiss you? right now? you want to move but you can’t. almost like your waist is frozen as you look at him with wide eyes.

he quickly grabs a bag behind your seat, looking in the bag with his infamous smirk. you try to ignore that trick, looking in the bag which is filled with snacks.  you look up at him, asking for permission to take one, he nods, a smirk turning into a smile as you look through the (many) options he brought. noticing he brought your favorite, you take it, open it, and pop one into your mouth. 

“thank you,” you say, taking another one.

he opens his bag, looking at you “you’re welcome, the cashier thought i was buying snacks for a party.”

“well, you didn’t have to buy so many snacks! you would’ve saved money if you had just asked me what i wanted,” you argue, looking at the filled grocery bag.

“well, spending money isn’t a problem when it’s for you.”

“yeah okay,” you turn your head to the window, whatever car had driven in suddenly seeming more interesting than the conversation you guys were having. 

he almost giggles at your fake obliviousness, a toothy smile spreading on his face as he glances at the screen, looking for the countdown.

“the movie starts in under a minute, hope you aren’t looking to your side the whole time.”

“why would i be looking at you?” you scoff, shuffling around to comfortably sit as a yawn comes out of you.

“that’s not what i meant,” he teasingly adds, placing his arm back onto your thigh, leaning towards you.

“okay then what did you-” you quickly get interrupted when the countdown on the screen ends, starting the movie (idk how drive in theaters work). “nevermind,” you give in, leaning your arm on the side of the car as you prop your hand up to keep your head up. around halfway into the movie, your drowsiness slowly takes hold of you putting you to sleep.

008 DROWSINESS

you didn’t think you were that tired once you got there to the drive-in, but something about jay must’ve put you to sleep like a baby because why had you woken up in front of your house, on jay’s shoulder?

“when did we get here?” you mumble, sitting up and stretching your arms.

his eyes soften at your slightly messed up hair, barely being able to keep yourself awake.

“i just parked, you missed the whole movie,” he replies, turning towards you.

“what!” you exclaim, “but i was so excited to watch spirited away!” you complain, a pout forming on your face.

“so excited to watch the movie you fell asleep yeah?”

“shut up, i was tired!” you argue, grabbing your purse and opening the door to leave, “thank you for taking me, i had fun.” you blurt out, a red tint appearing on your face.

“i did too,” he smiles warmly at you, waving goodbye as you close the door and enter your house.

009 JAY’S DILEMMA

jay wasn’t usually one to fall in love he wasn’t one at all. every girlfriend he had, every situationship he had. never even came close to what falling in love was. jay wasn’t one to worry too much about a lot of things. but one thing he did care a lot about was his reputation. if he wasn’t able to make you fall in love with him. then he would be claimed as a homewrecker even if he didn’t even like you. but that’s not the point jay was trying to make.

the point was he could never get you out of his head. whether it would be a math question he was having trouble solving or even some of sunghoon’s arrogant comments, everything reminded him of you. jay never had this problem before. he never really cared about his old relationships, until you came in. messing up jay’s whole heartbreaker persona, with only him knowing.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you on the drive home after dropping you off.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you when he was laying in bed thinking at ungodly hours.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you when you waved at him the monday after your date, which he waved back.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you when he walked into your shared math class, watching you excitedly talk to eunbi about whatever.

he had embarrassed himself during the period because he was too busy with the thought of dating you, would he like that? would he like you to kiss him on the cheek or maybe on the lips? jay thought his answer was no.

but deep down, he knew it was yes.

but he would never admit that at least not to you.

010 LOVE

by now, jay had taken you on several dates throughout december to january. whether it would be studying, ice cream dates, or even museum dates. whatever date idea there was, he probably had done it. but one date he was saving for the big question, was a walk. late at night, with the moon shining brightly above the both of you, and only you two.

you two had already decided to meet at the closest park to your house. which he said was fine since it was the closest to his. he parked his car in a hidden spot, and walked to the swings, sitting down and rocking his legs slightly.

when he saw you excitedly walking towards him, he smiled.

this time, jay knew what he felt for you.

he didn’t have a simple crush or attraction towards you.

love is what he felt towards you.

love.

this wasn’t supposed to happen, but deep down, he knew all along.

love is what he felt when you walked side by side, talking about whatever came to mind.

love is what he felt when you stopped to take a picture of the moon, as he stopped to secretly take a photo of you.

love is what he felt when he asked you to be his girlfriend, to which you had said yes.

love is what he felt when you cuddled into his arm when you were cold.

love is what he felt when you stopped to tie his shoe.

jay’s night was filled with love. and so was yours. 

jay hoped it would be like that forever.

011 BUS STATION

it had been two months since he asked you out. and since then he was always asking you to go to parties with him. this time, he asked for you to go to jungwon’s birthday party the following saturday (which was tomorrow).

 you hesitate as always, declining to go, opting for a cuddle session in your room.

“apple, please! just for one of my closest friends!” he sulks, as he walks you to the bus stop you share.

he knows you can’t say no to him. which he always uses to his benefit.

“they’ll be some sparkling apple cider there, i know you don’t get to drink that a lot.” he confidently raises his eyebrows, trying to get something out of you.

you look back at him, putting on your pretend thinking face, “hmmm, maybe, i’ll think about it.”

he gives you a quick peck on the lips, to which your hands suddenly become jittery. “fine.” you mumble, looking away. he giggles, wrapping his arm around your waist, keeping you close as you continue to walk towards the bus station.

when you finally got there you quickly ran to the convenience store right next to the stop with jay. buying snacks as quickly as you could before running back out, not wanting to miss the bus.

that was a routine you two always had, and never had you missing the bus. you two proudly ate your snacks as the bus started to move. another routine you two had was jay giving you one of his airpods, to which you accepted listening to the cheesy love songs he enjoyed. 

when you had gotten to your stop you two had both gotten up, hands intertwined as you exited the bus, turning the way to your neighborhood. you had stopped in place when you noticed apple cider by beabadoobee was playing. 

“this doesn’t sound like the kind of songs you listen to. how do you know about beabadoobee?” you ask curiously.

“i don’t,” he answers honestly, before continuing, “i was looking at your playlist and i saw this song. and since it was called apple cider i decided to play it since you know, apple cider is kind of your thing.”

your smile grows, as you look at him with soft eyes, “then i decided to look at the lyrics, and it reminded me of us.” 

if you weren’t blushing before, you were a flaming tomato now, butterflies erupted in your stomach as you try to keep your cool and keep walking, to which he noticed (but he didn’t say anything.)

when you had finally made it yourself you had given him a quick kiss goodbye, as he drove off to his house.

later you decided to facetime him to pick an outfit for you. which he did and stayed on call until hours on end. the call ended when you fell asleep, and jay hung up, letting himself get some sleep too.

012 APPLE CIDER

when you two arrived at the party it seemed much more sweaty than you had expected, the smell of weed and alcohol filled the air as you navigated your way to wish the birthday boy a happy birthday,

jay had finally spotted him in the living room, squeezing your hand and walking towards him.

“happy birthday jungwon!” you exclaim, projecting your voice over the speakers.

jay gives jungwon a side hug wishing him a happy birthday too.

“thank you for coming!” he points to a hallway, “drinks are over there, and jay, do you wanna play beer pong? losers have to take a shot after each round.” he grins at him, as jay looks at you for approval. you nod, as he smiles back at you. jay turns back to jungwon with a smile on his face.

“yeah for sure! uh let me get a drink first with y/n,” he tells jungwon, jungwon nods sending you two off to the kitchen.

when you walk into the kitchen you both grab a cup, you fill yours with sparkling apple cider as always, filling jay’s cup too.

“guess you listened to my pouring advice didn’t you?” he asks as you hand him his drink.

“i listen to all your advice.”

“but that was before we started dating,” he adds, you roll your eyes, handing him his drink and heading back to the living room to watch them play.

 the teams were revealed as jay and jungwon teamed up versus heeseung and sunoo, you weren’t paying attention to any other games.

heeseung and sunoo had lost miserably, taking 5/5 shots. which was definitely too much alcohol for sunoo’s system.

sunoo seemed to be blabbering nonsense, as you and jay tried to bring him up to jungwon’s bedroom, where he could get some rest.

“ya know what jay once saidd,'' his voice came out slurred, as he stumbled after each step he took. jay looks at him confused.

“what did jay say?” you asked amused, hoping you would get some kind of blackmail against him. 

“he saidd that he waz going to make you fall in love with him-” he trips with jay barely catching him.

“so he could get back on hyun-woo,”

“what?” you ask, looking at jay’s face worriedly.

sunoo’s drunk, you assure yourself. not capable of thinking straight at all.

“come on, let’s get you to bed,” jay responds, opening the door to jungwon’s room and laying him down on the bed.

don’t do this to me jay, not again. you worry, exiting the room and letting him fall asleep. jay looks at you anxious about what to say.

silence fills the hallway. you try to analyze his face to see some sort of innocence in his expression.

he didn’t seem to start talking, so you did, “was what sunoo said true? was i just your girlfriend so you could get back at hyun-woo and that stupid grudge you had against him?” your fingers automatically start picking near the nail bed.

he sighs in defeat, “look, yes you were but let me explain-”

“no! you don’t get to explain because you’ve been playing me for two months! two fucking months i could’ve spent with someone who actually loved me.” you argue, as he looks at you with guilt.

“i do love you apple! i swear-”

“if you loved me why didn’t you tell me earlier? I'm sure we would’ve resolved it by now instead of keeping it from me and letting me run along all oblivious to your plan.” you scoff, trying to head back downstairs.

the wound on your finger just seems to grow with each step you take, the red liquid slowly covering the new injury.

“apple please let me explain-”

you face him again, “did you not feel any guilt keeping this from me? every date we went on, every kiss we shared, was that all because of a stupid revenge plan? were you faking it throughout this whole relationship?” your lips quiver, as you prayed and prayed he would say the right thing.

but for some reason, he's frozen. like his world has stopped and so has he. 

he knows he loves you and he knows he wasn’t faking it. so why was he blanking now?

you nod, wiping your tears away, wincing at the soreness of your picked finger as you leave that cursed hallway, heading to the stairwell.

“i don’t even get a goodbye?” was he serious right now?

you turn around, “jay, i was just told you dated me to get back on hyun-woo, do you think you deserve fucking goodbye?” you scoff, “honestly, i don’t even know why i gave you a chance,” and with that, you walked down the stairs, your legs slumping after each step.

you should have known, was all you could think. you should have known at the first party when he was shamelessly flirting with you. you should’ve learned that when you cried because he reminded you of hyun-woo. you should’ve known when he confidently asked you on that date. you should’ve known because chaewon warned you.

you should’ve known because it was all the same.

the flirting, the dates, the guy, and the breakup.

you grab your forgotten drink, throwing it in the trash, as you ask eunbi to drive you home.

eunbi had always been by your side. and you were always by hers. you two got so close that when you told her about hyun-woo, she immediately blocked him, and continued supporting you for which you were ever so grateful. 

eunbi hurriedly rushes you to her car after seeing your messed up mascara, helping you get in.

“what happened?” eunbi asks once you're both settled, handing you tissues from the glove compartment and rubbing your shoulder.

“he dated me because he had a grudge against hyun-woo.” 

“he what?” she exclaims, mouth hanging open.

i know,” you sniffle, trying to wipe away the tears coming down.

“i’m so sorry honey,” she mutters. 

you don’t even want to hear any nicknames again, you don’t want to hear any “sorrys”. all you wanted was to be home.

why was it always you? why did you always have to be played? what was so bad about you that people just needed to break your heart?  maybe jay would know, or hyun-woo.

“isn’t it crazy?” you laugh through your blocked nose, “is what crazy?” eunbi asks.

“this all started because i chose some dumb apple cider as a drink.”

taglist : @bookishcalls @jwonsociety @byhees @trsrina @quokkas-leebit @captivq @felixsunshine28 @lojocas @yeniiverse @starikizs @hanniluvi @misojunghwan

sorry if i missed yours!

yenqa © please do not copy, steal or translate.

[pagesfromthevoid]

Glitch | k.h. | 5

Kakashi Hatake x fem!reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Warning: Tooth rotting fluff. Student's POV.

Author's Note: This is cute as fuck. Also, I'm a sucker for the team's sneaking around spying on their teachers.

Talk to Me! | Series Masterlist | AO3

One Month Following Their Decision...

“I think she and Kakashi-sensei are dating,” Sori announced one day, a month or so after their teacher and her “friend” started spending more time together than usual.

Ayato rolled her eyes as she rewrapped her hands. “Sori, there’s no way they’re dating. You’ve heard her complain about Genma asking her out all the time. She doesn’t have time.”

Tashiro nodded in agreement, whittling away at a stick he was sharpening. But Sori shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest like a child. “Kakashi-sensei is always hanging out with us now though! Why else would he do that if they aren’t dating?”

“Maybe because two of his team members left the village and the other is training with the hokage?” Tashiro offered as an explanation, not looking up from his task at hand. “I bet Kakashi’s bored and she feels bad for him.”

“You really think she pities the Copy Ninja?” Sori questioned, brow raised. Both ninjas shrugged indifferently, returning to their tasks. Sory huffed in frustration, throwing his hands in the air. 

“If you really think they’re dating, then go follow her around,” Tashiro suggested, though he had a sly grin on his face. Ayato elbowed him, giving him a pointed and knowing look: he was trying to instigate. He was always trying to instigate. 

And Sori always fell for it. 

“That’s a genius idea, Tashi!” He exclaimed excitedly, pointing at his teammate. “We can practice our reconnaissance skills –sensei is always complaining about how bad we are at being stealthy. She can’t be mad if we’re practicing.”

“Sori, that’s a terrible idea,” Ayato argued, shaking her head. “She’ll be mad because we’re prying into her personal life –and have you met Kakashi-sensei? He’s like the epitome of private! We don’t even know what he looks like!”

“Do you think she’s seen his face?” Tashiro inquired, and Ayato glared at him.

“Stop it, Tashi.”

“It’s a fair question, I think,” Tashiro countered, finally looking up at them. “I’m in.”

“C’mon, Ayato! It’ll be fun. And you know you’re curious.”

Their conversation continued in the secluded corner of the training grounds, hidden from the prying eyes and ears of the village. The trio of young ninjas had developed a close bond during their time as Kakashi's students, and now, with their beloved sensei's behavior piquing their curiosity, they couldn't resist the urge to investigate further. Sori's excitement was palpable, and Tashiro's mischievous grin only grew wider. 

Ayato sighed in resignation, realizing that there was no stopping their impulsive plan now. With a resigned shake of her head, she agreed, "Fine, but we need a plan. And if we get caught, you better have a good excuse."

Tashiro eagerly leaned in, taking charge of the planning. "We'll split up, each of us tailing one of them separately. We won't get too close, just enough to observe. If anything seems...intimate, we back off. Agreed?"

Sori and Ayato nodded reluctantly, recognizing the importance of discretion in this mission. The prospect of seeing Kakashi-sensei's face was an added incentive, but the risk of being caught and reprimanded by their sensei was enough to be worried. She was scary when she was mad; more so when she was mad at them.

The next day, they put their plan into action, keeping a careful eye on their two teachers. Sori followed Kakashi as he made his way through the village, feeling the weight of responsibility mixed with the thrill of espionage. Ayato and Tashiro took positions to follow her, discreetly observing her without attracting attention. It was their day off from training; she had told the three to take a break and relax before they were sent on their next mission. It was a shame she had no idea they were on their own mission.

The hours passed, and the trio's stealth skills were put to the test as they moved silently through the village. When they met up –when Kakashi and her ended up at a dumpling stand to eat –the three hid out together to share their observations. Despite the secrecy of their mission, the observation turned into a strange mixture of suspense and amusement, especially as they realized the lengths Kakashi went to in order to maintain his indifferent image. He wore his mask even during their private moments, leaving the true nature of his expressions a mystery. It was hard to determine just what the two jonin were talking about, or how he was looking at her with the mask on. It was clear she was giving him looks, but the team had definitely picked up on her crush on Kakashi long ago. 

As the day unfolded, their curiosity only deepened. They watched as Kakashi and their sensei laughed together, shared meals, and engaged in quiet conversations. It was evident that there was a strong connection between the two, but they always seemed that way. There wasn’t really that big of a change between the two. They ate together, they talked together. She touched him a little more than they remembered, but none of them thought that was anything important. He wasn’t touching her back, so it could be that she was still crushing on the Copy Ninja.

Now they just needed to know if Kakashi had returned those feelings.

“What the hell are you three up to?”

The team suddenly turned around, seeing Lady Tsunade standing with her hands on her hips. Sakura and Shizune were trailing behind her, both carrying stacks of books and paperwork. The three genin panicked, all stammering and trying to come up with an excuse as to why they were spying on their sensei.

Luckily, Sakura saved them. “They’re definitely dating. Kakashi-sensei gets so flustered when he’s around her.”

But Shizune shook her head. “I think you guys are projecting; both of them have lost a lot. Just because they spend time together doesn’t mean they’re dating.”

Tsunade snorted, however. “Please. Look at them.”

The five shinobi turned their attention back to the two jonin who sat on a bench next to each other, enjoying their meal. If the two had noticed they were being spied on, they didn’t make any indication of it. To the untrained eye, nothing they were doing was any different than how they usually were. Kakashi had finished his meal disturbingly quick, hiding behind his mask again. She was half turned, leg crossed under her, as she looked up at him. They weren’t sitting particularly close to one another, nor were they really touching. Kakashi seemed a little tense, but he usually did lately.

“I…am not seeing what you’re seeing, Lady Tsunade,” Sori admitted, squinting his eyes at the two.

“Just you wait,” she ordered, narrowing her eyes with a smirk on her face. Shizune rolled her eyes; the hokage obviously knew more than she was letting on. 

The team continued to watch, their curiosity piqued by Lady Tsunade's confidence. As they observed, Kakashi reached into his pocket and pulled out a woven bracelet –nothing terribly exciting, really, to anyone watching. But as she held up her wrist for him to place it on her, he had a small, subtle smile behind his mask, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that only appeared when he was genuinely pleased. She accepted with a soft grin, her eyes lighting up with gratitude. It was a simple exchange, but the genuine warmth between them was undeniable.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow triumphantly, grinning as she crossed her arms over her chest. "See? You pay attention to the little things," she said, her voice low as if she were sharing a secret. "The little things speak volumes. It's in the way he looks at her, even with that stupid mask on. And it’s the way she lights up when she’s looking at him. That is how you know.”

Ayato and Sakura both looked enamored by the whole thing, blushing excitedly at how sweet Kakashi seemed to be towards her. Shizune was rolling her eyes with a knowing grin, pushing Tsunade and Sakura back towards the hokage’s tower. Sori whooped with excitement, yelling about how he knew it! They were dating! Tashiro just shrugged indifferently, though he was grinning too.

Sori’s exclamation, however, drew the attention of the two jonin. Sakura’s eyes widened before she spun on her heel and took off with Shizune and Tsunade, not wanting to get into trouble. Ayato hit Sori in horror, turning to run off as well but their sensei appeared before them, hands on her hips.

“And what do you think you three are doing?” She demanded, brow raised. 

Kakashi sauntered over with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a book. “I think they were spying on us.”

“You two are dating!” Sori accused, pointing between the two, trying to steer the trouble away from his team. 

She and Kakashi exchanged appraising looks. Then Kakashi shrugged.

“I didn’t think it was a secret,” he explained simply, returning his attention to his book.

“Did you guys think he just hung out with us at training because he was bored?”

Team 12 stammered again, and Sori blanched as he considered his answer. 

“At least you practiced being quiet today,” she hummed, turning on her heel to walk away now. Kakashi started after her. “Next time, don’t scream about it.”

*****

“Sorry about them,” she sighed when they returned to her apartment.

Kakashi shrugged halfheartedly, slipping his sandals off at the door. “It was bound to happen eventually.”

“It’s definitely your fault,” she teased as she fell back onto her couch and closed her eyes. 

He raised a brow, looking down at her with a narrowed eye, sitting on the floor by her head. “And how is it my fault?”

“You decided to be cute and give me a gift in public,” she reminded him, bringing her wrist to her chest to touch the bracelet. 

Kakashi took her hand, holding it up to his to look over the bracelet he had given her. “I’m glad you like it. Tsunade helped pick it out; I’m not great at gifts.”

“It’s not your fault then, it’s hers!”

[s1desn4cks]

Jax Snax (v0re)

Pomni is stressed out after the latest adventure, and Jax decides to help calm her down by hiding her in an unconventional way.

Aka, my little headcannon that Pomni will physically shrink if she’s stressed enough, as a way of making herself literally smaller to avoid problems and stay out of the way.

_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_

“Why am I the one who has to?” Jax complained to Caine, who had told him to gather everyone for the day’s adventure.

“You’re the one with keys to everyone’s room!” Caine floated over to him, throwing his arms up in a gesture of exaggeration. Jax rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Whatever.” Jax started pulling keys from seemingly nowhere as he walked towards the hallway of rooms. He knocked on everyone’s doors, and unlocked anyone’s who didn’t answer, making sure they were awake. His sarcastic attitude annoying the others as they quickly pushed him out of their rooms, or grumbled and told him they’d be there in a bit. When he got to Pomni’s room, he leaned against the door and knocked.

“Newbie, c’mon. Ain’t got all day.” Jax rolled his eyes when there was no answer after a few minutes. “Pomni, c’mon. It’s been a week already get used to it.” He snapped, annoyed. “Look I don’t want to be waking you either, but you can’t just ignore me.” Jax grabbed the key to her room, unlocking it quickly and opening the door. “Pomni-“ He stopped, not sure what to make of what he was seeing. In front of him was a tiny Pomni, only about half her normal size if even that. “Damn and I thought you were short before.” Jax joked. Pomni looked at the ground nervously, and Jax took a step back as she shrunk another good few feet in front of his eyes. “Well, that’s new.” He stared, not sure what else to say. A small glitch made its way onto Pomni’s hand as she looked up at Jax.

“Hey-“ Pomni quickly hid her glitching hand behind her back. Jax however, wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the glitching hand, and the fact that Pomni had quite literally shrunk in front of his eyes.

“Okay yeah. What’s wrong.” Jax leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed as he stared at Pomni.

“I uh, don’t know what you mean. Besides the obvious, you know, stuck in a literal digital nightmare, heh.” Pomni spoke quickly, refusing to look directly at Jax as she shrank another few inches, wanting to get away from the conversation.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a bad lier?” Jax tilted his head, his eyes narrowed at Pomni. Pomni let out a nervous laugh, hugging herself and shrinking another few inches. The glitching on her hand became worse as she stressed. Jax raised a nonexistent eyebrow. “Keep that up and you’re gonna disappear.” Even with his sarcastic attitude, a small bit of worry creeped into his tone. “Ya cant go disappearing, newbie, I’ll be the one who’s blamed. I was sent to getcha after all.” Pomni just continued to look at the floor guiltily, refusing to look Jax in the eyes. “Now tell me, what’s got you glitching. Literally.” It didn’t seem like a question, more like Jax demanding answers.

“Just stressed. That’s all. Wouldn’t you be? I mean, weren’t you?” Pomni finally looked up at Jax, who was now much taller than before from her perspective. A small tinge of fear ran through her, as Jax seemed almost like a giant now compared to her current size. “I mean, crazy adventures every day, things literally glitching all around you, never being able to go home, the chance of turning into… whatever that was the first day I got here, a completely new body, it… it’s just so much to deal with.” Pomni became smaller and smaller with each thing she described, the stress physically transforming her. Jax watched as she shrunk, dumbfounded on what to do.

“Look ya gotta stop talking or you’re gonna turn into a spec of dust at this rate.” Jax sighed, bending down. Pomni was small enough to fit in his hand now, and as much as he hated to admit it, he understood her stress. It reminded him of when he first showed up. Jax reached out a hand, setting it on the ground next to Pomni. “You’re going to be expected to show up, but at this rate I think you really will disappear if you’re forced into todays ‘activity’.” Jax looked away from her. “I can help you, if ya want.” There was a sincerity in his voice that Pomni hadn’t heard before.

Pomni looked up at him, cautiously stepping onto his offered hand. Jax carefully lifted her as he stood back up to his full height. “This is going to sound really weird.” Jax began. “But I know a place where I can hide you, where you’d be out of the way of everyone and no one but me would find you.”

“That… doesn’t sound weird at all?” Pomni questioned, looking at Jax with confusion.

“Yeah, that’s the normal part.” Jax rubbed the back of his neck. “The weird part is where the spot actually is.”

Pomni looked at him before sighing in defeat.

“I don’t care. I can’t handle any more of Caine’s $^]]#*%! activities right now or I might literally loose my mind.” Pomni’s hand glitched again and she sighed.

“Alright, but you asked for this, and if anyone asks I’ll have no clue where you are.” Jax shrugged before closing his hand around the tiny Pomni, who let out a small yelp. He slowly lifted her above his head, looking up and opening his mouth. Pomni let out another cry of fear and surprise as she was suddenly dropped, straight into Jax’ awaiting mouth.

“Wait-!” Pomni cried out as Jax closed his mouth, trapping her inside. She crawled over his tongue to the front of his mouth and began banging on his ‘teeth’. “Jax let me out!”

Jax hummed in acknowledgement but did not open his mouth. Instead, he tilted his head back and began to swallow. Pomni was quickly thrown to the back of his mouth, letting out another small yelp as her legs were squished into his throat. A panic overtook her as her hand glitched and she tried to grab into his tongue. The slippery muscle didn’t provide much to grip on as Jax swallowed again, pulling Pomni down up to her waist. Jax swallowed one last time, pulling the last of Pomni’s body into his throat.

Pomni closed her eyes as she began her decent, squirming and trying her best to make Jax spit her up. She could hear his heartbeat as she traveled down, the constant, rhythmic thumping being a surprising comfort. Meanwhile Jax had a hand on his throat, pressing in slightly on Pomni’s form as she traveled downwards. He sighed in relief as he finally felt her plop into his stomach, placing a hand over where he could feel her form.

“You good?” Jax asked, pressing his hand onto his stomach. There was no answer for a moment, until Pomni began to squirm. Jax cringed at the feeling, although something about it was rather enjoyable.

“Jax what the #^$@?!” Pomni yelled, banging a hand against his stomach.

“Calm down, I told ya that I had a place to hide you. You’re out of the way, and only I can find you.” There was a sincerity to Jax’ voice, though his usual slyness was still there. “You’ll be fine. We don’t really need to eat, so there’s no reason to freak out. It’s not like these bodies have stomach acid.” Jax said nonchalantly, as if it were common knowledge.

Pomni stopped squirming, seemingly considering Jax’ words.

“So, I’m completely safe…?” Pomni asked, concern clear in her voice.

“You think I’d do this if you weren’t?” Jax replied sarcastically. “Jeez I might be that guy, but I wouldn’t set out to kill the newbie.” He prodded at his stomach playfully, jostling Pomni.

Pomni let out a sigh of relief, taking a moment to fall backwards and let the walls cradle her. Jax began walking, presumably to whatever ‘activity’ was planned. Jax’ stomach rocked gently around Pomni, his heartbeat and breathing creating a calming and constant rhythm. Pomni, for the first time since they’d gotten to the circus, felt relieved and… secure. There was something about this experience that calmed them, although they would never admit that out loud. Their hand has stopped glitching, the stress seeming to melt away as they relaxed into the walls. Jax would be hearing hell from them when they got out, but for now, they might as well enjoy this break.

Jax sighed, placing a hand over his stomach. He felt Pomni relax, and closed his eyes, smiling. Whatever Caine had planned for today, they would just have to deal with doing without her. For now, Pomni was getting a well needed break. He knew he’d be getting hell from her once she was spit up, and he’d probably never get this chance again, so why can’t both of them enjoy this? Jax pressed in on where he could feel her form, Pomni squirming slightly at the new pressure. Jax smiled wider, and continued walking. This might actually be a good day.

[huffle-dork]

Swap Beyond the Crystalverse Chapter 1: Swap/Bad End Revisited

Co-written with @crystalninjaphoenix Read Swapboys | Read Crystal’s AUs

Other Multiverse Stories: SITCV | SATCV | GITHV

Alt, Bro and Oliver are all in Alt’s old apartment before he moved in with Bro. The big area has been cleared of all the TVs and stolen goods- and instead has been padded with mats and supplies for training. Punching bags and equipment for them to learn to fight with. They even have wooden swords and targets with dummy arrows- just in case they felt nostalgic for the medieval world. 

It’s been a couple months since they all returned from their last adventure. Alt had been putting his nose to the books, trying to learn more about Glitches, theories of multiverses and working on his magic. But, a 1-2 months could only get him so far. Bro wanted to try to keep them both sharp while they waited- even Jackie wanted a better place to practice things. So they converted Alt’s old place into this training space. 

Oliver is sitting on the window sill, watching Alt and Bro trade blows. A med kit sits next to him, just in case.

Alt ducks and rolls away from a punch Bro sends into the ground. 

Bro grins and nods, “Good one!” 

Alt pants and wipes sweat off his face, “How are you not exhausted??” 

“Hero stamina, baby bro!” Bro laughs, patting his chest. “That’s why we’re doing this more! We gotta build yours up too!” 

“I-I need to be studying more magic-“ Alt mutters and then glitches out of the way of another blow. 

“You also need to get out and move, Alt, magic or not.” Oliver gently reminds him, “Sitting in a dark room everyday hunched over books isn’t good for you!” 

“Yeah, listen to Ol! He knows what’s he’s talking about!” Bro grins. 

Alt rolls his eyes. “I don’t really see how trying to get me to fight like you is helping…” 

“You never know, dude! You could face something that like- takes your glitches or magic away! You can’t rely on it forever- “ 

“Says you…” Alt smirks, “I’m a Glitch, remember? I’ll just bend the rules around~!” 

Bro can’t help but shiver a bit at this but he tries to shake it off, “It’s still good practice! Glitch or no- you gotta get your blood pumping, bookworm!” He goes to strike again and Alt blocks his punch with both of his arms then throws him back with a little zap. Alt grins as he watches Bro stumble, his blue green eyes sparking a bit. 

And then--there's another zapping sound. A bit of green electricity appears out of nowhere at the edge of the room. It zips through the air, leaving behind a black line, hanging unsupported by anything. The line opens up, becoming a wide rip--a wide rift. And out of the darkness steps a man wearing mostly black, with a green scarf and an eye-patch hiding his right eye. He looks around the room, taking in all the details. "Impressive set-up," Anti says.

Alt glitches back in surprise. Oliver nearly falls off the ledge, “what that hell?? Hello??” 

Bro turns around then grins brightly, “Anti! Wassup??” 

Alt’s eyes widen as he straightens up, “…i-is it time?”

Anti looks back at the Brodys and nods. "If you want it to be time, it's time. I don't want to rush you. But sooner would be better. You'll probably want to call your friends and such."

Alt’s eyes narrow in determination towards Anti, magic sparking around him. “Y-Yes! We’re ready!” 

“Uh- I’m not??” Bro raises his hand, “I mean I’m okay if we go now but if it’s not an immediate rush then like… I wanna change out of these sweaty clothes at least.” Bro also points a thumb back at Alt, “I’m also not like Alt’s who’s had a bag ready for months, just in case.” 

Alt flushes bright red, “Chase! C-C’mon man!”

"Heh." Anti grins. "Really? A bag ready? That's... fun." He glitches over to the wall, leaning against it. 

Alt blushes even more, “L-Look last time I didn’t have my spell books or-or our bracelets and I-I need fuel especially if we’re gonna be glitching at all so that needs to be stocked and Oli, Jackie and Dr. J would throw a fit if I didn’t bring first aid and-“ 

Bro laughs and claps Alt on that back. “Relax bro! I was just teasing- lemme just get changed okay?” 

"Well, like I said, you'll probably want to take care of things. Go on. I can wait." Anti says. The edges of the rift crackle with green electricity and it shrinks until it's barely big enough to stick your arm through. 

Bro grabs the bag he brought with his spare clothes then hurries down stairs, “I won’t be long!” 

Anti looks up at Oliver. He blinks. "...Oliver, right? Or is it just Google here?" 

Oliver blinks in confusion, “Um- what? T-That’s a nickname for my brother but uh-“ He looks to Alt for context but Alt just shrugs, shaking his head. He’s only met one other Ollie. 

"Where I'm from, there are four... brothers... all called Google. They're friends of a friend. You look like them."

Oliver blinks back at Anti, “O-Oh! Huh… n-never thought me and my brothers would be in… these things. But I guess if it’s a multiverse- that makes sense.” He laughs, “Imagine calling all of us the googles- Griffin would be so mad about that.” Then the nurse tilts his head at Anti and kicks his feet slightly. “So, uh… Anti. What is it exactly that you’re taking Alt and Bro away for again? They’ve tried to tell me but… I dunno- it’d be nice to hear from the person they’re going with.” 

Anti nods. "We're going to find the pieces of a device called a TRVLR. When it broke they got scattered across different worlds. I think that all of us working together will be faster than just me." He glances back at Alt. "Though... we'll have to stop by Sam's world first, to get the rest of the parts I've already collected. Don't worry--a lot's happened since they were last there. They won't have to worry about that Anti attacking them." Then back to Oliver. "Once we get the TRVLR together, we'll have to track down the person who broke it. Another version of me. But we don't have to do that right away... probably." 

“Oh… right- that… doesn’t sound so bad…” Oliver says, biting his lip a bit in worry.” 

Alt had headed over to the corner and has been changing into his other clothes while they talk. Mostly just changing his shirt and putting on an oversized short sleeved hoodie with different patterned long sleeves. He ruffles his hair as he walks over, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He tried to smile at Oliver. “Don’t worry Ols, we’re used to this kinda stuff. I’m sure this will be a breeze.” 

Oliver huffs out of his nose and crosses his arms, “Yeah- but every time you go on these things… you come back hurt…”

Anti stares at Oliver silently for a moment. Then, a bit after the moment starts to get uncomfortable, he says, "I'm coming with them too. I can help protect them. Not that they'll need it, of course." 

Alt looks at Oliver with worry and opens his mouth to say something but Anti says something instead. So he just grins nervously. “S-See Ol? We’ll be fine.” Oliver frowns, not looking any less worried. 

Anti looks over at Alt. "Did you hear what I told your Oliver here? We'll have to go back to Sam's world first. There's no more corrupted, though. And we won't be there long."

Alt can’t help but freeze a bit as he hears this but he nods, “No more corrupted huh? That’s… that’s good.” He holds onto his arm, rubbing at the back of his hand… as if he can still feel the burning of the corruption there. 

After a few more minutes, Bro hurries back up the stairs. “Sorry! I’m good!” As usual- he’s wearing some off-brand bootleg stuff of his own hero merch, a big cozy hoodie version, ripped jeans and sneakers, with a slick half collar tank top with the eye logo on it. He fiddles with his utility belt- his mask pushed up into his hair, making it shimmer halfway between green and brown. “I texted the lads but uh- how long do you think we’ll be gone this time?”

"Hard to tell," Anti says. "One of the universes is a bit lacking in technology. But hopefully Sam will be able to drop us close to where the TRVLR parts are." He pauses, thinking it out. "Four days, maybe. But time is inconsistent, of course."

“Okay… four days… could be worse! I’ll let them know.” Bro says, pulling out his phone to text them. 

Oliver fidgets a bit at this and then finally jumps off the windowsill and grabs Alt’s hand, “Alt, let’s talk over here real quick!”

“Oli what are you- agh!” Alt gets tugged to one of the corners. Alt frowns at him. “Oliver… What's wrong? It’s… better this time right? We’re not just… disappearing without a trace.” 

“I know I know I just…” Oliver bites his lip, “I can’t help but worry! Especially after last time when you got a concussion and didn’t even tell anyone and-“ he stops in his ramblings and sighs, holding both of Alt’s hands in his own. “…I know I can’t stop you… I know you need to do this… I just… you all went through so much last time.” He hesitates then runs a hand against Alt’s jaw, tracing the very faint scar there. Alt leans slightly into it and closes his eyes before looking back. “…I want you to try to stay safe and… look I… I know you’ll be okay but j-just in case I have something I’ve been wanting to give you and just- now feels like a good time!” 

He lets go of Alt’s hands, leaving Alt to blink in confusion as Oliver digs around in his duffel bag of supplies. He pulls out a box and then opens it and takes out what’s inside- handing it to Alt. “…I asked Blaise what good charms she had in her shop for you… for l-luck and protection even if I don’t.. f-fully understand. She said this was… indicative of your magic.” He holds out a necklace on a thick black leather chain with a sliver chaos star charm. 

Alt’s eyes widen as he gently takes the necklace. “O-Oli…” 

“J-Just- use this to… to promise me you won’t do anything d-dumb… and you can use it to think of m- u-us! Us… if you need to. Everyone who’s waiting for you to come back… s-since all those worlds… gotta make this place feel k-kinda boring, huh?” Oliver says timidly, looking away. 

Alt’s face drops and then he looks nervous, cheeks flushing as he pulls in Oliver for a quick kiss. His face is super red but he just whispers. “Never… We’ll come home… I promise.” He slips the necklace on and gives Oliver a weak smile. 

Oliver smiles back, cheeks flushing as he squeezes Alt’s hand. “…Good. Y-you better.” 

Bro blinks at the two of them exchanging stuff- then can’t help but smile dopily at them. He chuckles and walks over to Anti. “Guess they need another minute… wonder if I should pop by to say bye to Stacy…”

Anti also watches, more fascinated than anything. So this is what a version of him who was into romance would act like. He'd only ever met ones who didn't care for it. That didn't mean they were all heartless of course... even though many were. He shakes himself out of it and looks over at Bro. "That depends. If she tried to text you or call you during this absence, would she shrug it off and wait or get worried? If she would get worried, you should probably at least send her a message explaining it."

“Mmm… she knows about my hero stuff now… but m-maybe I should pop by…” Bro says nervously, “But I uh… haven’t really explained like.. magic and the rifts…. And I don’t want to delay us more… I’ll just explain to her I’m out on a mission…” he says hurriedly and sends her a text, his own cheeks kinda red. 

Alt and Oliver kinda just stare at each other for a second before Alt coughs and looks away and Oliver does too. “T-Thank you… for the gift. I-I’m sure it’ll help and well… I-It’s nice to have a… a piece of you.” 

Oliver giggles, “Sap-“ 

“Hey! you were first-!” Alt laughs. 

Oliver pulls him in by his shirt and kisses his cheek. Then, he pushes him towards Anti and Bro. “…go on- you got multiverses to try to go save, right?” He smiles. 

Alt touches his cheek and flushes more but he nods. “Y-Yeah…” 

“Hurry up before I decide to keep you~“ Oliver says with a cheeky smirk. 

“R-Right!” Alt glitches over to the others, hiding his face somewhat in his mask and now fiddling with his new necklace. “S-Sorry! Ready-“

Anti tilts his head, looking faintly amused at all this. But he doesn't say anything. "Alright, we can head on out then." He turns towards the small rift. That green lightning appears around its edges and it grows larger once more until it's big enough to step through.

Oliver watches with awe as it opens back up but keeps his distance. 

Alt hoists his bag onto his back and straightens up. “Alright- let’s do this.” Then he blinks and looks to Oliver, “Oh Ols! Y-You’ll take care of Glitches right??” 

“Of course, you doof!” Oliver laughs. Alt laughs too. 

Bro finishes typing up his message and puts his phone away. “Alright! Let’s do this! Bye Oliver!” 

Alt smiles and waves, “Bye. Be back soon… promise.” 

Oliver smiles and waves them off as the Brody bros step through the rift.

Anti nods back at him as he steps through right after. And then, with that, the rift disappears, leaving no sign it was ever there.

—————

Walking through a rift isn't the same as being pulled into one. Bro feels a jolt, like he stepped down a curb when he wasn't expecting it, and everything grows dark with the hint of the green light usually found in the space in-between. Then, sensation returns. 

He is standing in what looks like a cafeteria of some kind. There are rectangular tables lined up, and up against one wall are counters with food. And not only that. There are appliances like mini-fridges and camping stoves. White lights in the ceiling light up the area, but... they don't look like traditional fluorescent lights. There's something off about them. Honestly, this whole place looks weirdly temporary.

Bro stumbles a bit and catches himself as he steps into the new area. He looks around a bit in confusion- especially since Alt and Anti aren’t there. Man- it’s been a while since they were immediately separated. But, he’s not too worried about it.

"Chase? When did you get here?" an accented voice asks. The question comes from one of the tables--the only one currently occupied. 

There are three men sitting there, each with a mug, and a teapot and coffee pot in the space between them. One man is wearing glasses and a pale blue sweater, some yarn bracelets on his arms. Strange branching scars crawl up the left side of his face. Another is wearing a yellow button-up with overlong sleeves. He has a mustache. The last is wearing a maroon sweater with the words Stay Strong printed on it in white. His hair is short around the edges but a bit longer on top, slightly covering the raised scars lining the upper half of his face. 

Bro jolts a bit as he hears his name and then he grins awkwardly and raises a hand in a wave, “Oh uh hi! Not… not the Chase you know uh sorry- um… I- didn’t meet any of you guys last time-“

The man with the yarn bracelets blinks. "Last time...?" 

The man with the mustache gasps slightly. He nodded, and looks at Bro in recognition. Of course! You're that Chase from another world! 

"Huh?" The man with the scarred face looks at him. "You remember him?" 

I do, but it sounds like he doesn't remember me. Which... makes sense. I wasn't really there. The mustached man waves. I'm Jameson. This is Henrik and Marvin. But... I assume you know that? I think we're all your friends in your world, yes? 

Bro’s eyes widen a bit as he takes in Jameson’s face. “Oh- Oh you were… you were the one that… that Anti used to-“ 

JJ nods. Don't worry about it. I know what you mean. 

Bro swallows nervously then tries to smile. “Well, N-Nice to officially meet all of you. I wondered if that’s who you guys were but uh- s-sometimes it’s hard to tell.” 

Henrik pulls on his bracelets. "Ah, right. Of course you are not our Chase. You look... um... more... fit?" 

Marvin laughs into his mug. "Be glad Chase didn't hear you say that." 

"Well it is true." 

Bro laughs a bit more at the comment, “Yeah I get that a lot… but I think he even realized that when we met.”

Marvin laughs some more and put his tea down. "Alright. So... you're the Chase from another world. Nice to officially meet you, too." His smile falls into something more serious. "What are you doing here?" 

"Do not be rude, Marvin," Schneep says. 

"Oh. Sorry, didn't mean to be." Marvin looks a bit embarrassed. "But—last time you came—with that other Anti and that other Jackie and that fucking..." He goes a bit pale, and doesn't mention Magnificent by name. "Last time you all came here, you were lost or something, right? Are you... still lost?" 

"And those others, are they with you, too?" Schneep adds.

“Mag isn’t here,” Bro says hurriedly, “Just me and my brother and our friend, Anti. I think he said we’re just here to see Sam and pick up supplies!”

"There are two Antis where you come from?!" Marvin blurts out. 

I'm sure that's not it, Jameson says

Bro laughs, “No just the one! Other Anti is from another world- he’s like- pretty powerful though so he’s helping us find our device that got broken that we used to travel between worlds. We gotta… find another anti and… try to stop him from doing something… bad.” 

Oh, you want to see Sam? I don't know where They are right now... 

"If They are in camp, They will be at Jack's tent," Schneep says. "Ooooh, should we tell our Chase that this Chase is here?" 

He and Stacy might be with the kids, though, JJ says.

Bro tilts his head, “Same camp as last time? …I wanna say I know where that is but then I’d probably just get myself lost-“

"Oh right!" Henrik nods. "Last time you appeared, the resistance was still in the caverns. Well, that has changed since then." 

"God, the time loop was still in effect, too," Marvin mutters. "That's also been fixed since then. In fact... a lot's been fixed. Though we, uh, still have problems." 

“Oh fuck I forgot you guys were in one of those! We didn’t stay long enough to really… feel that though-“ Bro says sheepishly.

Henrik stands up, smiling a little. "Do you want to see the camp?" He points at a set of double doors. 

JJ sighs. I suppose we're cutting tea time short, then. I'll clean up. 

Bro waves his hands a bit, “Oh I didn’t mean to interrupt! You guys can finish, I'm chill!”

JJ blinks. Are you sure? 

Schneep sits down. "We could finish our drinks, then. I'm sure there is no risk. The camp is very safe, ever since we drove Iris out." 

JJ nods slowly. Would you like a drink then, Chase? We have mint tea and coffee.

“Oh I’d love a coffee-“ Bro smiles and goes to sit down, even if he feels a bit awkward. “…did you guys say IRIS?”

Schneep gets up to grab an extra mug. "Yes--Iris Hopkins, the fucking.... worst." 

Marvin swirls his mug of tea like it's a glass of wine or brandy. "Fucking worst. She's a magician. Used to be on the Réalta Council which is... apparently? The magician government?" He shakes his head. "Anyway, she did some shitty things, so they kicked her out of camp. Now she's on the run somewhere in the city." 

“Oh.. they’re a person- okay,” Bro says, looking a bit relieved. “I’ve heard that name with like a pretty fucked up company so… got worried there for a second. Glad you all drove her out! She sounds like bad news.” 

Schneep returns and pours the coffee pot into the mug. "Here you are." 

Bro looks up at Schneep and gratefully takes the coffee, “Thanks!”

JJ nods. Very bad news. Sam says she likes to push the borders of magic. 

"I got locked in a room overnight once," Marvin mutters into his tea. "Jack had to uncorrupt me before she agreed to let me out, even though Cat was no threat to anyone."

“What?? Jesus that’s… that’s awful-“ Bro gasps. “That’s… Jesus-“ He shakes his head. “You’d think she’d have some kind of empathy if you weren’t a threat…”

"Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you?" Marvin says. 

She's who we're dealing with now that Anti is... no longer the center of corruption, JJ says. 

"But we have not seen her in some time, so it is all fine!" Schneep says.

“Yeah our Anti told us the corruption is gone… so… Anti is… what’s his deal now, then?” Bro tries to say casually, but his fingers dig into his mug, a bit of anger bubbling deep in his gut. 

"Anyway--you probably have to find your friends, yes? Your Antis?" Schneep says hurriedly. 

Bro blinks then smiles a bit at Schneep and nods, “Yeah uh- we have a lot of places to visit I think… but you know- …coffee.” He says with a small chuckle as he takes a big sip.

"Coffee." Schneep nods understandingly. "I have forgotten much, but I never forgot the sweet taste of coffee." 

Sweet? It's rather bitter, I'd say, JJ says jokingly. 

Neither of them had addressed Bro's question about Anti. After taking a big drink of his tea, Marvin mutters, "Anti got more than he deserved. By which I mean... more mercy than he deserved. But apparently it was necessary, because of how he and Jack are linked."

Bro’s expression darkens, gripping his mug tighter, threatening to crush it. “…is that so?” Dangerous light flickers in his eyes. Like the first sight of lightning before a storm starts.

JJ puts a hand on his arm. Breathe, he says. And don't break the mug—it's communal. 

Bro blinks as if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing and looks down at the mug, carefully letting go. “Oh- r-right, sorry…” 

"Trust me, I know how you feel," Marvin says. "But... this is how it is." 

"Anti is... actually... trying to be... not bad," Schneep says slowly. "Though clearly, he is not going to win back hearts."

Bro nods to the others, his expression still somewhat stormy. “I guess… he’s only still around because of Jack. Still… doesn’t seem fair to all of you- to have to see him.”

"Oh, I'm not seeing him if I can help it," Marvin says. "I don't know how these two are okay with... being there." 

JJ shrugs. It's not worth ruining the peace to me. 

Schneep is thoughtfully silent. He finishes off his coffee.

Bro follows Schneep’s lead, downing the last of his like a shot. “Well uh- thanks for filling me in. This is all good to know… I should really go find Alt…”

We'll go with you, JJ signs. 

"Yeah, I'd... like to see Alt... again," Marvin says awkwardly. 

Bro smiles, “I’m sure Alt will be happy to see you all alright… I remember him uh… talking about what… happened to you. It really affected him…” 

Marvin nods slowly. He subconsciously rubs his neck. JJ puts a hand on his shoulder. 

"I will put the cups away, then we will go," Schneep says, standing up. 

Bro gets up to help. Hopefully Alt hasn’t run into any trouble… 

----------- 

After a jolt, Alt appears in a grassy field. Surrounding him are some temporary-looking buildings and round, colorful tents—a campground, of some kind. The sun hangs in the sky in its afternoon position, a few wispy clouds drifting across the blue expanse but not enough to dull the sunlight. There are some people wandering about. They all give him a second look, surprised to see him... but no one approaches him.

Alt blinks at the appearance of the field. So much different than what he dealt with last time. He looks around, wandering towards some of the tents. Guess… it was time to try to find Sam, right? He plays with his necklace as he goes- already finding it comfortable to fidget with.

As he walks past a green tent, the flap unzips and someone starts walking out—almost running right into Alt. "Oh, sorry!" The man backs away. "I didn't see you. Are you here to see..." He trails off. "You're not Chase." The man is wearing a blue t-shirt with a cloud pattern on it, a red hoodie tied around his waist. Many scars marr his arms, all of them unnaturally straight lines.

Alt glitches back in surprise, “No, I-I wasn’t watching where I was…” He trails off as he takes in the sight of the other man and his eyes widen as he scrambles back a bit more. “Y-You’re - you were E-Error…!”

Jackie's eyes widen. "A-Alt?!" He also backs up. "I—you—what're you—I-I um—" He looks nearly as panicked as Alt is. 

Alt tries to keep his breathing under control- because clearly Jackie isn’t Error anymore! But he sees- he sees him leaving with Anti- abandoning him as the corruption ate him alive.

There's a slight green glow in the tent behind them. A small golfball-sized green eye slips past Jackie, where it then grows bigger, to soccer-ball size. {ALT!} Sam says cheerfully.

Alt swallows shakily and then glitches again in surprise but relaxes at seeing Sam. “S-Sam! Hi…!” He grins nervously.

Sam tilts to the side, like an animal cocking their head. {ALT... I UNDERSTAND YOUR FEELINGS.} Their mental voice is soft, gentle. {BUT JACKIE IS NOT THE SAME. HE HAS GONE THROUGH A LOT AS WELL. YOU DO NOT NEED TO FORGIVE HIM, BUT REMEMBER THAT.} 

"I... I can... leave," Jackie says slowly. "I just... th-thought I would... get Jack something from the cafeteria..." He can't look away from Alt.

Alt winces a bit at Sam reading his feelings. But soon enough he shakes his head, “n-No it’s… it’s fine. Y-You were… you weren’t you… then.” He tries to laugh but it comes out forced. “and you had it w-way worse than I… I did.”

Jackie nods slowly. "O...kay. Yeah. I... I really am... so sorry. I'm... so sorry." 

“It’s okay… really.” Alt says sincerely. 

"Jackie?" A voice comes from inside the tent. "Who are you talking to?" 

"Uh..." Jackie glances back over his shoulder. "Do you... remember Alt? Did you see him?" 

"Do I remember—oh, I'll never forget Alt—wait, is he here?!" There's a shuffling noise. 

"Jack no, be careful!" Jackie hurries back into the tent.

Alt perks up and then smiles brightly at the sound of Jack’s voice. “J-Jack?!” He blinks in confusion at Jackie’s reaction then glitches inside after him.

There's some furniture inside the tent. The central area has a circular table with two chairs, then there are two alcoves to either side--one with a twin-sized bed with a metal frame, the other with a series of cubbyholes that have various things inside--a couple card sets, puzzles, and folded clothes. Jack is sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a white hoodie and gray pants. He looks a bit thinner and paler than the form Alt saw last time... but he's solid. He has a physical body. Jackie is standing nearby, holding a pair of arm crutches out to Jack. 

"Alt! Hey!" Jack waves at him cheerfully. "Oh my god, it's good to see you!"

Alt’s expression brightens as he sees Jack. “Y-You’re awake…!” He gasps and glitches over. “God- it’s good to see you too, dude!”

Jack laughs. "It's good to see you too! Hey, is it okay if I hug you?" 

"Be careful, Jack," Jackie says. 

"C'mon, I'm not gonna shatter if he hugs me."

Alt laughs and nods, “Y-Yeah of course!” He glitches a bit closer, hesitates for just a second then goes to hug Jack.

Jack hugs him back as tightly as possible. "God--I missed hugs," he says, and laughs a little. 

Alt laughs and smiles warmly. “I’m… really happy to see you’re okay…”

As they pull away, Jack asks, "What are you doing back here?" 

{THE THREE OF THEM ARE HERE FOR THIS.} Sam flies over to the cubbyholes, landing in one near the top.

Alt blinks and looks to where Sam is going. “Oh yeah! Sam has parts of the TRVLR… it got destroyed so we’re going to go look for all the missing pieces.”

"Right, your device." Jack nods. "Sam said something about keeping an eye out for things a lot recently..." 

Jackie walks over to the cubbyhole and grabs the things in the cubby where Sam landed, bringing it back to the table. There's a plastic bag full of computer-y parts, a small clutch of some kind made of slick black fabric, and three small items. Meanwhile, Jack straps on the arm crutches Jackie left by the bed and walks over to the table. 

{THE TRVLR IS NEARLY COMPLETE,} Sam says. {THERE ARE ONLY EIGHT PARTS LEFT, BUT THEY ARE THE MOST ESSENTIAL PARTS.}

Alt’s eyes widen as he glitches over to the table. “Woah! You found so much- honesty I thought we’d have to find a lot more!”

{THE GOOD GLITCH HAS BEEN A GREAT HELP,} Sam says. 

"What're those?" Jack indicates the three small items. They're orbs made of glass, designed to look like eyes with green scleras and blue irises. The pupil is the size of a fingerprint, slightly indented. 

{THEY ARE TO HELP FIND THE PIECES,} Sam says. {TRACKERS, OF SORTS.}

“Ohh! Neat!” Alt grins, picking up one to look at. Then he looks at the fabric clutch. “And what’s this?”

{WATERPROOF BAG,} Sam explains. {TO PROTECT THE TRVLR PARTS.} 

Jack raises an eyebrow. "Going somewhere with lots of water, then?" 

{OH, I AM NOT GOING. BUT YES, ALT, BRO, AND ANTI WILL FIND A WORLD WITH A GREAT OCEAN.}

“…one we’ve been to before or- somewhere else?” Alt asks, blinking back at Sam. He starts to take the TRVLR parts and puts the plastic bag inside the fabric one.

{YOU WILL ONLY BE VISITING TWO WORLDS WHICH YOU'VE BEEN TO BEFORE,} Sam says. {THE FIRST OF WHICH, YOU WILL MEET UP WITH THE HENRIK WHO GOT CAUGHT IN YOUR LAST JOURNEY. THE SECOND OF WHICH... WELL, YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO TRANSFORM INTO MERPEOPLE.} 

“So somewhere new,” Alt laughs. “That was a really round about way of answering that.” 

"You went to a world where you turned into merpeople?!" Jack gasps. 

"They what?!" Jackie's eyes widen.

Alt blinks then grins, “We’ve been to two worlds where we got to do that! One was in the far off future on an alien planet with really weird fish but they had like- mermen alien fish hybrids so we got to be some of those. Then- once we landed in a world where actual mermen existed too! Honestly it was really cool,” Alt laughs. “I got to practice some cool spells to make it happen!”

"Whoa..." Jackie whistles, impressed. "I don't think Marvin could do that. Don't tell him I said that, though." 

"Alien planet with weird fish? That sounds cool!" Jack says. "So... you need to meet up with your brother and this other Anti, right? Sam, do you know where they are?" 

{ALL THREE LANDED IN THIS CAMP,} Sam says. {I BELIEVE THEY WILL MAKE THEIR WAY HERE. YOU DO NOT NEED TO MOVE.} 

Jack sighs. "Yeah... probably for the best." He looks at Alt. "Turns out, having your body in a coma for years has some side effects. But we'll take what we can get. Better than being ghosts."

Alt looks relived the others aren’t far. “Well if they’re on their way here then- I don’t mind keeping you company.” He says with a shy smile. “Maybe you guys can… catch me up? Seems like a lot has happened since we were here last!”

"Oh you have no idea." Jack sits down at the table. Jackie hovers nearby. 

"Uh... short version. Surgeon left the Place where Anti was keeping him. But unfortunately the tradeoff was the cave where the resistance was hiding was found. But in the escape I managed to uncorrupt JJ. Then, turns out, this camp was here the whole time--this place is run by magicians, turns out there's more of them than just Marvin and Raven, hah. So we all came here. I uncorrupted Schneep. Then this group of other magicians led by a woman named Iris arrived--turns out she was secretly doing shady magical shit. We got Cat out of the Place by tricking Anti into thinking we were somewhere else. I uncorrupted him, he's Marvin again. Anti then freaked out, and..." He glances at Jackie. 

"He... really held onto Error tightly," Jackie says slowly. "Ended up... fucking with my head enough that I wanted to leave, even in that state." 

"So I uncorrupted him, then," Jack says. 

Alt listens carefully to the story, nodding along. He seems relieved to hear that Marvin is no longer Cat. Then, He looks sympathetic towards Jackie when they explain about Error. 

"Then uh... the Place kind of... became part of the world? And the corruption... became its own thing? And started controlling Anti?" Jack continues. 

"That part will probably take a little more explaining," Jackie mutters. 

"That whole thing made Anti start to reconsider shit," Jack says. "That, and some of the voices--holy shit, you don't even know about the voices, uh... that's a long story too. But to sum it up, I went into Anti's mind and got rid of the corruption, but as a result... we both... returned to this body." Jack pauses. "Anti is... in here." He taps the side of his head. "He's... asleep right now, though."

Alt’s eyes widen as he hears about the corruption. Then, at Jack’s last statement, he inhales sharply and glitches back. “H-He’s what?!” He squeaks, turning a bit pale.

Jack winces. “Yeah no I expected that reaction. Don’t worry, he’s not gonna pop out or anything. He only wakes up once I fall asleep, and I’m not planning on doing that anytime soon. A-and even if something happened, he’s not… going to… H-he doesn’t hurt people anymore. Or, he’s trying not to. And the corruption is gone anyway…”

Alt slowly relaxes- even if he still looks wary. “Oh uh… o-okay. If you say it’s nothing to worry about… I-I trust you.”

Jack lets out a breath. “Yeah… it’s uh… really awkward, given… everything that happened.” 

“Understatement,” Jackie comments. 

“Everyone’s keeping an eye on him, but he’s really not gonna try anything,” Jack continues. “Besides, we both lost a lot of our powers once we got our body back, so he couldn’t if he wanted to.” 

Alt nods, giving Jack a weary smile. 

“Oh, I can do some party tricks, though. Jackie, hand me the tablet.” 

Jackie picks up a small tablet—like an iPad, but slightly different—from the bed, and walks over to hand it to Jack. He props it up so Alt can see the screen. A bit of static flickers across it as Jack opens and closes some apps just by concentrating. YouTube, some idle matching game, an art program that’s currently on some drawing with a lot of red splatters—which Jack closes quicker than the rest. “See? This is the most we can do now.”

Alt blinks a bit- impressed. “hey- that’s pretty neat!“ he laughs.

“Really?” Jack brightens. “I mean—I know you can probably do a lot more with your like electric magic but I’m really proud that I’ve managed to do this, it’s taken some practice—” 

“Ha I can’t do anything like that! So I think it’s pretty cool!” Alt laughs. 

Then suddenly, there’s the sound of static. Anti—the green scarf wearing, eye-patch’d Anti—appears inside the tent near the entrance. 

“Jesus fucking christ!” Jackie jumps in surprise.

Alt glitches a bit in surprise but quickly recovers, “Oh hey Anti! You gotta give these poor guys a warning or something-“

“Sorry,” Anti says to Jackie. “And sorry I’m a bit late, Sam. I showed up right next to this world’s Chase and Stacy, had to convince them I wasn’t this Anti who’d suddenly escaped his body. I think they’re coming here to check.” 

“Oh yeah- that’d probably freak them out,” Alt laughs nervously.

“Oh. Cooooool.” Jackie nods slowly, still looking a bit rattled. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box of BandAids, applying one to a cut that’s suddenly on his arm. 

{ALT’S BROTHER IS HEADING THIS WAY AS WELL,} Sam says.

Alt blinks at Jackie a bit in confusion. Then brightens as he hears Bro is on his way. “oh good!”

Anti glitches over to the table--surprising Jack in the process--and picks up one of the glass eye trackers. "Did you explain to him how this works?" 

{I FIGURED IT WOULD BE EASIER TO EXPLAIN WHILE THEY'RE BOTH HERE,} Sam says. 

"Fair enough." Anti pockets the glass eye. He then looks at Jack. And seems to freeze. "...Hi... Jack." 

"H-hi?" Jack gives a little wave and laughs. "This is so weird."

Jackie notices Alt's confusion from the bandaid and looks away, seeming somehow ashamed. 

Alt looks even more confused- and now concerned. He glitches over and he hesitates before asking, “…you okay?”

Jackie jumps slightly. His eyes dart around a little. "I... don't want to freak you out." 

“You won’t, it’s okay-“ Alt tries to say gently.

Jackie hesitates... then nods slowly. "The... the glitches. You probably remember Error's glitches. They're... still around. Meaning... there's still a bit of corruption in me." He whispers that, eyes wide with panic. "I-I don't think it's affecting my brain. But... the glitches are still there."

Alt doesn’t look too freaked out- he looks more worried than anything. “O-oh… I’m so sorry Jackie… t-that must be really hard…” he glances over at Jack and Anti, “…I’m guessing Jack can’t help anymore, huh?”

Jackie shakes his head. "He tried. We uh... did this spell to go into my mind to check on things. It's... If there's some way to get it out, we can't figure it out." He gives a small smile. "But on the bright side... no one else has any left in them. Just me."

Alt’s eyebrows furrow, “…that’s still not something you should have to deal with… that really sucks. I… I wish I knew how to help…”

Jackie smiles. "Thanks. It's okay, we'll figure it out eventually. It'll just take a while. Besides... sounds like you guys have something else to work on, right?" He glances towards the tent entrance. 

Alt chuckles, “Yeah… we got a pretty big mission from the sounds of it.” 

Jackie hums, "Wonder how far your Chase is. The camp isn't that big, he'll probably be here soon." 

----------- 

"--and over in that direction is the meeting building, the magicians set it up very quickly," Schneep says. He's been giving Bro a verbal tour of the camp as they walk. "It is amazing, actually." 

"Yep, magic's amazing," Marvin says a bit smugly. 

Jameson chuckles. 

There are a few people up and about camp. They occasionally glance at the group, but apparently this isn't an odd enough sight to stare at.

 “Yeah dude this is really impressive! This was a magician’s camp?” Bro says. He smiles at people as they walk by, trying to appear friendly.

Jameson nods. Turns out, the Council that's in charge of all magicians in the area knew about the time loop and set up this camp to keep an eye on things. Once the time loop broke, we all came here and let them know about the corruption. They've been a great help since then. 

"Can't believe I never knew about them," Marvin mutters.

“Damn! That’s really great- well besides that Iris woman but… good you guys got help right away!” Bro smiles.

"Yes, very good," Henrik agrees. "Oh, perhaps if you stick around a bit I can introduce you to Fern, she is a magician doctor! I think she is at the clinic now." 

"Fern's great," Marvin says. "A real miracle worker." 

“Oh! That’s cool! Don’t meet too many magician doctors! You’d think that’d be more prevalent…” Bro laughs. 

"Hey!" A voice shouts. "Guys!" 

To the left, a pair of familiar faces are running towards the small group. 

"Hello Chase!" Henrik waves. "And Stacy!"

Bro blinks then grins, “other me! Stacy! Hi!”

"Oh! Hey." Chase skids to a halt next to Bro. He's wearing a brown aviator jacket, his hair a bit longer and shaggier than last time they were in this world. 

Stacy's hair has also grown out, now only the lower half of her shoulder-length hair is dyed blonde, everything else is its natural brown. She's wearing a yellow long-sleeved shirt with little pink dots around the cuffs. 

"You are here, then. Uh, good to see you!" Chase says. 

Stacy nods. "So... weird question, did you really come here with your brother and some other, glitchy version of Anti? Or should we be worried?"

Bro laughs, “I really came here with Alt and another Anti! We’re picking up some stuff to try to fix the thing we use to visit other multiverses- Sam collected a bunch of it!”

"Ohhhh, that would explain that plastic bag in Jack's tent," Chase says. 

"We are heading to that tent now, actually," Henrik says. "Do you two want to come?" 

Stacy nods. "Sure, why not? The kids are being tutored so we might as well keep an eye on things." 

As the group continues, Chase explains, "We were in the hangout tent together when this Anti guy suddenly appeared. Gave me nine consecutive heart attacks seeing him. He, uh... really looks like our Anti. Except with an eye-patch. And a scarf. I don't think Anti would like scarves." 

“Oh yeah he’s kinda freaky when you first meet him,” Bro chuckles, shaking his head. “I never got to see what your Anti looked like but I can imagine. You can trust him though- Sam does. And he’s also like… saved me and Alt multiple times. He’s moody and acts aloof but he’s- he’s a good guy.”

So like Marvin? Jameson says. 

"Wh--hey!" Marvin sputters. 

Chase laughs. "Alright. If Sam trusts him, we'll trust him." 

"I'm not moody," Marvin grumbles. Henrik pats his shoulder.

Bro hides a laugh, “it’s okay dude- some of the best people I know are like that! Alt is like that too.”

Marvin smiles a bit. "Heh... that helps." 

"Honestly, it's good to see you be a little moody," Chase says, smiling back at him too. 

"Really? O-oh." Marvin blinks. "Hah... I'll try not to be too moody, but, uh... thanks." 

Bro smiles warmly at Marvin. 

They're approaching a green tent. Jameson points at it. That's Jack's tent. He's not staying with the rest of us because of the... Anti situation.

Bro blinks at Jameson before looking back at the tent. “Oh yeah uh… he was in a coma right?”

"Yeah..." Chase nods slowly. "I remember you and Jackie could hear him. But, uh, now he's back in his body!" He smiles... then the smile slowly fades. "Unfortunately... the side effect of that is that Anti is also back in the body. He, uh... They kind of take turns. When one falls asleep, the other takes over." 

But Jack should be awake right now, you won't have to deal with Anti, JJ reassures him.

Bro’s smiles hearing Jack is awake- but it quickly falls as he hears Anti is with him too. “…that’s- gotta be hard to deal with… t-the way you all were talking about him… thought he’d be separate from Jack at least-“

Marvin winces. "Well... it meant that the corruption went away, and everyone was uncorrupted again. So I think it's... worth the trade-off." 

Chase sighs, rubbing the back of his head. "At least they don't just randomly turn into each other. That'd be weird. And at least Anti's not trying to hurt anyone any more. He's, uh... trying to... redeem himself?" 

Marvin looks away. Jameson purses his lips and doesn't say anything.

Bro’s expression darkens again, “Hm… hard to redeem turning people into corrupted monsters against their wills. …I believe in second chances but that… I dunno if I would… I dunno if I could with him. Not after what he did to Alt.”

Stacy nods. "Well... you're not alone in that. All of the uncorrupted people are staying in camp too. And a lot of them..." 

"They are not happy," Henrik states. "To put it lightly." 

"The fact that he's stuck with Jack does make things difficult," Stacy says. "We don't want to punish Jack for what Anti did. But the magicians are at least keeping track of him." 

Bro at least feels a bit better knowing he’s not the only one upset. “Yeah… poor Jack… having to deal with all this…” 

As the whole group approaches the tent, Anti--the one who came with Alt and Bro--glitches outside the entrance. 

"Holy shit!" Marvin jumps. 

"Yeah, freaky, isn't it?" Chase mutters. 

"Sorry," Anti states. "Hi, Chase. Bro Fantastic, I mean. Alt's inside."

Bro blinks then grins, “Yo Anti! Heard you gave other me a heart attack-“ 

There's the sharp sound of more glitching and Alt appears by Anti at the entrance. He grins at Bro and the others, “There you are!”

"Ah, hello!" Schneep waves. "So you are Alt. I didn't meet you the last time you were here, nice to see you now." 

"Hey!" Chase waves, and Stacy nods. 

Good to see you--though you are a bit strange, Jameson says, looking at Anti. 

"I can imagine," Anti says, shrugging. "We won't be here long, though." 

Marvin stares at Alt. He raises a hand. "Hey. You look... good."

Alt blinks at eveyone then smiles sheepishly and waves, “Hi…! Good to officially meet you all…” His eyes meet Marvin’s though and they widen. He glitches over, then smiles a bit. “H-Hey…! It’s… god… good to see you out of that… y-you know. You… look good too.” He laughs a bit.

"Whoa!" Marvin takes a step back, then laughs. "Thanks! I'm sure even the scars are an improvement to how you last saw me." He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "I, uh... yeah. It's good to be uncorrupted." 

Alt smiles and nods, “I’m sure it’s a relief…” 

The tent flap opens again, and Jackie peeks out. "Oh, uh... hi everyone. H-hang on." He disappears for a moment, and then he and Jack come out, with Jack using his crutches to support himself. Sam flies out after them. 

"You, uh, forgot these, Alt." Jackie holds up the two glass eye trackers. 

{YOU'LL NEED THEM,} Sam says. {HELLO, CHASE.}

Alt jumps a bit as everyone else comes out and then laughs, going to grab the trackers. “oh I- didn’t mean to lead everyone outside! T-Thanks though.” 

“Yo Sam!” Bro grins, “Good to see ya!” He blinks at seeing Jack and Jackie but then smiles more, “And Jackie and Jack! Good to properly meet ya both!” 

Jackie waves a bit, smiling shyly. "Nice to properly meet you, too." 

"Hey!" Jack grins. "Yeah, last time I was still a coma ghost. So glad that's over with." 

"Ah yes, because it was so easy for you to become not a coma ghost," Schneep says, deadpan. 

"It only took the whole Place being dragged out to the city," Chase says jokingly. 

Anti blinks. He looks over at Sam. "Was that what you were dealing with that time those five got stuck in-between? Is that why you were late?" 

{YEP.} Sam swishes Their optic nerve. 

"Well... shit. No wonder."

Alt and Bro blink in surprise. “T-The whole Place?” Alt asks in awe, “wasn’t that place like… infinite???” 

"Oh--no, not infinite," Jackie says. "I mean, it definitely seemed like that when you were wandering around and its hallways were shifting, but at most it was as big as the city." 

"If you look over thaaaat way..." Chase points to the side. Part of the sky seems... red? "That's where the city is. You can see the effect the Place had from here." 

Bro looks at Anti and Sam and tilts his head, “Damn… then it’s only been like… what? 2 months? Since all that happened? That’s crazy…”

It's been longer for us! Jameson says. It seems time in your world runs slower than ours. I think it's been about... four months or so. Twice as long. 

"Even so, yes, that is a lot that happened," Henrik agrees.

“Still… four months isn’t long at all… you guys seem to be adjusting well,” Bro says with a gentle smile. 

Alt looks towards the city with furrowed brows, “…what happened to the city? I-Is that why you all are out here?” 

"Yyyeah..." Jack says slowly. "It's uh... it has a red sky now, and there are weird hallways everywhere and the sewers and caves are a maze... it's a fucking mess." 

"Yeah... that's our main problem now," Marvin says. "Fixing that and finding Iris again."  

“why are you looking for Iris? I thought she got ran out of here…” Bro asks. 

"Yeah, ran out of here and into the city, where she's probably plotting something." Marvin folds his arms. 

"Besides--she's broken magician laws, so she's basically a fugitive." 

“Ah… makes sense then.” Bro nods. Alt frowns at the city in worry.

"What are those things, by the way?" Stacy says, pointing at the glass eyes. 

{ANTI, YOU EXPLAIN, MOST OF THEM CANNOT HEAR ME,} Sam says. 

"Right." Anti nods. "They're trackers so we can find what we're looking for." He takes out his own glass eye from his pocket. "You put your finger against the dent where the pupil is and the information gets beamed directly to your mind."

Alt’s attention gets drawn back from the city as Anti explains the trackers. He hands one to Bro. 

Bro whistles, “Impressive! … and a tad bit invasive but- guess that can’t be helped-“ He and Alt immediately go to try it.

Immediately, Bro knows that all the TRVLR parts in this world are in that black clutch Alt is carrying. 

Alt merely becomes aware that there are no other parts besides that in the area. 

Bro and Alt still seem impressed. “Cool!” Alt grins. He stuffs it into his pants pocket for safe keeping and Bro stores his in his utility belt. 

"Oh, it works on a world-by-world basis," Anti adds. "But Sam knows which other worlds have the remaining parts. We're actually going to that universe with the Glitch Henrik next. He probably found the part there by now.”

Both of them look delighted to hear they’ll be seeing Schneep next. “Aw fuck yeah! I bet Schneep crushed that-“ Bro grins. 

"So... are you guys just gonna leave right away, then?" Jack asks, a bit disappointed. 

The brothers exchange looks before Alt says quietly, “I guess… we can stay for a little bit longer- if you guys want.” He smiles sheepishly.

"Well I mean--this is important, isn't it?" Chase says. "I'd hate to delay you. And there's not a lot to do at camp, really." 

Marvin brightens slightly. "We could play Insane Monopoly." 

The others all groan and immediately start to protest. 

That's sure to make them want to leave! JJ says. 

"And that will literally take all day!" Jackie adds.

Alt and Bro burst into laughter. “As crazy as that sounds… we.. we probably should go.” Alt says, holding his necklace. “…we have uh.. people waiting for us at home….” His cheeks turn a bit red at this and Bro smirks.

"Ah... of course." Schneep notices the blush and nods. "W-we... we understand." 

"Hen's gonna spend the rest of the day with Trisha, oooo," Chase says teasingly. 

Schneep nudges him. "And? What about you two?" He gestures at Chase and Stacy. 

"Huh, what? I-I don't know what you're talking about!" Chase protests, face getting red. 

Stacy's eyes widen and she fidgets awkwardly with her sleeves, looking away. 

Bro smiles at Chase and Stacy though, maybe they’re getting along better! That makes him feel more secure with his own relationship. 

“Careful guys- you’ll make Alt jealous~” Bro teases, “His boyfriend threw a fit that we had to leave-“ 

“C-Chase!” Alt protests, pushing him slightly and looking away, hiding his face in his mask. Bro laughs.

Sam flies away from the tent. {LET'S GET SOMEWHERE CLEAR, THEN. THAT IS BETTER WHEN MAKING A PORTAL.}

Bro looks at the others and smiles, “Wanna help send us off then?” 

"Hmm? Help how?" Marvin asks. 

"I mean, sure, we'll wave goodbye!" Jackie laughs. 

Bro laughs, “That’s what I meant!”

"Alright, come on, everyone after Sam," Jack says, making his way after Them. Everyone else follows, matching his slower pace. Except for Anti, who immediately glitches over to where Sam is waiting in a clear spot away from most tents.

Alt glitches to walk beside Jack, playing with his necklace timidly. Bro keeps up with the others.

It's a clear day. The clouds are only wisps. 

But... suddenly... there's a feeling of ozone in the air, like the moment before a lightning strike. 

Anti's head whips to the side, eye widening in alarm. 

{NO!} Sam shouts. {THAT'S IMPOSSI--} 

And then a shockwave of red light blasts outward from midair as a rip is torn in space.

Bro holds his arms over his face and digs his feet into the ground to try to not get blown away but he ends up getting thrown back. Alt yells out in surprise and glitches to cover Jack, curling his body around him to keep him safe-Jack gasps as Alt suddenly appears in front of him, stumbling but managing to keep his feet. 

Chase and Stacy, out in front, get thrown through the air. JJ and Marvin are just behind them and both get knocked to the ground. 

Anti glitches out of sight and then returns just in time to glare at the black rip in midair. "Y͏̛ou.̶̷" 

A figure forms from the red light as a low, threatening laugh echoes through the clear day. Another Anti, glowing red and black, eyes filled with white static and a scar wrapping around his neck. He floats a few inches off the ground. "Did you think I wouldn't notice?" His voice comes from all around them. "Those three little blips I could brush off, but you. The ripples you caused getting here again... I'd be a fool to ignore it." 

Alt got knocked to the ground too trying to keep Jack up but he quickly glitches back up to his feet. He goes to hold an arm out in front of Jack and the others and his stomach drops. “N-No…!” He breathes, blood running cold. 

Bro hurries to push himself up and rushes forward. His eyes fill with blue light as he growls. “Y-You! …w-what are you talking about??”

"Oh? Do you not recognize me?" The red Anti grins, and his image shifts, until it's abundantly clear--this is the Anti from the first world with the rifts. The red light quickly returns, darkening his appearance. 

Bro bares his teeth at the red Anti. “oh, I’d be hard pressed to forget you bitch-“ He snarls. 

"And do you think I'm a fucking moron? There's always people like you in every world! People like you who will get in my way. And that's what you're doing now, isn't it? Are you trying to stop me?" 

“Of course we’re trying to stop you! We’re not gonna let you destroy innocent worlds!” Bro bites back.

"Who the f-fuck is this?!" Marvin says, climbing to his feet. 

"Someone bad, clearly," Schneep says, shuddering. 

"He's the one who broke the TRVLR," Anti says, glaring at the red image before them. He summons a knife. "Leave this world alone! It's been through enough!" 

{I WILL PUSH HIM OUT!} Sam says. {I WILL--} 

"You won't do anything," Red Anti says, snapping his attention to Sam. He grins, tearing his face in two. "Don't you think it's strange how you couldn't see me?" 

Sam backs up. Being just an eye, it's hard to read Their expression, but They seem taken aback. 

Bro’s eyes widen, “S-Sam can’t see you?!” Then he growls, “That doesn’t matter cuz we’ll find a way to stop you!”

"I'm an anomaly," Red Anti says in a soft, threatening voice. "You can't fucking stop me." 

Alt pushes Jack gently towards the others, “G-Guys…! G-Get Jack to safety- g-get out of here!” He warns them- but he doesn’t take his eyes off the other him.

Red Anti laughs, and turns his attention to Alt. "You care about him then? I'll show you what happens when you care." His image disappears, and red lightning races towards Alt and Jack.

Alt panics and yells out, holding out both hands and shutting his eyes as a green-blue electric bubble curls around him and Jack.

The red lightning bounces off the shield. Red Anti's image appears outside it, growling at Alt through the electricity. "Why can't I grab your power?!" he demands. "It's magic! It's energy! It should be--" 

Alt stares at Anti with terror clear on his face and he stumbles back. “I-I don’t…!” He tries to say. 

A bolt of green light passes through the image from the side. Marvin, having got to his feet, has his hand extended, green light coming from his eyes, his pupils now contracted to narrow cat-like slits. 

"Did you think that would work?" Anti's voice says. "I'm not there. I'm everywhere." More red lightning forms behind Marvin and shoots towards him. 

At the same time, another bolt shoots towards Bro. Bro yells and tries to rush at Anti but gets blasted back and skids a couple times across the ground.

Marvin cries out, falling to the ground as the lightning sneaks up on him. 

"Marv!" Chase gasps, scrambling to his feet and rushing over. Henrik also runs over, his doctor training kicking in as he checks Marvin over.

“Chase! Marvin!” Alt calls out and then he tightens the bubble more around him and Jack- unable to hide his shaking.

"H-he is okay!" Henrik reports in a shaky voice. 

"You bastard!" Jackie shouts, a few squares of colorful static flickering around his shoulders. He rushes for the image of Red Anti, but he disappears well before he gets there. 

"He doesn't have a physical body!" Anti snaps, his eye darting around. "I'll buy you some time. Sam, a rift!" 

Abruptly, he dissolves, turning into shadowy pixels and then disappearing. Red and green lightning flicker around the clearing, zapping through the air. 

Bro slowly pushes himself back up and then quickly nods, momentarily watching the Antis battle before he rushes over to Sam. 

{RIGHT!} Sam grows in size, now more like a beach ball. {YOU ALL MUST GET TO THE NEXT WORLD! AND I MUST EXPEL HIM BEFORE HE DOES ANYTHING ELSE! JAMESON, WE NEED TIME.} 

JJ, now kneeling by Marvin's side, looks up in surprise. Then he nods. He takes a deep breath, and his irises turn gold. The lightning... slows down. Like someone put a video in slow motion. 

"Y-you have to get out of here!" Jack says, grabbing Alt's arm. "Don't worry about me. The others can protect me."

Alt jolts a bit but then nods, holding onto Jack’s arm and squeezing it. “O-Okay- just- be safe okay?” He then lets go and glitches out of the bubble- leaving it intact just in case as he glitches over by Sam. 

“S-Sam what do we do?!” Bro pants, “We didn’t think he’d be on our trail already! We can’t even fight him!”

{FOR NOW, WE CAN ONLY STAY AHEAD OF HIM,} Sam says. {AND THERE WILL BE A WAY TO FIGHT HIM, I AM SURE OF IT. WE JUST HAVE NOT FOUND IT, YET.} A bit of green lightning appears, unzipping a rift. {HERE. GO HERE!} 

"Wait, your Anti!" Chase gasps. The green and red lightning are moving slowly, crashing against each other. 

Jameson glances around at the others. I can't hold time forever!

Alt looks at the lightning with worried eyes. But then he shuts his eyes and grabs Bro’s wrist and turns them towards the rift. “H-He can catch up to us-! I-I think…! Right, Sam?” He hesitates right before it.

{I'M SURE HE--} 

Then JJ gasps and time starts up again. The red and green lightning crack through the air, and two figures form as a red one tackles a greenish shadowy one to the ground. The shadows glitch over, reaching Alt and Bro in a second. 

{YES, HE'S WITH YOU NOW!} Sam says. {NOW GO!} They turn around towards the red figure, slowly growing in size as a second rift opens up behind it. 

Alt doesn’t hesitate now and both him and Bro rush through the rift. Alt looks back with a bit of worry towards the others then turns to hurry through.

Jack waves them off. The others also all look over, watching them leave.

The last thing Alt and Bro see before the rift closes is a shock wave of green light pushing all the red light towards the second rift.

[deliruousmistakes]

Let Me Take Your Pain Away (Pt. 1)

Missions don’t always go as planned, they rarely do, actually. Thing is, when they don’t, someone might pay the price with their lifes. 

But they won’t let that be Mikey’s case.

Based on @cokowiii’s ‘Just Another Day AU’

Part two here

Part three here

Supply runs are hard, it’s a slow process that tends to make easy objectives out of them, threatening to take the whole community down. Even now, after they’ve figured out how to be mostly self-sustainable, it’s very much indispensable, and each time they have to go farther and farther away in search of resources. However, every now and then, they’ll find something they overlooked in the past; this time, they seem to have found a goldmine (and a nearby one at that).

- “How come we’re only seeing it now? It’s super close.” – They were reviewing the last details of his mission. It’s nothing new and -thankfully- it shouldn’t take long: just a couple days, a week if he’s unlucky.

- “According to my research, something in there exploded, blowing up the roof and exposing the structure to the elements. The question is ‘why?’ though that I do not know, dear brother.” -Donnies eyes were shining, exited with the possibilities- “So be careful, extremely so. Now, regrettably, my current project is time-sensitive, so you go there first and scout the place. Then, if you deem it so, we’ll send a raid team.”

- “Yes, yes. I’ve done this before Dee. I’m a badass mystic warrior, I can handle it.”

- “One thing does not equate the other.”

- “Are you jealous because I’m stronger than you?”

- “Offended gasp, Michelangelo, you did not just-”

- “Cali!” - Mikey had interrupted and discarded his older brother in favour of giving a hug to his beloved husband. – “What are you doing here?”

- “A. I hate you. B. I asked him to come, as I need his help for one last test before you go.” - Answered Donnie.

- “Donieeeee.” - whining would stop neither of them.

- “Oh, well, maybe I wouldn’t have to do this if you didn’t murder my babies as a past time.” – retorted Donnie, though there was no heat behind his words.

- “It’s not on purpose, I swear.” -and it isn’t. Sometimes, his powers just aren’t compatible with his brother’s tech, making the trackers or monitors glitch or straight up die.

- “C’mon, Mikey, better safe than sorry. Let’s get this shit over with.” – persuaded Calimari as he drags a weightless Mikey to a chair. It was quick, have Cali take his vital signs and compare them with the ones on the monitor, the GPS function wasn’t so easy to test, and they’d asses it on the run.

- “Well, that’s it. You can go now. Don’t set on fire anything that isn’t a Krang.”

- “I’ll try.” – And then he stared at Cali - “Mari~”

- “What?”

- “I love you so, so much.” – A chaste kiss follows, but then their eyes don’t meet like usual; instead, Mikey is looking at their hands. Cali know he’s angsting about his death. Again.

The sight made his heart clench, so he got close in order to lick Mikey’s cheek. In response, the other let go, outraged, trying to clean his face with his hand, then proceeded to snatch the robe on Cali’s shoulders with a big, dumb smile on his face. – “Off I go.”

How he wishes he could go with him.

He marches back into the med bay, knowing that he has better things to do than wallow in self-pity. Leo and his team will be back soon, which always means an influx in patients. When they arrive, it’s shown that this time there is no exception, so he bussies himself with the work in front of him… Until he can’t.

It was sudden, from one second to the next. Something cold burned his hand, painful enough to make him drop the papers he was holding. Seeing what was wrong only made it worse. He saw the markings in his left hand. The white, form-fitting, and warm chain now was cold, loose, and had black patches all over it.

- “Cali,” -started Leo, worried tone, and getting closer to him – “what’s-” -the resistance leader froze in place, eyes wide open, but a second later he was leaving the place in a frenzy, pale and almost shoving people out of his way.

Cali figures there’s only one person he’d go to: Donnie.

- “Doctor Calimari, we need-.” - He didn’t get to hear what the request was. When he got to the exit, he could still see Leo at the end of the corridor, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch him, not anymore.

Still, he made a run for Donnie’s lab: his most likely location -and he will beat him if he’s not there-. He kept going even when he could barely breath, his muscles ached and his sight was going dark on the sides. Even so, he made it to the lab, but he couldn’t talk with how much his lungs burned and how he was about to pass out. Mikey’s remaining brothers were there, ignoring him completely.

Listening to them, he gathers that they will leave to search Mikey, who they lost contact with. Given the situation, they might agree to take him. Nonetheless, he won’t risk being told to fuck off. Thus, he plans accordingly.

Cali, waited for the right moment to hide into one of the trucks, from his place in the trunks he can’t see anything, although it shouldn’t take long for them to leave.

- “Oh, sweet Galileo, I finally get to-”

- “Donnie.”

- “Mikey, yes. Of course.” – He sets his horrid music on before flooring it, effectively launching them out of the base.

- “Puta.” – Thankfully, the noise drowned his voice. It’s even better when Leo turns turn the speaker off shortly after.

- “I just need you to keep an eye on it in case the signal comes back.” - Cali’s listening attentively, trying to collect as much information as he can.

- “Let me see if I get this straight: you two were talking, then ‘boom’, then nothing?”

- “Then you arrived, yes.”

Then they stayed silent, and Cali was left with his thoughts. He remembered talking with Mikey about their shared chains, he was right, this is agony.

- “Do you think he’s fine?” – asked Leonardo

- “Yes.”

- “But Cali’s chains-”

- “Just focus on the tablet. We’ll arrive soon.”

- “Okay…” – A pause – “Are you sure it’s working?”

- “Yes ‘Nardo, now stop talking.”

- “But it says Cali’s behind us.”

- “You put a tracker on me!?” – Shit.

- “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Cali!” - God damn it, he planned on staying hidden until they found Mikey. – “You know Donnie puts trackers on everyone! Where are you?”

- “Not everyone.” – Maybe they’ll start fighting and forget about him.

- “I stand corrected, he puts trackers on everyone he cares about. I know this, you know this, everyone does.” – He was blinded by a sudden light.  – “What were you thinking?”

- “Get closer and I’m biting your hand off.”

- “Good thing It’s a spare.”

- “It’s not. Leo, stop. I won’t fix it.”

- “Donnie, turn this thing around.”

- “Don’t you dare. Fucking hell, get you priorities straight, I won’t drop dead for going outside. Mikey needs me, or would you rather waste time, see if he dies!? Then what.” - He was screaming at the top of his lungs, as he pierced the trunk’s floor with his claws. They wouldn’t go back, they fucking couldn’t. He’d throw them out of the window first.

- “Okay. First, this -to quote you- “thing” it’s a state-of-the-art automotive engineering, have some respect. Second, the Doc’s right, we don’t know what condition Mikey’s in, its better if he’s with us.”

Leo retreated back into the copilot’s seat without talking, and after a minute Cali crawled out of the trunk into the backseats. With actual light, he could see the chain again, it was mostly black now.

None of them talked after that. Until - “The signal’s back”- said Leo, as he paled even more – “Can’t this thing go faster?”

- “Why.” – demanded Donnie, looking at the screen while driving at full speed.

- “Watch the road!”

- “Gimme that.” – Cali snatched the tablet from Leo’s trembling hands, and started reading… tachypnoea and tachycardia, but low blood pressure and low temperature… Is he bleeding out? Fuck, uh, Leo said ‘boom, then nothing’… So, traumatic injuries (fractures, stabbing), blast injuries (brain, eyes, ears, lungs, abdomen). What else, burns? Maybe he’s just really dehydrated, that might do too.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud ringtone.

- “Hey, Honey Bunny.” - Those two are disgusting.

- “Leo? Where are you?”

- “In an impromptu mission? We think Mikey’s in trouble.” – That’s downplaying it.

- “Shit, I won’t take long then. Do you know where Cali is?”

- “In Colombia?”

- “What? No. They say he ran out after you.” – A brief pause followed - “he’s with you.”

- “I didn’t know, Yui. We can’t go back now.”

- “Leo.”

- “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll pass him over,” -he passed his communicator to Cali, who turned off the speaker.

As he talked, a screech filled the air, and he dropped the device.

- “Cali, are you okay? What’s going on?”

- “I’m fine.”

- “Are you sure? I can go there, I’ll prepare the another car.”

- “I said I’m fine, stop fussing. Donnie just ran over something.”

- “Fine...” – Cali could hear his brother thumping his tail over the phone. - “Do me a favour, stick close to Leo, okay?” - He grunted in response. – “And tell him that, if anything happens to you, I’m filing for divorce.”

- “Sounds like a plan.”

- “Fuck you, but be careful.”

- “Yeah, yeah.”

- “Cali, you better come back, okay? Preferably soon, you left a mess behind. Also, call me if you need help, and send me a message every hour to let me know you’re okay.”

- “Whatever, bye.”

- “Bye…” -And he hung up.

- “Congrats on the divorce.” - Declared Cali as he returned the communicator.

- “He didn’t say that.” – Answered Leo, defensive. Cali didn’t answer, just stared at the damp stain in Leonardo’s clothes.

- “Are you bleeding?”

- “No? Ah, I forgot.” - Fucking idiot.

- “Hah? You ‘forgot’!? Y entonces qué, ¿mágicamente va a desaparecer?” - He went back into the trunk to take out a first aid kit – “Jueputa, porqué son así, se creen indestructibles, estúpidos es lo que son. El otro es igualito.” – Then he started disinfecting, stitching, and bandaging. - “Estate quieto.” – It pained him that the chain was getting in the way.

For a while after that either reorganized the first aid kit or stared at the screen with Mikey’s vitals.

- “We’re here.” – Announced Donnie, restless. Before stepping out of the car he threw a gun at Cali – “The tracker’s not working, but his last location is fifteen meters south-east from here.” – Donnie started flying, and Leo followed promptly, carrying Cali.

By now, saying that the chain was loose was an overstatement. Cali feared that if relaxed his grip, it would simply fall off. So, he held onto it.

Mikey’s ‘last location’ was barren, with nothing living on sight. Thus, they took different paths in an attempt to cover more ground. Donnie remained on the air, while Leo went underground with Cali.

[sapphicdib]

Saint and Enot au

lore dump

give pls

Just did here!! However have a lil snippet of extra stuff:

“Hey!”

Sig cracked open her eyes to the feeling of Rivulet’s wet paws slapping against his face, and the sound of a new voice, the one that belonged to the strange…slugcat, if you could call it that, that had apparently just saved his life.

“You…you talk.” Sig mumbled, watching the creature roll its eyes.

“Yeah, yeah! Big deal! We have bigger issues right now, okay? Don’t pass out on me again, I need your help.” Enot flicked his glitchy tail as Ruffles helped Sig sit back up.

“What about the others?” Sig asked, drawing his knees to his chest and hugging them, appearing a lot smaller than she usually did.

“Oh, like your girlfriend?” The slugcat’s multicoloured ears perked, sending little pixels through the air. “I’ve been protecting them, chasing down my little buddy and beating the shit out of him if he gets too close.” Enot shrugged, sitting back on his haunches.

“So he’s…trying to kill us?” Sig asked hesitantly. Ruffles’ gills puffed up protectively, and Sig gently patted her head.

“Yeah. Says y’all have ~overstayed your welcome in this cycle~ and ~need to let this realm rest~.” He put on a goofy voice as he mocked Saint, doing air-quotes with his stubby fingers. “Stupid, right?”

“Uh, I guess, I mean, they didn’t even ask or anything.” Sig shrugged, a chill going down her spine as she realized just how close he’d been to death—actual death. The one you don’t come back from.

“Exactly! The dude’s crazy. Anyways, I’ve been chasing them around, but obviously I can’t do that forever. So, I’ve got a two-step plan that should prevent unwanted ascension.” He pressed his paws together and glanced to Sig, who only looked at him with expectant eyes.

“Step one: get off that thing,” He pointed at the broken mechanical arm keeping Sig rooted to the ground, “and step two—“

“I cant…we can’t get off these.” Sig interrupted.

“Not with that attitude you can’t!”

“Trust me! I’ve tried!” Sig gestured in frustration. “And with how deteriorated my systems are now…it’d be basically impossible.” She sighed in defeat, resting her head in her arms. Enot frowned, watching the iterator pout.

“Well maybe ask your girlfriend for ideas or something!” It said, swishing its glitchy tail. “C’mon, use that supercomputer brain, are you gonna waste all your RAM on being mopey? I know you’ve got friends, maybe all of you can figure something out together!” He crossed his arms. Sig’s gaze returned to Inv, and he looked like he was about to snap at him.

“Wawa!” Ruffles stopped her from saying something rude, waving her arms. “Wa! Awa!”

Sig looked confused, before looking back at Inv.

“She said nothing is impossible. If she managed to reactivate your girlfriend, then you and your friends can figure out how to get off your damn strings.”

Sig was silent for a moment, before giving in and pulling up a screen. “And in the meantime?”

“I’ll be keeping the moss with a god complex in check so they can’t hurt you guys while you’re figuring this out.” Enot stood, going to the wall, where a ladder of spears had been constructed to get to the access shaft. However, instead of climbing, his body glitched and he suddenly appeared a couple rungs up, balanced on the spear. “Chop chop, we don’t have infinite cycles!” He sang, once again teleporting higher onto the ladder. “I’ll be back shortly. Say hi to your girlfriend for me!”

[avatarmerida]

Loved the latest huntlow timepools fanfic...

Annnnnnd... What do you think would happen if future Willow met past Hunter... She's gonna see right through his smug Golden Guard personality like she's got xray vision or something right??? 💛💚

Oh she’s DEFINITELY gonna mess with him. After this she causes more havoc, rest assured.

-

“So, we fell into a time pool?” Willow asked, getting off the ground as they had been so unceremoniously dropped suddenly from the sky.

“Kind of,” said Gus, looking around as he tries to add the ‘when’ to their ‘where.’ “It’s like a blip or a portal or a glitch or something, a similar thing actually happened in Cosmic Frontier, but Eda said it should all be fine as long as we don’t talk to our past selves.”

“What about other people?”

“Um that should be fine, but we need so be careful so we shouldn’t-.”

“Hey, there’s Hunter!” Willow exclaimed, and Gus turned to see she was right. If they had any doubts that they were really in the past, his Golden Guard uniform was all it took to convince them. “Hey, Hunter!” Willow called out to him, as she headed over to him. Gus just shook his head.

“Why am I not surprised?” He sighed.

“Oh, c’mon when are we gonna get a chance like this again?” She giggled.

“You just wanna mess with him don’t you?”

She shrugged as though the idea truly had never occurred to her as she proceeded to head in his direction and call out to him again.

The past Hunter stopped for a moment, as though uncertain if he had really heard his name being called. He had no one to call after him, he had no one who would want to.

But he turned anyway, in spite of himself, and saw a girl about his age smiling at him in a way no one has smiled at him before. It was genuine; not forced or sarcastic. It made him uneasy. Yeah, that was what he was feeling.

“‘Hunter?’” The Golden Guard repeated with a tone or surprise and disgust as he attempted to tower over the girl. “Who told you that name? And how dare you address me so informally, citizen!”

“Oh, okay,” said Willow, rolling her eyes endearingly. “Sorry, Mr. Golden Guard.”

He straightened his spine and clenched his fists, clearly flustered with no idea why. “I’d watch your tone if I were you,” he said snarky, wagging his finger in her face. “I know a lot of powerful people. I mean, you obviously know who I am, do you have a death wish or something, peasant?”

“Aw, you’re cute,” she said with a wink, grabbing his finger with her own and he pulled back as though she was on fire.

“I-! You can’t... that’s not... h-how would you even know that?” He said, his voice low and tight and Willow could tell he was blushing beneath his mask.

“Do you not want me to think you’re cute?”

“I don’t... that’s not... I’m not here to be cute, I’m here to represent the Emperor’s Coven. I don’t have time for... distractions.”

“So am I a distraction or a peasant?” She teased.

“Both!” He said with as much authority as he could muster. “N-now move along before I arrest you or something.”

But she did not move. She did not look at him with fear or disdain or displeasure. She remained unmoved as though his company was something she wish to prolonged not something she endured.

“Well, go on!” He insisted, but she remained in front of him calling his bluff on whether or not he truly wanted to be free of her presence.

“Aren’t you... afraid of me?”

“No, why should I be?”

“Because I’m... I can... well, everybody else is,” he said begrudgingly, and Willow could tell by his tone of voice that he was doing that thing where he shifted his eyes. She wondered if he was sweaty beneath the mask.

“Well, I’m not everybody else, am I?” she said sweetly.

He froze for a moment, Willow could tell he was scanning their surroundings to see if they were being watched. He slowly leaned down to her level and lifted his mask ever so slightly so his face was still slightly concealed by the shadow of his mask. Hunter had never been intimidating in her eyes, but she never really realized just tightly wound he used to be.

“Who are you?” He asked softly. She scrunched her face at him, which for some reason made his chest feel light and his throat feel dry and he felt like his bones were going to burst out of his skin waiting for her answer.

“Alright Park, I think that’s enough,” said Gus, stepping in to drag her away from the inevitable staring contest. “We have our own Hunter to get back to who probably wants to stare at you awkwardly too.”

“Okay, Gus you’re right,” she laughed as he dragged her away, waving back at the confused guard. “Bye Hunter! Can’t wait to meet you!”

“Bye dude! Make sure you get something to eat!” Gus called. “You always forget to eat on patrol!”

“And drink water! You never drink enough water!”Willow added loudly. “Oh! And the stitching on your cape looks really nice!”

Hunter waved at them faintly, becoming more confused by the second. And then as quickly as she appeared, this strange girl vanished into a pool of light, as though she had been a trick of the light all along. Was she an illusion? A distraction? Who had sent her? And why?

“Hey boss, you okay?” Steve asked, noticing Hunter seemed paralyzed.

“I’m fine,” Hunter’s voice slowly returned to its normal authoritative, serious flair. “Just... keep your eyes out and let me know if you see that girl again.”

“Sure thing boss,” he said with a salute. “What should we do if we spot her? You want us to arrest her? Interrogate her? See who she’s working for?”

“Start with her name,” he said, adjusting his mask as he cleared his throat. “She seems like an attractive... candidate. For recruitment. For the Coven.”

[goldensunset]

"...and you know that there’s nothing you can do for them because you simply do not have enough time to do all of this in 72 hours so one way or another you have to abandon almost everyone."

>_>

<_<

...is it... not. Normal to have a three-to-four page hour-by-hour schedule written out for how to complete as much of the main quest (completing all four temples to get the temple clear effects, getting the eggs back to lulu, etc) as well as as many sidequests as possible (including the frog choir and meaning most of the schedule orbits around anju/kafei) in one three-day cycle or am i just incredibly autistic about majoras mask

my friend has since informed me that such a schedule/plan exists and i am delighted about it lol. ive never personally gotten to play this game, only ever watched a playthrough, so i wouldn’t personally know how to do it, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that people have thought to invent this. but even then too bad you can’t do literally everything everything right? and even if you are built different and do all this. my point here is that i don’t think that’s like the canon route in the story here. and even if we say it is. the fact of the matter is you’re gonna have to do some resetting and some destroying of timelines etc and it’s just unsettling whether you help people or not bc you have to bear witness to that sorrow in a reality that no one else knows ever existed. unless there is somehow a hacked glitched speedrun in which you manage to do every quest and side thing within the first three day cycle so you literally never reset time at all but like c’mon man that’s not canon

[feathers-of-fluff]

Glitchy Bully

Summary: Grey has had enough of getting sudden noogies from Glitchy Red every time he expects it the least, so the first thing he could think of doing as revenge was take his hat—however, this decision turns out to be a mistake a few minutes later, and Grey would soon accidentally make things worse for himself.

this fic is SFW-related. any NSFW blogs are NOT allowed to interact!!

warnings: tickling (if you’re not comfortable with that)!!

enjoy!

~

“L-let me go!”

“Not unless you give it back.”

“I will if you- ack- you promise!” Grey struggled, attempting to slide his head out from the arm, but Glitchy’s strength prevented him from doing so.

The bootleg trainer regretted his decision the moment he was put into a headlock not too long ago. Glitchy was the one to give people a noogie like how a big brother would, and Grey was always his number one target.

Whenever he least expects it, Glitchy would sometimes pop out of nowhere and surprise him with a noogie—only when he wasn’t wearing his hat, of course. This annoyed him until he knew he had to get him back for it.

Despite being short on ideas, the first thing he could do was steal his hat whenever given the opportunity to, and keep it away from him till he makes the promise not to give him anymore noogies. Sounds simple enough, right?

…Not if there’s a risk of being put in a headlock.

“This can go on for as long as it can, kid.” Glitchy spoke, staring down at the bootleg trainer. “Giving up’s not that hard.”

“And at least saying sorry is n-not that hard either!” Grey exclaimed, trying to move his arm away whilst holding the hat in his other hand, but it wouldn’t even budge. It almost felt like he had the muscle of either a Machamp or its second evolution, but he’d doubt that a Machoke would be stronger than its final evolution.

…Then again, he did come from a bootleg game, so he was bound to not have that much knowledge of recent ‘Pocket Monsters’.

“I ain’t gonna say it again; give it back.” Glitchy reaches out for his held hat whilst keeping the bootleg trainer where he is. Despite his struggling, he manages to distance the hat away from him.

“N-never!” Grey declined.

“And also, d-didn’t you say you weren’t gonna say that again? Maybe you should… p-promise not to say it again as well..!” He joked with a grinned smirk.

Glitchy rolled his eyes before rubbing his knuckle on Grey’s head. “Yeah, sure.”

“H-hey!” He yelped. He should’ve seen this coming. But luckily, it lasted for a short second. “Gohod, you’re such a bully!”

“…What was that?”

His smile immediately faded away the moment he heard the tone in Glitchy’s voice. The bootleg trainer froze on the spot as he felt a sudden piercing glare.

“…N-nothing.”

“I don’t think that sounded like nothin’.” The glitched trainer’s face was almost completely obscured, leaving only his staring eye.

He wishes he could do something, but there were no other options—he was already stuck in a headlock, meaning he couldn’t escape the living room, and he was being too stubborn to give up.

So, he finally answers, hoping the results don’t go horribly wrong…

“…I-I said you were being such a… bully.”

“Well then,” Glitchy puts his hand on his side, “I’ll show you who’s a bully.”

Grey’s eyes widened, laughter suddenly rising in his chest as he felt fingers vibrating on his ribs. He began snickering, trying to hold it in.

“C’mon, Grey. You can’t keep that happiness of yours hidden forever.” He assured, smirking. Seeing the bootleg trainer now desperate to get out from under his arm, he made sure to keep his fingers on the ribs each time he squirmed.

Grey looks up at Glitchy, shaking his head as if he was begging him to stop. But he refuses and instead moves his hand to his stomach.

“NOHOHOHOHO-! Glihihitchy, staHAhahap!” Grey bursted with laughter as fingers skittered around his abdomen.

“Then give back what you stole.”

“*snort* Nuhuhuh-uhuhuh!”

“Eh, suit yourself.”

He moves his hand back to the ribs, this time tickling them with two vibrating fingers which made the bootleg trainer let out a stream of giggles.

“NAHAhahaha-! Glihihitchy! Plehehehease, meheHErcy!” He begged, nearly dropping the hat but somehow still hung onto it. Determined as usual, Grey wasn’t gonna give up that easily to the tickling, but he’d have to admit… this felt good—the feeling of serotonin along with tingly sensations that made him happy, it made him feel safe because this is more playful.

So as long as Glitchy doesn’t catch on, this could go on for whatever he pleases.

“If you really want me to stop, then why haven’t you dropped my hat yet, hm? You’re enjoyin’ this, ain’t ya, kid?”

…Nevermind.

When the glitched trainer had stopped tickling for a moment, Grey went silent. He refused to even turn around to show the blushing on his embarrassed face as he did not expect his friend to nearly find out that fast.

Glitchy’s face expression changes as he slowly removes his arm away from his neck. “…Grey?” He asks, a slight worried tone in his voice. Was it something he said? Did he go a little too far?

Out of nowhere, he feels something lightly brush against his other arm, flinching for a split-second before looking down to only see his red and white cap being offered to him by Grey still looking away.

Glitchy chuckles a bit before accepting it, tossing it onto the nearby couch afterwards. “Is this true?”

“…Is what true?”

“You know what I mean.”

The two stood in silence for about 13 seconds or so as Glitchy patiently waited for Grey to look at him while the bootleg trainer had his arms crossed.

Eventually, he finally does, turning his head to reveal his pink blushing face.

Glitchy wheezes, nearly falling into laughter at the immediate sight. “It’s not funny… I’m just gonna go get me somethin’ to eat.” Grey grumbled before departing to the kitchen, not bothering to hear anything else from the glitched trainer.

All of a sudden, a hand dragged him back without giving him enough time to react before he got pinned to the floor.

“You can do that after you’ve learned your lesson.” Glitchy moves the boy’s arms up for better access to his spot before shaping his hands into claws, nearing them towards the armpits.

“W-wait! G.R, waHAHAHAHAIT-!” Grey pleaded but began flailing about once those hands made contact.

“Wait for what? Speak up kid, because I can’t really understand ya.” Glitchy teased. As surprising as it looked, even the mischievous tickle monster couldn’t take what he dishes out. The bootleg trainer would’ve given up sooner when the tickling began, but nope, he wanted to experience it more and he secretly loved it.

“NAhaHAhaT THEHEheHEhere! Ihi’m- *snort* Ihi’m sohohor- GAAHAhaHAhaHAHA!” The glitched trainer moved underneath his Pokéball t-shirt before shaking his claw-posed hand on Grey’s stomach, interrupting his sentence.

“Your name is actually ‘Sorry’? Heheh, wonder who ran out of enough ideas to call you that.” He jokes.

“IHIHI’M TRYING TOhoHO SaY THA- *snort* THAHAT IHI APOHOLIGIZE FOHOR TAKING YOHOHOUR HAHAHAT!” He slammed his palm on the floor while attempting to hide his face with the other hand.

However, Glitchy chooses to be evil just for the sake of it and targets the exposed armpit, preventing him from doing anything else to flee. “You sure you actually apologize?”

“YEHEheHES! JUHUST FOHORGET ABOUT- BWAhaHAHAhaHA!” Grey was unable to say more at this point.

“Apology accepted.” The glitched trainer stops, allowing Grey to breathe for a minute.

“…Thahahank *pant, pant* you…” Rubbing his stomach to cease the phantom tickles, he carefully got up (with help from Glitchy).

“You’re still a bully, though.” Grey said before a hand was placed on his hair.

“I’m already aware, kid.”

~

End

[myrrhmaidwrites]

18 for your things you said with a pairing of your choice, please and thanks! 🙂

Things you said when you were scared

I picked JDTZ for this, enjoy!

If I messed up anything related to the “sci” part of this fi, no I didn’t ;)

It’s—yeah.

Jamie checks the line of code again. He glances at the sample, then at Trevor’s protocols.

It’s definitely a defect.

Trevor isn’t supposed to be programmed for nearly that amount of physical touch—none of their droids are.

Checking? Fine. Butt pats in the locker room? For sure. But watching an entire movie pressed side to side, Trevor’s hand moving gently on the side of his neck?

Absolutely not.

Jamie flicks his screen off. He’ll deal with this another time.

Trevor wrings the problem out of him less than twenty-four hours later. They’re chilling on the couch and watching the Disney Mighty Ducks show, which Trevor has been begging Jamie to watch with him since he heard there was going to be a android on the show played by a real android actor.

Only, Jamie isn’t relaxing the way he normally does.

He adjusts the blanket for the fiftieth time that night. Before Jamie discovered the error, sitting next to Trevor was a surefire way to make him relax. Now—

“Jamie, what’s up?” Less than two minutes in and Trevor has him figured out. Trevor pauses the show and looks at him.

“It’s nothing. I just—it’s nothing. Let’s keep watching.”

“C’mon, talk to me. It’s what I’m here for,” he says, as though Jamie isn’t hyper aware of that at all times.

“I just—later. Later,” Jamie says.

Trevor hums and restarts the show.

“Wait.” The word bursts out of Jamie. Trevor hits pause again. “I’m worried. Yesterday Gibby said something to me and and I ended up looking at your code. And I think I saw—”

Jamie’s said something wrong. Trevor gets a scared, shifty look in his eye like a cornered creature.

“I just wanted to help, that’s all,” he finishes quietly.

Trevor draws himself up into a formal seated position, the way they always pose droids in shops. “If you’re going to reset me, you have to promise—”

“What? No. Reset you? Why would I want that?” Jamie’s face goes pale with horror.

“If you want to fix the change, you have to do a factory reset.”

“So it’s—hold on. It’s a change? Like, on purpose, not a glitch?”

Trevor gives him a look of disbelief. “Dude, did you look at the code?”

“Yeah. It’s part of the spatial awareness code.”

“No, dude. Well, yeah, but it’s part of my core code.”

“If it’s—then how did it get changed? You can’t…”

Trevor gives him another look. This look says that Jamie should know by now how much Trevor loves to make the impossible possible. “Maybe don’t finish that question unless you’re sure you want an answer.”

Jamie swallows, suddenly aware of how much trouble there would be if this got out. If Trevor got caught.

“Okay,” he says slowly, “but why?”

Trevor’s eyes dim. He glances back at the still-frozen TV screen. “Thought it would make you happy, Jim. If I could—if we could do those things.”

Jamie gives Trevor a long look, makes sure he understands Trevor’s meaning.

“Yeah,” he says. “It would.”

[ardenwritesegos]

Emotions are High: Chapter 1

Based loosely on @iamvegorott 's ego universe.

Also, both Dark and Engineer Mark switch from He/Him to They/Them every now and then. Just wanted to ease the confusion.

This was it. Just one more ingredient and Marvin would be done. That final edition was in his hand. It was a glass vial with a dark blue liquid, labeled: ‘Separating Agent.’ Marvin poured the liquid into a regular measuring cup before pouring it into a small cauldron. The potion exploded into rainbow smoke, bubbling a few moments before settling. The look of it was similar to dark brown soda, fizz and all. Just as he planned. The magician gathered up glass soda bottles from his vial shelf. Boy, Mad was going to love this, he thought to himself. The empath had always wondered if such a thing was possible. Marvin now had proof that it actually was. He just had to ensure all hell didn’t break loose.

____________________________________________________

 Another day, another morning rush. The kitchen and dining room were bustling with egos, each one getting a different breakfast. Dark held nothing but a mug of black coffee. The text on it read: ‘Paradox Detected.’ The dining room was loud with the sound of morning conversation, similar to a school cafeteria at lunchtime. Dark entered, heading straight for a seat next to his favorite glitch. 

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Dark and Brooding,” Anti smirked. 

“Good morning to you as well,” Dark responded, feigning offense. 

“C’mon, you know you love me,” the virus cooed teasingly. 

“Do I, now?” Dark retorted. 

“Why, yes…I do,” the being leaned into Anti, planting a small kiss on his lips. Across from them sat Chase and Engineer Mark–or Gin, as he was now called. 

“Could you guys get a room?” Chase joked. 

“We’re trying to eat here,” the engineer spoke as if his throat was full of vomit. 

“As if you haven’t done worse, ‘Ginny,’” Anti replied while doing a mocking voice for the gushy nickname. A bit of red flooded Gin’s cheeks, remembering some of their lovey-dovey moments. He shook himself out of it within a moment, face still flushed. 

“That’s not the point!” Engineer screamed, speaking quickly. Brody struggled to hold in a laugh. A breath of amused air escaped from his nose. 

“You’re supposed to be on my team here!” Gin turned to Chase, only partially faking anger. 

“I am,” Brody replied with a scrunched smile, still holding in a wave of laughter. 

“Sure you are,” Gin said with fake suspicion.

“Want me to prove it?” Brody asked in a low voice before kissing the engineer’s stubbled cheek. 

“Not really helping with my case, Chase,” Gin’s cheeks only became redder. 

“So I win then?” Anti smiled proudly. Gin pouted in response, flipping the glitch off. 

“Come on now, children,” Dark spoke in a motherly voice, surrounded in a mostly red aura. 

“It’s time to eat.” 

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Marvin entered with a wheely cart full of his potion. Each bottle sat in a built-in hole on top of a flat surface. He looked around for Mad, but couldn’t find him. Not unusual. Mad was usually one of the first egos to wake up. He was probably in the dining room, then. Marvin just had to–

“Well, hello there!” Wilford greeted. Shit. This was exactly what he didn’t want, though he shouldn’t have expected any less, especially in a crowded place like this. He thought that maybe everyone would be too absorbed in their own conversations to notice anything. But such an assumption can’t be made when it comes to WIlford Warfstache. 

“What have you got in that goodie cart?” Warfstache looked intently at the potion cart–or “goodie cart”– like a dog noticing a box of treats. The only difference was this one had opposable thumbs. 

“It’s about time you used your magic for something useful,” he joked, grabbing a bottle from the cart. Without hesitation, Warfstache popped open the drink and inhaled it in seconds. 

“Tastes like Dr. Pepper, not really my taste. But I know just the fellows who would like it,” in a flash of pink, both Wilford and the potion cart were gone. Great…

____________________________________________________

“Well, I gotta get back to it,” Gin announced, finished with his meal of cereal and coffee. 

“Do you gotta?” Chase looked at him in faux sadness, like a disappointed child. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Gin whined. 

“I have to get this device made as soon as possible. You know how Google is,” the engineer was making a new generator, specifically for the Googles’ devices. The androids didn’t have a solid device to keep their machines going in case of a storm. Their whole work room would go out at the tamest of rainstorms. Knowing Gin’s expertise, Googleplier reluctantly asked him for help. Since then, Gin had been up late multiple nights. Hell, he only got sleep because of his boyfriend. 

“Okay,” Chase huffed. 

“See you at dinner. If not, I’m dragging you there,” he warned. It was far from a joke. The egos had been greeted by Chase carrying Gin to the kitchen multiple times. He started out trying to wiggle out of Chase’s arms. Eventually, however, he just gave in and accepted it. He needed to eat, anyway.

“Consider me warned,” the engineer replied. He turned to leave, but behind him poofed in Warfstache. 

“Fucking—” Gin exclaimed to himself. 

“You look like you could use a little drink,” Wilford picked up one of the bottles from the cart.

“Something to keep you going. Here,” he held out the bottle to the engineer. 

“Where did you get this?” Gin asked, concerned. 

“That doesn’t really matter,” Wilford waved his hand in dismissal. Gin gave him a look that said: ‘um, yes it does.’ 

“It’s Dr. Pepper,” he sang. 

“Oh,” Gin said, relieved. That quickly switched to an annoyed look. 

“Why didn’t you start with that?!” 

“That’s ‘Stache for ya,” Anti joked. The comment caused Warfstache to turn to Dark. 

“‘Want some, old friend?” Wilford picked up another bottle. Luckily for him–and unfortunately for Marvin–Dark had been craving some of the sugary drink for the past week. The creature nodded in response. Warfstache handed them the drink. 

“Okay, now I have to actually go,” Gin said. 

“See ya later, Ginny,” Chase replied. He walked up to his partner, giving him another kiss, this time on the lips. With that, the engineer left the room. 

“I should take leave myself,” Dark delicately rose from his chair. 

“Look at him, off to do his big-boy job,” Anti spoke like Dark was a friend going to his first day at the office. The creature simply smirked, a light laugh leaving his mouth. 

“And once that job is done, you can expect a…surprise,” the being teased, turning the smallest bit to face Anti. 

“I wonder what that could be,” Anti smiled, knowing full well what they were talking about. With that, Dark left. He did have a long day ahead of him, after all. 

__________________________________________________

Gin sat at his work table. Its lamp provided the only light in the bedroom. The engineer found he worked best like this. Too many lights on during a job reminded him of…things he would rather forget. Anyway, back to work. He was writing down the final blueprints, when a sudden dizziness overcame him. The room around him felt blurry, like it was spinning; kind of like how Gin imagined it felt to be drugged. Within seconds, his head plopped on the desk in front of him. 

“Ginny, everyone’s going down for dinner,” Chase knocked before pushing open the ajar door. Gin didn’t respond. That was when he noticed the engineer sitting unconscious at his desk. He must have fallen asleep again. He hadn’t been getting a lot of it recently, after all. Chase tip-toed over to his boyfriend until he reached him. 

“Wakey-Wakey,” he lightly shook the engineer. 

“Don’t make me carry you,” Chase joked, trying to hide his concern. 

“Okay, this was funny, but you can stop now—” he was interrupted by a blast of rainbow light; a blast that pushed him to the ground. All colors, except purple, seemed to scatter and move to different parts of the manor. As fast as it came, the flash cleared, returning Chase to the darkness of Gin’s room with…Gin? It looked to be wearing a purple version of his jumpsuit. And they appeared to be shaking like a puppy. Chase looked confusedly at this new Gin. 

“Are you…?”

“Sort of,” purple Gin stuttered. He acted kind of like Eric. 

“To be honest, it’s-it’s going to be a lot to explain.”

My Ao3

[lirusstories]

Bits and Pieces- Chapter Four

prev - next

It’s a few days later, Marvin is in Anti’s hospital room again as tries to find a book on Death magic, he’s booked mark a few spells that might have been what he saw, as well as the book on void magic. 

However, frustratingly, he can’t seem to find any written void runes or the like.

He slams the book closed just as his brothers walk through the door.

“Everything okay?” Chase asks, walking over to him.

“No, I can’t find fucking anything about the mark OR the runes and it’s driving me insane!” He shouts before being shushed by Henrik. He takes his bag of food from Chase with a quiet thank-you.

The others go quite as the room goes still, Marvin grabs a book he’s read through five times already, before freezing as he hears shifting fabric.

He quickly turns around, seeing all of his brothers staring at the bed, frozen in spot. He’s up and standing quickly and he freezes as well as he sees Anti beginning to shift around in the bed.

Henrik is quick to stop him as he tries to roll over, but as soon as Henrik touches him the heart rate on the monitor spikes, as if he’s panicking. 

Henrik’s attention snaps towards the monitor before back at Anti, thinking quickly, he calls out to him, a little hesitant, “...Anti? Can you hear me?”

Anti freezes in spot and Marvin and Jackie step a bit closer to the bed while Jameson narrows his eyes at them.

Anti stirs while Jameson walks around to the other side of the bed, the others visibly tensing as he does while Henrik focus’ on Anti.

“Anti?”

“Mph?” Honestly, Henrik is a little surprised to not hear his voice laced with glitches, it’s… odd, and new.

Anti moves a bit more, reaching up to his face before hissing and wincing before glitching ever so slightly setting everyone in the room on edge.

Jackie shoots Marvin a look that says ‘I thought you said he was innocent’ and Marvin looks just as confused.

Jameson on the other hand, gently reaches over and grabs the arm with the IV in it and gently moves it back into it’s laying position.

Slowly, Anti finally opens his eyes before quickly shutting them, a whine leaving him at the bright light.

“Do you need zhe lights turned down?” Henrik asks when he finally finds his voice again.

Anti nods, seemingly disoriented. Henrik waves towards the light switch, and Chase taking the hint goes and lowers the light level.

“Is zhat better? Can you open your eyes?”

His heart spikes again and Jameson gently squeezes his arm. He understands, scared of waking up and finding out it was all a sweet dream and you're right back into the nightmare.

“Anti?”

Anti swallows before opening his eyes, still squinting a bit but he finally manages to look at them. And his eyes are blue, as far as they can tell in the low light.

He looks around, his eyes opening further as disbelief fills his eyes and face and the heart rate starts to pick up again.

“Wh-What?” 

“Anti?” His eyes snap to Henrik, eyebrows furrowing as his breath begins to pick up. Henrik, recognizing this signs of an on coming panic attacks.

Is quick to get him breathing and calming down enough to where he’s sure he won't have a panic attack before finally asking, “Do you know who we are?”

He looks around at them, swallowing harshly, seemingly not being able to make eye contact with anything before nodding.

“Do you know who you are? Can you tell me your name?”

He hesitates before nodding, “A-Anti.”

His voice is quiet as he speaks, unsure of what to do, surrounded by people who were hurt by his body.

“Good…” Henrik mutters, at least he knows his name. “Can you tell me how old you are?”

That's when Anti pauses shaking his head lightly, “The last time I knew I was 26 in 2016”

They pause, staring at him and Anti seems to try and sink back down into the bed. 

“When were you-”

“C’mon Hen, the man just woke up give him a break.” Comes Chase’s voice making Anti jump. “Sorry bro.”

He goes back over to the bed, “You don’t need to worry, we aren’t gonna hurt you or nothin, Jackie and Marvin are just being paranoid.”

The father ignores the looks he gets from the hero and magician but he’ll deal with them when Anti visibly relax.

“I’m Chase.” Anti doesn’t respond, just nods. “You hungry? We bought some food on the way here.”

“I do not think-”

“Dude, he’s been asleep for days and who knows how long it’s been since he’s actually gotten to eat something decent.”

“Convince store food hardly counts as real food.” Henrik scoffs.

“Say that to my taquitos dude.” Chase tells him as he goes and grabs his food. Jackie merely sighs but finally seems to relax while Jameson smiles. Marvin just continues staring at Anti, not so much as waiting for him to do something bad but more of, trying to figure something out.

Anti peeks at him before quickly looking down, clearly uncomfortable with being stared at. 

“Your hair is brown now…” Anti mutters, surprising Marvin.

“Huh? Oh, yeah…” He swallows slightly, to be fair he fucking hates it but, who is he to go against people so powerful.

“It’s for the best…” He mutters before pausing, realizing what he said. “Wait, how did you-”

Anti flinches and sinks down a little and Marvin just sighs, letting it go for now.

He can deal with it later.

_________________

Near the end of their eating, which, Anti doesn’t visibly concern Henrik, nor does he really speak until,

"There's… something surrounding the room." Anti tells them quietly. Everything goes still as they stare at him, wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry I just, it's been there since I woke up and I just-" 

"It's okay-" Marvin cuts him off "They're wards, I put them up."

Anti visibly relaxed at that before asking, “H-How come?"

"To prevent detection so that… thing doesn't find us here "

"Oh… I- I-” He takes a deep breath, trying not to get annoyed with his stuttering, 

“I don't think you have to worry about it coming back." He tells them honestly, only gaining confused looks from them. 

"He would have tried something by now." He attempts to explain.

"How do you know?" 

"It's basically a beacon of v-... Of power, and since I'm here with you guys and you guys are also here. It has no way of hiding really."

They looked genuinely surprised at that before Marvin decides to tell him what happened, sort of at least.

“Something… used your blood to make a portal. It appeared to lead somewhere closer completely dark, couldn't see a damn thing." Anti shifts uncomfortably at the mention of it. 

“A giant space hand had come through and pulled it through. It was screaming and swearing about someone.” Marvin continues, watching as Anti perks up at the mention of the space hand.

“And then it closed and that mark seemed to have healed you before you woke up before passing out again.” Anti unconsciously puts his hand over the spot as he stares at Marvin.

“Can you… Can you tell me about the portal?” Anti manages to ask, struggling to remember what might’ve caused it. Obviously her, it’s just, *how*.

“Well, We can remember the runes, I already told you everything else.”

Anti looks visibly confused at that before Jameson catches their attention and begins to sign since he came into the room.

Anti looks slightly distressed, he doesn’t know a single thing about sign language other than ‘Thank you’ in asl.

“I-I’m sorry. I can’t understand you.”

Jameson pauses before the captions card appears above his head.

“That's alright chap, I was just saying I remembered what they looked like, I can draw them to see if they jog your memory!”

Anti jumps slightly seeing the captions card pull up but quickly relaxes. That feels rather familiar.

“I just need something to draw with of course.”

“I got a note pad and pen?” Chase pipes up.

Jackie turns to look at him oddly, “You carry around a note pad and pen?”

“Well..” He looks to the side, giving Jackie a weird look, “Yeah…”

“Why?”

“In case I need to make a list or something.”

“Why would you need to make a list?”

“If you guys please.” Henrik cuts in with a stern voice.

Both of their mouth snap shut with an audible click, looking rather sheepish.

Anti’s mouth quirks with a smile, the bantering reminding him of himself and Dark.

“For groceries and stuff…” He mutters under his breath, pulling out the pad and pen from one of his pockets and handing them to Jameson.

Jackie makes a face of understanding as Jameson gratefully takes them move the garbage of the tray holder connected to the bed.

And soon he’s beginning to draw, clearly concentrated as he does. Anti sits up straighter in the bed and manages to see what he’s drawing. He freezes, recognizing them, he knows exactly what those marks are.

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