#eventually i get out and manage to dodge the puppet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

libraford · 3 years

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I owe you all a story about kittens. But its about... a little more than kittens. It's a long one.

I want to tell you all about the kittens, which took place in 2019. But in order to do so, I have to take you back even further, to March of 2018, and concludes in 2021. Because it's about kittens, but it's also about business and all the things that can go wrong.

In March 2018, tragedy struck. The owner of the flower shop died unexpectedly, leaving the business to four capable managers. One of those managers was the man that had hired me, leaving a power vacuum at our location. Grandpa was not the first choice to take the lead, but she stepped up and she became manager. In my opinion, there was no better person for the role: she had only ever worked in the flower industry (assuming we're not counting the one week in 1976 when she worked at a pizza parlor,) and as such she knew the business inside and out.

Prior to this, she had taught all of the designers and practically ran the place when the boss was out, so it was the next logical step. And it was good.

Of course, we had our ups and downs. What I did not realize when I joined the flower shop is that the flower industry is volatile- there are so many variables that went into the creation of floral pieces and if there is one misstep you can be set back anywhere from a day to several thousand dollars. There are late deliveries, there are frightening brides, there are missing piñatas… van fires, flower snobs, color corrections, failed psychics, friends, enemies…

You can set the bar so very low and yet…

The rise and fall of drama at this particular flower shop could be dictated into hours and minutes because sometimes you need to hire people just to fill that space. Grandpa was on record by saying 'if they can walk, talk, and spell their name, hire them.' Even so, we were critically understaffed most of the time because if you hire anyone you're going to get a lot of quitters.

It's a tough cycle to break, and our power was limited.

And we had bigger fish to fry: we had an average of thirty funerals, two weddings, and well over six hundred deliveries per week. Business was booming and we just had to keep up- if you make it one week after the next it doesn't feel so bad.

By March of the following year, the four owners had whittled down to two: my former boss and the former webmaster. We had a district manager now, some kind of accounts position… things like that. It was kind of astonishing that before this, all the work had been done by a single man. But the secrets to his success had died with him.

Things were looking good, actually: the flower business was full of life! We were doing all kinds of special events, starting contracts with businesses and getting our name out there. Drama still plagued us, but as far as I'm aware, that's par for the course for flower shops.

Then, in May 2019, tragedy struck. A tornado ripped straight down the street of our headquarters, demolishing the greenhouse and the historical building that it all started in. No one was injured, but the damages were devastating. Despite all this, we kept working.

We worked hard. And hard. And hard.

And though the new warehouse wasn't slated to be finished until 2021, we reached an equilibrium where things were okay.

But before I get to that, I made a promise to you.

It was a hot day in August and I was walking into my closing shift at 10am. After two years of working with roughly the same people, you got to learning how to tell when something was happening. I walked in to everyone staring at me and acting 'natural.' It never looks natural.

In the back of the store, there was a box that Cherry was standing very purposely in front of.

"What's in the-"

"Sh!" Grandpa spied through the window in the cooler door as someone swung out with a purchase. "Did you find something you like," she asked the customer, trotting over to help him at the register.

"What's happening," I asked Blue.

"Nothings happening, it just kind of… happened."

"Blue… what does that MEAN?"

"There's a customer here, I can't talk about it."

I am bursting at the seams to know what's going on.

Grandpa fared the customer well and went back to her station behind the computer. "Open the box," she said.

Ominous, but okay. I go over to the box and Cherry steps aside. There's something moving inside the box and I wonder if Pam's daughter had folded herself into a box to ride out a panic attack again. I carefully opened the flaps of the box and accidentally disturbed the sleep of-

Four.

Tiny.

KITTENS!

Oh my god, it was the most adorable thing in the world and the poor things were screaming because they had only known the world for a few weeks and everything was strange and blurry and all they knew to do was cuddle for warmth and scream. The box consisted of two black kittens, one tuxedo kitten, and a white seal-point with terminal eye goop.

They immediately started climbing up my arm.

"Not that I'm not thrilled, but… why?"

"Stray cat left her babies out by my pond and wasn't just gonna leave the little fuckers," Grandpa said. The seal-point made it all the way up my shoulder to scream in my ear and stare at me with one clear blue eye. "That one's name is Pop-eye. He's my favorite."

"Jake doesn't get along with them," I surmised. Jake was Grandpa's Australian Shepherd. He was old, blind, deaf, and losing his sense of smell. And he was ornery.

"First thing he did was sit on Pop-eye. So they're gonna be at the shop during the day until we can get them all homed. Know anyone that needs a kitten?"

So, for awhile, we had shop cats. One of the all black twins had been claimed the very next day, but the rest of them were with us for some time. We got very good at feeding them all every hour on the hour and eventually they settled into accepting that 'mom' was seven different people.

In the meantime, we had to hide the three of them from visiting management.

This was not my first round with cat-related crimes.

The district manager, Puppet, was due to come for a visit any time that week. He was supposed to come once a month for a routine check in, and there were only ten days left in August. Likewise, we had to hide the kittens from the customers on the off chance that one of them was a secret shopper.

Backtracking once more to explain: the company had shelled out money to pay a third party to send secret shoppers to grade us on a rubric and also whatever they thought was appropriate. The grades were cleanliness, customer service, how knowledgeable we were of products, things like that. If we got above 90%, there would be a bonus in our next paycheck.

Sounds great, right?

The spies could decide that anything wasn't up to their standard. One woman went on and on about our 'black wall,' which was the outside of our cooler and I'm sorry but… that's not changing. There was a complaint that the table at the front used to showcase our bridal seemed out of place and odd. There dirt in the flower pots… where dirt goes. Corporate reads those comments.

So keeping the children out of sight of the customers and any visiting management became our priority.

'So just keep them in the break room,' I hear you, the reader, suggest.

If you've never owned cats, it is imperative for you to know that they are mostly comprised of spine, and only the smallest of openings will deter them from squeezing into parts unknown. Cats are semi-solids. Kittens are semi-solids with a sense of adventure and little tiny needles for fingernails.

And you can't just tape the box shut.

So… they got out. Well, two of them got out. The tuxedo awoke to find that her brothers had gone exploring without her and did the sensible thing, which was cry about it.

Mood.

I have named this cat Brood X Cicada. The black one can be named Abyss. I'm great at naming cats.

Lucky for us, they're only a few weeks old and walk kind of like little tin soldiers. It took all of five minutes to pry Pop-eye from a piece of Styrofoam and locate Abyss exploring an old toolbox. However, by the time I'm done cat collecting, Brood X Cicada had toddled off in search of her brothers and I'm out of hands to hold kittens in. I stuffed Abyss into my apron pocket and tried to save X from eating plastic.

It is at this moment that Cherry came in to tell me that Puppet the District Manager was on his way, and saw that I was helplessly juggling kittens. Abyss was climbing out of my pocket, eager to join his siblings in the high and exalted position that was my hands.

"We need these kittens out of here," I said. "Who hasn't been on lunch yet?"

Cherry dodged her head back into the workshop. "Hey Key, you been on lunch?" Pause. "You wanna go now?"

Key came into the back room and I handed her the box of kittens. "Take these, in your car. Go to burger King or something, I don't care. Puppet cannot see these. If anyone asks, you're on a route."

Key held the box and took a moment to appreciate the series of events that lead to her being handed a box of kittens in a 'Take this, don't ask questions' kind of matter.

Puppet was in the front door as Key was out the back and we successfully avoided a serious mistake. His visit was only an hour and she walked back in without anyone the wiser.

We made it through the big challenge, now to continue looking for homes for them. Ms. Crow found a friend of a friend of a friend that was excited to take Abyss from us. After some interrogating my friends, I found someone who knew someone who could take Pop-eye and Brood X Cicada. (They were renamed Hocus and Pocus.)

Grandpa cried for every single one of them that had to go. And I remembered my very first day of working there when she introduced herself as 'The Tinman.' What a liar, the softy.

Our days went on kitten-free, the management none the wiser.

It was December when I got the feeling that I should be taking photos of my work to build a portfolio. Something wasn't right, I felt. I couldn't say what it was that put me on edge, but I could only say that all was not well. I took photos of everything that I was proud of, and I was proud of a lot of things. By February, I had over fifty items that I could show off to a potential studio. And I thought- in March, I should start looking to see if other shops are hiring.

And in March 2020, tragedy struck. Our state went into lockdown on March 13, dictating that all non-essential businesses close and non-essential staff be laid off. There were two days where none of us knew what was happening, if we had jobs or if that job was safe.

They laid off all but three designers and Grandpa but kept most the drivers, changed our hours to 8-5, closed Sundays. Canceled weddings. No walk-ins. The three designers were Blue, Red, and me.

Blue was worried about her children. She resigned.

Red's wife was worried about him and harassed him into quitting.

And then there was one.

There's a series of poems I wrote in my journal about being an essential worker during lockdown. There's adorable little doodles of skeletons around the margins, festooned with flowers. They all go something like this:

We are the Skeleton Crew.

We once were seven but now are two

We don't know what to do

So we just work, work, work.

Many may wonder how a flower shop would be considered an essential business. The answer is funerals. We were allowed to remain open because of our relationship with the funeral industry. And sad to say: the industry was booming.

And I did all of it. I made every spray, every 'get well soon' vase, every 'happy quarantine' bouquet. I called angry brides to see if they could postpone, I dealt with everyone's grief and uncertainty.

All the flowers that arrived at US Customs through Italy were destroyed because we didn't know whether coronavirus was transmitted through physical contact and there's no way to sanitize flowers. Not without killing them.

It was me and Grandpa. That was it. Ten funerals a day, and everything else. Flowers were more important than ever: you couldn't be there, so you sent flowers. And flowers and flowers and flowers…

I couldn't leave now. I was important, I was needed.

The work became overwhelming for both of us and we began hiring back some of our staff. Some came back right away, bored out of their skulls having to spend time at home. Can't relate. Key never responded, Cherry was pregnant and shouldn't be out of the house.

Dandy came back, Kali came back, Astra came back. Eventually, Blue. After a month of just me and Grandpa, there was almost a full crew and it was enough for us to get through an average week. It took us a month on our bare knuckles but we finally weren't shouldering the responsibility of seven people.

But we still didn't know jack shit about the future there.

In May, the 'economy opened up,' which is a strategic way of saying that people got tired of never leaving the house and stores were pressured to open back up again before a vaccine was released under threat of… you know what? This isn't a story about how America responded to the coronavirus poorly and you can probably find a better thinkpiece about it written by someone with facts and feelings if you want to squeeze yourself behind a pay wall.

This is about workers rights and kittens, two things that are far more important than the economy.

We got 'Hero Pay,' which was two dollars extra per hour and damn did I grasp onto that with the tendons in my wrists. I had never been paid $12 an hour for anything in my life. They started talking about permanent raises, and benefits, 401K, pregnancy leave… and I started thinking… maybe I could stay. Maybe I can stay here for awhile and it won't be so bad now that I'm getting paid actual human wages. Maybe it will be okay.

Life returned to an uneasy normal while we navigated mask laws, sanitation regulations, safety screens, and daily temperature checks. There are stories to tell about some less than great customers we'd had as people realized that they weren't coping with the pandemic as well as they thought, but they deserve their own entries.

We had a revolving door of open positions. If it wasn't a designer it was a driver or both. People weren't ready to come back to work yet but we still had a business to run. People asked if they could perform this job remotely. I'm not sure how one does flowers from home.

It was August when we started feeling the roots of our problems seep into the foundation.

Grandpa's pride and joy was her funerals. She had spent thirteen years building a relationship with the funeral homes in the area to make sure they trust us and our work. If anything was wrong, even a hair out of place, they knew they could call us and have it fixed before the visitation.

"We want unity across the board on our products," Puppet said. "If you're doing the sprays one way and others don't look the same, it doesn't look very good for Oldman Funeral Home, which has locations in all our cities, does it?" He swept his bangs out of his eyes, which was strange tell but we weren't sure for what.

"Okay," Grandpa said. "Schedule a time for me to go down and I'll teach them the way we do them."

"Okay, then."

She went down, prepared to show the crew in the warehouse what 40 years in the business was capable of, only to be met with a strange kind of resistance.

Their head designer greeted her and immediately started instructing her on how he makes sprays. Grandpa, confused, blinked at him with no words. When he was finished, she picked up her clippers and began making her own.

"That's not how we do it," he said. She was met with criticism after criticism. "That's not enough flowers, you're putting them in wrong, you're still making it one-sided. Why did you put the bow there, this looks nothing like our products."

She stood back after his barrage of blows to the ego. "I guess I'm a little confused."

"I'll say."

"Am I teaching you or are you teaching me?"

"I'm teaching you," he said. "Since they're going to all be made here from now on, they want me to show you how we make them in case of emergency."

She let that simmer. "That's not what I was told."

"You didn't think you were supposed to show me how you do it, did you? That doesn't make any sense. Why would we want to look like yours?"

"Oh, I dunno… maybe because we've kept up 30 accounts for 13 years and your location just lost your very last one because you can't make their delivery times and they're across the damn street."

This was how we learned that corporate was planning on taking our funerals from us.

Funerals were something I was immensely proud of. My ability to turn out a thousand dollar funeral order with limited stock was a subject of envy. I could take a phone order, make the flowers, and the deliver it all by myself within an hour. I was good. We were all good. And we trained anyone that stayed longer than two months how to do this because we wanted every person to be able to fix any problem.

And they wanted to take that away from us.

And they did. Because who was going to stop them?

'But what does that matter to you,' I hear you, the reader, ask. 'Surely this meant less work for you!'

Ah, but for the sprays to get to us, they had to come on a truck. Making them in-house meant that we knew we had them. We had to put our trust in corporate to deliver the goods to us by 7 am or we would have to make them day of.

There were days when the truck didn't come, or where only half the pieces were delivered, or a spray got left in the workshop an hour away. At least once a week, often more.

But you know… we adapted. You just schedule more openers to make sure no one is doing it alone and hope to God that you have all the flowers you need to make it. Which you could never anticipate how many flowers you would actually need because them taking our funerals was supposed to reduce the amount of stock flowers we got as well.

Mornings were nightmares, but we adapted.

Another visit, Puppet told Grandpa that she should get all weekends off. All the other managers do. He suggested that I learn to run routes so she can have weekends, and I said okay. I'll learn it.

I got real acquainted with the map of Ohio, and I hated it. I was a weekend manager with no real managerial power. If someone needed a refund, I had to write a note for Grandpa to email the accounts manager because she wouldn't take requests from anyone that wasn't a manager. Everything just waited until Monday. What was the point of me? I couldn't design while managing and I couldn't fix what was broken, so why even have a weekend manager? Let the animals loose in the zoo and it probably would have been a better fit.

But I powered through. I adapted.

Throughout all this, spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. Completely pointless spreadsheets that we were bound to fill out all day every day. They had simple purposes: inventory. You filled one out to take count of the specials so you knew how many there were. Then you had to count again to put them in the system so that they knew how much we had. Then you had to go back and count them again and put that number in the computer so they knew how much to make and send tomorrow.

I spent an hour each day counting and recounting the flowers in the far-off and futile hope that the counts would remain accurate to the end of the day (which they did not because the call center consistently used the wrong codes) and that the stock would be replenished properly in the morning (it was not.)

An hour was lost each day to this and it accomplished nothing, yet they always yelled at Grandpa if the counts were off or it was late. Why stress a system that does jack shit?

And every time there was a new feature or there was a new… thing, oh look! Another goddamned redundant spreadsheet that served no purpose.

But we adapted. We created a rhythm.

Show up early at 6:30 to make sure everything got in, make everything that didn't, get the drivers routed, pull routes for the third party deliveries, process same-day orders, data entry for the funeral consolidated. Then at 7, when the phones start ringing…

Okay, so before I forget:

Instead of installing a new phone line and hiring a few more call center people like a normal company would, our headquarters decided it would save us money if call overflow rerouted to the next available phone line, regardless of which location the phone was at. So we would get calls for the Kentucky store asking questions about what that store has and for the sake of preserving confidence in our brand we were supposed to pretend that we were the Kentucky store. We're just supposed to know or assume to know what each store had in stock because there's no way that could ever backfire.

It was… another thing to yell at us for. And boy did they, because they were listening in on our calls. Not to like… coach us on how to do better, but to tell us we were wrong. Sometimes they would call one of us on the other line to tell someone currently on the main one that they said something wrong. They also would straight up lie and scold us for calls we didn't take. The phones system, was simply a mess.

...so when the phones started up at 7am, and one person is designing, one person is taking unending phone orders, Grandpa is doing damage control. By 8, we have most of last nights orders figured out and it's time to start on same day orders and tomorrow's orders. It's too early to do inventory now because they'll yell at us for doing it too early.

By 9 we have our second wave of same day orders and next day orders, the rest of the world realizes we're open and starts walking in. That requires the attention of an entire person. We're at this point also taking out trash, breaking down boxes, disinfecting, sweeping the cooler.

Typically, there were only two openers on any given day, which meant most of this was all being handled by Blue or me.

By 10 we've caught up, we can do the inventory now without getting yelled at by the four heads at corporate. We're on route #3 by now and someone probably had to go to the same place twice because the orders came in late.

At 11, a crisis has probably happened. Something dropped, something wilted, something wasn't what they imagined. Someone has to go fix it, and that someone was usually me because I knew my way around town better than the other transplants.

This typically returned me to the shop around 1pm, which meant it was time for lunch, bringing me to 2. 3 o'clock was the cutoff for any next day orders to be sent to corporate, which meant that if there were any funeral orders taken for the morning, they would have to be made in-house. This included sprays, which takes half an hour to an hour depending on how complicated it was and if we had the materials and how much else we needed to make for the next day. Or how busy we were.

There was always something called in at the last minute, taking us to 4 and then 5 o'clock, when the openers went home and the same-day orders were cut off.

But see, that was when we stopped taking orders, not when we stopped processing orders. So if an order was placed for the same day at 4:59, it may not go through until 5:30. And by 5:30, chances are you've sent your drivers home for the day. Which means calling the customer to apologize and explain why something can't be sent out today, and no one wants to hear that they fucked up by sending it out late.

So, on more than one occasion, I had to personally deliver flowers on my way home from work in my personal car, thirty minutes out of my way because if we miss a delivery by God will we hear about it. And it was always some damn $25 arrangement with 'God Loves You' written on the tag, hardly worth the gas to Johnstown.

The irony of it being delivered by the witch was lost on no one.

If that didn't happen and the screen was clear, the night was easy and all we had to do was clean up and watch the door.

Unless a last minute order for the next day came in, which was about half the time. All of this for $11 an hour. (Once they got rid of the Hero Pay, it went back down to $11.)

That was an average, unexciting day for us. You got used to those kinds of stresses, but every day I came home and I was so tired and sore that I couldn't move. I started walking with a cane, had a low-grade fever most days, and my hands looked like I'd taken to them with a cheese grater.

But I powered through. I adapted.

Then it was December. The owners had always been generous with Christmas bonuses, handing everyone an envelope of cash. Mine was $500. This was the largest amount of cash that anyone had ever handed me (feel bad for me later.)

And then it was Grandpa's turn, but there were no envelopes left. It had to be a mistake, she thought. She didn't get paid very much for all the work she put into the shop, so she was counting on that bonus to buy presents for her grandchildren. It… it… had to be a mistake, right?

"I didn't get a bonus," she said. "I thought the accountability didn't take effect until January," she said to Puppet.

Before he opens his mouth again, I have to explain yet another thing.

In September, there was a meeting. Now that we were working on benefits and bonus programs and other things to make sure the staff stays, they needed to put in accountability measures for the managers. Effective January 1, managers are reflected by the income of their store, the number of returns, accidents in company vehicles, and high turnover rates.

Pick one of those attributes and decide its bullshit to begin with, and I'm about to show you the entire steer.

"We had to make an example of someone," he said. "So that the other managers know we're serious."

She was being personally punished for a car wreck that happened in 2019 even though she fired the guy that was in it. We had too many returns, he said, but most of them were sent to us from corporate. She was personally held responsible for the high turnover rate during an economic crisis AND a goddamned pandemic… because they needed to make an example out of someone.

And her grandkids didn't get presents this year because of it.

She cried. The last time I saw her cry was when we were saying goodbye to the kittens. It's not the same.

But she got up every day and listened to them scream at her while we counted and counted and recounted the fucking Christmas specials because the numbers weren't right and we couldn't make them right because someone in the call center couldn't figure out the codes and in their eyes it was our fault, too- we had to be stealing the flowers or something.

"It sucks and then its over," she said. It was how she dealt with holidays: "It sucks and then its over."

We were all angry for her. I got asked to go to the headquarters and help them mass produce more fucking specials and I offered the beat them up for her and she told me not to get involved. Head down, do the work, get it done.

One of the call center girls died of a heart attack a few days before I was due to help them mass. We were supposed to go to her funeral, but we all missed it because there was so much work to do.

Wait, let me back up… again. The company gave us all life insurance. The number we were quoted on our life insurance policy was $10,000, which seems like a lot but in the funeral business it's not. Your average funeral will eat up most of that, if not all. It's very expensive to die right now.

At least… we all thought it was $10k. I was certainly told $10k.

Turns out it was $1k, which isn't enough to buy you a box for your remains. The call center crew ended up crowdsourcing the rest- she didn't have much family.

And none of us could go to the funeral because we were working.

I worked two twelve hour shifts in that warehouse making the same goddamn centerpiece over and over again while a Frenchman in a scarf told me I was doing it wrong, while everyone was grieving on a time crunch.

I really should have beaten them up.

But we got through Christmas, for what it was worth. We found Grandpa some sales that she could get gifts from and we all worked together to make sure we were okay through it. I mean, we weren't- it was blind leading the blind. But we tried.

And then it ended. "It sucks and then its over," she'd always say.

And into January we go and we're back into the stupidity of trying to fight with hq about funerals. I'm constantly told that if we needed certain things we should have ordered them.

I… did. I did. I ordered everything we needed every damn day and it still never came because the left hand and the right hand can't even coordinate enough to pull off a high-five. But it can't be their fault. It has to be Grandpa's somehow.

Now during the week of Christmas, Grandpa had to take an extra day off because she got sick. It wasn't Covid, thank goodness. I can imagine it was a stress-related issue, but it's not my business. Due to the holiday, this put her at under 40 hours for the week.

So they paid her hourly.

...which is extremely illegal to do to a salaried employee, especially one that works way more than 40 hours a week with no overtime.

And then they told her that she'd already lost her quarterly bonus because of a fender-bender that happened on my watch, and because she lost 39 employees last quarter.

I write everything down. I keep a journal. I cannot find 39 employees, even going back the entire year… during a pandemic. They have to be making this up. They have to be because there is no way they can hold the dude that was fired for literally sleeping in the men's room against her.

And I was close to just telling them all that… when my grandma died.

I'm not getting into it, really. Because you know… she was 96 years old and… it happens. It's sad, but it happens. But the relevant point to make is that I was given an… inheritance. It wasn't a lot. Grandma wasn't loaded. But it would be enough for me to keep afloat for awhile if I ever needed to.

When I told my girlfriend, she said: 'you could quit your job.'

And I didn't want to think about that because the flower shop needed me. I was important there. I was special. And Valentine’s Day was just around the corner.

But I was thinking about it. I thought about it every day.

A week before Valentines Day, Grandpa was inconsolable. She had to leave work because her dog, Jake, wouldn't stop bleeding. She needed to get him to the vet.

Two hours pass and Blue gets a message asking her to come help her move the dog. Grandpa lives alone and she's not very strong.

Blue doesn't like dogs. She was bitten by one the first time she ever made a delivery.

And I am known for exceptional physical strength. So I went.

When I arrived, Grandpa was a mess. I had never seen her cry so much, and it wouldn't stop. And I was trying to be strong, but it's hard. Jake was still alive, but bleeding. He was confused and upset, and blind and deaf. He barked, he growled, and he lunged… but always pulled back when his legs buckled from the pain.

I had her grab a blanket and we rolled him onto it, using that to lift him. He thrashed and growled and snapped at me while we walked him towards the door, but he wasn't getting out of the wrap we had him in.

As we're out the door, I noticed a man at the neighboring house. He raised his hand in greeting, but lowered it in confusion.

"Grandpa, is it alright if I get him to come help while you bring the car around?"

The best she could do was nod.

"Yeah, sorry, to bug you but can I ask for a little help here?" He looks at what we're doing and drops his trash can lid to come help. "Yeah, just take that end there and we're gonna ease him into the car when she comes around."

He nodded, took the ends, and we tucked a very confused Jake into the back seat. I thanked the neighbor, Grandpa sped off, and I went back to work feeling extremely odd about it.

That was the first time that I'd ever met the dog: on his way to be put down.

I know it seems weird to tell that story, but there's a reason. Part of it is symbolic. Part of it has to do with kittens. But we're not there just yet.

So now it's February and it is crunch time for Valentine’s Day. We have no earthly idea what this holiday is going to look like because past experiences have us anticipating a large number of walk ins, but state regulations have put a limit of six customers inside the store at any one time. We were never given any… instructions on how to enforce that rule, so we just kind of vaguely set out roles for who has to be the bouncer at the flower shop.

But before all of that, we had to make 275 two-dozen red rose arrangements in bowls. Based on our sales last year and general growth, we were expecting something close to five hundred deliveries on our busiest day. If I wasn't making them, I was counting them. And I was counting, and I was counting, and I was counting… every hour, just like it was at Christmas. We used up every single red rose in the place and came up short.

To which we were scolded: we must have used the roses they sent us for other orders because there was no way the error could have been on their end! Their inventory was impervious to mistakes. Somewhere between the warehouse and our store, twenty-five packs of roses went missing! And why is it only our store that has these problems? Clearly it must be our fault- a store full of thieves and liars and delinquents.

They ended up sending more just because… you know… they care. I guess.

And every hour, they needed a number of something and I counted, and counted and counted…

I think it was February 8 that I started crying every day. When I slept I was stiff as a board because I made so many mistakes throughout the day that the idea of coming to work the next day just to make more mistakes made me lock up entirely. There was no way to relax. There was no winding down from a hard day of work because my body could not move anymore.

I felt like I was made of splintering wood.

I had a dream around this time that I quit my job. I was so happy. I thought about it almost every hour.

So I stayed out of the way at work, picking up cleaning projects because at least there I could be useful and it was dark enough in the cooler that if I started crying no one had to see it.

That cooler was so clean. I wouldn't recommend eating off of it because I used an entire bottle of bleach to clean the floor.

If we're not counting the constant barrage of demands from corporate to count, count, count; Valentine’s Day was worryingly uneventful. Previous holidays were chaotic: filling the requests of the most desperate and clueless men with deep pockets and expensive tastes. Corralling the temporary drivers and make sure no one gets into any crashes or… uh...tries to sell unregulated merchandise from their trunks. Trying to decide what "Malibu Barbie Pink" meant for that one customer who comes in every six months and orders it but has rejected every color pink on the spectrum that our store has ever offered.

On this one… nothing important happened.

We were… slow.

Grandpa started sending people home early because there weren't many orders. We ran out of projects to do.

Sounds great, right?

...heh…

Corporate would like to know why our store is under projected sales by over 200, as if we have any say in how many people buy from us. Like we personally called all our typical customer base and told them not to come to this store. "Yes, hello Mrs. Penderghast? I'm sorry we can't fill your Valentine's Day order this year because we suck balls and don't want your business. Have a nice weekend. Say hi to the grandkids for me."

I don't… fucking KNOW! I don't work in PR! I'd ask the people in that department if they know what happened but… that's the owners. So who really is the fuckup here? Not me, that's for fucking certain! I cleaned the cooler. That's all I did all weekend was clean the Gods damned cooler because there wasn't enough work to go around so I made work for myself.

And then: "Why are the counts off," asked Mt. Rushmore. See, we called them that because between the owners, Puppet, and the head designer we had four white men looking down at us while we did all the work and built their success on the backs of their forefathers. Well… to me it was anyway. To everyone else it was four dudes that looked down on you.

"Why are the counts off?"

Oh, the COUNTS are off? Well, let me just drop everything I'm doing right now and count them for the third time in the past hour because that takes fucking priority.

"There's 95 specials missing from your inventory. Where are they?"

...okay, 95 is a lot. But it was also kind of hard to know how they were 'missing' when we'd sold all of the 275 that we made. How can they be missing if we sold them.

"We need to know where they are."

We don't know where they are. Because we sold all of them. The math didn't add up.

But they hounded us about it like we'd stolen them and resold them on the street corner. Which, to their defense, had happened once (but Sugar stopped doing that when her corner was taken over by the woman who accused Jay of being a demon.) But 95 is a huge number, and these arrangements were a foot wide and two feet tall. Someone would have noticed if a 100x200 foot square opened up in the cooler.

We literally could not know what the fuck they were talking about.

And the truth was extremely stupid: those 95 pieces were redeliveries. When someone has an issue with their order, like it didn't come or it was left out in the snow and got damaged or… someone put the name of their ex on the card instead of their wife… we send a replacement. But depending on who took the phone call, a person might use the wrong code and put it in for 'redeliver' instead- which counts it as another order.

We weren't missing 95 arrangements. We had 95 redeliveries. They hounded us about inventory for two days over a clerical error.

I decided I'd had it. We were going on a full week of crying every time I had a moment alone. They had made us feel like everything that went wrong was our fault: from low turnout to high turnover, missed deliveries and trashed sprays, lost accounts and new grievances…

But did they ever say a Gods damned thing about how hard we worked? How good we were? About how great a team we were under pressure? We once pulled together an entire wedding in fifteen minutes. My ass carried this store through the pandemic. I have done… so much.

So fucking much.

And yet it's our fault.

I had been reasoning with myself that I would stick around for the aftermath when Grandpa was eventually fired: we'd all felt it was coming. But I got that little bit of cash and all my joints were screaming and every time we got negative feedback a part of me died.

The following Tuesday had seen a massive snowstorm. Things that weren't already closed due to the pandemic were closed due to weather.

But we still had to be there. Because someone had to be there to make all the funeral pieces.

Because there wouldn't be a truck the next day, which meant that all of the funeral pieces that we'd sent to the headquarters needed to be made in-house. Which, once again, could have been avoided if we had kept the funeral orders in-house to begin with.

I waited until everyone had cleared out before I said it.

"Grandpa, I have to quit."

I don't think anyone ever looked so disappointed in me in my life.

"Why?"

"The way they treat people here is terrible and I can't see myself doing another Mother's Day for this company. They're so… mean! And for no damn reason! I have cried every day for the past week because I see the way they treat you and I'm… I'm tired."

I thought she was going to cry, but she nodded. "I can't stop you," she said. "I shouldn't stop you. If it's affecting your mental health like this, I'll miss you but its for the best. You know they'll want a written notice."

"And you know I'll tell them the truth," I said.

"...it's not me, is it?"

"If I worked for just you and those fuckers were out of the picture, I would stay. And you can count on me to tell them that."

"Any flower shop you apply to would be lucky to have you."

So I drafted up a resignation letter telling them exactly how I feel: that the way they run this company was asinine and they treated their employees like garbage. They received it on Thursday. Everyone at the shop knew by then. They were upset…

...but they understood.

Puppet did not understand. He emailed Grandpa asking her what she's doing that her people keep leaving.

He didn't see it. He didn't see that he was part of the problem. It always had to be someone else's fault. I explicitly said in my letter whose fault it was and he still didn't take any responsibility.

But suddenly I'm one of their best designers, and he begged me to reconsider, take some time off to think about it. They desperately wanted me to stay and they were willing to bargain, I just needed demands.

No one's ever… begged me before. I don't know if I like that.

This is when it dawned on me that I was next in line. It all made sense now: training me to route, making me do all the extra work, and now they want me to stay?

They were planning on getting rid of Grandpa and promoting me to manager. In a perfect world where Grandpa resigns willingly and I’m promoted on my merits as a designer and the company wasn’t very quickly circling the drain, I would be excited. But I wasn’t. I was frightened. I watched them take a confident, extremely talented woman and turn her into the whipping boy of the flower shop. And if I were in her position, I would have quit. But I don’t have the strength to stand up to the people that are signing my paycheck.

Why… am I at a place where the idea of moving upward makes me more scared than excited?

Flattering, but no. I've seen how you treat your people. My demands are to treat them better.

It was the longest week for me: making lists of pros and cons. I had made a lot of friends there and there's stuff that I will never forget. But the fact that the only people who didn't understand why I was leaving were the people who had the most to lose really hit me in the knees. I could tell them every day for the rest of their lives why they suck and it wouldn't matter because nothing was ever their fault.

And at 7:00 on Friday, I turned in my key.

I didn't have a plan, I didn't have anything lined up. This was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make and I was just kind of… throwing myself at it.

I don't do that. I always have a plan. I look into every possible scenario and I try to make the smart choice. And this time…

I didn't.

It was probably stupid.

But I slept for 12 hours the next night and I could feel my bones settling into their rightful places. I didn't realize how many health problems were caused by standing for 9 hours a day, 11 days a week until I was home all the time to notice them changing. I will always have a limp from trying to pretend I don't have a limp. I'm pretty sure that ulcer is chronic. But my back isn't seizing up and I don't cry every day anymore.

That's something, I think.

About a week after my departure, I got a text from Grandpa that said:

"Hey guess what."

"What," I replied.

The next text was a picture of a week's old seal-point kitten with terminal eye-goo, wrapped in a towel.

"Pop-eye!?"

"I'm keeping this one," she said. The strays had dropped a litter of identical baby kittens by her pond. Two years later, with Jake put down, she could finally have Pop-eye, even if it was version 2.0.

The next text was a few days later. "Puppet fired me."

"What!? Why?"

"Too many accidents, too high turnaround. The new people suck, he says no one wants to work with me."

"Are you okay? How are you doing?"

"I'm okay." She paused and the loading screen did its little dot dance. "I'm playing with my kitten."

#cw #pet death #death #workers rights violations #if you want to know everything #this is everything

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mecharlie-fox · 3 years

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FeH: Lif X Summoner/Reader "Save Yourself."

Based on the Book III chapter where Lif and Thrasir became puppets for Hel after their confrontation with Alfonse and co.

You were his Summoner. Unlike the other Summoner who hailed from the World of Steel, you were more experienced in the art of mastering heroes and the mysterious magic that surrounded the phenomenon. Blessed by the dragon god of creation, tasked into protecting the realms - you have served countless of worlds throughout different eras. You did not age, you did not question your tasks, you did not question destiny.

You made friends with your previous comrades, defeated tyrants and conquerors. You could argue that you have seen everything and have prepared for everything, as a summoner, as a hero, and as a tactician. You guided young Summoners and Heroes in other worlds whenever you had a chance - in a sense, you were a mentor, a comrade, and a friend. But when you found yourself in the World of Zineth, you thought that it was going to be the same cycle as it's always been.

You summoned heroes, you fought in battles, participated in this war as per request of your contractor... you eventually made new friends and comrades - but you never expected to fall in love.

For the first time in all of your lifetimes, you wanted a family. You wanted to marry. You wanted to leave this world of yours behind and start a new one with him.

But Death came and took him away from you. Hel couldn't touch you because your soul belonged to the divine dragon god of creation. To go against the dragon was asking for a conflict that she knew she could never win. You were told that you couldn't do anything about it. That you couldn't save them no matter what you did. But you couldn't forget, the guilty consciousness of failing them as a summoner, as a hero, and as a friend was swallowing you whole. Alfonse trusted and loved you, but you couldn't do anything but watch.

He believed you were dead just like the rest of them.

It broke your heart when you saw him in Hel's grasps wearing the black armor and those lifeless eyes of his. You saw it in his eyes as if you felt that you betrayed him by being alive. You served this other summoner as a hero and like other heroes, you can fight but the contract isn't the same when it comes to you. You were a summoner first, a Hero second.

When a Hero dies they can be revived by the summoner. But a summoner who dies was a different story. You were proficient in your magic and you were well versed with your knowledge of rites and runes.

You decided on your own punishment for abandoning the people you were supposed to protect as a summoner.

After Lif and Thrasir were defeated by Alfonse and his summoner, they've become nothing more but puppets without their souls. You didn't know why but you could feel their life somewhere within Hel's domain and began to think. The other summoner needed to reach Hel with the Breidablik you abandoned. They were insistent that since it was originally yours, you should kill Hel. But you declined and said: "I have my own part in this game. I will buy you time."

At first, they refused, not wanting to leave you behind. But they were young with so much ahead of them, they can have a future that you couldn't get because you were so dedicated to your summoner role. You wanted them to live. Prince Alfonse was hesitant to even agree. Eir didn't want to let you go a second time but you had no choice. You wanted to finish what you started, and proceeded to battle alone with a single sword.

Your destiny was right in front of you. You love Alfonse, you still do. And you wanted them to live no matter what. You didn't care about your future anymore - you had to make this work because you don't know what you'll do if it doesn't.

It was difficult facing both Alfonse and Veronica on your own, even when you were able to manage - you had one goal in mind. To live a life filled with regret, that's not living anymore. Your main focus was Lif, the Alfonse you love and still care for. You did your best to match his footwork and avoided his deathblows, dodging any attacks from Thrasir or Veronica who can kill you with her magic.

You were injured severely, they were about to leave you alone because Hel didn't need you dead. But you stubbornly stood up, Fólkvangr still in hand. "I have... nothing left to lose..." you mumbled under your breathe.

He was still in there. You know it. In silence, as you positioned yourself to attack, you prayed your message: "Alfonse. When you wake up things will be different again." The worlds will be different, everything will be different because you were willing to defy destiny for him. You were willing to defy your role for him. You were willing to sacrifice everything you had left for him.

You were relentless. Not giving him room to dodge, not giving him the space to breathe. Each blow was stronger than the last because you were giving more than what you were supposed to. Thrasir tried to stop you with her magic, but you nullified them with your own - runes always did outdid magic from other realms.

You had Thrasir where you wanted her, and you only need a little push for Lif to be where he should. Without any other choice, you forced yourself towards him - your blade against his - you could feel your soul being pulled out because of that cursed blade that Hel gave him. Forcibly, you had his sword fly away from his hand - knocking him off his feet and pressing Fólkvangr on the ground, just beside him.

You could feel Thrasir about to cast a spell, but you were too tired to do anything else and proceeded with your plan. "Save... yourself." You mumbled before his lifeless body pushed you away. It felt as if Hel saw the whole thing through his eyes.

Hel saw how you smirked.

When you landed on the ground, feeling every scrap of pain a human body could imagine - magic circles appeared below from where the two generals stood. You knew things would be different once it was all over. If you can't end Hel... then the other Summoner would. It is as it should be.

This was your choice, your punishment.

"...What... happened?" Thrasir turned to Lif who was puzzled himself. The last thing they both remembered was Alfonse and the other Summoner defeating them. And then what? "Alfonse...?"

Veronica called. The fallen Askran prince's gaze went to where Veronica was pointing - to see a body lying down on the ground. He knew those robes. "Y/n?" He couldn't believe it as he mumbled your name. "Y/n!" He called out again as he ran towards you and held you close.

But it was all done. There was nothing he could do. Your eyes were slightly open but he didn't need anyone else to tell him. You were already dead.

You were truly dead.

#feh #fire emblem heroes #fe heroes #lif #alfonse #fjorm #lif x summoner #summoner is reader #summoner can be your oc #alfonse x summoner #lif x reader #alfonse x reader #summoner was willing to sacrifice everything they had left for their prince

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lunar-lair · 3 years

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ok say hello to my insanely new oc who ive made entirely to be a villain who is still an excellent adult and a decent parent, probably. cares too much abt kids. think reigen mob psycho with a drop or two of milla. worked under Nick From The Mailroom and was actually in on his scheme.

has always been rather cold and brash towards adults, but is more caring towards kids. in my brain he has a brooklyn type accent? rough and tumble, walks around without a tie, yknow? they keep him cause he sorts mail real good, though.

(added a read more because this got INSANELY LONG AKSKSK i spent like an hr on this h)

he was a delugeionist, but only because he kinda just wanted to rip the world apart a little; lysandre vibes, thinks a lot of it is scum and needs to go. thinks the *psychonauts* are scum and need to go. hes psychic but suppressed it, think aquato parents but extra toxic about it, and straight up just saying being psychic is unnatural. wouldnt go to loboto parent lengths tho. so he adopted that thought of 'being psychic is unnatural and wrong', which contributed to a lot of self hate that was never learned out. likely, he realizes hes a shitty person and thinks he needs to go too. so like...yknow hank, dbh? kinda the vibe im gettin right now. way more formal, of course, and while usually gruff, is more polite when its needed; can and *will* beat the shit out of you verbally in a factual way, though, and can talk more street-lingo if hes talkin to real thugs. (probably winged it on his own after failing college or smth, hes got the vibes.)

anyways, its this plot where he slinks off and starts planting mistrust in the psychonauts or something. and inevitably he just...shows up and starts kidnapping people. dismantling things from the inside and all that. he left and formed a group who also hated psychics at some point, likely friends of his parents and friends of friends, all from his hometown. all of them fight *insanely* dirty, and a lot of them are insanely vulgar. the kids are supposed to be kept away.

but theres a line to follow here.

this man is a fold to raz. hates the psychonauts, hates being psychic, adopted his parent's hate of psychics, hates the *world.* raz is young and unburdened and unjaded...mostly. hes not the shock of water some young characters can be when it comes to being the foils of other characters; think steven with a villain or something, right? but raz is sassy and a little jaded, and not total sunshine positivity.

hes a child this man could look down on and not be immediately annoyed by, who is worried by yet respects raz's realization of the world as it is, however little that is.

and yet raz is still his foil. he still mostly loves the psychonauts, despite it all, he loves being psychic, for the most part, he dodged adopting his parents previous values, he still seems to have an even view of the world as a whole.

raz is jaded, if only a little, but he moved past it and accepted that things could still be bright. this man is jaded, but he stayed in his stormclouds, never looked for the sun.

ok where. was i. RIGHT ok so. at the beginning of this...story? the man finds raz being talked down to by one of the office workers; someone with weak psychic powers whos insanely jealous of his prowess. an adult who envies the young prodigy. and theyre giving him some insane task to do, like cleaning all of the closets within the hour, but hes saved the world twice, so he smiles and nods along, because he said he would help around the motherlobe, and this adult is asking him to do something that seems simple enough.

and this guy, internally, goes 'bitch.' for a good long second bc 1. dude even if you envy a kid, kinda fucked to show that?? not their fault 2. WHY are you asking a 10 year old to do that. why is there a 10 year old here. holy shit thats a 10 year old oh my god hes so tiny (no one told him there was a 10 year old because they knew hed stomp right up to management but. regardless. he is going to stomp up to management after this and no one can really stop him. except maybe raz well see)

so yknow. dude fixes his slight slouch and walks forward and politely tells this woman that 1. hes 10 why are you jealous of him and 2. hes 10????????? and shes like shit hes 10. and apologizes. and walks away

and raz is VERY ?? bc she was doing what? why is him being 10 important? and its that young part of you that gets pissed when people try to keep you from doing things because youre young and hes DEFINITELY yet to learn that piling responsibilites that should be handled by adults onto a child is fucked up in its own special way (looking at you ford, *nick*)

and the dude calmly explains because yea. he gets that. and he still sounds gruff and a little peeved but he squats down to razs height and he talks simply and factually, telling him straight on why it isnt right.

and. huh. people dont really do that for raz. except for sasha, sometimes, everyone likes to dodge the truth a lot with him, because hes 10, and sometimes, hes too nice to tug it out of them.

and this guy, this man that raz is already polishing a trophy for 'good adulting' in the back of his brain with his striking statements about how adults should handle things and kids should-kids should...get to have fun. not be traumatized.

for the shock on his face when raz said hed already saved the world a couple times, whats some closets. he reigned it in, said that its weird he saved the world, because thats usually their jobs.

and this guy offers his hand on instict before he stands up, even though he doesnt seem very sweet and kind like the adults that usually offer raz a hand. and he takes it, i think. he takes it.

warm. warm, a little nice.

reminds raz of his dad, maybe. he wonders if this man has any kids himself, but keeps his mouth shut, because he thinks he already has the answer, and its yes.

(he doesnt have any. he would wish he did, but he knows hed fail to raise them right.)

and when he stands, he asks raz what he was asking that woman for, and he says hes doing tasks around the motherlobe because his papers are still coming in. the man doesnt ask. (he knows what 'papers' means, realizes this is the tiny junior psychonaut every room in the damn place has been buzzing about, and he has fucking words for forsythe.) he just offers for the kid to sort mail under his supervision.

and that sounds boring. at least, it usually would.

this man is interesting, and a good...person? a good adult? hes...hes new. hes new, and calm, and a little like sasha but a lot not, and he thinks he trusts him.

so raz grins and says yea, mail sorting sounds nice.

(debatably, raz does not take his hand. hes too jaded when it comes to adults. debatably, he does not feel any warmth from this man who has taught him every adult has been telling him wrong. debatably, im projecting. but thats the whole point of ocs, hm?)

and then holes crop up in motherlobe systems. people are kidnapped.

raz keeps seeing the strange man, keeps telling him things, keeps hearing back, gruff and factual and a little annoyed, but raz can almost-just-barely tell its not at him, with the way he talks.

he can tell. he can tell.

he can never tell. this man is making sure he can tell.

raz trusts the man, is still polishing that trophy for 'best adulting' he has settling in the back of his mind.

and then the man comes with a militia.

he did not seem jaded. he did not seem hateful. he never showed any anger or hate towards raz.

but thats because he knows kids dont deserve it.

an excellent moral or two. a rotten, broken heart.

and at first, they keep the kids away, because these people fight dirty, because this isnt their battle, because the man has been sending emails about why 15 year olds are in a secret psychic agency.

(he does not mention raz. by razs second visit, he had just marked the boy down as another reason to hate the psychonauts as a whole, and especially its higher ups.

hes also regretting his alliance to nick by about the third. if he had known the man would puppet a child as if they were a toy, he would have organized his own rebellion ages ago.)

but eventually, the psychonauts need all hands on deck.

they send the children to find the missing agents.

the interns are fought on the way. some of them avoid the child, know the boss would pummel them.

they get to the base, and the strange man, the one with the broken trophy for 'best adult' (still barely-polished, because hes still so sure) still nestled in the back of razs brain, is still there.

the junior psychonauts are spotted. one of the guards throws a few rocks aimlessly.

they surprise them. one almost hits raz.

its intercepted instead.

and the other junior psychonauts watch as this man, their enemy, a villain, in their eyes, reprimands the other man for even accidentally daring, for even trying. for doing something they might have done just a month or so ago, if they had decided he was too much weirder than they already had.

and he yells something like, "Why the hell is he even here?! This is an enemy base, of whats a rebellion! This is a *10 year old*! What kind of adult sends a child *near* something like that?!" and he truly sounds angry this time, raz finds. hes too angry to keep it in. he still sounds gruff and oddly proper. raz is standing there, arms hanging. hes baffled in a specific way, the way he was every time the man's brow furrowed when he mentioned a harrowing story, the way he was the first day they met.

and he asks, a little quiet, a little small, a reminder of how young he really is, "Why are you still trying to keep me safe? We're supposed to be enemies now."

And his brow furrows further before flattening out, and he tilts onto one leg, and he swears he almost kneels to a knee.

He cant believe it. He really cant.

"You're 10." he says simply, softly, that factual way. "You shouldn't even be here."

and raz pauses. the interns freeze.

"...well, here I am."

and i think...it would be so intriguing if this was done halfway out of the mind, because this man is so against anything psychic. it would be so *compelling.*

so raz steps forward and asks again, asks why hes doing this.

and the mans eyes harden, he tries to turn off that soft heart, trying to remind himself of all that he hates. because he hates the psychonauts, because he sort of hates the world.

and raz asks why he could ever hate the psychonauts, head tilted, before listing off the few he knows to be true. but other than that, how? and ok, the world sucks a little, yea, hes seen that, gets that.

and he appreciates that this kid isnt totally gung ho about existence.

but he hates that he isnt, too.

and its this back and forth. everything the man hates, why he hates it. raz saying why its good but admitting why its bad.

and hes swayed, just a little.

but the man stands up from the kneel hed inevitably instinctively put himself into, and walks forward, hand held out yet again.

"You shouldn't be in the Psychonauts," he tells him, soft, factual, brow furrowed. "Come with me. I'll bring you back to your parents, or wherever it is you want to go."

raz contemplates. thinks, for a long moment.

he grabs the mans hand, warm and firm, yet again, for a terrifying moment.

before he reaches up to slap a mental door on his forehead, and astral projects into it.

he thinks this man is good. thinks hes just jaded.

thinks hes the best adult hes ever met, one who just happens to hate a lot of things.

hes only 10.

hes not letting someone who can tell him so clearly whats wrong and right for adults to tell him go that easily.

aaaand yknow. raz does his razzy thing. learns about why the guy hates the world and the psychonauts and himself. helps him learn that its not all bad, that he was excellent to raz, and still is, that things can be bad and good all at once.

the man concedes that raz is very capable, very smart, and can do a lot. but that doesnt mean he should have to.

raz tells him, though, that he likes working for the psychonauts. its his dream. and he realizes some things he was told to do were kinda screwed up, now. that maybe, in honesty, he was dealt a bad hand.

but hes done what he can with that hand, and he ended up with a royal flush.

and uh! yknow!! then raz leaves his mind and he calls off the rebellion! its like a rhombus of ruin type adventure, except without the villain being present beforehand. its just not clustered in insanely close with a ton of other wild shit.

anyways this got really long? sorry?? its an oc i just saw good adult and slight father vibe potential in the vibe i instantly got on him and then i went feral???? rip maybe someone will read this and if you did. congrats i honestly really liked how the whole foil and good-yet-bad and consideration of raz being 10 thing worked out. this oc is almost like our representative in the psychonauts world the way reigen is for the audience in mp100. yea :) i match them up a lot but thats just cause they vibe a lot. anyways its 1:40 am now and i spent abt an hour on this hope it vibed mildly byeeee

#GOD THAT GOT LONG. ALSMSKKS APOLOGIES OH MH GOD #psychonauts #psychonauts oc #and my personal tag:#pn oc #trash talks #long post #like! insanely long!!!!!!! i am so so sorry maybe i should make a cut #psychonauts 2 spoilers #like a lot tbh alskssk #OK READMORE SUCCESSFULLY ADDED!!! THNX GOOGLE <3

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heliads · 4 years

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Chapter 3: Infiltration

Bucky Barnes is constantly haunted by his past, but the memories of his days as a Winter Soldier will come into a new light in the form of the Watching Hawk, his old HYDRA partner. Will he be able to trust her, and will she be able to move on from his mistakes?

previous / series masterlist / next

They’re leaning over the table together, studying the files on the HYDRA base. Bucky still can’t believe that Y/N agreed to work with them- by doing so, she’d be turning her back on HYDRA forever. He knows how it feels to accept HYDRA as your enemy, and so his respect for Y/N grows even more.

Speaking of which, Y/N is a great asset in terms of planning the infiltration of HYDRA. She’s telling the group key details about the HYDRA complex that not even S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files have in store. Bucky was, admittedly, more than a little hesitant to trust Y/N at first, but she’s now proved herself a trustworthy ally.

Once the planning session is done, Bucky makes his way to the training center. The infiltration of the HYDRA base won’t take place for another week, so he wants to distract himself by exercising. The sound of his fists hitting the punching bag is music to his ears, and Bucky finds himself so caught up in the repetition of the drill that he doesn’t hear the door opening.

“Quite the practice you’ve got going on. Are you trying to kill the punching bag or just dismember it?” Y/N’s voice cuts across the training room, and Bucky stops his restless blows to dry the sweat from his brow and turn to look at her. She’s leaning on a railing by the door, smiling teasingly down at him. She’s also dressed in workout gear, and starts to make her way towards him. “Just trying to practice.” Bucky mutters, grabbing a drink of water.

“What do you say we practice together? One-on-one, just like the old days. I won’t use my wings, you won’t use your knives. Just two soldiers fighting like usual.” Bucky can’t help the reluctant smile creeping across his face. “Let’s go.”

Y/N steps onto the mat across from him, and the two fighters circle each other warily. Bucky is brought back to years long gone, when they were training in the HYDRA facilities. This time, there are no armed guards or cunning operatives to watch them, but Bucky still feels the tension creeping up his spine. He attacks first- he always did- with a punch to her jaw. Y/N dodges it easily- she always did- and retaliates with two jabs to his abdomen in quick succession. Bucky simply kicks her legs out from under her, pinning her to the ground. He doesn’t realize the fist of his metal arm is in the air again, ready to strike, until he sees the worry in her eyes. Bucky blinks, taking in the situation. She’s already pinned. No need to hit again.

Bucky quickly gets off of the ground, releasing Y/N and taking a few steps back. He struggles to clear his head, but all Bucky can see is the same training ground.

‘Hit her again.’ Bucky looks up at the uniformed operative, but says nothing. Soldiers say nothing unless asked. The Hawk is on the ground, clawing at the metal arm pinning her by her throat. ‘Hit her again. You should only stop if she’s unconscious.’ At the sound of the operative’s command, the Hawk flings her legs up and over Bucky’s head, pushing him back. She manages to release his grip, but Bucky just pins her again. The Hawk has only been with HYDRA for a short while. She needs to learn. The operative repeats his command again and again. When the operative stops speaking, Bucky stares at the blood coating his hand. The Hawk is motionless on the ground. Bucky is dragged back to his cell.

“Barnes. Barnes!” He can hear a voice from somewhere in the distance. It feels like Bucky’s drowning, too far under to swim and only sinking further from the voice. As the sound of the voice grows louder, Bucky does his best to claw his way to the surface. There’s the sensation of a hand on his arm, pulling him up from the depths of his tortured mind.

“Barnes!” There’s a face in front of him. The Hawk’s- no, Y/N’s. Her hand is on his shoulder, and she’s planted herself in front of him. There’s worry in her eyes, worry he hasn’t seen in a long time. Since before he left her side. “Can you hear me?”

Bucky nods slowly. “What-what happened?” Y/N shakes her head confusedly. “I don’t know. We were fighting, and then you got this emotionless look in your eyes, like you were still the Winter Soldier. It was like you were still under their control.” Bucky sighs, running a hand desperately through his hair to clear his ragged thoughts. “It was when we were fighting. I had a memory of when we first started to train. It was like I was there, and I was forced to keep fighting you even though you were pinned. For a while, I thought I was still there.”

Y/N’s eyes clear, and she tilts her head back. “The fight triggered the memory. Come, sit down.” She leads him to a bench, gentle in her movements lest she bring him back to the fighting ground at HYDRA. Her arm around him feels like the only solid thing in the world. “I’m not surprised it happened. You’re not undergoing the constant memory wipes, so your memories will start returning. The issue is, most of them will be dark and torturous, and you will have to bear them once more.” Bucky slowly lifts his head to face her. “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?” Y/N drops her eyes away for just a second, as if asking herself the same questions, but looks back to him once more.

“We are both survivors. When we were still at HYDRA, you helped me live with what I’d done. That’s one consequence of keeping your memories- every second of the day I am left to face the blood on my hands. There were some days I thought I would drown in it, but you helped pull me out. When you left, the HYDRA higher-ups knew I would try to follow you, so they did everything in their power to stop me from returning to your side. I wasn’t- I’m still not sure how to apologize, but this is the only way I know. Kindness begets kindness, and I have no way to repay you for all the times you taught me to heal.”

Bucky nods slowly. “I still can’t remember everything from that time. Some days, I’m glad of it, but most days I just wish I had more memories. There are gaping holes in my mind, and I have nothing with which to fill them.”

Y/N lets his words sink in. Suddenly, she turns to him, as if she’s been fighting back a question but can’t help asking it. “How did it feel to have the mind control lifted from your head? To know you were your own person once again?” Bucky can’t help a small, slightly sad laugh. “I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I thought I’d feel free, like I finally had control over my own life, but it just felt more empty. Maybe it was my own mind once more, but it had been someone else’s for so long that I didn’t know what I should feel like once it wasn’t.”

Y/N nods at that. Quietly, she leans her head on his shoulder. Bucky is flung back into memories once more, but they come slowly and they are finally pleasant. After the two of them returned from missions, they would often stay like this. The reassurance of another’s heartbeat was always enough to stave off whatever demons lurked in the corners of their minds.

Before Bucky knows it, it’s time to break into the HYDRA base. He’s been tense all morning, but surprisingly, his nerves clear once the building comes in sight. He supposes it’s an old habit, that being afraid was simply a habit broken when he was with HYDRA, but he’s glad of it now. Bucky allows himself to fall into the motions, distancing himself emotionally from the upcoming attack.

The five of them will split up to enter the building. Natasha, Sam, and Steve will enter from a side door. Bucky and Y/N will take an entrance on the other side of the building. There are guards stationed outside, of course, but they are taken down easily by the two Winter Soldiers. Bucky finds odd comfort in fighting alongside Y/N- they move seamlessly together as if they had forever been by each other’s side.

Once inside the building, Y/N rushes over to a control panel, shutting down alarm systems and security cameras. Natasha, Sam, and Steve radio in to confirm their entry, so Y/N and Bucky quickly move on to the center of the building. Most of the files will be in the central communications area, so that becomes their target destination. Although Bucky and Y/N have to take out the occasional guard, they are grateful that most of the HYDRA occupants are out at a conference. Finally, Bucky and Y/N are only a few halls away from the destination of the communications center, but that’s where their luck runs out.

Once they round a corner, Bucky quickly motions for Y/N to get back. The halls are filled with guards, who are stationed in tight formations. Bucky looks over at Y/N, suddenly feeling the pressure of the mission. “There are two many guards. I don’t know if we can get past them.” Oddly enough, Y/N doesn’t look worried. In fact, she looks almost regretful. “What is it?” Bucky asks, but Y/N just shakes her head sadly. “He’s here.” She says to her earpiece, and Bucky can hear the sound of many footsteps converging on their location.

Bucky stares at Y/N in betrayal. “What are you doing?” He hisses, and pain fills her eyes. “I’ve always had the illusion of free will. There will always be HYDRA protocols burned into my mind that I cannot break.” The guards finally reach the former allies, too many for Bucky to fight. As he is forced to his knees, restraints tied tightly around his wrists and arms, Y/N speaks one last time, almost too quietly for him to hear. “I wish I could make different choices. I wish it more than anything. But I will always be HYDRA’s puppet.” She walks away briskly towards another operative, leaving Bucky stunned and in the company of dozens of guards.

The HYDRA soldiers eventually lead Bucky to a cell deep within the complex. He is tethered to a chair, arms and legs restrained with heavy-duty bonds. He doesn’t think he could break them even if he tried. A while after that, Bucky is informed that Natasha, Sam, and Steve have also been captured. After the operatives leave, Bucky is alone with the realization of Y/N’s betrayal. Had she meant anything she had said to him? Bucky remembers the look in Y/N’s eyes when the soldiers arrived, as if she truly hated herself for what she’d done. I will always be HYDRA’s puppet. Bucky doesn’t know whether Y/N truly regretted betraying him or not, just that the pain of her turning against him feels as if it’s almost too much to bear.

tag list: @soleil-dor

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagines #winter soldier #winter soldier imagine #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier imagines #avengers #avengers imagines #bucky #bucky x reader #bucky series

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creativeskullcreations · 3 years

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Outside chapter 20: Hosts, Awaken

Whoops, Hosts are awake and everyone's starting to group up. And Scout's not as good of an actress as she thinks. Even if she'd been better at controlling her Host, she may never have been able to really join the Handeemen...

And we also see a look at Will's really like. He hides it well, with medication and acting, but what happened when he was a child scarred him mentally. Or maybe it didn't...

Will came to while horizontal, muffled voices above him as he struggled his way back to consciousness. He curled his left hand into a fist, faintly startled when he found he couldn't feel his right hand. He ignored it, however, as the voices began to get clearer.

"-and it is no trouble at all to remove you!" Someone, a woman, was saying. "So stay in line and remember to rhyme!"

"Yes ma'am." A younger sounding voice to the right mumbled. It wasn't in rhyme, but the first voice accepted the answer.

"Excellent! Now to prepare your Host for orientation! With four at once, maybe it can be a competition." She sounded excited at the prospect, even as Will's blood ran cold. There wasn't an answer, but he could vaguely feel his arm lower and rest against the cold metal table. Something distinctly Scout-shaped laid across his stomach, and it took everything he had to keep his body relaxed.

Footsteps, first going away and then approaching his head. A cool rubber glove pressed almost gently against his chin, tilting his head up. Something tiny, cold, and sharp pressed against his mouth-

Will stared up into the eyes of a startled Riley Ruckus, free hand gripping her arm like a vice as a needle fell beside his throat. For one, infinitely long second, nobody moved. And then Riley's Host reacted as Will slipped his other hand out of his Puppet and grabbed at her throat.

He missed, grabbing her shoulder instead as he rolled off the table, masked Host making a mad grab for where he'd been laying. The smaller puppet fell to the floor as he stood up, giving a deft twist-and-tug that tore the wooded arm apart at the elbow. He tossed it aside as a screech of pain rang out, then dodged as she charged at him.

The Host was clunky, and Will wondered why they even bothered with them when he knew Scout was more agile than that. He watched as they almost tripped over the table, then slammed the Host down onto it. The whole fight took maybe fifteen seconds, if he was being generous.

It took some creativity, and climbing on top of them, but he managed to get both Riley and her Host strapped awkwardly onto the metal slab. Watching her struggle to get free, all he felt was cold rage, the kind he hadn't felt in a long time. A glance around the room showed a wide variety of medical and power tools. One of which was a saw that he picked up.

"Scout told me you liked taking people apart." He told her, voice low and dark. He stepped forward and pinned her still-whole arm down, pulling off her glove and pushing up the sleeve of her lab coat. "I like taking stupidly arrogant Puppets apart." He went to make a move, but paused. He picked up the discarded glove and forced it into her mouth, then picked the bone saw back up.

Canon listened to the muffled screams and cries from where she lay under the table, staring blankly as her mind filled with fear. Soon there was a dull thunk of wood hitting metal, and the screams stopped even as the sawing noise continued. A minute later she watched as Riley's freshly removed arm hit the floor and was kicked away under a metal cabinet. She thought about following it, but felt frozen in place.

The choice was taken from her when her Host leaned down and stared at her. She stared back, neither of them blinking. Eventually he sighed, and reached to pick her up with a surprising gentleness.

"Come on, let's go find the others." He told her quietly, almost cradling her against his chest as he walked out of the lab. "They can't be too far away."

She hoped they never found the others.

-----

Sammy did not like being sober. He liked it even less when carting around a loudmouthed brat with anger issues. And she did. Not. Shut. Up.

"Host! Host! Look. At. Me! Hey! Hey, Host!" He tightened his grip and once again looked for something to tie her up and gag her with. Nope, still nothing. "Hoooooooost!"

"I have a fucking name!" He finally snapped. "And it is not 'Host'!"

"And I don't fucking care." She glared up at him, almost daring him to do something about it.

Sammy groaned. "I need some more weed..." He moaned quietly as he picked his way through the rubble. He would also like nothing more than to chuck the little annoyance away but every time he'd tried he found he just... couldn't.

'Why can't I just be rid of this thing?!' He wondered. 'Maybe it's what made Stacy keep Scout, even though she hates puppets and dolls. I never saw her treat one with such care, not since we were little kids...'

He was brought out of his thoughts by soft fists beating on his arm, and he glared down at the tiny red head. "What now?" He asked, irritated.

She said nothing, just pointed ahead of them. When he looked up, he saw a hulking monster with a yellow sock on one hand. For a heartbeat, nobody moved. And then it charged at them.

"SHIT!" He screeched as he turned and ran down a side corridor. The thing was hot on his heels, and he had no clue how to lose it.

"In there! Gogogogogo!" He turned into the room the Puppet indicated and slammed the door shut behind him, tipping over a nearby shelve to keep it closed. He backed away as the thing banged and smashed against the door, nearly breaking it from the force.

"Holy shit..." He sank to the floor, dropping the Puppet and leaning forward to dry heave. She tugged on his sleeve, pointing towards a door on the opposite end of the room.

"What the hell are you doing?! We've gotta get out of here! Now!"

"Hold on!" He gasped. "I need a minute..."

"We don't have a minute!" A fist smashed through the door, and Sammy scrambled back to his feet. He snatched the Puppet and sprinted out the other door as the monster made it's way into the room, tripping over the shelves. In an instant it was on his ass again, chasing him deeper into the warehouse while his Puppet tried to guide him through the maze like halls.

It was all for naught, however, as he came upon a dead end with a door that was locked.

"Nononono" he chanted as he tried to force it open. The knob wouldn't even turn, however, and he could hear the thing getting closer. Giving up on escape he searched for a weapon, finding a fire axe on a wall. Flinging his Puppet up onto a nearby stack of boxes, he yanked the thing off the wall and turned to face his death.

He raised the weapon over his head, and the door next to him flung open as six loud gunshots rang out. Two of them hit the monster, and it fell dead immediately. Sammy turned to see his savior, and cried out in joy.

"Stacy!" He dropped the axe and pulled her into a hug. "Holy shit thank God, Satan, and everybody else! I thought I was dead!"

His poor cousin looked stressed beyond belief as she laughed out a sigh. "N-no problem." She gave him an awkward pat before he finally released her and grabbed the blue puppet down from the boxes. He saw Stacy's face light up when she spotted the thing, which was odd cause she didn't even look like Scout.

Come to think of it, Stacy was moving weird, too. Like she wasn't used to walking. And she was holding the gun wrong. And her eyes...

He leaned in close to her face, and she stared back in confusion until he spotted what was wrong.

"Your eyes are yellow!" He shouted. "You're Scout!"

"What?! No, shut up!" She tried to cover his mouth, but he dodged her attempts as the Puppet stared up at her.

"Holy shit." She muttered looking between Stacy and Sammy. "Can I do that?"

"No! No you can't don't even try, Bit!" She snapped, and Sammy pointed at her in victory.

"You know it's name! You have to be Scout!" Sammy declared triumphantly, and she finally gave in.

"Fine, yeah, I'm Scout. Stacy's... Stacy's with Mortimer and they're planning something. We need to get everyone out of here! Now!"

"Yeah okay just stop pointing that thing at me." He redirected the gun, then just pulled it out of her hand. "Actually do you have more ammo for this thing? I could use this."

Wordlessly, she pulled a clip out of her pocket and handed it to him. He stared down at it. "... This is the wrong kind of clip."

A few minutes of frantic sorting later and Sammy had two more clips to the pistol. The rest were for other guns that Scout had left behind. His possessed cousin held the fire axe in her hands, as he figured that was better for her to use than the gun. His Puppet, Bit, had settled into the hood of his hoodie and seemed content to stay there.

Scout, meanwhile, had pulled the hood of Stacy's hoodie up to try and hide her eyes, having pulled some hair into her face as well. It didn't hide them completely, but so long as nobody looked too hard her eyes looked green enough. It would at least fool the others for a while.

As she led the way, Sammy took note of her scratching her metal fingers on her flesh arm. Counting back, he wondered when Stacy had last taken her meds. He decided it didn't matter, and sped up enough to walk beside Scout, grabbing her hand in his. Her other hand was holding the axe, so he felt confident she couldn't scratch like that.

She seemed confused, but brushed it off and quickly pulled him down a hallway. They had to find the others, or everyone would be doomed.

-----

Bonzai did not like that his Host was Awake. He especially didn't like that he was being carted around in a box with Stitch, though at least it had given him a chance to untie her. Too bad the box was sealed so they couldn't Jump out, unless they wanted to go straight up.

Above them, their Hosts were talking quietly, but not looking at them specifically. The box was being held by Stitch's Host. 'Good.' Bonzai gathered himself up and aimed. 'That means the box won't drop.sw'

One, two, three, four, on the fifth try he Jumped onto his Host's head, flopping down over is eyes and grabbing blindly anywhere he could. The Host freaked out, yelling and trying to pull him off it's face. Bonzai resisted, though, and instead bit down as hard as he could through the Host's nose.

Sadly for him, blunt, fabric covered teeth are useless against a fully grown human. Mason wasn't even scratched as he ripped the apparently feral Puppet off.

Though tempted to just fling him back into the box as hard as he could, the Host instead held onto the little guy. Held securely in his arms, all Bonzai could do was struggle uselessly. Taking the cue, the other Host grabbed Stitch out too, discarding the box with a huff.

"Now how are we supposed to fight?" She asked, only half sarcastic.

"We aren't supposed to fight, Lisa! It's just a quick in-and-out to get Scout back." He hissed, and Bonzai stopped his escape attempts to listen.

"I know that, but what if we come across something we can't outrun?" She sounded worried, and Bonzai didn't have to wonder why. If they were caught, Riley would take them all apart to find out why the Hosts woke up.

"Then... then we hide. Until it loses interest or gets distracted or something." He told her. "Or until Will finds us. He does this kind of thing all the time, so he knows how to handle it." He spoke with confidence, but the other Host, Lisa, didn't seem convinced.

"I don't know Mace. Every job he's done was, like, Scooby Doo shit almost." She shrugged. "I just don't know how much help he's gonna be for this."

"You just don't know him like I do, Leese. Trust me, you get William M. Carson pissed off and nothing can stand in his way. It is beautiful and terrifying all at once." A pause, as he considered. "I once saw him calmly go up to a doctor and stab her in the eye because she didn't take what he was telling her seriously. That got him solitary for a week. And new meds."

Well, that sounded horrific, and Bonzai found himself shrinking back at the words. Whoever this Will guy was the Puppet wanted him to stay far away from him and his sisters. Though, from the sound of it, he'd already been around Scout.

'Well doesn't this day just keep on getting better and better?' He huffed out a sigh, bracing his cheek against one hand. He took notice of Stitch, and how gently her Host was holding her. She still looked just as scared as she had earlier, though now Bonzai wasn't as worried about her. 'I hope the others are doing better with their Hosts. I think mine and Stitch's are bound for Riley's table after this.'

#hello puppets #outside #fanfiction #scout #sammy davis #bit #will carson #canon #mason kamiya #lisa montgomery #bonzai #stitch #dismemberment #riley ruckus

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hokkaidossoul12 · 3 years

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WARNING: The full art has blood in it, if you are not comfortable with blood then please don't look at the full image. But, if you wish to see the full image click "keep reading."

Warning: there is swearing and gross content within the description of this drawing. As part of my AU of showdown bandit, Faceless ends up becoming good after Dorothy and Showdown stopped the puppeteers from forcing Faceless to be a villian and control him. But, as a revenge plan, the puppeteers brought Nepolean into showdown valley and Dorothy had been hunted down by Nepolean for days and days on end, Nepolean had also terrorized the folks in showdown valley as to ensure nobody would try approaching him. Eventually, Faceless (who was now close friends with Dorothy) had decided to take on Nepolean himself despite Dorothy's warnings that he was a phycho killer who took down even the strongest of the living. This then results to Nepolean and Faceless fighting in front of the whole of valley with Faceless gaining the upper hand on Nepolean at first, swinging his scythe at the madman and managing to knock him down. But Nepolean quickly learned Faceless' attack pattern and dodged his attacks until Faceless found himself getting exhausted. The madman smirked as he knew he'd tired out the faceless man, standing in front of him. "heh, what's wrong~? getting tired~?" Nepolean teased in a mocking way, folding his arms behind his back. Faceless bared his teeth at the psychopath in front of him. "GRRR!!! I'M GONNA WIPE THAT LOOK RIGHT OFF YOUR FACE!!" the faceless man roared as he went to swing his scythe at Nepolean's neck. But before the teeth of the blade could meet the madman's neck, Nepolean quickly grabbed the rusty weapon by it's blade with a firm grip. Nepolean let out a low chuckle as he stared at the faceless man who now had a shaken expression. "tsk tsk tsk~ faceless...your so bothered by such little comments, aren't you~?", before faceless could react to the comment he felt Nepolean's boot harshly slammed into his stomach, causing the faceless bandit to collapse onto his back with a loud thud. The force of Nepolean's boot had caused Faceless' grip to completely loosen from his scythe as Nepolean was still gripping the blade. The folks of showdown valley had witnessed the faceless' man's weapon now in Nepolean's possession as the madman shifted his grip to the snatch of the long weapon. Nepolean stared down at Faceless as he saw the bandit trying to shakily pick himself back up. Grinning widely, Nepolean quickly used the faceless' man's own weapon against him by slashing him back and fourth with his scythe, slicing cuts into the bandit's body as he grunted and winced in pain as is wooden skin bleed from each slash. The madman then suddenly sliced the faceless bandit deeply against his stomach, causing him to finally let out a yell of agony as he coughed up blood. Faceless voice was heard all throughout the valley to where Dorothy, who was outside of town, could hear him. Dorothy knew immediately that something had happened to him and ran as fast as she could toward the town. The faceless was left shaking on the ground from the deep wound in his stomach as Nepolean's insane laughter filled the area, seeing how much agony Faceless was in. "look at you~ your such a pathetic mess, and I thought you were the outlaw of this town~" the bandit stared up at the phycho with furrowed eyebrows, if he still had eyes he would've been glaring up at the madman staring down at him. "I...w-was...but I didn't want to be, you bastard...", Nepolean scoffed, "oh please...nobody wants to be the villian, in fact...you sometimes see yourself as the villian but can still do crude things." Nepolean then lifts the blade of the blood covered scythe towards his own face, "like this~" Nepolean then suddenly brought his tongue to the blade and licked the blood-covered scythe, tasting the faceless' man's blood. He then retracted his tongue to get a full taste of the blood as he gave a twisted look, the faceless bandit shivered as he witnessed what Nepolean just did. "What...the fuck?!", Nepolean chuckled again as he suddenly stepped forward before placing one of his boots onto the bandit's stomach. "c'mon, don't tell me you haven't tried

that before. Besides, it won't matter if you have or haven't done that..." Faceless let out a choked sound as Nepolean suddenly pressed his boot against the deep cut in his stomach harshly with a wide, creepy smile on his face. The madman then brought the scythe towards the faceless man's neck, causing the bandit's eyebrows to raise in fear. "because you won't ever get the chance!", with one final motion Nepolean swung the scythe sharply through Faceless' neck. Nepolean stared down as he watched the faceless man's head roll on the ground, blood spewing from the faceless man's head and neck hole of his body. Nepolean dropped the faceless bandit's scythe to the ground as he reach down and pick up the head of the bandit by his hair. By the time Dorothy had made it in town, she saw a crowd of puppets running towards her direction and away from what she was walking towards. She had been confused at first as to what the puppets were running from until she saw straight in front of her. Dorothy gasped as tears formed in her eyes from the sight in front of her. Tears welled up in her eyes are her pupil shrunk, seeing Nepolean holding Faceless' head in his clawed hand. Nepolean heard Dorothy's gasp and he turned to wickedly smile in her direction. Nepolean then lifted Faceless' head up and took a few steps towards her, "he stopped me from trying to get to you...so I had to teach him to stay out of my way~" Dorothy felt her voice choke up as tears dripped down her face *"N-no...Faceless..."*, Dorothy fell to her knees as her tear streamed down her face onto the ground beneath her as she began sobbing, Nepolean cackled seeing her sob in front of his eyes.

#HokkaidosSoul12 #DorothyTheDog #Story #ShowdownBandit #FacelessBandit #HalloweenArt #Halloween2021 #tears #blood #Faceless Bandit #DrNepolean #Puppets #woodenpuppets #dorothy the dog #showdownbanditoc #showdownbandit #showdown bandit #Insane man

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girl-in-the-library · 3 years

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I had a really complicated dream last night.

So I dreamed that I was lying in bed at the house I grew up in, trying to get to sleep, when something weird started happening.

At first, I thought it was just the Under-the-bed monster trying to eat my blankets again, so I pulled up my blankets - but there was no resistance, meaning it wasn’t the under-the-bed monster. Then, my plushies, particularly my Pokemon plushies (this will be important later), started floating.

I realized quickly that it was vampires! So I had to stop them. But they were invisible, and also trying to turn my plushies into vampires. I managed to eventually stop them by turning them visible and banishing them, but that was only the beginning of the problem.

My house was being haunted by spirits that were a combination of the seven deadly sins and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They were possessing my family members, friends, and all the other miscellaneous people who happened to be in my house. It’s terrifying to have to fight your sister when she’s possessed by a puppet-mime version of Death, or your mother by a gluttonous pestilence. I kept half absorbing the spirits of these monsters into my own body in order to destroy them, because I had some sort of power that didn’t allow them to take control of my body when they were possessing it - I remained in control, even as my physical body changed forms with their possession. However, sometimes it was hard to banish them from other people’s bodies. When I couldn’t absorb them - which I was able to do to all the “bosses” but not the little mooks - I had to banish them by destroying them. As it turned out, when you popped the balloon-possessed form of a person whose body was lying elsewhere, the spirit that inhabited the balloon did not return to its body, but instead was sent off to the aether. It took a while to realize that we (those of us who weren’t possessed and were fighting the monsters) were actually killing some people, and that was horrifying.

At some point, I think my mother died, but she also might not have. It was confusing and upsetting.

Ultimately, after several long battles throughout the house, we defeated all these spirit monsters - and all those who died came back to life. But then, we were attacked by several legendary Pokemon. I remember Articuno and Kyogre, but there were lots of attacks on the house.

I walked out the front door, through the crowd of people, to see Ash Ketchum giving a speech about how he was the Pokemon Master, and all would bow to him. He seemed to believe that this was his childhood home, and we had taken it over.

I pushed through the front of the crowd and confronted him. I said, in unison with him, that “This is /my/ childhood home and I will not let you take it!”

Then we started fighting. It was not a Pokemon battle (at first) - we were literally shooting magic spells at each other, and trying to physically fight. He was glowing with a green electric energy, and was very, very angry and volatile.

He started attacking me again with his team of legendary pokemon. He set the street and the woods on fire with a Moltres. But I was dodging and keeping pace - until he sent out his final clincher - his Pikachu.

At that point, I sent out my Pikachu too. His was wearing a red hat, mine a green hat. The Pikachus fought - mine powered by the love I gave it, and his, once powered by his love, now powered by his hate. Ash did something and his Pikachu grew a Heracross horn that was also spiked and sharp. But that Pikachu was collapsing, looking for acknowledgement, care, and love, which Ash was no longer giving it. My Pikachu reached out to his Pikachu in comfort, and the two stopped fighting. Ash fell to the ground and ROARED - fire coming out of his eyes and mouth.

Suddenly, a song started playing and I knew beyond any doubt that Ash just needed love. So I ran to him, through the fire, and tackle hugged him. Soon, everyone who was still there/alive had grouped all around us, enveloping Ash in a group hug. He started sobbing, and I realized he was being controlled by his hat.

I ripped the hat off his head and it tried to possess me, but again, even when I wore it on my head for a brief period of time, my power that allowed me to resist losing control of my body kept me from succumbing to its siren song of power. I took the hat off my head and started talking to it. It was really an evil hat, and it started summoning vampires again! But everyone else was able to take care of the vampires while I talked to the hat, holding it by practically crushing it in my hands, lest it fly off and possess someone else. And somehow, I managed to convince it to be a sort of antagonist that wasn’t a villain, someone kinda jackass-y, but not outright evil.

Then I was back in my bedroom with my stuffed animals, and they were no longer vampires. I then was waiting outside a building at school for my friends, so I could ask them about the monster attack. I said, “Did anyone else have a vampire problem last night or was it just me?” No one knew what I was talking about, so I assumed it had been a dream.

We sat in the cafeteria and I was explaining the whole situation to some people - some who thought it was a dream, and some who thought it was AWESOME, when it was time to listen to the student council election speeches.

People went up and gave speeches. Then it was time for a special guest speech...from a guy who looked just like Ash Ketchum, but without the hat!

I was suspicious. He started talking and giving inspirational quotes, but would occasionally reference pokemon. I was sitting in the front row, so when he asked a question about one of the pokemon movies, I was able to answer. He called me “Green.”

He asked for volunteers and tried to get me on the stage to lead one of the teams of volunteers, but I said I was suspicious of him. When he looked at me and asked why, I told him he was the villain in my dream last night. Then he winked at me and said to everyone else, “I guess Green won’t be participating.”

I knew that everything that had happened was real...

and then my alarm went off in real life and I woke up.

#dreamblogging #oh the inanity!

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kpop-zone · 5 years

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Pieces | Sana

Genre: angst, fluff?

Wordcount: 2053

Request: can i request a sanaxfem!reader scenario hs au in which sana’s the popular girl who’s embarrassed of her relationship with the reader so she hides it and she pretends to like one of the boys so reader breaks up with her and she stars dating the boy but she’s deeply in love with the reader?

It was unfair. When you thought about it in hindsight, you didn’t even have a chance. Sana was pretty, smart and incredibly funny. Of course, you had to fall for her, just like everybody else in school. Everyone loved her. She was the cheerleading captain, boys drooled over her and girls wanted to be her. The only question that remained, though, was why she had fallen for you.

It started when your teacher had asked you to tutor her in math. She desperately needed to pull up her grade in order to stay the cheerleading captain. You thought that she would be arrogant and hard to tutor, but you were proven wrong. She was sweet and incredibly grateful that you were willing to help her, bringing you small gifts every lesson. And so your downfall began.

You were helpless against her flirting and she was merciless. She would just bluntly tell you, how pretty she thought you were and would just randomly hold your hand. You were so caught up in her maze that you didn’t see one big, red flag. She only behaved that way when it was just the two of you alone in the library. Whenever she saw you outside your lessons in the hallway, you were like air to her. Not even worthy a glance. You were taken aback but used to it.

You were never one of the popular kids. That’s why you were so excited when Sana asked you to meet up outside of school. You started to meet once a week, but eventually you saw each other almost every day. But you would never stroll around town or visit popular spots. It was mostly in the shelter of one of your homes. Sometimes Sana would take you to her favorite spot. It was a beautiful pond in the forest that hardly anyone knew of. You sat there for hours talking about your plans for the future. And although it wasn’t a date in a fancy café downtown, you didn’t care. As long as you were with Sana, your world was complete.

So when she asked you to be her girlfriend after a month, you were more than ecstatic and accepted, thinking that if she were officially yours, things would change. But now 6 months later, you still played the same game. Sana and you never held hands in public. Actually, you never even walked side by side, because Sana still ignored you whenever you were at school. At home, however, she would cook for you. Let you choose the movie. Let you snuggle into her embrace and whisper compliments into your ear. You started to get a whiplash from all her hot and cold. But whenever you tried to talk about it with her, she somehow managed to dodge the talk and say things like,

“This relationship is between you and me. Why should others take part in it?”

A sweet smile would be on her lips and you would be satisfied with her answer.

Now, you started to regret your naivety. You were standing at your locker, eyes fixed on your girlfriend who was obviously flirting with the football team captain Chan. She leaned against her locker, playing with the hem of his jacket, while giving him puppy dog eyes. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Ignoring you was one thing, but flirting with someone else right before your eyes? Maybe you should have realized earlier, how upset you really were by Sana’s behavior, because right now all your bottled-up anger made its way to the surface.

If looks could kill, the football team wouldn’t have a captain the rest of the season. You slammed your locker shut, fed up from observing the play in front of you any longer. In the corner of your eye, you could see that your reaction caught the attention of your girlfriend who stepped back from Chan and followed you with her eyes while you were going your way. You wanted her to chase behind you.

But of course, she didn’t.

Instead, you were sitting alone in the schoolyard, deciding that it had no sense to hold on to something that wasn’t even real. When you came home that day, you prepared mentally for the talk that was about to come. You knew that Sana wouldn’t let you go that easily, but you needed to let her go. This wasn’t healthy.

A few hours later, you heard the doorbell ring and opened the door wordlessly, immediately going back to your room. Sana followed you like a lamb to the slaughter, sitting down on your bed with a guilty look on her face. She knew that she was in trouble, but she didn’t expect your next words.

“It’s over, Sana.”

Her head snapped up and shock was visible in her eyes.

“W...What do you mean?”

She stuttered, panic starting to lace her voice.

“Our relationship, or whatever this is. I’m tired of it. I don’t want to be your puppet anymore.”

For a moment, Sana fell silent, before leaping to her feet and making her way over to you.

“Y/N. You’re not my puppet. You’re my girlfriend and I l...”

“Save your words. You are not going to sweet-talk yourself out of this.”

You interrupted her harshly. You might have been naïve, but you weren’t an idiot. You only fell for the same trap so often before you realized your mistake.

“Please, Y/N. Listen to...”

“No! I want you out of here. And out of my life!”

You were beginning to get upset. Sana had never seen you this way, taking a back step in surprise. She was about to speak up again, but you gestured her to save it and leave the room. She was clearly torn but decided that she had hurt you enough and left you alone.

Once you heard the door close downstairs, you broke down. Sobs were leaving your throat loudly and tears stained your shirt and the floor. You might have managed to let Sana go, but she definitely took your heart with her.

You spent the weekend in your bed, only leaving it to get some unhealthy food and to change from your pajamas into your sweats and back again. One TV show after the other just became background noise to your own thoughts. You were thinking about everything you had experienced with Sana. As much as you wanted to regret everything and delete it from your memories, you couldn’t. Of course, your relationship was flawed, maybe wrong from the start, but the way Sana treated you whenever you were alone, had been the purest form of love you had ever experienced. You refused to believe that everything was fake.

Your faith in Sana’s love would be put to the test, though. When you came back to school after the weekend, you could feel turmoil in the air. Students were whispering everywhere and you began to become curious. When you were standing at your locker, you overheard some cheerleaders gossiping next to you.

“Have you heard that she hooked up with him?”

“Oh my god, no way.”

“Why are you so surprised? It was clear that Sana and Chan would end up together?”

Sana? Your stomach turned at the mentioning of her name. Is that what you meant to her? How could she have been able to hook up with another person, while you were crying in your bed? Tears were making their way into your eyes and you needed some air. You abruptly turned around, just to run into another person. It was Chan. And in his hand, he was tightly clutching Sana’s. You searched for her eyes in disbelief, the tears now spilling freely. She looked at you with regret, opening and closing her mouth, but no words actually left it.

“Watch it, loser.”

Chan’s words were the last ones you heard, before you ran out the building. You knew that you had classes that you should attend, but you just couldn’t think rational right know. You ran with no clear destination in mind until you finally found yourself at the pond, Sana had always taken you. You sat down on the waterfront, hugging your own legs and letting your tears stream freely.

You didn´t know how long you stayed that way and only moved when a hand suddenly touched your shoulder, making you jump in surprise. When you turned around, you could hardly make out Sana behind your blur of tears. Seeing your state, she was quick to wrap her arms around you. Your desperation getting the best of you, you buried your head into her shoulder, clinging to her shirt, in need to hold on to something in order to not lose your mind.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m sorry.”

Sana repeated over and over again, tears leaving her eyes now as well. The both of you sat there in the comfort of the one breaking the others heart until there were no tears left to cry. You pulled back to look Sana into her eyes,

“What are you doing here Sana?”

You asked defeated, not knowing who the girl in front of you actually was. How could she be so loving one minute and hook up with a stranger the other?

“I knew you would be here.”

She said silently, avoiding your gaze.

“So suddenly you care about me?”

You spat out, the endless hot and cold leaving you frustrated.

“I always cared about you, Y/N. And I’m sorry that I didn’t always show it.”

Sana answered, reaching for your face with her hand, but retrieving from touching you, when she remembered that she broke your heart.

“Just tell me how. How could you be over me so soon? Was it all fake?”

You asked desperately. You needed to know whether you were the only one left heartbroken.

“Of course not.”

Sana answered immediately, desperation now also visible in her face.

“Please, Y/N. Curse me. Do whatever you want. But please believe me that I love you. I always have. And the only reason, I hooked up with Chan was, because I felt so empty after you told me to leave. I hated myself for hurting you, so I drank, and I just wanted to feel anything, but that void you left. Although you let me go, you still have my heart.”

Sana’s words were spilling out her mouth, tumbling over each other. When you looked at her, you could recognize the same look that you had in your eyes. She was broken. Just like you.

“Please. I’m going to be better. I will not hide our relationship anymore. I will shout it from the rooftop if you want. Can we just please continue from where we were before all of this happened?”

She was looking pleadingly into your eyes. You could see that she meant it.

“No.”

You answered shortly, making Sana’s head fall to her chest in defeat.

“Our relationship had been wrong from the start. We shouldn’t have pretended that we were fine. The fact that you hid our relationship must have had a reason. But I was too caught up in everything to realize. We both made mistakes. I don’t want us to continue this toxic relationship, but we can start over if you’re willing to.”

Sana couldn’t believe what she had just heard, snapping her head up, ready to tackle you into an embrace, but you held your finger up.

“Under one condition.”

You warned.

“Anything.”

Sana answered excitedly, just wanting to leave this black chapter behind.

“We have to do better this time. I don’t doubt your love for me. But we have to communicate better. No secrets from now on. Neither in our relationship, nor for everyone else.”

You set your conditions, earning several nods from Sana.

“I promise.”

She smiled, but you could see hesitation in her eyes.

“Can I kiss you now?”

She asked sheepishly, scratching her neck. As soon as you nodded, she tackled you to the ground, capturing your bottom lip with her lips. You wrapped your arms around her neck, pulling her as close as you could.

Maybe the both of you were broken. But if you put your pieces together, maybe you could be complete again.

#twice scenario #twice scenarios #sana scenario #sana #girl group scenario #girl group #twice #kpop scenario

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ranishoo · 3 years

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part 8 it takes Vex a couple days to heal and he's almost completely silent the entire time, Arya grew attached to Kaerou quickly and has been awkwardly making them all spend time together and tensions are high, meanwhile Syl is digging for information, some offhand deals and pi work finding a trail of arcane energy leading to a rich noblemans house that matches Liuvo, and they plan their attack. Vex is still injured and is told to hang back as much as possible to avoid irritating his wounds knowing there was no way to keep him from coming, so Arya is left to break them in, but on the way Vex starts feeling ill, then faint, having visions of a man in his position, someone he loved taken from him and held hostage, and the rage he felt that made it almost impossible to breath and falling to his knees. He blacks out for just a moment, but the life of this unfamiliar man flashing before his eyes, almost all memories centered around another man whose face was always obscured and voice distorted. Kaerou snaps him out of it, insisting he go back to rest but he refuses and carries on (Here Before by Vashti Burnyan)

They stay undiscovered until getting to the master bedroom, finding Liuvo dressed up and sitting like a doll before the doors close behind them Liuvo getting up in jerking motions as if being puppeted, drawing his scythe and lunging at them. Arya can see the magic strings controlling him and has everyone distract Liuvo while he severs them, but Vex is having the most trouble dodging him and refuses to fight back, refusing to kill someone he cares about again like he had his mentor, and Liuvo manages to slash him across the stomach, a deep cut and reopening his previous wound, he takes the opportunity to grab Liuvo and twist his arms behind his back and restraining him while Arya cuts the rest of the strings, slowly bleeding out. (Mine - MAKKU)

forgot you sent this and hey bud what the FUCK

so I'm still working on what happens after Leslie burns the lab to the ground, so a lot of this info is iffy and might change a bit, but afterwards she struggles with a deep depression and guilt by herself for several months.

one thing I should probably mention but never did bc I didn't think I'd be getting this in depth about Leslie is that she and Delvon have a psychic link (this is relevant I swear). during her first year in the past she managed to get herself into a magically induced coma and the only way Delvon could get her out was to enter her dream himself, which was only possible by permanently linking their minds through a process called tethering. that would mean for the rest of their lives they'd be able to hear the other's thoughts, feel their emotions, pain, share their dreams, literally everything. he knew he was overstepping boundaries in doing this, but if he didn't she would likely die in her sleep. so he did it, and both of them felt immense guilt for it, him for forcing this situation on her and her for driving him to the point where he felt he needed to lose his independence and privacy for her. so when she left, she learned how to put up mental and emotional walls to block out some of the feelings and thoughts she could sense, basically trying her best to cut him off. both of them constantly feel like they're missing something though, bc thanks to how the tethering process works, they now can't feel complete unless they have access to the other person; they can exist if one dies or blocks the other out, but it Fucking Sucks to get used to. so on top of everything else, Leslie is feeling horrible that she's cut him out of her life completely bc she knows how this feels for her, so she can only imagine how rough he must be feeling all the time with a large chunk of his senses and emotions now missing. the only hint one gets of the other is if one of them feels incredibly strong emotions that Leslie can't block out (like Delvon randomly got immense anguish when Addie died), or occasionally they see each other in their dreams, although Leslie tries her best to avoid interacting with him, even if it means not sleeping at all.

so anyway, Leslie has very little money as she was essentially a glorified prisoner at the facility, so eventually hunger drives her back to taking on minor jobs wherever she can. one job was to repair the fence for an orchard, and the elderly man gave her a few peaches as an extra thank you since he could tell she clearly was in a bad spot. she takes them and leaves, and several miles down the road she finds a dog looking hungry and lost. she cuts up one of the peaches and gives it to her, as that's the only food she has, and then she continues on her way, noticing every so often that she can see the dog out of the corner of her eye.

that evening when she sets up camp the dog hesitantly stands on the other side of her fire, just watching her. she doesn't pay it much mind as she figures if the dog wanted to hurt her she would've done it by now. but then she turns her back for one second and turns back to find the dog is eating peaches out of her sack. she wants to be mad but she can't bring herself to feel anything but pity, so she feeds the dog and ends up keeping her, naming her Peach (she jokingly says it's short for Peach Thief). later on she theorizes that this must be the hunting or guard dog of someone who died, because no one in their right mind would abandon a dog so well trained and loyal, but finders keepers right?

I don't have many specific songs for events during this period (yet) but some general vibes are

youtube

#damn now i wanna talk more about leslie and delvon #also i need to learn how to draw dogs so i can draw leslie and peach #peach is such a good girl 🥺#ask #kurgy #oc: leslie mclough #oc: delvon

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mikaa-mina · 4 years

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At Garden’s Edge- Ch 6. Sweet Discoveries

It's still Thursday somewhere. Right?? Right. Beta'd by the fantastic Tarek_giverofcookies

Content Warning: This scene takes place in a hospital, but it's more about the visit than anything hospital related or injury related. There's no described injuries, illnesses, or medical equipment. If you're still unsure, shoot me a message or ask a friend to take a read through. :)

At Garden’s Edge

Chapter 6- Sweet Discoveries

After swearing him to secrecy, grabbing two bakery-laden bags, and driving two towns over, the very last place Aziraphale expected Crowley to take him was the Brugmansia hospital.

“Crowley, what-”

“Shhh, it’s a surprise.”

Well it certainly wasn’t anything Aziraphale could have predicted so he supposed it was that.

Crowley strolled on in like he owned the place, hips swaggering all over like he forgot they were supposed to be attached to his spine. The receptionist looked up, did a double take and then sighed heavily, theatrically.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the infamous Crowley. And using the front door this time? That’s new.”

“Sugar-Cookie girl!” he greeted, grinning wider when her eyebrows pinched down in a frown, “just showing my friend around so I thought I’d use the front door for novelty’s sake.”

Her eyes flicked over to Aziraphale who, himself, was struggling to glance between her and give Crowley his best scandalized look. They couldn’t possibly be implying that Crowley snuck into the hospital in all manners of ways, could they? Her eyes caught his finally and she gave a wink, lips quirking up ever so slightly before she flattened them out again when she looked at Crowley.

“How.... very regulation abiding of you.”

“That’s me!”

“Uh huh. And you remember the regulation about no outside food or drinks being permitted?” Her eyes blatantly stared at Crowley’s arms laden down with two large bags of pastries. Two large bags of pastries with the cafe’s logo emblazoned across the front of the bags.

Unrepentantly, and to Aziraphale’s mounting horror, Crowley grinned and cheerfully said “Yup! Sure do. No outside food or drinks. Yup. Remembered that one.”

Finally her veneer cracked and Aziraphale, to his great relief, saw a small slip of a smile break through before she rolled her eyes. “Oh, alright, since you did us the honor of coming in through the front door today I guess I’ll let that slide.” She motioned for Aziraphale to come over and asked for his ID and to stand for the picture, “hope you can handle that one, Crowley’s a right handful.”

“Oi! Excuse you, I’m two handfulls!”

Sugar Cookie girl managed to turn her head away from Crowley before the smile broke out in full. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth for a moment before being able to shake off the need to laugh. She faced Aziraphale and deadpanned, “see what I mean?”

A quietly amused smile, “I do, and I shall.”

She gave him a smile, ignoring the ranting Crowley, and keyed in the last of Aziraphale’s information. “Pronouns for the badge?”

Aziraphale blinked, “oh, he/him I suppose.”

She looked up at his uncertain tone, “don’t have to add any if you don’t want.”

“Oh, no, it’s quite alright. Just wasn’t expecting it I suppose.”

She shrugged, typed it in, printed his sticker badge and slid it over to him. She glanced at Crowley, “pronouns?”

“Ehhh, he/him today’s fine.”

Two things were obvious as Crowley skillfully led them back through the winding halls of the hospital. 1. This hospital clearly specialized in pediatrics if the way the walls were covered with bright colors, crayon drawings, and cartoony bulletin borders like what you’d find in a grade school class room. 2. Crowley obviously visited enough that he knew his way around confidently and that he had a reputation for sneaking? In? Goodness.

They rounded a corner that led to what looked like a recreational room from their view down the hall. It had large windows displaying a small tv, some various toys, puppets, and a small crowd of kids. All of whom, upon the door opening, looked up and beamed.

Choruses of “Crow Crow!”, “Miss Crow!”, and “Mister Crow!” sounded off as some of the kids picked themselves up to run at him.

Crowley gave one of those rare laughs, and dodged the grappling attempts on his legs by weaving and swaying his way into the room. “Oi! Let me in you buggers, or no sweets!”

And it should have been scolding but it wasn’t, the kids giggled, gave him barely enough room to make it over to the other kids that hadn’t wanted to move, and the smile on his face about knocked Aziraphale off his feet. It was soft, and sweet, and wide, and absolutely genuine.

There’s a whirlwind of introductions, and Aziraphale promptly forgets half of the kids names while mixing up the half that he does remember, sweets are handed out, and there are pleas for Crow Crow to join them in playacting.

They do like Aziraphale well enough, more so he believes because Crowley likes him, and he must not be keeping his surprise and amusement off his face well enough because at one point Crowley elbows him in the side and teases, “oi, what’s that look for?”

He can’t help it. Aziraphale slides right into fond without meaning to and says, “I just think it’s rather sweet.”

Crowley’s face twists a bit at that, his mouth opens to object, but then a kid tugs on his arm and tells him the evil wizard is supposed to show up now so come on. Immediately he nods, already being pulled to his feet by the strength of a determined kid, turns his head, narrows his eyes and says “not one word.”

Aziraphale, saying not one word, just beams at him instead, smile wide and eyes dancing.

Crowley tries to frown at him as he’s dragged away, but the corners of his mouth keep twitching upwards like he’s trying to swallow back a laugh.

It’s later, after the kids have been mostly worn out and the sugar high has crashed, that Aziraphale asks about the different names.

“Oh. Well, I’m genderfluid so sometimes when I visit I’m presenting more feminine and sometimes I’m more masculine presenting. Some of the kids met me first when I was presenting one way or the other and came up with different nicknames. I don’t really mind, I think it’s kinda endearing. Don’t tell anyone I said that! But yeah.”

An oh, that made some other things make sense. Like how Crowley often wore a mismash of masculine and feminine styles of outfits. Or how some of his clothing seemed to be tailored sharper, and others less so. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Sss not like it’s a secret.” But Crowley was looking away, picking at a snagged thread on his skinny jeans.

“Yes, but still.” Could he have been nervous about how Aziraphale would react? It seemed strange to think of him caring what other people thought of him. Normally Crowley came off as uncaring of what others thought, loudly and proudly himself.

Hesitantly, just to comfort Crowley he told himself, he settled a hand gently over the one picking at his jeans. “I really do like this nail polish of yours dear.”

Crowley’s head whipped around to his, face pinking, eyebrows high above his glasses, mouth slightly agape as he stammered.

Feeling a bit mischievous, he picked up Crowley’s hand, careful to be loose enough that Crowley could pull away if he wanted, and tilted his hand from side to side, watching the nail polish shimmer. “It does such beautiful things in the light. However did you do it?”

“Ngk- guh- uh- it’s- it’s the nail polish. Comes like that.”

“Does it?” Aziraphale mused, shifting Crowley’s hand again before glancing back at his pink face and smiling. “Well, it looks wonderful on you.”

“Mngrk.”

“Pardon?”

“Nngh, thanks I mean.”

“You’re welcome dear,” Aziraphale blinked at the feeling of a small hand on his trousers and looked over at the kid who grabbed it. “Yes dear?”

“C’n you play make believe with us and be the wizard?”

“Well, I’m not very good at pretending, but I can do magic.”

At that a chorus of excited calls for ‘magic! Magic!’ sounded off with a renewed tugging at his pants and he turned to give one of those, ‘so sorry but duty calls’ smiles and found Crowley already stifling a smile and waving him off.

So off he went!

He started with small stuff, after all, he didn’t have all his supplies with him so he’d have to make do with what he had. So many coins behind ears, a borrowed scarf appearing from his sleeve, disappearing stuffed animal bunnies. The kids seemed amused, even if the older kids seemed amused in a different way than the younger ones. He found a deck of playing cards on the bookshelf in the corner and was even able to pull off three of his magic tricks without most of the kids noticing when he fumbled that one time. Or two times.

It’s during the second try of the card trick that he looks up and finds Crowley just staring. Naturally, it’s at that moment that the cards he’s shuffling nearly spray everywhere in an unintended game of 52 Pick Up and he has to scramble to right them without being too obvious. Still, when he glances up the next time, Crowley only has a hand over his mouth and his eyebrows are high up on his forehead like they’re sitting at the crossroads of surprised and amuesment.

Eventually they do have to go. Much to the disappointment of the kids, some of which had only showed up during the magic acts and hadn’t spent as much time with the two of them. (Equally disappointed were the kids who had to leave for appointments while the two of them were still there.)

Crowley promises to come back again while valiantly ignoring Aziraphale’s smile at that, and when pleaded to stay longer says he has to check on some packages that were being delivered today.

So the outing ends, as all outings do eventually, and they part ways after getting a small treat at the bakery for Aziraphale for ‘coming with me and putting up with the brats’.

And Aziraphale feels so light and happy that he only laughs and doesn’t quite manage to chide Crowley on calling them brats when he says it with such fondness anyway.

Aziraphale was practically humming under his breath, utterly delighted with the way the evening had gone. The familiar rush he got when preforming married incredibly well with Crowley’s laughs, and goodness if just seeing the way he smiled at those kids wasn’t the most delicious cherry on top.

He slid the key in the lock of his front door, already trying to plan another visit to Crowley. After all, he’d called them friends on several occasions, surely he would be amendable to more visits. And if that wasn’t enough a reason, there were always the sadly departing plants. Which. Speaking of...

Locking the door behind him and shedding his coat on the coat rack, he turned to try and locate his latest plant amongst his book stacks. Instead he found an envelope. On the floor at his feet. Which, made sense given the mail slot in the door, though maybe made less sense knowing he usually retrieved his mail from his box.

It was pristine white cardstock, his name embossed in gold script lettering on the front.

Aziraphale turned and went to the kitchen. He made a cup of tea. He set it on the side table by his favorite armchair. He went to collect a book and instead ended up circling back to the front door, staring down at the envelope.

As envelopes do, it didn’t speak. Audibly at least.

The cardstock of the envelope alone was expensive. It looked, and indeed when picked up, felt almost velvety soft in that way only expensive paper could achieve. The back flap of the envelope was edged in a shimmering gold metallic decorative trim. It was ridiculously ostentatious. Though knowing the sender it was only to be expected. An ego like his...

Aziraphale tossed the envelope onto his desk carelessly, it’s obnoxious pristine white paper a stark contrast to the muted and love worn tones of paper much more aged than it covering the desk.

Settling down in his favorite armchair with his newest acquisition, a second edition print of Pride and Prejudice (1st editions were not for casual reading), he took a sip of his tea, opened the front cover, and began to read.

It is a truth universally acknowledged...

#Good Omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #good omens fic #Ineffable Husbands #just ineffable #Crowley #Aziraphale #humor #comedy #fluff #sweetness #Azirapale's bad magic tricks #Crowley's genderfluid

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cheshiresense · 5 years

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Oooh! Um... How about Kisuke/Yoruichi/Ichigo? Shadowrun AU (Fantasy AU if you don't know Shadowrun)

Lol I have no idea what Shadowrun is, did a quick google and it’s something like magic + cyberpunk + vaguely futuristic post-apocalyptic setting + virtual reality?? Omg it’s too complicated to write just from reading the wiki lmao, I’ll just give you a cyberpunk fantasy AU.

Edit: This got away from me a bit whoops.

1. Kisuke is your average humble toymaker in the Slums who may or may not supply the underground Robin Hood-esque rebel faction Visored with not-so-average weapons and prosthetics and various repairs and upgrades. The Visored are pretty much wanted in every kingdom in existence, partly because half of them used to be nobles themselves and were part of the minority who hated the way they treated their citizens, mostly because they keep fucking with the other nobles, but no one except said nobles actually wants them to stop because everybody who isn’t nobility pretty much hates those who are. Mostly, it’s the three neighbouring kingdoms - Seireitei, Silbern, and Las Noches - sitting cozy up in their walled off flourishing cities up high, constantly at war with each other but with plenty to eat and plenty of money to fund their large-scale chess games, and paying almost zero attention to the poor and homeless outside their walls. That doesn’t stop them from forcibly conscripting the lower class as cannon fodder or using the Slums as their personal dumping grounds or imprisoning or executing anyone they decide is breaking one law or another. Kisuke’s stayed under the radar so far, so nobody knows he’s the man even more wanted than the Visored, if only for his prodigal skills with cybertech. He’s the one who built their equipment and vehicles, who repaired Hiyori’s spine after she’d been left unable to walk from an ambush and produced a new arm for Hachi after it was cut off in a skirmish, both of which work just as well as the original parts. Most of the nobles either want to kill him or “hire” him. But a toymaker in the Slums who cobbles together tiny cats and dragons and chickens and pixies out of scrap metal for children to play with isn’t anything to look twice at.

2. Here is a secret only a handful of people know - Shihouin Yoruichi was born a cripple. She couldn’t walk, at all, and even the best prosthetics money could buy from the various cybertech companies were clunky and awkward and only allowed her to limp a certain distance. Her family, one of the great noble houses of Seireitei that specialized in seduction and assassination, hid her away out of shame, right up until a rebellious teenaged Yoruichi had had enough and snuck out one night on nothing but her wobbly fake legs and a crutch. She’d spent enough time on her own for the majority of her childhood to know just about every passageway and secret door that snaked through the length and width of Seireitei. She didn’t stop until she appeared in the Slums, and she fainted from exhaustion and hunger only a few days later, but she never looked back. Kisuke found her, took her in, and then made her legs on a whim, upgrading them every time he figured out something new and better that he could add to them. In exchange, Yoruichi used her newfound mobility to retrieve better materials for Kisuke, robbing delivery trucks en route to Seireitei’s cybertech companies or outright stealing from her own family’s weapons storage. Anything they could buy, Kisuke could reverse-engineer and make better. Ten years after she left her old life behind, her legs are a work of art, connected to her nerves to give her complete control over them but granting her superhuman speed and jumping ability, and she’d practiced enough with them over the years that her mind had no problems keeping up with both. The prosthetics are lightweight but strong enough to withstand the swing of a blade or the impact of a bullet, and she would give a lot to see her family’s faces if they ever realize just who has been ransacking their vaults.

3. Most people carry some kind of weapon these days, but the best - for those who can afford them, or can call Kisuke a friend - can take the form of a companion when not in combat. Shinji’s is in the shape of a sphinx, all sleek lines and feline flexibility, but one that shifts into a sword in a silent whir of pulsing blue lines and polished metal at his command. Mashiro’s is a pixie, not unlike the toys commonly seen in Kisuke’s part of the Slums, except hers includes translucent wings threaded with pale green wiring. It’s perpetually perched on her shoulder, but in a fight, the pixie fuses with her hands and legs, the wings melting and sliding over her skin like liquid mercury to form gloves and boots that increase the power of her kicks and punches.

Yoruichi’s is a black cat but nobody actually knows what kind of weapon it can turn into. More often than not, Yoruichi sends it off as a spy because the thing is so realistic nobody can actually tell it’s not a real animal unless they get close enough to see the delicate wiring in its yellow eyes.

Nobody’s ever seen Kisuke’s either, weapon or otherwise, until a spy from a cybertech company snoops too closely around his shop. Then the other occupants get front-row seats to the bright red threads that extend from his hands - hands that light up with the many, many upgrades inside, a complicated maze of crimson circuits swirling beneath his flesh - and attach themselves to their target like strings on a puppet. At least he takes it out back before he literally rips the spy apart.

4. Once upon a time, before Yoruichi was even born, there were five noble houses instead of four. But the fall of the Shiba Clan is never talked about, and most don’t even remember the details anymore, only that most were put to the sword and the rest were scattered. One of the runners in Kisuke’s employ - the many who scrounge through the Slums’s trash heaps for parts Kisuke might find useful - is a boy on the cusp of twenty who looks uncannily like the last Shiba clan head before the family’s collapse. He goes by Ichigo and doesn’t seem aware of his lineage, and if he notices the way Shinji almost always makes an appearance when he comes in with his haul, and his payment always ends up including several extra portions of food and some high-grade medical supplies and even a new change of clothes now and then, he never says anything. After they find out he has two little sisters to feed, a handful of toys get bundled in as well, free of charge.

Kisuke wouldn’t know a Shiba from a Shihouin, and Yoruichi’s family never bothered teaching her all the things an heir or even just an average noble-born child would’ve needed to know, so neither of them treats Ichigo differently because of his blood or background. They do treat him differently because none of Kisuke’s runners have lasted as long as Ichigo. Sooner or later, they disappear, arrested by guards or killed in a back alley scuffle. Ichigo slinks into the shop at fifteen and still comes around every week like clockwork five years later. He always shows up with a decent haul too, and once, Yoruichi follows him, just to see where he’s getting his loot because surely most of the trash pits in the area have been picked clean over the years? There’s always more added to them, but not at the rate Ichigo is scrounging materials. So Yoruichi follows him one day when he leaves and that’s how they find out about his sisters and the makeshift hole in the wall they live in, shabby-looking on the outside but clean and cozy on the inside and insulated well from the cold. That’s also how they find out about all the enhancements Ichigo has, because Yoruichi makes the mistake of underestimating him and almost gets beheaded when he disappears and almost shivs her from behind with a hand-turned-blade, teeth bared like an animal as his eyes burn with golden circuitry.

(The Shiba Clan had been widely feared, once upon a time, for their genius in the more explosive weaponry and their talent with artificial intelligence and robotics and other biological cybertech enhancements. It was why they’d been so swiftly sentenced to death when they’d come down on the side of the poorfolk. Even one Shiba would’ve been equivalent to having a small army in one’s arsenal.)

Ichigo moved faster, jumped higher, hit harder, than anything Yoruichi had ever come up against. The crack of his heel coming down against the ground shattered rock and cement everywhere, and the only thing that saved her life that day was her dodging ability and a quickly shouted explanation for why she’d followed him in the first place. Ichigo wasn’t unreasonable, even if he wasn’t entirely human. His enhancements explained how he could move further through the Slums for loot and still put down roots in the area. It took some coaxing and several dozen more months of coming and going from the shop, but eventually, he’d also admitted that he didn’t know where his enhancements had come from, he couldn’t remember anything from before waking up the Slums with two regular human toddlers who called him brother depending on him. The only thing imprinted in his memory were the directives: 1) Take Care of Your Sisters, and 2) Survive.

But he was the most powerful thing around for miles, and Kisuke was fascinated because the work done on Ichigo was only vaguely like his own, and far more advanced than anything the nobility churned out these days. Yoruichi didn’t care as much, but she liked having a new sparring partner, not to mention Ichigo was very easy on the eyes, and a few more years on him meant Yoruichi could appreciate the sight without feeling like she was preying on a child.

Ichigo kept coming back, and eventually Kisuke managed to wheedle Ichigo into getting a checkup and upgrades, especially when he started outgrowing a few of his joint ports. Yoruichi watched the two of them make moon eyes at each other, listened to Kisuke ramble about something Ichigo told him the day before, noted the way Ichigo’s eyes sometimes strayed to Kisuke when the man wandered outside without a shirt and his pants on backwards after too many hours in his lab, and she was almost tempted to lock them in a closet together.

(She doesn’t notice the way Kisuke smiles indulgently at her when she comes home from a trip into Seireitei with an icebox of fresh strawberries from the Kuchikis infamous gardens because they’re Ichigo’s favourite, nor does she see Ichigo blink and cock his head in new understanding sometimes when he observes the way she drapes herself over Kisuke, comfortable and relaxed, but never does it with anyone else.)

In the world they live in though, trust is more important than love. Yoruichi has trusted Kisuke since she met him, and Kisuke’s trusted her since she was down two legs and still flung herself between him and a thief with a knife who thought the shop easy pickings. And the day Ichigo brings his sisters over and lets them run around out of his sight is the day they know he trusts them. It’s only natural to offer him and his little family a room of their own at the shop.

5. The day Yoruichi comes back with news of the Silbern Kingdom’s royal family and Las Noches’ royal family both being overthrown by several of their own noble families - the Ishidas and the Kurosakis, and the Coyotes, the Tu Odelschwancks, the Cifers, and the Jaegerjaquezs respectively - is the same day Shinji comes to them and tells them about the revolution movement that’s been in the works for a while now, about the remains of the Shiba Clan currently helping the Ishidas and Kurosakis take over Silbern, and about Ichigo’s own past - memory wiped for his own good because rumours of a Shiba child successfully integrated with his clan’s still experimental but groundbreaking technology had leaked, and if they’d gotten their hands on him, they would’ve turned him into their weapon. Better to hide him in the Slums, along with his two sisters who wouldn’t be of any use in a war for several more years, until they need him again, which they do now, because as soon as Silbern and Las Noches are theirs, they’ll be moving on to Seireitei post haste, and a two-pronged attack while the Gotei is still scrambling to defend themselves would hit them hardest, because for all that the kingdoms have been at war with each other for years, it had never been so direct, nor had their goals ever moved beyond poaching each other’s technologies. But for the revolution movement to succeed, they need Ichigo on their side, and it wouldn’t hurt for Kisuke and Yoruichi to join them too, technically Kisuke’s been their weapons-backer for years, and Yoruichi’s been their ear to the ground in Seireitei for just as long, and they’ll need all hands on deck. The kids can be left with Tessai.

Ichigo storms out. Yoruichi demands to know why they were never told before. And Kisuke surveys a tense-looking Shinji (who explains that it was supposed to be for their safety too - because Yoruichi was their only successful spy in Seireitei, and very, very few could match Kisuke’s genius, and it was just better to keep them out of the way) from beneath his hat before smiling blandly and promptly catching the man with a flick of his hand and five threads, unceremoniously tossing him out the window before he and Yoruichi both go to find Ichigo. It doesn’t take a genius to guess he’d returned to the hole-in-the-wall home he’d made for his sisters, and they join him after Ichigo acknowledges them with a jerk of his shoulders. They don’t speak right away, Ichigo sitting in stony silence, Yoruichi curled on one side of him still seething, Kisuke on his other, absently flexing one red-tinted hand in that way he only does when he’s contemplating murder.

They’ll help, all three of them. They don’t even need to discuss that. It’s high time for the upper-class to get their lives shaken up, the Slums are a disgrace, and if they have the chance to change that, they’ll take it, even if it means working beside people who have been using them for their own ends without giving them so much as a heads-up. Or in Ichigo’s case, will be using him since it’s pretty apparent he might not be the Gotei’s weapon but he is still very much the Shibas’ weapon, reserved for emergencies.

“Regimes come and go every day,” Kisuke remarks first, right hand fanning open, then closing, then opening again, crimson circuits shimmering along the vein lines of his palm.

“What a shame,” Yoruichi agrees with a grin that’s two-parts teeth and all-parts spite.

“…Three of us against three kingdoms that’ve just taken a beating?” Ichigo muses, but his eyes flare gold, and he’s smiling too. “Sounds like fun.”

#headcanon meme: answered #bleach #uraichiyoru #urahara kisuke #shihouin yoruichi #kurosaki ichigo #cyberpunk au #fantasy au #aniseandspearmint #headcanon

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