#got thrashed at uno

[ace-malarky]

maybe I just pull tarot cards to plot out the shapeshifter wip huh

since it's not fucking giving me anything otherwise

[lexicorp]

Transformers Earthspark: Another Place, Another Prison

Holy shite there were so, SO many things I wanted to draw pertaining to this chapter, but drawing was being so fragging hard omg ;-; sooo this got the vibes decently enough at least hopefully llol

aaaaannnd it's a Hashtag POV chapter again! :D

She's really trying to pinpoint how the heck she feels about this junk (def difficult tryna navigate the psych issues round here), and you just might be able to guess what she lands on. Star is still not having the greatest of time, but Hashtag is here to read his aft like a book yet again. For the most part at least.

Previous Chapter: Distractions

First Chapter: The Need For Read

Next Chapter: Helm In The Cloud

Chapter 16: A Game Of Charades

Hashtag had hoped that the game night with Starscream could go better this time around. They’d had fun training together at least. They were all kinda starting to get along. Sharing music, cat videos, comics, their favorite wrestling channel–even Thrash was starting to warm up to this whole thing! Though he DID constantly try and do some silly schemes to test the sketchy seeker, the vibes weren’t malicious or anything. It was starting to feel just a bit normal again. As normal as it could be anyway. So what was the deal?

Why did Bee and Screamer have to get into some stupid fight? Now? Why was he acting all extra weird, this time?

Hashtag squinted her optics at her teacher and…potential second teacher if he stopped being dumb; while leaning her face against a servo.

“C’mon Starscream!” Bee tossed his servos in the air in exasperation at the ordeal. “You can’t hide in there just because you don’t want to lose in Uno again! It’s not THAT bad!”

Starscream was gripping the edge of the entrance to his room, and glaring like he was imagining blasting Bee’s face off. The thought made Hashtag tense. “No! That is NOT what I am afraid of you fool!” He jabbed a digit at Bee. Now…he did actually look oddly on edge come to think of it. “Enjoy your ridiculous games, and leave me out of it! Don’t try to act like my absence will be some tragedy. I’m sure all will go far smoother without–” His optics flickered with some weird mix of red and purple in them–kind of energon-ish color? That was new–and he held his head as his wings went all spazzy. 

Bee tried to reach out but was smacked away. “Dude. Look. I don’t know if you fell in love with isolating yourself after your months of alone time in the Titan, but as your redemption officer, you GOTTA get out of there.”

Starscream ignored him and disappeared deeper into his hole in the wall. Bumblebee tried to follow, and Hashtag couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation, but it only seemed to be going in circles anyway. Bee was wrong though…Starscream has hated being alone since he’d come here. The only time she’d seen him going to hide away like this was when it seemed his social battery had been depleted like Nightshade. 

Something was really off about this. Was that corruption junk just getting to him more today? What even WAS that anyway? She still hadn’t found the right chance to ask him about it! Most of her siblings have assumed he went a bit crazy from chaos magic, being by himself with corpses he convinced himself weren’t actually dead, and that was all it was. That made sense enough, but something about it still didn’t feel right.

Eventually, Bee came back looking a mix of annoyed and concerned as he took his seat next to Dad. “He won’t listen to me.”

“What a shame.” Robby said with poorly masked sarcasm, which earned him a punch in the shoulder from Mo. “What??”

“You know what.” She crossed her arms with a tip of her head back. Mo’s signature sass at their brother would be more funny if Hashtag wasn’t so anxious right now. 

Mom leaned forward and raised a hand in a signal for them to knock it off when they’d started a staring contest. “I’m sure he’s fine. We gotta allow him the freedom to choose what he wants to do. You can’t force it, Bee.”

Bee sighed with a servo over his optics. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s just kinda my job, and all.”

Dad patted his arm reassuringly. “And you’re doing great! How ‘bout we kick the night off with some charades huh? You can be on our team!”

Bee smiled. “Alright alright.”

“The party ain’t stoppin’ for any grumpy ol’ bot!” Twitch cheered in an effort to heighten the mood as she brought forth the bowl of prompts.

Yet as they started the game with Dad rapidly throwing out guesses to Bee’s word, Hashtag’s focus just kept drifting back to Starscream. Sure, they could just leave him alone, but she had a sneaking suspicion that wasn’t actually what he wanted either. He always tried to play up the tough guy scrap, and she wasn’t buying it. Maybe she could try and talk to him. It was worth a shot, right?

Hashtag pulled Twitch aside and signaled for her to keep her voice down.

“What’s up sis? You doin’ alright?”

“Yeah! Totally…Um.” Hashtag fiddled with her digits as she parsed together how to go about this. “I’m just thinking about going over to check on Starscream. I don’t wanna bug Bee or Mom about it though. I think he might come out if I'm the one to talk to him. Or at least–I just don’t like not knowing what’s going on, y’know? So…can you fill the fam in after I bounce?” She gave her sister a pleading grin. She didn’t want to just announce her plan to everyone and potentially make Bee feel bad, or Mom to just deny her from doing it. 

Twitch looked back at the others before landing her rather serious gaze back into Hashtag’s optics, and flew closer to put a servo to her shoulder. “Tag, you know I trust you.” 

Hashtag cringed, “Please don’t let there be a “but” at the end of that sentence…”

Twitch snickered a bit. “Nah…I just want you to be careful. Send me a signal as soon as something wack starts going down. We don’t need that con tryna randomly use you as a hostage or something. Soooo I guess the only but would be–are you sure you don’t want me to come with you for backup?”

She thought about the offer for a moment. It would be nice to know Twitch was there to have her back. Screamer could still be pretty creepy sometimes, even if he seemed to be getting better. But if he’s already in anti-people mode right now, less people would probably be better. Plus, He always seemed to be extra…careful (?) when it came to Hashtag. Like…he felt bad about what happened. She didn’t know why he directed it more at her than her siblings, but she could still use that to her advantage. Twitch might just make things more complicated when she’d inevitably get protective, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll be careful, I promise. I’ll text ya updates if he doesn’t immediately kick me out.” She chuckled. Hopefully that won’t happen, but even if he tried, she was determined to not be deterred so easily.

“You better! Your big sis worries you know!”

“A little bit too much sometimes,” Tag teased. 

Twitch flipped down a servo with a roll of her helm. “Pff, I worry the perfect amount. Now get on over there before I think about this too hard, and I’ll fill the fam in after Mo and Thrash finish their turn.” 

“Thanks sis.” They exchanged a thumbs up and split off to fill their prospective rolls.

Hashtag made her way over to Starscream’s room, suddenly feeling more hesitant the closer she got. The ceiling stars inside were set to night mode from the cycle Nightshade had set for them, but it gave more of a spooky sort of lighting that didn’t help. Especially when his optics and those weird sparks stuck out in the dark.

It’d be fine though, it was just Starscream. Not like he’d killed people, kidnapped dads, or anything. Besides, she knew how to get to him. She knew he wouldn’t do anything crazy. Oh Quintus, did she?! She hadn’t thought he’d do that other insane junk before either! Maybe this was a bad idea after all–no. No. It’d be fine. He’s been chill. He’s actually been kinda nice. There’s nothing to worry about!

Hashtag took a deep breath to steady herself, and knocked on the doorframe to announce herself. “Hey–”

Starscream jerked in a similar way he’d done when she first went to see him in the brig (he was even sitting on the floor for some reason), and snapped. “WHAT? Oh…Hashtag.” His wings relaxed a bit when he realized who it was, but then immediately tensed when he seemed to notice something else as well. “NOT helpful you slagging–ugh…” He muttered and pinched the bridge of his nose as he clenched his optics shut. “You shouldn’t be here. Go back to your siblings.” That part actually seemed to be directed at her, even if he seemed to be avoiding looking in her direction now. 

Why did she keep having that feeling that he was talking to someone else?

Hashtag drifted deeper into the room towards the edge of his berth as she crossed her arms. “I think I’m good here, actually. Oooorrr, you could always come out of here with me, and do something way more fun than sitting there being weird.”

He went silent for a while. He kept being all twitchy, and when he finally opened his optics again he just stared blankly at something in the corner. When she sat down on the berth near him, Starscream skooched a bit away from her. He seemed to be having a heck of a time figuring out how to respond to that, with how hard he apparently needed to think about it. She couldn’t exactly tell if the fact that he wasn’t telling her off meant that he did in fact want her company or not. 

Hashtag had gotten better at waiting though. Even if the suspense was killing her. She wanted to ask so many questions, get to the bottom of why he was acting so funky, but she also didn’t want to overwhelm him. When she was in anxiety mode, questions were definitely the last thing she’d want, after all.

“You don’t want me there. Admit it.” Starscream finally said quietly, only barely glancing in her direction. He sounded…sad. 

“Don’t try and feed me lines Screamy, I’m the director around here,” She put a hand to her chest with dramatic flare, “and I in fact do want you there with us! Megs had his redemption arc, and I’m here for yours! We’ve been having a decent time hanging out these past couple weeks haven’t we? I will admit no such falsehoods! Even if you are still a bit of a jerk.”

Starscream dawned a somber smile. “Hah. Right…You know, you and Thundercracker would have been quite the pair to behold. He’d always adored script writing and those absurd novelas.” His wings spazzed again with a bit of lightning as he started tapping one of his digits. Something about that train of thought had his focus start to go into the abyss again. 

Hashtag leaned a bit forward as she fiddled with her own servos. “Really? Who’s that? He sounds pretty cool!” 

“Yes…” Starscream blinked after taking another long moment to elaborate. “He was Skywarp and I’s trinemate before Novastorm joined us from the Rainmakers. He was a strong, albeit sensitive, seeker. We did not always see optic to optic, but I suppose I could relent to the fact that he was certainly better at orchestrating dialogue. Even so, it was often idealistic or fantastical nonsense. Something I am sure you would’ve been enthralled by had you two been allowed such a partnership. He’d always dreamed of making something of his work after the war…” His expression had gone from detached to angry when another flit of those sparks went through him. He growled as his volume rose and his optics flashed red. “Of course, such frivolous slag could NEVER be allowed to come to fruition! Why would it?!” 

Hashtag leaned back a bit, “Did something bad happen to him? Is he stuck on Cybertron or…?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

Man. Hashtag really did NOT have the credentials for this. Should she just focus on being all positive about it? Change the topic? Or, giving condolences was usually the right response in these scenes. 

“I-I’m sorry you lost your…” Was a trinemate kinda like family? “Brother? I would’ve loved to meet ‘im. Thundercracker sounds like he was a pretty awesome dude. Maybe I could dedicate a character to him someday! Is…that why you’re avoiding family time? It sounds like you miss him.”

“...No.”

Well that was a lie. Starscream was avoiding eye-contact again, and according to the internet, that was the biggest indicator someone’s lying. Plus, he still was all droopy like a wet cat. Maybe seeing Hashtag and her siblings hanging out together just made him feel bad about missing his own siblings. Skywarp had left him behind on that ship too after all–oh man he had fam issues. Is that what got him so upset?

But he kept tensing up like there was something else too. Now his eyes were…purple? The purple thing was DEFINITELY new. 

Oh, now they’re back to blue–scrap they went red glitchy again! Now he’s covering his audials and muttering something. What the heck!

Geez, he’s shaking really bad now. Was it something she’d said? Was this some type of anxiety episode she was supposed to snap him out of? What was the best way to do that?? When she did a quick search, it just said to be a persistent, calm force. Don’t be pushy. Ask for permission to touch them. Oh! Remind them of their surroundings! Maybe she could reference the Seekerz poster that he ripped up? Or maybe he did it for trigger reasons…so that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

Hashtag slowly disconnected from the berth to kneel down next to him, but not too close. “Hey…Just focus on my voice right now, okay? I don’t know what you’re hearing right now–if it’s a flashback or something–but we’re just in the bunker. We’re chillin’ on the floor in your room, and nothing crazy is going on. We can talk about something else if you want.”

Starscream abruptly threw his arm out to aim across the room as a surge of the lightning went through it. His servo retracted to channel the sketchy power into a blaster and shot an intense laser at the wall that, once he stopped blasting it, left a huge, smoldering hole. Wheeljack’s parole thing on his ped let out an EMP burst that made him recoil in on himself again with a startled yelp. A final shot from his servo flew past Hashtag’s helm before he managed to fix it back to normal. 

“WOAH!” She dodged back in surprise at the sudden outburst.

He finally locked eyes with her again, and he looked horrified. Starscream fumbled away from her with the EMP blasted leg seeming to be offline now when he full-on fell backwards after trying to stand. “Get out.”

“What?” But she was trying to help! Why did this have to be so hard!? He obviously shouldn’t be alone right now, right?

“GET OUT!” Starscream actually aimed his gun arm at her as it was shaking and sparking wildly.

Hashtag shot up to her peds and put her servo’s up placatingly. “Hey! C’mon–” 

Twitch sent her a message that popped across her visor: [Is everything alright over there?? What was that?! Are you okay?!]

She frantically sent back a response: [I’m fine! I think- Just give me a sec!] 

“I know you don’t actually want me to leave–you’re in freakout mode, and that’s okay!” Hashtag tried to stay as still as possible and watched the blaster carefully in case he actually did shoot at her. “How about I just step out for a sec to grab a game we can play one on one or something? Y’know, get your mind off of whatever this is–do you like chess?? You seem like the kinda guy that likes chess.”

Starscream didn’t say anything else, and was just staring right through her. Creepy…He seemed to have a lot of space-out moments. Did he even hear what she said…?

Hashtag slowly began backing up towards the door. “I’ll be riiiight back. Just be cool. Okay? Yeah.” She flipped out her wheels and quickly rolled over back to her fam. 

Twitch immediately flew up to check her over, “What happened?”

Bee was up and looking in Starscream’s direction as a shot of red lighting flew out and hit their skate ramp. “What’s with THAT?? Hashtag, you shouldn’t have gone over there without someone watching your back, what if–”

“GUYS. It’s okay! I got it.” Hashtag rolled past them to look for their bigger chess set. “He’s having a bit of a moment, but he wasn’t actually trying to hurt me or anything. It’s just that corruption junk or something.”

“Sweetie,” Mom started softly but her undertone was stern, “We don’t know enough about what the stone did to him, or how unstable that power is. You CAN’T put yourself in the line of fire like that. Leave him be and join us over here.”

Bee nodded, “You should listen to your mom, Hashtag. He already told me off, it’d be best to leave it alone for now.”

 Hashtag moved aside their tic-tac-toe pieces and found the chess box. She hesitated there for a moment with her servos held firmly around its edges. Were they right? Should she just let it go? He did seem pretty upset…but that could be even more reason for her to go back in! She wasn’t afraid of him, she could handle it. He’d seemed way too freaked out about almost hitting her for him to actually want to hurt her directly. 

Twitch hovered behind her, “Tag, you gave it a shot, and I know you really want to fix it, but it isn’t your responsibility to do that alone.”

Hashtag lifted the box and turned to pass her sister on her way back towards the seeker. “I know. And I’m not alone. You guys are still right here if anything actually happens, right? I’m sorry, but I really can’t just leave it and be fine with that. I’d just be thinking about it the whole time I’d be tryna play the games with you guys, and that wouldn’t be fun…So I was thinking I could try and bring game night to him! Just us so maybe it won’t be too overwhelming, but still have something to focus on. I might not be the best at chess, but it seemed like something he’d like more than the luck based things.”

“...That makes sense.” Mo nodded with a casual show of support. “Right mom? Maybe Starscream’s just a wacky introvert.”

Mom sighed. “Fine. I’m proud of you baby, but…just be careful.” Man, everyone keeps acting like Starscream was gonna rip out her spark or something. Hashtag was supposed to be the drama queen around here.

Bee also didn’t seem too thrilled, yet still seemed to understand as he hesitantly sat back down. “Call for backup as soon as there’s more of that lighting stuff. Alright?”

Hashtag flipped out her wheels again to roll backwards and give him a short salute, “Loud and clear!”

“Text me updates!” Twitch called with an extended servo as it was definitely taking a lot for her to let Hashtag go a second time without her.

“I will!” She sang back as she slid in front of Starscream’s doorway. It was sweet how much they were concerned for her, but also a bit silly. Second chances were all about giving that person the benefit of the doubt, but she still knew how to be careful. They had nothing to worry about.

Hashtag slowly entered the room again, popping back out her peds to ready herself just in case he reactively shot her way. Starscream had his servos to his helm again, and his non-booted ped was rapidly bouncing up and down like he was itching to get up and pace. He seemed to be trying to regulate his breathing and muttering different things about the room like those grounding techniques she had shown him. Huh…he actually did keep it in mind. 

“Heyyy, it’s me again.”

His attention immediately whipped her way, but he hesitated like he was calculating what exactly he wanted to say. The fact that she could practically see the equations floating around his head, almost made her laugh. But this was definitely not the appropriate time for that, no matter how hilarious the image was.

Hashtag took the opportunity to creep up closer and sit down across from him as she set down the box. She opened it, and began setting it up with the black pieces on his side while she took white. It was not only kinda funny with the good-guy bad-guy coding, but also a sneaky way of stealing the first move. She’d need to teach him how to play anyway, so it also just made more sense that way.

Starscream was watching her every move closely. That was better than staring into the void. Then even though it really seemed like he wanted to say something–maybe apologize–he kept getting stuck somehow. 

“Okay, so, the gist of this game is that you’re trying to take out your opponent's king before they get yours. First pawn can go two spaces forward, then they can only move one, and they attack diagonally. Rooks go in any straight line until they hit something. Knights do this weird L move. Bishops go diagonally until they hit something. The Queen can basically do literally anything the other pieces can. And the king can move any direction one space.” Hashtag picked up each piece to give a short display of their moves. “He’s more of the damsel in distress with his absolute unit of a kick butt queen! Then, if you completely lock someone in a death grip where there’s no way they can save their king, you call out Checkmate. There’s a bunch of gambits and stuff, but this is more of Nightshade and Twitch’s sort of game honestly. I like to play more casually than worrying about doing a research project for it. I already had to help Twitch with that once when she got WAY too into it. Then Nightshade just always wins. So I’m good at taking the loss if it’ll make you feel better.”

“You shouldn’t be concerned about “making me feel better”, Hashtag.” He finally said something. Starscream was looking down at the board as he took in the rules she’d just thrown at him. No more weird lightning. That was good.

“Well, deal with it.” She retorted casually as she shoved the empty box out of their way. “I know you wanna push everyone away and stuff ‘cause you think everyone’s gonna leave you first, but there will be none of that on my watch! Not everyone sucks, and you can figure out how to not suck too.”

“Hm. Fair enough.”

Hashtag moved her first pawn, “Your turn.”

He actually moved his knight first. Nightshade did that sometimes. She always thought that moving one of the middle pawns was better though. But maybe she was just biased.

They continued though the game silently for a while, then Hashtag got a ping from Twitch. 

[You doing alright? How’s the game going?]

[Yeah we’re chill. I have no idea who’s winning rn lol. Wbu guys?]

[Bee, Dad and Mom are about to destroy us in Pictionary. Apparently they got adult sync mode on or something.]

[Looolll I don’t think that’s a thing. It’s probs mainly cuz Dad is so Bee obsessed that he has like, a plus five mod to his perception on anything Bee related.]

[That’s so unfair.]

“Fullstasis.” Starscream’s monotonous delivery snapped her from her visor conversation. 

“What?”

“Checkmate. Whatever it is. Your…king, is cornered. On one side by this bishop, and the other by the rook behind your knight.”

She stared blankly at the board, “Aw dang it! How’d I not see that?!”

“You were distracted. Plus, I baited you to take my queen, which left you exposed.”

“What the heck man. Aaalllright fine, I’ll reset the board.”

[I’ll ttyl, he already checkmated me somehow, you tellin me about unfair]

[lol, maybe he cheated when you weren’t looking.]

Hashtag rolled her eyes and minimized her chat bubble. She would have noticed him cheating. Maybe…No, she definitely would have. She hadn’t been THAT distracted.

Once the pieces were back in their original places, she moved the same pawn she did the first time. It might seem silly, but unleashing the queen from her pawn-y prison always took priority in Hashtag’s book. Besides, that pawn was obviously the main character, destined to reach the other side on their mission to be the queen's successor should she fall in battle for her king. A thrilling narrative could easily take the bored out of any board game.

Alas, as soon as the brave pawn reached their goal and was set to avenge the queen’s untimely demise, they were struck down by the dark king’s cursed knight. She made their death scene as dramatic as possible, of course. Lifting them up and down from their final square as they reached for the heavens.

“This will not be the last you see of ME! I will rise again as many times as it takes to defeat you, not even death will keep me from taking my revenge!”

Starscream chuckled, “Oh, I am counting on it.”

“Pff, you’ve had better monologues than that.” Hashtag placed the briefly royal pawn to the side, and moved her rook to take his bishop.

“Please. I wasn’t even attempting to supply one. Couldn’t such a rivalry between your odd characters be far more interesting if neither truly wanted it to end?” He took her rook with a pawn. Worth it. That bishop was being far too shady.

She shrugged as she moved another one of her own pawns in an effort to defend. “I guess so. But it’d have to end at some point, no story can go on forever. Ooo, maybe it’d be an enemies to lovers arc!”

“Eugh. No.” He moved his knight to some really weird spot that didn’t seem like it was going to do anything.

“It’d be glorious! It’s like the soulmate trope, where they’re destined to meet and stuff, but instead they’re locked in a reincarnation loop! They’re bound to get over whatever got them mad at each other eventually.” She swooped down her bishop in a position ready to take down his king. 

He immediately canceled her plot with some stupid rook from the other side of the board. “That’s absurd.”

“Okay, fun police. Fantasy doesn’t have to be realistic, Screamy.” Hashtag kicked over his rook with her knight. 

Starscream stared at the board for a long time, before finally moving his queen in range of her king and announcing, “Checkmate.” Again.

“You are way too good at this game for being a noob.”

“Its base principals are actually quite similar to Fullstasis. Skyfire and I used to play any chance we could.” He actually began resetting the pieces himself this time. “So I suppose I am not as inexperienced as you first thought. Surely you have merely been holding back on me.”

“Yeeaaah, tooootally! I’m DEFINITELY going to get you this round, just you watch me!” She was so going to lose. Hashtag had thought that she’d at least be on a more even playing field since it was his first time, but of course he just had to have Cybertronian chess stuff with whoever Skyfire was. They were probably a Decepticon and they played it for war strategies, or something stupidly serious like that with how much of a stiff he was.

The next game went on ridiculously similar to the last two, and it looked like it was going to end the same way. Until Starscream suddenly said she won. That his king was doomed and he was no match for her full power. That didn’t make any sense. How did he notice she won before she did? That wasn’t how it was supposed to work! Did he…LET her win? Usually he hated losing. 

Hashtag confidently accepted his proclamation of her awesomeness. She wasn’t going to call him out on it. Yet it was adorable to think how much of a softy the Decepticon actually was.

A bunch more games passed by with a few close-ish ones, him destroying her, then letting her win others. When suddenly, all the squares aligned as she called out checkmate, and he looked surprised. He actually stared at the board with what looked to be unadulterated disbelief this time, and she started to get worried that he was about to get mad and flip the board or something. But then he laughed, and congratulated her in a far more genuine way than his theatrical applause from before. Like he was proud of her. Wow.

He really was just a big ball of mush under all that ridiculous, evil mastermind scrap after all.

[dreamingofbucky]

UNO MÁS

Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader (one shot)

summary: He knew you couldn't resist him. Round after round, you were his to enjoy. And you couldn't lie and say you didn't enjoy it as well. He just needed one more.

tags/content warnings: Miguel is unhinged and feral. Fangs come out. primal need to satisfy himself. Overstimulation. p in v. creampie. implied multiple orgasms. size kink. loves to press on your belly to see his bulge. he's not done until he says he's done. slight web bondage if you squint.

Word Count: 1.3k

author's note: not beta read. it's almost midnight and so I'm calling this dreamingofbucky's midnight miguel thots. enjoyyyy slutss

Miguel loved the way you clenched around his cock. 

The wanton cries that left your lips with every snap of his hips. It sounded like a beautiful symphony in his ears. It just made him want to pound into you even more. 

For you, this fifth orgasm was all you could muster. Yet, here he was attempting to go for one more round to drag out some more moans and uno más for him.

His Spanish words came fumbling out as he came once more, jutting his hips into yours and you were needing him out and off of you. 

“Miguel,” you whined, attempting to drag your arms down to his abdomen and push hard. But the effort was futile, he was too strong. 

It didn’t help that with all his super strength that meant it wasn’t only used in situations where he could save the cities that were plagued with anomalies. But he’d use it on you too whenever he had the chance to get you pinned underneath him. 

“Too–too much,” you breathed out, this time extending your nails into his skin, but he didn’t fight back or react. 

“One more for me, por favor. Sé que puedes hacerlo.” 

He wanted you to find your sweet relief one more time. He knew you could do it for him. But your body was spent. Your fucking mind was spent. Not only did your legs feel like jello, but everything else did as well. Even your vision was starting to go. Hazy stars were all you could see dancing around his pretty face. 

One strong hand of his grabbed both of your wrists and moved them above your head. Within a second, he shoots out webs to keep your wrists attached to the headboard. It wasn’t comfortable by any means, but Miguel was past comfort at this point. 

He needed to draw one more orgasm out from you. He didn’t care how much it hurt, he was addicted to your moans, your crying, and your fluttering pussy. 

“F-fuck, need one more, please,” he breathlessly moaned in your ear. 

Your thighs were trembling, you couldn’t think of a response. Whatever came out of your lips at this moment was just a jumbling of words that weren’t coherent in the slightest. 

“Ah, Mig– too much– ffu!” 

He can’t help but chuckle, parting his lips over your bare neck and sinking his fangs into your skin ever so slightly. Not to the point where venom can infiltrate your veins, but where you’d thrash and moan even louder. 

He got off on this shit. Loved you completely cock drunk and relentlessly begging for him. 

“One more, one more, baby,” he coos, lifting a hand to brush a strand of hair from your face. You were so pretty when you were spent like this. If he could remember every expression you’ve had anytime he tore you apart with his cock, he’d lock them up in a file in his mind. 

“Pl-please,” you begged once more, finally attempting to regain focus. You don’t know if this will be the end for you. Will he truly let you rest after this next release or is it all a game? A way to fuck with your head to make you think he’s going to give you mercy but then sweep the rug right from under you at the last moment. 

His large hands search your body like you’re a map to be discovered. Fingers dusting over your pebbled nipples, his mouth finding its home on each breast before moving back to your neck. He licked the wounds from his fangs before sitting up. Hands gripping the sides of your waist, he stared at you. 

Eyes blazing red, fangs still out, and he looked like a god even in your hazy state. 

“Gonna fill you up again, amor. You ready?” 

Before you can protest, he slowly pulls out before growling and slamming his cock straight back into you. He was so big that he hit your cervix every time. He even made it a point to place a palm right over your lower belly, his eyes savage as he took in the bulge that protruded that area with every violent thrust of his. 

Your cunt was soaking wet, covering him in your juices and this just spurred him on. You let out a cry as he continues at his brutal pace. Your wrists became sore from the tension of pushing against the tight-locked web. 

The pressure bloomed in your core and your pussy fluttered once again over his cock, causing him to hang his head back and stare at the ceiling. 

“J-just like that, amor. Fuck, you know how to milk my cock just right, don’t you? How about one more time?” 

You whined again, not being able to control your body as another orgasm pulled through you. You screamed and whimpered at the overstimulation as his pace grew more rapid. The sounds of your bodies slapping together filled the room as well as the wetness that poured out of you with every thrust. 

Miguel looked back down between your bodies and reveled at the scene before him. The thick white outline right at your entrance where his cock was shoving itself with every thrust. He enjoyed seeing his previous releases leaking out of you. It brought out an animalistic side to him. A primal need to keep you stuffed with both his seed and his cock at all hours of the day. 

“Mig-Miguel!” You screamed as his pace quickened with his thoughts and he was grunting even louder, laying himself back to nip at your shoulder, your neck, and then your lips. His hold on you tightened, hands on your plush hips that helped spread your legs a little more for him to dive even further into you if that was even possible. 

“I’m going to–” he grunted, swearing under his breath before his pace grew sloppy and you screamed at the sensitivity and the overstimulation. 

“Please,” you begged, tears springing from your eyes. He kept his eyes locked on yours as he finally came to. His teeth bared, fangs showing and a growl erupted from his lips. One of his hands lifted, talons showing and your eyes widened. But before you can ask what the hell he was doing, you hear a tear and your wrists are free from the web. You use this moment to grab ahold of his neck and bring him closer to you. 

One last thrust and you felt the familiar warmth of his cum spurting into you rope after rope. You’re not sure how you’d been able to hold all of him in, but this might be a new record. 

He stills and collapses over your body. Even with how big and heavy he is, you don’t mind. You like the contact and the feeling of being wrapped up under him. It provided a sense of safety to you. 

“S-so good,” he breathed. 

“No more,” you pleaded in a hushed whisper. 

His breath fans over your skin, causing goosebumps to spread all over. He lifted himself slightly to balance his upper body on his elbows. His eyes were still red, but less intense. His fangs weren’t out either. Maybe this was finally the end of your long night. 

But then the slightest smirk spread on his face. You could practically feel his softening cock start to get erect again. 

You whimpered at the sensation inside you, shifting your hips up and out, hoping he got the message that you were done. You needed him to pull out and let you rest. 

“You’re so pretty when you fall apart in my arms, amor. I need to see it again. Just one more time, please. Para mí.” 

Miguel knew you couldn't say no. Because the moment he leaned down to kiss your cheek and then your lips, your body reacted once more to him. 

Like fine betrayal. 

Your body was meant for Miguel and he knew it. 

[riiceghost]

um no one asked but here’s some Val hcs I have:

killjoy knits and crochets, I like to think she learned this from a coworker at kingdom cause I think she’s a very creative person but can’t take a break for the life of her so crocheting and knitting is her way to be like all technical and stuff but take a nice break bc those activities (CAN BE) very relaxing

Raze can cook an amazing meal! I think she’s great at cooking and makes these beautifully looking and tasting meal however I think she struggles with baking since with cooking she does what I call the Asian way of cook; she just goes with the vibes of the meal and gets the right ratios every time but baking is like a fine delicate art so like as much as she tries she just cannot bake.

Sova bakes like a fucking master this man will and can bake anything he’s like “oh you want this really intricate baked good? I gotchu” and makes it. like wtf

He’s also not a natural blonde he actually has black brownish hair (it’s either a brownish black or a very very dark brown that looks black sometimes) and on this note he helps all the agents dye their hair when asked like he normally helps jett but sometimes gekko is lazy and asks for help, neon asks for help with the underdye she has, sometimes he helps yoru and fade too!

Phoenix gifts people cologne and perfume I have no reasoning for this other than I think it’s funny but he means it very well and gets the most fitting scents for everyone

sage cannot keep a plant alive for the life of her. She tries to hard but they all keep on dying some how. she gets distraught about it because everyone assumes she can and gets her plants but she can’t.

Skye regularly holds wood carving lessons at the protocol, all agents have stopped by at least once and she keeps everyone’s first attempt. Breach, Gekko, Killjoy, Raze, and Omen are the most frequent.

Yoru is very good at styling hair and will always give a hand to his fellow agents if needed, albeit reluctantly and constantly complaining. Sage and Skye don’t hear his complaints though.

Astra is pretty much the protocols 2nd mother. As much as everyone jokes sage is the mom, Astra does her part in watching over everyone! She helps out with minimal tasks, offers help to everyone, checks up on people and makes sure they’re doing alright, yells at people to take breaks (cypher, killjoy, sage, brimstone), keeps up a positive and lovely atmosphere and keeps everyone in line when needed!

K/AYO holds a game night every thursday night for everyone! Usually board games, sometimes video games. He has written very specific rules including: no playing Mario kart, Uno, and sorry. Monopoly is fine as long as no one gets into a fight. (He def has more, but these are the ones in BOLD)

Sova, Skye, and breach go on morning jogs together regularly! Others are free to join them! Fade and Deadlock tend to join them every now and then.

Deadlock and Sova r very much sibling energy but on a more chill level.

Gekko’s crew helps around the base a BUNCH. Wingman helps sage a lot, dizzy helps in the kitchen, thrash helps at the range, and mosh is very much emotional support.

On that note Jett and Neon ask jokingly for a therapist to be hired, Brimstone actually considers it every time because some people here are concerning then turns it down due to it being a security hazard.

Brimstone has a little box for people to put requests into: these requests can be about anything. Raze has asked for a free for all or team death match style of paintball! Viper, kj, cypher, and breach always ask for more equipment. Some agents ask for hobby stuff, trips, or group bonding. He goes through them every week and if it’s urgent like fixing something, they normally tell him or sage straight up.

Everyone in the protocol don’t really talk about their past, like ever. However, if the moment is right, they’ll drop a bomb to make a story or lesson really stick. Sova dropped the fact he has 5 sisters when Jett and Phoenix got into a fight and he had to tell them to quit it or else he’d make them hand write apologies together and stick them into a shirt like his sisters did to him and his younger sister. silly stuff like that nothing serious yk.

Also on the note of Sova (can you tell hes on of my favs) I don’t think he HATES cypher, just dislikes the fact he’s so secretive yet will through out information about others. He feels as if it’s hypocritical and dislikes this. idk if I explained this very well and can go more into detail it’s kinda fun I like cyberowl a lot !!

Harbor also realllyyy likes pottery, he’s a historian yk and sees a bunch of artifacts and pots that are from decades ago. He’s learned how to replicate and learned how respective periods made their pots/anything else clay related!! he’s very much into historical accuracy of how artistic things are made (ie paintings, clothes, pottery, and more)

Im half awake so the harbor one is a little wild but yeah if u want more lmk I got plenty.

[panvnsleake]

βrγce gets eliminated (in a vore way)

based off of this. of course you had to write something about it instead of working on your other stories pancake. of COURSE. also there's swearing in this. just for comedic effect (it's not funny anyway but whatever) i'll call βrγce braces (or sober boggle for his competition name) and αirγ aireado (just his name in spanish) so i don't have to censor it every time i mention their name.

this is a crackfic so i didn't really check it

this has vore in it, as the title states. um. story is under cut

Braces sat down on the grass, sighing tiredly. He just wanted to be eliminated. Everyone asked him why, but...wasn't it obvious? he wanted to get out of this cage already. He perked up at the sound of Aireado's monotone voice, before looking back down. He had about...what, 7.7% of getting eliminated? Why should he even care about who got out? Surely, it wouldn't be hi- "The contestant eliminated is...Sober...Boggle." Braces' eyes lit up. Him? HIM?! He stood up and exhaled in relief, looking at his claws. Finally! He was fr- His excitement, unfortunately, didn't last long. He felt himself getting picked up and froze. He thrashed around a bit at whatever was grabbing him, but it was no use. This force was a lot stronger and bigger than him. Everyone gathered around, only being able to stare and shout at him to try his best. He, at last, went limp, and let himself get lifted up without a fight. At some point, the blue sky started to fade, and instead became a dark grey. could see a light coming from what seemed to be a computer. It was huge, compared to him. He shivered as he thought about how big the person (object???) lifting him up probably was.

Eventually, Braces was lifted up all the way to Aireado's face. He couldn't help but freak out. After all, he was like a pebble compared to Aireado.

"WHAT THE FUCK" Braces shouted, squirming. He stopped when he realized Aireado was slowly dragging him towards his mouth. "LET ME GO YOU BITCHASS MOTHERFUCK-" Braces' insults were cut off as Aireado shove him in maw, using his tongue to pin him against the roof of his mouth. Braces wriggled as much as he could, trying to claw his way out, feeling himself slowly slipping downward. He whimpered in fear before he was fully swallowed, not able to fight against Aireado's esophagus.

Braces closed his eyes tight as he descended towards Aireado's stomach, bracing himself to feel the acids. After landing and not feeling anything for a few seconds, his eyes fluttered open. "Wh- where in the ever-loving FUCK am I?" "you're in aireado's stomach. dumbass." Braces stared at the textbox. Looks like Texas was in here too. Well, it was probably better to have some company than to be completely alo-

"Hi! I'm Braces, and I'm gay as FUCK!" Never-fucking-mind. "IT'S BISEXUAL YOU STUPID BiTCH" Braces shouted back at Jac.kson Pol.loc.k's failed art piece. In response, it chuckled. ..."i know that you're probably very confused but i think aireado literally can't kill us. so we're fine. anyway do you want to play our bootleg version of uno"

"S- sure, whatever." Braces grabbed a bunch of torn up sticky notes (which he assumed were supposed to be the cards) and passed them around. Then they all played or something idk ive never played uno. everyone rage quit because emotional healing pool would always win. the end

i think bry.ce uses the word fuck a lot :3

[samsammysamson]

Me, you, sam, abby, a bong, uno cards, pizza, a mysterious liquid i got from the wizard, in the dark woods, clothes are optional, u down?

I am going to thrash all of you at Uno. Count me in.

[angrelysimpping]

sorry for long ask but uhhh ive been thinking

so like. let's say, hypothetically, the PC just came back from remy's farm/the asylum/any of those places... and uhh, just as my PC did, they'd spent the whole time there working out, and gotten absolutely ripped.

and some of the nastier LIs (like Whitney or Bailey or Eden) tried their usual brand of bullshit,, and got absolutely wrecked,, maybe break a few of their bones and all, yknow, the works.

Maybe Bailey sent the PC the Remy's farm and they came back jacked and angey, lock them in the loft to see what they're so scared of up there, maybe give'em a little taste of some of the things they've put the orphans through. 👀

Maybe Whitney fucked around too much and their slut disappeared for a few weeks (to the Asylum or U.brothel or smthing), and when they finally come back they try their whole bully routine and just get punched hard enough to Break Something; and get the ol uno reverse done on them

ooh maybe for Eden the PC actually disappeared off to the wold pack. and they come back and wrap him up real nice as a gift to the pack (: let him get used a little since he's so damn horny all the time anyway

just some ideas but really all i want is for some of my fave nasty motherfuckers to Suffer~

(noncon; virginity loss; anal; noncon oral; knotting; fucking up our faves)

Bailey

It's stuffy in the loft, the air warm and stale. It doesn't smell exactly like Bailey remembers it, heavy with sweat and blood, but the air feels the same on their bare skin as they strain against their bindings. They know they’re bleeding, that they’ve ripped the skin of their wrists to shreds by jerking against the coarse rope. But they won’t stop

They can’t stop.

Not when they’re bound naked on a ratty mattress in the loft.

They're going to fucking kill you for this. You, then Remy for letting you get like this. Fucking farmer was supposed to break you, turn you into a dumb beast. Then you somehow escaped, showed back up on the orphanage doorstep, and forced your way into Bailey's office.

The loft hatch opens with a clatter, announcing your return. It’s with a dawning horror that Bailey realizes what you plan on doing as you let a thin man into the loft, guide him to the room Bailey’s in and lean against the door frame. They really fucked up in rasing you, huh?

Bailey tries to remain calm. They don’t want to give you the satisfaction of seeing them panic. They can get through this. They manage to keep from reacting as the man strips, as you coo at them from the door about Bailey ‘paying their dues.’

It’s when something hard and blunt presses to their asshole that they lose it. Wild sounds rip from their throat, muffled thanks to the gag you'd stuffed in their mouth. Starts thrashing so hard that you wouldn’t be surprised if they dislocated something.

All their fighting is for nothing.

Bailey chokes, going still as the thin man’s cock forces its way into their ass, body rigid in response to the intrusion.

“Shit” the man breathes, “they’re fucking tight.”

You let out a wild laugh at the realization that Bailey was a virgin. “You should be putting out more,” you say from the doorway in a mocking tone. “What do you think you’re good for?”

Bailey’s brain goes blank as the man starts to frantically hammer away, giving Bailey no time to adjust. They’re not aware of the strangled sounds they make, of their pathetic attempts to pull away from the invading cock.

All Bailey knows is the agony of being ripped open for the first time. That, and that they won’t kill you, after all. No, they’ll make you wish Bailey had killed you, make you beg for them to have mercy and end you.

Because Bailey will get free eventually. They will survive this and pay you back.

They've survived worse.

Eden

It’s hard, carrying the hunter back to your pack. The man was dangerous, you knew that from personal experience. He had caught you, once. Had forced you into his bed and split you open on his cock. Over and over. He’d called you his pet, said he’d make you his spouse.

Maybe, if things had gone differently, you would have become the hunter’s obedient little house spouse. Maybe, if he had shown you a single ounce of kindness, you would have stayed when you broke the leash that kept you tethered in his cabin. Maybe you wouldn’t have fled into the forest, got turned around trying to avoid him as he hounded you through the woods, and ended up running deeper into the dense trees instead of towards town.

Maybe you wouldn’t have been taken by the wolves.

You were so tired after having fought the hunter, so worn out by the horrors you faced in town, you didn’t even fight as the wolves took you. You enjoyed it, a little, turning into a wolf-like creature. Sprouting the ears and tail and sharp teeth. Humans had only ever hurt you, why stay one yourself?

But even turning wild didn’t quell the desire for revenge. To hurt the hunter as he had hurt you.

Your alpha is so pleased when you drag the hunter into the clearing. He’s always been a nuisance, always been a threat. Now you get to watch as your alpha mounts your former captor and teaches him his place, as the pack’s new bitch.

You had hoped he would scream if you were being honest. Hoped that he would fight and make things worse for himself. You’re not disappointed.

Your alpha is large and powerful. No matter how the hunter fights, your alpha keeps them pinned as they rut into him. Even as heat coils in your gut, you still wince at the sound the hunter makes when your alpha’s knot catches inside him. You remember your first knotting. It had been scarry, had hurt in new ways. But your pack mates had made it better, had soothed away your tears and lapped at your sex to help dull the pain with pleasure.

That’s why you shimmy under the hunter, take his cock into your mouth. Despite the pain, he’s hard and leaking. He even manages to cum down the back of your throat while your alpha humps away to reach their own end.

Yes, he’ll make a good addition to the pack after he accepts his place.

Whitney

“Hey, slut!”

Whitney’s shout is the only warning you get before they slam you into the wall, keeping one hand on your shoulder and resting the other next to your head for support as they lean closer to you. It’s been over a month since you fainted in maths class, thanks to Whitney’s harassment. Over a month since you got sent to the asylum. A month since you’ve had to deal with Whitney’s bullshit.

Whitney’s talking, saying something about reminding you of your ‘place’ when you lurch forward, slamming your head into their nose. The crunch of their nose breaking makes your stomach turn a little, but that doesn’t stop you from taking advantage of Whitney’s disorientation by shoving them to the ground.

“What the fuck do you think-!”

You cut Whitney off with a swift kick. Whitney tries to get to their feet, but you keep kicking them, keep forcing them down until they just curl in on themself. It should probably worry you how good it feels to see Whitney like this. How their pained breathing is making you grow warm, and not from exertion. How seeing the bully’s blood staining their skin makes heat pool in your belly.

It should worry you, it does worry you, somewhat, but that’s something you can deal with later. Maybe. Or you could keep doing this. Keep feeling good while making Whitney cry.

You stop your assault on the bully, and Whitney stays on the ground, stays curled up with their arms protecting their head. Good. Grabbing Whitney by their hair, you yank them out of their protective position, pulling until they’re on their knees in front of you. Whitney glares at you, the effect somewhat diminished by their crumpled nose and the blood on their face.

You’re able to push down your lower clothes with one hand, exposing yourself to the bully. Whitney’s quick to understand what you’re doing, but there’s nothing they can do about it as you drag them by their hair until they’re pressed to your groin.

“Don’t bite,” you say, grinding against their face, “wouldn’t want to get Leighton involved, would we? Who do you think he’d believe? The one who just came out of extended medical leave, or the delinquent known for causing trouble?”

There’s a moment where Whitney does nothing, just glares up at you from where they’re pressed to your sex, before swallowing their pride and begrudgingly taking you into their mouth. You keep a hand twisted into Whitney's hair as they lick and suck. They’re far more skilled at giving head than you thought they would be and it’s not long before you’re bucking into their mouth as you cum.

You don’t savor the release, jerking Whitney back by their hair and making them fall backward. Whitney is still on the ground, dazed, some of your fluids on their face mixed with their blood, as you right your clothes.

Before leaving, you nudge Whitney with your foot, prompting them to look you in the eyes. You give them a wide grin, one that makes Whitney shudder, before saying, “Thanks, slut.”

[gonemechaniic]

hopping about my blogos a bit today i am here but not really here...  so here’s a lil rundown

had a job interview last tuesday. which went amazingly well, the manager and i were insta clicking and it helped that i had previous work within the company... found out a few days ago that i didn’t get it. 

then yesterday the payment for that dumbass paycheck/tax deferment bs came through and my husband had to shell out 380$ since i have no sustainable income anymore 

while i know certain things are out of my control blah blah bloop, my whole feeling of self worth is kinda in the dumps right now, especially regarding the job thing, considering the qualifications i already had during my ELEVEN years i’ve been working within the company

doesn’t help that hubs an i got into a fight over something INCREDIBLY stupid and he randomly uno reverses and throws the 380 he paid back in my face despite saying earlier that it was ok and not my fault.

so yeah these last couple weeks have been kinda rough ngl. i’ve been trying to dig myself out of the funkiness, creative outlets, randomly thrashing out to music XD , getting back into making my cosplays, trying to reach out more to people cause i love u babes. i’m not trying to avoid/ignore anyone, my emotes and feels are just all over the fuking place X3 

welp guess i’ll get back on that ol dusty trail... idk how the fuk else should i end this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

love you!! -- dani

[moravincitomnia]

Oh yeah, guess who finally got Uno... Loki watch out bc imma thrash u at it bc I weirdly am good at it despite not rlly knowing what I’m doing

[the-and-sign-anon]

Games and Naps

Pairing: Bex x reader

Word count: 1,313

Masterlist

It was a long week, but game night with Bex and his brothers at the end was worth it. Your friend had invited you to join them a few times before and you really needed it this week. When you arrived, you were greeted by Aletaa, who ushered you into the living room through the kitchen, where Bex was shooing Crash and Flash out of his way. The twins loved getting on his nerves in the kitchen, but always stopped when he threatened to withhold the treats he was making.

Madeline, Thrash, and Jammer were already in the living room and Thello appeared shortly after with Boots in his arms. He gave you an excited wave when he saw you and you couldn’t help but smile brightly in return. After Bex, Thello was the one you were closest with, which was no surprise to anyone. Thello was the kindest and most friendly of the brothers and had been so happy to meet you for the first time that you got along immediately.

“Hey, where are the snacks? We can’t start until we have them.”

Madeline called out in a dramatic, tired tone that she knew would bug Bex.

“You can’t rush perfection, Mads.”

He yelled back from the kitchen. You figured he might need help, so you turned back and joined him, grabbing a bowl of popcorn and a tray of brownies.

“Oh, you didn’t have to help, Y/N. I can always get my brothers to.”

“I like helping, Bex. Just let me.”

Once the bowls and plates were settled on the coffee table, you all took your seats around the card table Thrash had set up. You all played a few rounds of Uno, but had to stop when Madeline and Crash nearly started throwing punches over a questionable draw four card. Thrash was the mediator of the conflict, but Flash came to Crash’s defense saying their brother was biased. Jammer had to end the whole argument and pulled out Life instead. With all the fights that came with playing most other games, Life had become a regular choice for the comparative peace of the board game.

“I want the red car!”

“You had the red car last time Crash, it’s my turn with it.”

“No, I had the blue car. Now I want the red car.”

Bex and Jammer sighed as the arguments immediately started. Madeline, the eternal little sister, started grabbing at the cars at random and throwing them to people. One hit Nash in the face, but his cry of alarm was drowned out by Crash and Thello discussing the schedule of the red car.

“Can I have the red car this time?”

Thrash was close enough to hear your quiet request, so he nudged Madeline, who snagged the red car while Crash was yelling something and passed it around to you.

Jammer stood up after a moment and clapped his hands together, bringing quiet in seconds.

“Everyone has a car now, right?”

Crash looked down and realized the purple car was now sitting in front of him. He frowned, looked around, and narrowed his eyes at you when he saw it.

“Not a word, Crash. If everyone has their car, we can get started.”

Everyone nodded and Thello took his turn to start the game. With so many people playing, it took forever to get to each turn. After you reached the marriage space, you leaned back in your seat while Thrash spun for his spaces.

Bex was on your other side and was about to get up for more popcorn when your head dropped onto his shoulder. He glanced over and saw your eyes closed and your breathing evening out. Thrash finished his turn and Madeline spun next. When Flash saw she’d gotten a ten when he’d been cursed with two’s and three’s the entire game, he nearly shouted. Bex immediately shut him down with hissed “Flash!” followed by raising a finger to his lips and looking at you again.

Crash covered his twin’s mouth and nodded in understanding. Madeline finished her turn and the game continued on. While Aletaa was taking her turn, Bex carefully stood up and moved you to the couch. He grabbed the green plaid blanket you loved from the back of the couch and draped it over you. On instinct, you curled into it. When Bex tried to back away though, your hand caught his. He just couldn’t bring himself to pull away, so he sat down on the carpet next to you.

The others didn’t notice his continued absence until it was his turn again.

“Bex, you’re up-”

Jammer looked over and clamped his mouth closed at the sight of his little brother sitting cross legged on the carpet next to the couch with one hand held tightly in yours. Your eyes were still closed and Bex was just quietly watching to be sure you didn’t get woken up. The only sound from either of you was your quiet breathing and the intermittent crunching as Bex ate.

“Bex, do you want us to take both your cars off the board?”

Bex didn’t seem to hear Thello, so Aletaa nodded for him and grabbed the red and the green cars. The game continued on from there. Madeline had to hold herself back from cheering when she won, helped by Thrash’s hand on her shoulder. Bex eventually slipped his hand from yours. He tucked your hand up by your head and patted Boots on the head, who had curled up on the back of the couch above you.

When Life had been packed up and put away, Flash suggested Cards Against Humanity. No one had an argument against it, so they dealt the cards and started. Bex hovered nearby, shushing the group when it got too loud. After nearly another hour, everyone decided to call it a night. Aletaa and Madeline bid the boys goodnight and left. Thello gathered Boots in his arms again and went upstairs following Crash and Flash. Thrash and Nash went downstairs to their rooms and Bex gently shook your shoulder to wake you up.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“A little bit, yeah. We didn’t want to wake you.”

“He didn’t, but we all did our best to be quiet.”

Jammer walked past, nudging Bex on his way to his room. He easily could have kept his mouth shut, but what fun would that be? Bex sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, I didn’t. We had to stop some yelling, and Thrash had to keep reminding Madeline not to start any fights, but it was fine.”

“I’m sorry. I really wanted to be here with you guys, I’ve just had such a long week…”

He rested a hand on your shoulder and shook his head.

“Y/N, it’s fine. We all get it. It’s hard for us to stay up sometimes too.”

Bex stood up, helped you to your feet, and looked around.

“Do you want to drive home or crash here for the night?”

You didn’t have work in the morning and you were so tired it probably wasn’t wise to drive.

“I think I’ll just lay back down and sleep here.”

“You can always take my bed and I’ll take the couch.”

You narrowed your eyes at him when he offered.

“No. It’s your bed and this couch is awesome.”

“Alright.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Do you want something more comfortable to sleep in though?”

You looked down at your jeans and flannel.

“If you’ve got something.”

“Shorts and a t-shirt.”

“Deal.”

You drifted back to sleep ten minutes later in a pair of gray shorts and a white shirt borrowed from Bex. You slept better that night than most, but you figured it had more to do with Bex’s clothes and the comfort they brought than anything else.

[dragonleesupporter]

Read the Fine Print

Summary: Roman wants to initiate a giggly game and gets out contracts for each of the others to sign to assure them there will be no dirty tricks. However, Virgil forgets to read the fine print under the general agreement.

It was simple enough...

Two sides got chosen per night. One for the ler role, and one to play lee. It was unanimously agreed upon that each of them liked this kind of game. Even Virgil and Logan admitted it. 

Each night they would play a game of Uno, and the two people with the most amount of cards at the end of the game would pick between two pieces of note paper, one which marked ler, and one which marked lee. The other two who didn’t lose the game would watch. However, unbeknownst to Virgil, if someone in the audience started laughing with the victim... they would be tickled too. 

They all gathered for the first game that night, butterflies in their bellies, and a giddiness that made their hearts light. The first game was played, and with some luck on his side, Virgil and Logan came out the victors.

“Awww, I swear I was going to win!” Patton whined, only having one more card than Logan.

“Hey, at least you didn’t lose by 30 FLIPPIN CARDS!” Roman shouted and glared at Virgil angrily. The emo had used many reverse cards toward Roman in the colors he knew he didn’t have, crushing any chance he had at winning. 

Roman reached into Deceit's stolen hat and pulled out the card with flames on it; meaning ler. “Yes!” 

“Okay kiddo! My turn to pick!” Patton got up to pick from the hat.

“But you’re the lee!” Roman chuckled.

“How do you know that?” Patton asked, confused by Roman’s hilarity.

“Uhh, because I chose ler? There’s only one other card, Padre!” Both Virgil and Logan cracked a smile. This was getting entertaining already. 

“Just let me pick from the hat! Pleeease?” Patton used his puppy dog eyes and Roman sighed and handed over Deceit's hat. 

“Yay! I got lee!” Patton held the card up in the air.

“You dork.” Roman chuckled before tackling him, them both going down in giggle fits as Logan and Roman assumed their roles on nearby chairs to watch the action. 

Virgil held a hand to his mouth as Patton’s laughter erupted from him. He was just so cute.

“ROOHOHOHOHOMAHAHAHAHAN! T-TIHIHIHICKLES!” Patton’s whole body thrashed as his face turned pink, Roman scribbling at his ribs and belly.

Just watching the game made Virgil giggly as he covered his own stomach, feeling Patton’s torture. 

Roman made his way down Patton’s body to his feet. Patton’s voice reached higher pitches as Roman played with his toes, singing his own version of “This Little Piggy.”

“EHEHEHEHNOHOHOUGH! PLEHEHEHEASE!” Patton cried as he started hiccuping through his laughter. Roman got the message and backed off. But as Patton’s giggles died down, he heard a second set of laughter dying down as well.

He turned to see Virgil snickering into his hand. The prince’s smile grew. Now he could finally get that emo back for all those reverse cards that ruined his game.

Virgil was suddenly knocked back and looking up, he saw Roman on top of him.

“R-Ro! What are you doing? Get off! I’m not the lee!” Virgil tried to force the prince off him, but Roman took out the contract Virgil had signed and pointed a VEEEERY small underlined section Virgil hadn’t read.

“Those who laugh during the battle of ler and lee with also receive a tickling!”

“MOTHER- AH! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NOHOHOHOHOHOHOOO!” Virgil’s laughter picked up where Patton’s had left off as Roman got his revenge.

@cefsticklestoo @bexxbeauty

[tmntastic]

Detective [Part 1]

Pairing: Bayverse! Leo x Reader (Detective AU)

Plot: Choosing to go solo on a mission as a new recruit for the NYPD is a bad idea, but it turns to an even worse one when an unannounced party chooses to join and a specific set of blue eyes seem to endlessly vex you.

Warning: Mild cursing (?)

-

A grim and rainy night, one of the many in New York, as you made your way down the streets. Today’s technology made it possible to track, analyse and recognise patterns in evidence but when it boiled down to the basics, this was the real detective work; namely following your intuition, even if it meant going against clear orders. None of your colleagues listened and the few that could do something about it had their heads too far up their asses since New York almost got devoured by the Kraang. Since they realised they aren’t able to deal with powers that are new and beyond us.

But you didn’t forget about it; about the countless families who have suffered that day and the price which the citizens of New York had to pay. But what really drove you mad was the fact that no one was left to answer for these crimes. In your eyes, and those of many, no justice would be done until Shredder was caught and brought in. Which was hard since he was aparently missing on all accounts.

Instead, you took matters into your own hands. Your focus moved from the alleys on every turn to the holstered gun against your hip as you walked deeper and deeper into the night. With barely any streetlights left you found the crossing to the warehouse by the dock where the Footclan would gather tonight, or at least what was left of them after Shredder disappeared.

Climbing the fence and landing on the wet concrete you rolled and took out your gun, eyes steadily watching the entrance, and all corners. You continued along the wall of the warehouse finding a window and gently kicking it in after checking the empty storeroom behind it. Faint voices rang from beyond the door as you knelt and held your head against it. There was an ongoing sound of crates being thrown, opened and strong voices yelling over each other. A handful of guys at best. Obviously someone needed to step up and replace Shredder, restore order. He’d be back. That was as clear as day to you. He wasn’t dead or missing.

This is the moment when all your senses turn on, when the adrenaline makes your heart care. It was either that or the definitive aftermath of no back up if things go the wrong way.

You dared to nudge the door gently and open it half an inch before noticing that there were boxes stacked ahead, blocking your view. You crouched and laid low as you searched for a position close enough to hear but far enough to not be detected. Placing yourself beside crates of some sort and carefully ducking behind them. In the center the Foot clan members were gathered around crates seeming to frantically search for something.

You knew you had to do something. You had no clear idea of what this something might be, if you were being honest with yourself, you had no clear plan only the undying need to do something. As you observed your surroundings somewhere in the shadows, a figure moved, unfazed, you checked your back and decided to show yourself, stepping out.

“NYPD, Nobody move!”, your gun pointed and steady, “Move and I’ll fucking shoot!”, you watched the footclan member’s eyes, and their hands moving to their weapons. It was moments before throwing knives flew in your direction as the ninja-trained warriors were obviously faster in their reflexes. Throwing your hand up to shield yourself you were suddenly pushed to the ground by someone. “Get the fuck off-“, you started to thrash before seeing eye to eye with a pair of blue eyes behind a blue bandana. Only when you stood up did you notice the size and it finally hit you. “You’re the turtles...mutants....”, you had a hard time trying to name them.

“Hi, yeah sorry about that. You okay?”, his eyes searched nervously for any injury you might have sustained.

“Yes. I’m...fine. I-“, you managed before your attention turned back to the Foot Clan, where a battle commenced. The Clan was losing as flashes of red, orange and purple, dashed across the room. Soon you singled them out as the other three mutant turtles. They hadn’t been spotted in public since the battle was over, months ago. Various speculations arose from the media about the mutant heroes but none explained why they had disappeared so suddenly after the ceremony which honoured them as heroes.

“COWABUNGAAAA-“, the the turtle with the orange bandana swung down from the wooden beams with momentum and crashed down into three of the Clan ninjas ending with an exaggerated pose. “Magic Mike, YEAH!”

“H-How did you find—“, you turned back to the blue masked turtle, who stood beside you, practically towering over you. “I’m with the NYPD. Detective L/N”, you introduced yourself through reluctant to give a name.

“We’ve been tracking the foot Clan ever since Shredder went missing. Catching the last of them to disorientate the collective and prevent them from coming back to New York.”, he explained as the last foot ninja fell to the ground. He seemed distant once he heard the words NYPD, his tone changed.“Isn’t it a bit dangerous to head in like this, with no back up, detective?”, he moved closer as you backed up and opened your mouth to answer before another turtle landed behind you making you jump. The turtle with the red bandana was by far the most intimidating one.

“Got a badge, Ms?”, Red mocked.

“Detective L/N for you. And as a matter of fact I do.”, you retaliated. “Just not... with me.”, you crossed your arms looking back between the two. You’d been suspended a few weeks back for ‘uncontrolled behaviour’. “And you? I could arrest you for intervening during... police investigation.”, you stated matter of factly.

The red turtle scoffed and blue eyes just continued to watch you, trying to make out your character. “You could.”, he said but truly meant Would love to see you try.

“Leo this was a bust. A waste of time— A handful of ninjas? What are they even doing, playing UNO?”, the purple turtle walked up, focused on the screen on his wrist, typing in some code and looking through pages of information.

“Yeah they should’ve folded. By now you’d think they‘d know by how much ASS WE’VE KICKED HA-“, Orange added, his spirit still burning.

“Don, check the shipping orders, dates, anything that’s suspicious might explain why they—“, Blue ordered observing the scene.

“Ahead of you on that.”, purple took out a tablet out of his backpack and was typing away as holographic shipping lists showed up.

The turtles attention turned away from you after making you out to be something less of a disturbance in their mission. Mildly annoyed, you turned your attention to the crates at the centre of the room. You approached them and searched, a pattern, sign. Gangs usually mark their crates when smuggling, whatever the Foto clan was searching for. As you expected you found a crate which had a similar engraving on it, the footclan symbol near the lid. Opening it cast a green glow around the room. A container with green-like fluid. Without thinking you picked it up examining the luminescent and eerie glow it emitted. “Oh my god..”

Paying little attention to the blue ninja turtle who was behind you now, and who with one swift movement took the container from your hands. Flipping backwards, he stood with his brothers again. They all seemed to fixed on the container rather than on you. “Hey-! That’s not yours for the taking.“, you ran up to them without hesitation.

“This one really doesn’t know when to drop it huh?”, Red stepped forward in an attempt to intimidate you anew only this time you didn’t forfeit.

“This is just beyond your jurisdiction. We’d rather not cause any trouble, detective“, Blue intervened, almost a threat, hand on Red’s shoulder.

“A little too late for that now.”, you stood face to face with the blue turtle, hand on your gun as you pulled it out and pointed at his face. “Hand it over, Blue.” You watched his eyes, the blue irises reflecting your determination.

“Were doing nicknames now? How cute.”, Red rolled his green eyes, weapons drawn and steady.

“Leo!”, the purple one added and everyone’s attention turned to the faint blue and red flashing light and the police sirens echoing, expect your eyes stayed steady on Blue’s and something flicked in them. “If you’d excuse us—“, his hand took ahold of your wrist and turned you whole towards the one source of light in the room, a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and shot it swiftly, surprising even you.

Everything went dark and you were lost in it as he pulled away from you, the cold touch of his skin and contradicting warmth of his shell faintly on your mind. Something fell over a few feet away from you, sounding a loud thud. “Sorry dudes. Stealltthhhhhh”, you quickly identified the voice with the Orange bandana.

Your eyes frantically searched around you until you caught a window and the turtles’ sillhuettes disappearing through it solely illuminated by the moonlight. “Stop! Don’t—!”, you ran but knew you couldn’t catch up, as your feet came to a stop you noticed a single silhouette standing still. The blue eyes standing out giving you a long look of contemplation and then a shadow of a grin. “Don’t sounds so beat up, Detective. It doesn’t suit you.”

“For heroes you sure are in an awful hurry to disappear when the police arrives!”, you shouted after the leader’s disappearing shadow.

[sparda3g]

Kingdom Chapter 614 Review

Victory is so close to Qin’s hands. They have seen the sight, so they will race towards it by any means necessary. With the last chapter showcasing the uprising of Qin and their overwhelming advantage, it all lies on Riboku to play the card right, or Zhao will be history (no pun intended?). If there’s one thing I learned about this year’s trend, it’s the Uno reverse card. Riboku just so happen to have one in store. This chapter reassured this war will not be a sweep and it will intensify with each chapter’s progression.

The last chapter gave me a great feeling that Qin will win in a dominating fashion. While I know it wouldn’t be the case, it doesn’t take away the good feel moment. This chapter picks up the high momentum of Qin, thrashing through the frontline to take down Riboku HQ. They’re closing in to victory, it’s no wonder everyone is on upmost confidence. You even have Denrimi sending all units after Riboku without conveying a strategy. It’s like watching a player spamming nothing but attack command; going all in to win. What could go wrong?

There’s a feeling of over confidence coming from their action and mood. In hindsight, that will be their downfall, but let’s not jump ahead. I can’t blame them to be this hyped, knowing how long and important this war is. It evaluates them further when they have the upmost advantage point. Zhao Army is being overwhelmed. Even their reserves can’t back them up because Shin and his Unit is giving them a serious challenge. This could have been the end for Zhao if it wasn’t for Riboku. He is deemed as a miracle worker and he does not disappoint.

As expected, Riboku has a strategy to counterattack and it involves with none other than Futei. Part of me joked about the strategy is to have Futei steamroll Qin and slay Ousen. Imagine that. That aside, the actual tactic is quite bold and perplexing if you are in the opposing side. It lies on the mind game and it’s compelling. Sou’ou and Denrimi are the challengers to whether to take the action Riboku expected or not.

They think over for up to 3 pages; like making a path decision in a video game. Will that path lead you to the consequence you can tolerate? At first, Futei Unit’s formation appears to be assault, leaving them to believe they will try to take on both. Then, it becomes very perplexing when they bypass them without stopping. Now, the formation comes off like a bait. If taken, this will weaken Sou’ou and Denrimi Army for they are forced to send men to stop their assault. If not taken, Futei Unit will aim for Ousen HQ, granting Zhao an advantage. It sounds pretty damn risky, until you start to think about the count.

Futei Unit only has around 100 men. Unless they’re bunch of Banjio unleashed form times 10, there’s no way in hell they can defeat Ousen Army. As hype it is for Futei versus Ousen, that’s not happening. This train of thought ultimately give Denrimi and Sou’ou the answer to ignore and press forward to Riboku HQ. It’s worth noting Denrimi sure likes to pose when giving his men the command. He’s pretty hyperactive. So this decision should be fine, right? Not when Riboku predicted this to happen, or in other words, “All according to Keikaku.”

Before we learn the consequence, the chaotic battle resumes to be, well, chaotic. It’s as if nothing has changed from ignoring Futei; well, nothing of value was lost, so I can see why. Kinmou resume his defense position against Hi Shin Unit. If he had stay behind, there wouldn’t be a round 2. If anything, retreat was a great choice, now that he has reinforced his formation with stronger men. Even so, Qin continue to push harder to Riboku HQ. It’s right there in their faces. They want to win so badly, so all they have to do is bull-rush the defense with brute strength alas the Dragon Ball logic. Screw strategy; just punch them harder. It’s all going accordingly in the warfare. That is until Riboku’s masterplan goes into full effect, and good God, what a big mistake this turned out to be for those two.

It’s a bit baffling to see Futei Unit actually attacking Ousen Army. Even Ousen’s men thought Riboku’s move to ploy a bait was useless; basically forced them to attack because whoops. Honestly, that would have been hilarious if it was true. However, like I said before, it’s all according to the plan. Ousen realizes the actual intention and it turns out that Futei Unit’s target is in fact the HQ. Again, that sounds laughable on paper, but with Riboku, prepare to be surprised.

The decision to ignore Futei turns out to be a major mistake. A mass of troops emerge out of nowhere and long behold, it’s Bananji Army, ready to flank the crap out of the HQ. This is a major changing the tide moment. Even Ousen has his first shock reaction; it’s minor but it’s a start. When you made him react that way, you know you’re doing something right.

The idea of this chapter is, Qin was overly confident in their status. Their reactions, their mindsets, and their actions clearly show how they solely focusing on the HQ without any possibilities of ambush or danger. Now with everyone all on Riboku HQ’s defense, Ousen HQ is under attack by mass of powerful men. The bird-eye view shot tells it all; the tide has shifted drastically. I got to say, Riboku did come off as a badass with the closing line. I know this is war, but I like to think Ousen is muttering, “This means war!”

Overall, this was a pretty good chapter that warned the fans to not sleep on Riboku and his brilliant mind. I know what he’s capable of; I was just caught up in the moment with Qin closing in to victory. It was all good feel moment, but when you lower your guard down and lose track on other important factors, you’re only asking for danger. The mind game was fun to watch and the consequence was pretty impactful. Essentially, Riboku has used his Uno reverse card. The war continues to intensify. Your move, Ousen.

[ravenvsfox]

Prompt: When they get to earth, lance wants to stay.

You were the first in line, so you get prompt numero uno!!

Outside the cabin of the shuttle, pebble stars are tossed out into the dense, black lake of open space, so dark that Lance’s eyes start teasing out imaginary colours. It’s always so still out in the yawning nothingness. If he didn’t know how a bucking shuttle felt beneath him it might be hard to tell that they were moving at all.

Inside, the glow of tech is cool and purple, and if he squints at the light and not the Altean characters, its almost like the Garrison simulators, or the speedometer of the only car on the road at night.

Pidge is punching in coordinates next to him, and she twists her fingers over the frame of her glasses like she’s trying to make them zoom. For all he knows, she might have engineered binoculars into her glasses just like she tucks lifts into her shoes, making modifications to herself just like she does to everything else she can get her hands on.

He squirms, digging his toes down into the unyielding bottom of his boots, wanting to feel something real and movable, something not so claustrophobic. His hands shake on the controls, and he clenches his fists until they can’t.

They’d left the lions on the nearest neutral planet, defences up, Romelle and Krolia at a nearby base. Coran was on patrol duty, winding between their massive paws and craning his neck to speak earnestly up at them. It’s comforting to think of the lions as as they left them, a circle of statues and their sentinel.

It’s the weirdest thing, but sometimes Lance thinks that the way the lions talk to him is the way Gods talk to prophets, and everyone else in the cosmos just has to trust his blind, bruising faith.

He pushes a hand into his hair and just holds it there, steering left-handed and feeling his pulse push anxiously against his fingers.

“Uh oh, are we getting introspective?”

Lance’s hand jerks back to the controls. “Oh—uh. Sorry. We’re just,” he taps their trajectory on the luminous map between them. “So close.” He hadn’t realized how close until he’d checked, but his chest had been getting more and more crowded, like all of Earth’s radio waves and clutter was close enough to hear.

“Less than a light-year,” Pidge agrees quietly. The look in her eyes is so terribly far from home. The part of her that riffled through the desks of authorities and cut all her hair off is still with her brother in the guts of the resistance.

“Then why doesn’t it feel like we’re going home, huh?” Lance asks, smiling through the weirdness in his head. “Where’s the fanfare? Where’s the galaxy-wide fireworks display?” Pidge smiles tightly back at him.

“I didn’t think we’d get to go home until our mission was done, and, well, I don’t know. Maybe we don’t deserve all of that yet.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Lance corrects. The shaking’s only getting worse. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when they touch down and it’s making his hair stand on end and his teeth chatter. “I’ve deserved it since day one.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, laughing. “All that winking at instructors and seeing how many peanut butter m&m’s you can fit in your mouth paying off for you?”

“Only in every way possible,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but I’m a galactic superstar. Seriously.”

“Seriously,” Pidge echoes. They lapse into silence, and Lance’s body kicks up a fight when he sees the luminescent blue shape of the Earth drifting into view like a tossed frisbee.

“Jesus,” he breathes. He eases up on the speed, and they spend a suspended minute floating, watching, breathless. “Is she beautiful or what?”

“Usually I don’t trust your taste, but this time—“ she chokes up suddenly, surprising herself, and she tries to shield her face from view. Lance crows at her, his own vision blurring.

“Pidgey,” he says joyfully “We’re home.”

“Shut up.”

“Pidge,” he croons. She looks at him, eyes bright and wet, and neither of them can keep from grinning.

“We were born right down there,” Lance informs her. “The doctors wept with joy when they saw me.”

“They probably didn’t think your big head was gonna come out.”

Lance ignores her, feeling the jitters get brighter, harder to fight. “One moon, seven seas. It rains the kind of water that’s safe to drink. There’s barbecue pizza down there, Pidge.”

“I know,” she says.

“I can’t believe this. My mom’s right there.”

They’re still knee-deep in a revolution. They’ve been hurtling through space at warp speed in close quarters for weeks, and the only home they’ve ever known out in the black was blasted out of the sky, but the idea of setting foot on Earth without crawling into his mother’s arms is unthinkable.

The shuttle comms crackle, and Hunk’s voice comes through, “you guys seeing this?”

“Oh yeah,” Lance says. “You feelin’ as misty as we are, buddy?”

“He’s been crying since we passed pluto,” Keith says flatly.

“Oh yeah, that was an emotional gut-punch,” Hunk says.

“Paladins,” Allura interrupts smoothly, “I trust you’re happy to be home. I know it might be hard to believe considering my situation, but I’m happy for you as well. Pidge, can you set a course for where your father has taken those schematics? It’s of the utmost importance that we not waste any time.”

His heart sinks. “Funny, that feels like all we’ve been doing. A lot of autopilot and Altean uno and drinking whatever was in that funky bottle under the console.”

“Lance,” Allura says disapprovingly. The empty air hums and someone breathes out quickly.

“Princess, you’re not saying that we won’t be able to visit our homes, are you? Our families?” Hunk asks.

“I wish you could,” she says, sighing. “But we’re still fighting a war. I don’t think it’s practical—or safe—“

“No,” Lance says, aborted. “I mean—no.”

“Lance,” Keith says quietly.

“I’m not talking to you,” Lance seethes. “Pidge, put in the coordinates 23° 8′ 22″ N, 81° 17′ 10″ W, will you? I’ve got a couple of errands to run.”

“We’re not splitting up,” Allura says firmly. “I’m so sorry Lance, but the team is more important than—“

“Than my family?” he says, disbelieving. “Sorry, no, absolutely not, agree to disagree. I know that I’m supposed to save the universe or whatever, but I promised my mom—“ he chews his lip savagely, watching the whole world rush up to meet them and feeling helpless want thrash in his stomach. “I won’t be any help at the Holt’s. No one needs a guy with a rifle when you’re trying to put together a whole new teladuv, right? You don’t need me.”

“Yes we do,” Shiro says firmly, and Lance closes his eyes, fleeting. He’s having trouble focusing with his dearest wish and his nightmare both grabbing for a half of his brain.

“How about I go with Lance to Cuba and keep things on schedule,” Hunk offers. “I’d love to see his mom again. She always brings us empanadas.”

“We need your brain,” Shiro says regretfully. “We can’t do anything without your eyes on this.”

There’s a long silence, and Lance eases the thrusters to a more manageable intensity, muscle memory.

“I’ll go,” Keith says finally.

“What?” Lance asks at the same time that Allura says “pardon me?”

“I’ll go,” he repeats, stronger this time. “I’m also a fighter, not a scientist. I don’t have a home to go to, but I can take Lance.”

Lance flushes, not really understanding why. The way Keith said “also a fighter” like they’re cut from the same reversible cloth, red and blue. Sometimes the hot and cold of the two of them gives him whiplash.

“Is that… I mean, Lance,” Allura addresses him directly. He wishes he could see her expression, the wide eyes, the forehead that never really creases no matter how elastic her reactions are. “Is that what you want?”

He doesn’t even care that it’s Keith. He’s staring down the barrel of a mission where he’s fixed permanently in the background, tethered to the earth an eight-hour plane ride from the only place he’s ever felt consistently needed. “Definitely. Keith and I can stay in touch with you guys, and we basically have a super fast private jet if you need us.”

“Sorry, did you just say ‘Keith and I’ without bursting into flames?” Pidge asks, and Lance gives her a sidelong look.

“Right now, Keith is the only one of you who isn’t on my shit list. If Cubans are away from their families for too long, they drop dead. Do you want me to die?”

“Kind of a little at all times,” Pidge says, and he shoves her so hard that she would topple if it weren’t for the harness holding her to her seat.

“Alright,” Allura says definitively. “We’ll touch base at the Holt’s, but really… if I saw Altea again, no one could dream of keeping me from it.”

“Thank you princess,” Lance says gratefully, his chest aching, sweat cooling on his upper lip, hands finally still. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

______

Careening through the atmosphere is so surreal that Lance holds his breath all the way down. The clouds swarm the windows like eager fans, and it’s better than any welcoming procession he could have dreamt up. When they sink through the last of the low-slung wisps of water vapour, the burst of smoke-blue sky and human-made buildings stretched out below makes his steering stutter. Pidge laughs brightly at him.

They touch down on earth with the sunset crying out to be noticed, submerging everything in easygoing orange light.

The first step he takes on Earth in a year, and he falls to his knees.

His suit crunches against the dirt, and he takes his gloves off so that he can fist the grass and muck and smell the tang of it in the air. The oxygen is perfectly tuned for his lungs, and even though his body is off-kilter in the gravity, the ache matches the one inside of him. The breeze ruffles his hair, and he feels perfectly understood.

“You gonna kiss it, too?”

He looks up and sees Keith towering over him, looking imposing and amused at once. The rest of the team is staggered behind him, stretching their legs out and moving crates of supplies.

“That’s between me and her,” he sniffs.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Oh, because even the Earth is a girl to you, right?”

“Ge,” Lance says.

Keith blinks. “Uhh…”

“As in, the goddess?” Keith shakes his head. “Man, the amount of time we spend up between constellations and you don’t even know your mythology? She’s Earth? Mother of the Titans? Whatever dude, Ge is a hot goddess and I missed her sweet curves.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. Lance spreads his hand in the dirt and watches the way little buds of weeds and grass fold under his fingers.

“We haven’t even been here five full minutes and you’re already being gross,” Pidge calls.

“This is the prime time to be gross,” Lance calls. “Let me have my sloppy reunion, please and thank you.” His armour sighs as he eases himself down fully onto the Holt’s front lawn, heavy with gravity. He hears a rustle and looks up to find Keith sitting cross-legged a few feet away. He’s tearing out handfuls of grass with both hands, gaze tangled up in something Lance doesn’t think he’d be able to see even if he looked.

Lance watches him over one of his outstretched arms, but Keith catches him.

“What?” he asks.

“Two years,” Lance murmurs, and Keith’s face shifts dramatically. “That’s a long time away from home.”

“I haven’t been back to Earth in three years,” Keith corrects, annoyingly patient, completely obtuse.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Keith, Lance,” Allura calls. Her hair is pulled back tightly, and she’s still wearing her flight suit. “Stay for a briefing, and then choose whichever shuttle you wish. Pidge assures me that there are supplies inside, and an extra—what was it? cellular phone? If you don’t want to wear your helmets for continuous correspondence, you can instantly message us from this device.”

Lance grins. “Yeah, I’m familiar. Can’t say the same for Keithy boy here. Body of a buff twenty year old, mind of a confused old man.”

“I know what a cellphone is,” Keith says impatiently.

“Good,” Allura says quickly, before they can devolve into bickering. “Use it. Stay safe, stay smart. Do not forget why we’re here.”

“I think the background threat of annihilation should keep us on our toes,” Lance assures her, and Keith snorts. Lance smiles slyly at him.

The briefing is swift and painless.

Watching Pidge reunite with her parents is bittersweet, and he keeps imagining the way his own mother is going to swear and slap him and kiss him. He’ll apologize over and over to her for how he’s made her worry and how he’s going to make her worry. 

He’ll call his abuelita, surprise Marco and Luis in their shared bedroom by doing the secret knock on the doorframe, and bring Veronica the shard of sea glass he found on a planet called Luvesh (the sea was literally made of glass, and when you walked out onto its glittering surface, it spidered like ice. He bent down and picked a piece like a flower).

After the initial business, they change into street clothes and eat homemade lasagna, and Lance almost cries when the tang of tomato and basil hits his tongue. He winds the perfect stretch of real cheese around his fork and raises it in toast: to the only planet that does pasta right.

He and Keith carry fresh supplies between them in a cleaned out cooler, and they climb up into the cockpit of the smallest, fastest shuttle. They squabble briefly about who’s going to pilot until he reminds Keith that he’s the only one who knows where they’re going. 

They wave goodbye to their team, and cruise somewhere between commercial jet speed and the full thrust of an alien vessel, watching the clusters of cities below slither away, like a sheet being continuously pulled out from under them.

_______

The sun is nearly below the horizon in Varadero, but Lance knows every gnarl in every road and every stupid resort, and he knows the way everything intersects at his family home, the beating heart of it all.

Gliding low over the jewel-blue stretch of the ocean is so overwhelming that he’s worked himself up halfway to tears before he remembers that Keith’s with him, that Keith’s seeing the best place in the world for the first time while it’s drooping to sleep for the night.

He starts pointing things out, identifying distant shapes with even more distant memories attached to them. 

That’s the street market where I tried to haggle a boombox down to three dollars. Those are the beaches that the tourists swarm during the day. Most of them are too scared to swim in the ocean at night, so that’s when we always used to go. Somewhere in that block is the gelato place where I broke my tooth on a waffle cone. 

That’s the little theatre where Veronica used to dance. I used to go to all her practices, and I said it was to look at the pretty girls, but it was also to watch my sister out-dance everyone else on stage. We had chickens when I was nine, and we bought them at that farm down there, the one with the hook-shaped driveway? I was obsessed with Celia Cruz and Britney Spears so we called one of the chickens Miss Celia and one of them Brit.

It’s starting to hurt to talk about it. Everything out of his dreams is tangible again, and even though it’s hugged by darkness and silky quiet — not raucous and sunny like it always is in his memories — it’s so close that voltron seems like the dream.

“I didn’t know you could be this genuine for this long,” Keith says honestly, and Lance doesn’t look at him.

“You haven’t really met me until you’ve met me here,” Lance says slowly.

“Well…” Keith starts awkwardly. “Nice to meet you?”

He does look at him this time, incredulous, and when he smiles, so does Keith.

______

As soon as they step foot on his property, he starts crying for real. He’s been tightrope walking over an absence so large that he wouldn’t even look at it. Every time he overcompensated for his grief and did something stupid like fell in love with a complete stranger, he felt like he was lurching over that chasm, trying to find his balance.

It’s impossible to describe the feeling of reaching down to graze your knuckles against the sand outside your favourite place in the world, and feeling the heat from the day baked into it, spotting little footprints tracked up to the rickety staircase.

Keith walks a stride and a half behind him, quiet, pretending he can’t hear the sounds that Lance is making out of the deepest place in his chest.

“Keith, you can’t look at me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because vulnerability is ugly.” He brushes his fingers over where his own name is written on the mailbox. His bike is propped up against the deck. Luis is probably using it, the bastard.

“I don’t think it’s ugly,” Keith whispers.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he pretends he didn’t hear. He can hear the waves unrolling on the shore like messy, misshapen carpets, the hiss of them wrapping themselves back into the surf. The air has that salt and citrus smell that lived in all his clothes before they were sterilized by months in the gasping, impersonal corners of space.

He walks up the front stoop, and he had really imagined this in the daytime, with the sun at his back, instead of the moonlight and Keith, both of them lonely but constant.

The door is unlocked, and he lets himself in, not breathing.

“Should I wait outside?” Keith asks, and it’s uncharacteristic of him to be so delicate about something.

“I need this,” Lance says quickly, grabbing Keith’s wrist impulsively. “I want— I need someone to back me up if… if they don’t believe me.”

Keith’s brow is an entire storm, thunderclouds and twisters of confusion and fear and discomfort, but his fingers curl to touch the hand Lance has around his wrist, and he nods.

The little clock on their front table ticks merrily, and there are lanyards strewn over the side of the little ceramic meant for keys, messy like his mom hates. His own face is ghostly in the Garrison cadet portraits lining the hallway, and he can see Keith peering at them out of the corner of his eye.

He reaches the place where the hall opens up into the living room, and stops. His mom is curled up in the recliner, asleep, and the home phone is clutched in her hand. He holds his own face in his hands, shoulders shaking, and all the gravity on his head feels like way too much. His knees give out, and Keith steadies him at the last second.

“I really don’t know if I should be here,” he hisses. His arm is around Lance’s waist, and there’s a weird dissonance to it, like he never left home or the castle of lions, or he’s not sure that they’re really that different. 

He feels weirdly like Keith belongs here, that he’s still an arm and Lance is still a leg on one cohesive person, and they could move giants together.

“Then who would’ve caught me just now?” Lance counters. His gaze finds his mom again, another kind of gravity, and he creeps closer, seeing the oven clock and the drawn blinds and feeling familiarity so acute that it’s like deja vu.

He stands over his mother, hand to his lips, ribcage quaking, and reaches down to shake her awake.

“Mamá,” he says hoarsely.

She doesn’t wake up immediately, and the longer he looks down into her lovely, worried face, the more his own face crumples. He can’t help the wounded sound that leaves the back of his throat, and she wakes at the noise, her face dazed and concerned.

“Mijo, what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand halfway up to his face before it hitches and drops.

There’s a beat of disbelieving silence, and then she surges upright, pulling the string on the lamp and squinting hopefully through the flood of light. When her eyes find Lance again, she gives this wavering gasp, her lower lip sucking inwards like it does right before you start sobbing.

“Lance?” She holds him by both his arms, shaking him, and he sinks through her grip to his knees. “Oh darling. My baby,” she says in Spanish. “How could you?”

“I’m sorry mamá,” Lance says, head bowed. “I’m so sorry.” She pulls his face up and smooths both thumbs across his brow.

“Don’t be sorry, mijo, just tell me where you’ve been. We’ve been looking for you. Searching the whole desert. All the stupid Garrison would tell us is that you were missing, presumed—“ she cuts herself off and shakes her head, jaw tight.

“I mean, you’re not going to believe this, mom.”

“My ghost son is sitting before me,” she says, hands in his hair, “more beautiful than ever. I dare you to shock me.”

Lance nods quickly, looking down at his own hands, trying to find a loose thread that will unravel a year’s worth of stories. “There’s… there’s a war.”

“There are many wars,” she replies gently. “Always.”

“No, there’s—do you remember the Kerberos mission, the crew that went missing?”

“It was in the news,” she says distractedly, combing fingers through his choppy bangs. “The boy you like, right? Takashi?”

“Yes,” Lance says, swallowing, hyper-aware of Keith in the doorway. “They didn’t die, they got caught up in a—in a war.”

“I don’t understand.” She’s looking at him with such open concern, and he wishes desperately that he could make thing simpler.

“Your son and I are soldiers,” Keith says from the doorway, and she startles hard, holding a hand to her chest and cursing in Spanish.

“Who—“

“Keith Kogane, former Garrison pilot, current paladin of Voltron.” He frowns. “I think.”

“He’s a friend,” Lance says simply.

“And?”

“And,” he takes a deep breath. “We’ve been fighting pretty much an evil empire in space, and we each pilot these sort of ancient, um, sentient cats, with the help of this princess we found in cryogenic stasis—“

“Ay, lance. Slow down, start again.”

“Mamá,” he says, exasperated.

“You should probably explain again,” Keith says helpfully.

“Thanks Keith,” he says hotly. “So we’ve been fighting in an intergalactic war, right? I’m sort of the unofficial red pilot, and my bayard is a rifle but one time it was kind of a sword which was—“

“Lance,” she interrupts, flicking the back of his head.

“Okay, okay, lo siento, I’ll go slow.”

It takes a long time to lay everything out properly, but his mom is never apprehensive or lost, she just wants to hear the facts, concisely, from different angles, until she finds some sort of solution. She’s always been good at peeling fact from fiction and plucking compromise out of thin air.

At some point, Keith gravitates over to the loveseat and makes himself comfortable, knife glinting from the holster around his thigh so noticeably that his mother purses her lips.

Sometime after midnight, Luis drifts down the stairs wearing boxers and a bathrobe, and when he sees Lance he trips down to the main floor and picks him up off the floor into a crushing hug. They stumble in an awkward square, shaking with euphoric laughter that might as well be crying, until Lance pokes him hard in the side, and they collapse apart, grinning.

Marco must hear the ruckus because he comes skittering down the stairs a minute later, already crying, and he tucks his head in Lance’s shoulder when he hugs him. By the time Veronica comes upstairs, her hair in a long loose braid and her face nearly unrecognizably gaunt, Lance can’t even speak. He nods jerkily and opens his arms, but she shoves him in the chest.

“Nothing to say, little brother?”

“Veronica,” their mother warns.

“They said you were dead,” she hisses.

“They also said I had an attitude problem, which we both know can’t be true,” he jokes. She shakes her head until a tear runs down her cheek and she has to rub it away.

“You are a problem child. I told mamá to stop having children after me, and if she’d listened we could’ve avoided so much mess.”

“But who would’ve gone to see you dance?” and he means it as a joke, but the idea of no one seeing her twisting like a rose towards the sun makes his throat close up.

She holds him by the neck, and then by the back of the head. “Bobo,” she scolds. “Don’t do that again.” She hugs him so carefully, and he screws his eyes shut, thinking about picking up to leave again, sailing back up into the stars and never coming back.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to be warm and safe and missed.

“I should probably leave you to it,” Keith says, rising abruptly, looking so uncomfortable that Lance feels a surge of fondness like flash rain, quick, heavy, and gone.

“No,” his mother informs him, getting to her feet and squeezing Lance’s face tenderly on her way by. “You brought my son home. I’m making you something to eat.”

_______

No one every warned him how intimate it would be to show someone your childhood bedroom. It’s the same feeling you get when you dig up a time capsule, uncomfortable awareness of what you thought was crucial when you were a whole different version of yourself.

Everything that he mentioned in passing in the trenches of the war is suddenly up close, scrutable, and Keith is taking it in like a museum patron, skirting the edge of the old messes, leaning politely in to look at portraits of friends and family.

“You have a picture of me in your room,” Keith points out, and Lance’s shoulders tense until he sees what he’s gesturing towards.

“A class photo, Keith. It’s not exactly a shrine.” He spreads out on the blue plaid bedspread and holds his hands to the pills of the fabric, worn exactly how he remembers.

Keith looks guilty. “No, I know, I just. I don’t know. It’s kind of… nice. To think that I’m this tiny part of your room. It’s stupid.” Lance looks at him blankly. “Forget it,” Keith says forcefully, crossing his arms and scowling.

Lance shrugs, uncomfortable. There are polaroids of him slung between Hunk and Pidge, lopsided from the extreme difference in the heights of their shoulders. He has peace thrown up around their shoulders, and he’s laughing.

He has a cutout about the Kerberos mission on his desk, and the Shiro with dark hair and young eyes stares up at the ceiling. He has the X-Files “I want to Believe’ poster above his bead, which covers Allura and Coran, so the only person who doesn’t really have a spot is Keith. Except one tiny pointed chin and bad haircut in a sea of young, pouty faces.

“Hey,” he says softly. He scoops his polaroid camera off of the desk and fiddles with the buttons, ears burning, heart turning over with the aching slowness of the wounded. “Come here.”

______

He gets up when the first fingers of sun peel back the horizon, red and orange like fire. He leaves Keith in his bed, his chest bare and his face young and pink in the sunrise. He still doesn’t understand anything.

He meets his mother in the kitchen, and she hold him an arm’s length away from her body to trace his features with her fingers. She passes him the perfect café cubano, and he makes a big show of getting on his knees to thank her.

Orange, filtered light comes in through the half-drawn shutters in distorted stripes. His mother recounts her phone conversation with Lance’s father using sound effects and tripping Spanish slang, and something vital inside of him detaches and spills blood-hot feeling everywhere.

He leaves his mother to wander down to the beach. His skin responds to the sun, hair standing on end. His whole body has been like a limb that’s been trapped in a cast, shrunken and pale, and the air and light against it is a terrible relief.

He lets his fingers brush the tall, feathery grass on either side of the path as he walks.

The feeling in his chest is the same one he got when he walked up to the stocky outline of the Galaxy Garrison, or when he settled into Blue’s cockpit for the first time, a sense of rightness so acute that he doesn’t have a name for it.

He scuffs off his flip-flops and sprints down to meet the surf, laughing when the spray gets his shorts wet and spritzes up to his neck. The chunky shells underfoot and the chill on his sleep-sensitive skin is background noise. He wades thigh deep and watches the red of the sky echoed by the churning mosh pit of the waves. He closes his eyes and lets the breeze paw at his hair and clothes, holding his arms out so that his loose buttoned shirt billows out behind him.

He’s out there for a long time, dawn turning into early morning, pale, with spectacular clouds. Red skies always promise wicked storms.

He settles down into the sand, enjoying the little discomforts, the sand tucked just under the hem of his shorts where his skin is clammy wet, the breeze getting a little too forceful with his hair and forcing it in the wrong direction. His house just a little too far away at his back, everything he cares about a few minutes out of reach.

He’s been to so many galaxies and he’s never seen anything like a sunrise over the ocean.

He thinks, I am the best version of myself, right here.

He knows he’s been a liability for the team. He shows up and makes noise and tries to look cool so that it won’t feel so much like the losing battle he’s fighting is coming to a sad, inevitable end. 

He’s the extra pilot that they cycle through the roster and try to find a place for, but he’s not the red paladin. And he’s never going to belong to Blue like Allura does, like her family always will.

Being at home like this makes it really clear that he hasn’t fit anywhere in a very long time. There are so many ugly things twisting and shooting out in space, and he’s seen so many people suffer. He shoots galra sentries dead and he follows his gut instincts to the wrong places and he dreams about home.

It’s so stupid that he thought he could be some sort of soldier. Like he would ever be the guy that saved something instead of ruining it.

He puts his hand out in front of him and watches sun creep between his fingers. Nothing feels real in space. It’s easier to lie to yourself, somehow.

“Hey,” says a voice behind him. When he glances back, Keith is staring at him with the saddest expression he’s ever seen on his face, and only then does Lance realize that he’s crying.

“What are you doing here?”

Keith ignores him. “You’re crying again.” He really sounds like it’s bothering him.

“No I’m not.”

“Your face is wet,” he says matter-of-factly, sitting down close to him in the sand, blotting out the sun.

“I was in the sea, Keith.”

He pauses, then breathes out all at once. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“Well I’m not so fond of looking at you either,” Lance snaps.

“I think we should go back tonight. I texted Allura and she said has a mission for us while the rest of the team is working. Some recon, I think.”

“The rest of the team,” Lance repeats hollowly.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “I mean. We can still be useful. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like sitting still for too long.”

“I do, actually,” he lies. “Harder to break things if you’re not moving around so much.”“What?” Keith looks confused, his eyes darting all over Lance’s face.

“I’m not going back with you.”

He jerks back like he’s been slapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I quit,” Lance announces. “I quit voltron, I quit galaxy-saving and jumping in front of laser fire and putting on a fucking— show all the time, I quit killing people because they’re wearing the galra uniform.” Keith flinches. “I quit you. Okay?”

Keith sits, stunned, across from him, and when his head dips, the sun gets into Lance’s eyes, sharp. He looks away.

“Not okay,” Keith says firmly. “Really not— really not okay, Lance, what the fuck? How did you think I was just going to, what, hop on a shuttle without you?”

Lance shakes his head at the ground. “I thought you’d be psyched. You won’t have to deal with me anymore. The red lion is yours. She always has been, actually, she was basically trying to eject me like a disease the whole time.” He looks up at Keith and finds him looking down furiously at him.

“We already talked about this,” Keith says impatiently. “I don’t care how many lions there are, we’ll figure it out. You’re part of the team.”“Only technically though, right?” he says bitterly. “I’ve always been more of a sidekick. Look, you don’t have to pretend to want me here just so you can tell them you tried when you show up empty handed, alright?”

Keith is looking more agitated by the minute, and Lance isn’t used to seeing him in natural light, without his gloves or his jacket or tense, self-assured energy. “I do want you,” he starts, and then he kind of bares his teeth and snaps his head away, fighting through something that Lance can’t see or understand. “You’re a paladin of voltron,” he struggles to say, like it explains everything.

“I tried to be a paladin,” Lance says. “I’m no good at it, okay? Can we stop rubbing it in. I’m being very real with you and you’re being very weird.”

“But you’re our sharpshooter,” Keith says, defiant like a kid. “No one fights like you.” That pulls Lance up short, and he’s shaking again, hands and chattering teeth, and the patches of water on his clothes are suddenly much too cold. Keith’s face is wide open in the plain light, and Lance realizes that he’s not lying, that he’s never been very good at that at all.

All the drawers in his chest shake out over everything, and he’s losing all his reasoning in the mess. He keeps looking back at the horizon and thinking about waking up in his room every day to the smell of coffee, but the image keeps getting confused with the image of Keith, roseate, rolled in his blue comforter.

“I can’t go back,” he whispers. “I won’t survive, and then my family will fall apart.”

“Lance, If anyone’s going to survive, it’s you, do you understand me?”

“No,” Lance says, frustrated. “I don’t know what’s happening right now, at all, actually.”

“You’re smart, and you’re selfless. Do you know how deadly those qualities are in a war? Your plans are low casualty, fast and brilliant, and they save lives. There are entire colonies, entire species that would have died without you.” Lance shakes his head, trying to keep from crying again and embarrassing himself. “None of us would’ve made it this far without you, idiot.”

“My family needs me,” he argues. “You saw them, you know, you know—“ He thinks of his mother trying to memorize him with both hands, his little brother crying softly against his neck.

“Anyone would feel that way if they knew you and lost you, Lance. You can’t honestly think that we wouldn’t be just as messed up without you,” he says incredulously.

“Keith,” Lance says lowly. There’s an epiphany tottering in his chest, and he can’t quite get a grip on it before it slips and bobs away.

“You can’t stay here,” Keith says, and he’s on his knees, reaching for both of Lance’s wrists, eyes wide, almost purple in the sun. “Who’s gonna keep me in line?”

“You—you need to keep yourself in line, dude, you can’t just expect—“

“I know you can’t stay here when the action’s out there. People like us can never sit out on fights.”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Keith asks, bewildered, hands tight on Lance’s forearms.

“Acting like we’re the same!”

“How are we different?” Keith demands. The wind ruffles his hair so that a piece gets caught in his mouth, and Lance looks distractedly at it.

“We’re opposites,” he says. “That’s like our whole thing.”

“I’m tired of pretending like we don’t like each other,” Keith sighs.

“I don’t understand,” Lance says quietly, except that he does, all at once, looking at Keith’s hands still squeezing his wrists, his blocky knuckles and uneven fingernails. “Why did you volunteer to take me home, Keith.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes please.”

“I love you,” Keith tells him miserably.

Lance turns his face towards the tree line meandering off to the edge of the coast, feeling every system in his body light up simultaneously. “Keith.”

He lifts his wrists and Keith’s hands follow them up. He shuffles closer on his knees, brow furrowed, mouth turned down, desperate.

“So you can’t expect me to leave you here,” Keith says, “I know that I’m asking you to walk away from your home. But you’re asking me to walk away from mine.”

“Keith,” Lance repeats, choked up. “I don’t know—“

“You don’t have to know, god, you don’t have to know anything, you just have to get on that shuttle with me tonight.” 

He looks up at Keith, wild hair, broad shoulders, eyes like swatches of deep space. He remembers seeing him sitting alone at the Garrison and wondering what it would be like to be made for piloting like that, to have that sort of magic in your hands.

Those hands are still steadying him, gripping the tender insides of his arms like he’s trying to steer him in the right direction.

After his first mission with Red, he sat in the hangar, breathing hard, picturing Keith’s battle-flushed face and missing him badly.

“Don’t do it for me,” Keith says hastily. “I know you like to make people happy, and this isn’t like that. I think staying here would be a mistake. I think you’ll see us leaving the atmosphere and you’ll regret everything. You won’t be able to sit still when you know we’re out there fighting. You’ll be here with your family but you won’t really be here.”

“You’ve really got me figured out, hey,” Lance says ruefully.

“I try to pay attention,” Keith says. “When it matters.”

“I’m trying to do this for you,” Lance tells him, shaking his head, annoyed at his full head and watery voice, the way the force of the ocean has infected him. “You belong with Red, doing your blade gymnastics routines, holding a knife in your mouth or whatever, winning obnoxiously all the time.”

“Then you belong next to me,” Keith counters viciously. “It doesn’t have to be either or. We’re a team.”

The sun punches out from behind a low-hanging cloud. Lance’s vision clears.

“I think we’re probably more than that,” he says.

Keith falters, and his grip slides down an inch, so he’s holding the bottom of Lance’s hands. “You don’t have to—“

“Do you know what I thought when I saw you in my bed this morning?” he asks. Keith’s hands are clammy but fixed, and he has this sweet little mole on the side of his nose, and Lance can’t believe he’s been so stupid. “I thought — it’s not fair that he looks like that when I’m trying to leave. Like, how rude is that.”

Keith’s face does something hopeful and twitchy, a lifting chin and anxious brow. “You’re one to talk.”

“You had all this sunrise in your hair, like, all the places where the light hits you were red. It was so you. I mean, I must’ve been sleep-deprived, because I really thought I was attracted to a mullet for a sec.”

Keith smiles slowly.

“And I was already feeling all mushy from the way you held onto my mom so tightly when she hugged you. It really didn’t look like you were hugging someone’s mom who you’d never met, Keith. You weren’t even uncomfortable in a stranger’s house, do you know how rare that is? It was like you just belonged in my breakfast nook eating pastelitos. God, and the taking me home and listening to my stories. Do you know— in that stupid picture we took? I’m not even looking at the camera. I’m looking at you.”

“Come back with me,” Keith says, pulling Lance’s hands around his neck, hoisting him into his space. “I’m never going to leave you behind now.”

“Kiss me, and I’ll go,” Lance says, bold from the way Keith is all over him like he’s never been touched before.

He cups Lance’s face in both hands. He hasn’t had this much focus on just him for months, and his face goes hot as he reaches up for Keith’s wrists.

When he kisses him, his rushing blood matches the tossing ocean, and nothing else has any sound at all. It’s fatal, the way Keith kisses him like he’s trying to pin the two of them together for good.

They’re both on their knees, and Keith’s hands slide down to grab him closer around the waist, gathering the loose fabric into his fists. His tongue is searing, and his breath is sweet like over-sugared coffee.

All of his suppressed feeling flies up to meet him, double-sided anger and want, rivalry and respect. He finds himself bobbing towards the glow of Keith’s body, chest full and light as a balloon.

He breaks away gasping. “Why have we been fighting?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whines, and Lance can feel the spread of his fingers flexing against his waist. “You started it.”

“I think I wanted you to notice me,” he says, like he can’t believe it.

“I did,” Keith grumbles.

Lance kisses his lax mouth, enjoying the instinctive flicker of his tongue, the scorch of embarrassed desire in his cheeks. “Oh man, If I die in space, you’re going to feel so bad.”

“You’re not gonna die,” Keith says. He pushes their foreheads together with the insistence of a labrador, and lance sighs.

“It’s a war, dude,” he points out.

“I’m not letting you die,” Keith insists. “I’m going to bring you home again, after we’ve destroyed the galra empire and freed everyone. I’m going to bring you back to this beach.”

“Well I’m not letting you die either,” Lance says defensively. He puts a hand against Keith’s chest and feels his heartbeat buck, almost too fast to be human. “Two-way street, buddy. We continue the mission. We’re a little less reckless. I hang that picture of us in my lion. We fight back to back and make out with explosions behind us, I don’t know, I’ve still gotta iron out the details. You keep loving me, I keep loving you.” His voice wobbles. “Everyone wins.”

Keith lowers him all the way back into the sand to kiss him, and the warmth on all sides is almost as disorienting as the weight of Keith’s body, the give of his mouth. Keith breaks away to say, “I can do that.” He swipes a thumb over Lance’s cheekbone and smiles.

A raindrop flattens a piece of Keith’s hair on its way down to Lance’s face, and then another two find his cheeks and parted lips. Keith rears back, propped up on both hands above him like a shield, and rain winds up and starts pouring down, whole torrential sheets of it. Lance lets his head loll back when he laughs, giddy. He twists his hands in the hair at Keith’s neck.

“Isn’t this a bad omen?” Keith asks, voice raised through the chaos of the downpour.

“No,” Lance says, thinking of red mornings and storms blowing in off the coast. “I love the rain.”

[ayalaatreides]

Nanbaka Fic: Drop That Penny!

Chapter 2! Continued from Chapter 1! Enjoy!

Summary: Momoko's secret is out, but what is Hajime going to do with this new information? Will social awkwardness ruin it all???

Chapter 1: Kind of Embarrassing Pairing: Momoko Hyakushiki/Hajime Sugoroku Rating: General Audiences Characters: Momoko, Hajime, Mitsuru, with a Jyugo guest appearance.

Momoko stared in open-mouthed shock, one hand outstretched towards the door that had just slammed shut. He… he just ran away again!

She put her palms to her face and let out a pitiful wail. "What just happened?! It was going so well!" she whimpered behind her fingers.

Of course Hajime would get scared off eventually! Clearly, she'd done something wrong, again, but she didn't even know what it was this time! She slumped in her chair and listlessly rested her head in one hand as she picked up her chopsticks and fiddled with the rice on her plate. Her eyes landed on her other hand, the one that had brushed against his for one glorious, heart-stopping second.

Wait, what if he saw how I reacted? What if he realized…? Momoko's eyes widened in horror. But if he realized how I feel, and he ran away again, then… "Oh, nooo!" she cried, burying her face in her palms again. What a complete disaster!

------------------------

Dealing with a Warden who hated him was easy enough; all he had to do was keep his head down and work hard. Hajime Sugoroku found himself utterly at a loss for how to proceed with a Momoko Hyakushiki who liked him.

The Warden. The head of Nanba Prison, his superior officer. She, apparently, was harboring a crush on him.

Well, at least the Dog's jealousy and animosity made sense all of a sudden. If the Warden had been pining away all this time, then she'd probably never even noticed Kenshirou's own longing gazes. Which was kind of sadly ironic for Kenshirou, but not really Hajime's problem.

All this was going through Hajime's mind as he sat at his desk, going through the paperwork he hadn't had time to finish before going to dinner with the Warden.

Everything had a routine when it came to filling out reports.

Paperwork was calming.

Orderly.

No unexpected events.

Unlike a certain revelation he'd had earlier that night.

The click of the doorknob made Hajime jump in his chair. He hurriedly steadied himself and shuffled his papers. Seitarou walked into the room, registering some surprise that Hajime was still there. He inquired, "Ah, sir, did anything important come up at the meeting with the Warden? I understood you were taking the night off for the dinner."

Hajime forced himself to remain impassive as he shook his head. "It was uneventful, but the Warden had to take a call from the Ministry of Justice, so we ended a bit early. I decided to catch up before I go to bed." He frowned. "Actually, why are you here? Did Prisoner 1315 try to escape again?"

Seitarou shook his head. "No, it's Prisoner 1399. He's convinced himself he has to hide outside his cell to complete his ninja training. I was going to find Deputy Supervisor Yamato, but you're here..."

"And he won't go back in his cell," sighed Hajime. "All right; let's go sort this out."

------------------------

Hajime was usually very, very focused. There wasn't much that could distract him from his work. However, he'd never had to deal with a superior officer wanting to date him before. Here he was, in his office the day after that dinner, and he still couldn't pay attention. He'd actually made mistakes, plural, on his paperwork. He'd even had to get a new form for one report write-up, since the first form had so much white-out on it.

"This is absurd," he muttered, shoving the paperwork away. So, the Warden had some sort of crush on him, so what? Why did that mean that he couldn't focus all of a sudden? He wasn't some sappy schoolboy- even when he'd been an actual schoolboy, he'd never been the sappy kind. So what the hell was wrong with him all of a sudden? It wasn't as if he was looking for a girlfriend and was actually considering this as a potential opportunity. "I'm almost thirty, I'm too old to be fidgeting over shit like this," he grumbled.

He hadn't really dated since he was a teenager. Once he'd decided to get serious about a career as a correctional officer, he'd put all that aside to stay focused. It had been surprisingly easy to stay single all this time; he was fine on his own, generally speaking, and he always had been. Plus, most women seemed to find him off-putting. They'd approach him and then leave shortly after he started talking to them. Maybe he looked too mean. Maybe he was too brusque. Regardless, it had never bothered him much. Most of those women hadn't really had anything in common with him, anyway. The one time he'd tried to date again, in his early 20s, the woman in question had cited his "workaholic" tendencies as the reason why she was breaking up with him. It'd stung, but he'd respected her honesty- why should two people stay together if they couldn't keep up with each other's lives? It wouldn't be fair of him to expect a woman to put up with his admittedly aggressive ambitions, and it wouldn't be fair of her to expect him to be less ambitious, even if it did make him a workaholic.

I've heard that one, too. The Warden's words from the night before popped back into his mind. Now that he was thinking about it, he supposed that was something they did have in common. The thought, oddly, made him even more jittery.

He got up and went to the break room. Maybe the short walk and a cup of green tea would calm him down and get him back to normal. A few minutes later, he sank onto the break room couch with a sigh, sipping from a steaming cup of tea as he waited for the liquid to cool some more. He felt himself uncoiling a bit as the warmth from the tea began to suffuse within him.

As he sipped his tea, he realized what the source of his problem was: it had never occurred to him that the Warden was… a person, really. He wasn't one to question his colleagues' personal lives, generally speaking, and even less so when that colleague was both his superior officer and utterly terrifying and out for his blood (or so he'd thought). Obviously she was a person, but he'd never stopped to wonder what she did with her free time, what she was like off-duty- or what kind of people, if any, she was interested in. As it turned out, the answer to that last one was "Hajime Sugoroku", and that was the kicker. He'd never even considered that the Warden might have romantic inclinations sometimes, and it would never have occurred to him in a million years that those feelings might be aimed at himself.

And that was why the dinner last night had been so surprising. He'd actually been enjoying her company, if he was being totally honest with himself. Sure, it had been weird at first, but at a certain point he'd felt… comfortable. And it was because he'd been spending time with the Warden as a person, rather than his superior officer. He'd gotten to meet Momoko, rather than Warden Hyakushiki, and it had been actually pretty nice- in fact, it was probably the nicest social interaction he'd had in years.

"Guess there's nothing wrong with a friendly, casual dinner once in a while," Hajime said grudgingly. A friendly and casual dinner, with a colleague… who was also his superior officer… who was also a woman with a crush on him… a very tall and striking woman with an imposing bearing and a piercing stare, and those were admirable traits in a superior officer... but she also had those traits as a person… a person with feelings… a single person with feelings specifically for himself...

She did have kind of a cute smile, too.

He groaned harshly and buried his face in his palms. "This is so ridiculous. This is childish," he muttered into his hands.

It was rather good fortune that nobody entered the room in the five or ten minutes Hajime had to himself. Just as he was bracing himself to go back to his paperwork and its slew of mistakes, his radio went off with a call from a very, very lost Deputy Supervisor. Hajime practically bolted out the door of the break room, glad for the distraction.

After he'd sent Yamato on his way, a slight movement in the shadows caught his eye, and he barked, "Prisoner Number 15, get out of there. I'll be taking you back to your cell."

A muted sigh echoed down the hallway, and Jyugo stepped out into the light. "That was faster than usual."

"I was paying closer attention this time," Hajime retorted.

Jyugo reluctantly fell into step with Hajime after a moment of enduring Hajime's expectant stare, and they began their walk along the twisting path that led back to Cell 13, Hajime having made sure he kept Jyugo's uniform firmly in hand so the prisoner wouldn't run off on the return journey.

"Hey, Hajime, are you in a worse mood than usual?" Jyugo asked out of nowhere. Hajime's grip tightened on the collar of his jumpsuit as he tried not to visibly jump at the sudden question.

"Why do you think that?!" Hajime growled. Jyugo just shrugged.

"Uno always says I have a good sense about people," he remarked.

"Number 11, huh?" Hajime muttered. "Makes me question his sense about people if he actually thinks that."

"Does it have something to do with that dinner invitation from the Warden?" Jyugo asked.

Hajime stopped dead in his tracks and whirled the cheeky brat around, bringing him face to face.

"How the hell do you know about that?!" he snapped.

"It was noisy in my cell last night so I went to the break room for a nap. Your office was unlocked- usually that doesn't make a difference to me, but I normally stay out of there, just as a courtesy," Jyugo told him.

"Courtesy?!" Hajime echoed, outraged.

"Yeah. Well, I saw that invite on your desk and-"

"Keep your nose in your own business where it belongs!" Hajime ordered. With that, he hoisted Jyugo up by his collar and carried him all the way back to his cell, suspended in the air like a misbehaving pup.

After he'd tossed the thrashing, whining brat into his cell, Hajime retreated to his office to finish up that paperwork- only to remember he hadn't procured a fresh copy of the last form he'd messed up beyond repair. He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head in dismay. This entire day had been an absolute waste of productive working hours. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be in the right frame of mind to do this properly, he decided. But not before locking up that invitation. Once it was safely stowed away, he stepped out again and headed towards the officer's mess hall. It was almost dinnertime, anyway.

------------------------

"Hey, Hajime, was that dinner meeting a date with the Warden?"

Hajime bit back a startled yell as he stepped into his office, only to find Jyugo sitting at his desk with Kuu curled around the back of his neck.

"What the hell, Number 15?!" he roared. "I was gone for less than an hour!" This was getting absurd; he'd just stepped away for dinner and this was what he'd come back to?

"Yeah, well, I told the other guys what happened and they think you had a date with the Warden," Jyugo remarked. He stood up and walked right over, holding his wrists out docilely. Kuu, having jumped off Jyugo's shoulders when he stood up, padded over to a corner of the room and began licking his paws daintily. Hajime eyed the prisoner suspiciously.

"You came all the way over here just to give up? Just like that, huh?" he said warily.

"I was gonna go to sleep, but those guys thought you might need a pep talk," Jyugo said with a shrug. He held his arms out even further and flapped his fingers slightly, like he was telling Hajime to get on with it.

"What do you mean, pep talk?" Hajime growled. He wasted no time in grabbing his cuffs and securing the wayward prisoner's wrists. If this kid really was going to let himself be caught and returned to his cell so obediently, Hajime wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste.

"Ow! Those are tight," Jyugo muttered as the cuffs closed around his wrists.

"Shut up, we both know you'll loosen them anyway," Hajime snapped. He pointed sternly at the door and marched Jyugo out into the hallway. "Now, why the hell do you think you're going to give me a pep talk?"

Jyugo heaved an aggravated sigh and explained, "You came and gave me a pep talk after the tournament, remember?"

"You're an idiot," Hajime told him briskly. "That 'pep talk' was because you were just shutting down and giving up, rather than dealing with your problems head-on."

"Maybe," Jyugo muttered, sulking a little at the frank assessment. "But you're not being much better than that right now, are you?"

"I'm absolutely dying to see where you're going with this," Hajime said dryly, teeth gritted over his indignation. This kid had quite the brave streak, trying to discuss his supervising officer's personal life.

Jyugo proceeded to keep talking, apparently immune to the sarcasm. "Uno reckons you had a date with the Warden but you're not gonna go for it because, uhh- oh, right, he says you have a stick up your butt."

"Oh, does he?" Hajime ground out through gritted teeth.

"Nico thinks so too, because he read a manga like that once," Jyugo rambled on. "It was something like, the queen's bodyguard denies his love for her because he thinks-"

"Your cellmates have some interesting opinions about my personal life," Hajime interrupted pointedly.

"Anyway, like I said, you're the one who told me I wasn't selfish enough. You said I should want something for myself; shouldn't you take your own advice too?" Jyugo said. "Otherwise you really shouldn't lecture people, right?"

Hajime opened his mouth to tell the brat off, but… damn, did the kid have a point there? "I think I'm pretty well positioned to be lecturing a kid who's been a prisoner most of his life," Hajime retorted, but it sounded weak even to himself.

Jyugo just turned and lifted an eyebrow to Hajime. Hajime supposed he could call it a small favor that after that last final riposte from the brat, he kept blissfully silent the rest of the way to Cell 13 - until they were mere steps away from the cell door, where Jyugo just had to pipe up one more time.

"Also, Rock reckons it'd make life easier for us if you had a girlfriend because it might calm you down-"

Hajime bristled. "Get in there!" he snapped, hurling the damn kid into his cell. Neither he nor his cellmates had anything to say after Hajime slammed the cell door shut and rammed the bolt home.

------------------------

"That brat has a hell of a rude mouth on him!" Hajime fumed as he returned to his office. No other inmate in the prison would've dared to speak so casually to him. He was going to have to put his foot down and be stricter from now on, and remind Seitarou and Yamato to be on their toes more around those four characters in Cell 13, in particular.

Hajime began busying himself processing the paperwork in his "in" tray, thankful that he hadn't had to reach for the white-out at all, that his pens weren't going dry at an inconvenient time, and his signature stamps were crisp and clear each time he thwacked the wooden cylinder against the page.

The routine quickly lulled his mind, and his thoughts wandered back to his dinner with the Warden. It had gone pretty well until that strange incident with the magazine; come to think of it, the Warden hadn't sent any memos regarding anything in the last day or so, so that could be good - or bad. What did her silence on the subject mean? Was she angry that he'd run out on their dinner? Was she embarrassed?

If she wasn't mad about it, though, then maybe, if Hajime was being honest with himself… it might be nice to try again. He surprised himself with the thought; he'd been so sure that he was past the desire for companionship. That he didn't need it or want it.

You said I should want something for myself; shouldn't you take your own advice too?

Prisoner Number fifteen's words went through his mind, unbidden.

But then-no, it was absurd! Warden Hyakushiki was his boss, and it wouldn't be appropriate. It couldn't work out.

Or could it?

It was hardly the first or last time in human history such a relationship had begun. They were the same age and Momoko clearly wasn't the type to take advantage of her authority over him; if she was going to, surely she'd have done it already. The lack of memos from her office suggested he probably wasn't going to get fired for running off. She was too young and too driven to let such professional discourtesy happen… which is exactly how he'd have handled it if he'd been in her place. They really were alike, after all.

And wasn't that, mused Hajime, at least one definition of companionship? Knowing each other's nature, especially the parts normally kept hidden from everybody else? After all, nobody exactly knew just what was going on in the Warden's head when she cast her flat looks at the guards and supervisors around her; even Hajime was only just starting to get an inkling of the truth, but that was more than anyone else at Nanba probably had.

Hajime reached automatically for the "in" tray, only to jerk in surprise as his hand hit the plastic bottom. He looked at the time and realized it was long past due for him to have a break. There was just one last thing to take care of before he went for yet another cup of coffee. Grabbing up a piece of paper and a pen, he crafted a carefully-worded request to the Warden. Strictly business, that was all, but his heart was pounding embarrassingly fast as he wrote. Which was ridiculous. He just had some reports to deliver - they did need to discuss any number of prison-related issues, after all.

Although it wouldn't hurt to try and gauge her mood after the disastrous end to that dinner. He should at least figure out if she resented him… for professional reasons.

------------------------

Momoko was pretty proud of herself; right from the start, she'd always made it a priority to not let her feelings get in the way of professionalism. As much as she utterly adored Hajime Sugoroku, the last thing she wanted was to let her emotions undo all the effort she'd poured into getting this far in her career. Not to mention, she'd just die of shame if he ever felt pressured because of her. She was well aware of how it could look in his eyes, with her being in a position of authority over him. And so she'd spent all this time walking a razor-thin line to hide her emotions and keep her wild daydreams separate from mundane reality. Even when dining with him, aside from that one slip-up at the end, she'd carefully kept a safe distance between her emotions and the polite detachment of a professional working relationship.

But oh, never before had it been so incredibly difficult! It had been two days since that dinner, with zero contact between herself and her dear Hajime. Of course, it wasn't as if they'd had regular contact before this- their duties had always dictated the few but precious moments she got to spend in his company. But now, the silence was glaring and agonizing. Was he angry, now that he knew how she felt? Was he appalled at her inappropriate feelings? Or had she misinterpreted his reaction entirely and he still didn't know? She had no idea, and that was the worst part.

And so, when a missive arrived from Building 13, she was practically shaking as she dismissed the messenger and waited impatiently for him to shut the door on his way out- and she tore the envelope open in her haste to get at its contents.

"He… wants to meet with me!" she gasped. Granted, it was just a request for a normal meeting about prison business, but it was still a chance to see him! Maybe there'd be some sign in his behavior to reassure her that he didn't hate her now.

Forcing composure upon herself, pulled up her scheduler and set the meeting for first thing the next morning, then she reached for a blank piece of paper and a pen to write out a response acknowledging receipt of the meeting request and the time. She deposited it in her "out" tray, then tried to push her anticipation aside as she reached for her daily paperwork.

------------------------

The next morning, Warden Momoko Hyakushiki took extra care in front of her mirror: her uniform buttons were all polished, her suit and pants utterly free of any stray lint, and her cap set firmly on her head. She'd also taken extra time brushing her hair after her shower, making sure no strands fell out of place.

She tugged her uniform jacket down just a bit, then nodded to herself as she turned to leave her quarters: she was ready to see Hajime Sugoroku. She was even proud of herself for not drifting off mentally during her trip to her office (even if she had momentarily wondered what it would be like to touch his ungloved hand).

In her office, Momoko sat ramrod straight as she awaited Hajime's arrival. It was, in fact, just a minute shy of nine in the morning; he was quite punctual, and as her watch ticked over to nine precisely, the door alert signalled that he was present.

Hajime stepped into her office (as usual, her heart leaped) and, apparently all-business, stepped forward to greet her. "Warden. I believe we have some business to discuss."

Momoko briefly stood, hoping she didn't look as nervous as she felt, and gestured to a chair. "Let's begin."

As she sat down, she studied Hajime's face, scrutinizing his features closely for any hint as to the workings of his mind while he flipped through his reports. His expression was so flat, she couldn't tell a thing! She clasped her hands on her desk, trying not to fidget. What if they went through this whole meeting without even acknowledging that the dinner had happened? Was she going to have to confront disappointment once more?

With the last report done, Hajime stood and bowed graciously. "Thank you for your patience, Warden. I'll… take my leave now."

"Of course, thank you for presenting your reports," Momoko replied, her heart sinking. Was that really it? He was going to leave without even talking about it? But at the same time… had he hesitated for just a second there?

Hajime inclined his head politely and turned towards the door, walking slowly away from her desk- only to stop short halfway to the door.

Momoko, sure he could hear the sudden thud of her heart against her ribcage, said, "Is there anything else, Supervisor?"

He huffed slightly and shifted his weight. "Well…"

Momoko sat forward, palms sweating inside her gloves. "Yes, Supervisor?" She wasn't sure if she ought to be excited… or worried!

Hajime actually scratched the back of his neck at that point and now Momoko could hardly sit still. He never fidgeted like that, not in her presence! "It's kind of embarrassing, actually," he muttered. Without turning around, he added, "I forgot to thank you for hosting me at dinner the other night."

"O-oh. Well, the evening did end somewhat suddenly," Momoko said, her foot bouncing under her desk.

"Right… I wanted to apologize for that, too," Hajime said. Momoko was glad he wasn't looking her way; she was leaning forward so far that her hair was brushing her desk's edge. "Uh, I hope I'm not overstepping, or- or misinterpreting, but… the dinner was… pleasant. It was nice. I realized that I don't really know you that well, so, uh- Perhaps if… we were to have a second dinner?"

"A-a second dinner?" Momoko echoed, heart pounding in her ears. Inwardly she chanted, please please please let this really be happening, please please please...

Hajime glanced back at her, not quite making eye contact. "Yeah. To… get to know each other better."

"I see," Momoko said, and her voice had hit an embarrassingly high pitch. He could definitely see how red her face was. Could he tell that her clasped hands were shaking on her desk?

"Well?" Hajime prompted, and now his face was red too, and Momoko honestly thought she might cry.

"Y-yes, we could- certainly- yes," Momoko agreed, her composure breaking and a wide smile spreading over her face.

"Good. Thanks. I'll go now." Hajime bolted out the door.

Momoko counted down from ten, and then buried her face in her hands and let out the loudest squeal of delight she'd yet uttered since she first laid eyes on Hajime Sugoroku.

This time, dinner would be perfect!

[kuciradio]

Beach Bums & Jurassic Shark @ The Teragram Ballroom

14 July, 2017

My friend Lorenzo called me up Friday afternoon asking me if I wanted to go to a show in Los Angeles that same night. After a busy week, I was really looking forward to staying home Friday night and doing nothing, but I figured I could do nothing on Saturday, so I went. We hit the road at sunset and I had forgotten how driving through Downtown Los Angeles is universally symbolic of the summer time. We parked a few blocks from The Teregram Ballroom and it was nice to see all the bodegas on 7th street still colorfully lit up after dark and a woman cooking and selling “pupusas de revuelta, chicharon, queso y frijoles por un dolar cada uno” outside of her duplex on a cool 75 degree night.

When we got inside the ballroom, I looked at the ceiling and it seemed as if a celestial body was staring back at me because there are four convex domes on the ceiling with a little white light on their rim that make them look like full moons backed by a starless night sky. I was fixed on that view and when Beach Bums began their set, I was transported back in time. These are my friends from high school who play thrash garage surf rock with a flair of heavy metal. I was taken back to my teenage years—without the angst—it felt great. It felt just like seeing them in someone’s backyard in suburbia, except the crowd was bigger and we didn’t have to worry about the police shutting it all down. It’s so crazy to think that people you’ve known for years have come this far through what began as a project of summer boredom. I remember how it went, but Jonathan, the front man of Beach Bums, tells the story better, since he lived it of course.

“In the summer of 2013 I had just broken up with my girlfriend, and on top of that, my parents had grounded me for the whole summer. So I just sat around in my room playing guitar and one day Keanu came over and played drums; we wrote six songs and released the Washed Out EP in October, oh, and Lorenzo drew the cover art for that EP! But yeah, we put it on bandcamp.com for free and it popped; after about 200 downloads some people who publish a magazine in Spain asked to interview me and fast-forward 4 years later here we are playing all around LA for kids from the valley, from the suburbs, from the Inland Empire, Orange County and we even go out to play some shows in Las Vegas!”

After Beach Bums, Jurassic Shark, an excellent complement to Beach Bums’ thrash/garage/metal surf core, came on. I was still channeling my teenage years and I had to find that thrill that I used to find in the backyard scene. I had to get high; and by high I mean I had to crowd surf. So I hopped on stage, leaned into the crowd and I was airborne for a good two minutes or so; what a ride! This thrill—crowd surfing—was made possible by Jurassic Shark’s fast paced, sunny, lo-fi heartbreak bedroom punk. It’s like a version of ska that is fast but slow enough to the point where I can keep up and not feel overwhelmed. When the music slowed down, I came back to present day, my past and present musical identities became harmonious and I was living. Beach Bums and Jurassic Shark are native to the LA area so whether you’re looking for a thrill or nostalgia or both, look no further than these local bands.

Thorson “Thorchata” Munoz, host of Detours