#holy HELL is Got Your Back thick with projection from a very specific part of my own identity hourney WOW

[corelliaxdreaming]

@gffa put out a call for aro Star Wars fics, and I wanted to answer. It feels a bit selfish that they’re all gonna be self-recs, but if anyone’s going to appreciate them, right? I’ve relatively recently started identifying as aroace, and since I process e v e r y t h i n g through fic, I’ve been writing a ton of self-indulgent aspec stuff. Most of my stuff is for the Legends X-wing book series, but there’s some Jedi: Fallen Order, Alphabet Squadron, and Sequel Trilogy mixed in too. (I’ve got quite a few ace ones too, but I’ll just but the aro ones here.)

X-wing:

Coming Out (2,582 words) - grayro/aroflux Tycho/allo Wedge - Tycho wants to pursue a relationship with Wedge, but first there are some important things Wedge needs to understand about him.

The Last Minute (831 words) - aroallo Wes&aroallo Hobbie qpr - the “derpy werewolf au” -  Being a struggling college student and a werewolf is hard, but luckily Hobbie has Wes to watch his back.

That Time of Month (709 words) - ace Wedge&arospec Tycho qpr - more derpy werewolf au -  Asexual Wedge is uncomfortable with the things the cycle of being a werewolf does to his feelings.

The Possibility of Us (12,405 words) - aro Tycho&allo Wedge, starts with romantic feelings, ends as qpr - There's only one way to survive Hanahaki disease without having your love requited - the surgery that removes the invasive plant from your lungs but also takes away your ability to love romantically forever. As Tycho recovers and explores his new aromantic life, can there be a future for he and Wedge after all?

Jedi: Fallen Order/Alphabet Squadron:

Three Against the World (1,901 words) - aroace Cal&Wyl/Sonogari qpp (Wyl and Sonogari are in a romantic/sexual relationship, and Cal is qpp to both of them) -  Cal is happy with his queerplatonic partners, Wyl and Sonogari, but sometimes the world's focus on romance is still hard to deal with.

Sequel Trilogy:

Tap Dance (474 words) - aro Rey - Aromantic Rey asks Finn to explain him ho his love for Poe feels.

Spectrum (524 words) - aroace Poe, arospec ace Finn -  Poe explains aromanticism and asexuality to Finn. Some things sound familiar.

Got Your Back (858 words) - aroace Rey&gray aroace ofc qpr -  Rey and her QPP discuss their orientations and how difficult it can be to know what you really want.

Being Loved, Being Cared For (655 words) - aroace Rey&same gray aroace ofc qpr - Rey has difficulty dealing with things after Exegol, but her QPP will always be there for her.

[delaneytveit]

Satellites Part 16

Insomnia at its finest! wow, 3 chapters in one day, amazing! This has now turned into the How I Wish the Writers Handled Lance’s trauma. because lets be honest, we did not get that in the show, and I will mourn it until my dying breath! 

So what else will we learn about Project Leo and Lance’s time as a captive? Let’s find out! 

As always, here are my twitter handles if any of you want to follow me or yell at me or anything. 

Twitter - sfw -> @/spacemom_laney | nsfw -> @15_agentwash

and maybe buy me a coffee??

ko-fi - ko-fi.com/delaneym_15

oh, and before I forget! TW: blood, gore, death?, corpses

(part 15) (Masterpost) (part 17)

The mission had been approved an hour before they were to embark. As simple as it seemed on paper, there was nothing simple about it. They were to go to the exact facility that Lance had been held in.

Lance was to return to the place that had taken everything from him. The place that had broken him and made him into their own perfect image. It made him sick to even think about it. They thought they were helping him, making him stronger, better, faster. They thought that what they were doing was just and that their findings could be used by the very empire trying to colonize the entirety of the universe.

Lance had never believed anyone could be evil, not the pure kind in which they held absolutely no shred of humanity. He had never believed that anyone could be so deprived of morality. They had changed that.

His time in the lab, and in the prison before it, had changed that. He had been exposed to people who treated him as nothing more than an experiment, people who found enjoyment in his pain and torture. He had found people who would so easily deliver pain to anyone they deemed as below them, take power away from the already powerless.

He was going back.

But this time it was different.

This time it was on his own terms.

The argument over whether or not Lance should accompany the rest of the team on the mission was surprisingly brief. Allura had been very adamant about ensuring Lance’s dependability, regardless of his mental state. And frankly no one could really argue against her due to the fact that Lance was the only one who knew the layout of the facility.

He had been the only one able to escape after all.

The flight to the ship was brief. Allura had wormhole the castle to a neighboring gas planet that it was able to hide behind. Due to the Green Lion’s ability to remain undetected, the paladins each boarded it, and Pidge was the only one to pilot to the facility. In just under 20 dobashes, the Green Lion had made its way onto the ship.

Keith was the first out of the Green Lion, activating his bayard and plunging it into the steel outer wall of the ship. In a few ticks he had successfully cut a circular hole wide enough for the team to slip through individually.

Up until now, no one had really noticed the lack of security of the facility. No one except for Lance.

The last time he had been here, it had been hell to get out. Patrol ships were everywhere and the large ion cannon would have shot anything down within half a tick. It was weird how quiet the facility and the area around it was, and he most certainly didn’t like it.

“Keep your eyes open,” Lance called over the comms just as his feet touched the floor of a familiar hallway. “Something’s not right.”

“Lance is right.” Shiro announced, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

Once everyone had successfully boarded, Lance wasted no time in leading them down the ever winding hallways. He was honestly surprised he was able to remember the path. He had only walked it once, and it was more of a wild sprint than a walk, but the path came with ease.

He knew something wasn’t right from the very beginning. In no way should a team of five paladins be able to simply walk into a heavily guarded lab facility. They should have encountered at least a dozen sentries since they even stepped foot on the ship, and yet, nothing.

He didn’t like being back, the memories were much too overwhelming, but he needed to do this. He needed to put on a brave face for the team. He needed to get them to the people that needed them the most.

He could break down later. Until he turned down one specific hallway.

“Where are you taking me? Who are you?”

“Subject 7234, you are in distress. Please I need you to-”

“Stop calling me that! That’s not my name!”

“Subject 7234, I really must encourage you to calm down, you’ve already ripped your stitches.”

Lance looked down. He hadn’t even felt it. He should have felt it, the pain of it, filling his abdomen. It was only the thick dark blood that told him she was right.

“What are you doing to me?” he yelled, he couldn’t move his arms to wipe the tears from his eyes. He was tied to a bed again, at the mercy of Clipboard and her assistants. The squeak of the wheels was loud as they wheeled him down the hallway.

The vision evaporated almost immediately as Keith grasped Lance’s hand.

“Hey, you okay?” The red paladin scanned his face, searching for anything that could possibly give him an answer.

Lance took a second to breathe before he steeled himself. “I’m fine.” He turned and made his way to continue down the long hallway.

Not now.

It was much too quiet. It made him uneasy, and it was clear that the team was equally as confused and were likely thinking the same thing.

Where is everyone?

After a few more long hallways, a few more twists and turns, the armed paladins finally made it to the infamous lab itself.

Like the room he had been held in, the walls of the lab were made entirely out of glass, thick and at the time virtually unbreakable. And yet, shards were everywhere. The entire wall had been smashed and glass had spilt over the otherwise empty hallway.

Hunk cleared his throat, “What...happened?”

Lance had been thinking that exact same thing.

Shaking his head, Lance responded. “I-I don’t know.”

“...Mmmaybe we should head back?” Keith had placed his hand on Lance’s arm, apparently trying in some way to comfort the obviously affected paladin.

“No, we keep going.”

“Lance-”

“We owe it to them, Keith! We have to search for survivors.”

“Lance, do you really think that there is anyone still alive on this ship?” Pidge questioned. She was beyond skeptical. The destruction she could see of the room before her only fueled it.

There was a long silence before Lance moved out of Keith’s grip. With long legs, Lance stepped over the broken sill and into the destroyed lab.

“We have to try.”

As much as Shiro wanted to just turn back, there seemed no way to convince the Blue paladin of such. He was too focused, too determined. The only way to get him to leave prematurely would be to drag him out kicking and screaming. For the sake of Lance, and whoever would have to carry him out of the ship, he decided against the notion and instead turned to the remainder of his team.

“Alright guys, split up but keep you comms on. If you run into any trouble just say the word.” He announced. The group nodded and followed the suit of Lance, into the lab.

As much as Keith wanted to follow Lance, he knew that doing so could only do more harm than good. This was something Lance had to do on his own. So he made his way through the room, to the opposite side of where Lance was walking.

More glass littered the floor as it seemed that everything in the room had been completely destroyed. Test tubes and glassware were shattered. Debris was everywhere. Someone had done this on purpose. Someone had wanted to erase whatever work had been done here.

He couldn’t say he was sorry for it. All that they had done to Lance, in his mind they deserved it. He hated them for what they did to Lance.

The small amount of satisfaction had quickly dissipated once he walked closer to one of the aisles of lab tables. At the far end, staring back at him, was a corpse.

The body slouched against the wall, its chest ripped apart and blood was splattered everywhere.

“Holy shit.”

Shiro wasn’t doing any better. He had found three more bodies scattered throughout one of the storage rooms. Each with their chests ripped open, their mouths open in a silent scream.

Pidge and Hunk had set up working on one of the only non destroyed computers hopeful that they could somehow get some information out of it.

Lance had taken his own path, towards the back of the room. The place he called home for 5 months. The room stood no longer. The glass having been given the same fate as everything else. The only evidence that it had even stood was the foundation. The metal that kept the glass connected to the floor.

Without the frosted vision, he was able to make out 6 more foundations. Six more rooms. Six more patients. Five bodies discarded among the debris, now nothing more than nameless faces.

Six experiments.

Four successful trials.

Only one survivor.

It wasn’t until then that Lance noticed the archway behind the holding cells. It must have been obscured before. Or maybe he had just never chanced a look behind him. But it was there now, standing in front of a lightless hallway.

Slowly he made his way towards it. Crossing the threshold, Lance took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust.

The hallway was completely new territory, one he hadn’t even known existed, though he explored it all the same. The fluorescent light at the end of it flickered from where it hung haphazardly from the ceiling, giving off the only bright light in the area.

Lance took a step, then another before he heard something.

“Did you say something guys?” he asked over the comms and various negative responses answered him.

“You good, man?” Lance heard Hunk say.

“Y-yeah, just thought I heard something.”

“We should leave soon, there’s nothing here that can help us.” Keith had never been the one to call a retreat, though Lance assumed it was for his sake. Him being back in the facility put them all on edge.

Keith was right though, the only place that could have held prisoners was completely trashed. There was no one here.

They were too late.

He debated turning back when he heard it again. A high pitch sound that could obviously just be a machine, though no machines were down this way.

“Give me a sec.” he called, before muting his comms and continuing down the hall.

He was surprised to see the metal walls turn to clear glass, shattered but mostly intact. A glass door separated the rooms from the hall, one on each side of him, though both were wide open.

The sound came again, this time a bit clearer. He turned to the right room and stepped inside.

He was greeted by rows upon rows of open topped containers. Many of them tipped over but all of them empty. They almost resembled those plastic tubs his mother used to buy for organization, though the walls of them were much higher.

The ones that were still upright sat on little rolling carts, placards adorning the carts with various numbers.

7839

9846

4562

9843

There were multiples of numbers. Some having been printed on six or seven placards.

The sound came again from the far side of the room. Lance quickly transformed his bayard from its sniper configuration to a simple handgun, and made his way towards the muffled sound. For some reason it almost sounded familiar, as if he had heard it before. Though he couldn’t place his finger on it.

Up until then, the containers had been empty. Clearly though, he was wrong. They were empty, all except for one. As he got closer he understood what the sound was. And he cursed himself for not recognizing it sooner. There was no mistaking what was making it.

He walked to the singular container, the placard reading clearly.

7234

His breath caught in his throat as he approached the cart. What he had previously seen as just a lump was instead a blanket, thick and dark grey in the glowing purple of the emergency lights.

With a shaky hand, Lance reached out to the blanket and with one swift motion pulled it away revealing the one thing he never thought he’d find on this ship.

Large blue eyes stared up at him, as the owner of the cry ceased their noise almost instantly and suddenly everything became clear.

This was how they were going to make their soldiers.

With those bright, blue eyes.

[sunshine-shitposts]

(Takes place a few months into Sunnie's employment at the Foundation. The whole 'roommates with Dio' thing is still relatively new. 😌)

Experiment

～

He was in his shower when he heard her muffled shout from her room.

"HOLY SHIT!!!!"

"Well that's odd," he mused, running his fingers through his wet hair, "She's usually asleep at this time."

He easily caught the sound of her wooden door slamming open with a resounding thud.

"HOLY SHIT DUDE!!!!!"

Dio smiled to himself and turned the water off, stepping out of the shower and wrapping a towel around his waist. "It's not quite 'eureka', but it seems she has had an idea."

When he left his room, he heard furious grumbling and shuffling from the kitchen, so he followed the noises to see Sunnie, in her usual giant NASA shirt and cotton shorts sleep ensemble, rushing around the tiled floor and quickly looking into the recycling, pulling out a couple of empty Izze cans.

"Oho? What has you up so late at night?" Dio asked.

"Okay, so I had an idea? I guess? In my dream?? Well whatever it was, I woke up with an idea!" She was speaking quickly, not even really paying attention to Dio. "You know what wind is, right??"

He leaned against the doorway, smirking. "I'm familiar with the concept," he said, "but the specifics are something I've never looked into."

She continued to move around the kitchen, not sparing a glance at her roommate. "Okay. So, air is the word we use to refer to atmospheric gases surrounding our pale blue dot, kept in place by gravity, right?" She hopped up on the counter, opening various cupboards frantically, "Naturally, wind occurs because of—where the fuck is the flour—because of horizontal and vertical differences in atmospheric pressure, and I have a leetle theory that that might be what I can manipulate, through Windy." Sunnie looked behind some pots before closing that cabinet door with a thud as well. "Of course, that's just naturally. There's also mechanical reasons for wind moving; fans, turbines, even walking through a room, yadda yadda right? But I'm focused on the regular way, yeah? High pressure to low pressure and all."

"I understand," he hummed. Watching her tiredly yet animatedly rifle through their things was amusing, but he took pity on her and walked over to the pantry, pulling the flour off of the shelf as she hopped back off the counter with single-minded focus. "You were looking for this, dear?"

"Oh, you got the flou–" she turned around and nearly fell to the floor, finally noticing his glistening wet skin and the towel wrapped low around his waist. "FUCK. JESUS CHRIST DUDE, PUT ON SOME CLOTHES!!"

His smirk grew into a full-on grin, "I thought you wanted the flour?" he asked, leaning over her and jiggling the bag in front of her face. She stepped back, cheeks flushing.

"It's–I do, but you're…" Her eyes strayed from his face, tracing down the lines of his body, his abs, to the top of the towel, and immediately looked back up into his eyes, willing herself to not get distracted. "You're one mishap away from straight up nudity, man. Just… uh—"

Reveling in flustering her, he took a step forward, and she stepped back again. "Darling," he purred, backing her against the wall, "your eyes are wandering. I wonder, do you see something you like?"

The air between them was thick for a moment, her eyes darting to his arms, to his chest, to the scar around his neck, before she huffed and shook her head indignantly, laughing to herself. "Oh, no. No no no, I'm not letting this happen!" Sunnie grabbed the bag of flour from his hand and ducked past him. "I refuse to let you kabedon me when you're in nothing but a towel!!"

Dio turned and looked at her as she started to leave the kitchen, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Kabedon?"

"Look it up, asshole!!" She snapped, looking at him from the doorway, cheeks dusted with pink, "And if you're curious, I'll be in the living room. Put on some damn clothes."

Upon arriving in their living room, he was surprised to see that Sunnie had expeditiously spread the flour in a light layer across the coffee table, and was delicately placing an empty green Izze can in the center. Her hair, up in a bun, was a mess, and her eyes were wide, focused, and slightly manic.

"This is not quite what I was expecting," Dio hummed, an eyebrow quirked.

"Well what were you expecting?" She grunted, lining the other three empty cans up neatly along on the edge of the table.

He shrugged. "I suppose I don't have an answer to that."

"Well there you go," she replied, finally happy with her setup, looking up at Dio as he walked over to sit in one of the wing chairs and her expression dropped into an unamused leer. "Really dude? Just sweatpants? Not even a shirt?"

He gave her a dazzling, shit-eating grin. "What? It's comfortable." She scoffed and rolled her eyes, and he chuckled. "So, my dear, what's…" He whirled his hand in the coffee table's direction, "…all of this?"

"An experiment!!!" She shouted happily, demeanor immediately changing. "I thought up an experiment for me to do!! A test of sorts!! Something to try out!"

Dio raised his eyebrows, regarding her curiously. "Care to elaborate?"

"So how I usually use Windy is, either she or I physically manipulate the air to get it to do what we want. Like…" she thought for a moment, "...Think of it like pulling your finger through water. It leaves a path, you know? And then there's the direction, it feels like a push, or a pull. And that's how I," Windy's wing shimmered on her left wrist and she flicked her hand almost dismissively, knocking her scarf off the console table on the other side of the room, "do that. I feel like the physical aspect of it helps me… connect with the air molecules, make them flow. You following?"

"It sounds very intuitive for you, little bird," he said, "What does this have to do with the empty cans?"

"PRESSURE, dude! Atmospheric pressure!!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air, "If that's what I'm able to manipulate, if THAT'S part of my ability, I may be able to remotely crush an empty Izze can!! By exciting or dampening the activity of air molecules, I might be able to do it. And I want to try!!"

Dio grinned widely, thoroughly amused and highly intrigued. "And the flour you've spread on our coffee table?"

"The flour's so I can see the movement of air. It helps me visualize it!!" She said, clenching her fists excitedly, "I used to do this with my best friend after I told her about Windy. Given, that was with dirt or sand or whatever was available at the time, but it's the same concept! She'd set up courses that I'd have to move a line of air through, and I steadily got better at controlling wind that way!!"

Hearing that there was someone besides her immediate family and her husband that knew about her Stand was news to him, but he took it in stride for the moment.

"See? Like this," Sunnie continued, the wings appearing on her wrists again and she swept her hands up and out, and two curling paths began to snake through the flour like filigree. "I've gotten really good at it, to be honest."

"Your control over your Stand is impressive indeed, Sunshine," he agreed, and she smiled wide, a satisfied giggle escaping her.

"Hell yeah. So! Let's begin!!" Sunnie plopped on the sofa and Dust in the Wind popped out behind her, grabbing her shoulders and looking at the can as well. "I'm gonna try to do this without, y'know," she gestured wildly with her hands, "any of that. Just… stare at it and go cronch." She paused, then her eyes positively lit up. "Like Mewtwo!!!"

Dio looked at her oddly. "Like what?"

She gave him a dismissive wave of her hand. "That's Pokémon, I'll introduce you later." Sunnie settled into the sofa, wiggling a bit to get comfortable, then gave him a slightly shy little glance. "You, uh, you don't have to stay and watch. This is just a little personal project of mine and all. You can sleep or whatever."

His smile, this time, was sincere rather than smug. "Oh, I know that, but I don't technically need to sleep, and I'm also terribly curious about where this goes." Dio crossed one leg over the other, leaning back in the chair and propping his elbow up on the arm rest, settling his jaw in his palm. "Watching you approach your Stand's ability with science in mind is utterly fascinating, you know."

He caught a faint pinkish blush on her cheeks, which dissipated as quickly as it rose and she looked back at the can, her Stand tapping her fingers on Sunnie's shoulders excitedly. "Whatever. Now, it's time to get funky."

Thirty eight minutes later, the Izze can was still intact and all Sunnie had to show for it was some eye strain and a very light sheen of sweat on her forehead.

Dio, who had been watching her the entire time, had seen her eyebrows begin to twitch in frustration. He had a feeling she was seconds away from snapping when she suddenly careened herself into the corner of the sectional head-first, whining loudly.

"Bullshit, this is bullshit!!! I can't—I can't feel anything, I can't feel the air, it's… fuck this, dude. Fuck this!!!" Dust in the Wind floated over her user, massaging her fingers on Sunnie's scalp reassuringly.

"You do seem tired, dear, would you like to—"

"BUT THERE HAS TO BE A WAY!!!" she insisted, shooting herself upright once again. "There has to be. I just have to figure it out. Maybe if I…" She looked down at her hands, perplexed, and flexed her fingers. "Yeah, I mean, I can feel the air now, but I wanna try without moving my hands."

Dio grinned as she continued mumbling to herself. His little human certainly was stubborn. "So, how exactly are you envisioning doing this?"

"Well, I supposedly should be able to do it two ways off the top of my head," she replied, pulling her legs up onto the sofa, resting her elbows next to her feet and subsequently almost folding herself in half. "The first is simple brute force. That's the easy one. Pushing the can in on itself from the outside. The second one is more fine-tuned and still a theory. That's the air pressure one." She sat back up, the soles of her feet pressed against each other and tapping impatiently. "So… air molecules, right? They're everywhere, air is basically everywhere. You know the 'glass half full or half empty' thing? It's bullshit because the glass is always full. It might not be full of water, but it is full. Air takes up space. That's why we can blow up balloons, or make bubbles underwater. That balloon is inflated because we put that air in there. We see the bubble in the water because water has to move out of the way because air displaces it. Make sense?"

"It does. I can see why you used to be a STEM teacher," he said, bouncing his foot slightly.

"Alright. So the reason that can," she pointed at the can in the center of the table, still undisturbed by her efforts, "is still the way it is is because the pressure outside the can is the same as the pressure on the inside of the can. If there's an imbalance, it rushes to maintain equilibrium. That's why weather happens. Hot air rises, and the denser cold air swoops in to take its place. Hypothetically, if I can manipulate air molecules, I should be able to cause a pressure imbalance great enough to trigger an implosion." Windy swooped over to the can, hovering above it and inspecting it curiously, and Sunnie heaved a large sigh. "There's some temperature stuff involved, water molecules and all, but again, this is a theory."

"Interesting," Dio hummed, uncrossing his legs slowly and leaning forward, "Well, if using your hands helps you feel the air, why not hold them out in front of you?"

Her shoulders slumped and she pouted. "I said I don't want to use my hands though." Windy, however, floated over to Dio and cocked her head to the side inquisitively.

"I didn't say you needed to move your hands, dear," he said, reaching a hand up to pet Windy on her head, earning him a swift blush from his roommate while the Stand just made a soft yet happy trilling noise, "Just hold them out. Not unlike warming your hands in front of a fire."

Sunnie considered Dio's suggestion for a moment and Windy returned to her, circling her a few times before holding her hands out. Sunnie then grinned and gave her Stand a double high-five before facing the can again, determined. "Alright." Both user and Stand readied their hands. "Second try. Let's crush this bitch."

Seventy two minutes after that, there was a small, barely-there flicker of flour kicking up about an inch away from the can. Sunnie's eyes sharpened and she leaned forward a bit, focusing on it like a hawk.

"Shit. There–I just—"

Dio raised an eyebrow and watched as more flour began flying in the air bit by bit, like a butterfly unsure of how to get off the ground.

"Come on," she grunted, "A dome…"

The geometric wing shapes on Windy's outer wrists flared up, spreading open slowly into ferocious points as the flour began to swirl around the can in a circle. Sunnie's skin glistened with sweat, her teeth gritted and her jaw tight. Her fingers twitched, tensing up, and her hands shook from being held up for so long, for trying as long as she had been. Puffs of flour shot off in a few directions, and the white particles churned up and around, the rough shape of a dome slowly becoming more and more refined, twisting faster and faster.

Dio sat forward in the chair slightly, watching the scene before him with interest. He knew she'd already been working hard earlier that day, doing tests with Catherine and Ellison, and humans typically felt fatigue when using their Stands for extended periods of time. She was already tired when she came back down to their suite, and she was pushing herself even further simply because of an idea she had.

She truly was a fascinatingly stubborn woman.

The dome around the can smoothed out, and both Sunnie and her Stand's fingers were trembling with effort and single-minded focus. The geometric wings on Windy's head had also begun to grow in length, the Stand's narrowed yellow eyes nearly glowing.

Then in a flash of a second, Sunnie turned her hands upwards and clenched her fist, and the aluminum buckled inward with a metallic crunch.

It took a second for her to process what had just happened. Her eyes were wide, her mouth dropped open slightly, and her breath stuttered. The room was silent for a moment, and she shot up off of the sofa, threw her fists up in the air, and crowed with triumphant laughter.

"HAH!! I GOT YOU, YOU METAL MOTHERFUCKER!!! I CONQUERED YOUR ASS!!! I FUCKING DID IT!!!!! YEAAAAAAH!!!!"

But almost the second she was up, she was falling. Dust in the Wind vanished and she toppled to the side, and Dio was there to catch her.

"If you make any sort of 'falling for me' joke," Sunnie grunted, "I am going to kick your ass."

"You're far too tired for that, darling," he chuckled, "And I highly doubt that you could."

"I would fucking try," she insisted, trying to move. "…My bones are jelly. Help."

"You worked hard today, Sunshine," he said, standing up with her in his arms, "And you accomplished something fantastic. I'm quite impressed, you know."

She buried her face in his chest to avoid him seeing the blush on her face. "Shut up. I wanna hibernate now."

"Understood," he said, turning to the hall and starting to walk as a grin curled his lips.

"Maybe…" she mumbled softly, "maybe I'll try the second method later."

"There's an idea," Dio replied, The World materializing in front of him and opening the door to Sunnie's room, following its user in as Dio walked over to her messy bed.

"Ellison can probably get his hands on some instruments that can help," she continued as Dio bent over, laying her down on the nest of fluffy blankets and pillows on her mattress, "It's not like I can, like… see air pressure. I need to monitor that shit."

"That would certainly make it easier for you," he murmured, pulling her favorite comforter over her as she snuggled her face into her pillow.

"Dioooo," she whined after a second, "I'm gross."

"You're not gross," he laughed softly, moving a bit of her wet hair out of her face.

"I'm sweaty."

"That isn't gross," he continued, "That's just proof of your incredible efforts tonight. You can bathe when you wake."

"Fine," she huffed, her eyes losing the fight to stay open. "Night, Dio."

Dio stood and turned to leave her room, eyes twinkling. "Goodnight, Sunshine."

[harryandmolly]

The Emancipation of Ginny ~ teaser

summary: shawn and ginny could’ve ruined everything six months ago, and sticking together despite their past could make or break them now as ginny stays on as his personal assistant. but what happens on tour doesn’t stay on tour.

WC: 1.2k

Ginny opens her eyes as the last note fades.

The rings on her fingers click against the plastic covering on the cheap microphone as she drums them anxiously, a habit only he ever calls her out on.

Him.

Speaking of.

There he is, front and center, casually draped over the cheap lacquered chair that he’s way too large for. His long Adonis’s arms are crossed over his chest. She can see a shadow of the bemused smirk on his face from here beneath her spotlight, covered slightly by the subtle bow of his head and the curls that fall over his forehead.

He slowly unwraps his arms and brings his gargantuan hands together to clap slowly, standing out amongst the rest of the three tables he and his team have taken up at this karaoke bar somewhere in the western end of Prague. The rest of the large group is effusive, hysterical even, with the addition of booze to the equation, after Ginny Dresden’s performance of “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey (because The Emancipation of Mimi has been speaking to her on more intimate levels recently) (And because that final high note stretches out for miles and no one can sing it like Ginny can).

Ginny lifts one perfectly groomed eyebrow and takes one more sip of him, notes the way his legs are splayed out between himself and the stage because he’s so goddamn long that he can’t fit in what’s considered to be normally acceptable human space. She lets the image simmer as she trots off the stage in her battered old Keds, ducking her head as she passes the few people in the bar that aren’t members of Shawn’s team. She plants herself in front of him with a smirk that rivals his.

Shawn stands slowly, like it’s hard for him even though he’s a wall of well-trained muscle. He ignores the jeers and laughter of all his drunken pseudo-family, sizing her up.

“How the fuck am I supposed to follow that?” he laughs, reaching for his pint of pilsner for a hearty sip.

Ginny cracks, giggling with her thick West London inflection, “Whatever, rockstar. It’s your turn.”

Shawn rolls his hazy eyes, a little amber tonight in this lighting, and plants the beer back on the coaster, eyeing the stage.

“You know I hate following you,” he groans, elbowing her playfully. She ignores the singe of heat where his body meets hers and she nudges back.

“You drew the short straw, mate. Take it up with Gertler.”

Shawn casts a sidelong glance at his manager Andrew, the organizer of all their many karaoke outings, a true fanatic, and the one who insists they all perform in an order selected by random hat drawing. Tonight, Shawn is batting clean up.

Ginny drops into his chair with her usual stunning lack of grace, propping an elbow against the sticky barroom table and angling her thumb to bite at her nail like she does when watching him triggers her oral fixation.

Shawn Mendes, in this dive bar in Prague where absolutely no one cares who the hell he is (or likely even knows), takes the stage, striding up to the microphone with enormous steps like he’s anxious about it or something, but Ginny knows he’s mostly kidding about being intimidated by her.

She likes these moments a lot, the ones where it’s totally socially appropriate for her to stare at him like this and not worry about catching the eye of curious teammates who haven’t nearly forgotten about 6 months ago. This is where she gets to melt into what she tries so hard all day to resist, and he does make it so stupid difficult.

This is where it’s ok to love him.

Shawn wraps his fingers around the mic and looks moodily off stage into nothing. Ginny snickers at his theatrics, knowing they’re mostly for her anyway. She claps a hand over her uncontrollable mouth, taking care not to muss her signature red lip, and watches as the master goes to work.

Oh, holy arsing fuck.

Her brain whines when the first few somber piano notes come through from the karaoke track, announcing Shawn’s choice -- “Hello” by Adele.

Ginny sighs. She knows very well he’ll nail it, like he does everything. She also knows that he knows how much of an Adele stan she is. The part of her brain that wonders if he chose this track specifically to get her squirming is not as easily controlled tonight as on other nights.

There’s just something about this bar, this song, this drink, this night.

And this guy.

This guy who holds the mic in its stand so tenderly it could be a lover. This guy who turns karaoke into a private Shawn Mendes concert and could make Adele shake in her sparkly boots. This guy who is her whole life.

Ginny’s nervous energy is expended, her ankle slapping the leg of her chair as her foot bounces. The nail of her thumb taps insistently at her pint glass. She scrunches the other up in her glorious mountain of corkscrew curls. Nothing helps curb the itch, though. She’s too strung out on him. He’s the only fix that can take her anywhere now.

Ginny marvels at the dips and curves of his immaculate voice that he uses so well even after the day full of radio appearances that followed his show at the Prague O2 last night. She floats away with them wherever they’ll take her, returning only when his last note is nearly drowned out entirely by the thunderous applause of his audience.

When he opens his eyes and drops back into himself the way he always does when he finishes a performance, a moment so special and intimate that sometimes it feels like only Ginny can see it, his eyes find hers easily. She beams at him, shaking her head to feel her tight ringlets shiver against her forehead. He bounds off the stage in only a few steps and lands in front of her.

“Mic drop!” he announces, lifting a hand to drop an imaginary mic with a glittering grin.

“Coulda brought the one from the stage,” she points out.

He shrugs. “I don’t want to break shit. C’mon. I killed that. Just admit it.”

Ginny manages to purse her lips indignantly against the goofy grin she feels coming on. She sighs.

“Shawn Mendes, tonight you are the victor, you have climbed every mountain, forded every stream, and proved yourself the superior karaoke singer. For tonight only.”

“Hey, I’ll take it,” he laughs, reaching for his beer as he’s tapped on the shoulder by a laughing Geoff who leans in to talk in his ear over the din.

Ginny looks away. Her time admiring him is done. She scans the room, filled with her friends, with people whom she knows as well as anyone on earth because on a team like this, you’re family whether you like it or not.

They’ve all still got their early-in-the-night glow. Ginny knows well it’ll fade, but it looks good on them tonight. She sits back in her seat and tries not to notice how especially good Shawn looks. Instead, she tilts her dark brown eyes up to the disco ball and wonders about the times it’s seen.

Celebrate a new series with me and consider buying me a Ko-fi (link on my homepage)!

Taglist: @smallerinfinities @the-claire-bitch-project @achinglyshawn @infiniteshawn @stillinskislydia @singanddreamanyway @alone-in-madness @abigfatmess @shawnitsmutual @awkwardfangirl2014 @september-lace @accioarmenian

[valkyrie-echo]

Project Echo, Part 1: Chapter 20 (Going For the Green)

Part 1 Summary: A long-buried Hydra disaster, a monster in the shadows, a missing child. Eight months after the events of “The Winter Soldier”, Bucky turns himself in to the Avengers on one condition: They must help him find a girl snatched off the streets by Hydra seven years ago. In their quest, the Avengers accidentally unleash a horrifying creature of darkness and shadow, intent on making their quarry its prey.

Chapter 20: Going for the Green

The kid's screaming woke Tony up first. Any screams in the Tower got the same response these days, "JARVIS, PROTOCOL ONE, NOW!" he dove out of the way as a suit charged in, grabbed an incredulous Pepper, and before she had so much as time to start yelling at Tony the suit hurdled out a window. It wouldn't stop until it had Pepp secured in the D.C. offices. Then he'd be getting an earful.

A few seconds later though Tony was more than happy he'd responded so quickly- the floor shook and Hulk's spine-chilling roar nearly deafened him. He hit his comm, "EVERYBODY UP," as if he needed to say it after that, "JARVIS, deploy suits to collect Jane and Inessa, keep them in the air- as high as possible!" the last thing they needed was a civilian and a vegetable in the middle of a Hulk-out.

Thor didn't move until Jane was sealed in her suit and far out of Banner's reach. Bucky and Steve had no one to secure, so they were first to Bruce's door. Bucky intercepted Sam as he ran up the stairs, "Get in the air, guard the girls."

Steve and Bucky readied themselves, then pushed the door open. The lights flickered, and mighty bangs came from near the back. Bucky spun his metal arm, readying for a fight. Steve took point. They'd never tested it but the working theory was his shield should withstand a direct hit from Hulk. He'd absorbed the blow from Thor's hammer, why not one from a gigantic, pissed off, radioactive green creature?

Creeping towards a splintered, dislodged door with Steve at his side and the unmistakable thud of Thor running to join them made Bucky grin, "Stark," he whispered, "you might just get your three-on-one fight after all."

"Or not, I vote for not," Natasha and Clint were on the main balcony, guarding against Hulk. He could hurt a lot of people if he jumped out into the city.

"Fifty on Hulk."

"CLINT!"

"I don't think there will be a fight guys, get in there now." Tony's infrared scans of Banner's room showed- he didn't know what they were showing him, but it couldn't be good.

Bucky broke formation and quickly approached the door. He used his metal arm to rip it out of his way completely, then ducked to the side. Steve and Thor tensed, but only a strangled growling sounded.

"Holy-" Steve lowered his shield and walked in, mouth agape. He pulled off his goggles. The veins of silver that still remained from his brush with the Shadow glowed in the dim light.

Banner's place was totaled in that epic-destruction kind of way only the Hulk could be responsible for. The walls were torn apart right down to the extra-thick steel reinforcements Tony had lined the place in. Even the foot-thick bulletproof window was cracking. Hulk was writing on the floor, growing in a bizarre gurgle. Bucky walked around to see his face and slipped in a pool of green blood. Hulk had claw marks all over his torso- every one of them turning silvery gray. Thin streams of red mixed with the green- it had gotten Banner first, then he'd Hulked out.

Black smoke poured from Hulk's eyes and, when his mouth opened, wafted from within like demented steam. Bucky had a sudden idea- Steve said it felt like this thing was sentient, at least a little. He walked closer to Hulk, stared into those black eyes, and spoke, "Hello?"

There was a titanic roar and Hulk lurched at him, throwing Bucky into a wall and pinning him there. Hulk shook him, beating him against the wall again and again, until he couldn't see anymore.

"BUCKY!"

"JAMES!"

Thor and Steve ran over, but Hulk swept them aside then slammed his open hand over Bucky's face, breaking his nose. Darkness poured out from the Hulk and into Bucky's mind, and in an instant everything went black.

Neither Bucky nor Hulk died in the coming days, but like Steve and Inessa, they sure as hell came close. The shadow lost all momentum when it passed into Bucky, like whatever strength it had been building was spent subduing the Hulk. Bucky had burned with black flames for only a few minutes, unstable and unaware.

The damage to Hulk's body was severe, so much so that throughout the recovery he couldn't be stabilized long enough to turn back into Banner. After the shadow left him he'd merely whimpered and growled weakly, and continued to do so as the toxin spread throughout his body. At it's height, he was entirely gray.

They learned from the experience the shadow did not need to cut someone to inject them with venom. Bucky hadn't been swiped by the creature, only by Hulk, and yet his skin too turned gray. The silver scars were caused by the creature directly, but the gray skin seemed to be a result of the possession. It explained why Bucky never remembered Inessa turning gray- she was cut, but the beast never had time to enter her mind.

Once Hulk and Bucky were secure in the recovery area, Tony let Inessa and Jane return. He watched Nessa carefully for days, even put her in the room with Hulk (they covered Bucky with a sheet) but nothing happened. The child knew when the Shadow was there- even Steve could feel its presence, but only faintly. It bothered Tony- how could she be numb to everything- even Bucky's best efforts at the end of 'Project: Echo'- yet be so sensitive to something Steve barely noticed through the din of his own mind?

One night curiosity finally got the best of Tony. He went down to the recovery room under the guise of relieving Steve from guard duty (should Hulk decide to smash) and sent him upstairs to sleep. As soon as JARVIS verified he'd gone to bed he wheeled in a portable PET scan. Bucky was easy. Hulk? Not so much, but Tony kept moving the scanner around until he figured he had to have a 360 degree view of Hulk's brain. He turned off the lights and very quickly repeated the process, then had JARVIS pump them up to double strength.

While the images processed, he worked on his excuse for Natasha and Clint. It had to be cunning, plausible too- the master spies would be on the lookout for anything suspi-

"Nessa next?" Tony karate chopped thin air as he turned. Natasha was standing with the girl five feet away.

"Natasha, what brings you and the Loch Nessa Monster here at this hour?" he used his pet name for Inessa to sell the innocent act.

"We're thinking the same thing, do the scan." Tony inched backwards and pulled the sheet over Bucky's head, careful to keep him blocked from Inessa's eye line, if she could even see. "I'm getting nowhere with her, it isn't natural. I need to see how much her brain is even processing information."

Tony shrugged, relaxing, "I have specific tests in mind. You won't like them."

Natasha shook her head, "Doesn't matter. To help her we need to know if there's anyone left inside that body."

"Into the operating room then," Natasha held the door as he wheeled the PET scan inside. She instructed Inessa to follow and sit on the table. Tony had her lie down and began to fasten the straps around her arms, legs, and torso.

"Is all that really necessary? She won't move." Natasha protested as Tony added a thick collar and leather strap around her head, totally immobilizing her.

"Oh, I think she'll move a hell of a lot," Tony switched on the scanner over her and, after a few minutes, he turned out the light, "JARVIS, start scanning as soon as the screams begin."

Chapter 21: Your Brain on Shadow JuJu

[a-sweet-pea]

The Last Flight

A/N: I see ‘hyperfixation’ pop up on my dash every so often, and as far as I can gather its sort of related to add / adhd, and it pretty much is what it sounds like. With that in mind, if a person had plenty of other writing projects to deal with but then they watched an episode of a TV show, and a thirty-second portion lodged itself in their brain so firmly that they watched just that clip, like, eighteen more times, while walking to pick up some takeout, while on lunchbreak at work, and it made them absolutely fall in love with the idea of reinterpreting that whole episode in a G/T context, such that they pretty much couldn’t focus on any other WIP because they were too in love with the performance of this particular actor, the combination of old-fashioned military politeness, cocky fly-boy attitude tempered with vulnerability and confusion, and big dark scared eyes and clark-kent style hair, and then they wrote almost two-thousand words about it, is that what hyperfixation is? Asking for a friend.

On an entirely unrelated note, this is a short fanfic of Season 1, Episode 18 of the Twilight Zone. Some pieces of the dialogue are taken directly from the episode, and I highly recommend watching it (it’s available on USA Netflix) if only the segment from 3 minutes in to 7 minutes in.

- - -

Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time and dimension - and all of these navigational touchstones are waylaid in the Twilight Zone.

Sara was just stepping out of her front door when the plane landed. The street was empty. Not many people were up at six in the morning on a saturday, at least not in the early early spring, when the weather had a habit of acting as if it was still winter. Sara was only up because a particularly loud bird had taken up residence in the tree next to her bedroom, and she was never able to go back to sleep once she’d woken up. She was only outside because inbetween bouts of birdsong, she’d heard this weird chattering engine noise and wanted to see what it was. And she saw it the moment she stepped outside; a model airplane landing on the sidewalk going up to her house like it was a runway. It touched down at the far end of the walk, by the mailbox, and came to a stop about halfway to the stoop.

Who on the street owns a model plane? She looked the road up and down but there were no conspicuous remote-control-holding children in any of the nearby windows. Maybe someone got one for Christmas and they only ever play with it early in the morning.

The propeller slowed to a lazy twirl as she got closer. Hopefully whoever owns it put their name on it so I can return it.

Something climbed out of the plane.

What the hell?

Sara had seen videos of people putting their pets in model cars or planes; hamsters or lizards, anything small enough to fit in the cockpit. It seemed like such an awful thing to do to a pet. I hope they didn’t put their name on the plane, and then I’ll have an excuse not to return it. You don’t get to have a pet if you’re going to fly it around in a remote control plane; I don’t care how carefully you land it, that’s just irresponsible.

No, it wasn’t a pet. It must have just fallen out of the cockpit, not climbed out, because it was shaped like a person.

Now, putting an action figure in a model plane; that’s fine.

An action figure that was standing up on it’s own, despite having tumbled out of the plane. An action figure that took off it’s helmet and tossed it into the plane. An action figure that turned around and looked at her, and stumbled backward, and took off at a run in the opposite direction..

Small as it was, it didn’t get very far.

She knelt down on the concrete and curled her fingers around the fleeing figure. It wriggled in her grip; tiny hands pushed against her fingers, struggling to pry them apart.

It’s not…it isn’t…

She grabbed the plane in her other hand. It was metal, and it was still hot, like the hood of a car that’s been running all day.

They make remote control airplanes out of metal, don’t they?

She pushed back through the door, hands full, and let it slam shut behind her. The thing that could not be what it looked like still struggled in her right hand. She let her grip loosen a fraction. The plane, she set down on the coffee table. The other thing, she did not set down. She sat down on the couch and took a deep breath.

Why am I so shaky?

Her hand shook as she lifted it toward her face, opening it as she did so that her palm lay flat. And on it was an impossible creature, scrambling to his feet.

A man. A man with dark eyes and dark hair that was parted at the side and touseled at his forehead. A man dressed in a leather aviator jacket, a white scarf, clean pressed pants, and tall leather boots. A man who was four inches tall.

“Holy…” He flinched at the sound of her voice, raising his hands in front of his face as if to shield himself.

“Sorry!” She cut her volume in half. “A-are you okay?”

He wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on her, but his attention was elsewhere, fumbling for something at his waist; some miniscule metal implement. When he raised it, gripping the handle in one hand and steadying his grip with the other, it became clear what it was.

“Easy, easy.” His shoulders were steady but his chest was heaving with hyperventilated breaths, and his hands were shaking so much the gun didn’t stay pointed in any one direction for more than a moment. Even so, she was such a big target (relatively speaking) that he was liable to hit something if he fired. “Put the gun away.” He swallowed, readjusting his grip. “I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise.”

“Are you American?”

It took her a moment to answer, she was so startled. He can talk. That somehow made him more real (one would have thought that seeing and touching him would have been enough to establish the truth of his existence, but apparently she had still been partway unconvinced).

“Yes. Are you?”

He shook his head. “British.” The tip of the gun faltered, and then lowered. “What-who are you?”

“I’ll tell you if you put the gun away.” He nodded and holstered the gun. “Name’s Sara. Sorry for grabbing you, hope you’re not too shook up. What’s your name?”

He stood straighter, a puppet with it’s strings pulled tight all of a sudden. “Leftenant William Terrance Decker.” He brought his hand to his forehead with rigid military precision. “Royal Flying Corps.” Hearing him speak properly, she could have guessed he was British. A refined and educated, albeit currently out of sorts, English accent.

“Pleased to meet you, Leftenant.”

He lowered his arm, but he still stood rigid as a toy soldier. He turned his head one way and the other, taking in his surroundings with increasing confusion. “Where exactly am I?”

“Havelock, North Carolina. In my house, specifically. Where did you think you were?”

“Well, I thought I was landing at 56 Squadron RFC.” He laughed nervously. “But I also thought the worst thing that could happen on patrol would be to run into was a German plane, and well, here we are.”

German? Despite the fact that Germans had no doubt made many planes since, ‘German plane’ was a phrase somehow inexorably tangled up with the world wars. Add to that a British pilot, and the connection was almost undeniable. And his plane has a definite early-World-War look to it, like the one on display up at Cherry Point.

“What’s today’s date?”

He answered without hesitation, although he looked puzzled. “March the fifth.”

Correct. “What year?”

He looked doubly puzzled. “Why, nineteen-seventeen.”

“Nineteen-seventeen?” The little figure in her hand suddenly felt different. More alien. More lost.

“That’s correct.” What little composure he’d mustered over the past few minutes faltered slightly. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s…” She paused, trying to choose her words carefully. Was it possible to phrase this delicately? “It’s two-thousand and seventeen.”

He stared past her. There was different fear in his eyes now; not the wild, dangerous fear of seeing her. Something subtler and stranger.

“Uh…look here…” He spoke much softer now, voice steady despite his obvious distress. He looked down at her palm; she felt the toe of a minuscule boot tentatively tap her skin. “You…” He looked back up at her, eyes wide with concern and confusion. "You’re not joking with me, are you?"

She shook her head.

“Good lord…” Already unsteady on his feet, his weight shifted and he fell to one knee.

“Careful!”

He didn’t respond to her warning, if he even processed it. He was staring into the distance, lowering himself to a sitting position in the center of her palm. She could feel his arms shaking where they touched skin.

“When I was landing…” He was whispering still, Sara had to lift her hand closer to hear him. He was too lost in remembering to notice. “There was a thick white cloud…I couldn’t hear my engine. It was like being swallowed in a vacuum. The same sort of thing happened to Guy Niemayer. He disappeared one day while flying. At the memorial service the Cardinal said ‘He belonged to the sky, and the sky has taken him.”

“Well, he never showed up here, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

He jumped, shaken from a reverie.

“Well of course not, I only…” His voice trailed away. He was looking at her as if he’d only just remembered she was there. “Is this what he saw as he was dying?”

“You’re not dying!”

“Aren’t I?” He gestured at the air, at nothing. “Castaway in time and space; in the clutches of giant? It all feels to real to be a dream, and if it’s not then I don’t see what else it could be.”

“You’re not in my clutches!” Sara lowered her hand to the coffee table; the Leftenant’s fingers dug into her palm at the sudden movement. “I-I’m not clutching. Honest.” He didn’t move at first, but the longer she kept her hand flat and still, the more assured he was that it wasn’t going to suddenly lift off again. He pushed himself to his feet and walked unsteadily off the edge of her palm. Sara lifted her hand away and absent mindedly brushed her palm with the thumb of the other hand.

He’s so light.

He took a few cautious steps on the glass table top, looking up toward the ceiling, what must have been a hundred feet above him or more.

“I’m sorry…” He turned back to her with a very militaristic about face. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I didn’t mean to."

He crossed his arms and furrowed his brow. “I’m not afraid.”

She smiled wide and did one of those quick breathy laughs you can’t politely supress because you weren’t expecting it. “Good.”

A/N 2 : If this is rushed and unpolished, it’s because I farted it out. This idea was literally posessing me. Also, I spelled Lieutenant weird on purpose because they pronounced it that way. This whole post is a fever dream. I make no apologies.