#everything we did flickered with significance and you are giants to me

[andypantsx3]

statistically significant | 7 | bakugou/reader

length: 23,490 words | 7 chapters

summary: You’re the scientist who developed a neural net to model the value of assists. Now that your work is feeding into the hero rankings, pro hero Ground Zero has a bone to pick with your results.

tags: romance, enemies to lovers, sexual tension, reader-insert

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut, m/f threats of violence, problematic behavior

One month later

The Hero Awards certainly did not disappoint the second time around.

Though you’d spent the last few months in the company of some of these heroes, you couldn’t help but linger on the sidelines as they stalked their way down the walkway, staring in awe. As before, they were decked out in their absolute best, glimmering in jewel toned dresses with daring cutouts, or carving dashing profiles in well-fitted suits. Reporters and fans swarmed the sides of the red carpet, roiling like a pot reaching an agitated boil.

Their excitement was so palpable it hung heavy in the air, absolutely contagious. Maybe it was the fact that you knew some of the heroes up for awards tonight personally, but the potential of the evening simmered under your skin, a soft but constant hum of frenetic energy.

Or maybe some of that was due to the fact that this year, you’d been able to convince your boss to shell out the extra cash for the full dinner option. No longer would you need to smuggle snacks into your dress--this evening, you were a solid professional.

Which was a good thing, really, as the dress in question was not altogether any more secure or supportive than your dress from last year. You’d tried to angle for a thicker fabric and a little more of a conservative design, but several people had aired opinions on your choices over the course of the last few weeks, and you’d ended up in a thin swathe of delicate fabric that was really quite pretty, if you did say so yourself, but would support a grand total of maybe two popcorn kernels.

“You’re looking awfully forlorn over here,” someone chirped by your ear.

You startled, whirling to find Mina behind you, looking rosy and radiant in a form-fitting dress only a few shades lighter than her skin tone. Tiny pearls and clusters of glittering pink diamonds were stitched carefully into the fabric, winking at you as she moved, as bright as the conspiratorial grin she wore. She looked absolutely fabulous--she was one of the people who’d bullied you into the snackless gown, and you could begrudgingly admit that the girl had taste.

“Is it because a certain hotheaded blonde isn’t here yet?” she asked, a pink eyebrow going up.

You flushed. “Mina--oh my god, no. Not everything is about him, you know.”

She idly inspected a nail, looking supremely unconvinced. “Someone should tell him that, then.”

You huffed a laugh. The last time you’d been at the Awards, you’d said as much to him yourself. But a year later, the message was still not exactly being received.

“I’m actually thinking about dinner. I’m literally starving,” you complained, trying to divert the subject.

Mina nodded sympathetically. “I have a six pack and I still had to suck in to fit into this shit.”

As if on cue, your stomach growled sympathetically. You weren’t proud of what it was going to be like when you were finally unleashed on that multi-course dinner, but god it was gonna be worth it.

Several shrieks went up in the crowd of fans behind you, and you looked over your shoulder in alarm. Your pulse relaxed slightly when you realized it was just another pro sauntering down the walkway, but then the lights flickered off ashy blonde locks, and your pulse jumped violently. You jerked in surprise.

Mina didn’t even try to suppress her snort as you turned around fully, eyes pulled like a magnet to Bakugou as he stalked down the red carpet. Even looking like he would rather be anywhere else, and moving briskly over the carpet like he was going in for a kill, he still looked better than he had any right to. The charcoal of his suit--stitched with deep ruby flowers so dark they were almost black--brought out the piercing scarlet of his eyes, and your heart leapt into your mouth when those eyes cut over to meet yours.

His expression didn’t change, and he kept moving, but you flushed all the way from your head to your toes at the intensity behind his look.

Mina made a disgusted noise. “You’re both like a dog with a bone.”

You glared at her accusingly. “We literally just looked at each other.”

She clicked her tongue. “Please, he all but just pissed on you to mark his territory.”

Before you could reply, she called out, catching sight of Kirishima, and seized you to drag you over to say hello.

You let Mina drag you around for the next half hour, making polite conversation with her high school friends, a couple of friends from other agencies, and one fashion journalist who Mina had converted into a weekly drinking buddy. Mina kept the conversation light and easy, and you enjoyed yourself for the most part, though you almost passed out when a very distinct head of green curls materialized over her shoulder and then Midoriya Izuku--better known as the number one hero Deku--was smiling at you eagerly.

Things got even weirder when he appeared to not only already know who you were, but knew a great deal about your work, enough to ask some very detailed questions about your training model software that was going into production a couple months from now. Mina had the gall to cut into the conversation to call you both huge nerds, though she’d directly benefited from the model herself.

The conversation was unfortunately cut short when a calloused hand flung itself in front of your face and a rough voice sounded from over your shoulder. “Stop sticking your nose in my fucking business, Deku.”

You whipped around to find Bakugou glaring over your head at his former classmate. His hand closed around your shoulder and dragged you closer to him.

“I was just asking about her model, Kacchan,” Midoriya said patiently. “It’ll be great to be able to compare my movements directly with some of the other heroes in almost real time! Ojirou’s been trying out some new fighting forms and I was thinking I should try to adapt them to work into my shoot style--”

“Just because you couch it in nerd shit doesn’t mean you’re not trying to spy on me, fuckstick,” Bakugou said. “Stop poking your nose into my relationship like the town fucking gossip.”

Midoriya flushed a little, looking slightly chastened when you turned back to him in question. He gave you an embarrassed little smile. “I did want to meet you for reasons other than your model. Kacchan’s been my friend since I was little, and I wondered what kind of person could interest him so much he wanted my perspective on your work--”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bakugou demanded, but he wasn’t fast enough.

You perked up in interest. “He asked you what?”

Bakugou bristled like a cat being dangled over a bath, but Midoriya was paying him no mind. “Right after the last Hero Awards, he’d done all this research and he asked me about whether your model results lined up with some of the personal analysis that I was doing--”

“Deku,” Bakugou’s fingers tightened on your arm, growing alarmingly warm. “If you don’t shut the fuck up right now I’m going to punch all of your teeth straight down your throat and into your stomach.”

“Kacchan,” Midoriya protested, but he was interrupted by a call on the overhead for everyone to start taking their places in the theater interior for the awards to begin.

Bakugou used the distraction to pry you away from Midoriya. In the blink of an eye, he’d gotten you across the theater and was corralling you towards the Miruko agency tables, looking like he’d sucked on a lemon. You stifled a laugh. You’d wondered a couple months ago exactly how and when he’d figured out you were quirkless, and he’d once asked if you thought you were the only one who’d done their research.

If things were anything like you were starting to suspect, your demands that he do better at the Hero Awards had apparently aroused his interest in more ways than one.

You and Bakugou hadn’t exactly settled on formal terms for your relationship yet, and he still more often than not answered any of your interest with the assertion that you were the one with the crush on him. But this was more evidence--beyond the mysterious coffees that showed up at your workstation almost every morning--that your interest was more intensely reciprocated than he was willing to own up to.

By the time you’d settled at a table and been flanked by a grinning Mina and Kaminari, the awards were getting underway. They were thrilling to watch, something you’d had to miss out on last year when you needed to sneak out with a giant hole in the front of your dress. The heroes you’d worked with this year raked in an insane number of awards, and their elation was palpable, so thick you could almost taste it in the air. The pair of men with satyr horns were named the Best Rookie Duo, Miruko was awarded Takedown of the Year, and Kaminari clocked the Fastest Fight Win for a battle last month in which he’d rendered a villain with an aluminum quirk insensate only seconds into the fight.

A very unfortunate match up, you thought.

Mina nabbed an award for Fan Favorite, and in almost no time, it was the moment that you’d been nervously awaiting since nominations had gone out. You’d cheated, doing your own calculations behind everyone’s backs just to get a clearer picture of what his chances were, and you rather liked his odds, but there was always a chance it wouldn’t go how you thought. But this was the moment that Bakugou was up for Most Valuable Hero.

You barely heard any of the words the host was saying as he trotted out the names of the nominees, detailing some of their key accomplishments. He covered Bakugou's latest slew of assists and rescues, stats that made you feel kind of weirdly warm and proud, and then your ears strained for the syllables you’d hoped to hear.

And then:

“The winner is...our explosive number six, Ground Zero!”

It took everything in you not to leap out of your seat in joy, though something like a strangled squeal managed to escape you. Bakugou gave you an evaluating look as he got to his feet, stalking up on stage with his usual intensity.

As soon as he was up there, it struck you that allowing him time for an acceptance speech was maybe not a great idea. Graciousness was not exactly a strength of his.

“Obviously I’m the most valuable,” he growled into the mic. The stage lights glinted off his hair and teeth, making him look slightly more predatory than usual. “I didn’t need you fucks to tell me.”

A choking noise could be heard from Kirishima’s seat a couple tables over, and Mina put her head in her hands.

“What’s important is that I’m number six now and it only took me a month,” Bakugou’s head swiveled in the direction of Midoriya and you suppressed a groan. “Don’t get fucking comfortable. I’m gonna wipe the floor with every one of the top five, and next awards you’ll all be kissing my ass.”

He didn’t seem like he had much more he wanted to say, which was an incredible relief as both the host and nearby security looked about ready to wrestle him offstage.

He leapt neatly down from the stage, and when he made it back to the table, he didn’t take his seat again. Instead, he grabbed your arm, hauling you out of your seat, and then he was pulling you down the aisle and through the door to the reception area.

He pulled you past the snack table and you thought he was steering you towards the stairwell again, but at the last second he took a sudden turn, shoving you through a door into the women’s powder room. You didn’t even have enough time to formulate a question before he had you backed up against the wall, your shoulders hitting the cool stone at the same time his mouth hit yours.

His kiss was hot and demanding as always, and you lost yourself in it easily. He trailed a line of burning kisses down your neck and over your shoulder, making you shudder and shake when he lingered too long over any particular spot.

It was hard to think past the press of his body on yours, but you tried your best to formulate words.

“Katsuki--it’s--we’re in the women’s room,” you panted, embarrassed by the fact that even as you spoke, you were clutching him closer. “This is--what are you--? S-someone’s gonna come in.”

Bakugou broke apart from you just long enough to level a searching glance around the room and--spotting what he’d been looking for--hefting the trashcan in front of the door with a forceful kick to stop it shut.

“There, nerd. Now stop fucking complaining,” he rasped, immediately attaching his mouth back under your jaw. You shuddered.

“What the fuck has gotten into you,” you demanded, seizing a fistful of his blonde hair to pull him back from where he was leaving what felt like a very deep bruise over your collarbone.

He leveled you with a burning, red-eyed stare. “Like you don’t fucking know.”

You looked at him in question. “...I actually don’t.”

He tried to lean in again but you gripped his hair harder. “What? You can’t just keep throwing me up against walls, especially here. What is it with you and shoving me into weird places at the Hero Awards?”

Bakugou growled. “If you don’t shut the fuck up and let me do what I want, I’m gonna burn throught this dress too.”

You froze up, then glared at him accusingly. “I literally write the code that processes your rank. If you ever wanna come within sniffing distance of the top three, you won’t touch a single thread of this dress.”

The hands on you grew hot, but not hot enough to burn. Bakugou slid a calloused hand over the curve of your waist, thumb brushing the underside of your breast.

“God, the fuckin’ attitude on you,” he said, almost reverently.

You felt your face warm under his scrutiny as he leaned closer. “You wanna know what's gotten into me? I wanted to melt that entire fucking thing off you last year. You were so fucking mouthy, such a little brat to me. Wanted to rip your dress off and fuck you right in the stairwell until you forgot you’d ever even heard of numbers.”

You shivered. Bakugou smirked, eyes darkening, leaning back in to bite under your jaw. You realized you’d lost your grip on him and willed your fingers to cooperate again.

“I fucking won that stupid award because I let you boss me around. I've waited an entire year. Now you’re gonna let me do whatever I want with you.”

Your legs went out from beneath you but Bakugou was already there, catching you under your thighs and hauling you up onto the countertop between the sinks. Your back brushed the mirror, glass cold under your shoulder blades.

“Y--you know, if you actually want to be number one, you can’t make speeches like you did,” you babbled nervously as he filled the space between your thighs. “Your public approval rating is part of your ranking, right? It’s weighted right below rescues…”

Bakugou paid you no mind, fingers already searching over your back to find the zipper to your dress. He yanked it down with little ceremony, seizing the front of your bodice to pull it off of you.

“I don’t need to be fucking nice if I’m the one saving the day,” he announced imperiously, leaning down to capture a nipple with his mouth.

Your hips jerked, and he pressed a hand to your thigh, holding you back down against the counter. Dimly, you registered that the words were familiar. “N--not--ah!--not this again.”

Bakugou didn’t deign to respond, instead doing something absolutely mind-bending with his tongue. You swore loudly, catching a fistful of his jacket. “Fuck, Katsuki!”

A hot palm slid up your thigh, gathering up the soft material of your skirt until he could slip a hand underneath. Calloused fingers trailed over your core with obvious intention. You inhaled sharply when he pressed them into you, leaning up to cover your mouth with his again.

Bakugou had you squirming wildly against him in barely a minute, snorting when you tried to get a hand on his zipper.

“Want me that bad, nerd?” he asked, pressing forehead to yours in an oddly tender move.

“If you don’t hurry the fuck up I’m gonna finish things myself,” you threatened, though Bakugou did not look at all as if he believed you.

He helped you get his zipper down, taking himself in hand, but he stopped just as he brushed your entrance, leaning forward to bite another kiss into your mouth.

“Now it’s time for you to make good on your end of the bet,” he growled, a smirk growing over his features. “You’ll tell me I’m the best and I was right all along.”

You stilled underneath him, disbelieving. “Are you--are you fucking serious.”

Bakugou pressed forward, just enough for you to feel the pressure of him on your clit. You fought down a noise like a whimper. Damn him.

“I jumped two ranks,” he said. “You’ll tell me I’m the best if you want me, nerd.”

“I am not gonna beg for you like this,” you announced, though it sounded a little more like a question than you had wanted it to.

Bakugou brushed his thumb over your clit again and little sparks danced over the corner of your vision. “Mmm, you’re gonna scream.”

You felt something like a tension snap inside you. Fuck it. He was so annoying but holy shit if he wasn’t the hottest thing you’d ever encountered. If he needed his ego stroked, well it wasn’t nearly as much as you needed your own stroking.

You grit your teeth. “Ugh, fine--just--you’re the best, and you were right all along. Now will you please--”

You didn’t even get to finish before he was sinking into you, narrow hips fitting flush with your thighs. You swore at the feeling of fullness, and then he was moving, picking up into a frantic pace. He leaned forward, sealing his mouth over yours to swallow all the little noises you were making. It was mere minutes before you were shivering underneath him again, moving your hips to meet his, desperate for more, Katsuki, more.

“Ah fuck--so fucking good for me,” he grunted against your mouth, giving a particularly hard thrust, and that was all it took to unravel you.

You stifled a scream in the thick fabric of his jacket, arching up into him. He cursed and followed after you with a few more short thrusts, crushing you against the counter when he let his weight go slack.

You panted underneath him, catching your breath while your fingers slowly unclenched themselves from the hem of his suit jacket. Bakugou rubbed his face in the hollow of your shoulder, radiating smug satisfaction.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it, nerd?” he rasped, biting down lightly where he’d left the hickey earlier.

You pulled back, looking into his face again. He looked far too pleased with himself, but he was so handsome like this, all messy hair and a kiss darkened mouth. Your irritation with him fizzled out a little.

He flashed you a predatory grin. “You said it yourself--I'm the fucking best.”

You rolled your eyes, though you couldn’t stop your hand from coming up and tangling in his hair. “Shut the fuck up.”

Bakugou, predictably, did not look as if he was going to shut the fuck up at all. So you took matters into your own hands, and leaned in and kissed him again.

[baby-bearie]

thousands upon thousands of stars

jj maybank x reader

a/n: this is my first obx fic, please be nice if i get confused. 

normal tags: @sunflowermotel @maybe-maybanks @flowersforseavey @katie-avery @heartbreak-hemmings  (i don’t really know who of my usual mutuals would enjoy this)

since this is my first obx fic, i thought i’d use the opportunity to introduce myself to some outer banks blogs. hi, i’m aarti!

obx blogs i LOVE: @outerbxjj @myjjbaby @outerbankswriting @outrbanks @outabanks  @obxsummer @jmaybank

okay, enough from me, hope you like it. 

you don’t know what time it is when you finally wake up. your eyes open as you shift around and suddenly, you’re looking at the night sky.

thousands upon thousands of lights flicker back at you, reminding you just how insignificant this moment is.

but that in itself makes this significant.

it takes you a second to orientate yourself, but you’ve managed to figure out that you fell asleep in the hammock, and it’s jj that’s underneath you. 

you look up at him, his head leaned back, staring up into the dark sky. he looks down at you when he hears you groan, and his lips curve the slightest bit when he realizes you’re awake.

“hey,” his voice is soft, barely even a whisper. you only groan in response, eyes still fighting to stay open.

“did you sleep?” you can’t help asking, because you know for sure he didn’t sleep last night, and there’s no way it’s anytime before one in the morning right now.

he shakes his head and then lets it fall back again, eyes still open. 

“j,” you protest, “we came here so you’d relax a little.”

“i am relaxed, this is,” he pauses, letting out a breath you didn’t know he was holding.

you dig the heel of your palm into his chest and flip yourself over, resting on your back. his arms are still locked around your waist, his hands loosely connected. his leg has slipped out of the hammock and is touching the ground, and every couple of minutes or so, he uses it to rock the two of you back and forth. you’d say he just started, but you know jj, and you know he was rocking the hammock to lull you to sleep. 

“this is what?” you question once you’ve settled. 

“this is everything. you are everything.” he picks up his head to press a kiss into your hair and then falls back again. 

you both lay there in silence. he’s rocking the hammock, swinging you steadily. your head rises and falls with his chest as he breathes in and out. jj’s fingers are rubbing soft circles on your tummy now and for a second, you let yourself forget who you are. 

you forget everything. you let all of it slip out, and for those precious few moments all that exists is jj, and the thousands upon thousands of stars. 

“look at that.” he breaks the silence. you tilt your head up to look at him but he’s not looking at you. just gazing upwards. 

“what are we looking at?”

“all of it. the island is full of people. the world is giant. and still, it just keeps on going.” 

“it makes you feel pretty small down here, doesn’t it?” 

“no.”

“no?”

“no. there’s something about being here on a night like this. with you. it’s like,” he licks his lips and the rocking has completely stopped. “it’s like we’ve stopped moving and the rest of the world just keeps spinning around us.”

you bite your lip to fight back a smile at how different he sounds right now. this is your secret jj, the best one. the one that doesn’t have to put up a front for anyone. when the playful, strong jj you adore has drained away, you get this jj.

“it’s so big. galaxies, entire other galaxies, j! imagine how much is out there.” “i don’t need to. everything i need is in this moment.”

now you’re smiling.

“jj, i-“y/n, listen for a minute. at that party, when you asked me what my biggest fear was, i- “jj, we don’t have to talk about this-

“i want to. i want to tell you.”

“my biggest fear is that i’m going to turn into him. alone. forgetting what it’s like to be loved.” 

you’ve fallen silent. he doesn’t say it, but you know he means his dad.

“my biggest fear was that i would never find you. i would grow old alone and die alone. look up at those stars, y/n. look at how big the world is. what are the chances that you were here? how did i find you?” 

the rise and fall of his chest is ragged now and you know he’s started crying.

you grab the hands that are wrapped around your waist and you bring them to your lips, kissing the back of his hands. 

“but i’m not scared of it anymore. how can i be, when i found you? i’m not alone anymore. and it’s the weirdest feeling.”

he’s looking at you now, fingers moving to mess with the loose strands of hair around your face.

“my biggest fear is losing you, sweetheart. everything stops without you. the entire world doesn’t turn.”

“you don’t know that,” you laugh at how cheesy your boy is, but you can feel the tears slipping out of your eyes.

“i do. i do because i can feel it in my gut. you leave, and the world stops turning. i have to keep telling myself, she’s still here, i get to keep her with me, she’s still here.”

you grow quiet as you realize that he thinks you could ever leave him behind. “jj, i promise you, i’m not going anywhere. you’re stuck with me, don’t worry.” you smile softly up at your jj. red, wet cheeks and all. 

“i love you.” he whispers, tensing beneath you. “that’s the one thing i’m sure of.” 

you inhale sharply and you don’t realize how big of smile is on your face. “i love you, jj.” you whisper back and he tightens his grip on you, grinning wildly. 

“you do?” his voice is a little more awake now, as if he can’t believe you.

you laugh and nod quickly.

he takes a huge breath underneath you before he tips his head back and yells “She Loves Me!” into the deep black sky. you laugh as you settle into him, resting your head back on his chest. 

the sound of jj’s shout echoes around you, bouncing back to you, reverberating off of thousands upon thousands of stars.

[otonymous]

Kissed By The Baddest CEO (MLQC Victor x KBTBB - NSFW)

Description: Old flames and prospective lovers threaten to derail your budding romance with Victor before it even begins.  How will you extricate yourselves from a web of misunderstandings?

Warnings:

NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language — reader discretion is advised.  Potential Trigger Warnings: profanity, jealousy, angst, exes, mentions of alcohol, bone fetishes, rough sex, 69 sex position (oral sex), mirror sex, vaginal intercourse, swallowing, size kink

Mild spoilers for Victor’s family history (MLQC); slight bending of MLQC & KBTBB canon universes via creation of original side character

Word Count: ~10K words (please set aside a good chunk of time for some fluff, angst and smut 🤣)

Author’s Notes:

First of all, a GIANT thank you to the super gracious @lin-ful​ for commissioning this Victor piece from me.  You are an absolute joy to work with and I really appreciate the fact that you gave me carte blanche to basically do whatever I wanted 🤣  I really hope you enjoy the read!  (P.S. I would never be so sadistic as to ever make you choose between Victor and Eisuke, so please rest easy 😆)

This story is especially significant to me as a writer because it represents the culmination of a number of milestones: the first time I’ve created an original character, my first attempt at writing a crossover story, the first time I’ve written in both first- and second-person perspectives.  It is also the longest single piece I’ve ever written.  That being said, please note the warnings listed above and happy reading! 😊

Nb. This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1: Hello Diana

“Really Vic, I thought you were beyond name calling by now.”  

Her voice is sultry and low, smooth in your ears like the whiskey in her tumbler.  Completely at ease in a couture Givenchy pantsuit that likely cost more than one of your production budgets, she sat with her legs elegantly crossed in a leather armchair, tipping her glass to vermillion lips.  And as the flames danced in the imposing marble fireplace of one of Shanghai’s oldest and most exclusive supper clubs, they reflected off an enormous ruby ring gracing her middle finger.

Victor scoffs, taking a sip of his own whisky and glancing at you as you follow suit with the virgin cocktail he ordered on your behalf while you were in the restroom.

He was so infuriating at times, but at least it wasn’t warmed milk.

“First of all, you weren’t meant to hear that.  Secondly, I hardly consider ‘dummy’ name calling.  Far worse exists when it comes to options, as I'm sure you can attest to, Diana. You’ve used quite a few in your day.”

Amusement spreads across her fine features as she throws her head back in laughter, the sound enticing even as it disrupts the low chatter in the room.  However, none of the men looking her way seemed to mind.  She was brimming with so much joie de vivre that even you weren’t immune to her charms, smiling despite the anxiety that sat heavy in your chest from the very moment Victor introduced you to Diana Shum that evening.

You didn’t quite know why you felt ill at ease, especially towards someone who was doing you a favour by brokering a major deal on behalf of your company.  Well, more like doing Victor a favour, since he was the one who made the request.  Perhaps this was how all men felt in the presence of such a woman: elegantly confident and unapologetically vivacious, drawing attention everywhere she went.

“Are you still dredging up stories from our Oxford days, Victor?  Not very gentlemanly of you.  How do you put up with him?”  Diana turns to wink at you and the spotlight of her attention makes you feel like the only other person in the room.  “Let me assure you those boys deserved every insult in the book; one-track minds and transparent to boot.  They should consider themselves lucky I even acknowledged their sad existence.”  

“Di, you made the Prime Minister’s son cry.  You should’ve seen those puffy eyes the next morning at the swim meet against Cambridge."  

Victor raises his brows, subtle amusement colouring his expression.  And simple though it was, the sight of his handsome face so transformed by the faint smile on his lips made your heart race.  

No, there’s no way.  It’s probably just the fatigue catching up to you.  The flight to Shanghai from Loveland City must’ve been more taxing than you initially thought, even though Victor had graciously offered to let you hitch a ride on his private jet.  You place a hand on your chest, trying to calm the frenzied rhythm of your heart.  The gesture goes unnoticed by Diana but Victor throws a worried glance in your direction.  You smile to ease his concerns.  He furrows his brows.

“Oh please, I should’ve ripped him a new one with the way he tried to get frisky on our date.  He’s lucky I didn’t call Soryu to deal with him and his wandering hands.”

A sudden change seeps into Victor’s eyes, dark irises softening as if focused on something miles away.  “Soryu.  How is your cousin doing, by the way?”

Diana leans back, taking another sip of her drink.  “You’ll see for yourself soon enough.  I take it you are accompanying this lovely producer to Tokyo to meet with Eisuke and wherever the Ichinomiya heir is, Soryu isn’t far behind.  In all honesty though, Vic, surely you would know better than I.  Weren’t the three of you thick as thieves during prep school?”

You perk up at the topic of Victor’s childhood.  It was a rare chance to learn about the formative years of this stone-faced man before he became the slave driver of Loveland Financial Group.  

“I was only there for a year and a half with Soryu and Eisuke before…before my mother passed.  My father sent for me shortly afterwards.  I haven't seen them since.”

Deep voice trailing off, Victor’s gaze shifts to the fireplace where it remains, as if hypnotized by the flicker of orange flames.  And as the silence stretches on, you become disconcerted to see him so uncharacteristically lost in his thoughts.  You reach out to touch him but Diana beats you to it, laying a delicate hand on top of his much larger one as it rests on the leather armrest.

The gesture is ridiculously small for how much it blindsides you — the sight of her hand on Victor’s dazzling like the light reflecting off her ruby ring.

He blinks at the touch, long lashes fluttering in the split-second it takes for him to compose himself and suddenly, the unflappable CEO is back again.  

“I’m sorry, it’s been a long day and we should probably call it a night.  But you have my thanks, Diana, for setting up this meeting with the Ichinomiya Group.”

It was Diana’s turn to scoff.  “Can we please dispense with the formalities, Victor?  Soryu mentioned Eisuke was having difficulty finding the right people to make this documentary on the anniversary of his Tres Spades Tokyo hotel, so it was serendipity that we bumped into each while on business in London.  It’s a win-win situation.  Meant to be.”

Meant to be.

There is a spark of something in Diana’s eyes when she makes that last statement.  It stays with you long after you part ways with Victor for the night, lying awake in your hotel room as you wondered whether the LFG CEO was already asleep in his.

Chapter 2: SOS

“You’re awfully quiet.  Should I take this to mean that you already know everything about Eisuke Ichinomiya and his chain of luxury hotels?"

Victor speaks without raising his head, leafing through the documents on his lap and stopping periodically to leave his signature with the same gold pen that marked up your reports. Its barrel glowed warm, reflecting the soft lights of the cabin of his private jet, en route to Tokyo from Shanghai.

Letting out a shaky breath, you try to steel yourself despite the rising heat in your cheeks.  Because after a night spent tossing and turning in your hotel room, you arrived at a conclusion so absurd it could only be true:  

You were in love with Victor Li.

Against all odds, the bane of your life had become your biggest ally and mentor.  All the pieces of the square puzzle that was the LFG CEO had fallen into place to form one coherent and beautiful picture:

His exacting demands transformed into standards of excellence, his workaholism a paragon of commitment and dedication.

And though you were loathe to admit it, each soft utterance of “dummy” leaving his lips made the corners of yours turn up in the goofiest of grins.

Oh god, how did it ever come to this?!  Where and when along the rocky path of your working relationship with the slave driver did you fall in love with him?  But that wasn’t even the worst of it.  If your intuition about the previous night’s events served you well, the beautiful Diana Shum was also enamoured of him.

You turn to Victor, meaning to inform him with utmost confidence that you had already conducted extensive research on the Ichinomiya Group’s charismatic CEO and his chain of casino hotels.  You even thought to throw in a snarky reminder that he himself had been marginally impressed with the presentation you gave on the topic back in Loveland City.

“Are you close to Diana Shum?”

Was NOT what had you meant to ask.  Especially in a voice that cracked like a 12 year old pubescent boy’s.  And if there was a way by which you could’ve drowned in a bottle of water, you would’ve gladly done so.  Instead, you settle for gulping it down, trying to keep your stupid mouth from spewing more nonsense in front of the man who was your de facto boss.

“Ahem.”  Victor clears his throat, long legs uncrossing as he shifts in his seat.  Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the muscles of that chiseled jaw settling firm.

“I-I’m so sorry.  It’s none of my business.  You don’t have to answer-"

“I’ve known her for a while, if that’s what you’re asking.  She’s a classmate from university and also a cousin of a friend of mine from prep school, as you’ve probably gathered from yesterday’s conversation.  Since graduation, she’s taken over her father’s role as CEO of Shum Property Developments and we’ve partnered periodically on various business ventures…”

He continues and you nod at the appropriate times, half listening as a million thoughts filtered through your head: your surprise at how unusually verbose Victor was being, the relief you felt to see that he was as determined to avoid your gaze as you were his.  Because the truth was that the longer he went on about Diana — so beautiful, polished and charming that you couldn’t find it in yourself to hate her even if you tried — the harder it was to keep the clouds from darkening your face.  And when Victor says,

“Not like it has any bearing on anything now, but we also dated for a short period of time…”

…It hurts to breathe.

Finally turning in your direction, Victor fixes you with a scrutinizing gaze.  “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, um, I just…wanted to know a bit more about the person who helped me and my company.  So I can better thank her later.”

You speak without meeting his eyes, hoping to placate him with a quick smile as you pretend to rummage through your purse.  Thankfully, he drops the topic, returning to his documents.  And though the rest of the plane ride is spent in near silence, the thoughts in your head have never been so loud.

Chapter 3: Sexy Bones [Victor]

She wore that dress today.  The same one she had on when she impudently stormed my office to insist that I give her company a final chance before pulling funding:

Fitted to conform to every curve, yet formal enough to be professional.  Beautifully sensual in her usual understated way.  My favourite shade of red.

“It’s my go-to outfit when I need a confidence boost,” she told me once in between bites of pudding at Souvenir.  “It makes me feel like a queen, like I can do no wrong.  Perfect for business meetings I just have to nail, you know?”

“Dummy,” I had said then, feigning dismissiveness so she wouldn’t pick up on the way my eyes kept drifting towards her lips, so soft and plush I couldn’t help but wonder if her kisses would carry a hint of caramel sweetness.

It was true that the girl could be incredibly dense at times, playing at being queen when she already ruled my heart.  Or how oblivious she was to the fact that the British doctor was completely smitten with her during today’s meeting at the Tres Spades Tokyo hotel.

Dr. Luke Foster.

Completely absorbed in reading through what looked to be like a stack of medical journals, Dr. Foster had largely ignored us while Eisuke and Soryu made quick work of introducing the eclectic mix of other associates in the room:

Ota Kisaki, the so-called “Angelic Artist” whose work I was well-acquainted with, having previously spent a small fortune on his painting, Koro of My Kokoro.

Baba Mitsunari, a charming man whose handsome features were made all the more striking by the black fedora and red suit he wore.  The girl pointed out that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the cashier we saw at a convenience store earlier that day and I had to agree.

They glossed over a man named Mamoru Kishi, apparently sound asleep in one corner of the room with his face covered by a newspaper and a full ashtray by his side.

Finally, they came to Luke Foster, a blond-haired man with the air of an English gentleman.  Eisuke explained that Dr. Foster was the hotel’s on-site physician as well as a fellow alumnus of our prep school, apparently having left for reasons no one wanted to articulate the year before I transferred in.

And when the doctor finally looked up at us from his readings, his eyes took on an almost maniacal quality to see the girl standing by my side.

“Those proportions, those angles….perfect…absolutely perfect!”  He exclaimed as if in a daze, standing up suddenly and causing the reading materials to spill from his lap in the process.

He looked completely unhinged, almost like a zombie as he reached out a pale hand towards her collarbones of all places.  I stepped in front of her on reflex, only to have the doctor fix me with a piercing gaze as if he had just become aware of my existence and found it thoroughly offensive.

“Annnnd there he goes again,” Ota’s tone was one of exasperation, but there was no mistaking the amusement in the smirk that spread wide across his face.

“Ooh, Lu’s got a new victim!  Maybe now he can finally stop staring at the Boss’s girl every time she comes in to clean the penthouse!”  Baba chimes in, fingers stroking at his chin as if hatching some mischievous plan.

“Will the lot of ya shaddup!?  I’m tryin’ to sleep over here…zzz…” The man with the papers over his head gave a muffled shout before promptly rolling over onto his side.

Soryu just sighed, running a hand over his face.  And just when I began to worry that the girl was scared out of her wits, having wandered into this strange den of wolves, she surprised me by chuckling under her breath.  

Did the dummy find this funny?

“Tch, ignore them, Victor.  Let’s just get on with the presentation,” Eisuke said as he took his seat at the head of a long table.  The girl straightened up and immediately got to work, transforming into the consummate professional she always was when it came down to business.  I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as I watched her nail her pitch.

Taking a surreptitious glance around at her rapt audience, I stopped at Luke.  The intensity of the doctor's stare made me uneasy, the way those blue-grey eyes hovered above the scooped neckline of her red dress, tracing along her collarbones as if he were caressing them with his gaze alone.  I mentally berated myself for not putting my suit jacket over her shoulders before she got up there.

And though it was spoken under his breath, Dr. Foster’s murmur of “sexy bones” rang loud and clear in my ears.

Chapter 4: In A (Traffic) Jam [Victor]

“Victor, you won’t believe my luck!  Not only did we cinch the Ichinomiya account, I also found the perfect candidate to appear on our Mystery Finder show!”

The girl was practically breathless on the other end of the line, words jumbling together as they came a mile a minute.  And though her enthusiasm is as infectious as it is adorable, I remind myself to play it cool.  “Really.  And who might that be?”

“Dr. Foster!”

HONK!

I swerve back into my lane on reflex, narrowly avoiding an accident as the driver next to me flips me the bird before speeding away.  My heart raced, beating fiercely against the cage of my chest, but it had little to do with my near brush with death.

At this moment, I was more concerned with a man who looked like Death himself.

“Oh my god, Victor, what was that?  Are you okay?”  The concern in her voice is palpable and it makes me think of how kind and tenderhearted she is, of how easily someone could exploit that to their advantage.  “This is a bad time, isn’t it?  I’m so sorry, I’ll call you ba-”

“Don’t worry about it, just some idiot not paying attention on the road.  And what's this about, ahem, Dr. Foster?"  The name itself was unsavoury, sticking in my throat until I spat it out.  I hoped the vitriol escaped her notice.

“Okay Victor, get this: it’s like the man has X-ray vision!”

She whispers for dramatic effect, and my grip tightens on the steering wheel as I picture those slate grey eyes sweeping over the curves of her body, a lewd expression falling over the doctor’s features.  He was a handsome enough man, that much was true; intelligent and a first-rate surgeon according to Eisuke and Soryu.  Goldman confirmed as much when I had him dig up all available information on Luke Foster.  On that basis alone, many women would find him to be an extremely attractive suitor and ludicrous though it is, I can’t help but think the worst.  Luke had been quite open in his admiration of her, especially her collarbones.  What if she returned the sentiment?

In retrospect, it was a horrible idea to leave her to her work (and that wolf) in Tokyo while I returned to mine in Loveland City.  While she had the company of her coworkers, clearly none of them sensed the danger in Luke Foster that I did.  I no longer had the right to call her a dummy when I was obviously the idiot here.

“I’m telling you Victor, he can just look at somebody and tell you everything about their bone structure.  It’s too accurate to just be guesswork!  Apparently, he can remember anyone he's ever laid eyes on based on their bones.  It’s incredible.  I’d love for Professor Lucien to meet him.  If only he had the time to fly out to Tokyo…”

The girl continues and I catch sight of my furrowed brows in the rear-view mirror, deepening the longer she goes on and on about men who weren’t me.

“…He’s already agreed to be a guest on the show!  But…he did make a rather strange request."

For a moment, I can barely breathe.  The skin over my knuckles blanches as it stretches tight, my grip on the wheel growing harder as I brace for unwelcome news.  God knows what she would’ve agreed to in my absence.  Filled with a sense of dread, I had to know all the same.  “Which was?…”

She pauses, the hitch in her breath subtle but speaking volumes nonetheless.

“Just say it, dummy.”  I soften my tone in encouragement though my mind was already racing, thinking of all the ways my legal team could dissolve a contract should the girl have already signed papers.

“Well, he…he asked if he could examine my body in lieu of payment for appearing on the show.  You should’ve seen him!  He was so desperate he was practically begging and I…I just couldn't say no."  

MOTHERFUCK!

Chapter 5: Role Model

“STUPID VICTOR LI!”

You had meant to throw the rolled-up magazine in dramatic rock star fashion, sending it flying across your suite at the Tres Spades Tokyo hotel to give at least a resounding smack as it hits the wall.  Instead, it flutters to the carpeted floor, barely a few feet from where you lay sprawled out on a bed much too large for a single person.

And from the surface of that glossy cover, Victor’s handsome face — all sharp eyes and chiseled jaw - staring up at you from beneath a headline that read: "Man On Top: How Victor Li Conquered The Business World.”

Man on top.  What a tease if there ever was one — especially since you’ve developed the recent habit of falling asleep to the fantasy of having the broad expanse of Victor’s muscular chest hovering over you.

“The only thing he should be on top of is ME!”

Your voice echoes in the room, empty save for you.  Even still, your cheeks burned from embarrassment over the absurdity of your current situation.  Victor Li didn’t belong to you.  Not when he had someone like Diana in his life.

Victor and Diana.  Diana and Victor.  A perfect match regardless of how the pieces fit.  And for an instant, your anger flares to remember the nonchalance in Victor’s voice when he told you that their past history as lovers had no bearing on the present, as if they didn’t look like they belonged together when you saw them just now in the lobby of the hotel, moments after you purchased the magazine with Victor’s face gracing the cover from one of the shops.

Practically ecstatic in your surprise to see him there at the Tres Spades, you were just about to call out to him when his name died in your throat, choked by the sight of the woman at his side.  Victor was escorting Diana to a limo waiting just beyond the revolving doors.  And the last thing you saw before the chauffeur pulled away was the two of them slipping into the vehicle together.

He hadn’t even told you he was coming to Tokyo.

It was only after you became aware of the fact that you were blocking the entrance to the shop that you recovered from the shock, murmuring apologies as you pulled yourself together just enough to make your way back to the safety of your hotel room.

Rising up off the bed, your feet sink into the lush carpeting as you pad over to where the magazine lay.  You pick it up and smooth out the crinkles, fingers tracing the outline of Victor’s profile as you do — gentle, as if you were touching the man himself.  And when your nose begins to tingle, you know it won’t be long before you feel the familiar sting of tears behind your eyes.

“Think you could stop being so nice to me, Victor?  You’ll give a girl the wrong impression.”  

Heaving a sigh, you slip the magazine beneath a pillow on the bed.  A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table told you it was almost time for your dinner date with Dr. Foster.  Sitting around moping wasn’t an option, at least not tonight.  Lightly slapping your cheeks, you push the image of Victor and Diana out of your head and get ready to step into the shower.

Chapter 6: Hard To Swallow [Victor]

“I’m glad you remembered that you owe me a dinner, Victor Li.  And though I practically had to drag you to this restaurant, I guess the means don’t really matter if the end result is the same.  But still, what a lucky coincidence that we bumped into each other again at the Tres Spades of all places.  Now that’s something to drink to.”

Diana holds up her glass, Cabernet Sauvignon swirling as it meets mine with a delicate clink.  Under the table, the tip of her stiletto pushes against my oxfords before sliding past my ankle, inching its way up my leg.  I pull away, watching those red lips spread into a smile as I do.

“You might be the first man who’s ever been able to resist me.  Has anyone ever told you you’re one stubborn asshole?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She laughs at that, taking another sip of her wine before setting it down.  “So, tell me about her.”

“Her?”  I focus on cutting into my Kobe beef, already aware that Diana will see through my bluff.  She always did.

“Surely there must be another woman if you keep turning me down over and over again, Victor.  A girl has her pride too, you know.”

“We are not getting back together, Diana.”

“Tsk, you’re no fun, Vic.  All work and no play, all the time.  I’ll have to remind myself of that the next time I start entertaining thoughts of calling you up again.”

She pouts, but it isn’t long before her eyes take on that familiar spark of mischief as she continues.  

“But seriously, tell me about your cute little producer.  That is the girl you keep rejecting me for, I presume.  I need to know about the woman who’s finally managed to infiltrate the entirety of Victor Li’s notoriously impenetrable heart.  She must be quite the lover if she’s got you wrapped around her little finger like that, pulling strings with all your friends left, right and centre.”

It annoys me to no end that the mere mention of the girl is enough to reduce me to a swooning idiot.  I fight to keep the smile off my face.

“You’ve got the wrong idea.  She’s not my lover.”  

Diana begins to protest, but her words are lost on me because I’ve stopped listening.  In fact, the only thing I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears, propelled by the adrenaline racing through my veins to see him enter the restaurant.

Dr. Luke Foster.  

WITH MY DUMMY, NO LESS.

And my dummy looks…absolutely gorgeous.  Her hair is done up, leaving her graceful neck and collarbones exposed in a little black dress I’ve never seen her wear before, I realize with not an insignificant amount of jealousy.

But wait…collarbones?!

Sure enough, that surgeon is staring at her clavicle like some kind of pervert.  The sight alone incites the beginnings of a dull throbbing in my temples, no doubt exacerbated by the vice-like clench of my jaws.

I follow them with my gaze as they are led to a table for two; fixate on Luke’s face even as the sommelier arrives to make his recommendations to the pair.  The doctor stares at my girl like he couldn’t care less about the meal, as if the only thing he hungered for was precisely what I myself had desired for so long: the woman.  And she—

Just looked my way.

Surprise etches itself onto her beautiful features — the brows I had dreamt of one day lightly running a fingertip over while she sleeps lifting into a delicate arch.  And why shouldn’t she be surprised?  I had given her no indication that I had rushed over to Tokyo from Loveland City as soon as I heard what Luke had requested of her.  

But there is no nod of acknowledgement, no smile in greeting.  Just her, looking away as if she hadn’t seen me at all, her smile apologetic when she retrains her attention on the doctor.  And while it was only for a fraction of a second, I could have sworn her eyes carried a hint of sorrow.

Or perhaps I’m projecting.

Because her obvious avoidance feels like a rebuff, a sucker punch to the gut.  She’s never blatantly ignored me like that, no matter how wound up she was even during those times when I verbally tore her sub-par proposals to shreds.  The feeling of rejection sits heavy on my chest, the tie around my neck much too tight.

“Victor, are you all right?”

Diana’s voice cuts through my thoughts.  She is looking at me curiously.  I reach for my glass of wine, suddenly feeling like I was on the verge of choking.  “Of course, what could possibly be wrong?”

“ ‘What’s wrong’ is the fact that you haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said for the past ten minutes.  Even if there’s no chance we’ll ever get back together again as you so adamantly insist, the least you could do is pay attention to the person you’re sharing a meal with.”

I take a deep breath, more than a little disconcerted by the girl’s ability to affect me.  “Of course.  My apologies, you’re absolutely right.  Please, continue.”

Across the candlelit table, I look Diana in the eye, resolved to keep up at least the pretence of being interested in what she had to say when all I wanted to do was storm the table where Luke sat with my girl.  With each sideways glance in their direction, my grip tightened on my utensils to see them chatting, seemingly engrossed in the world’s most interesting conversation.

And when she hands over a manila envelope to the doctor, my heart skips a beat.

Could it be…marriage documents?!

One tiny corner of my brain berates me for how ridiculous I am being but when it comes to her, I simply can’t help it, and the fantasy in which I casually stroll over, flip the table onto Luke Foster and steal my girl away in a bridal carry becomes so vivid in my mind’s eye, it almost seems like a good idea.

Diana excuses herself to use the restroom and I pounce on the opportunity to send the dummy a text:

“MEET ME AT THE BAR IN THE TRES SPADES HOTEL IN AN HOUR.  DON’T BE LATE.”

Chapter 7: Choked Up

“Is there something wrong, Dr. Foster?  You haven’t touched your meal.”

You do your best to school your expression into one of polite neutrality as you take in the strange sight of the pale, blond-haired man shaking out an alarming number of pills onto the palm of his hand, tapping loudly on a bottle seemingly produced out of nowhere.  He pops them all into his mouth at once and you pray you won’t have to perform the Heimlich maneuver as he chases them down with a few gulps of water.

A smile spreads across the doctor’s lips as his eyes fall upon your collarbones once more.  You were used to feeling like a third wheel by now, even when alone with Luke Foster, given his penchant for carrying on conversations while staring intently at your bones.  But you took no offence at his behaviour, especially after Baba’s attempts to give you insight into Luke’s peculiar mannerisms:

“Try not to take it personal, Miss.  Lu will look at anyone who’s got beautiful collarbones.  It’s a well-known fact that he’s obsessed with the boss’s - he's even framed the X-ray films of Eisuke’s bones.  He likely just wants yours to add to his collection.”

Strange though it was, the request that Luke be allowed to have X-rays films of your collarbones in exchange for appearing on Miracle Finder was innocent enough.  Certainly nothing that warranted the stony silence you received on the other end of the line when you called Victor the other day to tell him that Dr. Foster wanted to examine you.  After a brusque “I have to go,” he had hung up.  No goodbyes, not even a mutter of “dummy.”  

But Luke Foster had been nothing short of a perfect gentleman, never once laying a hand on you.  Moreover, he even insisted on paying for tonight’s meal despite the fact that you had invited him as thanks for appearing on the show.  

“Please, just call me Luke.  Vitamins and water are all I need to survive.  I only ordered because Eisuke said it might be awkward if you seemed to be the only one dining.”

“I-I see.”  You smile, taking another bite of wagyu.  And for a moment, you are too wrapped up in the blissful way it seemed to melt on your tongue to be disconcerted by the strange events of the evening.

You weren’t, however, too distracted to continue throwing surreptitious glances in Victor’s direction, fighting to keep composed each time Diana’s laughter carried over to your table.  What were the chances that you’d find yourselves at the same restaurant in all of Tokyo?  You know that he knows you are here; even Chik couldn’t put on a performance convincing enough for the LFG CEO to believe for a second that you didn’t see him.

With your dismal acting skills, you definitely didn’t stand a chance.

“You’re in love with him.”

COUGH, COUGH!

You clear the steak lodged in the back of your throat with a few hacking coughs, half of your face hidden behind your napkin as you tried to be as discreet as possible, the words “Death by Wagyu” flashing through your mind.  After soothing your throat with a sip of wine, you ask:

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re in love with that man sitting just over there with the woman dressed in red.  That Victor fellow who accompanied you to that first meeting with Eisuke.”

For someone who seemed to pay very little attention to matters that didn’t concern bones, Luke Foster was surprisingly perceptive.  Or maybe you weren’t as discrete as you thought you were and it was obvious to all but yourself that you were staring at the golden couple.

“I…how did you...what makes you—”

“Please pass this message on to him for me.  If he doesn’t treat your collarbones with the respect they deserve, he can’t blame me for swooping in to take his place.”

Then, for the very first time that night, Luke Foster looks you in the eye, the intensity in blue-grey irises making your breath hitch when he says: “Until then, I hope you find happiness with him, Sexy Bones — especially since he also seems to be exceedingly fond of you.  Quite the annoyance, really.”

And for the very first time that night, you smile freely, naturally, at Luke, blushing hard as you contemplate his words.  Suddenly bashful, you drop your gaze only to catch sight of the manila envelope you brought with you.  You pass it across the table to him.

“Here.  Your payment for agreeing to appear on Miracle Finder.”

The expression on Luke’s face can best be described as euphoric when he takes the films from you, momentarily excusing himself from the table as he murmurs something about requiring brighter lighting to examine them.

That is when you hear the buzz of your phone from inside your purse.  And when you finally fish it out, you see a single text from Victor, commanding as always:

“MEET ME AT THE BAR IN THE TRES SPADES HOTEL IN AN HOUR.  DON’T BE LATE.”

Chapter 8: Green-Eyed Monsters [Victor]

“Another whiskey on the rocks for you, Sir?”

I nod to the bartender, watching as he chips away at a block of ice to produce a perfect crystalline sphere — still spinning in the glass when he pours the amber spirit over it like a libation.  It almost takes my mind off the fact that the girl is late.  By exactly ten minutes, according to my watch.  And for a moment, I’m gripped by a sense of panic when I consider the possibility that she might not come.

She never did answer my text though I knew she saw it — having witnessed her reaching into her purse to pull out her phone seconds after I sent the message.  And while the logical part of my brain is telling me I’m being an absolute idiot, worst-case scenarios are already running through my head: the girl is side-swiped by a car while crossing the street, or somehow managed to fall into an open manhole and is currently standing knee-deep in sewage.

Or maybe she is pinned to the wall in a dark corner somewhere, hemmed in on either side by the gifted hands of a world-class surgeon by the name of Luke Foster.

I lift the glass to my lips, too impatient to even savour the smooth burn of the drink as I reach for my phone to send her another text.  That is when I see her:

Cheeks flushed and chest gently heaving as if she had rushed to get here.  An errant lock of hair falling from her up-do, framing that beautiful face like I had dreamt so many times of doing with the palm of my hand.

She makes her way towards me in that dimly lit bar, and though I’m aware of the faint ticking of the second hand of my watch, time may as well have stood still.  Because I could have lived in that moment forever, gazing upon the light in her eyes as if they held every last star in the sky, as if those heavenly bodies had fallen just for her in precisely the same way I had: deeply, irrevocably.

And I know there is no turning back.

“Victor, sorry I’m late!  What are you doing here in Tok—”  

“Why did you ignore me?”  My voice comes out stern, even to my ears, and I curse myself for losing my cool around her yet again.  The girl furrows her brows, eyes dropping from my face to the half-empty glass of whiskey sitting on the counter.  And when she looks up again, something in her countenance has changed — soft surprise giving way to a hardened expression.

“If it’s the text you’re referring to, I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

She looks away, refusing to meet my gaze as she perches on the stool beside me.  “Surely you wouldn’t have wanted me to interrupt your dinner date, especially when you and Ms. Shum seemed so intimate.”

Intimate?

The bartender approaches, interrupting our conversation before I get the chance to formulate a reply.  “What can I get for you, Miss?”

“She’ll have a glass of warmed milk—”

“Whiskey.  On the rocks, please.”

She speaks over me, turning slightly in my direction as she does.  I ignore the murmur of “Ladies’ choice” from the bartender as well as the smirk on his face as he begins preparing her drink.  The thinly veiled challenge in the girl’s expression — elbow propped up on the counter with her chin resting atop a loose fist — only serves to highlight how incredibly alluring it is when she pushes back.

“Hmm.  Bold.  Since when did you start drinking whiskey?  I don’t think you need me to remind you of your non-existent alcohol tolerance.  Besides, didn’t you already have enough to drink at dinner?”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Victor Li,” she says, reaching for the glass the bartender sets down before her.  She takes a moment, staring at the rich, golden hues before finally taking a sip.  I fight to keep the smile off my face when hers pulls into a grimace from the sting of the alcohol she clearly wasn’t familiar with.  Dummy.

“I’m surprised you even noticed me at all, not with the lovely Diana there.  But I guess old wounds really do have difficulty closing, no matter how much we say they’ve healed.”

“You’d have to ask for the expert opinion of your overly friendly doctor about that.”

“Excuse me?”  She sets her drink down a bit harder than likely intended, sending the liquid sloshing about the glass to kiss the pink of her lipstick imprinted on its edge.  

I don’t like where this conversation is going, the ill-disguised barbs only serving to increase the tension between us.  It was foolish to have what should’ve been a very private discussion in a public space but, as always, the thought of her and Luke together is enough to make me forget my place and position, throwing caution to the wind and behaving with reckless abandon.

And still, the heat beneath my collar goads me on.

“Luke Foster.  The one you’re so enthralled with that your manners seem to have been completely swept from memory.  I presume that’s the reason why you didn’t acknowledge my existence when you saw me in the restaurant.”

Her eyes widen in disbelief as she leans in close, voice dripping with sarcasm: “Just like how you didn’t remember to tell me you were coming to Tokyo?  Or maybe you weren’t planning on telling me at all, since it clearly looked like you weren’t here on business.  But then again, I guess your business is none of mine.”

I don’t know whether I want to push back or kiss her senseless.

Instead, I settle for a deep breath, trying to keep my frustration in check.  Having a heated argument with her was not how I had intended my evening to go.  In fact, my entire day had not proceeded as planned, and if I hadn’t been accosted by Diana as soon as I stepped foot in the Tres Spades hotel, I would have been having dinner with the woman who occupied all my thoughts, all the time.  At the very least, I could’ve saved her from the clutches of a pervert doctor.

I glance in her direction, study the beautiful melancholy of her silent profile as she watches the ball of ice slowly melt into her drink.  Then I take another sip of mine, steeling myself for reparations I desperately needed to make.

“I am only going to say this once, so listen closely.  Diana Shum and I dated shortly after graduation for all of two months before we decided to part ways on amicable terms.  We make for much better business partners than we ever did romantically, and while she has expressed occasional interest in rekindling our relationship, I have never been of the same mind.  I can assure you this will never change.

“The reason I came to Tokyo is not because of her — professional or otherwise — but because I was in a rush to prevent a certain dummy from doing anything she’d regret later on.  But…”

I knock back the rest of my whiskey, emptying the glass.

“…I’m afraid I’m too late.”

She looks at me now, eyes wide as if she were still processing the words.  Her next question comes on a whisper: “Why would you be too late?”

And it is my turn to look away.  

“Well, you seemed to be pretty intimate yourself with Dr. Foster during your dinner date.  I can only presume that…”

The girl moves closer and I can’t help the way my eyes are drawn to her mouth — the tremble of her lower lip, full and pink and lush.  Without thought, I allow my gaze to trace along the graceful column of her neck, settling at the delicate notch between her collarbones and in that instant, I come to a visceral understanding of the extent of Luke Foster’s obsession, for mine was magnified a million times over:

I yearned for the entirety of this woman before me — needed her for myself, now and forever.

“Presume what?”  Her voice is low, shaking.

“I can only presume that you’ve already allowed him to…examine your body.”

There is a moment of silence — each torturous second seeming to stretch into eternity to smother the last embers of hope.

“I have…”

Oh god.

“…given him X-ray films of my collarbones as he requested.  That is all.  He’s never touched me, not even once.  I took him out to dinner tonight so I could give them to him as thanks for appearing on the show.”

Petty.  Sheepish.  I felt all these things, but none so powerful as the staggering sense of relief that washes over me to hear her say these words.  Closing my eyes, I let the revelation sink in, finally feeling like I can breathe for the very first time that night.

Chapter 9: The Big Bang

You don’t quite know what made you do it.  

The ambience of the bar, perhaps: sultry jazz and flickering candles purposefully placed to create just enough shadows for a veil of privacy.

Or maybe it was the crestfallen uncertainty that painted the handsome features of Victor Li’s face, his sudden display of vulnerability both novel and endearing.

Most likely however, it was the way in which his downcast expression morphed into one of ecstatic relief when you told him that Luke Foster had not laid a single finger on you.

Because when Victor tilts his head back, eyes closed and sighing deeply as if some unfathomable burden had been lifted, you cannot help but bring your lips to the Adam’s apple bobbing along the length of that strong, thick neck.

Cedar wood and pine.  

The notes of his cologne are so familiar you didn’t realize how much you missed his scent until you literally came face to face with it.  Victor is warm, so very warm beneath the skin of your lips.  And under your touch, you become vaguely aware of the fact that the rise and fall of his chest has stilled.

At any other time, you would’ve questioned your sanity for how boldly you were behaving, especially towards someone who was your boss.  You had never been one to put yourself out there when it came to matters of the heart.  Something about the moment however, about Victor, made you feel like the one thing you could not do was let this chance pass you by.

So when you hear that shuddering breath, feel the faint scratch of his five o’clock shadow when he nuzzles against you in return, you know you’ve made the right gamble.  Being with Victor Li feels right.  And the surreal sense of belonging you find within the embrace of his muscular arms gives you the courage to say, “You must really believe I’m a dummy if you think I’d let any man other than you touch me.”

He slides a finger beneath your chin, gently lifting until all you can see are those jet black eyes, swimming with heat and emotion.  The sudden silence of your surroundings sinks in: no more music, no idle chatter.  Not even the rustle of limbs moving about in the dimly lit bar.  And there, in the strange privacy of suspended time…

...Victor kisses you.

                        *                                     *                                      *

“Are you sure…this is…what you want?”

The deep timbre of Victor’s voice sends a thrill vibrating along the surface of your skin as he questions you between kisses — laid on your mouth, the line of your jaw, the pulse of your neck.  His firm body presses you into a corner of the elevator, empty save for the two of you writhing in unison against a mirrored wall.

Each movement of his soft lips against yours is purposeful, imbued with meaning: longing in the gentle teeth that nibbled on your lower lip before drawing it into his mouth, in the sensual slide of the tongue that sought yours.  Affection obvious in the hands that rose to cup your face, thumbs tracing circles on the apples of reddened cheeks to tell you in no uncertain terms that Victor Li belonged to you as much as you yearned to belong to him.

So you had no qualms about answering in the affirmative, nodding your head because the press of Victor’s muscular thigh between your legs already left you breathless and wondering whether he could feel your wet heat seeping through your panties.

And all he really did was kiss you.

Ding.

The elevator stops at your floor and even before the doors slide open, Victor has hoisted you up, wrapping your legs tightly about his tapered waist and whispering into your ear, “Which room?”

You knew Victor was fit, had seen him move fast and effortlessly through the waters of his Olympic-sized swimming pool that one time he had you deliver a report to his mansion on a Sunday.  And yet, you could not help but admire the sheer perfection of his physique — the bulk of his biceps, flexed beneath strained layers of clothing; the ease with which he carries you all the way to your suite.

And when he sits you down upon the king-sized bed, you wonder if it is, in fact, too small for all the things you cared to do with him.

The LFG CEO shrugs off his suit jacket, loosening his tie just enough to pull it over his head before dropping to kneel at your feet.  You watch him reach for you, shiver when he caresses the sensitive skin behind your knee with a light graze of gentle fingertips.  Large hands trail down your calf — touch barely there and teasing — until his palm finally cups the heel of your stiletto to slide it off your foot.

He looks up at you then, the intensity in ebony irises rendering you still and mute as you patiently await his next move despite the frenzied pounding in your chest.  There is a stroke of something almost feral in the dark depths of the gaze that falls heavy upon you — searching your eyes, lingering on your lips…tracing the neckline of your dress.

“I’ve never seen you wear this dress before.”  Victor says, taking the same amount of care to remove the shoe from your other foot.

And if you were able to think straight under the influence of his touch — the hands that pushed back the hem of your dress as they roamed higher and higher up your thighs towards your heat — you might have found it strange that Victor was choosing now, of all times, to comment on your wardrobe choices.  As it was, you answered without second thought: “It’s new.  I bought it especially for tonight’s dinner.”

Victor stills and when he speaks again, there is a faint tremble in that voice, as if fighting to contain some unfathomable emotion.  

“The doctor couldn’t stop staring at you.  I know because I was the same way.  I couldn’t look away from the moment you stepped foot in that restaurant.”

The revelation leaves you silent, waiting with bated breath for Victor to continue.

“Forgive me…”

Fingers entwine with fabric, gripping tight.

“…but I can’t stand the thought of you looking so beautiful for anyone else.”

RRRIIIIPPPP!

You fall back, wincing at the sound even as you feel your body respond to the sudden shock of having your dress torn right down the middle.  Victor’s display of brute strength was so at odds with the façade of composure he was synonymous with and yet, there was no denying that you were incredibly aroused by this show of power — by the fact that he was now straddling you on all fours like some wild beast, tearing away the rest of your undergarments to leave you completely bare.

You’ve never been so desperate to feel him inside you, deep and rough and untamed.  The thought throws you into a frenzy of lust.

Digging your fingers into the front of his dress shirt, you yank it open to send buttons flying in haphazard directions, but the only thing that concerned you was the sight of that broad chest and muscular torso, so impressive it actually elicits a moan from your lips and a smile from his in return.

Propping yourself up onto your knees, you press against him, flesh to flesh — one hand running over the burning surface of his skin even as the other tugs at the buckle of his leather belt, impatiently moving to palm him when his dress pants fall and gasping to finally see and feel the full extent of the LFG CEO:

Victor Li is rock hard and intimidatingly large.

And the sight makes your mouth water.

Sinking onto your heels, you trail your lips along Victor’s chiseled body, tongue teasing at his nipples as you do and relishing the catch of his breath in his throat.

But just as you begin to lay kisses along the deep V of his abdomen with the intent of tracing lower and lower, Victor stops you, puling you up for a kiss before laying back on the bed and positioning you above him…

…with his face between your legs.

“This way,” he says, voice muffled, and you might have commented on his inability to relinquish control even in the bedroom were it not for the sensation of his flattened tongue sweeping hot and wet along the seam of your already dripping pussy, teasing from end to end.

The sensation is so intense it’s almost unbearable.  You throw your head back, mouth dropping in a silent scream as you sink onto Victor’s face, fighting the instinct to grinder lower onto that talented tongue despite the encouraging grip of Victor’s hands, strong on your hips and thighs.

“I’ve wanted to taste you…for so long,” he murmurs, sucking the swell of your clit into his mouth and humming in approval against moist flesh to hear you moan above him.  “Your flavour is absolutely exquisite.”

Gathering your wits, you fold forward — intent on giving just as much pleasure as you were receiving.  Victor twitches once within your grip, not quite contained by the circumference of your palm and fingers, running up and down the sizeable length of his cock, hot in your hand like his breath on your slit.  And after placing a few wet kisses on the smooth, hard head, you open your mouth to taste him.

The tepid salt of his arousal.  The groans originating from deep within Victor’s chest each time your lip brushed past the tender underside of his cock.  The subtle rhythm of his pelvis, lifting in time to your mouth swallowing more of that solid shaft, quickly becoming slick with your saliva.

And then you catch sight of your reflection in the mirrored closet.  See the bulge of Victor’s bicep as he grips your hip, the flex in the muscles of his neck when he lifts to bury his face deeper into your folds.  See yourself: hair disheveled and eyes half-lidded, drunk on sex.  Observe the messy smear of your lipstick as your mouth stretches to accommodate more and more of your boss’s cock.  And when the tip of Victor’s tongue begins its relentless tease of your clit, you watch as a most debauched expression falls over your features, the tension in your body breaking as you find release on his lips.

You are still shaking when he enters you, sensitized by an orgasm that left tiny sparks of electricity running along every nerve, priming you for second helpings.  A true paragon of patience, Victor Li takes his time, deliberately slow as he pushes — savouring the sensation of drenched, swollen flesh parting just for him.

It was almost unfathomable that you could experience such extreme pleasure, each powerful swing of Victor’s hips driving him deeper into your body — hitting just the right angles until your very senses were extracted along with your second release of the night, running slick between your legs to ease the slippery slide of your bodies.

It draws out Victor’s own, your lover moving to pull out moments before you surprise him by taking him once more into your mouth — gaze locked onto those dark eyes from below as you taste him on your tongue, euphoric to see him bite his lips when your lick yours to swallow every last drop.

Chapter 10: Pillow Talk

Beep Beep Beep Beep.

You roll over, eyes still closed as you reach out to hit the snooze button on the alarm clock.

Except your palm comes down on warm flesh with a resounding smack, echoing throughout your hotel room and accompanied by a deep voice that says, “Are you finally awake, Dummy?”

Your eyes shoot open to see Victor lying naked in bed next to you, a splotch of red blooming on his chest where he had been attacked.  He sets his phone down to hand you a glass of water from the bedside table, and even though memories of the previous night come rushing back to burn your cheeks, you cannot help but notice how glorious he looks bathed in morning light.  You hope he doesn’t see the way your hand shakes when you accept the glass from him with a meek “Thanks.”

Victor clears his throat, waiting for you to finish drinking before he says, “That was the fourth time you slept through the alarm.  I’ve already informed your colleagues you’ll be taking the day off.  We didn’t get much sleep last night and I think you’ll need some time to…recover.”

You bite your lip, turning sideways to feign a sudden interest in the curtains so he wouldn’t see the giant smile spreading onto your face.  It was almost surreal that Victor Li was your lover, and if it weren’t for the exquisite soreness you felt between your legs, you would’ve been hard pressed to believe it for yourself.

The sheets rustle and before you know it, Victor has his chest pressed up against your bare back, laying a soft kiss on your shoulder before he rests his chin on it.

“How are you feeling?”  He asks.

“Okay.  Pretty good, actually.”  It was too early in the game to tell him you were already doing cartwheels in your mind.

“Good.  I’m glad to hear that because I found this under your pillow…”

He places something in your hands.  Your eyes widen when you recognize the magazine with his face on the cover.

“…And this ‘man on top’ wants to know what it feels like to have this woman on top of him for the rest of the day.”

You’ve made it to the end! 🤩 Thank you so much for reading!  Check out more of my work here! 📚 

[krisdreaming]

PART 3 | A PREDICAMENT

｢ Masterlist ｣

Pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou x gn!reader

Summary: Somehow, you ended up agreeing to bring your non-existent boyfriend to the family Christmas gathering at your grandparents’. Your chem lab partner and fast friend, Kuroo Tetsurou, agrees to play the part. Your developing feelings for him won’t cause any problems, right?

WC: 2.6k

A/N: I won’t be posting for this fic next Saturday, so the next part (part 4) will post on December 26!

A smol guide to reader’s cousins (all ocs who aren’t really developed at all aside from their names which I stole from other anime hkdljf), listed from oldest to youngest, though I don’t really have exact ages in mind:

Mikoto Kyoka <Reader is here in my head> Setsuna (Mikoto’s younger sister) Takashi (the twins older brother) twins - tbh i didn’t name them bc they’re the youngest and not really relevant lmao i’ll probably just refer to them as “the twins” (they’re boys btw)

Basically I needed to name them bc it was getting confusing... sorry if it’s weird!

The entire drive to your grandparents’ house, you find your eyes drifting to your rear view mirror and Kuroo’s headlights reflected in it. You’d left school in the late afternoon, and by now the sun has begun to sink below the horizon and dusk is beginning to fall. You have fond memories of arriving at their house for Christmas after darkness has fallen, seeing the warm glow of the lights in their windows drawing closer and being ushered inside from the cold winter darkness to their bright, sweet-smelling home.

This year is a little different - Kuroo will be with you, experiencing those familiar sights and sounds and smells for the first time. Your gut is absolutely twisting, and you grip the steering wheel a little tighter. Now is not the time to have second thoughts or wonder if it’s too late to call the whole thing off. For now, your focus has to be on making sure your family believes Kuroo is actually your boyfriend. If you seem happy, they’ll be happy. You glance once more in your rear view mirror. Convincing them of that may not be as difficult as you think.

By the time you pull into the driveway, you’ve managed to push most of the doubts from your mind. The cold air that hits your face as you step out of your warm car is a welcome distraction, and you fill your lungs with it. Next to you, Kuroo’s car door opens and he steps out, reaching into the backseat for his duffle bag.

“Here we are!” You chirp, spreading your arms in a flourish as he closes the car door. He looks at the house, then turns to smile at you.

“Looks really nice,” He nods as you pop the trunk, reaching for your suitcase. “Let me get it,” He reaches around you and grabs it. You’re startled for a few moments, but all it takes is a quirk of his eyebrow for everything to fall into place. It would be weird if you didn’t let your boyfriend carry your bag for you.

“If one of us is going to blow this, it’s going to be me,” You breathe with a nervous chuckle, and he shakes his head.

“Won’t let that happen,” He assures you, gesturing for you to lead the way. He follows you up the walk, and the moment you reach for the door knob, it swings open on its own. Behind it, your grandmother is waiting to greet you, hands clasped in front of herself with a giant smile on her face. For a split second, you almost feel guilty that none of this is real.

“Merry Christmas!” She pulls you into a tight hug, and you breathe in the familiar scents of rose and sugar cookies. “Come in, come in.” She releases you and is immediately locked on Kuroo, who has a sheepish smile on his face.

“Oh my,” She looks up at him with the huge grin still on her face, “Aren’t you quite the handsome young man! Just look at how tall he is!” Behind her, your parents appear as she’s gathering him into a hug. You try to hold in a snicker as he drops the bags beside him, folding himself awkwardly to return the hug.

“Thank you for having me, ma’am,” He says as he’s released from her grip, prompting a pleased hum.

“Grandma,” You finally break in to say, “Mom and Dad,” You turn to your parents who are both eyeing Kuroo curiously. Your father, especially, seems to be sizing him up. “This is Kuroo Tetsurou,” He lifts his hand in greeting, “My boyfriend,”  You add, feeling your cheeks grow hot at saying the words out loud. Your mother meets your gaze with a small smile.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Your father reaches out and catches Kuroo’s hand in a firm handshake.

“It’s great to meet you too, sir.” Your father must approve of the handshake, because he gives Kuroo a nod and a smile. “And it’s nice to meet you, L/N-san,” He reaches for your mother’s hand next. Your grandmother wraps her arm around your middle and squeezes you into her side.

“Oh, what a polite young man,” She whispers in your ear loudly enough for the others to hear, “It looks like you’ve found a good one.”

You watch Kuroo greet your grandfather who’s finally wandered into the room. “I think so,” You agree, sharing a smile with your grandmother. It comes out more easily than you expect.

“Alright,” She brings her hands together in front of her, interrupting the chatter. “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes, so let me show these two to their room so they can get rid of their bags.” She waves you and Kuroo along, and you follow her up the stairs.

Every year, you stay in your mom’s old room. You’ve always loved envisioning your mother spending time there when she was a little girl. This year, an added bonus of the room is the extra futon that’s always folded up in the corner. When your grandmother opens the door, your eyes immediately go to that corner and find it empty. A quick glance around the room reveals that the futon is nowhere to be seen.

“I got it all ready for you,” Your grandma says brusquely, bustling inside and fluffing the pillows on the bed as she talks, “I think you two will be very cozy in here.”

“Where’s the futon?” You blurt out, and she chuckles with a wave of her hand.

“I had to put it in the basement. Now that the twins are older, they won’t share one anymore. Not to worry,” She pats your shoulder, “I know you’re all grown up now. Is everything alright for you two?” She looks expectantly between the two of you, and you swallow back your panic before pasting on a smile. A glance at Kuroo reveals that he’s remarkably unphased, at least outwardly. It sets you just a bit more at ease. You’ll figure this out.

“Looks great, Grandma. Thanks.” You let your bag drop to the floor, and she takes it as her cue to leave.

“Dinner is ready any minute, so get your things situated and come down,” She says over her shoulder as she heads out of the room, pulling the door against the latch behind her. You look over to Kuroo, who’s glancing around the room.

“I swear there’s usually a futon in here,” You say quickly, and he shrugs.

“I’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t mind.” You open your mouth, then close it, because you aren’t quite sure what to say. “I’m used to it,” He assures you. You aren’t quite convinced, but you don’t know how to refuse without making whatever this is even weirder.

You finally decide on, “We’ll figure something out at bedtime,” and reach for the door. “Ready to eat?”

“Since we left school,” He laughs, following you out of the room and down the stairs. “Bring it on.”

The meal is nothing too fancy. On the first evening, when everyone is still arriving and getting settled in, there’s normally just a spread of quick bites and snacks. When your plates are filled, you find seats at the table set up for all of your cousins. They aren’t shy about introducing themselves to Kuroo, and it shouldn’t surprise you how easily he slips into conversation with them. You’re all talking and laughing in no time, and it feels almost natural.

“Say Y/N, how did you manage to land someone like him, anyway?” Your oldest cousin Mikoto laughs from beside you with a jab of his elbow in your ribs. You rub at the spot and stick your tongue out at him, buying time while his girlfriend reprimands him.

“Would you believe he’s my Chem lab partner?” You jab him back with a smirk.

He snorts, “I find it hard to believe you wowed him with your brains.” That earns a burst of laughter from the group. “Was there bribery involved?”

“Actually, I think it was probably my brains,” Kuroo says smugly, his chin hovering over your shoulder. You resist the urge to smack the grin off his face and settle for swatting his arm. “I’m pretty much carrying this one’s grade, y’know,” He jerks his thumb in your direction.

“Please,” You roll your eyes, falling easily into the banter with him, “One look at our last test scores will tell you it’s the other way around.” He shrugs.

“I’ll let you think whatever you want,” He says primly, lifting a chip to his mouth as he dodges a second swat. This, at least, feels very familiar. As the laughter around you dies down, the conversation shifts again, and you’re content to sit and soak in the chatter.

When the meal is over, the cousins all migrate to the living room. Every year for as long as you can remember, on your first night together for Christmas, you’ve watched Elf. It’s one of your favorite traditions.

“Where’s the DVD?”

“I think Grandpa hid the remote again.”

“I know we literally just ate but could anyone else eat popcorn?”

It’s a little loud and a little disorganized, but you’re happy just to be here with them again. Every year the group grows a little bigger with significant others added to the mix, and this year Kuroo is the only new face. You lean in close to him and murmur, “Doing alright?” He’s been quiet, just taking everything in.

“Yeah, great,” He replies in a low voice, offering you a lopsided smile. “I don’t think I can remember anyone’s names though.”

“You’ll get there,” You assure him, giving his shoulder a pat.

“Lights! Someone turn out the lights!” There’s a scramble, and soon the only light in the room is the glow of the tree and the flickering TV screen.

“Psst! Y/N, sit down!” Someone hisses. You roll your eyes and plop down in front of the couch, leaning back against it. Setsuna nudges your shoulder with her foot, then grins at you when you turn to stick out your tongue at her. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see her brother and his girlfriend tucked into the corner of the couch. She’s pressed in against his side, and he has his arm around her. Kyoka and her girlfriend are squished almost comically onto the recliner, but they don’t seem to mind the tangle of legs.

Suddenly, you’re all too aware of Kuroo next to you. His arm is pressed against yours, and you try not to sit too stiffly. No one seems to be paying much attention to you as the movie begins, but you still can’t help but wonder if this is convincing anyone.

As if he’d read your mind, you feel Kuroo’s hand inch closer to yours. With a glance your way, he loops his fingers loosely over yours, slipping his pinkie alongside yours in a gesture similar to his pinkie promise last week. You lean in just a little closer.

As the movie plays, you feel the busyness of the day catching up to you. The familiar scenes on screen are lulling you into a drowsy state of half-sleep, and you hardly think about it before you let your head come to rest on his shoulder. He stills for a few moments, but then he rests his cheek on top of your head. You don’t move until the credits start rolling and everyone around you starts to stir.

“Aww,” You hear someone coo behind you as your cousins slowly start to stand up and disperse. When the lights turn on, you sit up straight and squint into the sudden brightness, blinking blearily at Kuroo who winks at you so quickly you think you might have imagined it. He stands to his feet with a groan and extends his hand, grabbing yours and pulling you to your feet.

Around you, there’s a chorus of good-nights as everyone heads off to get ready for bed. You turn to Kuroo and brace yourself for what’s coming. “You ready for bed?” Even as you ask, he’s stifling a yawn behind his fingers.

“Yeah,” He nods with a chuckle, “That movie really conked me out. Didn’t realize I was so tired.” He follows you up the stairs, and the two of you gather your things for bed in silence. By the time you’ve taken turns using the bathroom down the hall, he has a makeshift bed made up on the floor. He has comforters and pillows piled up, but you still can’t help but think how uncomfortable it looks.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can see if there’s an air mattress or something.” You would feel awful if you didn’t at least offer.

“How suspicious would that be?” He laughs. “I told you, I’m fine. I used to sleep on the floor at Kenma’s all the time. It’s no big deal.”

“Alright,” You say slowly, crawling under the covers. Up until now, things have felt fairly normal, but something about seeing him lying there on the floor next to you reminds you how strange this whole situation really is. “Regret this yet?” You ask softly, propping yourself up on your elbow so you can see his expression.

“Nah,” He says with a wave of his hand. “I’m having a good time. Honestly. Your cousins are a riot.” You shake your head with a smile, but you can’t deny it. “I’m actually thinking of offering this as a service,” You feel your smile falter as a strange twinge fills your middle. You know it’s just another one of his jokes, but something about it makes you prickle. “Don’t worry, yours is the trial, so there’s no charge.”

You laugh to appease him more than anything. “Sounds like an easy way to earn some cash,” You say lightly, hoping he can’t sense anything off about you. “Ready to turn the light off?”

“Yup,” He nods, and you reach over to flick the lamp off. “Night.”

You echo him, then turn onto your back, staring up at the ceiling with the few leftover glow-in-the-dark stars that haven’t peeled off. You really had been sleepy during the movie, but now that you’re in bed, you feel wide awake. You can’t help but mull over Kuroo’s comment. Sometimes he’s impossible to read. You know this is more than just a joke to him – he’s proven that much already. He’s a good friend, and that’s not something you want to lose over something like this. With a sigh, you turn on your side.

“Hey, Kuroo,” You whisper, “You asleep?”

“Yes,” His teasing response is immediate.

“You can’t tell me that you’re comfortable down there,” You say softly. “So just come lay in the bed.”

He’s silent for so long that you start to wonder if he really is asleep. Just when you’re about to roll over, he speaks up again. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, dummy.” You say, huffing out a soft chuckle. You hear him gather up his pillows and blanket and make his way around the bed. You can feel it dip beside you, but he’s careful to leave nearly a foot of space between you.

“Thanks,” He hums under his breath. You don’t reply, but you smile into the darkness. Even though you aren’t touching, you can just feel his warmth next to you. It isn’t long before your eyes slide shut.

[tobiosmilktea]

Hello! I really love your writing and I just saw your requests are open yay 👏🏻 So my idea is that the reader (female or neutral, as you prefer it) is a third year who takes art lessons as an extracurricular subject or something and the teacher ask their students to draw posters of the sport teams, and the reader got the volleyball team. The thing is the reader knows the third years but they're not really close, so they talk just a bit. (Part 1)

paint the clouds — tendou satori

4.7k words | genre/s: fluff | warning/s: possible ooc on everyone tbh | pairing: tendou x f!reader

↪︎ in which you painted a muse who always wanted you too

a/n: definitely not my best work and im super sorry for that, but i hope you still enjoy it 👉🏻👈🏻

a warm spring breeze blew strands of your hair in front of your face, laying against your rosy cheeks as you watched the horizon. the bright yellow sun teased the sky with hues of pink and orange, bound to mix into the darkness of the sunset. school had ended a few hours ago and now you were sitting in your art club waiting for your teacher to dismiss you. she was in a middle of a spiel explaining your next art project, but your brain struggled to follow.

your hand ached from drawing for hours, your wrist tender from constant pressure, and now you could’ve sworn you were going to get carpal tunnel sooner or later. it was worth it, anyway, you were doing what you liked doing as you honestly felt being an artist was your only talent. it was merely the only thing you focused on besides your academics. dating was certainly out of the question.

instead, you watched the birds fly past the open classroom window as your teacher explained the assignment something along the lines doing sports teams posters.

“i will be walking around the classroom with a box filled with names of sports clubs,” the teacher starts, pulling you out of your train of thought as your attention was finally set on her. “you will pick a random piece of paper from the box and that will be the sports team you will be making a club poster for.”

whispers erupted in the room as others verbalized which team they wished to get.

“i hope i get the volleyball team, they’re literally iconic.” you heard one girl say.

another voice exclaimed, “drawing the equestrian team sounds super fun too!”

the murmurs continued to the buzz even after the majority of the class had already picked out their sports team from the box. you were the last one to choose as you opted to sit in the back of the class.

“and last but not least,” said your teacher as she serpentine through the desks towards your sitting figure.

your hand dug into the small cardboard box only to feel one last piece of paper. you wanted to scoff slightly, but you stopped yourself the moment you grabbed the last slip of paper and read the messy handwriting. it took you a good second to even understand what it said as it was complete chicken scratch (no offense to the teacher).

“(y/n), what did you get?” your friend who sat in front of you turned with a smile on her face.

"i got the volleyball club,” you answered, eyes widening when your friend gasped.

“that’s literally the best one to get! i’m so jealous,” she sighed as if she just inhaled a rose scented breeze.

perhaps you were lucky to get such a sought after sports team as your main focus for the assignment, but you couldn’t help but feel an overbearing weight suddenly falling upon your shoulders. shiratorizawa’s volleyball team was the epitome of the academy. they were the ones who brought a significant name to the school with only the smartest of intellects but one with the best athletes. depending on how well you created this poster could potentially make or break your reputation. it was a visual representation of the team, anything less than iconic would dig a deeper hole for you.

it certainly doesn’t help the fact that you actually had to talk to the volleyball team now that you were in charge of their school poster. you internally groaned. you barely interacted with the third years, let alone being completely enamored over a familiar red-head.

your after school activities had ended in the midst of your running train of thoughts as you absentmindedly gathered your things and walked out of the classroom. you gripped the handle of your bag as you strolled through the near-empty hallways of the academy, your mind in a complete spiral as you had already tried visualizing what the end product might look like.

it was common knowledge to everyone who had known about you was well aware how amazing you were at art. no matter what medium you were given, you were known to be the girl who had magical hands that could create even the most beautiful things out of ash and smoke. you had this some innate, almost magical ability to have others stop in their tracks just to admire your works.

perhaps that you were too caught up in your own thoughts and the hypnotic tapping rhythm of your loafers clicking against the school floors that you hadn’t even notice your arrival towards the gym.

even the loud shouts of volleyball players from the ongoing practice wasn’t enough to pull your gaze away from the ground and towards the flying volleyball hurdling towards you.

“(y/l/n), watch out!” you heard a familiar voice shout out, immediately pulling you out of your own jungle-like psyche and into the real world.

everything had happened so quickly, all you knew was a blur fly past you to retrieve the ball before it knocked out of conscious. semi eita quickly turned to you, his figure greatly towering over you as he gave you a reassuring smile. “are you okay, (y/l/n)?”

you gulped, nodding almost too quickly. “yeah, i’m okay.”

“good,” he mutters as his brows slightly furrow in confusion. there was a thin blanket of awkwardness hovering above both of your heads as you both stood there in silence for a good five seconds—five seconds too long that is. “so what brings you here?” he finally breaks it, scratching the back of his head in the mean time.

right, you had almost forgotten why you were here in the first place.

“it’s about the art club, we’re doing sports team posters and i was wondering if i could talk to the third years for ideas.” you asked gently.

semi’s eyes immediately widened, the already prevalent smile on his face only increased at the statement. “that’s cool! come with me, i’ll show you to them.” he quickly motioned you to come inside the gym, feeling the brisk air difference of the air conditioned gymnasium to the warm spring breeze outside.

a shiver flowed down your back. not from the sudden influx of cold air surrounding your body, but the fact that towering volleyball players and their ever-so-intimidating nature causing nervous habits to take over you. soekawa jin, the vice captain of the team quickly flickered a look towards you before tapping ushijima’s arm for his attention. turning to see what his teammate wanted, soekawa swiftly pointed at you and semi approaching.

“it’s a surprise seeing you here, (y/l/n).” ushijima greets you in his deep, guttural voice. it caused you to gulp nervously, struggling to even put on the tiniest of smiles as you meekly muttered a ‘hi’ to the rest of the third years. however, it seemed as if the one you were most familiar with was not in sight. it did seem a tad bit quiet in the gym now that the practice game was on a time out.

“um,” one of the wing spikers approached you, ohira reon was it? “sorry for almost hitting you, by the way.”

you swiftly shook your head, “no, it’s okay. i was the one who wasn’t playing attention, so that’s on me.” 

“so, you’re here for the poster?” ushijima cut into it like a sharp knife, bold and straight to the point.

“yeah, um, i just stopped by to ask if you guys had anything ideal you want to see on your club poster.” your voice was softer than you hoped it would be when you spoke. 

eyebrows furrowing, ushijima glances among his teammates as provocation for an option saturated his hums of curiosity. 

semi then clears his throat, “we’re not really sure if we have any input for you, (y/n). besides, i think your poster will be amazing nevertheless.”

“that’s still a lot of pressure,” you mutter, “considering i would be mauled to death if this poster isn’t amazing.” sarcasm drenched your words like saccharine, hoping that the tall athletes would at least get your banter and share a laugh with you.

but they didn’t. instead, they stared with wide eyes at you in a mere worrying glance. perhaps the joke didn’t exactly translate well.

god, this is so awkward.

however, it wasn’t like you were exactly lying. as the face of shiratorizawa academy, you were aware that they needed to look good and if it were any less than that, you might never see the light of day ever again. not to mention you always liked adding twists to your artwork, which was technically the only reason why you were so infamously known to have such amazing works. but in the past half hour, you’ve came to the conclusion that it possibly isn’t the best option in this case.

“i’m kidding, by the way,” you let out a light huff.

“well, if it helps you in any way, you could always focus on ushijima as he is our ace.” soekawa cuts in, patting the captain’s back the moment he braided his arms over each other.

any form of leftover conversation (or lack thereof) was sliced—cut off from the sudden opening of the gymnasium doors and the (quite obnoxiously) loud middle blocker. tendou satori entered the giant gym with a bright beaming face of glimmering lights and cherries. tendou was perhaps one of the first people to talk to you the moment you entered this academy, eyes glazed in a honey-like optimism with every bright ‘hello.’ you always tended to be the quiet and secluded one in your classes with him despite being known to be infamously sardonic, you seemed to be the only one to which his overly comic ways of banter didn’t annoy you like it did with others. he, himself, was a sunray, and yet you couldn’t bring yourself to expose that thought as your eyes fall onto the approaching boy.

out of all the third year volleyball players, you and tendou had talked the most, yet considering you two as more than just mere acquaintances was a bit of a reach.

“yo!” the redhead’s loud voice thundered throughout the gym and you could already feel it echo within your heart.

“you’re back,” mused ohira with his hands on his hips. “are you okay?”

“yeah,” tendou says, fixing the loosened athlete’s tape over his fingers. “but the school nurse was already gone by the time i got there, so i had to fix myself up—oh hey, (y/n)!” he had cut himself off the moment his eyes fell upon yours.

your breath had hitched the moment he greeted you. it was as if your heart had immediately jumped into your throat and prevented you from even muttering a word as you can already feel your palms getting clammy. “hey,” you mutter almost in a whisper.

“so what are you doing here?” questioned tendou as his eyes suddenly widen the moment the words came out of his mouth, “uh-that sounded really rude, um—i actually meant that in the nicest way possible, by the way.”

you couldn’t help but chuckle at his sudden burst of scattered thoughts, noticing a faint flush of pink upon his cheeks. 

“she’s here for the club poster,” ushijima answers in your place as you seemed to not answer even after a beat had passed.

“oh nice! i’m sure it’ll look really cool!” the middle blocker grinned at you to which a sudden wave of monarch butterflies attacked your gut. you could even feel the heat coursing through your cheeks and all the way to the tips of your ears until they were as red as tendou’s hair.

“hopefully,” you modestly commented, eyes then falling upon tendou’s wrapped wrist and couldn’t help but be filled with curiosity. “what happened to  you?”

the middle blocker shook his head dismissively. “i tried blocking one of ushijima’s spikes again, but as you know, it is a bit impossible and i ended up hurting myself. it’s no biggie, though.” he shrugs.

“t-that’s amazing.” you breathed out before you could catch yourself. and you swore, you saw the light pink hues of blush upon tendou’s face had darkened.

how cool, you thought with the stars in your eyes. the thought was a bit controversial, but you couldn’t but find tendou satori cooler than ushijima at that very moment. the fact that he knew very well how difficult and painful it was to block his spikes, tendou still attempted it to the point at the cusp of being injured. you began fiddling with your fingers for far too long as you’ve come to realize how long you were standing there for no more reason. you mentally face palmed as you cleared your throat, “anyway, if you guys do have any preferred ideas let me know before friday.”

before the boys could even say a proper goodbye, your legs were already carrying you towards the exits of the gymnasium as if it was running on autopilot. she did hear their shouts of good lucks from across the room as your long strides pushed you to quickly leave.

why was i so awkward for?

in retrospect, perhaps you were more nervous than you thought. it had been an entire week since you had received the assignment to create a club poster for the volleyball team and there hadn’t been a night filled with peaceful sleep. instead, they were brimming with 2am moments of inspired antics. working on the large poster filled you with nothing but utter confidence even after it was finished, but now that you were actually at school with the rolled up poster of the incredible volleyball team, you couldn’t help but feel waves of reluctance and insecurity.

it was always like this with you. where everything was fine and your confidence within your works were expected, but the moment you did have to present such things, you couldn’t help but think of what you should’ve done differently. you assumed that you could’ve improved your mixed media skills by a little bit as there wasn’t much you could’ve done either way in that murky little head of yours that obviously lacked sleep.

the hallways of shiratorizawa were still pretty empty as it was still quite early in the morning. most of the students were outside anyway, so you quickly took this chance to unroll the large poster. taking some push-pins from the side pocket of your school bag, you hung the poster up in it’s place. 

you breathed out one last sigh of ichor before picking up your bag and walking away from the masterpiece.

throughout the entire day, you had come across dozens of stares of others as you walked through the hallways, bringing your endless sea of nerves to heighten until you were dragged upon its tides. there were whispers everywhere. they were probably talking about your poster for the volleyball club and immediately you felt drowned in sorrow.

within a snap, had already thought of the worse possible outcomes that others were talking about how terrible of a job you did. perhaps that leap of faith, that tiny step out of the box when creating your poster was too much of a risk that you ended up falling to your own demise.

“(y/n)!” a voice called from behind you.

turning over your shoulder, you saw a familiar redhead making his way towards you in a bright amble. you immediately felt your heart drop as you whip your head back around and started to walk away. 

shit, shit shit. you thought, tendou was definitely not the first person you wanted to talk to you when the possibilities of what he had to say to you was tangling in your psyche. as if they were tangled vines yearning to be untangled for his closure and yet, you refused.

your shoes clicked rapidly against the floors of the school when suddenly your wrist was pulled back, turning towards his familiar tall figure.

your direct gaze was on his chest, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look up upon his eyes. you couldn’t, at least. as if you were, your face would resemble something similar to a tomato.

“listen, tendou.” you muttered, still not attempting to meet his gaze. “i’m kind of late for class, but if you want talk later then we can—”

“no, i want to talk now,” he stated seriously, almost too seriously as it caused you to look up to him in surprise.

your mouth gaped to say something, yet nothing seemed to come out.

“i just wanted to say thanks for the poster.” tendou says as his breath almost hitched from the mere sight of you. he could recall the rushing feeling of blood coursing towards his cheeks and ears the moment he stepped upon school grounds and saw your poster. there his painted figure was, stood more prominently than the rest of his team. it was as if he needed the taste of sweet-tongued cough syrup just to ease his aching cheeks from smiling so hard.

the feeling was amazing. that from the smallest little action of you focusing on him rather than what he thought was going to be ushijima (like always) it was you who chose him. the loud middle blocker over the incredible ace of shiratorizawa. he knew validation wasn’t everything, and yet, his immense feeling of being at the top of the world certainly didn't help the fact that he had always been in love with you. you and tendou had the same class each and every year, that each first day of school, he would always sit giddily at his desk just so he could watch your angelic figure walk in.

in spite of it all, from his loud and upfront nature, he could never bring himself to even talk to you everyday besides an occasional ‘good morning’ whenever you would walk in. perhaps seeing this poster of himself was a little push into the deep end—to finally grow the guts to spill his unspoken epiphanies of built up feelings for once.

“usually, it’s ushijima who’s the face of the shiratorizawa team, but it’s nice seeing a change.” continued the middle blocker on the cusp of rambling, “i really didn’t expect you to focus it on me though, so that was a surprise... which by the way,” he hesitates as if he was do embarrassed to even ask. “why did you choose me?”

you pursed your lips the moment your breath was snatched from your lungs. “um,” you sighed, your mind speedily trying to come up with a plausible answer—something other than perhaps inevitably revealing you feelings for him, “i just think you’re really cool.” was all you could come up with and quite honestly, you wanted to face palm yourself for how stupid it probably sounded.

but to tendou, it was an absolute godsend. his heart thumped rapidly against his rib cage as his cheeks reddened into crimson wine. he didn’t know what else to say afterwards as that was his final push. it was then the idea popped inside his mind. a cheeky smile melted upon his lips as he patted your head gently.

“you’re an amazing artist, (y/n).” he complimented, amused by the fact he was the one who caused your reddening face before turning his heel and waving, “see you tomorrow!”

“u-uh, see you?” you stammered over his sudden departure, briefly waving before hold your hand to your chest. you felt as if your heart was to inevitably combust at the sudden overflow of ardor and vehemence of tendou satori’s actions. 

a sigh left your peachy lips, why am i feeling like this?

tendou could’ve sworn he had enough time to make it back to practice before stirring up any suspicions from his team, but the unfortunate tides have come across and drenched him in ill-fate—all gross and sticky.

ever since seeing your poster of him the day before, the thought of you had been on the middle blocker’s mind enough that even ushijima noticed his change in demeanor.

“what’s up with him?” the captain asked semi as they watched the redhead stumble into the gym.

“i think it’s about (y/l/n),” he answers in a hushed voice in case the disorganized tendou somehow heard. “he’s been in love with her since first year and seeing the poster of him is finally forcing him to make a move.”

ushijima refrained from chuckling, “so all it took was a poster with him as the center instead of me?”

“yeah, pretty much.” says semi.

tendou had been non-stop running back and forth between his classroom, the gym, and the art room after that burst of serendipitous ideas clouded his brain until it was all he could focus on. he had already missed the beginning of practice just so he could do something special for you for when he does muster up the courage to confess.

it was something along the lines of returning the favor of what you did to him, but he was well aware of the fact that he was a volleyball player for a reason and not an artist. honestly, most of the work was done with the help of you friend from the art club to which she basically did the drawing and tendou just colored it in. however he liked to think that it was the thought that counted, either way.

“sorry i’m late,” the missing middle blocker finally appeared. he was trying to catch his breathe as he rested his arms upon his bent knees. perhaps he quite disliked how gigantic the shiratorizawa campus was when it came to this. “i had to take care of something.”

ushijima gave semi an amused look before hardening his gaze on tendou, he tried not to laugh as he cleared his throat to hide that fact. “what’s more important than volleyball practice?” perhaps in the ace’s rarity, he was in the mood to tease the guy. “a girl?”

and immediately, the look on tendou’s face—of complete and utter fear that his captain would potentially punish him with extra conditioning was going to be the death of him—was instead replaced with chuckles him ushijima and semi.

“i’ll leave you off the hook as this was your first time missing a practice, not to mention you missed it for a girl you’ve liked for three years now.” said ushijima surprisingly out of character, than even he found himself shocked by saying it. “but if you miss another practice for (y/l/n), you’ll have extra conditioning everyday before and after school.”

tendou nods rapidly, “yessir!”

the rest of the day was filled with the sound of firm volleyballs being hit and slapped across the gym before falling to the floors with a coupled thud.

and despite trying his very hardest to focus his mind upon the practice game, he couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander to you in your bright enormity. his mind was on you, and yet he was playing the game harder than ever with each and every block he endured. perhaps it was the nerves, the aching adrenaline that flowed through his veins at the mere thought of  confessing to you by the time practice ended fueled his fire.

even if this was just a practice game against his own teammates, he was going to win for you and leave the gym with a confident aura enough to give him the guts to walk up to you.

the thing is, the game had already ended before he knew it. his side of the court had won and reached 25 points before he could even blink with the fact that he was in a ready stance even after the whistle had been blown.

“tendou,” ushijima called out to the redhead. “good luck.”

with that, the middle blocker’s head had cleared as he gave a smile to the setter. he walked over his bag, snatching it up and over his shoulder as he grabbed the rolled up poster within his clammy hands.

god, i’m was nervous. he thought to himself as he walked out of that gym.

the loud, boisterous guffaws from the rest of his teammates faded and echoed into oblivion as he walked the opposite way from everyone else. as the rest were going home, it was him who was on his was to your classroom. he had heard from your friend that you had cleaning duties today after school and it was the perfect time to just swallow his pride and just say.

but his actions were definitely faster than his thoughts as he had impulsively slammed the classroom door open without thinking.

you had thrown a shocked glance at the redhead at the sudden harsh action as he had thrown an embarrassed smile at you. chuckling at that adorable look on his face, you quickly set you mop aside. “tendou? what are you doing here? is your practice over already?”

the redhead nods, “yeah, just a couple minutes ago—um, i-uh just wanted to uh—”

he sighed frustratingly. this was the first time that the tendou satori—the third year infamously known for his innate way of speaking to others in such bright confidence for once, had his tongue tied. the reason why was obvious. it was because of you and your beaming eyes and that godforsaken smile of yours that made him go utterly crazy.

he was still trying to find the right words to say when your gaze fell upon the rolled up poster within his shaking hands. “what’s this?” you asked innocently as your hand reached for the poster and took it out of his hands without much force.

“w-wait! that’s—!”

you unrolled the poster, honey glazed your irises as your mouth gaped slightly.

it was you. a painting of you sitting under one of the large trees on one of the campus’s courtyards, sketching who knows what along with tendou’s large handwriting sprayed at the top:

WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME, (Y/N)?

you breath was snatched out of your throat as you flickered your widened eyes up to him. red and pink hues adored tendou’s cheeks and ears, scratching the back of his head as his chestnut eyes refused to meet yours. if he were to look at you then and there, he would immediately melt into a puddle of blossoming cherries.

“did you make this for me?” you asked gently, still absolutely moonstruck at the poster. it was a simple painting that was definitely not drawn entirely by tendou as you could tell your friend had something to do with it, but you couldn’t help but be absolutely astonished that he even went out his way for this. “i love it,” you whispered, capturing tendou’s attention.

“y-you do?” the redhead huffs in disbelief.

tendou was closer to you, more than you were comfortable with, but you didn’t fight it off. you didn’t bother giving a little space between you two. “i was serious when i always thought you were cool. you were the only one out of that group of popular kids to talk to me and was actually nice about it.” you suddenly professed. your consciousness mentally slapped you over and over again from the embarrassment of saying such a thing. and yet, the signal in her mind didn’t releasse itself until the moment you felt your eyes fall upon tendou’s chamomile lips. and to your peachy ones, did tendou even dare to think of the impossible, of the serenity that filled them under your blushing cheeks,

“i really like you, (y/n)... and i have for a while now.” he muttered.

you bit your lip at the sudden downpour of feelings that you didn’t even notice yourself clutching and perhaps accidentally crumpling the poster he made. “me too,” you said in a mere whisper, your gaze flickering back down to the floor. “and to answer your question... yes, i will go out with you, tendou.”

the redhead felt his breath hitch in his throat, pausing with his eyes almost wide and doe-like when he looked at you underneath the last rays of the setting sun. he let’s out a bright chuckle, “cool.” he attempted to act casually only to break the moment he found your embrace.

you gently laughed as it muffled within his chest, “cool.” you repeated.

[myhockeyworld87]

Afraid - David Pastrnak

Word Count: 2,418

Requested: Yes

POV: Reader

Warnings: Language 

Notes: I can’t find the original request, but this is the one someone wanted me to write with the Bruins and I was going to change it to the Stars, so I hope this ends up being ok. Happy Reading!

The first thing you realized when you met David, or Pasta, as everyone else called him, was that he wasn't afraid of anything. He wasn't afraid to drop the gloves and fight when he was on the ice, even though it worried the hell out of you; and he surely wasn't afraid to kill any of the gross and nasty bugs that would fly or crawl into your place. When you watched a scary movie, you were constantly hiding your head into his chest. His teammates would try to get the upper hand on him all the time, pulling pranks on him, but nothing seemed to make him flinch.

 You were at one of the Bruins get together early on in the season, hanging by the pool when Jake tried to scare him by slithering a snake down his shoulder. It was an elaborate plan, he and Marchand were up on the roof, while Krug was distracting Pasta. They dropped the fake reptile down onto him perfectly; though David just laughed and continued on with his conversation as if nothing happened.

 It was after that, that Jake cornered you and asked for your help. "Come on, (Y/N), you've got to know something that he's afraid of."

 "Honestly, I can't think of a thing."

 "Nothing at all? What about bears attacking him or fear of heights?" You made a face at him as if to say are you kidding me. He needed to think bigger. "We really need your help here."

 "I'll try and think of something." It was two weeks later when you were lying in bed with Pasta, watching some nonsense on television, that it came to you. You weren't sure what it was, but there was a noise in the house that had both of you looking at each other. David went to investigate and found nothing. "Maybe it's a ghost," you teased.

 "Shut up, that's not funny." He said crawling back under the covers.

 "David, you're not afraid of a little ghost are you?" He just smirked at you, not saying a word. "What is my big strong hockey player scared of the boogeyman?"

 He flipped you on your back, looming over you then, causing you to gasp as he pressed his erection into your body. "Mmm, nothing to be afraid of here." He breathed out, then pulled your shirt up kissing his way up to your breasts. "I don't see any ghosts here either, but maybe I should do a thorough investigation." He then proceeded to strip your body and comb every inch of it with his mouth before making you beg for him inside you.

 It was about a week later when you were finally able to give Jake the idea. "You really think that would get him?" He asked.

 "I mean it's worth a try."

 Jake had an elaborate scheme; he'd rented out a bed and breakfast for the guys to stay at overnight. He'd made arrangements with the owner to have some hair-raising events happen throughout the night to make it seem as if the place was haunted. "I'm not going if you don't go." Pasta insisted.

 "But isn't this a team thing, not a couple's thing." You knew what was going to happen and didn't want any parts of it.

 "So, we can make it a couples thing. I don't get to see you enough as it is." He grabbed you around the waist and pulled you close. "I'm not spending one of my nights at home without you." He kissed your lips then and you melted. "Come on, I'll call Marchy and see if he and Kat can get someone to watch the kids for the night. I'm sure they could use a night off. Maybe Torey will bring Mel too."

 "Yeah, and what about Jake? He'll be all alone." It was a last-ditch effort, for you knew your boyfriend could be stubborn when he wanted to. "Maybe he needs this guy time or something."

 "If you invite Sara, he'll be fine. You know he's been working on dating her for a while now. This will just help them out a bit. You know, nudge them in the right direction."

 The fact that Sara had been bugging you to set her up with Jake, didn't help. If she found out about something like this, she'd kill you for not inviting her. "Call Jake and make sure it's ok with him first."

 "He'll be fine with it." When you swatted his chest, he sighed. "Ouch, alright I'll call him." Of course, Jake was fine with everything; he and Marchy were dying to scare the wits out of Pasta for years. You packed an overnight bag for both of you to stay in the country bed and breakfast. Jake and Sara drove with the two of you, while the other four went in Marchand's car. The two- and half-hour drive was beautiful as the leaves on the trees were covered in vibrant shades of orange, red, and yellow.

 The house was a giant old Victorian home, that looked warm and inviting; if you didn't know what was going to happen you'd actually want to just come for the weekend and get away. "Wow, this place is beautiful," Sara exclaimed while you were getting out of the car.

 "Yeah, nice call Jake," Pasta added as the two guys grabbed your overnight bags. You glared over at Jake, who just smirked back. The other four pulled in next to you guys and soon everyone was being shown to their rooms. Your little group explored the town, doing wine tasting, and checking out the local flavor the town had to offer. After a wonderful dinner your host had made, she started to tell you the legend of the home.

 "It was built back in the 1800s, right before the civil war. You know Massachusetts played a significant role in the antislavery movement." Everyone was listening with rapt attention. "This house held some very important strategy meetings in it. Well, that was until one night, when rebel spies came in and slaughter two generals right in their beds. They say sometimes at night they still roam these halls plotting their revenge." You saw Sara's eyes widen at the tale, as the girl was definitely afraid of the supernatural. "Well on that note, I'll leave you all to it. Make yourselves at home, and if you need anything we're right next door. I'll be back in the morning to make everyone breakfast." There were a round of goodnights and a bunch of thank-yous before she added. "Oh, there's also a Ouija board if you interested in seeing if their spirits are still here." With that, she headed out the door.

 "Oh, no we are not doing that." Sara was the first to say.

 "Come on babe," Jake said to her, though part of you wondered when he started using the term of endearment. "It'll be fun. It's not like this place is haunted or anything."

 "Yeah, I can't see the harm in it," Brad added. "As long as no one pushes the little letter mover."  

 "It's a planchette, dummy," Katrina responded, swiping her hubby upside the head.

 "How do you know this?"

 "I know lots of things, but you never ask." Jake was already bringing out the board to play. You could see a slight hesitation in David's eyes and while you knew the entire thing was set up you weren't that keen on playing with a device used to contact the spirit world.

 "Come on it'll be a good time. Now everyone put one finger on the…"

 "Planchette," Kat supplied again.

 "Yeah, what she said." He went and shut the lights off, leaving the room basked in the glow of the flickering candles in the room.

 "I'm not so sure about this." You reiterated just to make it known that you were not in on this.

 "It's fine (Y/N), you have Pasta to protect you. He's not afraid of anything. Are you?"

 "What me, afraid?" He shook his head, but you still heard a slight hitch in his voice. "Never."

 "Alright, let's get to it." Everyone put a finger on the cursor. "Spirit of this house, we ask you to let us know you are hear." The small wooden shape moved over to the word 'yes.'

 "Somebody moved that," Krug yelled out, to which everyone answered not me. "This is fucked up."

 "Ask it something else," Mel encouraged.

 "Can you give us a sign?" Jake said now looking up into the room as if the spirit was somehow hovering above you. The curtains on the window, which were open, suddenly closed. Everyone gasping as they did.

 Sara pulled her finger off the planchette. "I don't want to play this anymore."

 "Alright which one of you assholes is pulling the cord," Pasta asked.

 "How the hell are we suppose to do that when we're not even close to it," Marchand answered.

 "Spirit make your presence known," Jake asked again before anyone could question anything else happening. It took a second, but then you felt a warm breeze waft into the room, a ghostly figure taking form in the reflection of the glass of the picture hanging on the wall. You gasped and pointed, taken back slightly even though you knew it was only a parlor trick. It disappeared as fast as it came.

 "This isn't funny anymore," Mel told everyone in the room and you wondered if their husbands had let them in on the joke. From the look on her face that was at least not the case with Mel.

 "Oh, it's harmless, here let me try." Kat chimed in. "Spirit tell us who you are?" the cursor glided across the board to the letters G-E-N-E-R-A-L. "General who?" It then moved to M-E-A-G-H-E-R. "General Meager, were you killed in the civil war?" Kat really seemed to be getting into the game even more so as it moved to yes.

 Krug got in on the questions, asking, "Were you murdered here?" The planchette moved back again to yes, only this time a candle blew out with it.

 "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this, guys. I think we're scaring the girls here." Pasta said a slight tremble in his voice.

 "You aren't scared are you Pasta?" Jake teased. The word 'NO' came out much sharper than intended. "Give us another sign." The lights to the room went on and off several times, and you knew Jake had to be controlling it with some remote.

 There were more questions, which were met with moves of the cursor answering them. Of course, Marchand had to ask another question to have something spooky happen. "Were you secretly a spy?" The cursor moved quickly up to the word no and there was a loud crash in the room off to the side. Everyone screamed, well at least you girls did but even the guys gasped as the noise startled all of you.

 "I think you angered it," Jake told the group.

 "All right, I think we've all had enough of this little game guys." Pasta chided the men. "You're frightening the girls." You could also tell that he was scared as well. His leg hadn't stopped shaking; it was a definite sign he was nervous.

 "Admit it, man, you're afraid as well." Jake taunted him. You weren't sure if it was enough to get David to admit anything, but then the candle levitated off the table; not more than an inch but it had you clutching Pasta's arm.

 "Fine, this is freaking me the fuck out. Now, knock it off."

 "I….we…" Jake's voice was trembling with fear. "Didn't do that."

 "Fuck no man," Marchy added and suddenly the room got hot as if all the air had been sucked out of it. Torey pushed the board away, signaling an end to the game. "This isn't funny anymore."

 "Turn the damn lights on Jake," David yelled, and Jake got up to turn them back on, only when he flicked the switch nothing happened. He did it about five times repeatedly and nothing happened.

 "Seriously, Jake this is not funny at all." You screamed and huddled closer to David. It was then that you heard a ghostly voice moaning out in pain. The sound sent shivers up your spine. Suddenly the painting on the wall, crashed to the floor, splintering the glass in little pieces. Everyone shrieked.

 "I'm not doing this; I swear to god!" Jake whimpered out completely scared now like the rest of you. Marchy and Krug echoing that they weren't involved in this either.

 "I think we should leave," Sara whined, but you totally agreed.

 "Oh my god," Mel gasped out, pointing over to the mirror where blood was dripping down. You had no clue what was happening but there was no way in hell you were staying at this place.

 "Holy Fuck!" You heard Brad, or maybe it was Jake, yell; perhaps it was both. It was then that you felt Pasta shaking beside you. Automatically, you assumed it was from being just as afraid as all of you. That was until you heard his loud bark of laughter.

 "What the?" It was your thoughts, but Debrusk was the one to give it voice.

 Just then the lights came on, Pasta still laughing hysterically. He pulled a remote out of his pocket. "You fools thought that you could get me, but looks like I got you instead."

 You pulled away from him and smacked him hard on the shoulder, where he mouthed out an 'ow.' "Not funny David, not funny at all."

 "Oh, I beg to differ sweetheart. The looks on all of your faces are quite funny."

 "Wait this whole thing was a setup?" Sara asked.

 "Yes," Pasta admitted, before continuing. "These three thought they could scare me, but I turned it around on them. I told you I'm not afraid of anything." Suddenly, all the candles on the table blew out, even though the air didn't stir. "Haha, very funny guys, but the joke is over."

 "I thought you did that," Jake said.

 Pasta shook his head no, while everyone else looked at each other. "Maybe, you should stay someplace else for the night," David admitted, somewhat shaken by what happened. Everyone agreed and headed upstairs to go grab their things. What no one saw was the smirk on your face, for in the end, you were the one who had the upper hand on them all.  

[trollcafe]

Glitter

Length: 1791 Words TW: None, ask to tag if needed. Brief: Juleus talks to an old friend. Credits: Juleus and Brutus belong to me Here’s the song I listened to while writing this!

Google Docs link for easier Viewing!

    The halls of the ship groaned with each step Juleus took. The crew were scattered amongst the ship, doing their assorted jobs. In the distance, small chatter could be heard. Laughter. Voices of his crew making and forming relationships, conversing with each other, enjoying the company of friends and peers. And here Juleus was, the lonely commander, King of everything he wanted, making his way to the one room on the ship that held anyone worth conversing with.

    Juleus closed his eye as he walked. He listened to the ship, drowning out the sounds of voices and focusing on the hum. Every captain should know what his ship is saying. He learned this at a young age from a much wiser man. The ship was telling him it would be alright. 

    The voices dissipate as Juleus grew closer to the power room. One of many on this ship. Juleus was no idiot. If one battery died, there would be another. This particular room held someone...important. And yet, not. He unlocked the door and ducked inside. The room was dark, the only lights came from the glowing wires that traveled along the walls. In the middle of the room was a troll with his back to Juleus. He was silent, as if sleeping. In front of the troll was a chair. Nothing significant about it. The light from the wires pulsed, fading in and out as the energy was pulled. Mint and pink lights danced to a song only the sleeper was hearing. Juleus shut the door, causing it to make a heavy slam. 

    Every wire in the room flashed as the sleeping troll was startled awake. Juleus watched the goldblood before him glance around but said nothing. Instead, he slowly walked around him and sat in the chair. He crossed his leg over his knee and leaned back. The chair groaned in complaint. The goldblood narrowed his mismatched eyes when he realized who was before him.

    “To what do I owe the honor, oh great Imperial Bastard?”

    Juleus barked a bitter laugh. Despite the bitterness, he still grinned, “It’s nice to see you, too, Brutus.” 

    “You never call me that. Unless you want something.” Brutus cocked a brow, but he looked far from pleased. 

    “Can I not just enjoy the company of a friend? Must I want something, Brute?” 

    “You call me a friend, yet wear my ring. You always want something, Julie.” Brutus’ expression softened slightly, “Has it been getting worse?” 

    Juleus’ expression fell instantly. He glared at Brutus, lip pulling up in a slight snarl, “Who are you to ask such a thing? I should kill you for asking. Inconsiderate fuck.” 

    “I see, it has. I suppose Bixith being gone hasn’t...helped.”

    “Shut up.” Juleus sat upright, “You do not get to say her name. You do not get to question me. You are the exact reason we are here; therefore you do not get to question it.” His voice was cold, eye narrowed. 

    “Julie…” Brutus started, but was interrupted by Juleus slamming his hand down on the armrest of the chair. 

    “I’LL KILL YOU!” 

    “Then do it already, you bastard!” Brutus barked back just as sharp, with little fear in his chest. The wires flashed along with his outburst, but quickly faded into their normal rhythm. He had no doubt in his mind that Juleus would not. 

    Juleus glared at Brutus for a moment. Slowly, he slouched back into his seat. He looked off to the side, watching the wires pulse. The silence that fell over them was thick with tension. 

    “Julie, can you pull me out of this?” Brutus finally broke the silence after what felt like a millennia. Juleus perked up as his name was said.

    “It’s not safe to.” Juleus’ voice was now soft, “You know this.” 

    “I know. Just for a bit. I just want to walk for a few moments.” Brutus’ eyes were sad. He knew the reason he was a battery, and he knew how Juleus felt about him. His betrayal. But still, he tried. 

    Juleus sighed softly, and stood up. He walked around Brutus and shut off the power. The wires immediately stopped glowing, submerging both of them in total darkness. After a moment, an overhead light flickered awake. Juleus stood behind Brutus and contemplated what he was about to do. The goldblood was silent. Juleus sighed once more. 

    Slowly, the fuchsia wrapped his arm around Brutus. Doing this with just one arm was never easy, Juleus had learned this the hard way. Regardless, he paused before going further. 

    “Are you ready?” 

    Brutus closed his eyes, “In a moment.” He leaned back against Juleus, taking the moment to relish in the feeling of being held. It was more than just being held, of course. Being close to someone he once loved, he still loved. Brutus didn’t want Juleus to notice what he was doing, so it only lasted a second. Then he nodded. 

    Juleus had noticed, but said nothing. He steadied himself, then pulled. The wires gave out easily. They had gotten used to Brutus being pulled free by this point. Juleus gently set Brutus on his feet, slouching over to do so. He kept his hold on the gold for just a moment. To steady him, of course, that’s what he told himself.

    Juleus finally let Brutus free, and made his way over to the door. The giant man slowly got down on the ground, sitting in front of the only exit. He wasn’t sure if he trusted Brutus not to run. He wasn’t sure why he let the gold free once more. He watched quietly as Brutus stretched and took a few steps. There were scars along Brutus’ arms and legs. His hair was cut short, but still long enough to be wavy. It was naturally blonde. When Juleus had first arranged for Brutus to be a battery, he had the gold’s hair cut short. He found himself quickly regretting that decision. While his feelings on Brutus were uncertain, he knew for sure that he loved the other’s hair. As Brutus stretched his arms upwards, his tank top pulled up as well, exposing the bottom part of a hidden tattoo. The silence was filled with a few loud pops from Brutus’ neck and back.

    The gold shook out the last of the tension from his fingertips, then finally faced Juleus. He was silent as he got closer to the fuchsia. He stopped and sat on the ground a few feet in front of him. This made Juleus raise his brow. 

    “Can I help you? Walk around, stretch, enjoy freedom while it lasts.” That was how it normally went. Juleus would sit in this exact spot and watch Brutus walk around for a few minutes before telling him the time was up. Brutus never went back with a fight. For Brutus to sit in front of him...it was strange. 

    “Talk to me, Julie. Or don’t. If you don’t talk...can you sing? I miss your voice.” Brutus smiled softly to sweeten the deal. He leaned forward, closer to Juleus. Jules on the other hand was uncertain. He was quiet. 

    “I know you remember the shanties, the tunes we’d sing at sea. They haunt you. They haunt me too. My voice is no good...Can you…? For me? Then I can go back and you can leave.” Brutus inched closer as he spoke. Juleus felt cornered. And yet, he couldn’t find it within himself to lash out. He remained silent. 

    “Cap got your tongue, eh?” Brutus laughed softly, “That’s alright. I put you on the spot. Do you remember...what was it called...Old Maui....rolling down to old Maui.” Brutus began to hum the chorus softly. Juleus narrowed his eye slightly. 

    “You’re not in tune.” He finally spoke, though he knew well that Brutus had done that on purpose. 

    “Sharp as a tack, that Deepbite.” Brutus nodded, moving a little closer still. Before he could continue, Juleus spoke once more. 

    “What are you doing? Stop prolonging whatever it is you are prolonging.” Juleus said this with uncertainty. Brutus could lash out and try to kill him. That didn’t seem like a very in character thing for Brutus to do...but Juleus was never certain. 

    Brutus paused, before nodding. He crawled the rest of the way to sit between Juleus’ legs, and lean back against his chest. It was painfully obvious to Juleus just how small Brutus was compared to him. Despite the gold’s small size, Juleus still felt himself tense up. Brutus closed his eyes and Juleus slowly relaxed. 

    Juleus let the silence fall back between them. There was nothing for him to say. It was pathetic. He allowed himself to be toyed with by a goldblood of all things, and not just any goldblood. But the exact goldblood who got him in the Fleet. The goldblood who used Juleus’ status as a means for a cushy life. He was still using Juleus for a cushy life, even as a battery. Juleus was more upset with himself than with Brutus, however. 

    “I don’t hate you, Jules.” Brutus finally broke the silence and disrupted Juleus’ train of thought. 

    “...I know.” Juleus looked off to the side. 

    “Do you hate me?” Brutus opened his eyes at last, but kept his gaze forward. 

    “I don’t know.” 

    Silence fell on them once more. Brutus looked down at his hands, scarred and bruised. He reached to his side and gently took Juleus’ hand, pulling it up into his own lap. Juleus didn’t fight him. Brutus entertained himself by tracing his fingers over the tattoo of his symbol on Juleus’ finger. 

    “It’s okay if you do, Julie. You can hate me if it makes you feel better.” Brutus spoke softly, but Juleus never replied. He wasn’t certain if Juleus was even listening. Brutus wanted to explain the reasons for what he had done. But he knew it didn’t matter in the end. Nothing he said or did now could change the past. The silence was no longer uncomfortable, just heavy. Eventually, Brutus leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 

    “I’m going to take a nap. You should too.” His words were more of a demand than a request. He kept Juleus’ hand in his own. The fuchsia did nothing as Brutus continued to stroke the rough skin. All Juleus did was sigh softly. They both knew he wouldn’t move again until Brutus had woken up. And they both knew once he did, that things would go back to how they always were. Juleus would leave and continue his slow descent, and Brutus would go back to the boring life of a battery. But maybe this time, Juleus would visit him more. Just maybe.

[nonbinarybrainstorm]

Thunderclash Ruins Normal Spike for TFA Roddy

So, by popular demand or at least high interest, I’ve written my tfa!Roddy and ll!Thunders fic idea

Content: size kink, tummy bulge, excessive cum, kindling feelings

Enjoy!

Shots fire over the battlefield with resounding explosions as they make impact on the gray stone around them. Rodimus Prime pushes his back against a low outcropping and checks his bow, cursing as he takes in the damage. It was going to need extensive repairs after this and as it is now, he probably would only be able to get a few more shots in. Well, better make them count. He whips around to aim above his cover, targeting towards the Decepticons charging at him at full speed. Shutting his optics for just a flicker of a moment, thanking Primus that at the very least his team had managed to getaway. He pulls back and is just about to release as a sudden flash of light and a thunderous boom shakes the thin atmosphere, startling him and making his shot fly wide. Everything goes still as the dust begins to settle and a large silhouette lifts from the ground. It’s a mech like none Rodimus has ever seen, large and powerful like a Decepticon but land-bound like an Autobot. All Rodimus can think this mech could be is back up for the Decepticons here but they were far from needing any. What was going on?

Thunderclash looks around, dazed and confused, trying to gather his bearings and make sense of what just happened. Oh, right, Brainstorm happened, his processor finally provides helpfully. He turns to spot some unusual looking transformers emblazoned with the Decepticon insignia making him go on guard immediately. The war may be over but that certainly didn’t seem to stop any Decepticons they’ve met so far from wanting to continue hostilities. Realizing they were already on the attack as he puts his stance wide, he traces their line of attack to find their quarry. His optics land on a small bot, a mini and at that moment Thunderclash recognizes his shape, his colors and realizes he must be in another universe for he’s staring at a small replica of Rodimus Prime. He doesn’t need to spare a moment more to think about it, whatever the current situation, these Decepticons were going down. He wasn’t about to let any incarnation of Rodimus come to harm, not even that one evil one they met.

Rodimus watches in slack-jawed awe as the new arrival swiftly knocks the front-most Decepticon back like he weighed nothing more than an annoying stack of datapads. The mech’s movements were practiced and elegant like he’d been doing this all his life, a true machine of war. It didn’t make any sense in Rodimus’s processor as to why this mech who should be among Megatron’s most elite was defending him and he knew this mech was defending him after seeing that look in his red optics. Before Rodimus can come to any kind of census in his processor, the Decepticons who had been on the verge of bringing him to his end are retreating with heavy wounds of terribly dented armor and rips through their plating leaking energon. The mech turns around now covered with blast marks and scratches that don’t even seem to phase him with the occasional splatter of energon here and there. None of the energon could be his with how there wasn’t a single significant wound on his body. The strange mech smiles down at him and Rodimus can feel his frame heat inexplicably.

Thunderclash slowly walks towards the small Rodimus and kneels down to reach his hand out to him.

“Are you alright?” Thunderclash calls softly to him, not wanting to startle him.

The mech has an Autobot brand on his chest but he’s so tall and big, Rodimus can’t fathom it. Without thinking, Rodimus reaches it out and places his hand on the mech’s outstretched one. Upon the light touch, the mech’s hand wraps around his completely, encasing it gently but firmly in a warm embrace before he’s helped up from kneeling. Rodimus stares up mech and feels very small as he stands to see he only reaches the mech’s spike cover which serves to fill his processor with very unseemly thoughts that make his faceplates heat up. He blames it on the high of battle and pushes the thought roughly away.

“Yes, thank you,” Rodimus keeps his optics firmly trained on his face.

Thunderclash smiles down at this mini Rodimus and then feels his face heat in embarrassment as he realizes he hasn’t even introduced himself yet, “Oh, uh, I’m Thunderclash by the way.”

“Thunderclash,” Rodimus repeats and clears his intake, embarrassed at how dreamy his voice sounds saying this mech’s name.

“You must be Rodimus Prime, the Rodimus Prime of this universe that is,” Thunderclash says and releases his hand when he notices he was still holding it.

Rodimus blinks up in surprise and nods, “Yes, you’re from another universe? Do you know my alternate there?”

“I am,” Thunderclash’s smiles warmly again making Rodimus’s spark stutter, “He’s my captain, the captain of the Lost Light. I’m rather proud of that claim.”

A burst of jealousy that Rodimus knows is completely unreasonable bubbles up in his spark as he puts on a smile for Thunderclash.

“That sounds nice,” Rodimus scratches the back of his helm nervously.

Suddenly, his communicator beeps and he sees the message is coming in from command. He looks up apologetically at Thundeclash who waves him off with understanding. Rodimus nods his thanks and walks a few steps away to answer his communicator.

“Rodimus Prime,” Ultra Magnus’s strong voice pops in with a burst of static, “What is your situation?”

“I remained behind to give my team a chance to escape,” Rodimus reports, chancing a glance at Thunderclash every so often seeing him on his own call, “The Decepticons retreated after I received some aid from…”

Rodimus stalls as the ridiculousness of Thunderclash’s existence crashes over him. He couldn’t just tell Ultra Magnus he’d got help from a giant Autobot from another universe, that would sound insane.

“Rodimus?” Ultra Magnus prompts him, sounding concerned.

Rodimus shakes his head and responds, “I received some aid from a surprisingly adept civilian who helped me beat back the Decepticons.”

“That is… surprising,” Ultra Magnus says over the comm, thankfully sounding more surprised than doubtful, “We will have to give this civilian a commendation. A transport is set to arrive at your destination in two cycles with a Red Alert. We anxiously await your return.”

“Thank you, sir,” and with that the call ends.

Thunderclash walks up to him, “I’ve been told that I’m going to be picked up in just a few hours. So, I guess I’m here until then. You?”

“Transport is on its way,” Rodimus shrugs then tilts his head, “Hours?”

Thunderclash shrugs, “Earth time. It caught on pretty quickly on our ship.”

“Okay…” Rodimus says not sure how else to respond.

They stand there awkwardly for a moment, neither of them quite sure what to say. Thunderclash pats his legs for a moment and looks at an outcropping of rocks, thoughts flitting behind his optics.

“It’s going to be a while until I can get back, until either of us are going to get back,” Thunderclash points to the outcrop and looks back at Rodimus, “I’m going to go sit over there, maybe catch some recharge. Feel free to join me if you wish.”

Thunderclash walks over to the outcropping and slides down its surface so his back is to it and stretches his strong arms out before resting them on his knees. Rodimus watches him, feeling a sudden sense of indecision. There was a real possibility he was never going to see this mech again and Rodimus wanted… He didn’t know what he wanted really or, rather, he wanted to many things. He knew exactly what he wanted what was he kidding himself for? If they’re never going to see each other again after this then there was no harm in testing the waters or even taking the plunge. If he asked the worst that would happen is that he would be embarrassed for two whole cycles and that would be the end of it. Making a decision, Rodimus walks up to Thunderclash and rests a hand on his knee, getting Thunderclash to look up at him with an open expression.

“Uh, I would like to give you my thanks,” Rodimus drums his fingers on Thunderclash’s knee, “for saving me, I mean.”

Thunderclash smiles sweetly at him, genuinely touched, “It was no trouble.”

“No, I know,” Rodimus gets closer, moving his hand to Thunderclash’s shoulder, leaning in closer with his spark spinning a mile a minute, “I saw how you defeated them with barely straining a cable. I just want you to know…”

Thunderclash doesn’t move as Rodimus leans in, optics traveling to his derma and staying stock still, not entirely believing that this was happening. Rodimus leans in close and presses a kiss against his lips which Thunderclash would like to say that he had a bit more self-control and didn’t immediately melt into it but he did. Having this small version of Rodimus in his arms was like a dream. He doesn’t remember when he pulled Rodimus into his lap, but there he was, kneeling and kissing Thunderclash like his life depended on it. Thunderclash trails his hands over Rodimus’s frame, unable to resist the mech in front of him, feeling how small he is with his frame fit perfectly into Thunderclash’s hands. One of Rodimus’s knees rubs Thunderclash’s panel and it snaps open to let his spike pressurize between them. He tries to apologize to Rodimus but his words turn into a gasp as he feels Rodimus grab the head of his spike and run his thumb over it.

“Is this okay?” Rodimus pants out and Thunderclash just nods.

Thunderclash feels his processor practically melt as Rodimus starts stroking his spike, eyeing it with a hungry optic that Thunderclash had never even imagined on the face of his captain. Then, Rodimus uncovers his valve and lowers down in front of Thunderclash’s spike so he can push up against it with his wet valve. Making a choked off sound in his intake, Thunderclash grabs onto what he can of Rodimus as he balances on Thunderclash’s knees and starts grinding against Thunderclash’s spike. Thunderclash just moans and watches as Rodimus’s, this alternate Rodimus’s valve lips hug his spike as Rodimus moves his hips along it, gasping whenever his node rubbed against the head of Thunderclash’s spike. Rodimus’s legs begin to shake so Thunderclash takes him in his arms and moves to his knees so he can keep grinding his spike between the hot folds of Rodimus’s valve. He looks down at Rodimus whose optics are blazing with light and his face is practically split with how wide his smile is, optics firmly locked on Thunderclash’s spike.

Thunderclash moves his hips faster, getting Rodimus to cry out sweetly and pant, hot to the touch in Thunderclash’s hands. Then Rodimus grabs the head of his spike and squeezes, sending a jolt through Thunderclash that makes him stop cold, panting and moaning heavily.

“I want you to overload inside me,” Rodimus leans up and captures Thunderclash’s derma in a slow, gentle kiss before breaking it with a swipe of his glossa over Thunderclash’s lower lip.

“I don’t think…” Thunderclash vents out between pants only to screw his optics shut as Rodimus lines himself up with Thunderclash’s spike.

“Just go slow,” Rodimus trails his hand down Thunderclash’s length with one hand as grips Thunderclash’s arm with the other.

When Thunderclash still hesitates, Rodimus pushes himself down onto his spike some, the head of Thunderclash’s spike already stretching him obscenely so his node rubs against Thunderclash’s spike. Leaning down to steady himself on one hand, Thunderclash pushes in at a painfully slow pace, terrified of hurting this Rodimus. As the spike pushes deep inside of the wet heat of Rodimus’s valve, he relaxes to let more and more in. Rodimus moans as he sees how his plating shifts to let Thunderclash in, a bulge forming on his abdomen where Thunderclash’s spike is. Thunderclash feels himself shaking as he tenses every cable in his body to keep him from simply sinking into Rodimus, his valve impossibly tight around his spike. He can feel heat gather in his array and pressure build in his spike, waiting to be released.

Rodimus grips Thunderclash’s chestplate and tugs him down sharply to look him in the optic, “You’re not allowed to overload yet, not until you’re all the way in then you can.”

Something ignites along Thunderclash’s lines and he bites his derma as he continues to push in slowly, using every ounce of his willpower to hold back which comes harder as more of his spike pushes into Rodimus. Rodimus feels Thunderclash’s spike twitch in his valve as he’s stretched wide and filled so completely his hips twitch and spasm, unable to escape the almost overwhelming sensations. Finally, Thunderclash feels Rodimus’s valve lips press against his pelvic plates and sighs with relief, pausing as he vents heavily, heat and charge clouding his processor. Rodimus runs a hand over his lower plating over the shallow bulge and bites his derma as he writhes on the spike, gasping as the ridges rub against the walls of his valve.

“Well come on,” Rodimus pants excitedly, his optics flaring erraticly, “I know you’re desperate to overload. So, do it, I want to feel you overload inside me.”

Thunderclash chokes off a groan and practically overloading upon Rodimus’s command, filling him with hot transfluid, so that some pushes past his spike to drip onto the gray stone below. Rodimus cries out as he’s filled, overloading on Thunderclash’s spike, his valve unable to tighten anymore around Thunderclash’s spike that’s filling him so completely. They come down from their overloads rapidly rather than gradually and charge immediately begins to build again in Rodimus’s systems and he moves his hips however much he can.

“Keep going,” Rodimus begs, gripping desperately onto Thunderclash, “Please, I need more.”

Thunderclash swallows a moan and pants out, “Say that again.”

Rodimus groans in frustration and all but shouts, “Just frag me! I want you to use that spike of yours to- Ah!”

Thunderclash thrusts and Rodimus digs his fingers into Thunderclash’s arms, unable to form words, barely even able to think as Thunderclash’s spike fills him over and over. Unable to control himself any longer Thunderclash let’s loose, pounding into Rodimus as he keeps him still in one arm, his hand holding Rodimus’s hip tightly. It’s fast and rough, with the obscene sounds of Rodimus’s wet valve being used. Overload takes them both more violently this time, charge licking their frames in broad arches as Thunderclash spills again into Rodimus’s valve, making Rodimus feel warm and heavy in a way he’s never known before. They calm down completely this time and Rodimus winces slightly as Thunderclash’s spike depressurizes out of him, letting cold air hit his valve. Rodimus scrambles to hold onto something as Thunderclash stands up rapidly and walks him over to a taller bolder and sets him down gently. Pulling a clean rag out, Thunderclash begins cleaning him up, muttering under his vents.

Rodimus puts a hand on Thunderclash’s chest, getting him to stop for a moment.

“What is it?” Rodimus asks and Thunderclash looks incredibly chagrined.

“I should’ve had more control, now look at you, you’re all…” Thunderclash rubs his fingers into Rodimus’s abdomen plating soothingly, encouraging them to return to their normal extension.

“Stretched out?” Rodimus offers teasingly but Thunderclash only looks regretfully.

Rodimus pulls Thunderclash’s face down and kisses him again.

“I liked that a lot,” Rodimus smiles up at him, “I hope you did too.”

Thunderclash nods sheepishly and stares down at Rodimus, a faint pang forming in his spark. Wanting every moment he can have of this fantasy, he finishes cleaning them both up then pulls Rodimus to him, to hold him and kiss him sweetly until he gets a notice that just in a few minutes, he’ll be able to go home. The swirling blue vortex appears suddenly in the air and with one last farewell, one last kiss, Thunderclash walks through the hazy portal, returning to his own universe and leaving Rodimus alone.

Later, his transport arrives right on time with Cliffjumper and Red Alert in tow. He boards it with barely a word, feeling a strange kind of melancholy that he didn’t know how to describe. Red Alert guides him to the small medbay and checks him over. To lost in his own thoughts, he misses the concerned glances of the transport crew and the critical gaze of Cliffjumper. Red Alert smirks and that’s what catches his optic.

“What?” Rodimus asks, his tone reflecting his sour demeanor.

Red Alert just shakes her head, “Usually, mechs are a bit more cheerful after getting fragged to within an inch of their life. Have fun with our hero did we?”

Rodimus splutters and Red Alert waits patiently for him to form coherent words. He has to clear his intake of static, her comment throwing him so off guard.

“How do you mean?” he asks as flatly as he can even though he’s completely on edge now.

She points to his abdomen and explains simply, “Your plating is distended at quarter capacity. That only happens for two reasons and seeing as how I didn’t have to turn you the right way out again, you got fragged.”

Rodimus looks away, faceplate heating to a bright red, “Oh.”

“Oh indeed,” Red Alert chuckles, “I guess your hero got all the commendation they wanted then?”

Rodimus doesn’t say anything at first then very quietly says, “He was… nice.”

Red Alert stops and turns around at that to see the melancholy from before return. She walks over and pulls him into a tight hug.

“Oh, Rodimus, I’m sure, you’ll see him again.”

They journey back to Cybertron and Rodimus tries very hard to forget a mech with kind red optics, and a sweet smile.

[simpingforthisonedeer]

Chapter 5: Knife To The Neck

Summary: The aftermath of an assassination attempt; Meet Arthur; Everyone's simping for Julius except Holly(she aint buying his shit); There's a world organization or two; oop there's fae and some more magic lore; what??? is?? Julius??; someone who likes to edge himself apparently; magic paintings and shit, man; also more forbidden magic shtuff :)))

Notes:  There's NSFW Julius and Aika art under the "Julius & Aika" tag and julius thirst from urs truly on my page ;)))) This chapter was gonna be like 10k words long but i didn't wanna scare yall off so have half of it ;))) Oh, and uhhh most chapters will have some explicit here and sometimes the whole chapter will be explicit like the next chapter is going to be a fuckfest O.o (what did you think Julius meant when he said "hOlD mE") So, if you're not into that, I don't suggest reading this fic lmao but hey, if you are, please continue ;)))

“Oh my fucking god, we all nearly died.”

“Mom!” Holly threw her arms around Aika and buried her face in her neck. She wrapped her arms and held her daughter tightly as her head spun.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered, holding back tears, further exacerbating the growing headache. 

Julius kneeled next to the pair and laid a comforting hand on Aika’s head, unwilling to interrupt their moment.

“It’s okay, everyone’s fine,” Holly assured.

“Yes, but you had to—”

“It’s okay, I wasn’t actually scared. Remember what you told me? You told me to think logically if I ever feel scared and logically speaking, the moon is up tonight and dad would’ve been fine. The man needed me alive to leverage me so I would be fine too.”

“I think I would’ve felt better if you blamed me instead of growing up so quickly,” Aika grumbled.

Julius let out a laugh, drawing attention to himself. She untangled herself from Holly and scanned him for any injuries.

“Are you alright, Julius?”

He waved her off and rubbed his eyes. “Besides the impending headache from the monster of a report I would have to write, I’m fine,” He looked at them intently. “You all need a security detail if this really is a common occurrence.”

“Oh! That won’t work!” Holly piped up. “My dad and I don’t even live on this continent and mom’s always travelling or bothering Uncle Ray at work. It’s okay,” she gave him a thumbs up. “My mom can take care of herself. She’s really scary. My dad and her friends are too. That’s why you shouldn’t hold her hand. If anyone fin—”

“Holly!” Aika exclaimed in horror, her cheeks inflamed with embarrassment. She threw an apologetic look at Julius. “He’s a Magic Knight Captain. He can take care of himself.”

“Ohhhh. That’s why he smells so much,” she muttered to herself, nodding as if everything made sense.

“What!” Julius whipped his head around, trying to check himself.

“Holly, no!” Aika stifled her laughs as she tried to catch his attention.

“You don’t smell, Julius. My daughter has Magic Synesthesia. Please forgive her. She’s just trying to say you have a lot of mana.”

He let his jaw drop in awe. That was an incredibly rare and fascinating condition! People with Magic Synesthesia were incredibly sensitive to magic, detecting unique mana from incredibly long distances. In fact, the world’s most famous bounty hunters and trackers had some form of Magic Synesthesia.

“Wait, really?! Then what do I smell like?”

Aika was going to stop Holly before she said something offensive again but it was too late.

“You smell like a warm, jelly-filled pączki in the middle of a lightning storm. It’s a good smell. It’s cold and warm at the same time,” she sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “But it barely covers the whiskey smell.”

“Oh, that was what the sweet smell was,” Aika nodded to herself, not unlike her own daughter. She rather liked pączki… 

Holly narrowed her eyes at her mom. She has good magic sense with her nose too but she has to be really close to smell something distinct like that. When did she get so close to him?

“WOW! That’s amazing, could you tell me—”

“I’m glad you lot are still alive.”

The trio turned towards the front of the house as a handsome, black-haired man with glittering, emerald eyes stepped into the moonlight as he rolled his bleeding shoulder with a groan. He tossed his braid behind him and raised his brows at Julius. 

“Did that handsome Magic Knight over there take that assassin out?”

Julius blushed furiously as this man, whom he was assuming was Arthur, winked salaciously at him.

“Listen here, you useless himbo.”

Holly stifled her giggles as her mom tore into her dad. It would get funnier when she realizes he was drunk too.

“You had one job and that was to keep Holly safe. An assassin throws some iron at you and you fall like a bag of bricks? It’s a freaking miracle you’re still alive after all these years.”

Arthur shrugged and winced at the pain.

“Your concern is touching, but what can I say? The Gods don’t want me and the Devil isn’t done with me. I’ll live.”

Aika rolled her eyes as she stood up and Julius with her.

“But really, what happened to the assassin?”

Julius ran a hand through his hair as he spoke up.

“The assassin had explosive runes on his chest and inside of his mouth. He already activated the runes so Aika threw him high and I contained the explosion. It was the only way.”

“Woah, he has a nice voice too.”

Holly groaned internally. Not her dad too.

“Dad.”

“Sorry, that was rude.” Suddenly he was in front of Julius, bowing as he took his hand. “My name is Arthur. What’s yours?”

Aika slapped his hand away as Julius looked on in shock.

“Don’t answer that question, Julius,” she said seriously as she threw a warning look at Arthur’s way. He shouldn’t use his fae magic if he doesn’t want to bring unwanted attention to himself. With that sentence alone, she made sure Arthur knew Julius’ name indirectly and thwarted his plan to assume control of the unsuspecting man. Trust him to think with his dick.

Holly groaned out loud this time. She didn’t understand what the weird tension between the three was, but it was disgusting. She shook her head as she walked back into the house. She didn’t want to be there if they got worse.

Arthur’s eyes flickered up to his forehead where the star lay on his forehead in interest. 

Is this the Time mage she was looking for?

His eyes slid down to Julius’ chest as he subtly reached out with his mana. He noticed that this man seemed to be hiding a significant portion of his mana and wore the Grey Deers crest.

Oh, lord. Is he that Magic Knight Captain?

“Holy shit, you’re that Captain no one knows the attribute about. Good thing that, considering the Pascere Syndicate went through so much effort to cover up Aika’s Time Magic,” he added.

“The Pascere Syndicate?” Julius frowned. He heard about them. “You mean the Assembly of Nations?” He knew he would have to attend at least one of their conventions after he gets appointed the Wizard King. It was a giant committee that sought to maintain peace, prevent magical wars and forbidden rituals on a global-scale that could destroy the world.

And wait, cover up Time Magic? How does he know that I have Time Magic?  

“Yeah, them. You’ve been doing a good job of covering up your Time magic so far,” he said, looking pointedly at his forehead. “but please try not to catch any unwanted attention from the international community,” Arthur laughed nervously. The last time that happened...Oh, he did not want to think about it. He didn’t particularly care if there was another Time Mage, especially since it looked like Julius kept his low-key, but people who would want to use it for themselves often took down many in their path to get it.

Julius nodded hesitantly at the unexpected advice.

“I’ll keep that in mind...”

“What are you doing here in the countryside anyways? Isn’t there a war going on?”

“He was just escorting me home,” Aika said as glared at Arthur. She slowly wrapped a possessive arm around Julius’ waist. He looked at her with a pleased grin and pulled her closer to his side.

Arthur’s mouth dropped into an “o” when he realized what they were actually here for and threw a knowing smirk at them. 

Seems like the Time mages are getting along quite nicely… 

He laughed as he slapped Julius’ back jovially but immediately recoiled. He quickly covered that up as if he was rolling his shoulders at the expense of the sharp pain that shot through his body. He willed his beating heart to calm down as hysteria threatened to crawl up his buzzed brain.

What the hell was that?

“I’m so sorry, Julius,” Arthur stepped back with his arms raised. He nodded at Aika calmly, though his eyes were filled with no small amount of fear, hoping she would spot it. 

She just threw a grateful look at him and shared a smile with Julius. Arthur’s shoulders slackened an inch when he saw genuine affection in their eyes. Oh. That was surprising...

But whatever it was, he needed to get Holly away from here. He needed to leave anyway due to the custody contract and someone will notice the assassin gone and will investigate. Whatever this Time mage was, he was trouble too. 

“I’ll take Holly home and bring her around tomorrow afternoon,” he declared with forced nonchalance. “Holly!” he called out. “Come on, dear! We’re leaving!”

“Wait, I need a statement from you two,” Julius stepped forward officiously, choosing to ignore his bizarre behavior for now. He had noticed how Arthur let go of him and the way his eyes shook in their sockets as he looked at Aika as if to warn her. He seemed scared of Julius all of a sudden, but whatever it was, he needed to get a word from them before they leave. Plenty of time to investigate later.

“Could you please explain how a foreign assassin got to Hage?”

Aika reached out and touched Arthur’s arm to heal it. He smiled tightly as he answered,

“Holly and I were exploring the continent—because it was our week off,” Arthur quickly explained when Aika opened her mouth to berate him again. “and we were in the Spade Kingdom touring your alma mater,” He motioned at Aika. “when the assassin, who had been tailing us the whole time, finally found an opportunity. We realized too late and were going to teleport away but he caught up to us as we ported here and there was a little scuffle,” Holly jogged back to her father’s side, unamused. “I got injured, Holly was restrained and held hostage for approximately an hour, then you two came along and you know the rest of the story,” he finished as he rushed at the end. He really needed to leave. He was getting antsy to get Julius away from Holly.

“Ah, thank you, Arthur!” Julius took his hand and Arthur suppressed a shudder at the wave of goosebumps and unnatural cold followed by warmth that settled over him.

Julius raised an eyebrow at the way he tensed and the distinctly different mana he was giving off.

That’s very interesting...

“It was really nice meeting you two,” He expressed sincerely.

“Of course,” Arthur said lowly, injecting false flirtatiousness into his tone. He needed to stay in character.

“Aika, can I speak with you for a moment before we go?” His hand twitched as he reached for Holly. He didn’t want to leave her but he needed to avoid suspicion. 

“Of course!” She turned to Julius and quickly pecked his cheek. Arthur’s anxiety shot up. “I’ll be right back Julius,” she said as he grinned sheepishly. Holly rolled her eyes at the display and crossed her arms across her chest.

Arthur squared his shoulders as Aika silently led them to a tree on the front yard. He needed to warn her.

She turned to him with a raised brow.

“Is everything alright?”

Arthur shot a cautious look at Julius. “No, it’s not. Your new boytoy isn’t human.”

She threw a sharp look at him. “First of all, don’t call him ‘my boytoy’ and second of all, what do you mean by that?”

“I mean that he doesn’t have a heart. His heartbeat is fake.”

“Oh, I knew that.”

“What? ”

Aika crossed her arms. “I had my lips to his pulse. His heart was supposed to be beating quickly at that moment, but at the speed he was going, he was either having a heart attack or he was orgasming,” she rolled her eyes. “But we got interrupted before we could even get that far. So yeah, his heartbeat is fake. So what? That doesn’t make him inhuman. His blood still flows, I can assure you that,” she added smugly.

Arthur shook as he stifled a smile. “Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact that his mana is completely different from normal humans.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Well, forbidden magic can make a human mana seem inhuman. He doesn’t have any weg,” her eyes widened. “But didn’t I say that the seal on my forehead could double as a seal for weg?”

“Forget about forbidden magic!” he hissed. “Okay, he’s not as straight-laced as he looks. Okay, whatever, but I know how forbidden magic feels like on a person. This isn’t forbidden magic, it feels more lighter, and it’s not elf magic either. What kind of magic allows you to not have a beating heart, and feel light and dangerous?”

Aika’s cheek twitched. “Fine,” she conceded. “I’ll keep an eye on him. But I think you’re worrying about nothing. He’s had many opportunities to cause any harm but he hasn’t. He was actually really gentle and vulnerable with me. He is also a respected Magic Knight who is on his way to becoming Wizard King.”

“I know and it looks like he may have some rather large skeletons in his closet.”

“Arthur, we all do,” Aika sighed heavily. “Look, he is good. I can assure you that. You know what he wants to do when he is Wizard King? He wants to end classist discrimination in Clover Kingdom and he was genuine about it. Look, I’m surrounded by liars and I can smell one from a mile away. He hasn’t lied to me.”

“Yet.”

She growled in annoyance. “Are you worried about me or something?”

“Am I worried about the mother of my child? Yes, and I still stand by the fact that he doesn’t feel remotely human.”

“You’re not human either, idiot. I don’t care if he isn’t. I mean, as long as he isn’t conspiring anything malicious, I don’t have any problem with him being not-human and/or using forbidden magic,” she snorted. “I’d be a hypocrite if I did.”

“Okay, I’ll drop it for now,” Arthur shook his head. Maybe she’ll see some sense after she’s had her way with him. He smirked at her. 

“I guess you would be biased,” he quirked his eyebrow knowingly. “I see you eye-fucking him.”

“Oh, please as if I’d let that cloud my judgement and besides,” she threw a long look at Julius on his knees as he talked to their daughter. “As soon as you two leave, that wouldn’t be the only thing I would’ve done by the end of the night.”

Arthur relaxed a bit. While his instincts screamed that Julius was hiding something about himself, it doesn't necessarily mean he’s hiding something heinous or harmful. If anything were to happen, he believed that she could take care of herself.

“Be careful, and if you two continue your little tête-à-tête and you’re still alive, let me join sometime,” he winked as he added playfully.

“Oh, come on. The last time we both got into the same bed, you came out at the end of it looking like you lost a fist fight.”

He stuck his tongue out childishly. “Too bad I’m into that.”

He dodged as she smacked his arm with an indulgent laugh.

Julius kneeled in front of Holly with a forbearing smile.

“I really like your mom,” he admitted plainly. She scoffed derisively, all manners to the wind.

“Did I do anything to offend you? If so, could I do anything to fix it?”

“All of them are like that,” she snarled bitterly as looked at her nails. “Your type only likes my mom because she’s pretty and nothing else,” Holly braced herself, ready to cut him down if he moved to attack her, but he only stayed silent. She looked up to see Julius looking at her mom by the tree with a smile that threatened to overtake his face.

“Yeah, she’s pretty,” he agreed as he tore her eyes from her to look at Holly. “And she’s kind of scary too. She has a mean hook,” he huffed as he looked at Aika from the corner of his eye. “But she’s super smart and really cool. She knows a lot about magic and I want to learn from her. I want to work with her and the time I spent with her so far has been... freeing ,” he admitted shyly. “I want to know more about her and I want us to get along because you are her daughter and she loves you a lot. One day, I hope she could even show me a sliver of that love,” Julius sighed deeply. “Could you please tell me what she likes or where she might want to go?” He looked at her pleadingly. “I’d love to take her on a date.”

Holly stared at him, eyes as wide as saucers. The lump in her throat made it hard for her to breath. No one’s ever talked about her mom like that to her face…

“Um,” she squeaked as tears gathered at the edge of her eyes. Holly looked up and blinked rapidly, willing them to go away. All of her mom’s past lovers have always avoided her because she wasn’t their daughter. No one’s really come up to her and told her that they sincerely liked her mom. They might have loved her but she didn’t know and she didn’t understand it anyway. But the way Julius looked away at her mom while Holly composed herself made her chest constrict.

She cleared her throat, bringing his attention back to her. He looked at her searchingly to make sure she was ‘okay.’

“Sh-she likes to stay in during winters with hot cocoa and blankets and just talk. She likes to listen to people talk about their day,” Holly breathed in deeply. If he was sincere, and if he would continue to look at her mom like that, then she could afford to help him a bit. “If you want to get her something, don’t . But if you really want to, make her something, like food or a bracelet or something like that. She likes personal things like that.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate that.”

They both turned their heads when Aika and Arthur burst out laughing. Jealousy shot through Julius when Arthur laid a hand on Aika’s shoulder.

“Say...How close are your mom and dad?”

Holly shrugged. “They’re best friends. There’s not much to say besides that,” she raised a brow at him. “But if you’re asking if they like each other that way, I’d say ‘no.’”

Julius nodded, slightly relieved, and stood up as the grinning pair made their way to them.

“What are you two whispering about?”

“He was just keeping me entertained,” Holly quickly covered as Julius threw a grateful smile at her.

Aika and Arthur shared a disbelieving look. Their daughter was good at lying, but she wasn’t going to fool them , her teachers.

“Thank you, Julius,” Arthur said, looking better than he did before. Aika walked and stood next to Julius as she laced her fingers with his. Holly quickly hugged her mom and took her father’s hand.

“We’ll take our leave,” he said quietly and nodded at the two with a wink. “Have fun.”

“Bye!” Holly chirped before they vanished from sight.

“They didn’t have to leave at my expense,” Julius began as he turned to Aika with a neutral smile. She waved him off and looped an arm with him as she led them back to her house.

“They didn’t leave because of you,” she tightened her hold on him. “They left because of the custody contract. Holly can only visit me during weekends, holidays and extenuating circumstances. After that, she has to leave.”

“Arthur is very nice for a fae,” Julius said nonchalantly. He caught Aika as she stumbled over her own feet.

“What? How did you—”

“He wanted your firstborn, apparently iron is deadly to him going by your words, you stopped me from saying my name directly, his mana was not human and you have a pact with him; All clues point to him being fae. I wasn’t really sure because he recovered from the iron but your reaction confirms my suspicions,” he grinned in satisfaction as she stared at him in shock.

“I-Yeah, I mean you guessed right.” It made sense how quickly he connected the dots. Julius was going to be the Wizard King for a reason.

He leaned forward with an excited grin. “So your daughter is half-fae right? Does that mean she has two attributes? One is Spatial Magic, what is the other one? Can I ask Arthur questions about him being fae if I ever see him again?”

Aika stared at him for a moment, completely caught off guard by the cute expression on his face.

“Her other attribute is Sun Magic and y-yeah, you can,” she looked away with a blush. She really needed a sober-up potion. Julius tilted her face back with a finger and slotted his lips against Aika’s tenderly, much to her shock. She stared at his closed eyes and thick eyelashes and melted into the kiss and cradled his face. Their lips moved slowly and patiently against each other until they reluctantly pulled back to breathe.

Julius leaned his forehead against her’s. “Could I ask you a few more questions for my report,” he asked breathily against her lips.

“Of course,” Aika whispered back.

They linked hands with a shared smile and walked up the stony path to the house. He opened the door for her as she asked,

“Where did you learn to speak Greek?”

“My father and stepmother are children of Greek immigrants. I grew up speaking Greek and Latin,” he answered as he handed off his cloak and cape to her. That little information about his stepmother piqued her interest.

“Woah, that’s really cool!”

“Where did you learn?”

“I was in Athens for a few months, picked up the language on the go.”

“Wow! You were in Greece?”

“I’ve been everywhere,” Aika answered with a proud smile as she hung the cape and cloak on the coat rack. “I’m going to go wash my feet. Could you please take out the sober-up potions from the cabinet left of the kitchen sink for us?”

Julius nodded as she took a turn down a hallway off to the side. He examined the living room more carefully. It was modestly decorated with a few bronze accents pieces and dark brown furniture, but the walls were decorated with landscape and abstract paintings by Aika’s father. Some were of a view he would expect to see outside a cabin in the middle of the woods or at the edge of the sea and some were chaotic depictions of fire, water, lightning and metal curling around each other, tightly linked and unwilling to let go.

He shook his head and strode into the kitchen as he went over the questions he was going to ask. As he reached for the cabinet where he assumed Aika kept her potions, he was hit with a wave of unnatural dread from the window above the kitchen sink. He strained his eyes to look outside in curiosity and extended his mana zone in the direction of the backyard. His dread increased when he detected recent activity of forbidden magic. It was like a parasite that crawled over scorched Earth and flowers which surprisingly thrived despite the oppressive mana. It was all Aika’s magic.

His chest tightened at the thought of her doing forbidden magic but Julius could feel it so vividly. She had been doing forbidden magic. He wondered how he couldn’t feel it on her…He took out the potion and swallowed it thickly as any warm feeling he had of her shriveled up and died. He blinked as his vision grew clearer and leaned heavily against the kitchen countertop. He had such high hopes. 

“Boo.”

Julius immediately pivoted on his heel, fingers pointed at Aika’s neck as they sparked with mana. She stared at him, fresh-faced as she cocked her head.

“You’re under arrest for the use of forbidden magic,” he growled as he glared at her. Her eyes lit up in understanding and smiled cryptically.

“That’s kind of hot,” she giggled as her hand traveled up his tense chest.

“Wh—” And before he could finish his sentence, he was slammed against the wall, his wrists crossed and pinned above his head. He forgot she was Time Mage too. She could be just as fast as him.

Aika breezily opened her potions cabinet and downed the sober-up potion. 

Julius strained against the invisible, hand-like force on his wrists to no avail. She flipped a dining table chair around with a flourish and leisurely sat on it as she crossed her legs, looking like the very image of grace as she adjusted her skirt.

“Does Master Raymond know you use forbidden magic?” He spat as he struggled to uncross his wrists. Julius flared his mana threateningly as he activated mana skin but even then he couldn't break the bonds holding him. She quirked an eyebrow at him as she answered his question.

“Know?” she cocked her head at him. “He sanctions it.” Aika supressed a smile as Julius stilled in shock. “I’m sure you had questions about how I knew the forbidden runes on Sven’s body. A better question would be how you, a Magic Knight Captain, knew.”

Julius stayed silent as they both stared at each other, wearing equally neutral expressions.

“I like to read,” he finally said.

“Oh no, I knew that already. The question is why you would be reading about forbidden runes.”

“I could ask you the same,” Julius said, his expression icy and eyes that were dull to the point where they seemed black in the dim torchlight of the kitchen.

Aika raised her hands as she shrugged. “I’m an open book. I’ll tell you where I learned if you tell me.”

He jerked against the restraints one more time before he slackened in defeat. 

He sighed. “There’s a secret section of the Royal Library,” he growled, refusing to elaborate further.

“Oh, is that all?” Aika sighed in relief. She read everything in there already and it only had elementary books on forbidden subjects. “If that’s where you learned then that’s okay. It would be a problem if you were actually interested in forbidden magic and sought after it in other places,” Aika nodded as she crossed her arms. 

“I learned forbidden magic in the Spade Nation War College for four years since I was 16. That was almost twenty years ago,” she explained as she hugged herself. She smiled wickedly when Julius’ eyes strayed downwards to her chest.

“Did you know,” Aika began as his eyes flickered up to her’s with an embarrassed blush. “That using forbidden magic and having weg is a symbol of power in the rest of the world? It’s taboo on this continent only because someone opened the Qliphoth Tree over 600 years ago and let out a lot of demons into the world. The rest of the world actually still hates the Four Suits continent because of that,” she shook her head with a wry smile. “It’s no matter,” she leaned forward as if she was going to tell him a secret. 

“I’m not particularly a patriot or a nationalist—I’ve been around the world way too many times to be one—but serving the Wizard King was and is a pleasure. I do forbidden magic for the Wizard King. I keep my hands dirty so the Wizard King doesn’t have to—but that doesn’t mean Master Raymond’s hands are entirely clean,” she snorted as she said, “He did choke the life out of an entire army with their own blood and drown another. Did you know that he’s known as The Leviathan around the world for that?”

“Just because Master Raymond sanctions it, doesn’t mean it’s legal. Using forbidden magic means losing your humanity.”

“Yeah, if you don’t use it carefully. There are safeguards against that but there are some rituals where you can’t avoid that. But if you mean losing your emotions, I mean it happens, again, if you’re not careful. And besides, it’s legal if you have a license, and guess what? I have a license. I’ve saved lives with forbidden magic and if you try to have it revoked, you will be hard-pressed by many factions ready to defend me.”

Julius sighed and closed his eyes in relief. In order to be approved for a license, it takes years of thorough background checks, psychiatric evaluations and high-level government who "okayed" it. If she’s been approved, then she can be trusted. “You could’ve just said that. Please let me go. I won’t attack you.”

She giggled as she shook her head. “Sorry, I just felt like monologuing like a villain,” she said as she winked.

Julius laughed as he looked up at his restraints. “Could you please let me go?”

Aika’s languid eyes roved over his stretched out form. “No, I don’t think I will,” her lips twitched up into a suggestive smirk. “I rather like the view.”

A thrill shot through Julius as he resisted the urge to squirm. Her predatory gaze wasn’t doing anything to help the burning heat growing in his lower belly.

“CAPTAIN!”

They both jumped as a screen materialized in front of Julius’ face.

“What-Where have you been? The meeting was over hours ago! Why are your hands above your head like that?!”

“Marx! Ah, I am just stretching my arms,” he laughed nervously. Aika let go of her hold on him with a silent laugh. She couldn’t see who this Marx character was but she spared Julius the indignity of someone witnessing him being tied up like that.

Julius dropped his arms and rolled his shoulders as he smiled wide.

“I’m kind of busy right now, Marx. I have no doubt that the squad is up right now partying their Friday night. Well, tell them to party harder because tonight is that last night before we begin preparing for the final battle! By this time Saturday, we either win or lose the war.”

“The final battle? Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes, I am, Marx. Join your friends or just relax because tomorrow, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, sir...Aren’t you coming back to the base? You could look at Magic later, sir…”

“I’ll be there,” he smiled kindly. “but don’t expect me.”

“You could look at magic later! You have to inform the squad yourself now! A final battle? I can’t even begin to imagine what we need to start preparing!”

Julius raised his hands as he cringed from his berating.

“I’ll be there soon as soon as I can!”

“Alright, you better be!”

The screen fizzled out and Julius pressed a hand to his chest and exhaled in relief. Aika found it strange, for a passing moment, that he was still making gestures as if he had a heart that could beat.

“Oh, that was embarrassing,” Julius huffed as he leaned his head back against the wall. 

“You should go, you know,” she said softly.

He gasped dramatically and pouted as he strode to where she sat.

“You want to get rid of me already?” he asked as he cocked his head down at her. She tugged him hard onto her lap but he readily straddled her legs and threw arms around her shoulders as they both looked at each other challengingly.

“I think you know the answer to that,” she whispered and leaned forward to nip at his exposed neck. “But you shouldn’t slack off work for my sake.”

“I’m just letting my squad have one night off before I work them to death.” Julius squirmed as Aika bit harder. He slowly knotted his hands in her hair and pulled gently. She hummed as her hands slid from his hips down to his ass and squeezed as he moaned.

“Who knew that a man of your stature, and the future Wizard King could be so submissive. ” She slid a hand down his front and cupped him through his pants. Julius shamelessly humped against her hand with a whine, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He buried his face in her shoulder as he panted.

“I’m expected to be the opposite,” he admitted breathily. “But it was quite nice when you took the initiative.”

Aika brought her hands up to his face with an amused twitch of her lips and pecked at the little dimple at the corner of his mouth.

“Well, you are absolutely adorable. How could I not?”

He shook his head with an embarrassed grin and looked around and his jaw dropped at the framed painting that covered most of the kitchen’s West wall. It was gigantic but he didn’t notice it in his lust-filled haze.

“Holy—That’s amazing! Did your father paint that?” Aika nearly groaned out loud when he jumped off her lap and moved closer to the painting to examine it closely.

It was a small, raven-haired boy caught mid-dance as the rain and wind swept his hair and clothes as lightning curled around him. The stormy sky in the background was lit with stray lightning and some even seemed to strike the ground around him. Julius couldn’t help but gape at the magic depicted so delicately and with such detail. He could almost feel the mana through the canvas.

Aika studied the little boy’s face with a sad smile as she stood next to him.

“Yeah, he did. We caught my brother summoning storms again when he was 10 and gained full control of his magic. My father found the scene very picturesque so he spent months painting and perfecting it. ” 

Julius stared, starry-eyed as he touched the lightning on the boy’s cheek.

“He was summoning storms at 10? He must be a really strong mage now! Where’s your brother now? Why have I never heard of such a strong lightning mage in the Magic Knights? Didn’t you say he wanted to be Wizard King?”

“Oh, my brother’s in the backyard right now,” she said casually as she willed her face to stay neutral.

“In the backyard?” he craned his head to look out the window. “At this time? What’s he doing?”

“Staying dead.”

Julius clamped one hand over his mouth to stop an inappropriate guffaw from bursting out. He let his hand fall and pursed his lips as Aika continued.

“The painting is called ‘The Symphony of the Lightning God,’” she continued as she motioned at the painting with a giggle.

“I-I see,” he snorted. “I’m so sorry. That was so rude of me.”

She sniggered. “No, it’s perfectly fine. My brother told me to make that joke.”

“He told you? When did he die?”

Aika paused. “Over 23 years ago...He was thirteen and I was sixteen…”

Julius’s face grew somber as he wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry...I’m sure you miss him…”

She snorted. “No, I don’t. I saw his dumbass yesterday. What do you think the forbidden magic in the backyard was?”

“Huh?”

[mcfanely]

The Ice Emperor and the Earth Dragon

With night closing in, and efforts to fix the mech concluding without much success. Attempts at repairing the metal structure shifted to the realisation that they were out in the open, and they needed to find a place to stay before full darkness encroached. The barren environment was dangerous, but being caught out during the night, could prove deadly. 

Chapter 03 - Bitter Power, 2285 words

Getting a handle on new powers was honestly not as impossible as Cole had thought. It was actually a bit scary how easily he fell into the calming sensation of the biting chill the ice element provided.

Maybe it was because he couldn't feel it, or more he could, but it was slightly absent. He knew he was cold; he knew he must have been downright freezing. Yet, he wasn’t worried. 

He and Zane had been trekking through the snow for what felt like a good couple hours. Without a watch or functioning nindroid systems, and specifically not even knowing if the time in this other realm mirrored Ninjago, time was currently hard to determine. 

If the present stress of being stuck in a different realm, away from home and his brothers, not knowing where they were or even if there was anyone else out there in the frozen tundra - if it was just them and them alone? The measurement of the passage of time was a minor thing but it was something more that they didn't have. 

Cole needed to focus on the here and now, floating a huge structure of ice above the ground, carrying the mech as if it was child's play and not very heavy machinery that had no business floating so effortlessly on their elemental construction. 

And it was theirs, both his and Zane's. They were both focused, both on the same wavelength. They'd been walking in silence for a while now, but Cole could safely say they were connected in a way that seemed impossible. 

Power flowed from the staff, from the scroll. It arched and hummed and burned and chilled all at once. It was incredible, the way Cole could feel every ounce of power. The way his element reacted and expanded, how it shifted from being an extension of his body to just being.

He could feel the world around him, he could sense structures of rocks and earth buried under what must have been years of snow. The mountains that were barely visible in the distance just felt so close. Everything echoed with a living, thriving energy. 

Then there was the ice, this foreign element flowing from his fingers. He didn't know how it worked but it still felt right. The scroll acted as a bridge, a single link in an immense and complex chain that connected the both of them. Cole had every grasp that Zane had on his ice powers, and Zane had every connection to the earth that he had, but it was all multiplied tenfold. Hundredfold even. 

It all felt so incredible, so right. Cole had to smile at it, the sensation. The power. 

Then all too quickly, the feeling of energy shifted into a feeling of wrong. What was currently happening, what they were doing wasn't natural. It was twisted by the scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu, powers grown beyond what could ever be achieved naturally. One could argue that what they were experiencing was their true capable potential. 

Cole knew that even if he trained for the rest of his life, for every second, the scroll would always provide more power than what he could ever have. That was the appeal, that no matter what he did, if Cole wanted more power then all he had to do was hold the staff. 

Hold it and not let go. 

He hadn't realised he'd stopped walking until he felt the staff pull in his grip lightly, and came around with Zane standing a bit further in front of him, looking back with an expression of building concern. "Cole, are you alright?" He questioned slowly, as if he’d already asked the question a few times beforehand. 

Why is he being so careful? Of course I'm fine. Cole found himself thinking. Why wouldn't he be fine, anyway? They'd made more progress in an hour than they had since they'd been banished to this realm and it was all because of the scroll. They'd moved the mech because of the scroll, they were protected from the harsh climate because of the scroll. 

Everything minorly positive was because of the scroll, and it was right there in his grasp. It was weighted, and the leather was wrapped carefully and smooth to the touch. The energy was calming, it provided reprieve from an extremely stressful day. There was no cold, no weakness, no pain from injuries. 

There was just power. 

"Cole-?" 

"What?" he snapped, his grip tightening ever so slightly. All Zane had to do was step forwards a little and pull, Cole could lose grip of the staff, he could lose this energy. Lose everything. 

They fell into a palpable silence, unable to step apart due to their contact with the scroll and the need to maintain the usage of the power, but it was clear that Zane had shuffled a step back. The pulled mark made in the snow was all the proof Cole needed. 

Cole's eyes widened, "I- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap, I-" 

"It's the scroll." Zane nodded, content with those brief words to encapsulate the situation. The scroll corrupts those who touch it. 

They needed to put it down. Soon. Cole swallowed down a sharp feeling in his throat as he took the staff in through a new light. A clear light. 

It was corrupting him, getting in his head. 

"We don't have far to go." The nindroid continued, but this acknowledgement didn't help the tenseness of Cole's shoulders, "I can see a cave ahead," Though through the building storm, he wasn't sure how anything was even visible, but Zane's word was more than enough. 

"It will suffice for shelter." 

"You had me at 'cave'." Cole gave a grin to try and lighten the mood. It fell a little short of the mark when Zane didn't return his expression. "Let's get out of this storm." He lifted a hand, the ice platform lifting back up off the snow. 

It was a case of following Zane's guidance, since he seemed to know where he was going. The snow flurry had really begun to pick up, and the impending nighttime wasn't something they wanted to face whilst exposed. Even then, they'd gone through the day without seeing another living soul. Seeing anything, really, other than an assortment of rocks and mountainous ranges. Who's to say there was even anyone out there? In weather as treacherous as what they were experiencing, it would make surviving hard. 

But the night could bring dangers that they hadn't even thought of, that they couldn't even begin to comprehend? They were alone during the day, the night could be extremely different. 

It seemed that any worry over being stuck outdoors would soon be over, since Cole's gaze managed to break through the haze that the falling snow produced to see a large opening in the cliffs ahead. A fissure spiking up into the rocks, fracturing the landscape into a wholly unique formation. The mouth of it gaped widely, and whilst it would be a form of shelter that anyone desperate would be happy with, aesthetic changes would need to be fashioned in order to suitably keep the elements out. 

Cole smiled, and felt a renewed course of energy flow through him. Sure, the scroll kept his energy levels up to a point where using his elemental abilities didn't tire him out, but relief at finding some semblance of safety and security couldn't be replicated. A cave, indented into rock, sheltered, ideally one entrance which made it easy to keep a lookout and defend it if needs arose. 

That need ideally would not arise. 

So why did it feel like they were walking into something? 

It was like an unease sitting in the pit of his stomach, not so much a heavy weight but something that just felt off. No, it wasn't hunger, though that was something that would need to be addressed soon. It was something else. 

"You can feel it too?" 

Cole's attention snapped over to Zane in an instant, his mouth dropping just slightly. "How did you--" He stuttered out. 

"A feeling." Zane said simply, then gestured to the both of them. "And we've stopped walking." 

He hadn't realised, but they had ground to a halt. Their ice sled was situated on the ground in front of them, the staff was held lightly between them but they'd stopped moving. Now that Cole was thinking about it, they'd fallen silent too.

He'd been holding his breath, listening.

Listening past the quiet that snow always provided, it seemed to drain all sound, dampening any significant noise that occurred. 

"Zane, back to back. Now. " Cole whispered, and took a short step until he could feel the edge of Zane's shoulder plate pressed up against his own shoulder. He didn't know what it was that had put him on edge, but the hair on his neck standing on end was enough to drive him into action. 

Only, an ear piercing screech from the sky hadn't been what he'd anticipated. Followed by a huge winged creature diving from the cover of the low lying clouds and making their defensive tactic all but useless. 

It barrelled into them before either of them had taken their eyes off the sky. 

Cole went one way, and Zane went the other. Landing in a snow mound didn't hurt, but the sudden cold stole his breath away; a cold he hadn't felt in a good while. 

Cole glanced down at his hands and saw them empty, he looked around the area and found Zane sprawled out on the ground too. The only difference was that this creature, this giant bird with purple plumes and wide, far too intelligent eyes, was circling back around in a quick arch. Cole could easily bet where it was targeting next.

He had to act fast; taking in a scenario in an instant was both a learned and natural skill, and it wasn't going to fail him yet. It wouldn't. 

His hands were empty, so was Zane's, which meant the staff-

The staff was entrenched in the snow a few feet to his left, and the bird was aiming at Zane so he needed protection. 

Cole made a straight dash for the staff, picking it up and only letting himself revel in the rush of power for less than a second, the flicker of orange light that shrouded his head before he threw it like a javelin, "Zane!" He shouted over the distance. 

Limited communication didn't equate to limited understanding, Zane's head shot up and he dove over the ground, grabbing the staff from where it had landed, blue energy flickering to life as he came to a standing halt with the sharp end of the staff pointed at the creature. 

Zane was deathly calm, his gaze focused, his aim perfectly precise as he saw the beast approaching and did exactly what Cole would have done. 

He shot it out the sky, a beam of unforgiving ice gripped onto the creature's wing and in an instant it was downed; hitting the ground hard and sliding in what would have been Zane's direction had he not moved out the way. 

Cole ran over to his friend, but kept his attention on the bird. It's screeching was shrill, and every time it tried to rise into the air only to get weighed down by the icy sculpture, it caused the ground to shake. 

Then upon its next leap, it allowed gravity to pull the weight of the ice down to the ground and broke it apart, freeing the wing and providing the creature with its full range of movement again. Cole was all but ready to fight, even though he was sure that with wielding the power of the scroll, Zane could easily handle the situation. Just as he'd handled Aspheera and the pyro vipers earlier that day. 

The beast probably sensed the power too, since instead of staying around for longer, it took to the skies again and seemingly fled. Cole didn't count on it being gone for long, but he wasn't going to stand around and find out if it was coming back. 

He turned to Zane, looked at the blue fire cascading through his hair; eyes that already glowed slightly due to his nindroid nature were now crackling and brighter with energy. The scroll was reacting to the contact too, cascading an ethereal light onto their immediate surroundings. 

"Zane," Cole said, dragging his eyes away from the sight in front of him. Pressing matters. "Let's get the mech into the cave." 

So they did just that, or Zane did. 

He lifted the mech on his own, not that he couldn't have done that before. Cole holding the staff had provided help, provided a second person taking on it's burden as well as reducing the amount of power needing to be used by one person. 

This was just a short trip, albeit rushed, but Zane could do it on his own. The mech was slid into place just inside the cave, and Cole was about to ask Zane why he'd stopped before the nindroid turned around and shot a blast of ice towards the entrance of the cave. Huge spikes of ice grew in mere seconds, towering up towards the ceiling of the cave and further, shrouding the entrance, near enough sealing it with an elemental barrier. There was a small gap left though, in the centre. Large enough for a person to fit out easily, but it kept the outdoors at bay.

The ice was blue, clear and pure, and immense in size. 

Should the bird come back, it wasn't getting into their small sanctuary with any form of ease.

-

From the beginning

Ch 02 > Ch 03 > Ch 04

Cross-posted to AO3

[miracle-sham]

Instead of Dead, Become Two Dragons in Red.

| {MaribatMarch2020 — Week 1, Day 5: Transformation} |

| [Ao3 Link] | | [Masterlist Link] |

| {Repost due to original post disappearing from the tags.} |

| Triggers/Warnings: Violence/Implied Violence, Animal Transformation, Explicit Language/Some Swearing, Implied/Referenced Character Death (but not really), Polyamory (not really a trigger/warning but if you don't like Polyamory then this isn't for you). |

| For Gotham vigilantes, rampaging magic-users always make for an interesting fight, that is of course, provided one doesn't get hit by any stray bolts of magic. However for Parisian heroes, it's just your typical Tuesday Akuma situation. |

| Word Count: 3232 |

==‹›==

| A/N: Hi! I'm not dead, sorry for how long I took to respond to comments, I got hit by a nasty cold then sinusitis so I lost basically all my Maribat March prep time thanks to that, so I just barely managed to finish this ficlet/oneshot for today, anyway I hope you guys enjoy, and if enough people enjoy it, I'll make a second part to this oneshot because I had to cut so much material and it'd be nice to be able to use it still. |

| If you want to be tagged in future oneshots/fics, or a specific Au, then comment or send me a DM/ask! |

| Also side note, Don't Like? Don't Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

==‹›==

Zzzzt-crackle-woosh, a purplish-black bolt of unstable magic flies through the air, just barely grazing passed Dragonbug's side as she flips across the gap between two buildings. Cheerfully, she calls out “Missed again!”

The villain, an amorphous black shadow with dripping molten gold eyes and donning a ruddy patchwork hooded robe (which suffice to say, looks suspiciously like a rip-off wizzrobe from the Legend of Zelda, that or a faceless Gregorian based cultist extra from a film or TV show), scowls furiously, “Oh fuck you! I'm trying my best here!” and blasts another bolt of purplish-black magic towards her.

Conveniently located on the roof she just landed on, is an air vent. She cartwheels behind it and manages to dodge the bolt by a good metre or so. “Well, your best sucks and so does your aim!”

The wizard-villain screeches in fury, “Well my aim wouldn't suck if you didn't keep moving like a goddamn Duracell bunny!”

Dragonbug snorts. “Yeah but firstly, I'm dragon and ladybird themed, not bunny-themed; the bunny theme's already taken anyway. And secondly, where's the fun in that?”

As soon as she says that, her earpiece crackles as Red Robin pipes up on the comms channel. “Ready to see some fireworks?”

“Oh, you bet!” She responds, all too gleefully.

There's a faint clink-woosh-woosh-woosh and out of the corner of her eye, Dragonbug sees a blur of a small round silver ball arcing through the air towards the wizard-villain who's quite stupidly standing in the same place. As the silver ball disappears from her view, she hears a clatter of clink-clink-clink followed by a bwoosh and a bright flash of white light. At this moment, Dragonbug is so glad the Miraculous suits protect against flashbangs of all things.

The wizard-villain screams and once the flash of light fades, Dragonbug can see that they've fallen to their knees, in the middle of the street.

Dragonbug frowns and eyes their form, then double-taps her comms. “Hey, is it me or does our rip-off wizzrobe-magic-cultist look somewhat unresponsive?”

Her earpiece crackles again as Red Robin answers, and really someone should give these things a maintenance check, the crackling can be so distracting. “Our wizzrobe-magic-cultist is looking pretty unresponsive to me too. It could be a trap though because I swear I didn't use one of my knockout flashbangs.”

She nods, despite the fact he can't see her; which upon realising this, she flushes red in embarrassment. After clearing her throat to compose herself, she tilts her head to the side. “That's concerning, unless our rip-off wizzrobe-magic-cultist is susceptible to flashes of light.” She pauses, frown deepening, “You don't think they've got epilepsy do you?”

There's a slight rustle before Red Robin responds, “No, that's not what an epileptic seizure looks like. Again this could be a trap, or they could just be stunned. Either way, we should hurry but be careful.”

“Right.” Dragonbug scurries over to the edge of the roof then flips her way down to the ground. As she lands, she just spots Red Robin vaulting across an overturned car. As he catches sight of her, she gives him a thumbs up, which he returns.

Dragonbug then nods to him and he nods back, silently communicating their plan. They both start to slowly approach the wizard-villain in a pincer movement, her to the left and him to the right.

Red Robin reaches to his bandoliers and whips out a pair of manacles. He skulks behind the wizard-villain and goes to handcuff when the wizard-villain starts cackling maniacally. The laughter is quickly followed by a forming orb of purplish-black light—the same light as the magic bolts.

Oh, fuck! Is Dragonbug's only thought as she immediately dives at Red Robin, who's started backing away; she uses herself to try and block him from the still-forming orb. Please let the Miraculous magic protect us both! She silently begs as the orb expands exponentially, unfortunately enveloping them both completely in a fraction of a second

The maniacal laughter is the last thing they both hear as they're violently launched backwards into an alleyway, and everything fades to black.

==‹›==

Kagami's lounging on the sofa at Tim's Nest and binging Netflix, when the red alert rings across all the comms units.

“Shit,” Oracle falters, “Red Robin and Dragonbug are down. Dragonbug's signature has disappeared from our systems and her comms aren't responding. All Red Robin's vitals are down, his suit isn't registering any more signs of life. But I'm still getting warnings that the villain they were fighting is still active, so everyone available needs to converge on Red Robin and Dragonbug's last known location.”

Fear immediately seizes Kagami's heart, no please, please don't be dead my loves. She double-taps her comms. “I'm suiting up as Kuro Neko, I'll be at the location in three.”

With that said, Kagami flings herself off the sofa. She glances around the room for Plagg who's halted in his eating of cheese and giving her a sad but cryptic look. Her eyes flicker to the window and he nods almost imperceptibly.

“Plagg, claws on.” There's a woosh as the poisonous green light washes over her, donning her in the Kuro Neko suit. She flexes her claws for a split second, tail whipping back and forth furiously, before darting over to the window and vaulting out of it.

As soon as she's out the window, Kuro Neko extends her baton down and begins pole-vaulting her way across the rooftops and over towards where her significant others were last.

==‹›==

When Dragonbug returns to consciousness, the first thing she notices is that she can't move, nor see, nor hear. But she can feel, and unfortunately that means she feels a strange painful pulsing throughout her entire body, as well as an excruciating aching sensation. The second thing she notices is that she's curled up on the ground and her head, or the world, is spinning somewhat. Anyway, I can safely say I'm not doing so good right about now, big ouch.

The first of her other senses to return is her hearing. Which immediately makes her hiss in pain from the sudden cacophony seemingly coming from somewhere above her? She pauses, then realises that something's not quite right, hey wait a minute, why'd my hiss sound so weird? Something's not right, although I suppose that's kinda obvious now, but still! Oh god, what if I'm dying, or I've been body switched, or—or—or—

Her thoughts are interrupted by a sudden scream of fury, ringing out from above. Which is good because it means Dragonbug doesn't get time to dwell on that particular string of anxious thoughts, but it's also bad because it's loud and causes her to whimper in pain from how loud it is.

“Where the fuck are they? What the fuck did you do to them?” A voice sounding very similar to Kagami yells out.

Wait a second, that doesn't make sense, Red Robin and I didn't call for backup, so why would Kagami suit up on her night off? Dragonbug muses to herself, brain immediately latching onto the next train of thoughts. As she muses, she slowly realises that she's starting to regain the feeling in her limbs. Which is another positive? However, the feel of said limbs, causes her mind to immediately blank and lose the train of thought. While her brain tries to figuratively perform an error message, she does finally manage to crack open her eyes, yay sight.

It's at that moment, Dragonbug's superhero experience/training kicks in. She quickly takes stock of her surroundings and quietly thinks to herself, oh fuck.

It looks like she's in a giant—no massive—version of Red Robin's suit. Have I been shrunk? She wonders for only a brief second as something moves, just out of the area of her view. She turns and squints at the movement. Not a second later, a roughly cat-sized red lizard shuffled into sight.

She squeaks in surprise, then has a minute of wait what because her squeak sounded weird and very concerningly not-human-like.

The red lizard tilts its head to the side and coos at her.

Dragonbug glares at the lizard and tries to back away. Emphasis on tries, because as she does so, she ends up tripping over herself? Confused and extremely concerned now, she glances down and oh.

What. The. Heckles. She slowly spins around, checking out her new form, because she's clearly no longer human. No, she's got a snout, scales, fur—well mane—, claws, a long snakelike body, and a tail. Spinning around, she catches sight of a gleaming piece of shiny silver metal. So does what anyone would in the same situation as her, and scuttles over to it to use it as a makeshift mirror.

The reflection that greets her is… frankly quite adorable but also she's now a tiny little lung/long dragon. Which to be fair, makes quite a bit of sense as she was using the dragon Miraculous and Longg is a lung dragon. Her scales are a pretty red with shimmery golden accents and her mane is a dark red-almost-black colour. Her eyes still have the golden yellow iris and sclera that the dragon Miraculous gives. And the rest of her is all done variation of the gold, brighter red, and darker red. So at least her colour palette doesn't clash. Okay, so the colour palette isn't the most pressing issue here, but also I don't know how to fix this or change back so y'know, I'd rather potentially be stuck like this permanently with a nice colour palette, than one that clashes. But also oh god please don't let this be permanent, there has to be a way to undo this!

In her panic, Marinette doesn't notice the red lizard slinking closer to her. As it reaches her, it gently prods her with one claw; startling her badly and causing her to squeak again, loudly.

The red lizard flinches back and Marinette realises that maybe, just maybe, that's not a random lizard. And that maybe the not-a-random-lizard is actually a drake. A European dragon that hasn't got wings. And Tim. Tim's surname is Drake. A coincidence? I think not! It's got to be Tim!

She stares at the probably-Tim dragon and makes a chirping noise because dragons don't have the same vocal cords as humans, so she can't exactly ask him if that's him or not. A minor nuisance, to say the least.

The red drake mimics her chirp. Then cautiously slinks up to her again.

This close, Marinette can see that she's probably around the size of a ferret, in comparison to him being roughly the same size as a cat.

He flops down half beside, half against her and makes a series of clicks and chirps. She can't help but to tense as he flops but as the seconds pass, she finds herself relaxing bit by bit until she's also flopped over.

Enjoying the peaceful impromptu not-quite-a-cuddle cuddle session with one of her significant others, Marinette does try to keep an ear out for any goings-on above, just in case. But all seems well.

That is until, not even three seconds later, the peacefulness is abruptly shattered by a cacophony of screams, yells, zaps, and loud bangs echoing shrilly from above, before ceasing just as abruptly as it started.

However, the unexpected cacophony still manages to cause Marinette to panic. She tenses with a low whine, hunching slightly, and holds her breath. Alert and anxiously vigilant, she can't help but survey the immediate vicinity again and again and again—looking for anything she missed initially or if anything's changed.

Tim shuffles and stumbles into a sitting position. He nudges her gently in the side of the neck with his snout. He makes a cooing noise, followed by a soft rumble—as if he were trying to imitate a cat's purr.

It takes a few seconds, but his actions start to help calm her down. She takes in a deep breath and mentally reassesses the situation. We've been turned into tiny dragons. We're inside-slash-underneath the Red Robin suit which is on the ground. Before we woke up like this, we were battling a magic-user villain who tricked us. We didn't get time to call in backup before we got hit but it sounds like backup arrived anyway. As far as we know, no one is aware of what happened to us or that we're in-slash-under the suit. We are currently safe for now.

As Marinette reaches the end of the reassessment, she feels much calmer. She makes a low trill-like-purr noise to signal to Tim that she's calmed down.

He sticks his tongue out in a blep and mimics the low trill.

Their second moment of calm is then also interrupted because apparently fate hates peace and calmness or something like that.

“I will ask you once more, Where. Are. They?” Kuro Neko questions.

There's a loud thump-snap, followed by the wheezing cackle of the Wizard-villain. “They're gone! Dead! Erased! Exterminated!” With its piece said, the wizard-villain continues to wheeze and cackle maniacally.

Marinette can't help but shiver in fear at the sound, barely able to squash the rising nausea.

A harsh snap sound echoes loudly in the street and the wizard-villain starts choking wetly.

Kuro Neko hisses something but the red robin suit muffles the words to the point of being indistinguishable.

The minutes drag by and the only sounds of note from above, are inaudible mutterings and the clattering of handcuffs and car doors. They must've handed the wizard-villain over to the police, Marinette thinks.

She's about to go nudge Tim to try and communicate that they probably need to go find somewhere to stash his suit and a place for them to hide until they can figure out how to turn back when a conversation between the vigilantes who arrived for backup catches her attention. Partly because of the topic, and partly because of how close the voices suddenly sound.

“They can't be dead, Red Robin's suit is still there.” Dick—or well more like Nightwing, since he probably arrived as backup as well—stresses.

“But Dragonbug an' her suit's gone. You'd think maybe that there'd be a little more left if just organic matter was destroyed.” Jas—Red Hood mutters, the vocal distorter in his helmet making his tone of voice sound strange.

Or maybe that's just a side effect of getting tiny-dragon-ified, thinks Marinette, things sounding stranger. Although I've not really noticed anything bar the distorted voice sounding weird.

“The Miraculous suits are made of magic, and anyway, Plagg says he can't feel Tikki or Longg's presence anywhere,” Kuro Neko admits, reluctantly. “If all living things in the vicinity of the orb were destroyed, then the Miraculous would have still been left behind.”

“And how d'you know that?” Red Hood asks, sounding both genuinely curious and mildly concerned.

There's a split second of almost icy silence before Kuro Neko responds with a clipped tone. “Akuma.”

“Ah, o'course.” Red Hood comments, voice getting closer again. “Hey, d'you think B will want to stick the Red Robin suit in a memorial case like what he did with my Robin suit?”

“Hood!” Nightwing exclaims in a horrified and almost scandalised tone of voice.

Red Hood snorts.

Marinette flinches, and so does Tim beside her, although probably not for the same reasons as her. I don't think I'll ever get used to how flippantly Red Hood jokes about his death. Even if most Parisians who've died in Akuma attacks use the same sort of gallows humour.

There's a few seconds of silence before someone grabs the Red Robin suit and yanks it upwards, causing Tim and Marinette to tumble out of it with a series of startled squeaks and clicks.

Red Hood is the first to respond to the situation, with an eloquent, “what the fuck.”

Marinette glances up and sees Kuro Neko holding the Red Robin suit and looking rather shell shocked, with Red Hood and Nightwing a few steps away.

“Oh, thank fuck they're alive.” Nightwing half mumbles, dragging a hand down his face in exasperation.

“My loves,” Kuro Neko murmurs leaning down and scooping up Marinette and Tim, “I'm so glad you're okay.”

They both squirm for a minute before relaxing into her arms.

Nightwing frowns. “We should bring them back to the cave, maybe call Zatanna and Wonder Woman.”

“To the cave then.” Kuro Neko nods, hugging Marinette and Tim carefully, making sure not to accidentally hurt or squish them.

Marinette looks up at her significant other and bleps. She then trills, content to be held for the journey back to the Batcave.

Tim however, wrinkles his nose and chirrups in protest, he squirms and tries to escape Kuro Neko's hold—probably wanting to return to the Nest and deal with this on his own instead.

Kuro Neko gives Tim a deadpan stare before expertly pinching the correct pressure point to temporarily paralyse him.

Red Hood gives her a quizzical stare.

“Akuma, as well as kwami.” She responds, sagely.

“Right…” He slowly mutters, shaking his head.

Marinette can't help but burst into laughter at that, only because she's currently a ferret-sized lung dragon, the laughter comes out as a stream of trills and chirps.

Red Hood narrows his eyes at Marinette. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, danger noodle.”

Marinette pouts, whilst internally promising herself that revenge will be swift and pasta themed.

==‹›==

When they finally arrive back at the Batcave. They're greeted by the sight of Batman and Robin at the Batcomputer.

Robin turns and sneers at them. “Of course, trust Drake to pull such an attention-grabbing stunt as this.”

Marinette immediately looks up from her snuggled up position in Kuro Nell's arms and hisses at Robin; Tim however, lets out a world-weary sigh.

“Robin.” Barks Batman, but the reprimand does nothing to quell Robin's hostility.

Fixing a glare at Robin, Kuro Neko starts to stroke Marinette's scales like an evil villain would stroke a cat (much to Marinette's delight). “Need I remind you, how you hesitated upon hearing Oracle inform us that Red Robin's suit ceased reading any signs of life.”

“That was not hesitation! I was merely preparing for Grayson or Fatgirl to become hysterical in their distress.” Retorts Robin, who then stalks away, scowling and red-faced.

Nightwing dithers between going after him or staying to check on Tim and Marinette.

Kuro Neko shakes her head. “Go after him, Marinette and Tim will be fine without you hovering like a mother hen.”

Nightwing flashes her a grateful smile and scampers after Robin.

Kuro Neko then heads over to the medical bay and gently plonks the two dragons onto a cot. “Batman, I believe we will need to do as Nightwing suggested earlier, and call Zatanna and Wonder Woman. As this is a magic situation and I am not as skilled or knowledgeable in regards to magic as my love is.”

“Hhrrm,” Batman growls, already calling up the Watchtower.

Kuro Neko smiles softly as she glances down at her significant others, eyes twinkling with mirth. “Let's hope they arrive soon, otherwise who knows what sort of trouble you two could get into.” She winks.

Marinette chirps, tail flicking side to side eagerly. Whilst Tim perks up slightly and tilts his head to the side, mind probably racing with hundreds of pranks and shenanigans they could pull off whilst in dragon form.

==‹›==

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little oneshot! Comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated! |

| @maribat-march2020 | | @vixen-uchiha |

[exhaustedfander]

NFWMB: Part Three

Final chapter, here we go! I’d love to hear what you think! 

Word Count: 2,711

Previous chapter

a03 link

Logan blinks awake, a jolt of shock running down his spine as he bolts to a sitting position, realizing he’s no longer in his room, carefully surveying Remus. He’s on the couch in the Commons, a blanket draped over him and pillow having been placed under his head, a position he can’t for the life of him remember getting into.

Amidst the initial surprise, Logan is aware of one crucial thing: the state of Remus’s well-being. He scrambled to shove the blanket off of himself and rise from the couch, only to find himself trapped by Patton suddenly standing in front of him; when had he gotten here?

“Whoa, hey, calm down for a sec, kiddo,” Patton cautions, “I was just making you some breakfast. It’s just about ready.” Logan hadn’t even smelt the distinctive bacon and eggs in the air, somehow, nor had he heard Patton bustling about in the kitchen.

“How – how did I get here? I don’t remember laying down,” he asks, followed by the far more pressing issue, “Is Remus alright? Is he safe? Is he awake?”

“Remus is gonna be just fine,” Patton says, knowing damn well Logan needed that question answered straight away, “As for how you got here, Roman put you here. You fell asleep a little while after you guys talked, and he stayed with Remus. He said you hadn’t gotten rest in god knows how long; you really needed the sleep, Logan.”

“I – I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Logan says, struggling to remember it.

He recalls watching over Remus and the conversation with Roman that had ensued. He remembers the things he admitted, deeply personal, and steeped in so much emotion. He cried into Roman’s shoulder, for God’s sake, something he never imaged himself doing and is fairly mortifying to recount. And after that… well, that must’ve been when he lost his battle with consciousness and Roman settled him on the couch.

He hadn’t intended to take his eyes off of Remus, at least not for more than a moment or two, and yet he’d done so. Logan can’t help but feel ashamed; it was his job to watch over Remus, at least as far as he was concerned. Despite the growing irritation directed at himself, Logan turns back to Patton, feeling his heart beginning to pound a lot like it had last night.

“Is he awake?” Logan repeats. Patton nods.

“He is.”

“Can I see him?”

“In just a moment or two,” Patton replies softly, but his kind tone of voice can’t stop Logan’s mind from delving into troubling thoughts.

“Why not now?” Logan asks, cursing the desperation that comes through. Patton sighs, though the sound is far more sympathetic than upset, and even if he is upset, it certainly isn’t directed that Logan.

“He and Roman are talking now,” Patton explains, pausing when he hears a timer go off, “And your breakfast is ready. Wait right there and I’ll fix you a plate, okay?” A flicker of surprise runs a course down his spine. Remus and Roman talking? Arguing, sure. Declaring war on one another, understandably, if not expected. But the way Patton phrased it, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.

“They’re… talking?” Logan asks, getting up and following Patton into the kitchen, who’s currently scoping an egg and a few strips of bacon onto a plate for Logan, as well as some for himself. Virgil and Janus must still be asleep, otherwise, he’d be making them a plate too.

“Sure they are,” Patton replies as though the sentence isn’t at least somewhat alarming, “Here you go, kiddo,” he says kindly, handing Logan his plate.

“Thank you,” Logan replies, setting his food down and taking a seat, watching Patton carefully as he does the same.

“So, they’re speaking? I know Roman said some very interesting things about the state of their relationship but…” Logan trails off, deciding taking a bite of food might account for his silence.

“People have a funny way of surprising you,” Patton responds after a moment once both of their plates. “Lord knows those two have had their differences for quite a long time… and I know I’m not entirely irresponsible for that. I’ve always done what I thought was right, for Thomas, for all of us…” Patton sighs, a soft look in his eyes, “But the fact of the matter is this: I don’t always know what’s right, no matter what I’ve led myself to believe. But, I’m willing to own up to my mistakes.

“I want to change, for the better of myself, and all of us. My views on what’s right and what’s wrong… well, it was a tad bit too strict, to put it lightly, and I think in many ways, Roman latched onto that. I’m sorry, for how strict I’ve been on all of you. And goodness, I’m sorry to you, Logan. We don’t always pay your advice enough attention, and that just isn’t right. I promise this ’ll be a bigger conversation between everyone involved when the time is better suited for it, but really, I’m sorry. I promise I’m gonna try and do better, for all of us.”

“Well… thank you, Patton. I – I appreciate that greatly,” Logan stutters, reeling for a moment. Having received a similar apology of Roman just last night, it’s jarring to hear it from Patton. Hearing him talk about the twin’s fractured relationship, as well as the part he may have played in that is something that surprises him, too.

“Of course,” Patton says, “As for the twins, I think they’re gonna be okay. Maybe not right away, but last night changed things. As horrible as the situation is, I really do think it’s changed both of them for the better.” Logan fails to respond for a moment, lost in thought of all that happened last night. The fear that seems to encapsulate him, even now. The anxiety and doubt, the revelation that has made itself known. It’s quite a lot to handle.

“I hear you did a real good job, protecting him,” Patton says and Logan blinks in surprise. He can’t help but scoff.

“Hardly. Roman’s the one who patched him up. I was… I was quite a mess, all of last night. I still probably am,” Logan says, biting his lip, “All I did was –.”

“Chase a giant monster away?” Patton supplies. Logan struggles to know how to respond. “Roman told me. Sounds like you’re a regular hero, as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure Remus feels just the same.” Logan can feel heat creep up his neck, and with his luck, the flush is probably visible.

“I… I’m not so certain about that.”

“I think you’re cutting yourself a little short, teach,” Patton says, and just by the look in his eyes, Logan can tell that he knows. He doesn’t believe that Roman’s told him, as much of a blabbermouth as he can be, meaning Patton’s come to that conclusion on his own. Meaning he’s that obvious.

“I think you can go and see him now, Lo,” Patton says, and relief blooms in Logan’s chest, “He and Roman have had a good chunk of time together. I’m sure Remus is eager to see you.” Logan can’t help but disagree, knowing that he’s the one who’s desperate to see Remus, but he doesn’t correct the moral side. Instead, he rises to his feet, walking unsteadily through the hallway and pausing at his bedroom door.

He can hear the sound of voices talking on the other side, and to Logan’s relief, they don’t sound angry or heated. Patton’s right… they just seem to be talking, that’s it. Logan almost feels bad, interrupting the new-found peace that’s fallen over the brothers, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can last without seeing Remus and knowing, with the utmost certainty, that he’s going to be alright.

He cracks the door open slowly, the chatter pausing as he steps into the doorway. Roman is sat in a chair across from the bed, and Remus is reclining against several pillows, alive.

“Remus,” Logan begins, though he doesn’t quite know where he’s going, his mouth running unbearably dry. Roman, in some beautiful act of mercy, stands up.

“We’ll talk more later,” he says to Remus, before adding, quietly, “Love you, bro.” Logan can hardly believe what he’s seeing.

“Yeah, love you too. See ya later, shithead,” Remus says as Roman walks away, but there’s an awed tint to his voice that’s impossible to ignore. Roman gives Logan a quick, careful look as they pass each other in the doorway, but in general, the expression seems to say that everything’s going to be okay, and Logan can certainly hope so.

The logical side walks slowly to Remus’s bedside sitting in the chair now abandoned by Roman.

“Hey, Nerdy Wolverine,” Remus says, and Logan’s thankful for it because he still hardly knows what to say, too caught up in the fact that Remus is here and that he’s breathing.

Remus is still a touch paler than he usually is, his hair matted and unkempt. There’s significant bruising to parts of his arms as well as his face, and surely there are more hidden bellow the blankets and layers of clothing. It’s strange, seeing Remus dressed in a plain green T-Shirt, rather than his usually elaborate costume. It’s even stranger to look at him, teeming with life. Logan doesn’t know if he’s ever been so grateful in all his life for something.

“Hello,” Logan manages to get out, but that’s about it before he can feel himself faltering as Remus reaches out weakly, in search of Logan’s hand. It’s clear he’s in a great deal of pain, despite the pain medication he’s on, and Logan can barely stand to think about that as he shies away from Remus’s touch.

“Hey, I want you to hold my hand,” Remus insists, and Logan doesn’t know how to argue with that. He scoots the chair closer, lacing their fingers together.

“How’re you feeling?” Logan asks, cursing himself for not thinking to ask it sooner.

“Like shit,” Remus says, and the answer isn’t surprising, “But hey, I’m still here, right?”

“You are,” Logan says softly, his eyes trained on Remus callused fingers grasping his own, “I – I’m so thankful that you are.”

“I probably wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for you,” Remus says. Logan shakes his head.

“I don’t know –.”

“No, really,” Remus cuts in, “Thank you. You fucking saved me, Lo. I’d be… who the hell know where I’d be, but it sure wouldn’t be here with you.” Logan worries his bottom lip.

“Roman’s the one who saved you,” he says, his teeth clenched, “Not me. He’s the one who did so much for you, h-he stitched you. I was practically useless.”

“I wouldn’t call fighting a monster off useless,” Remus says, “You saved me, just as much as my brother did. You rescued me, Logan. Let me thank you for doing that.” Logan doesn’t know what to say, so Remus keeps talking. “Roman, uh, killed it, by the way. Earlier today.” Logan blinks in disbelief. “When in the world did, he have the time?”

“I dunno,” Remus says, “But he says he lured it to the river of blood and drown it.” Remus’s lips curl u into a faint smile, but Logan struggles to return to sentiment. What if Roman had gotten hurt, too? What if something had happened? What if –

“I’m gonna have a pretty gnarly scar, too, so that’s pretty cool. I think –,” Remus pauses, his grip on Logan’s hand tightening, “Whoa, hey, why are you crying?” Logan sniffles, cursing the weak state this love has reduced him to. He used to think of himself as so void of emotion, so cold, but he isn’t that at all. He’s a mess of feelings he can hardly account for and it’s all so much to bear.

“I almost lost you, Remus,” Logan says wetly, squeezing his eyes shut, “I… I don’t know what I would do with myself if that happened.”

“Aw, be careful there, Lo. You’re almost making it seem like you care about me.” Logan bites his bottom lip, peeling his eyes open to look at Remus.

“I do,” he professes, teary eyes burning with sincerity, “I – I care about you immensely. M-more than I know how to express.” Remus’s expression softens at that.

“I care about you too,” he says, before adding, “You know, I always figured I’d end up in your bed one of these days, but the circumstances aren’t really what I’d imagined.” Evidently, Remus was hoping that would elicit a laugh from Logan. It doesn’t.

“You’re so damn reckless,” Logan grits out, trying to get his crying under control, “Think- think of what could’ve happened. I don’t – I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. I was so scared, Remus… I’m not used to being scared.” The last sentence comes out in just a whisper, but Remus hears him just fine.

“I’m right here,” Remus says, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you, Lo.”

“You’ve – you’ve got to be more careful,” Logan says, “Both of you. I don’t know who’s more careless, you or Roman.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus says quietly, “For worrying you. Jesus, I’m sorry for putting you in as much danger as I did. I swear, I never would’ve done that had I known. We might’ve both been goners if you weren’t such a fucking badass.” Logan scoffs, feeling a blush dust his cheeks.

“I am not a badass.”

“Yes, you fucking are!” Remus insists, “Are you kidding me?! You protected me. You took a damn good couple swings at that thing. I’ve got to see you like that again sometime, in a less life-threatening-situation. Lord knows you’re hot as shit when you’re pissed like that.” Logan lets go of the creative side’s hand, feeling himself begin to tremble.

“R-Remus…” he trails off, feeling the words crumble like dust in his mouth. Luckily, Remus isn’t accepting defeat that easy.

“Roman told me how you watched over me. How you were so protective of me. I hope you know how fucking sweet that is.”

“I… I couldn’t leave you,” Logan says simply, “It wouldn’t have been right.”

“Like hell, you couldn’t. You stayed because you wanted to.” Logan sighs, the expression on Remus’s face unbearably lovestruck.

“Yes.”

“I’ve been crazy about you for a while now, you know,” Remus admits, ever-one to speak his mind, “You’re amazing, Logan. In every way. You’re smart as shit, and sexy, and just so much fun to be around, and –.” Remus is swiftly interrupted as Logan presses their lips together, his hand resting cautiously on Remus’s cheek. The kiss is by no means as passionate or intense as they’re both feeling at the moment, but considering Remus’s condition, they’re making do.

“I love you,” Logan breaths out as they briefly part, “I - I love you, so greatly, Remus. I wasn’t sure if it was true, o-or if I was ever going to have the chance to tell you, but I do.”

“I love you too, nerd,” Remus says, his voice brimming with just as much emotion as he leans in to kiss the logical side again.

“Promise me,” Logan exhales against Remus’s parted lips, “Promise me you’ll be more careful.”

“Lo, baby, you know I can’t –.”

“Promise that you’ll try,” Logan cuts in, doing his best to ignore the response Remus calling him ‘baby’ elicits.

“For you?” Remus asks a smile etched into his face, “For you, yeah, okay. I can try. I can do that.”

Their lips meet once more, and relief washes over them in slow, even waves. Logan allows himself to drown in the calm, to pour over the feeling of peace that’s overtaken him. Remus is here, he’s alive, and he loves him. Remus and Roman’s relationship seems to be on the mend, Patton said that they’d try and be more mindful of Logan’s contributions, Remus loves him.

Slowly, the doubt and terror that had settled over him disperses, and he gives in to the hope that’s suddenly surrounded him. He gives in to Remus and all that he is. He gives in to love.

 =+=

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[dahlrenn]

Making Connections

The familiar, unpleasant sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The world around you contracting then expanding all in a single moment. Dahl’renn avoided travelling by portal whenever, but every now and then he would make an exception. In this case, there wasn’t much of a choice. The elven sailor stepped away from the exit portal, nodding at the acolyte of the Ebon Blade which was maintaining it, and gave himself a quick once-over. No fingers or toes missing. Everything in its place. 

Good, he thought to himself. Despite the fact that portals have been proven to be incredibly safe, you do hear tales every now and then of some poor traveler leaving a left foot behind when  stepping through one.

Having collected himself, Dahl adjusted his feathered cap and looked up at a true sight to behold: Oribos, the Eternal, Undying City. A shiver ran up the elf’s spine. He had seen many impressive, wondrous things in his travels, but this was something else. Dalaran was a city that floated above the ground. This city just existed in space; a realm that seemed to expand forever, interrupted only by trailing lines of anima leading into stone conduits. Under normal circumstances, Dahl would have taken the time to walk around the entire outer perimeter, but he had an appointment to keep.

As Dahl walked towards the entrance of the city, he couldn’t help but take in the sheer size of the ancient stone structure. To think that every soul that had lived and died had passed through this place to be sent to their deserved afterlives… Perhaps... No. Now was not a time for such thoughts. He was here for a specific purpose, and if the tales were true, he did not want to keep his contact waiting. Dahl approached a giant armoured humanoid, standing guard with glaive in hand, removing his hat and putting on his friendliest smile. “Ah, excuse me? Do you think you could point me in the direction of the Hall of Curiosities?” Dahl asked. The Attendant looked down at the elf, a voice emanating from its helmet. “Yes, mortal. Here to see what the Brokers have brought to our city?” “Something like that,” Dahl replied.

The Attendant let out a low rumble, which could only be interpreted as a tired sigh. “Pass through this archway to the Ring of Fates,” it boomed. “Make your way clockwise around the central ring until you come to another archway with a scale carved at the top. That is where the Hall of Curiosities is located.” Dahl looked towards his destination, then back at the Attendant, nodding in appreciation. “Thank you very much!” The elf placed his cap back on his head and walked briskly towards the Ring of Fates, the blue light from the sconces on the hallway walls illuminating the way. If the outside of Oribos was impressive, then the inside was beyond belief. The city was hustling and bustling with folks from all walks of life. Besides the easily-recognizable races from Azeroth, there were blue-skinned human-looking people, a wide variety of Undead (and not the usually Forsaken kind), grey-skinned ... San’layn? They almost seemed to glide along the ground as they made their way. Robed and hooded figures that actually -were- floating. Winged sprites. Tiny ... owls with legs? Dahl could barely process what he was seeing. Still, not to be deterred from his goal, he continued with purpose towards the archway with the glowing scales above it. Making his way inside he was greeted with the sight of yet another race of ... people? They struck him more as constructs than living, yet they moved about quite naturally. Their heads were not heads at all, but flickering flames behind gilded masks. Still, voices could be heard emanating from these figures. Had he not known better, Dahl would have thought these must be some sort of Ethereals. No, these were definitely them. The Brokers. “Well, no use dawdling around,” he whispered to himself, walking forward.

The Hall itself certainly lived up to its name. Filling up every nook and cranny were all manner of containers and carts, most housing wares from who knows where. A couple of items looked familiar. Some rare creatures from Azeroth, a couple of gizmos that seemed to be of Gnomish design. Others, he could only guess their origin. In truth, the whole place reminded him of the bustling markets of Boralus only more otherworldly. Dahl’renn made his way towards the closest Broker in a nearby bunch. The Brokers were gathered around a cart, and (from what Dahl could make out) gazing upon some newly-gotten wares, talking through proposed prices and supply. “Excuse me! Ah... Apologies. I’m meant to meet someone here in the Hall? I have an appointment with a...” He pulls out a scrap of paper with a name written upon it. “Ta’zela. Are they available?” 

One of the Brokers spoke up. “I am Ta’zela. A pleasure to meet you, Dahl’renn? Did I pronounce that right? You mortals have such curious names.” The figure addressing him looked near identical to the rest, save for a few embellishments around the belt and sleeves of her outfit.

“Aye, you did,” Dahl replied. “Seems you’ve acquired a knack for such names in the short time that our realms have been connected.

“Oh, you misunderstand,” Ta’zela corrected. “We are not of the Shadowlands. Merely passing through to provide service to others, such as yourself. Come, let us find a place to sit down and discuss matters. In private.”

Dahl nodded as Ta’zela led him through the hall, where more and more goods were revealed to him. “It seems you and yours have been quite busy,” Dahl chirped. “Has Azeroth proven to be of significant interest to the Brokers?”

“Oh, indeed! We find your world to be most interesting. Cartel Ta has been ever so pleased at such an opportunity, and we look forward to continuing this relationship.”

A few moments later they arrived in a small, relatively empty area, dotted with tables, chairs; clearly some sort of meeting space. Ta’zela pulled out a chair for Dahl and then herself, taking a seat and leaning in. 

“Now that we are away from curious ears, I hear that you have some business with Cartel Ta that you wish to pursue. Yes?” If Brokers had faces, Ta’zela would be smiling with glee. Her words had a venomous charm to them. Dahl let out a measured breath. He had come this far, after all. “Aye, you heard right. I think I may have something for you that will prove to be mutually beneficial. A rising tide lifts all boats, after all.” Oh how he had missed this. The game had begun, and the players were at the ready.

“Oh, wonderful. Wonderful!” Ta’zela clapped her hands together. “Please, Dahl’renn, do continue...”

[docfuture]

Princess, part 9

     [This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16.  Links to some of my other work are here.  Updates were theoretically biweekly–more realistically, I’m going to try to get the next one out by early June.]

Previous: Part 8

     Senses were funny things.  You could use them without having any idea how they worked, or even that you had them.  Ask most people how many senses there were and they would tell you 'five.'  Then ask about balance and you might get a frown, a thoughtful look, or a rationalization, depending on the person.       Even after Flicker had acquired Database access, it had taken her quite a while to realize that there were senses she had that humans didn't have, or didn't use quite the same way.  When she did, she'd talked to Sealord, who most people thought of as the 'ruler' of the Deep Kingdoms--the truth was way messier, but Sealord was resigned to the human preference for simple fictions over complicated facts.  He was a giant squid who could shapeshift into human form for communication and diplomatic purposes, and he'd been willing to indulge Flicker's curiosity with several long conversations about sensory differences.  That had helped her appreciate how profoundly senses affected thinking, and how some things she found strange about normal humans were natural consequences of having different senses.       Flicker had a mass sense.  Most humans didn't.  They had to estimate it by sight, touch, or experience.  That felt weird to her.  Doc had confirmed that the only reason humans didn't injure themselves as a result even more often than they did was a significant amount of effort put into engineering their environment around the problem.       She didn't actively use it much while stationary.  The resolution wasn't great except near her fingertips, and even then, sight was better if the light was adequate.  Mass sense didn't connect to her mind the same way vision did, so it was laborious to use it to read carved letters or braille.  Intervening mass made it a little fuzzier, but it still let her tell if someone was right on the other side of a door that might need to suddenly disappear, or find a breaker panel even if some idiot had covered it.  It really came into its own when she was moving--the faster the better.  It was at the core of her reflexes for maneuvering and collision avoidance.  It worked in the dark, couldn't be blocked, and always let her know which way was down.       It also let her sense things that were quite far away, if they were massive enough.  Like the Sun.       And the Moon.       That made it better than sight right now.  On flat ground or water when she was running around on Earth, her velocity vector was necessarily tangent to Earth's surface.  If she wanted it to be pointing at the Moon when she jumped, that meant the Moon had to be on the horizon.  Except it looked like it was above it to eyes, because air bent light.  Her visor could compensate, but she didn't need it.  She could see the Moon's mass.       She was at the right place, at the right velocity.  It was the right time.  She jumped.       Down.       Jumping up wasn't safe.  That was a bone-deep reflex for Flicker, ingrained for longer than she could remember.  The only safe direction to jump was towards a large mass.  If she got out of momentum transfer range of the ground--about 50 meters--it was scary enough.  She had practiced that by jumping back and forth between canyon walls, and the vastly decreased ability to change her vector had been frightening and disturbing, but endurable.  Up, at high velocity, was not.       But down...  Down worked.       Flicker jumped down toward the surface of the Moon at five percent of the speed of light, trailing plasma as she left Earth's atmosphere behind.       *****       Yesterday.       Doc leaned back in the chair at his workstation and took a sip of coffee.       "Still a lot of failure modes," he said.  "Some because of the number of variables we have to extrapolate rather than interpolate.  And more from mechanics we don't even know about yet.  But if that wasn't true, you wouldn't need Speedtest.  All your support will be ready for tomorrow."       "Do you think I should wait longer?" asked Flicker.       "That's a decision no one but you can make.  You've done all your preparation and backups.  The Database says your judgement is within appropriate limits.  If you think you should wait, then wait.  I won't argue.  But no, I don't think it would necessarily help.  Your disinclination to delay further is reasonable.  The world doesn't stand still--waiting for a perfect time can be a trap.  Speedtest was always going to be risky."       "You don't think Journeyman's Diviner data was relevant?"       "I wouldn't go that far.  I have been taking precautions in case someone's been waiting until you're gone to try triggering a nuclear war or something similarly idiotic."       "Oh.  Any further news from him?"       "Last word was that he had been unable to contact anyone else helpful," said Doc.  "Which is understandable.  Trying to use divination to control a global level timing decision might be causally unstable--and a positive feedback loop in either back-propagation or future causal reinforcement could get quite nasty for them."       "What's your estimate for success chances?" she asked.  "DASI won't give me anything quantitative.  Says it's an overinterpretation hazard."       "Then I'm afraid you won't find mine very useful," said Doc. "It's too dependent on judgements you'll be making on the spot, after you have more data.  So I'm not willing to commit to numbers either."       A deep breath.  "How about something qualitative?"       "Very well.  I think you're almost certain to arrive at the Moon physically able to collect data, quite likely to make it back to Earth still mobile, reasonably favored to return technically alive, and have a decent chance at avoiding serious injury.  All return possibilities drop to near zero if you get an abort call from Breakpoint and don't listen."       "Technically alive means I don't have to try a mass template restore to survive?"       "Or need isotope exchange to avoid the death of your physical body from extreme radioactivity or an unlivable isotope balance.  Your powers do not appear to confer complete immunity to nucleosynthesis.  That's why I beefed up the force fields on the rad-hardened regen tank and moved it next to the exchanger and the cooling channels for the isotope burner.  I don't think it's the most likely scenario--but it is one that can be ameliorated by proper preparation.  Possibly. ��It still wouldn't be pleasant."       Flicker snorted.  "Well, duh.  We planned it out to find the unpleasant surprises while we're ready.  How about data?"       "The Volunteer already dropped off the sensors and repeaters, and you have a robust set of communication backups for interim reports and emergencies.  Get back reasonably intact and you can update details in person."       She looked at him.  He wouldn't say 'Be careful'.  But he knew how she felt about the data.  That was pure Doc.  That was... okay.       Flicker smiled.  "All right," she said.       *****       Now.       Fear was normally an emotion Flicker could remove to a distance by speeding up her mind--it was a thing of chemistry or memory.       Not her problem with heights, though.  That was her speed mind subconscious letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that Something was Wrong.  She was ready for it.       She was less ready for the cascade of alarms and less identifiable information from speed mind and body that started piling up as soon as she left most of the atmosphere behind.  They roughly mapped to itchiness, tingling, and discomfort in places she hadn't even known she had, and whose topology and even dimensionality was not immediately obvious.  But she was in an environment she'd never experienced before--a vacuum, far from mass, with significant velocity toward her destination--so she'd expected something new.       She sped her mind up more to catalog everything and record her impressions for the Database.  That beat anxious waiting during what would otherwise be a subjectively interminable coast phase of her journey to the Moon.  She also tried to interpret what she could.       One existing alert that was usually omnipresent whenever she moved had gone silent--okay, that was hazardous mass flow, since she was now moving through vacuum.  Never mind that several other alarms were complaining about said vacuum--not that it was a vacuum, but that it was the wrong kind.  The constant01 was too low, constant02 was too high, several somewhat less important constants were nevertheless far outside tolerances, and many things wanted recalibration.       And there was a nagging feeling:  Her untranslated01 was locked down by override, so constant03 was too high--a potential hazard; did she want to start the override reset process so she could restore constant03 to default?  A least within--okay, same range as her momentum transfer, so--50 meters?       Puzzle her way through the correspondences.  Constant03 matched the scale factor for the electromagnetic quantum.       She wasn't sure what her untranslated01 was, but it wanted to turn itself on and change Planck's constant to some unknown default, everywhere within 50 meters.       Nooooo, I don't think so.       A bit of fear was back.  Flicker noted a few things that might become relevant to her tests, then started carefully putting up mental hazard tape around new internal regions of Don't Want to Mess With That.       *****       Closing in on the Moon, finally.  Flicker's visor told her she was approaching at about 15,000 kilometers per second, or 0.05c.  But she didn't really need it as long as she was going reasonably fast.  As part of her mass sense, she could tell her velocity relative to any massive frame of reference.  And the sense was much sharper when she wasn't damping and compensating for a constant bombardment of passing air.       Her velocity was fine--direction was nearly straight down towards a spot close to the center of the visible disc of the Moon.  And her inertial damping and momentum transfer also felt crisper.  Could she get a frame lock before she landed?  Time to find out.       Feet first, arms extended above her head, feeling for that welcome mass.  100 meters.       3 more microseconds.  55 meters.       Approaching 50...  Frame lock!  Hello Moon!       Decelerate.  Ten billion g's straight, with a frame locked momentum dump on top.  It hit the moon like a tiny pulse of gravitational waves.       Slower, slower, nanoseconds rushing by.  Under 100 km/s.  Toes touched, still decelerating.       Flex the knees, swing her arms down, and... stationary!  Distance 0, velocity 0.       She stood.  Damn, solid ground felt good.  And she'd managed it without any plasma or explosions--just a spray of dust as the lunar surface rebounded from the momentum transfer.  She sent a landing summary com dump to the nearest repeater, and received prerecorded congratulations from DASI in return.  She tilted her head back and looked up at the Earth.       "Hey Doc," she sent.  "No crash.  No crater.  No fireball.  No problem.  The Flicker has landed."       She didn't wait for a reply before she started accelerating.  That would take more than 2 seconds, and she had work to do.  Data to gather.       *****       Setup.  Move.  Test.  Send data and analyze.  Flicker fell into a pleasant rhythm.  The lack of atmosphere made everything crisper--it was easier to distinguish more distant details with her mass sense when there wasn't air in the way.  The solid frame lock was a joy; the absence of things like buried cables, basements, sewers, and other man-made voids meant a more assured connection to the ground, and the lack of life and air meant she didn't have to juggle side effects.  This let her change direction far more easily if she didn't also change speed--sharing momentum with an intangible 'Moon hug' allowed her to dissipate less energy staying on the surface, even though it was smaller than the Earth and she was moving faster.       A lot faster.       And she confirmed something interesting about her mass sense.  The velocity part was not a side effect.  She wasn't sensing mass so much as spacetime curvature, including all the changes caused by her velocity.  She could use relativity to see.  It showed her an odd universe--but it didn't get any more odd when she sped up, and all her regular senses did.  It let her aim--without using her visor--at something she was approaching obliquely at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and still hit it with a tossed object.  (A tiny one--she didn't want to cause too big a fireball.)       And the speed measure she sensed wasn't a thing of distance over time, or even a direct comparison to light.  It was a scale factor--a number--and a very practical one.  Gamma.       What was gamma?  Gamma was the most useful thing to know about your speed when you were going real fast.  When relativity wasn't just noticeable, but dominant.       Most popular explanations of special relativity described strange effects that became apparent when you were traveling close to the speed of light.  Distances got shorter, time slowed down, masses increased.  But how much shorter?  Gamma.  How much slower?  Gamma.  Increased by what factor?  Gamma.       How did you find it?  Well, if you knew the velocity of an object you could calculate it: It was 1 over the square root of 1 minus v squared over c squared.  But Flicker didn't need to calculate it.  She could feel it.       A whole bunch of physics equations had a simple form that was really a low speed approximation, and more complicated accurate form for fast things that used gamma.  Or the Lorentz factor, if you were being formal or talking to radiation people who were twitchy about high energy photons of the same name.  Standing still was gamma 1, and it went up from there.  All the way up, because it made something very clear about the speed of light.  No matter how close you got to it, you were still infinitely far away, because the speed of light was infinite gamma.       Another thing it made clear was how relatively slow she had to go on Earth.       Her jump to the Moon had been at 0.05c, which corresponded to a gamma of 1.00125 or so.       Her normal Earth speed limit was 0.2c--gamma 1.021.       She moved between tests at 0.8c--gamma 1.667, and the effects were quite noticeable.  The whole Moon was flattened--but only in the direction she was traveling.  Every object was flattened or stretched, and the light coming from them made them look twisted.  For the trial run for the final speed test she'd gone up to 0.96c--gamma 3.571. That turned the Moon into a modestly thick disc, with her constantly cresting the edge.  And pushing down hard to stay on the surface.  How hard scaled with both velocity squared and gamma squared.  The frame lock let her do it, but 60 billion g's down was still a lot.  Sensors and her visor had started picking up some unusual effects, so Doc and the Database were analyzing them back on Earth while she finished up everything else.       One thing that had turned out to be a bigger problem than expected was dust.  Not regular surface dust, which Flicker was careful not to disturb unnecessarily, but the tiniest particles from the interplanetary dust cloud, sifting down to the surface of the Moon unhindered by air.  They weren't collectively anywhere near as dense as air, but they were too small to avoid, too common to ignore, just fast enough to replenish cleared paths, and too isolated and erratic to deflect with her usual flow and plasma tricks.  Her inertial damping kept them from causing much direct damage, but her space modified costume was rapidly becoming radioactive, and they had the potential to cause other problems.       She finished the last of the extended tests, then slowed down to breathe.  She was running low on oxygen, so she topped off her small, hardened supply from the tank in the preplaced stash.  She could go without breathing for quite a while if she had to, but it wasn't fun.  The tank and its backup were in somewhat less radiation and shock tolerant containers, and that looked like it might become a problem.  She sent off her preliminary test assessment to Earth, then browsed Database inferences while she waited for Doc's reply.       "I concur with the plasma-cleared torus for the final run," said Doc.  "It will stay dust-free for long enough.  Go as fast as you feel safe.  I won't be able to talk to you, but I'll be monitoring.  Don't worry about anything else.  Good luck, and see you soon."       Flicker smiled.  At last.  The Speedtest grand finale.       How fast dare I go, with nothing in the way?  I shall run and find out.       She felt as free as she'd ever been.       *****       First great circle circuit, deliberately kicking up Moon dust at gamma 3.5. Done in 38 milliseconds for the Moon, 11 for her.       Second circuit, turning the dust into a continuous plasma tunnel blasting outward to repel or vaporize anything new that might wander into her way.       Back around to begin the third circuit.       And deep inside her mind, she decided something else.  There were no intelligent beings closer to her than Earth, over a light second away.  There was no one else who could think inside her light cone, and wouldn't be, for over a second, unless something very strange--and very damning--happened.  She had projectiles ready, just in case.  But she didn't think anything would.       Because she wasn't just testing, she was hunting.       "That's a decision no one but you can make," Doc had said.  With more implications than were obvious.  She could go for a safer final test--or push to the limit.  And no one, no one, could know in advance.  She took counsel of the plasma noise, random fluctuations.  Unique to this worldline and unpredictable.       And made her choice.       She did not forget the thin threads that connected her to humanity, even while she was out here, far enough away that no one else would get hurt.  She remembered silly bits and pieces of life, collected haphazardly like precious mementos, that made her as human as she could be.           Vacuum calls to me           Many universes sing           I dance in this one       She started accelerating.       *****       Gamma 20, circling the Moon.  A circuit would take just 2 milliseconds for her--if she stopped accelerating, which she didn't.  Just under 37 milliseconds for the Moon.  That wasn't going to change change much anymore, she was already over 0.99c.  She had fully clamped down on her body with her power, preserving every nucleus in every atom of her body in its relative local position, regardless of now-forbidden chemistry.  The electrons were still free to move, and did, streaming outwards, carrying entropy that now had few other ways to escape.  New electrons kept arriving, pulled by her increasing positive charge, but they were expelled in turn.       She moved in a very strange realm, twisted and Doppler shifted, full of increasingly furious radiation from solar wind and residual plasma particles encountered at massive speed.  But they were essentially standing still.  The speed was all hers.  They were just in the way.       *****       She was hunting a probability manipulator, possibly an Oracle, certainly one that had access to visions of the future--and one who wished her ill.  Whoever had sent Hermes, so carefully timed to hit her at a weak point.  And possibly given her an extra push to sabotage her relationship with Journeyman.  But they had done nothing traceable.  Yet.  She was giving them an opportunity to change that.  A very tempting one.       *****       Gamma 70.  Almost 0.9999c.  Tiny second order effects were becoming large, and previously unnoticed third order ones were becoming noticeable.  The frame-locked centripetal acceleration downward, keeping her near the surface as she speed skated over the Moon, had become massive, and those tiny effects were generating heat.  She was entropy dumping it into the lunar surface at a significant rate now.       *****       How much could an Oracle see?  They weren't perfect; they couldn't be.  And how fast could they see a new future, if it changed?  Doc's time loop theories set limits on that.  So many theories, which ones were right?  Who could know?  But there were predictions in common.  And there was something special about the fifty ciruit limit for the final run of Speedtest.  It would extend over an interval long enough for light--and causality--to get from Earth to the Moon.  Barely.  But not long enough for a round trip.       So an Oracle might see a beginning of Speedtest from Earth, and the right time and place and worldline to send a probability manipulation pulse to affect the end.  Or they could see an end, and the time and place to join that Earth.  But not both.       *****       Gamma 707.  0.999999c.  Near full ionization--the electrons couldn't keep up as she pulled them from the ground and the surrounding plasma.  Her body sent a banshee wail of synchrotron radiation outward as she pulled down at trillions of g's to stay on the Moon.  Her visor had died; nothing electronic could hope to survive the flux she was sending out now.  But it wouldn't be much longer.       *****       She hadn't told Journeyman.  She hadn't told Doc.  She hadn't told DASI.  She'd made her choice in a small part of her high speed mind intended for diagnostics.  It was the right size for a human-like mind, if not remotely human shaped.  It was enough.  She'd set her trap.  She was the trap.  Her would-be nemesis could take what looked like their best shot, localizing themselves to a particular Earth worldline--but not if they wanted to see how it all turned out.       Flicker bared her teeth.       *****       Gamma 2886.  0.99999994c.  A complete circuit would take less than 13 microseconds subjective because of time dilation.  An outside observer would measure her mass at 144 metric tons.  Over 10^22 Joules of kinetic energy, more than 3,000 gigatons of TNT.  She was still moving stably, but the side effects were just becoming too much.  Flicker stopped accelerating, holding her speed steady as she approached the far side of the Moon before her planned deceleration.  She hadn't quite managed the full fifty circuits, but she didn't want to tear the Moon apart, and the strip of ground under her had already absorbed a massive amount of energy from her entropy dumping.  She had her data--it was time to slow down.  Too bad.  Her trap didn't seem to have--       Her entropy dumping weakened, then stopped completely.  Internal alarms blared and she started heating up.  Quickly.       There it was.  Got you, you bastard.       Now to stay alive.  First, get around to the far side before her temperature rose too--       Her frame lock started to waver, releasing a blast of energy when she compensated.       Shit.  Hang on.  Earth should not have line of sight to what was about to happen.       Let go of non-essentials.  Dump them--she could still connect to everything inside her 10 centimeter inertial damping range.  Costume, hood, remaining projectiles, now-useless visor, hair.  Blast them away at 50 million K.  Up and forward.  Push out energy and momentum.  That got her over the horizon.       The frame lock broke.  Facing almost directly away from Earth.  Yeah, that was how the bastard had planned to get rid of her--off into interstellar space at relativistic speed with no hope of survival, let alone return.       Her regular acceleration limit was 10 billion g's.  She needed way more to stay near the Moon at this speed, and had no time to slow down.  But there was a way.       Curve around, heating up.  Torrents of particles inside her, pair production from pushing too hard.  Heat.  Pain.  Alarms.  She altered her path slightly.  Dust was the least of her worries.  But one last push, and she could slow down enough to stay near the surface.  The oldest way.       Lithobraking.       This is going to hurt.       Flicker, still moving at a gamma of over 2700, ran head on into a mountain at the edge of the South Pole--Aitken basin.       Discontinuity.       *****       Shattering fragments of intruding nucleons.  Neutrinos.  Angry photons, disintegrating every nucleus that wasn't hers.  More neutrinos.  Sprays of high-mass, short-lived hadrons.  Even more neutrinos.  Energy and entropy with nowhere to go pulling quarks from the vacuum.       Heat and pain.  Alarms screaming, distantly.  Was she below the Hagedorn temperature yet?       Enough.  Radiate ALL the neutrinos.  They could get out without running into anything, unlike everything else.       Keep curving around, the Moon was still there.  At least ahead of her.  What was behind her was less important.  Push entropy into a smaller and smaller region inside.  Concentrate the heat.  Keep pumping out neutrinos.       Until Flicker finally cooled, and slowed to a crawl.  Still intact.       Well, relatively cool.  Under a billion kelvins.  And a relative crawl, gamma 3 or so.       And relatively... wait.  Why was she more massive?  Her nuclei were still there--at least the same elements, she had that locked in.       Was it foreign matter in her lungs and gastrointestinal tract?  No... Some nucleons had started fusing again after photodisintegration, run through the CNO cycle, and the resulting helium was now merrily alpha-processing its way up the curve of binding energy.  Reassuringly normal physics, if not the sort she generally wanted inside her body. But it was very low density.  Not enough to explain--       Oh.  "Your powers do not appear to confer complete immunity to nucleosynthesis."  That weird feeling and extra mass was a vast excess of r-process heavy isotopes left from neutron bombardment by the fragments of the mountain she'd run through.       She was...  Gods and monsters she was a mess.  Excessively radioactive, and going to stay that way until the millisecond isotopes decayed.  Technically alive didn't look like it was happening soon, even after electrons came back.  Time to try for 'back to Earth still mobile'.       No way to dump heat but radiation, so she radiated as she pushed down to stay on the last arc of her great circle curve.  She sensed the Earth clearly, the welcome mass of home.  Finally, it rose above the horizon and she could let go.  Jump back down to Earth.       Goodbye, Moon.  It was nice meeting you.  Sorry about the mess.       *****       Flicker spared a microsecond for a hunt assessment as she plummeted back towards Earth, radiating copiously.  Things didn't look good for fast pursuit of whoever had hit her with the attack.  Most of her normal senses were down--her flesh body had turned into a strangely rigid plasma, a bare framework for what might eventually be something humanlike again.  Her com options were down to glorified handwaving and signal cannons, and even if she could get triangulation data quickly after getting back to Earth, the list of things wrong catalogued by her speed mind was more than a human mind could comprehend.  It was hard to set up alarm flood handling for body parts you didn't know you had, and those early itchy complaints about lack of calibration had had a point.  At least some of the alerts seemed to be consequences of self-repair.  They kept her mind off damage, and pain.  Silver linings...       Her untranslated01 was being passive-aggressive about altering Plank's constant again, with damage mitigation suggestions implying that if she was insistent on using neutrino cooling in such an (untranslated) (untranslated) environment, it would help.  Or maybe she was just projecting; she would be snarky in the kind of alarms you generally only saw after ignoring many 'No! Stop! Unsafe!' ones.       Sorry, still no messing with Plank's constant.       Flicker was going to have enough trouble drag braking by momentum transfer in the upper atmosphere.  Even if she just used it to buffer her inherent deceleration, it would be unstable for induced torque, and she would have to add energy to keep from spinning violently.  How much?  She didn't know; she hadn't planned on coming home quite this fast.  And she really wanted to limit her energy dissipation to kilotons instead of megatons.  She was going to reenter over the Pacific, but pulling a super-Tunguska on the way down would be obnoxious.       ...and the atmosphere was coming up quick, she could feel the flux increasing and oh, what a great time for her vertigo to come back.  Because her eyes weren't working, she was using mass sense to see and flux rates to maneuver and that didn't help with dizzyness.       Drag, trying to stabilize on the thin upper atmospehere, working as well as she'd expected:  Badly.       Torque.  Starting to spin.  Shit.  Counter it.  Shitshit too much.  Tumbling on a different axis.  Slow it.  Okay.       Plasma everywhere, had she dumped enough?  Gamma 1.12, not yet.  But the air was thick enough now she could start using her old inertial damping flow tricks, as long as she didn't care how much she heated up, so she stopped trying to fight it, just smoothed it out, let her momentum drop the old fashioned way.       Okay, it looked like it was going to be megatons after all, but spread out, and hopefully not too many...       Lower atmosphere, and surface of the ocean coming up.  Whoops, mass flow went up, what?  Ah, water, she was coming in through a thunderstorm, not ideal, but--wait, scratch that, she was insanely radioactive in Earth terms and she was about to hit salt water, fresh water was better to slow down...       Down to about 0.07c, and she didn't manage to frame lock until she was within 40 meters, bad timing with waves, but she could entropy dump again!  Relief!  She could finally--okay that was a lot of heat, she'd caused some fusion coming in, but it was just thermal X-rays, mostly, and...       This landing did cause a fireball.  But she'd made it back.  Now she needed to readjust her perspective to Earth-appropriate energy levels and start moving, because she was still radiating, a lot of it was neutrons, and the shock wave from her landing might--       Oh crap, what's that?  Density voids beneath the surface within a few kilometers, going to get hit by her impact shockwave.  What was... Whales.  She was seeing the air inside the lungs of whales with her density sense.  Were they far enough away to survive?  Maybe.  Anything else?       What was that, up in the sky?       Something human-sized, coming in at just over orbital speed--wait, she'd know that shockwave anywhere, no one else flew like that, it had to be the Volunteer.       Flicker sped over to just in front of him and slowed down enough for him to see--millisecond timescales, but how to talk?  She couldn't see, and her com was ancient history.       He could see.  And she could write.  Plasma letters in the air over the ocean.  She didn't need his help, but others did.       Shockwave.  Can't stay.  Save the whales.       He could get details from Doc, and it was time for her to go.  She dared not remain stationary for more than a few milliseconds yet--she was entropy dumping just to get down to solar surface temperatures, neutron activation was a thing, she needed some radiation time before it would be safe to head for Doc's, and salt water was not the best place for it.       South.  0.05c.  Her flow compensation in air was still shaky, not up to her usual standards, and she'd scattered plenty of high energy plasma around already.       *****       Antarctica.  Ross ice shelf.  Nothing but fresh water and dry air.  A good place to cool down, and as good as she was going to get to radiate neutrons.  Slow loops, down at a thousand kilometers per second, slow enough to be ghosting--if she hadn't been glowing hot.       Her path was predictable, and she finally heard a signal--an orbital pulse maser from Doc, sending coded bits she could feel directly.  Low bandwidth, noisy, but 'Threat gone'?  Had her attacker escaped already?       Anger kindled.  But she wasn't thinking clearly beyond immediate needs, too many things were still wrong--store the anger, there were places for it, places that wouldn't get completely cleared when she could finally sleep again.  She would remember, regardless.       Seconds stretched out.  But fresh water could absorb neutrons with very little persistent radiation, and her nuclei were settling down a bit--excited isomers and excess neutrons were making their way out, electrons were returning long enough to start accumulating, and her radiation profile was slowly dropping to the point where she might be able to actually stop somewhere with appropriate cooling.       More pulses.  'Pumps on.  Shields up.  Isotope exchanger ready.'       Doc was prepared.  And she needed that exchanger.  She was still clamped down hard, and had to stay that way, because she had too many nuclei that were too neutron heavy to be stable--and letting them decay would change them to different elements, and, say, carbon changing to nitrogen inside her DNA would be A Problem when she let the chemistry in her body restart.  To say nothing of all the tritium.  She needed time in the shop before she could even consider restarting biology and life.       A long time.  Hours, possibly days.  Not pleasant, not optional.       And she'd cooled and radiated enough.  Equilibrium decay temperature was manageable.  Time to head home.       *****       Back at Doc's, inside the force fields that protected everything else from her.  The pumps did their work bringing fresh water in range for entropy dumping, so she could cool without moving.  Isotope exchange started, hands and eyes first, so she could see and type for the rest.       She still had many questions.  But she'd survived Speedtest, discovered so much, run up to gamma 2886, 0.99999994c, weathered the attack, and made it home.  Soon she would be able to start recording data again, and ask some of those questions.  Her attacker appeared to have escaped.  But they had been triangulated, from the timing of the attack on the Moon along with signals extracted from the Omniresonators at the Database nodes.  There was a distinctive signature--and the attacker had fled, immediately, to another dimension, without waiting to see if their attack succeeded.  They feared her survival.       Flicker lived.  And she would not forget.

Next:  Part 10

[seoulsborne123]

The Forgotten Queen: Prologue

The discovery of the ancient city called Yharnam was supposed to be the biggest archeological find of the decade. But perhaps some secrets are best left well alone...

A Ghost Hunt and Bloodborne crossover. Set about two years after the events of Akumu no Sumu Ie.

Prologue

Illuminated only with the dim light of their emergency candles, Joanna couldn’t help but feel the unease creep in. It was not a problem in daylight, or even when they had working lamps that provided a constant source of light, but with the flickering flame the shadows turned the Gothic embellishments on the pillars and doors from being grotesque to outright nightmarish. And despite the roominess inspired by the open archways and the high vaulted ceiling that gave the impression of rising high into the heavens, she couldn’t help but feel stifled.

She shook this feeling away and cleared her mind, trying to focus on the game before her. 

"Check."

Her opponent pulled his lips to the side and studied his hand intimately though his eyes seemed to land on nothing in particular. As if sensing her studying his every move, he cleared his throat and feigned confidence, jutting out his chest a little more than usual. Joanna, for the meantime, forgot her unease. He was being too obvious. Normally she would wonder if he was attempting reverse-reverse psychology, but although she’d only known him for a week, she knew that Nick would be too simple and straightforward to consider that option. It could only mean two of the same things: either he had a very low hand, or none at all.  

"Yeah, I'll raise the bet," he said, holding up two coins and making a big show of slamming them down on the table. The noise it made echoed obnoxiously loud.

"You do know how poker works, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

She shook her head. "Suit yourself. They’re your chocolate bars to lose..." She threw in another coin to match what he put down.

"Okay, let's see what you got."

Joanna revealed a seven of hearts and a four of diamonds. Counting the community cards on the table, she only had a pair of sevens. It wasn’t exactly the greatest hand, but she knew it would be enough to beat her colleague.

"Damn, again…"

"Oh Nick, you aren't very good at this." She laughed and added three more tick marks on her notebook, the little rush from winning made her completely forget the unease she felt moments ago. "You owe me 12 pieces now. You’ll need to stake another item; I won't care very much for your chocolate bars any more if we keep going at this pace and that'd be a shame."

Nick rolled his eyes and gathered the cards. "Oh be quiet. I've got—" but a sudden loud thud in the distance made the two of them nearly jump out of their seats. They whipped their heads back and tried to search the darkness beyond what their candlelight could illuminate, but saw nothing out of place. Joanna remembered everything again.

"Must have been the wind," Nick mumbled.

"I'm pretty sure the sound came from inside that door and you know there is no chance of wind behind there. "

"Okay, structure settling."

"Stone settles?"

Nick sighed. "'Okay, then what, ghosts?"

"I don't know, maybe," she answered with an edge to her voice. "With everything that's happened, don't you think… don’t you think it may be supernatural after all?"

Nick let out a breath, unsure of what to reply.. "Come on, Jo. You don’t really think that? It's an ancient place. Nothing about… this… screams haunted..." As he said this, the two of them looked warily around their immediate vicinity: ghastly figurine statues of cloaked women interspersed along the edges of the room, hands outstretched towards the heavens in a plea; empty clay jars scattered about, which they thought must have been used to hold wine, though recent findings point to it actually having once hosted blood; a giant lancet window framed with elegant tracery that let in what little of the obscured moonlight there was, which only served to cast formless shadows all around

Nick looked at Joanna again and repeated with less confidence, "Yep, looks normal to me. We should be okay. And it's a holy place. Don’t ghosts fear Jesus, or something?"

"What? Ghosts can be in churches. And churches can be creepy, especially long abandoned ones. Have you not seen any horror movies?" Joanna retorted, wondering how it was possible for this to not be common knowledge. 

"No, come on, look let’s be logical about it. Have you been to other dig sites before or is this your first rodeo?”

Joanna deflated and admitted, “No, this is the first.” Although she was only a third year Archeology undergraduate student, her work and track record had impressed her professors and they fully endorsed her in joining this short expedition.

Without turning haughty or dismissive, Nick nodded and simply said, “Then okay, I get it. But let’s consider the facts: a giant city in the middle of a dense forest, abandoned and hidden for over two centuries. Of course it’ll be overwhelming. The buildings here may look like they’re in good shape, but sometimes we can’t see all the damage, which might be causing all the random noises we can’t understand. It could also be rats, or something.”

"But that's the problem, isn't it? We should have at least seen some rats by now. I haven't even seen bugs. Have you?"

"Well it’s a bit too nippy here, probably."

"But rats should—" Once again, their conversation was cut off. This time it was the long, baleful howl of a wolf that made them shudder. Eerily on time, the clouds that obscured the full moon parted and bathed the church in its pale, luminescent light. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it made Joanna question whether she preferred the figures partially hidden in darkness, or exposed fully in the moonlight. 

A new thought hit her. "What if this is how it all starts? The last time Professor Gimmel and the others disappeared, wasn't it also a full moon? What if Jon's just the first?"

“Full moon? First ghosts, now you think witches are involved? Or do you mean werewolves?"

"Well, why not?" she snapped, annoyed more at herself, knowing full well how ridiculous she was being. "That was undoubtedly a wolf, and nearby too by the sounds of it, but everyone keeps insisting there are no wolves around here. How does that make sense? Nothing in this place makes sense."

"You know yourself that there's been no signs of wolves around here. None of us have found footprints, or droppings, or old kills in the area. They would have left some kind of trace in the woods outside. Besides even if they were outside, we’re still safe within the city walls since they’re definitely not in here." Nick gathered up the cards and resumed shuffling. "I don't know. Maybe it was an owl."

"That’s just ridiculous. What about that weird singing choir we sometimes hear at night? Kyle and his group heard it, too. I’ve also read mentions of it in the old reports.” 

She leaned in closer and whispered, “I think this is a cursed place. Those jars and the bottles we’ve found… I think it’s becoming more obvious that a blood-borne disease led to a slow collapse of this town. Look at those countless graves outside— people had time to bury their dead. The manner of those blood rituals are still unclear, but usually that would point to pagan worship, right? Yet the significance of the Church and religion in this city leads me to think it’s actually something sanctioned by them. To have the Church’s sacrament be twisted... There must have been something seriously wrong with this place.” 

“I actually agree with your points, but we can’t just jump to conclusions. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the lab has been able to transcribe those old texts...”

As if completely unaware he even spoke, Joanna continued her denunciations and was steadily growing in urgency until she reached a fevered hiss, “And that creepy nun! Where the hell did she come from? I don’t trust her. And now Jon’s missing and we could be next. Just remember that three years ago the others investigated this place and disappeared without a trace."

“You don’t need to remind me of that, Jo.” 

His tone made Joanna stop and look up. His face was grim. 

In her delirium she forgot that Nick was personally connected to the events three years ago. How could she have been so callous? She was trying to formulate a way to properly apologize when to her surprise, he quickly recovered his composure and resumed as if she hadn’t misspoke.

"Jon's always been the kind of 'not always there' type of person though, hasn't he? Maybe he wandered off and got lost. The others will find him and when they do, we'll be right here ready to radio for help."

Joanna groaned. "Nick, something is wrong with this place." She cast another look at her cards and muttered, "I'll raise."

Nick thumbed his cards absentmindedly before calling her raise to stay in the round.

"Again, in terms of its odd history, I agree with you. But to say that what’s happening now is due to supernatural causes? That’s too much, Jo." 

He revealed the fifth card on the table and took in a sharp breath as she put down yet another coin to stay in the round. All he had was a pair of twos. 

Was it worth to continue on? He shook his head. ”Okay, I fold." 

He revealed his cards. She revealed a losing hand.

"Son of a—" but for the third time that night, the sentence was cut off by the sound of the doors opening and heavy footfall fast approaching. It was one of their colleagues who had gone out as part of the search party. He stood before them completely out of breath as if he had sprinted for miles.

He was clearly shaken and quite manic as he gasped out, "They found him! My god, they found him!" Unable to elaborate further, he resorted to gesticulating wildly and pointed outside.

Fearing the worst, Nick immediately stood up and radioed for an ambulance. Unfortunately their heavily secluded location meant that help can reach them twenty minutes at the earliest provided good road conditions. As he spoke to the operator and gave detailed directions, he grabbed one of the first-aid kits nearby and threw it towards Joanna, who caught it and rushed outside with the researcher.

Many scenarios played in Joanna's head, the kind of accidents Jon could have gotten himself into. The current expedition was only meant to go on for two weeks at most and thus their patron did not think it necessary to send out a qualified field doctor with them. At the very best, they had an avid hiker among their group who was trained and volunteered to be their first-responder, but she only knew how to take care of minor injuries. She wondered if Cecile was already at the scene and whether the kit she carried would even be of any use.

However when they reached the plaza, Joanna stopped in her tracks.

It was not Jon.

Most of the group were already gathered, looking on just as surprised as she was. Cecile was already hunched down with him, checking for any serious signs of injuries.

"Who…?" she asked in a whisper, more to herself, and in the still air her voice carried but no one spoke a word.

"What in the--Professor Gimmel!"

Joanna frowned and spun around. Nick had finally caught up. He stood beside her, speechless and confused.

"The Professor? But it's been three years since… Are you sure that’s him?"

Nick finally snapped out of his stupor and slowly approached the sickly, pale man. "Professor Gimmel, are you hurt anywhere? It's okay now. Help is on its way. Are you able to walk further? Our base is at the church nearby." When the professor wouldn't respond, Nick looked to Cecile. "What’s happened? How is he?"

"Shocked, I reckon. Hasn't spoken a word nor looked at anyone in the eye, really. I don't even think he realizes we're here."

Joanna listened to their conversation while her head buzzed with a million questions. She looked the professor over. 

He was bony, disheveled, reeked of something foul, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. Where had he been all this time? How had he survived out here for that long on his own? From the looks of it, it didn't seem like he'd had much to eat, and with the absence of any animals and edible vegetation around, how was he able to provide enough sustenance to keep himself alive for so long? But then again, didn't the nun live here on her own as well and was somehow able to survive? Perhaps the nun had known of his whereabouts all along? Where were the others?

She only knew him by name: a distinguished professor from Cambridge who led a team of seasoned archeologists, crewmen, and a handful of graduate students to study the newly discovered ancient city called Yharnam. It was meant to be the next biggest discovery, but in the end it had to be kept hushed up due to the tragic story of the original excavation team. They had been working for half a year before most of the crew, fifteen people including the Professor, suddenly disappeared without a trace. 

The case was cold. No leads, no suspects to consider. Work on the site was temporarily put on hold, but eventually another wealthy patron stepped up and fresh, willing workers eager to sign up for an adventure were found.  If it weren't for the appeal of the occult and the dig site's macabre history, Joanna would have passed on this opportunity. Alas, though she thought herself not spiritual in the least and refused to believe in supernatural phenomena, the fear of the unknown both excited and scared her. Like a living contradiction, the more outrageous the circumstance, the more she refused to believe, and yet the more mystified she became, the more it terrified and thrilled her to think it could be supernatural. 

Her attention switched back to Nick, who, after having no luck extracting any information from the professor, turned to the rest of their colleagues and asked, "Where did you guys find him?"

"It was Adella who found him," answered Thomas. "Karen and I were on our way towards the area below the Cathedral when we came across her and the Professor. She said she found him down there."

"Well where is she now?"

"Slinked off somewhere. You know how she is. The Professor here has been unresponsive to our questions so we just took him here as soon as possible. All he kept talking about was something about some 'big one' or other. Don't seem to realize we're here at all. We need to get him out of here as soon as possible."

As if on cue, the Professor collapsed on the ground, prostrated himself, and suddenly shouted in excitement, "Oh, Amygdala! Amygdala! Oh… what a pleasure it is to see the divine!"

The clouds had cleared once again and the moon illuminated the forgotten city, the towering Gothic buildings, weathered and ancient. The town was a mess: rubble, gravestones, and coffins strewn about, rotted of old age. Though the addition of a new light source was most welcome, the sight of a large, full moon unsettled everybody.

Joanna tried to follow the Professor's gaze. He seemed to be focusing on the rooftop. Whatever he saw there moved him almost to tears, but she saw nothing. A hallucination, perhaps?

The voice of Evan, one of the younger contractors, broke her train of thought. He had just arrived with two others.

“Thomas, we checked the area to corroborate what Adella said, but no one else there, just him."

Thomas whipped around. "What about the Gate? Was it still open?"

“Open?” Joanna interrupted incredulously. The others around her were just as surprised at this information.

"We didn’t venture too close to it, but we saw it was still open."

"Since when and how?"

"Don't know, kid. It wasn’t open yesterday when the others checked.”

Thomas turned to the others. He was the most senior ranking member of the team and was responsible for everyone’s safety, but this new opportunity was just too good to pass up. Previously inaccessible, now its gate lay wide open. What new discoveries could they find in the lower area? Moreover, there was a good chance they could find the remaining missing people there— alive or dead. He shuddered.

“What do you guys think? Shall we take a team down there?"

Nick answered, "I've already radioed in for emergency; they're on their way. The sky's clear now so we can take advantage of the moonlight. Probably best not to venture out too far though, but if the Professor got out, the others may not be far behind."

"Agreed. We'll go with a small team for now. Cecile you're in charge here to make sure evac goes well. Jon might still be out there, too. If you don’t need that kit, we’ll take it with us. Mike, Evan, Karen, Nick, let's go."

“Take me with you!”

Thomas turned around. Beside him, Nick shrugged and said that she wouldn’t make trouble. With a sigh, he also motioned for Joanna to follow along. 

The trek was a long one. After climbing several sets of stairs and winding along dark alleyways, they finally arrived at the Grand Cathedral, the tallest, most grandiose building in the city, but instead of heading inside the group turned right, following the narrow pathway around the building and found themselves by a cliff side. Following the long stairway down led them to the central plaza of a small community of decrepit houses, where it's been suggested clergymen and nuns must have once lived. But the trek didn't end there. Further along there were more stairs leading even lower below, leading to a hollowed out, possibly man-made cave. The group was forced to huddle in closer together due to the tight space, the feeling of claustrophobia setting in and making everyone's heart beat a little faster until they all finally emerged on the other side.

From the distance, they could see the atrium that housed the aforementioned gate that sectioned away a part of the town no one had ever managed to step foot in.

Thomas held his hand up, halting their advance. He himself took a few steps forward and frowned.

The Gate, which was the name they've baptized the set of gigantic double doors towering approximately forty feet high, was sealed completely shut as it had always been.

[themockingcrows]

Companionship Through Circuitry Ch. 4: Treasures New and Old

This chapter is SFW This chapter available on my AO3!

From weaponized Furbies to old school prewar technology, Bro is finding his hands in many pies. Hal wishes he'd leave the pies the fuck alone for the most part.

     The small wheels of the Furby were sturdy enough to handle the terrain inside of the building with ease, so long as the bigger debris was avoided. These weren’t monster truck wheels, after all. Every so often a ping would be sent back to Bro’s location in the stairwell where he was secured out of sight, ready to be back up once Hal was done exploring and mapping out the place. He’d already covered significant ground, only needing assistance when it came to changing floors, and was holding his own against some of the mutated pests that had taken up residence in the various empty rooms.

     The modified laser was perfect for quick shots, and most of the critters seemed to be expecting humans or at least food they could smell. The small mechanical device wasn’t very appetizing looking, more of a curiosity. Bro was pretty sure he’d never seen giant insects that close up before unless they were dead, the radiation having done a number on their dna sequences since the war. Their protruding eyes were kind of fascinating to see up close, though Bro was content to watch from his distance rather than get hands on.

     I don’t appreciate this, you know

     “Don’t appreciate what,” Bro said into his end of the walkie talkie. “Freedom to move around? Weapons to protect yourself with?”

     I don’t appreciate being stuffed into this toy and you damn well know it.

     “Cry me a river and check the next hallway, I’ve got a feelin’ there’ll be somethin’ good there.” 

     There were other toys there. You could have put me in something useful. Something sturdier. Something-

     “What the fuck is that thing?”  said a voice from further down the hallway Hal was trundling down. A human who’d been living rough for some time, with attitudes that were even rougher judging from the wild clothing they wore, came into view. A man, when he got close enough to be seen clearly. A raider, if some of the markings on his clothes were authentic and not just slapped on for fun. Great, just what he fucking needed, a pack of wild men to deal with.

     “Find something to eat?” called another voice. Bro quietly grunted and got up out of his hiding spot to go get ready. Humans could be destructive with shit they didn’t understand, and the last thing he wanted to do was lose Hal. He’d become pretty attached to the AI by now, and losing him wasn’t an option anymore, not with the end goal being so interesting to him.

     “Nah, just found… something. I don’t know what this thing is,” the first man admitted, reaching down to snatch the Furby off the ground after a few attempts, the small wheels motoring this way and that to avoid being picked up. “Some kinda toy?”

     “What, find a new teddy bear?” joked the other voice out of view.

     “Nah. This thing’s cute though,” he chuckled, touching the spinning wheels and the moving beak before setting it back down on the ground. The Furby failed to move. “Hey, c’mon over and get a look while it’s still.”

     The second man finally appeared, itching his back with the baseball bat he held, hair tied back into a messy bun. He popped a squat in front of the still Furby and smirked.

     “Aw. Lookit the lil shit, it’s cu-”

     Zap.

     The laser was probably overkill as far as power went, but Bro was proud of the addition and how stable it proved to be. The fact that Hal was a killer shot was just a bonus, landing the guy right between the eyes before the guy could get the word out all the way, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The first man panicked and jumped back as the Furby zoomed back to life and backed up several paces.

     Bitch.

     Bro was able to take a shot towards the man’s shoulder with his sword  before turning and cracking him upside the head with a fist, sending him down in a bleeding pile. Nothing like a small fluffy creature buzzing on the floor after firing a deadly laser to act as a distraction for a 6’6 man with a sword creeping up on ya. It probably would have been more prudent to use long range… but sometimes he just needed to have an excuse to clean his sword off rom residue that wasn’t radroach or abomination. 

     “Y’know, you could’ve just singed him and he might’ve run. I was on my way,” Bro said, nudging the dead fellow with a toe of his boot. “I don’t think he even has anything interestin’ on him.”

     I hold no apologies for being called ‘cute’. 

     “You’re right, you’re adorable. How dare they.”

     Laser has entered the cooldown period. You’re lucky.

     “Your own fault for shootin’ full force, if you want to roast me you’re gonna need to learn your limits first Hal,” Bro said as he abandoned the toy and walked ahead to peek in different doors. Big fat load of nothing… till he found the place the second man had come from. Paydirt. A temporary camp site, complete with food and water. Packaged food, no less, prewar and sturdy enough to last ages thanks to its healthy doses of preservatives. Giving a pleased whoop of joy, Bro took off his bag and took to stuffing what he could carry into it, taking his time to look around for other important looking things. Keys, cards, electronic tidbits that might be useful, ammunition. Bandages. Christ could he use some bandages, or disinfectant, he’d forgotten to stock up on extras at the last place they’d stayed and it was going to bite him in the ass, he could just feel it.

     While he found some disinfectant in the form of a high octane liquor, the bandages were at least sanitary looking and standard. Eh. A drink and something to clean with. It’d work. Otherwise interestingly he found a notebook, one with most of the pages in it no less. Perfect. He’d be able to write Dave again tonight and send the letter off when they hit a trader or a town next. Right on schedule.

     ...Or maybe too much of a schedule. Kid was probably being inundated with letters and not sure what to do with them since he couldn’t write back. If he even wanted to.

     Bro paused for a moment before grabbing the notebook and stuffing it into his bag after all. If Dave read his letters or threw them in the trash, at least he was reaching out on his end and showing he was willing to talk. It was the best he could do, he supposed. Be there and be ready for replies if they came.

     You’re going to get fat if you eat all that processed garbage. Why did junk food survive but next to none of the decent food survive.

     “Preservatives and chemicals for flavorin’,” Bro said, snapping out of his thoughts. The one man was only knocked out, after all, not dead. He’d be coming to eventually, best to be long gone by then. “When there’s more chemicals than food in the package, the food’ll last through goddamn anything.”

     I’m starting to think that if you encountered a fresh vegetable you would collapse inwardly like a dying star.

     “Everything I’ve ever come into contact with had some traces of radiation in it, it’s part of the post-apocalyptic lifestyle, Hal. It’s just a waitin’ game to see how much will make you sick and how much just adds a zesty aftertaste.”

     ...I’m unable to tell if you’re joking or not and that is concerning for my future mobility. I can hear the atherosclerosis from here.

     “All you can hear are the dulcet tones of my voice, admit it,” Bro said, giving one last look around the room before reaching for Hal. The laser fired a small zap, stinging his hand and making him yank it back, watching the toy zip around in circles teasingly. “Ah c’mon, don’t be a lil shit. I was gonna put you back in the glasses. Don’t you like the glasses more than the Furby?”

     I like many things more than the Furby.

     “C’mere then,” Bro said, reaching down to snatch the toy up by its fuzzy body, the weight more substantial now than it had been fresh out of the box. The skin was stretched taut over all kinds of goodies now, and he was careful as he plugged the shades into the side of the Furby by way of the metallic port, waiting and watching as the small loading symbols flickered in front of his eyes. Once again, Hal’s eyes opened in front of his own, pupils dilating briefly in recognition before they flickered away and he was left with the usual interface once more.

     “There. Better?”

     If you really loved me you’d have built something better with all those spare parts.

     “I don’t love you. I tolerate you.”

     Frankenfurby is a token of your affections as surely as your letters to your spawn are.

     “Those’re different,” Bro murmured, tucking the doll away carefully in his bag and securing it closed. He wasn’t sure if he could hear groaning or was just paranoid, but better to leave than to find out. Slowly, he backtracked down the hallway past the felled men before speeding up to the stairwell, hurrying down and out of the building while he could. All in all a successful scavenge, his luck was really holding out now that he had his new toy.

     Friend.

     … Yeah, he’d call Hal a friend now. Maybe prematurely, but it was hard not to bond with someone whose sense of humor was so similar to his own, bot or not.

     Are we still on target to approach where my body was last being kept?

     “Should be. I’m only swervin’ once in a while to find places to stay, or to get goodies after all. There’s a few places I’d love to hit between here and there, though it’d be too rough goin’ for the furb to be active.”

     What are these locations you are wanting to go to and why.

     “Well, one of’ems a vault. I know if there’s people in it they’d be good for tradin’ with and prolly have somewhere to stay or know where it’d be good to stay in the region. If it’s a decrepit one it’d prolly been picked clean… if you give up after the first few areas,” Bro smirked. “Dig deep and pick enough locks, know how to sweet talk the electronics, and usually you’ll find a treasure trove of some kind. Or at least so I’d assume, given that I’ve not exactly crawled my way through enough to formulate a mean average on accessibility to the damn things.”

     Hal whirred briefly as if thinking before speaking up. What kinds of things would you be hoping to obtain from there that you cannot obtain from elsewhere that we’ve been going into? These ‘goodies’ you mention.

     “More prewar things mostly,” Bro said as he sized up a slope and skidded down it with his feet turned. He had to sit down once, scuffing his ass, but he made it to the bottom without falling at all. A quick dust, and he was back en route. “Food, ammunition. Weapons. Medical supplies is a big important one. Old prewar tech is like findin’ the needle in the haystack, but once you find it it’s sweet.”

     Old prewar tech like what, more odds and ends?

     “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s more like findin’ entire bots untouched in their charging bays,” he explained, eyeing the surroundings cautiously. He was more exposed out here, and he didn’t exactly enjoy it, but sometimes it was a choice between being exposed and being boxed into an area chock full of super mutants.

     No thank you, he’d take his chances out here thanks. Could hear and see shit coming that way while he was awake.

     Would these untouched bots have data cables perchance.

     “I’m not uploadin’ you into a Gutsy, Hal.”

     I’D BE SO MUCH MORE USEFUL, YOU’D BE MISSING OUT!

     “I like you bein’ portable. I also like you not bein’ capable of friendly fire. No, I didn’t forget that laser earlier, you fuck, my hand still stings from it.”

     Okay, what if instead of uploading me into a Gutsy you uploaded me into the mainframe computer? reasoned Hal. I could manually override everything in place since lockdown, and likely would be able to communicate with you through various data ports.

     Bro’s steps slowed a bit. That, he liked the sound of. Just need to make it to the overseers office and make sure it was clear before uploading him… or maybe even uploading him from another unit, if it was still functional.

     “If you ever got stuck in there, would you be patient and wait for me to figure out how to get you out?”

     And give up the God like control I would have over the giant rodent population? You tease me.

     “I’ll take that as a yes, and an Okay for where to head to next,” he hummed.

     If he could make it out of there with enough swag, he could sell the extra and have plenty to spend till the end of the mission. ...Was that what this was now? A mission? A mission to get to an AI’s body that may or may not even exist...for what. There was no guarantee Hal would even want to stay with him at the end of all of this. Odds are he’d get freedom and go running with it like Dave had, leaving Bro on his lonesome again.

     The thought put an unpleasant knot in his stomach. No, Daave hadn’t run away, he’d grown up and left the nest like everyone else did eventually. And even if Hal DID leave him behind, so what? He’d have had a bit of an adventure, restocked his cash supply, probably gotten more things to keep himself busy with. There’d be more stories to tell over a few shots of booze, more things to write to Dave about, and more things to remember when he was old.

     Nothing happened without a reason. This wasn’t a fruitless venture, he’d already had more fun than he assumed was possible.

     Are you okay? Hal asked suddenly.

     “Huh? Yeah, why.”

     Your eyes looked pensive and you seemed miles away. No reaction to the mole rat coming in from the left.

     Cussing, Bro turned and whipped his sword out, raising it up to-

     “...Hal. Where’s the mole rat,” Bro asked, scanning around in circles with his weapon raised.

     It’s fictional, but you proved my point about being distracted quite well.

     “Hal. I’m gonna bust you into twenty pieces if you keep that shit up.”

     Do you wish to talk about it? The things that were catching your thoughts.

     “You my therapist now?”

     Curiosity has captured me and you’re the nearest target.

     “I was thinkin’ about the nearest vault and what we might find in it,” he lied. Hal’s loading screen flashed in front of his eyes again before the outdated map appeared like a hazy display over reality.

     If we continue at the current ambling pace it would take till tomorrow evening to reach the nearest vault, given that nothing between here and there has become too irradiated to support living creatures or has become irradiated enough to support terrible living creatures.

     “One way to find out, huh.”

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

     The vault was an opened one, leaving the usual rundown of various critters to deal with near the entrance. Pests. This was his pearl to unearth, not theirs to eat. They could have the leftovers, maybe he’d crumble up a bag of chips and leave’em nearby as a peace offering or something, not that the dumb animals would understand or appreciate it at all. As it was he took potshots at some of them and just stomped on the insects before they could be a problem, wiping goo off his shoes on the metal rack steps inside the big steel door. It smelled damp somewhere, made sense. The rest of the air just smelled old and musty, rusted. Worn down. There was still electricity though, these bastards really were meant to last.

     Bro made his way through a few doors before finding his way to some signs, following them to the main recreation area. Graffiti tagged the walls with various people he’d never heard of and probably never would know of, and most of the things were picked over or left broken open to rot. Raiders. Messy fuckers, lived somewhere for a while then moved on when the supplies ran out.

     Just meant there was probably gold in there further than the numbskulls could reach, and he just had to be patient.

     Paydirt came when Bro finally found a computer monitor that was not only unbroken but accessible to the main system, taking a seat to toy with the keys for a while. He spent some time reading old logs, scouring it for data that might be useful, keys being left somewhere or security being heightened in different areas. Not much to work from, though. He pursed his lips and made a soft tutting sound before shaking his head and standing.

     Aren’t you going to upload me?

     “Not here, no. If I find a security terminal maybe, or if I can get to the Overseer’s office, that’d be the best shit. You’d have access to a wider percentage of the place, if not all of it once the override’s overridden.”

     You underestimate me, I could probably reach there before you.

     “You could also get firewalled by some shit you’re encoded with because you’re still an AI tryin’ to hack somethin’. ‘Sides, I’d rather have the company for now,” Bro chuckled.

     At least the scenery is interesting. I believe the last three dicks on the walls were larger than the first three dicks on the walls.

     “We’re in the tainted parts,” Bro said, hopping a barrier to reach the first locked door they’d encountered. Smirking, he pulled off his bag and got a few small tools out, sparking the data screen back to life after a few minutes of jimmying the wires. He made quick work of it, letting the door open before allowing the charge to drop, rendering the door permanently open.

     “Child’s play,” he said softly, putting the tools into his pocket in case they were needed sooner rather than later before letting himself walk through and down the much better conditioned hallway. There was no graffiti here, but the smell of mildew was still strong, meaning there must have been a leak somewhere. Internal leak was one thing, an external meant radiation. “Hal, keep a geiger check goin’, warn me if we’re gettin’ anywhere too hairy.”

     There are elevated levels, but they’re within the safe amount so long as you don’t do something foolish like sleep back here.

     “Figured. Don’t worry, I don’t feel very tired right now.”

     If anything he felt alert, awake, ready to fight. He almost wished something would lurch around the dimly lit corner thirsting for his blood so he could decapitate it. Stress presenting itself in violent ways was just a part of life here, and fuck could he use some stress relief before the night was up. Getting here had been more stressful than he assumed, involving some stealthing past massive horned abominations with razor sharp claws and dealing with some leatherbound fuckheads who just HAD to decide he was worth heckling.

     Another bit of wandering, most rooms not holding anything useful or worth lugging out of there, Bro finally hit jackpot. The overseers office wasn’t locked down, it seemed. The bloodstain on the wall gave a few clues to why that may be, but the lack of a skeleton to follow up with made the guessing game all the more interesting in his opinion. Hopping into the creaking leather seat, he rustled for the connection cable from his bag.

     “Ready, Hal? I want you to light the place up, unlock shit, and see if you can access the sound system,” Bro rattled off, instructing the AI as if those weren’t the things he was already planning to do.

     I’ll send feedback to these monitors as well, no doubt there are some cameras still working, Hal promised, eagerly awaiting the moment of plugin.

     Briefly, Bro was concerned he’d caused a power outage. The room went pitch black, as did the rest of the vault that he could see from the rounded window and doorway, save for the monitor in front of him.

     “Hal? Fuck.”

     The screen flashed green, before taking on a red hue as pixels fell by the wayside. A small loading screen image appeared, same as in the glasses.

     Loading. Loading. Loading, came a voice from the sound system around him, soothing and methodical. In the distance, however, Bro heard unworldly screeching and hisses, and his blood ran cold.

     “Lights back on any time, Hal.”

     Loading. Loading. Loading.

     More hisses and screams, this time closer, reacting every time they heard a voice on the speakers.

     “Haaaaaal. Any time now would be pretty fuckin’ sweet,” Bro hissed, slowly sinking down below the desk and pulling his weapon out, hiding but prepared as he waited.

     The lights flickered back on, too bright and intense enough to sting his eyes before lowering back down to the softer indoor degree. Bro scooted out and lifted up enough to look at the screen, smirking when he saw a small, digitized version of a human with red eyes and white hair doing a bouncing dance in the corner. This wasn’t a simple data upload, it was practically a hijacking.

     “...Hal? Can you hear me?”

     No response. Frowning, Bro looked up to the corners to find the cameras, repeating himself.

     “Can you hear me?”

     No. But I can see you. I can see a lot of things.

     “Show me,” he mouthed towards the cameras before looking to the displays once more. It was like he’d feared: those hisses weren’t just in his head. The place was lousy with feral ghouls, and fuck if that was one thing he hated dealing with. Normal ghouls? Chill folks. Feral ghouls were a goddamn mess that didn’t stop hitting and they were smart enough to run while aiming for the soft bits. At least they weren’t infectious like in those old books he’d seen. Prewar people had been obsessed with the idea of the living dead. Well, congratulations fuckers: you were the reason they existed now.

     He assumed his sword could get through most of them, the rest he’d need to aim for the head to take down. Biting his lip, Bro stood up and took the chair once more, typing to get a more detailed message across to Hal in case the simplistic lip reading couldn’t carry over. 

     Can you unlock the doors?

     Done and done.

     Is there a path towards the medical bay or security room that isn’t littered with ghouls?

     Negative. Your new friends are everywhere and they don’t seem very happy to hear me.

     “God damn it, of course, the two places I wanna hit and they’re crawlin’,” Bro hissed in disgust. 

     Do you have a clear view of these areas?

     Absolutely, Hal said before the camera views changed, showing different hallways and signs, then finally the interior of the medical bay and the security office. Each had its own ghouls, but even from there Bro could see enough treasure that his mouth watered. Treasure in ammo boxes and containers that weren’t rusted and permeated with water. Treasure in medical cabinets, maybe even some chems. Bro was absolutely not above using chems if the need arose in a fight or the interest was high enough in a calm moment, but the thought of having prewar chems that not only were in good condition but plentiful?

     “Lock and load, Hal.”