#i hoard rocks you fucker

[ironbatpaperturtle]

I love time travel, soo lets do this (btw this is what I interpret is what happened in Eden)

PT 1: Time travel AU

Adam died and wakes back to Eden, only this time it wasn't at the very start. No. It was the time wherein Lilith and Lucifer started getting to know each other.

Secretly meeting up, Lilith avoiding Adam, and Lucifer distracting Adam by appointing duties.

If this was the Adam before, before the whole apple free-well, before the 900 years of trying to stay alive on Earth with his wife Eve, before a millenia or so of living in Heaven witnessing the horrors of Earth and killing his own decendants then he'd feel betrayed, hurt.

But he can't, because this time, oh this time. Adam has a plan. Everyone seems to assume that Adam can't think of plans, but Adams had years of experience and a hoard of brutal bad bitches to respect him, for a reason.

A little out of pocket and unappropriate comments doesn't change that.

Since this Lucifer isn't violent compared to the Lucifer Adam knew in the future then it won't matter how disrespectful he'd be to him.

Now here comes the plan. All Adam had to do was simple really. Nothing. Well not nothing. Specifically he'll act like he still has the hots for Lilith, let them get together and once he gets Eve, teach Eve about snakes.

If Even still eats the apple then Adam won't be fooled. The only reason Adam ate that damned apple was because he didn't want to lose Eve.

But eternal paradise vs a wife he forcefully won't love, bitch it aint rocket science. Besides, even without humanity Adam already knows shit, shit thats relevant like who tf wants jazz? From now on the only songs Adam will sing would be rock. Speaking of rock.

Adam misses his guitar.

He needs to ask an angel to poof him one or something. Making one takes time, not to mention he'd have to make the materials to make one.

Other than Lucifer, the only ones who actually visit would be Michael, rare, and Sera even rarer.

Adam paced in circles, unaware of the baby ducks following behind.

"ADAM!"

"Jesu-- Jezz!" Adam snapped his gaze to the figure in front of him and glared at the Angel.

"Sorry . . . Its just . . . Are you okay?" Lucifers wings shifted unused to the glare presented to him. Adams never looked at him like that before. It was . . . unnerving.

Adam eased his glare, relaxing his shoulders just a tad bit before presenting a wide grin.

"Lucifer!" Adam raised both his arms walking towards Lucifer to engulf him in a hug. Eugh. "I had a . . . dream? Yes I'll call it a dream. I had a dream of playing an instrument of sorts, one that has multiple vines attached to it, I think? And whenever I pull these vines I can create sounds, not just any sounds, but sounds that have melody"

Lucifer brightned up, dreams! Adams having dreams. This could only mean that Adam would soon seek and eat the forbiden fruit. Now he didn't have to keep pressuring Adam, now all three of them would explore what's around Earth, find free will, and create unimaginable ideas.

Granted he has to figure out how to make Lilith and Adam become civil with each other. But he can work on that after the apple.

Adam shifted both of his arms ontop the angels shoulder waiting for his response. C'mon fucker answer.

"Well those could be the instrument harp Sera's always been fond of" Lucifer laughed out, wrapping his arms around the first mans waist.

Tsk

"Ah really? But these are held different"

Lucifer in his current happy mood, didn't register the implications of Adams words. Instead he laughed again "How else would you hold a string instrument, unless we're talking about the fiddle I own"

Shit

Adam bit his lip, the guitar was invented by humans. The only musical instruments Angels know are the Harp, Piano, Fiddle, Flute, Organ and the Viola.

"Ohh" guess Adam would have to make it himself. Fucking weak. "Well I have to go"

Adam pushed himself out of Lucifers grip, turning around and gracefully side stepping the baby ducks that were following him.

"Where will you be going?"

"I'm trying to find my wife, Lilith" with Adams back to Lucifer, Lucifer didn't see how Adams eyes shifted into a glare. And Adam didn't need to look to know how Lucifer became anxious at the mention of her name.

Keep her you filthy wife stealer.

"I see . . . Well you should give her space she's probably doing her chores"

"I would like to invite her to rest with me then, she's probably tired from all those chores, afterall, I haven't seen her in a long time" regardless of how Adam sounded so innocent, a grin couldn't stop itself from forming on his face. He knows how possesive Lucifer is.

"Lilith takes her chores seriously, with precision might I add" Lucifers nervousness was replaced with a stern tone.

Just like Sera. Ugh, boring

"I see, well she can stop to rest with her husband. After all she's mine, is she not?"

Adam quickly wiped the grin off his face, turning back to face Lucifer and present a toothy grin. Finding amusement in Lucifers stern yet scrunched face.

"Would you like to help me?" Adam tilted his head, batting his lashes like how he did when he was mocking Liliths brat.

"Sadly I cannot" Lucifer masked his irritation with a tight-lipped smile. Fake ass "But I hope you will find her"

With that Lucifer vanished in a puff of angelic smoke.

----

"Just yesterday he was yelling at me, telling me about my purpose as his wife" Lilith nervously claimed, her head settled on the angels lap. They sat ontop a large boulder that overlooks the barrier between Eden and whats outside. What could be more.

Lilith closed her eyes, usually Adam wasn't like this, sure he could be a bit overwhelming but this felt . . . different. He would instruct Lilith but he'd do it with a certain tone and body language. This one is like a new different version of Adam. Has something happened?

Days progressed like that, Lilith mushing to Lucifer about how Adams been far more controllive, telling her what and what not to do. He'd even say words that she doesn't know exist. What's a pocket pussy?

Lucifer at this point felt dejected, he didn't think that his first friend would act like this. To his partner of all things. He also thought that when Adam dreamed he'd have a chance of more likely eating the apple but so far nothing.

Lucifer sighed, petting the head of the first woman. A woman so independent, fierce, caring, beatiful and so much more.

"Lucifer" Lilith rose her head, her lips mere inches apart from Lucifers. And suddenly they knew.

----

Just between a tree was Adam watching sll this happen with a grin. I win.

Adam turned around, he'd come back after there little sex sesh. Right now he has questions.

Why is he still in Eden if he has free will?

Shouldn't it be that he gets thrown away from Eden once he learns what free will is. This body of his didn't eat the apple. But his body before? future? Whatever, did.

He can say as much as curse words, knows shame and the good and bad. His not as pure minded as he was when he was in Eden. So why wasn't he thrown out?

Total banger but creepy as shit.

Adam gazed at the forbidden fruits. Carefully he reached out and plucked one out. He can see the reflection of his face.

If he eats this, what would happen. What if it turns him back to being someone without free will? What if it'll kill him? What if the sersphims find out and he'd be thrown out of Eden just like last time? Then that would mean all those acting would be for nothing.

But the temptation was raw, ever since Adam unlocked his free will he'd become more implusive and temptation was easy to succumb to. A total opposite of what he was before.

Adam held onto the apple, clutching it with his hand and procceded to bury it underneath the tree. Dirt caked between his fingertips. He wiped the sweat of his head, stood and spun. Turning back to where Lilith and Lucifer lay and where he would soon get rid of weeds.

----

"Lucifer . . ." Lilith mumbled chest heaving from exhaustion, she gazed the eyes of he angel above her, she'd never felt pleasure like this before.

"Lili--"

"Lilith!" Adam cried out eyes brimming with tears, fists shaking.

Lucifer and Lilith drew closer to each other, watching as the first mans eyes darted from his first wife to his first friend.

Lucifer was the first one to get his bearings "Adam listen--"

"No!" Adam cried out this time tears were freely falling from his face, he glared, teeth bared "How could you".

Both Lilith and Lucifer flinced from the snarl full of hatred. Oops dial it back.

"You were supposed to be my wife! Mine!" Adam yelled giving off the illusion of desperation, just like when it happened the first time. Just like when he was about to be stabbed.

At that Lucifers wings expanded covering Lilith and him in a cocoon, a sign of comfort for Lilith and a visible threat to Adam. Really? Gonna threaten someone who has no idea about the prospect of death?

A ball of light suddenly appeared, causing Lilith and Adam to cover their eyes and causing Lucifer to feel sick.

"Brother what have you done" it wasn't a question

----

Adam loves Michael, well as much as he can love a guy, no homo.

The guy always been the better guardian angel. And even when he died and went to Heaven Michael was the one to teach him everything. Before, when he wasnt so . . .yeah. Him and Michael would find a way to talk to eachother for hours. He was calm, attentive, can take Adams out of pocket jokes and humanity. Sometimes, Adam would stop thinking whenever his with Michael. The guys just that good.

But ever since the exterminations, increase of heavens winners and of course Michael being a high ranking angel, they haven't been able to talk as much. Or at all.

Man, Adam forgot how cool Michael was. Second to him of course. But he was very cool, he watches as Michael stands infront of him. Trying to shield him out of the first ever case of cheating.

If it was ever anyone who did that to him in his current self he'd feel offended. He can take a heartbreak, tf. But since it was Michael he feels giddy, oh he cannot wait to see what happens. He never saw what happened because he ran away immedietly when he found out.

----

Lucifer and Lilith stood at the edge of Eden, a portal behind them, the portal to Earth. Both of them were glaring at Michael who didn't look disturbed, only quirking an eye awaiting for a challenge. As if that bitch Lucifer can win against Michael.

Adam grinned.

Lucifer shifted his gaze to someone just behind Michael, Adam, they were eye-to-eye. The betrayal in Adams eyes were replaced with smugness, somethings wrong, this isn't Adam. Lucifers perplexed expression was replaced with shock as Adam cocked his hip, wiggled his fingers in a mock wave and mouth out a 'bye bitch'.

With a wave Michael cast Lucifer and Lilith out, discarded. ====

2

[wheels-of-despair]

Closed Doors Pairing: Michael (Hoard) x You Summary: A certain brown-eyed boy needs to be reminded what a closed door means. Contains: Domme!Reader who is well above the age of consent, a guy named Mike who needs to be taken down a peg, a writer who has finally found a JQ character to unleash her dominant side on. Also nudity, bratting, threats of violence, handjob, controlled orgasm, etc. Words: 800ish Note: No one is making you read this. Do not waste your time (or mine) with bitching, moaning, or lectures. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's really that simple. Youths and ageless blogs, DNI. Writer will block your ass.

"Remember that conversation we had about closed doors and personal space?"

He's in here. You know he's fucking in here. You open the shower curtain a crack and glare at his back. He's standing at the sink, in a dingy tank top and black underwear, wetting his toothbrush.

"That couldn't have waited 'til I was done?"

"Nope," he says, carefully squeezing the toothpaste onto his brush. You can see him smirking in the mirror.

You jerk the curtain closed, ripping one hook from the cheap plastic. Five fucking minutes. You wanted five fucking minutes to yourself. You rinse off the remaining suds and turn off the water, stepping out of the shower angrily, with the intention of dragging him out of the bathroom by his hair and throwing him down the stairs.

But the way he's looking at you in the mirror gives you a better idea.

Without reaching for the towel, you walk slowly to him. You can't help but admire the way those tight underwear hug his ass. They're so snug that they can't be comfortable. The definitely won't be when you finish with him. Who are you wearing those for, Mike?

When you get close enough for your breasts to brush against his back, you place your hands on the sink, boxing him in. He pushes his ass back into you, and you know what he wants.

But he's not getting it. Not yet.

You step closer, pushing him up against the sink. He grunts when his cock makes contact with the cold, hard surface. His hands come down to grip the edge of the counter before you can push him further, leaving his toothbrush sticking out of his foamy mouth.

With your dominant hand, you reach around to his front and cup his bulge through the black fabric. Just as you suspected; hard as a rock.

"Who's this for?"

He doesn't answer.

"I asked you a question." You give him a squeeze, and his breath hitches.

"You," he garbles, toothbrush still in his mouth.

"What if I don't want it?" Your voice is as hard as he is. He opens his mouth, dropping his toothbrush into the sink with a clatter.

"Guess I'll just go find someone else to give it to." His eyes sparkle at you in the mirror.

"It'll be the last fucking thing you ever do," you hiss.

You slide your thumb into the waistband just beside his happy trail, pull it as far away from his belly as it'll go, and let it snap back on him. He grunts.

"Out."

He pulls his pretty little panties down just enough to let his cock bounce free.

You wrap your arms around him from behind; one hand settling in his happy trail to hold him still, and the other taking hold of his cock.

"You want this?"

He nods. You squeeze, and raise your eyebrows at him in the mirror.

"Yes," he forces out.

"Good boy."

Your praise makes him twitch in your hand. You smirk and raise your palm to his mouth. Without even being told, he licks, coating your hand in saliva and foam.

You bring your hand back to his cock and take hold. You begin pumping slowly, and he grips the edges of the sink harder. When he drops his head and breaks eye contact, you bite his shoulder.

"Eyes on me, fucker."

He raises his head and gives you a pleading look in the mirror. You speed up, and he begins to pant.

"If you cum before I say you can cum, I'm giving your filthy cock a scrub." He moans. "With your toothbrush."

He bites his lip, trying to hold back.

"What are you gonna do next time you see a closed door, Michael?"

"Leave you alone," he pants.

"I knew you could listen," you coo, slowing your pace. "Just needed a firm hand," you squeeze for emphasis, "to set you straight, didn't you, pretty boy?"

"Yes," he whimpers.

"You ready to cum for me?" you ask sweetly, slowly swirling your thumb around his leaking head.

"Please," he whines.

"Please what?"

"Please let me cum," he begs. He looks like he's about to cry.

"Now," you breathe.

He splatters the sink with his seed, leaning back into you with a delicious moan as his body shakes. You let him, even though he's been a pain in the ass. He's just so pretty when he lets go.

When he stands up straight again and meets your eye in the mirror, his demeanor has changed completely. Gone is the cocky asshole who thinks he can do as he pleases. Now he's just Mike again.

You reach for the towel and wrap it around yourself, looking down at the puddle of water you've dripped onto the floor.

"Clean up this mess and put some fucking pants on," you order on your way out, giving his ass a sharp smack as you pass.

It's hard work, keeping him in line, but somebody's gotta do it.

[nonverbalturtlepower]

TMNT Headcanon time (2012) ☺️

Parts might or might not be projection lol.

Mikey: Autistic and ADHD. Stims constantly. Always moving. Rocking, flapping, wiggling his fingers and toes, chewing on things, food. Hoards thing he loves and nests. Trans, genderqueer trans boy, (oriented?) aroace, complicated relationship with gender and orientation. Part time mobility aid user (I have seen this boy hit so many walls and I'm only ten episodes in. He has to have chronic pain 😅 also what kind of effects could the mutagen have? Getting turned from a turtle to a turtle person has to have lasting effects lol. He sometimes uses his forearm crutches on patrol and always wears afos but his other mobility aids are mostly for at home use. CVI (this is projection but I am blind and i'm rubbing my grubby disabled paws all over this character lol. And I always see blind Leo. So my headcanon is blind Mikey. Because mutagen). He has trouble with his brain processing what he is looking at. He has trouble with depth perception, identifying objects (especially unfamiliar ones), takes him time to id objects, clumsy because his lower visual field isn't great, trips over things on the floor and runs into walls because he can't see them, but he's really good at compensating for it so sometimes he even forgets he's blind. Uses a white cane sometimes, mostly in new places (it's a super cool folding one Donnie made him in his favorite colors). Mikey loves bright colors because they are easier for him to see. (he's not totally blind. And his vision fluctuates depending on a number of factors).

Apraxic. Situationally mute. Mostly nonverbal, makes a lot of noises but doesn't really have understandable self generated speech anymore. Can repeat things he's heard before but it's not 100% under his control. Every so often he can ramble like he used to, but he has to be not stressed and comfortable. Aphasia. Sometimes wrong words come out if he can talk or they come out wrong (wrong order, slurred, gibberish). Closest thing to words that come out of his mouth are sounds that sound like words to people who know him.

Multimodel communicator. He has a speech generating device that Donnie built him and it sounds like his body voice or he can choose what it sounds like. Has a fuck ton of different apps and vocabularies. He really likes PODD and LAMP because of how they are arranged. He also has low tech AAC (his favorite is his custom one page opening PODD book that Donnie somehow made bullet proof??? and totally waterproof. Mikey doesn't get how it works but he's glad it does because he has dropped it in some gross stuff 😅 but he can just rinse it off and go about his day. Fucker has literally used it as a shield against the Kraang's blaster fire, not a dent to be seen. All the turtles know the signals Leo uses during patrols but they also use a ASL modified for their three fingers. And he loves picture cards. He'll be hanging out with his brothers and just hand one of them a no card to be obstinant. His fuck you (playful) card is his second favorite. His picture cards stay at home because they are easy to lose because small and hard to transport because it's several thousand 1.5 in square cards with velcro on the backs. He does have a small binder with a few in it for patrols, just in case.

Dyslexic and has a hard time reading print between that and his vision. Needs enlarged print, a magnifier, or braille for reading.

He has some sort of hearing impairment /might be deaf but he doesn't know what's going on exactly. He just knows he has a hard time understanding speech especially if there is a lot of background noise. And he can't hear well while he is actively focused on seeing (CVI).

More about gender. He's a trans boy bu he's also a demigirl. He's bigender. But he prefers masc pronouns. Or neopronouns.

He loves food. And he's also kind of a walking hazard to himself (clumsy much) so his brothers prefer he be supervised while cooking.

He's 5" even and the shortest of all of them.

He sticker bombs everything he can get his chronically grubby little hands on.

Chronic migraines and photosensitivity. He has a special mask ge keeps on him that doesn't have eye holes and is made out of light blocking materials so if he gets overwhelmed by the light he can just put it on and rely on his other senses. His ability to fight without thinking really comes in handy for this.

He is really fast with his forearm crutches because they make him more stable.

Oops all Mikey 😅

I'll make another post for Donnie I guess.

[drippingviolets3]

I need to dump my random danganronpa headcanons and y’all are gonna take em or s t a r v e. Yes some of these are self indulgent. No I don’t care what you have to say about it.

•Izuru likes birds and cats. His reasoning? “It’s challenging to guess what you’ll get from them.” (Basically he’s referring to the breed and the level of intelligence they have, and what they do with it)

•Hifumi makes sure to interact with his fans. And I mean all of his fans

•If Kazuichi wasn’t a fucking creep, he and Sonia would be besties. But that will sadly never happen because this mother fucker is a simp-

•Byakuya sucks at Monopoly. Why? Because I’m a slut for irony.

•Toko has kissed a girl before. It may or may not have been Komaru-

•Haji Towa was called out for being a pedo on Twitter and was killed by a hoard of protesters :)

•Chiaki knows how to make edits. Sometimes when she’s bored she’ll make either a video edit or her current favorite game, or she’ll redesign one of the characters.

•Kokichi likes to hang around Nagito. Don’t coo at him he’s doing it for the sake of pranking Nagito

•Peko is bi-curious because I said so.

•Sayaka has a secret crush on one of her group members

•Ibuki attempted to make a rock opera with Kaede. It flopped immediately.

•Tenko guards the WOH with her life.

•Kotoko is close with Komaru, Nagito, and Toko, and casually refers to them as her siblings. They’re just as confused as everyone else.

•Genocider Syo murdered the WOH’s abusive fathers The mothers were left alone.

•By coincidence, Nagito ran into the WOH’s mothers and they died under mysterious and coincidental circumstances. Did I mention it was by coincidence?

•Angie assumes all her dreams are prophetic.

•Twogami is one of the few men that Tenko respects, and she tries to help him form his own identity in her own aggressive way.

•Korekiyo learns incest is bad and stops his whole sister craze and enrolls in therapy.

[novusmagnumversum]

Lady Scarlet

Volume 1 Issue #1: Please

Penned By Joseph Writman (Pen Name)

Trigger Warning: The following story has depictions of violenc and rudeness.

Lady Scarlet walked through the back alley, her hands calmly resting within her pockets, her eyes facing forward as she was cat called, ducking as rocks were pelted her way, darting out of the way as hands ran at her. Despite the drunk men waiting outside of the bar with their scraggy beards–and despite the drunken teenagers waiting outside of stores for their friends to come back with alcohol they obtained with fake IDs–she still didn’t back down.

She checked her watch–12:00 A.M. sharp–and continued to her destination, a shady, boarded-up store where her contact was waiting with intel on the Bitterfall Avenue Criminal Syndicate’s next big scheme. Her contact would be wearing a navy blue scarf–one made of fluffy wolf coat from the forests of Marandi–and the passphrase to initiate further conversation with the contact would be “I would like one Grannysmith apple, please.”

She walked into the market place and–stepping back–took an initial survey of her surroundings. Fruits, vegetables, crops, even poultry and meat products. She walked to the only person wearing a navy blue scarf, looked him right in his green eyes and said, “I would like one Grannysmith apple, please.”

“You knew the risk going here and you still showed up.”

The contact–a sweaty graying man with red cheeks and freckles, overalls and a scummy personality–made remarks about her quietly to himself, to which she reacted violently. She grabbed him and lifted him up, holding him by the leg in front of everyone as onlookers watched helplessly, her voice deep and tired, bloodshot eyes showing even behind a crimson visor. “You know why I’m here, so stop messing around and spit the intel.”

Her contact spit her in the face, saliva splattering over her visor. If she was being honest, she didn’t give a flying fuck about her clients during an interrogation. She only held back for the same reason many detectives never held back: evil wins when you think it’s dying, when you let it slip away into the shadows of an entire city’s subconscious.

She didn’t let evil trick her into thinking it died; she left it to die.

As she crushed the bones in the contact’s foot joint, he writhed in pain, his other leg kicking her, his eyes shut tightly, his head stuck in a watermelon. By then, a hoard of onlookers–hesitant to interfere–gathered around Lady Scarlet as she shattered the asshole’s bones, crumbling his foot joint into nothing.

She let go, and allowed the man to writhe in the pain before he cried: “You asshole! Fine, I’ll spill the beans. These fuckers are racketeering, and they’re fucking up the Underworld in the worst ways possible, fucking up the economy, fucking up everything, fucking up all of this shit–”

Lady Scarlet removed a knife from her belt and shanked the contact in the knee, cleaning him out as he screamed, the police still not arriving as she muttered with a no-fucks-given hesitation, “I’m tired of your cursing. Their head honcho is in jail. Tell me who they’re doing business with, and I’ll take it from here.”

“It–it was some guy whose name I don’t know. His code name was Dracula, and he was part of an international mafia. He–he’s a fucker!” The contact–hanging upside-down–squealed like a bitch as he reached for his phone and pulled up a number with a name above it. “This man!

“He doesn’t share his location, he doesn’t share fucking anything in messages! This–this little fucker!”

Lady Scarlet slammed the contact against the wall of his own market stand, his spine pressing against cold brick and dried mortar. This was an interrogation for now, but she was quickly turning her questioning of this man into a death confession.

The contact squealed with regret, begging for his life to be spared. “I fucking swear! It’s international mafia and the head honcho of it all is code-named Dracula! He’s a ruthless leader, and he’ll do anything to get what he wants!”

“You have his number.” Lady Scarlet snatched the phone from his body and kicked the back of his skull into the jagged brick bonds. He squealed in pain as she called the number, flipped her head back, opened her visor and shouted, “Listen here you fucking turd.”

On the other end of the line was a mysterious croak, one shrouded and distorted by a voice changer. “You are not going to speak with me that way. Especially after what I found out about your past encounters with the police. I have potential–erm… blackmail–in that regard.”

“Motherfucker!” Lady Scarlet pinned the contact’s phone to her neck using the side of her head, using her now freed hand to twist the man’s foot until it audibly broke. She made sure the phone was close enough to pick up the sound. “You hear this?

“That’s your own cronie’s fucking leg being broken.” She took a deep breath and stormed off, dragging the contact’s rusty, face–veteran to many customers both moral, immoral and seeking intel–through crooked gravel and crumbled pebbles, causing abrasions and lacerations in his skin. “I will not be threatened, and I will not be blackmailed.

“Your man flipped, but don’t think for a second what he’s told me has made up for the horrible fucking things he’s done in the past, the horrendous atrocities he’s done. He may have made a change for the better, but that doesn't mean he’s on my good side.” Lady Scarlet let go of the man, allowing him to stumble away before stomping on his spine and shattering it. “He still has things to make up for.”

“You think you scare me,” the man on the phone bellowed, pounding his fist against the table. “You think that what you’re doing is going to twist me, manipulate me, pull me into doing favors for you, but no. Because at the end of the day, you’re the one having a bad day, and not me.”

The man on the other end hung up. Lady Scarlet screamed before fucking up the contact, leaving him sobbing and curled into a snail shell, blood drooling and teeth missing in his broken frown.

[rivka-kopelman]

Delivery Lemur Logbook : 14-A

<view full logbook>

AKA Enjoy What's Left of Your Pathetic Life

New Year's Eve, 3431

sleepy. sleeeeepy.

i think i'm throwing up. This is gross. what's going on

I was injected with.. something not good

Where am i?

My scalp is buzzing. My head is sooo heavy. I'm so tired I can't move. Can't stop the hot vomit running down my chin.

“Did you just,,, barf on me? are you trying to be ironic?”

Then my face really hurt. He punched my face. It feels awful. This is still a dream maybe. I try to tell him I'm going to leave, but all I can do is gargle. Legs are numb. Can't open my eyes. I hear sporadic gunfire in the distance. Wake up. Wake up.

“... Secret Service took back the watchtowers on L-80,” someone reported. “The upper aerodrome and north-68 are still held.”

“Tell Chain-Face and Golf-Ass to get up to L-81 and pour napalm down the lifts. Use it all,,, no point hoarding it now.”

“Yessir.”

Beep-be-beep

“Slurp's crew retook Gloria Street. He says he can press on to the palace if he gets air support.”

“Tell him I said sit and wait,,, don't give him any ships.”

“Right, yessir. It looks like the base at Vi Town was overrun by civilians. Rioters are swarming the ammo dump at camp-11. Gault is telling them where to go.”

“That's annoying,,, cut any fax lines out of Lugdunum we're not using. Make sure Dad knows. What's up with Bolo?”

“Blockade group says they're fucked, sir. Possum Patrol sees how thin we're stretched. Berg made a weak spot and they're nailing it. They're gonna break through.”

“Fuck it then,,, we held till today, that's all we had to do. Tell our guys to run. Conserve ships if they can.”

“...Yes - New transmission. Secret Service are getting into the Gold Dome over the old walkway.”

“Fuckers, okay,,, get over there now. Take Rake Jones and Betty. And call Leaf if you run out of guys.”

“Yessir!”

beep beep-beep ... then dialtone: duuuu

“Bubblegum,,, did you find that stealth pod we pinged an hour ago?”

“No dingus it's a stealth pod, I didn't find it.”

“Go look for it you dumb bitch,,,”

“I'm eating.”

“Eat later, Bubblegum,,, Fuck you, I'll kill you-”

“Man, ice cream cake, fuck you.”

“I'm-”

rrring rrring rrring

“Hang on,,, Hey, what do you need?”

“Hello son. It's time to take care of Madam Gault.” A familiar voice.

“Okay,,,” Beep-boop “Hey Bubblegum. That was Dad. Change of plan,,, We're gonna start Operation Burnt Popcorn. Tell Grass Stain to turn it on in,,,,,,, four minutes.”

*through a mouthful of cake* “Uh-huh, four minutes, oookay.”

duuuu

Cutbarf grabbed me. He found the spot on my face that was bleeding and pressed his thumbnail into it. I'm helpless. The pain is huge, it goes down into my cheekbone, I want to shake and squirm out of his grip but I'm too weak. So the pain goes on and on. Why does he want to hurt me? I'm. I'm just. I want to call out to Lopcorn for help but he's not gonna hear me. That's

so

“Hey dumbass,,, Can't let you out of my sight, so you're coming with me on a little job.” he said. “If you cause problems I'll take out your eyes,,, then I'll go to your mommy & daddy's house in Bobby-Town and cut their heads off and I'll put you all in the septic line. You can swim around in piss and shit and heads until you can't paddle anymore and you drown,,, Okay? Can you walk? Can you stand up?”

I can't. I squeak out a syllable. Cursing, Cutbarf slings me over his shoulder. I'm carried outside at a run, jounced and jostled. This truly hurts like hell.

My captor is dispensing commands over the phone. I open my eyes a crack and see gleaming pink and gold spires linked by innumerable abutments and bridges that twist and curve through hazy oblivion.

So I made it into Lugdunum while I was unconscious, okay

this is where i was trying to go

But i feel only terrible feelings, and i am sickened

- i wish none of this was real

Cutbarf ducks behind a baluster and drops me like a rock. A stampede of tuxedo'd elephants and rhinos rumbles past: The vaunted Secret Service.

I guess the SM is fighting the president's guards for control of the capital.

When they're gone, he carries me up spiral stairs onto a high walkway arching over the vast presidential city. He looks down at a fortified gateway where kids in pink uniforms and war-paint are attacking Gault's elite with flare guns and cutlery.

kshh

“Who's in the air by West-38 gate 20?”

bzzz

“SMVs Hellspit, Bloodtoilet, and Shitman II,” came the grainy reply.

“Bloodtoilet and Hellspit come shoot at the gatehouse but miss,,, let the old lady think we can't get in, or she'll run. Shitman II, fly over their AA and let them hit you, then back off.”

“Yessir!”

bzzz

Cutbarf kicked open air intake duct. In we went.

bzz

“Cutbarf to Noodle-Knife,,, hey.”

“Hey commander what's good”

“You guys chilling by the back door?”

“Yeah man”

“You doing what I told you to do?”

“Yeah. Nobody's going near it. We're all over the palace except there.”

“Hide your ships behind the upper pylon,,, stay out of sight but keep your reactors hot.”

“They'll see us if they scan shortwave.”

“Yes, they will,,, The trap's hidden just badly enough. She won't run.”

“Gotcha. We'll run red hot. Good luck.”

bzzz

Cutbarf comes to an abrupt halt and I puke again. He peers through a grate that casts thin bands of light across his pimply face.

“There's the hag,,,” whispered Cutbarf. He meant President Gault, who was surrounded by a phalanx of giant bodyguards in the room below.

I see the four-minute timer on his watch reach zero and turn red. I hear alarms going off.

“Report!” demanded a shrill voice.

“Radiation spike on Level 82, Madam President!”

“A bomb?”

“Could be – an unusual one. It's small. 1300 zW.”

“What is the z-wattage of the Possum Patrol's artificial hearts?” she demanded.

“Standby... Yes ma'am, that's in the same range as nuclear hearts.”

“They're here! They're here already,” she hissed. “Localize the spike. Immediately.”

“Checking, standby... Palace level. Section D-20.”

“Too close!”

“Get down there! Now!”

Loud commotion. Guns cocking and panicked whispers, running footsteps. It faded away.

“lmao,,,” muttered Cutbarf. It was quiet in the office below for a minute.

kshhh

“False alarm! False alarm! We're at the warehouse in D-20. The insurgents filled it wall-to-wall with microwave ovens and turned them all on at once to trip our radiation safeties.”

“Get back into position as soon as possible, the-”

Cutbarf dropped through the vent into the president's undefended office.

Gault's lips peeled back in a snarl. Her fury made her hideous and frightening. Her voice was very flat.

“You, boy?

“Me.”

“Fine work. Tell Franz I'll see him in hell. And you.”

“lol looking forward to it,” said Cutbarf. He sliced her head off, and looked up at me in the ceiling. “I can't reach,,, help me up.”

I can kind of wiggle around now so I try to reach down but i'm slow and frail and uncoordinated.

He pulled a chair over instead and was able to hop in from that. He slapped me.

“Useless,,, come on. You oughtta be able to walk by now. Go.”

Somehow I start moving. Cutbarf leads me through the tubes back outside.

Bzz

“Got her,” he said into the phone.

“Good. Thank-you, Commander. Now please bring me the Delivery Lemur.”

“On our way.”

Bzz

“Okay Lemur,,, Back to the base,” Cutbarf announced. I flinched when he reached for my arm with his red hand and I fell down. He moved closer and I gasped and scuttled back until I bumped into a wall. He laughed. “Come on. If you think I'm bad, wait till you meet Dad,,, He's the world's worst.”

I have met him.. .

He dialed something on his phone again. “Hey I want my ship.”

A minute later, SMV Barfbag emerged from the mist and took us aboard.

“Department of Defense,” he told the pilot. When the floor started moving I got dizzy and fainted.

My mental clarity was diminished for a time.

I started to come to my senses in an elevator.

Ding ... ding ... ding ... up we go. Or down?

Can't tell .

No idea.

My head hurts but I'm not as impaired as I was.

Cutbarf's got me by the scruff of the neck.

This demon. He killed Lopcorn. And the President.

He's taking me deep into the

Wherever. It's bad. This is very bad I don't want to , uh , uh

- I go away inside, like I do.

tum te tum .

no. wait it's not going to work .. I'm not going to wake up back home . I have no voice and no control. where is he taking me ? I don't want to go.  um.  Is this my last day living?

when this elevator stops moving, my life is over, isn't it? hes taking me down here to kill me. It's . fuck. hes gonna kill me. I'm going to die.

"help me" I gasp.

“No," Cutbarf replied.

Didn't mean you. Miss Menosky can you hear me? please help me. I am in trouble. please help me right now. Please hear me. mocha mocha mocha mo

"yes ~ hi and hello ~ Sorry, I was dreaming! Dreaaaaming ~ Oh! Goodness you're terrified ~ show me what's wrong?"

"This human's bad. He's taking me somewhere, and I'm really really afraid. They're hurting me. I think I'm going to get murdered. can you please do something.”

"Okay!"

Cutbarf hit the floor, limp as an empty bag.

"He wanted to bring you to someone. Oh Deliveremur ~ this boy is very troubled. I'm sorry he put you through all this ~ The normies never showed him any kindness ~ never ever. I'm going to take away his pain."

Cutbarf began to sob like a baby. Snot rolled out of his nose. He curled into a ball. Oh wow .

“He's feeling love for the first time ~ you should pity him, deliveremur,” Mocha thought. “Don't be afraid. His cruelty is all gone.”

Just like that?

The adrenaline in my bloodstream is so thick I'm not able to calm down but she helps me. All the sharp edges of my feelings are bevelled and made soft. Her sweet silly smile is shining in the centre of my heart. The horrible wet black curtains of certain doom are parted and I know my future is warm and full of everything I like. Everything good.

“You're okay ~ Everything will be fine. I've got you.”

“Yes. Thank-you.”

“Everything's okay now.”

“You saved my life. You seriously..” My empty belly is heaving. I cough and spit. “Thank-you. I dunno what I would have done.”

I notice I'm leaning on the wall. I slide down and sit on the floor of the elevator across from Cutbarf. He's sobbing and hugging himself tight, rocking back and forth.

“You always have me, Lemur ~ no problemo!”

“I'm very appreciative. Really, and. I owe you. What's up, what are you doing today?”

“Ummm! I'm up in orbit today ~ I've got the conservatory to myself. Needed some space, ya know ~ but I want to do a new podcast soon. Hey, you should be my..................”

ding

“Huh?”

“if you want ~ come and............”

ding

The warm feeling under my skull is fading. Our mingled mind(s) are peeling apart. It's like forgetting your first language, or losing a limb. “Mocha? What's happening?”

“Lemur ~ Where are.............”

“I can barely feel you. Please, please, please,”

“Lemur? Lemur ~ Hello...................”

“Miss Menosky! Hi hi hi! Hey! Mocha? I can't --”

“It's like ~ You're in a...........................................................”

ding

The elevator doors opened.

I see a dark room. Can't fathom if it's big or small. There's a pillow & blanket fort dead ahead.

I try to get the elevator to take me back up but you need a code.

“What are you waiting for?” someone says.

That's in my ears, not in my mind.

I trip over my own tail as I stumble ahead. The doors close behind me. I duck inside the pillow fort.

A little human is playing a plastic tic-tac-toe game with Franz Welker. He's got two babies snoozing in the pockets of his too-big suit jacket.

“It's good to see you again. Come in, make yourself comfortable. Plum, this is Delivery Lemur,” he said.

The kid gave me a perfunctory wave without taking her eyes off the game.

“Hi,” I say. I sit. It smells like chip crumbs and pee. Plum drops an X on the board. Welker puts his O in the corner so she can make three in a row. Gracefully, the omnipotent warlord lets her win. She tried not to smile, but did.

The sloth bowed his shaggy head. “You win again.”

“Do you surrender?”

“Not today,” he laughed. “Not tomorrow. Let me try it again.”

She pursed her lips so as not to grin too broadly, clearing the board and separating the plastic X&O blocks into neat stacks.

“It's getting late,” said Franz, looking at his watch. “Would anyone like a snack?”

“Yes please,” said Plum.

“Yes please,” I echo.

I mean why not

Franz procured a loaf of bread and two jars containing peanut butter and red jam. He made two sandwiches with meticulous care, using a silicon spatula to spread the pb and j in perfect evenness.

He gave the first sandwich to Plum. She burrowed waist-deep in a pile of cushions and started munching noisily. He tucked a napkin under her chin. She had jam on her face already.

Welker passes me a sandwich. His claws are unkempt, gnarled, yellowed, notched, and dirty. And they're long – even for a sloth. They look disgusting.

“Thanks.”

As it happens, the sandwich is delicious. I eat the crusts only. It's the best, most reliable part. I'm starting to feel less impaired.

I think about Lopcorn. I remember how he looked falling down. Swallowed by that nothingness. No one will ever pull his remains up.

I chew another bite of jammy crust. The sloth's looking at me.

If only he was never born.

I cry as I eat because I won't get to fly around with Lopcorn after I escape.

“Plum, it's more polite to chew with your mouth closed,” Welker said. With a sigh and rolling eyes she obeyed.

I look at Welker's old face and his careless hygiene. I look at his company of well-fed misfits. Plum goes back to chewing with her mouth open and Franz wipes jam off her chin.

There's no reason to keep me alive.

He's affecting perfect harmlessness. I guess when you have the power to do absolutely anything, you don't care about flaunting it in front of Delivery Lemurs.

“You must be missing your companion,” he said. He started shaking his head. “Lopcorn used to live here, you know. I thought he was very special.”

“Me too dude.”

“Ah...” He went quiet for a bit.

Chewing this crust, I start to think about how different I'd feel if my friends were here. What they'd say and do if we were all together.

Under these circumstances, I can't quite imagine it. I'll be getting through this night on my own.

“I'm glad we got to meet again,” Franz said.

“Mmhm.”

“Have carried out the delivery mission I gave you?”

“Sort of. It was a trap, wasn't it?”

He smiled apologetically. “Yes. I am sorry about that. But since you're here, will you tell me what happened between Private Lopcorn and the mutant Rudler Stackland?”

“They had a fight, but nothing came of it. They figured out it, uh, was a trick.”

“So they did. I regret the contrivance. But I do wish I could have seen Mr. Stackland in action.”

“It was gross. And really dangerous.”

“I have a scientific interest in the Zag-IX survivors,” he explained. “What is the nature of R. Stackland's mutation?”

One of his babies stirred. He patted its deformed cranium, crowned with swollen white veins.

“I couldn't really tell.”

Mocha? Mocha? Can you please hear me? I'd like your help again, I really don't want to talk to this guy. Please? Hello? Hello? Aren't you there?

“I see,” he muttered, shaking his head. “We don't need to discuss it tonight. But I would appreciate hearing some more about what happened, in your own time.”

Can't handle his eye contact so I look down. That's even worse somehow, so I look at him again. His broad-set eyes are those of a primeval predator. He's a bottomless ocean of patience. He doesn't care how long it takes for me to fold.  I flinch from the intense discomfort of the whole situation. It's like staring down a dinosaur fossil and you feel its breath.

“I don't want to talk about that, or anything really.”

“Obviously I can't force you,” he said. “I have a difficult job, Delivery Lemur. I'm responsible for protecting everyone. You have no idea of the danger we're in. I wanted to bring the Zag-IX survivors into the Space Military. One mutant can do more than a thousand of my soldiers. Our force has to be as robust as possible.”

“But why? The aliens are a hoax. You made it all up. Once you convinced President Gault, nobody could stop you.”

“Yes,” Franz nodded. “Before you were born, in the Shark War, I carried Jen Gault out of a shell crater under fire. Her squad left her for dead. I found her quite by accident. I got her home. She owed her life to me. I was trusted; That trust represented an opportunity I could not ignore. I knew how high she would rise. After the Floom Expedition, I showed her my brain-scans and said the lesions were marks of alien torture. I told her horror stories about an all-powerful civilization in deep space. What must we do, what must we do...”

“What do you get out of doing this?” I ask. “Building the Space Beams wasted so many resources that all Eight Galaxies fell into poverty.”

“That's not his fault,” snapped Plum. “Everyone thinks Poppy's a bad person but they're wrong. You'll see. And then you'll feel so silly, once you know. The Space Beams are saving us.”

“Right you are, little lady,” said Franz. “Plum is an A+ student, Delivery Lemur. You should listen to her.”

“If there's a good reason, why did you need to make up something like-”

Welker was looking at his watch and his eyes widened a degree. “It is nearly time. You won't want the miss the New Year's countdown. You're free to go. Commander Cutbarf will take you home.”

He typed something on his phone.

Ding

Beyond the cotton-polyester walls of the little fort, I heard the elevator open. 10 seconds passed.

Franz Welker looked over my shoulder.

“Cutbarf? Son?”

There was no answer. Franz threw the flap aside and went out. He saw the prostrate babbling Cutbarf   on the floor, with tears streaming from his eyes.

Welker twitched, staring uncomprehendingly at the boy.

“What's...” he trailed off. When I stood up, Welker retreated a step. He was rigid with dread.

“What did you do?” he rasped.

I think for a second.

Ah yes. It must seem pretty weird to him that a delivery lemur could get in an elevator with Cutbarf and leave him in such a state. Jeez, how the heck can I explain this?

“Just listen,” I say, getting up. A thin metal object falls out of my pocket and clatters to the floor. A shining steel salad fork. The one Rølvag gave me. Oh I still had that.

Welker's eyes fix on it. His posture changes. The tension in his shoulders makes him quiver slightly.

“Plum, grab that before he puts it in your throat!” he barks. She nabs the salad fork and hops up to hide behind Franz.

He spreads his claws like a protective shield over the deformed human infants in his jacket. He's so scared he looks like he's gonna lose his mind. No one ever looked at me like this before.

“What are you?” he asked, his voice paper-thin.

This I know.

“I'm Delivery Lemur (deliveremur).”

“An assassin lemur? Where were you born?”

“I'm a local. Born & raised down in Bobby Town.”

He took a gun off his belt and pointed it between my eyes. “Tell me what you are.”

I pee. Someone save me?

Mocha hear me please?

. .  .

She can't hear me. I'm alone.

“What are you?” Welker demanded again. He's really freaky and 100% insane. Capable of anything. I have no doubt that he'll murder me.

“I'm- I'm- a regular lemur, what do you want?”

“You're not. You can't be a Psy...What did you do to Cutbarf? ”

“I didn't do anything, it wasn't me. It was a podcaster.”

He looked like he was suppressing a panic attack. Welker pulled the veiny babies up to his chest like they were his final shield. He pointed his gun at my heart.

“You can't be here... I can't have you in here...”

He pulled the trigger.

A white blur was in the corner of my eye. A shape appeared before me faster than the echoing pop of the pistol. Displaced air blew apart the pillow fort. Lopcorn caught the bullet. He swept off Welker's hands and feet with an imperceptible motion and slammed him down head-first.

“रRग痛у疼טឈឺיקчть,” Welker bubbled, his four red stumps spraying gore.

Plum ran to him with wide eyes. “Poppy! Poppy!”

I was looking at Lopcorn. He watched the maimed defense minister until he was satisfied that he was no longer a threat, then he gave me the once-over.

“You okay?”

“Are you real?” I asked him.

“Yeah, you?”

“As far as I know.”

He kissed my mouth. I kissed him back as hard as I could, for everything my little life is worth. I really did.

“How are you here?”

“Your friend Stackland was lurking around in one of his stealth pods. Saw me falling and caught me in a web of his fat. I went through Lugdunum from the bottom, as planned.”

“ αίडाμα muកាиរចាប់čeболWьní, त,n” Franz was gasping.

“4+4 Poppy! You can do it! 4+4!” Plum cried, cradling him.

“ж¿ ..o..cho..” the sloth spluttered.

“10+10! Try 10+10, what's that Poppy?”

He shrieked like he was being boiled. “πό想νοςčč伤ččč베다”

Who does that remind me of?

“Try again! Come on now! What's 10+10!”

“Tw..болен벌 twe!” he shook his head back and forth. “Th.. Twenty. Twenty. Plum?”

She hugged him tighter than ever. “Poppy! You're hurt. What do I do?”

“Take Natasha,” he wheezed. Plum extracted one of the infants.

“Run and wake up Milo right away.”

“Yes! Yes sir!”

She scampered off.

“Call whoever you want,” said Lopcorn. “You're done, Mr. Welker. Pa. This is a citizen's arrest.”

“I am surprised that you would saddle yourself with the karma of such a decision. I did not think you would get over your cold feet,” Franz spoke clearly. He had quashed his strange outburst, and gave no visible sign that he was in pain, despite his ghastly injuries. “You've grown. I congratulate you.”

“Thanks. Now you want to tell me it's an act of self-destruction?”

“I have nothing to teach you, Lopcorn. You've gone your own way. You are your own man now. If you were one of us, you'd know: Our victory was sealed six years ago. There's nothing you can accomplish here. You're going to die a meaningless death.”

A hatch opened in the floor and Plum came back in with a big rooster. Baby Natasha was strapped into a little saddle on its back.

“Good morning, my friend,” said Franz.

Plum put on a big pair of earmuffs. She put another pair on Franz and put baby-sized earmuffs on the two babies.

This rooster was of the Jersey Giant breed. He's as haggard and rumpled as one lightning-struck. His comb was tall and bright red. His blank, baggy eyes were rhythmically swelling and contracting.

“Is this Milo?” Lopcorn asked.

“Ba-Kaw!”

The sky came in. Milo's voice knocked half the building off, and the hundred or so floors above us exploded. Then Milo looked right at me and opened his beak. Lopcorn grabbed me and jumped. We sailed a mile through the air and landed in another tower. Right away another soundwave shattered it to tiny bits, every tile and nail and floorboard undone. He jumped with me again.

“Ba-Kaw!”

My eardrums feel like hot potatoes. The entire city block violently disintegrated under us. Huge chunks of Lugdunum are breaking off and falling into the fog. We retreat and retreat.

“Looks like Welker found a mutant for himself after all.”

“Yes,” I agree. “Let's run away.”

“I'm gonna go kill them somehow,” Lopcorn decided. “Run somewhere and hide. I'll find you.”

“Run and hide with me.”

“Not yet,” he said.

“But. We can just get away.”

“I'm-”

The distant echoing cry of a baby was suddenly close. The thing was right there, with its wailing young rider thrashing in the saddle.

“Ba-Kaw!”

Lopcorn tackled me off the roof a millisecond before the whole structure and the six behind it blew up.

We landed in a crowded intersection where Secret Service rhinos were brawling with the soldiers. They noticed us but before they could even awkwardly pause, Milo erased the street and everything in it with a single breath.

Lopcorn took me under his arm and we ricocheted through the twisted girders and toppled walls. I'm not tough enough for this kind of thing.

“Hey! Slow down!”

Lopcorn doesn't react to my voice. Blood is streaming out of his ears. He looks over when I start waving my arms.

“Oh. I'm deaf,” he said. A statement of fact.

He's been in front of me for all of this, taking the clangor face-first.

“You need a doctor, come on, we'll find somebody.”

“Can't hear you.”

I realize he's woozy and off balance. Then Milo caught up.

“Ba-”

The cracks in the road were distended by a mesh of red veins that uncoiled in the shape of a gum-line, sprouting yellow teeth. Milo was eaten by a giant mouth. There came a muffled “Ba-kaw!”

The jaws were sundered and a tide of blood washed us away. The steaming gore congealed instantly into a trillion long-nailed fingers that drove at Milo from all directions.

“Ba-kaw! Ba-kaw!”

The shockwaves of his voice atomized everything. The broken fingers bubbled and oozed and morphed back into the human figure of Rudler Stackland.

“Ah, hi guys, what is with this chicken?”

“Whaat?” cried Lopcorn.

“He's gone deaf,” I explain.

“Oh... That's not good,” Stackland muttered, wincing. “I don't know how to fight a guy like this. He has mutated vocal cords, that's certain.”

“What do we do?” I ask Lopcorn.

“Whaat? Are you talking about killing the rooster?” he yells.

I nod. “We need a plan! Plan!”

“Rip his head off,” Lopcorn told Stackland. “Just keep trying until we get it.”

“That's – That's the strategy?”

“Can't hear you! I'm going to attack! Help or don't!”

He was off like a shot. Stackland grew a hundred legs and sprang after him.

“Ba-kaw! Ba-kaw! Ba-kaw!”

Even their combined effort was no good. Milo's deadly voice repulsed them over and over.

The air is dust and death and chaos. The whole city was being destroyed. Many had fled but no organized evacuation had begun. A writhing ball of fingers and toes and hair rolled bolder-like through the endless avenues snaking between the old gold skyscrapers. Stackland picked up tremendous velocity (it is dizzying to watch) and aimed his rush at the rooster. He couldn't connect. Milo opened his beak and his cry knocked down buildings like dominos and scattered bloody chunks of Stackland for miles around.

While Milo looked left, Lopcorn appeared at his right like a little cannonball. But it was too easy for Milo to simply turn his head; Lop retreated before the "Ba-Kaw!" carved another canyon through the cityscape. Milo waddled jauntily through the wreckage. Twinkling glass shards fell like snow around him from two buildings that had collapsed against each other, stuck like an A-frame. The sight is awe-inspiring.

Stackland's stomach unleashed a fuming fountain of gastric acid but it was was blown back. He gushed high curtains of blood to obscure Milo's sight, then he charged in from one side and Lopcorn from the other. It was enough to make him swivel and shout twice, but they still couldn't touch him. Milo stepped right up to Stackland and said ba-kaw and burst him. A grotesque profusion of guts and globs and sinew were sprinkled all over the the plaza. Lopcorn ran rings around him, changing directions suddenly and leaping and diving at random. It would only take an instant to close the distance and kill him, but there was no safe way to approach.

I'm so useless sitting up here. Can I figure something out... Is there some classic weakness that all roosters have? I don't know much about roosters.

There must be something, I'll look it up.

As soon as I connect to the internet, all I see is shelter-in-place alerts: the Bolo blockade has been breached, and Possum Patrol has entered the system.

The Space Military is in complete disarray. Tens of thousands of Possum Patrol modems are connecting to Cloudout's federal wifi-sphere and they're spamming every website and fax provider with a text file. I might as well see what it says.

hear the truth, tell the truth

hear the truth, tell the truth

know it,

know it,

tell everybody

hark! we are peaceful

This is the yarn of Forefather Grak:

this is the darkest archive of misery and torment in the whole history of the world

franz was made to eat it. and eat it he did

we possums were there , we've told and retold it . we were there

this is the truth

aboard the Callier long ago

with the preachers and the scholars and the stern stalwart leader, enlightened Franz with his dreams and principals, Franz the veteran and scientist and artist and friend to all. We agreed he was the one who should stand to the fore and meet the aliens

at the end of the  thirteen year journey to the Floom, there was no kaleidoscopic citadel of higher intelligence, no hive or mind nor hivemind. there was a dim little bubble of dark matter that spun clockwise

and Psy Brigade, who were aboard, were bored , and they simmered and they ground their teeth, because they were really all Drifters who pedalled pleasure and pain;

they ate the memories of the traumatized, if they could pay

always carrying the hurt, always holding it, always feeling it.

They are really wretches

the Callier mission seemed a simpler payday so off they go

but 13 years was too long to wait. and to reach a pointless destination: it was too wretched.

psy brigade mutinied and they killed the crew

slowly they did it

they poured out their bank of madness and suffering

The Catfish Pope, a gentle fellow, reached his escape pod thanks to the sacrifice of our kin

on the bridge,

I, Grak, Boss of the Possums, tried to protect Franz but they broke my will

Franz fought them the hardest

so they saved him for last

while i was going mad I saw him crawling

they made a river of pain from brain to brain to brain. Curse them forever!

It was their long-awaited unburdening

they made him their final reservoir

Hark! Drifters can only forget things by making someone else remember it.

they put their full hoard in his mind, and 36 lifetimes was the sum

he didn't die. His spirit held. I, Grak, saw him moving. he shook like a leaf and wriggled like an insect. inch by inch he was crawling

he was going to the helm

he kept his wet eyes on it, forward and forward, forward, onward

as he bore the unbearable grief and horror and insanity, for life after life, every tragedy, every moment of it

he slithered for an hour or a thousand years across the bridge and reached the control panel

he vented the oxygen from the crew quarters and killed them all

then he steered the Callier into the dark matter

there are no aliens in the flume

[the end]

That's weird! Mr. Welker went through something so messed up?

I can't imagine what kind of suffering could drive someone to choose emptiness and pawn their memories. How does it feel to experience 36 lifetimes of that?

It reminds me of Drywowl, who was so traumatized by drifters that she lost her sense of self. She cried like a faucet all day long. Nothing would calm her down, but she liked watching us play board games. Something about the dice or the straight lines or the silly simplicity.

But Drywowl's fine now – Miss Menosky fixed her up in a second. If only she had been on the Callier.

A tremor knocks me off my feet and out of my reverie. I find myself in the midst of the corpses and the groaning near-dead and, slumped bleeders caked with the grey powder of broken concrete or white plaster. The crackling din of the battle and Milo's haunting cock-crows split the ears. Geese and goats and salamanders and all sorts run to and fro, trying to escape both upwards and down, or tucking themselves into hiding spots. They dig through the rubble for buried friends. Then they hear the rooster again, and they're too close this time, and they explosively die.

I call out to her. I shut my eyes and try to go away, to recede. I think her name, I think it over and over and over.

“deliveremur ~ what's going on? are you safe there?”

I'm surrounded by dead bodies i'm trying not to look at them.

She has me and she takes care of me now

~Shhhhh

i'm relieved and i'm okay. I am loved

Miss Menosky! I can feel her/you. What happened in the elevator? How did we get disconnected?

It was so strange ~ it was like your mind was being blotted out and I couldn't find you. All folks everywhere are in such a panic today! I was ~ getting very very concerned!

I though, can you do me an emergency favor ?

yes ~ yes?

There's a rooster here destroying the city. Can you get in his head and make him fall asleep like you did with Cutbarf?

...What rooster? I'm not feeling any rooster around you.

Use my eyes and you'll see it. I'm a mile or two away. Hes down in the square.

That ~ is ~ very ~ strange. I see what you're seeing ~ but I can't feel it! Is that rooster a living thing? With a brain?

he must be, right?

I glimpsed the human on Milo's back and sensed/shared Mocha's revelation. it's deformed.

those pale, thickened cranial veins.

That little baby has sindla syndrome ~ I'm allergic, all psys are. I can't go in the rooster's mind with that sick girl right there ~ she's like a black cloud around him.

How perfectly inconvenient. What are the odds of that?

The battle was not going well. Stackland was trying to amalgamate enough little pieces of himself to form a viable body but Milo spread him like paste thinner and thinner until he covered the city like a spilled smoothie. Lop looks like a buzzing fly, a petty annoyance to the invincible rooster.

Jeez can we really not win with the greatest psy plus Lop and Stackland?

Mocha thinks Aren't you forgetting someone? She means me.

Yes. I must save everybody.

Okay.... what's the logical thing?

I think and think. how to stop a rooster. or just his voice. how to stop the sound. maybe if we were underwater... but that would take a whole ocean. hmm. Sonic vibrations cant go through antimatter, but I don't have any.

Vibration, resonation...

What if I could get a second mutant rooster and get them to say ba-kaw backwards? It would make an inverted sound-wave, like noise cancelling headphones. And then punch him right in the face!

ah that wont work.. what can I do, I've got nothing to work with. I got lots of floss. can we defeat Milo with dental floss?

Can we? Nah that's the stupidest thing yet, it's not like he's

oh we can totally win with floss.

I text lopcorn my idea.

he hides to type an answer and there's a lull in the cacophony.

[lol that would take like a thousand miles of floss]

[I have &30,000,000R worth of floss right on my phone]

[you do. this is the stupidest thing I ever heard but okay. text stackland.]

A moment later he hops up to my perch. I give him my phone. He nods and he's off again.

Though spread as thin as varnish across half of Lugdunum, Stackland's body is still functional. He starts to foam, excreting bubbly saliva.

Lopcorn comes in low, zigzagging through the froth. Milo sees him. Lop gets near, fakes left and right and (dropping something) left again then jumps up. Milo screams at the air but Lop sailed over him.

“Ba-Kaw!”

This one's bad. The city has taken so many of these that a whole quarter of the superstructure is shaken loose. Lugdunum starts to tilt.

A tiny hand, pink and boneless, sprouts from Stackland's paste on Milo's left and feebly reaches for him. Milo blasts it – Lop dives in from the opposite side. Milo steps back and twists his neck, locking his eyes on the incoming hare and blows him away. Again, Stackland musters a tiny attack from the left, just a single finger – mercilessly answered with a full-power sonic-boom. Keenly he anticipates Lopcorn's accompanying attack and repositions himself, but it didn't come. Lop was long gone.

Milo had stepped backwards, into the zigzag trail Lopcorn had made through the spit bubbles.

A dental floss snare tightened around his foot.

Two miles away, Lopcorn held the other end of the trap: my phone. He ran circles around Milo who screamed and screamed, but Lop was out of range. He looped him twice and thrice. The rooster's legs were caught. He tried to shimmy out, keeping his eyes locked on Lopcorn.

Since all the buildings had been flattened, he had a clear field. I've never seen Lop run this hard. Poor guy's been fighting all night. Around and around and around – He's wrapping Milo up like a mummy, spooling out my whole investment.

“Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw!”

Milo's desperate blitz is apocalyptic. But he can't hit Lopcorn. Struggling against his bonds, he starts to lose balance. Finally, he tries to get his beak under the floss to gnaw himself out.

With the threat of reprisal on pause, Lopcorn pulled the line taut and dashed faster than ever. The rooster was bound from hackle to spur. He rolled and bucked wildly.

“Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw!”

He hooked his lower jaw in the tight strands and chomped and tugged and screamed.

Lopcorn circled closer and closer.

Milo twisted and shook with visible distress. Baby Natasha was lurching uncontrollably in the saddle and her earmuffs fell off.

“Ba-Kaw!”

The floss snapped – he freed himself. Natasha's head exploded. Lopcorn had launched himself straight at Milo and couldn't change course. The monster took a deep breath. He opened his baneful throat.

Mocha, right now!

Milo sat down placidly. Lopcorn's kick got him in the sternum, fatally caving it in and splattering him. Nothing was left but a dark smear and a puff of feathers.

Ahh it was probably not necessary to kill him. With just an extra minute I could have explained about...

Lopcorn came and got me.

“That was pure luck. He must have run out of steam at the last second.”

Back at street level, I knocked on Stackland like he was a door (what else can I do) and a little ear formed in the gory ooze.

“Hey, it's Delivery Lemur (deliveremur). Are you okay?”

A mouth forms next to the ear.

“I'll be fine... I need... a bit...”

“Okay. Yeah have a lie-down. Nice work with all the spit. And all the other stuff.”

“..thanks..”

Lopcorn leaned down over the little ear.

“Nice fight. You did good.”

Stackland made a thumb and gave a thumbs-up.

We went back to the half-wrecked department of defense. Franz had not been moved. Plum was tending to his four stumps. She squealed when she saw us.

“Poppy, they're back.”

The sloth looked up at the sky rather than at us. He wheezed hoarsely in and out for a tedious moment before he spoke.

“Oh, you're monstrous. You killed him,” he groaned, turning away in revulsion. “Milo had an important role in the new world. The next few years are going to be much more difficult. I wish you hadn't killed him. That was monstrous of you.”

“What did you do?” demanded Plum. She rose, her eyes streaming. She started pummelling Lopcorn ineffectually. He ignored her.

“Your demon chicken blew out my eardrums, so I didn't hear anything you just said,” he said. “And I wouldn't listen if I could.”

“Yes, yes. Come here, Plum. Stop that please.” He held his stumps up in token of surrender.

Plum gave Lopcorn one more jab and a mean look, and sat back by Welker's side in a huff. His blaring max-volume phone showed Berg Lazerson and Anna Siong broadcasting from the president's office. The live overlay showed Possum Patrol ships overrunning the Cloudout armada and dismantling the Space Beams. Lopcorn broke the phone under his foot as he hoisted the mangled handless footless sloth.

“We're gonna find a judge for you to confess to, then I'm giving you to Berg,” he announced, and started walking toward the center of the city. Plum followed with a sullen frown, carrying the other baby. “You can explain to the world why you blockaded Bolo, and made doomsday weapons, and unleashed a mutant on Lugdunum. None of it worked, by the way. Whatever pointless secrets you were trying to protect about the psys on the Callier are all out in the open.”

I want to talk to him about that. I'll interject, uh...

“I will make a thorough confession. The need for secrecy has passed,” Welker said. “You can lock me up, or behead me. Everything I've done has been to preserve our civilization from torture and extermination. I saved the world.”

If not from aliens, then...

“You means the psys?” I ask. “I think I understand now. Mr. Welker, I know someone who can fix you. I know you were tortured by Drifters and you're suffering constantly.”

“Delivermur?” Lopcorn prompted. “What are you two talking about?”

I hold up a finger. “Just a sec. Mr. Welker, you're wrong about the psys if you think they want to hurt us. They're really nice.”

“Your opinion is meaningless. You're fortunate, lemur, or whatever you are. You have never been felt pain. True suffering will never touch you. You are so fortunate that you will never understand.”

Maybe so; I'm still trying to compute what he meant about saving the world. I have to think for a moment.

“What was in the dark matter anomaly? Were you firing the Space Beams at for six years?”

“A wormhole.”

His watch beeped [11:59 PM] and started a countdown.

“A – huh? A wormhole to where?”

“Its terminus is just outside Galaxy 2.”

Galaxy 2...? That explains the 'impossible' timeline of the Callier's return.

Lopcorn stops walking

“All that continuous shooting...?”

“Yes. Perfectly measured, and angled, and timed,” Welker said. “In a few seconds seconds, the gravitic drift of the Sheol nebula will reveal the far side of the wormhole, and what I've done will be apparent, but it's too late to stop it and too late to flee. At the same instant, six years worth of bombardment will reach the local side of the wormhole and strike every inhabited planet in the Psy Sanctuary.”

“But wait, just wait,” I say. “You don't need to get revenge, I know someone who can take your pain away. I swear. It's no problem. It'll be like it never happened. You can be yourself again.”

It was midnight.

Beedeebeebeep-Beedeebeebeep-Beedeebeebeep-Beedeebeebeep

<Part 2>

[silly-rosemary]

look! shiny! cubic crystal system! iron and sulphur!

[himemeika]

My dumbass playing Genshin Impact stealing everything I possibly can and getting jumped by monsters because of my greed and the poor, poor, NPCs who just want to continue the plot but can't because I'm too busy stealing food from forest animals

[gaygayhom0gay]

i offer you,,, my dumb lil ee headcannons

molly-

-she has a slight caffeine dependency. coming from someone who slept between 5-1 hours for a large majority of middle school theres no way she was getting 5 hrs of sleep, handling school, AND working customer service without caffeine im sorry

-she was really into loom bands before her mom died. ofc she doesnt have the free time anymore but she still has the stuff and giovanni probably found it and freaked out bc. nostalgia

-these r all kinda heavy WHOOPS anyways she gathers random trinkets and rocks she finds laying around to give to trixie

-autistic (its cannon bc im autistic so my word is law /j)

-accidentally caused the energy drink incident and still feels guilty about it

giovanni-

-nail polish horder. he tends to stick to black but whats so wrong with having 239 other options??

-claires shopper omg him and molly go on lil trips sometimes bc those fuckers always have buy 3 get 3 free sales

-he has a ridiculously varied music taste. hes been banned from the banzai mobile's aux due to playing the wii shop theme directly after hand me my shovel, im going in! by will wood

-absolutely a theater kid him and all of his boys give theater kid vibes sorry not sorry

-he wears contacts because "GLASSES ARE FOR LOSERS!!!" or some shit

-plays animal crossing and cried when his favorite villager asked to move out

sylvie-

-absolutely cannot stand coffee. it disgusts him to no end.

-he goes thrifting a lot? idk why he would but he does

-is equally fascinated and terrified by mollys infinite marshmallow hair

-hoards sheep related things???? plushies, mugs, posters, stickers, you name it.

-randomly infodumps about the weirdest shit (me too)

-favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip. no elaboration.

-used to get bullied on roblox

mera-

-bullies kids on roblox

-bjd collector!!! i think i got this one from a fic but i cannot remember which one oopsies

-had every internet phase. poor girl was stuck inside for YEARS she was 100% a cringey internet kid and tbh??? good for her

-she had a 3ds and was obsessed with it. her nintendogs and animal crossing village were the only things keeping her sane at times

-not fully a hc but she'd rock gothic lolita. we all know it.

-has a ferret. its name is snowshoe bc it has lil white footies

-absolute eyeliner god

[theladyofmanyfandomsfanfiction]

Fear

Pairing: Jon Snow x Reader (with the ability to summon fire)

Inspiration: Season 7, Episode 6 - Beyond The Wall

Warnings: Language

Author note: Honestly my favourite scene! I had writing fever straight after.

Summary: You travel with Jon, Tormmund, Clegane and Beric and others beyond the Wall when you’re ambushed by wights.

Clegane and Tormmund slammed their bodies atop the creature to stop it from running off. It growled and screeched in a way that chilled their bloods more than the weather itself. Jorah grabbed rope from his bag and passed it to Gendry who hastily wrapped it around the creatures legs. The rest of the company watched on, ready to pounce if the creature got too powerful. 

“Jon.” You called out, voice slightly distant and distracted.

Turning to you instantly, Jon worried if you had been injured during the scuffle but it seemed that you weren’t paying any attention to them capturing the wight. 

Your eyes were wide and drawn to a large opening, face frozen with fright. Jon walked closer and noticed that you were breathing far quicker than normal after a fight. He placed a hand over your stomach to remind you that he was there and that you were going to leave but his voice was stuck in his throat when you let out a choked sob. 

“He’s coming.”

Jon was back on high alert at your words. Without questioning how you knew what you knew, he looked out in the same direction. Suddenly, everything fell silent and he heard the wind picking up in the distance with a faint rumbling. The sound of an avalanche drawing near with each second could be heard and the temperature around them dropped rapidly. 

Turning to where his company were restraining the wight, he saw that Jorah had noticed the same as fear latched onto him as well. Knowing that nothing good was coming, Jorah worked as fast as possible in throwing a bag over the monsters head. 

Thinking quick, Jon ran over to Gendry. 

“Run over to Eastwatch. Send a raven to Daenerys - tell her what’s happened.” He rushed out, frantically looking in different directions for a way out. 

“I’m not leaving you-“

“You’re the fastest. Go. Now!” Jon demanded, knowing that the danger was growing alarmingly fast and pushed the young boy in the direction he needed. Jon bolted off towards the large opening, grabbing you by the arm on his way. He couldn’t waste breath explaining himself. 

Quickly glancing back, he saw that the rest of the company were also following fast as the rumbling noise started to grow. He hoped that they’d have an advantage on open ground as one rock formation stood in the middle of an ice plain. 

Crack!

“Stop!” Jorah shouted, halting everyone suddenly. 

You finally snapped out of your fear-induced state and realised that the ice beneath your feet had started to crack. 

The noise behind switched from a rumble to a violent shake and, upon turning back, you all saw a hoard of wights charging for you. 

“Run!” 

Forgetting about the thin ice, you broke for the rock in the centre - praying to any god that was listening that it would be enough. The wights followed succeeding in taking down one of the nights watch. However, the weight of the creatures violent movements, broke the ice floor and drowned them. 

Once safely upon the rock, the company found that a ring of ice shattered around them which forced the wights to stand back. It was tense. The dead creatures stood silent, watching with blue eyes at the prey. They were ready to pounce.

“What are they waiting for?” Jorah asked. His question was met with silence, save for a few painful groans from Beric being tended to.

What were they waiting for?

“I can feel him.” You shivered, having taken a seat on a broken slab of snow-covered stone. 

“You sound like you fucked the Night King.” Clegane growled. He was tense and, quite frankly, tired of all this White Walker business. His remark blew over your head as your body trembled. 

“You don’t understand. I can’t feel my fire. Without it, my abilities won’t work.” 

Clegane rolled his eyes and grabbed you by both arms, shaking you so rough that, for a second, you thought he was trying to kill you. 

“Listen here! We’re fighting an army of dead fuckers who will rip you to shreds if you don’t get your shit straight!” He shouted. 

A hand landed on his arm and forced him a few steps back. “Get away from them!” Jon ordered. 

Clegane shook his head and turned away, muttering loudly for them to hear, “What good is a fucking 'phoenix’ if they’re scared?” 

Jon scowled at the man, almost regretting that he was with them. Then, he turned to you, crouching to your level. 

“Hey, they can’t get to us. See?” He pointed beyond the ring of water. “It’s alright.”

You frowned and looked up at him – your unintended fury surprising the young man. 

“It’s not fucking alright! And I’m not fucking scared!” You snapped, the latter part of our outburst aimed at the Hound before focusing on Jon again. “I can’t summon fire if my insides are frozen. I can’t use it to fight and I can’t do anything to help.”

Jon sighed and placed a hand on your cheek. He knew what it was like to feel lost and hopeless without the one thing he relied on. 

“Then fight. Fight to stay alive.” He told you and you instinctively gripped your Valeriyan steel sword. Just listening to his voice, made you feel like your situation wasn’t so deadly. You leaned into Jon’s touch and wondered how he was emanating heat in such conditions. 

“Only if you promise that you’ll fight to see me after this.” 

Jon chuckled for the first time since he reached beyond the Wall. He knew there was always a catch with you. Deep down, he wished he hadn’t asked you to come. You wouldn’t be in this kind of danger if he hadn’t opened his mouth. 

“I swear on my life,” He began. “That we’ll see each other after this.”

Beric paced past the couple and sighed, “I pray to the Lord of Light for it to be true.” 

It wasn’t long before night had fallen. Your energy was spent but you did everything you could from falling asleep but it was weakening you. Jon moved closer despite the winter chill biting his face. 

“Get some rest.” He insisted. 

You looked at him sadly, whispering back a small, “I can’t.” 

Clegane was taking the lookout and walked past with a loud groan. “Just go to sleep, for fucks sake.” 

Tormmund frowned at Clegane and stepped in front of him, “Watch your tone.” 

Clegane pushed past the Wildling and walked away from the Brotherhood for some peace of mind. Ignoring the Hound, Jon helped you sit down and let you press yourself against him for warmth. 

He didn’t sleep, he was on too high of an alert to close his eyes. But it seemed that being beside him, calmed you enough to lower your guard and worries. In no time at all, Jorah managed a small smile in your direction. 

“Perhaps with some rest, we may get our (Y/n) back.” He said. “Tyrion will not forgive me if his dearest friend doesn’t return.” 

“Nor would my sisters.” Jon nodded. “Or myself.”

It wasn’t long before each of them succumbed to the temptation of sleep in the cold silence. Sitting beside each other to not die. When they woke it was to the sound of their wight captive growling and snarling beneath the bag on its head. 

One by one they all stood up and saw that the wights hadn’t moved from the day before. The stood still and silent. They also realised that they had lost one of their own during the night. Saying their goodbyes as Beric prayed to the Lord of Light, Jon poured alcohol over the body before Beric lit up his sword and set his friends remains afire. 

Jon sighed and walked away to look out over at their problem, hoping that Daenerys was on her way. Jorah also made his way over and, together, they tried to solve the mystery of why the wights fell after Jon killed the White Walker. 

You were stood beside Tormmund when you felt a jolt of fear, shock through your body and fell forward on your knees - limbs numb and bones rattling. You gasped when you felt your chest constrict as if something had found its way to your heart and was trying to crush it. 

Closing your eyes briefly to null the pain, you saw the blue eyes of the Night King. 

Tormmund was at your side instantly, quickly and gently grabbing your arm to get you up, “On your feet, little flame.” He ushered. You caught your breath and looked up past the wights and to the ledge above them. 

There he was. Sitting on his horse with his generals behind. 

“He’s here.”

Tormmund helped you over to where Jon took a seat and left you with him. You sat quietly as talking would waste breath and you needed to save as much as you could for when the dead attacked. 

Crunch.

You and Jon turned sharply over to where Clegane was crouched over the end of the rockface. Tossing small stones to the side to grab a larger one. 

The pair watched as he stood back up, leaned back and then hurled the rock at the dead. There was a sickening slam against one of the skeletons as its jaw fell off. 

“Are you trying to piss them off?” You reprimanded. 

“Nope. Just you.” Clegane replied. 

You rolled your eyes angrily at him and watched as he hurled another rock - this one however, slid on the newly hardened ice and hit an undead foot.

“Shit.” You muttered and stood up. Jon thought the same and joined your side, remembering that you were fighting to stay alive.

Masterlist here

[purplesorcery]

“  for once in your life, what is it that you want? ”

From this prompt list.

Gilmore smiled sadly. “You know, it’s funny. No one ever asks me that.”

“No shit,” Kima said. “That’s why I did. And you gotta answer. None of that vague hand-wavy shit you always do when the focus is on your needs.” 

Gilmore laughed out loud. She was always so direct. “I love you.” 

“Same. Now answer the question, before I kick your thicc purple ass. No more trying to change the subject.” 

Gilmore took a deep breath and released it before answering. “I want…everything. I don’t necessarily want to keep it, but I want to hold it in my hands and see what it’s worth at least once. I want to be worshipped and adored, but not in a way that brings oppression or subjugation. I want to be adored in a way that makes people delight to see me, that lifts their hearts and inspires them to do what makes them happy. I want to be loved for who I am, not for my unique talents or this glorious facade. I want to be truly seen, by someone who wants to see me for me. Who can look at me with all of my flaws and imperfections and not flinch away.” 

“Well give a whole lecture why don’t you.” But when Gilmore glanced up at Kima, he could see she was teasing. “Hey, I gotta give you credit. You didn’t outright say, ‘I want all the gold and gems in the world’.”

“Darling, I’m a dragon, not a monster. Just because I’m driven by my very nature to hoard precious things doesn’t mean I want to hoard everything.”

Kima grinned. “Just the stuff that’s worth the most.”

Gilmore shrugged humbly. “It’s subjective. What might appear to be trash to someone else could certainly be treasure to me.” 

“You mean like a certain half elf?” 

Gilmore swatted at her, playfully. “Stop. You’re so mean.” 

“Hey. I’d gladly take back my title of dumpster fire for the guy if he’d ONE time treat you like a person with feelings, and not his own personal therapy rock.” 

Gilmore shrugged, pretending it didn’t bother him. “He’s troubled, and he trusts me. I can’t be mad at that.” 

Kima leaned forward, almost threateningly. “Yes. You. Can.” She put her hands on her hips. “That little fucker never comes around here but he wants something from you. And what do you get in return? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Not so much as a thank you.” 

She clapped her hands on each of the words she said next: “Your emotional labor has value.” Kima gestured with her hands as she continued: “It’s not okay for him to demand it of you time and time again, much less for free!” 

Gilmore tilted his head. “Well, isn’t that what friends are for?” 

Kima got right up in his face. “Fuck no! Are you kidding me, goldie? Friends share each other’s burdens. They don’t just take take take with no thought for what the other person is going through.” She stood back and pointed at him. “Admit it. Generous as you are, even you have to admit that you deserve better.” 

Gilmore let out a laugh that was half sigh. “Well of course I do.” 

She clapped her hands again. “Then why do you keep letting him use you like this?”  

Gilmore shrugged. “Perhaps it’s my generous nature. Or maybe…” His expression grew pensive. “Perhaps I’m afraid I wouldn’t see him at all anymore, if I ever stopped.” 

“That.” Kima pointed at him and then hopped up on the couch to sit next to him. “That is the truest thing you’ve said today.” 

When Gilmore opened his mouth to protest, she stopped him. “Don’t say anymore. Just think about it.” 

Gilmore cradled his cup of tea, feeling somehow worse than he had in some time. “Hey.” Kima nudged him. “I love you, queen. You know I just want to see you get the appreciation you deserve.” 

She was right, of course. That was the worst part. If he was honest with himself, Gilmore wasn’t sure Vax’ildan had ever truly seen him. Or that he had any desire to. 

“You are…” Gilmore searched for the words. He did love her. Deeply. “...a good friend.” 

“You’re damn right I am,” Kima shot back. “Now help me think of what to get Allie for our anniversary. You know I’m no good with the whole mushy gift thing.”

“Ooo.” Gilmore smiled, brightening immediately. “Can it involve shopping?” 

Kima grimaced. “Oh, fuck me.” 

His smile widened. “You asked.”

[holding-infinity-and-a-book]

this is about a friend i have who is amazing i mean his humour is from a different world and he's probably from another era and like his brain he is smart and loves to know interesting shit and has collected facts and little gems of information and hoarded them like a dragon and yeah he lives under a rock for bollywood and all but he is still mind-blowing and a brilliant friend and like a genuinely awesome person like so many talents im like how????? and im just so grateful for him and if any of you fuckers find out who is and send this to him i will find you and cut open your meddlesome brain and make a soup out of it and feed it to you <3 <3

[xtrashmammalstefx]

Where My Demon’s Hide (A Zak Bagans x Nephilim Reader SMUT!)

WARNINGS: SMUT, LANGUAGE

SPECIAL THANKS TO: @xcazzax​ who not only gave me this idea but who has inspired me to maybe write Zak Bagans fics for each day of October (or at least try to). Thanks girly, for helping me get my mojo back. 😊

I arrived at the Asylum just as they were setting up the cameras. I've been with the GAC for a few years now and I have yet to have a boring day with them. They are and always will be my family. Aaron, was like a goofball older brother who smokes like a chimney, looks tough as shit but is actually chicken shit (not that that's a bad thing, lord knows I'm not brave when locked in a haunted room  on my lonesome). Billy is my punk rock brother who has also not grown out of the punk/emo phase of life. Jay is the responsible one of the group (aka the dad) who sometimes looks like he's ashamed of having raised such dumbass kids.  And there's Zak, the main man of GAC who is both crazy and beautiful. He wasn't afraid to get in an evil spirits face, and even opened up his home to those who were harming others in their old one's. It's that twisted generosity that has led to moments like these.

Aaron looked nervous and Billy seemed to not want to leave the van unless absolutely necessary. That only meant one thing.

“How is he?” I asked Aaron who was getting the equipment ready.

“Um, well...”

“ C'MON SHOW YOURSELF YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!” We heard Zak yell from inside the asylum.

“Oh,” I sighed. I swear it was like Zak attracted evil (and sometimes demonic) spirits like chocolate attracts a hoard of kids. Then again he was more than okay with investigating places with the most gruesome of histories. “I'll see if I can cool him down before the shoot. Just hang tight.”

“'Kay, good luck Y/N.” Aaron said.

I grabbed a flashlight from the van and walked in to the asylum. Zak was in the middle of reception area with a wild look in his eye. “Zak?”

He looked at me. “There's something here I-I know it!”

I looked around not seeing anything until my eyes landed on a shadowy figure hovering around Zak. Ah shit. “Zak it's not one of the residents,” I said. “One of your little friends is just being an asshole.”

The shadow looked up and snarled at me.

“Yeah I'm talking about you,” I rolled my eyes. “Now kindly fuck off before I hose your sorry ass down with holy water.”

It growled and vanished.

“Thanks,” Zak said calming down a bit.

“We really need to do something about this Zak,” I said. “You can't keep letting them get to you like that. It's how they win.”

“I know but...I don't know how else to keep them from hurting anyone,” he said. “From hurting you.”

“Well it's gone for now, and that's all that matters,” I said brushing his cheek with my hand. “Now are we just gonna chill in here or are we gonna investigate this bitch?”

He smirked. “C'mon my ghost whisperer let's get you a mic and a camera.” He threw his arm around my shoulders and escorted me back out of the asylum and to the GAC van.

Eventually the sun went down fully and the haunting hour was upon us. “Okay Y/N why don't you stay here by yourself for a bit and see what you can get.” Zak said when we reached the children's ward.. Sadistic fucker.

“Sure,” I said. He and the crew left and I sat down cross-legged on the ground and put my 'gift' to work. “Hello there. I was wondering if we could talk for a minute if that's okay.” I placed the spirit box on the floor in front of me. “You see this little box? Well if you talk into it I can hear you...er I mean the world will hear you. I for one don't really need it. So what do you say?”

“D-Do you know where my mommy is?” A small voice called out in the darkness.

I sighed. “No sweetie, I don't...what's your name?”

“H-Hazel,” she said.

“It's nice to meet you, Hazel, I'm Y/N,” I said. “Can you do me a favor and speak into this?” I motioned at the spirit box. “My friends really want to know you, and help you if we can.”

“R-Really? Wuh-What about Dr. Meanie?” she asked.

“Dr. Bronson can't hurt you anymore,” I said. “And if he tries, he'll have to deal with me.”

I suddenly felt a weight on my lap, like that of a small child snuggling up to mommy.

“I-Is this okay?” she asked.

“Yes, beautiful, it's fine.” I reached out and wrapped my arms around her. “God, how did such a sweet little angel like you end up here? This is no place for a child.”

“M-Mommy came here when I was still in her tummy,” she explained. “They took me away after I was born and I never saw her again.”

“Do you know how you ended up like this?” I asked. “You're awfully young to be as you are.”

“I-I got sick...Dr. Meanie wouldn't give me my medicine 'cause I slapped Tippy on the head for pulling my hair. One day I went to sleep, and...and suddenly I was invisible.”

“Have you tried to go into the light?” I asked. “I'm sure you'll find your mommy there, and someday I'll be there too.”

“I thought I saw it once but...I was afraid. Dr. Meanie tells us it's not safe.”

“It is safe,” I said. “I promise you it is a thousand times better than this place.” I wanted to say shit hole but I had a rule about cussing in front of kids, even the dead ones.

“It's in my room,” she whispered.

I sniffed back a tear and kissed the top of her head. “Go to it,” I urged her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, angels belong in heaven after all,” I said brushed her cheek and she giggled.

“Thank you, Ms. Y/M,” she said standing up and vanishing through the nearby doorway.

“Good bye sweet angel,” I said before turning off the spirit box and pausing my camera.

I left the ward and got Zak on the walkie. “Alright, I'm done.”

“'Kay I'm down in the basement if you wanna...WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“Zak?” He didn't answer. “ZAK!?” Still nothing. I sighed. “Dammit.”

I took off running.

Down in the basement Zak was looking around and shouting like a madman. “Zak what happened?! What's going on?!”

“There was a shadowing standing right fucking next to me,” he said. I looked around and sure enough a tall shadowy figured hovered behind him.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” I snapped at it.

“My, my...” it said smugly. “Aren't you an interesting specimen.”

“Leave us alone, now!” I said. It laughed. “I'm not fucking around! Leave and never return to this sacred ground.” He flinched at the words I've said more times than I would like.

“Foolish woman,” he laughed. “This place is anything but sacred.”

“It wasn't in your time,” I said walking towards a nearby wall. “But now...” I took my bottle of holy water and dabbed some onto my hand. I then drew a cross on the wall.

“Is that all you got?” the demon scoffed.

I smirked. “Lesson number one in haunting,” I said taking out my small switchblade. I made a small cut on my fore finger  and drew a symbol on the wall above the cross. A symbol no demon could fight against. “Don't piss off a Nephilim.”

The empty pits where it's eyes once were widened and a loud roar erupted from its mouth.  

“I, Y/N, the daughter of Michael send thee to the house of thy uncle Lucifer...may he not have mercy on your soul.” The ground opened up and the shadow was swallowed by a wall of flames. “I hate fucking demons,” I muttered once it was gone.

Zak looked at me in shock. “Is there really never gonna be a time when this doesn't surprise you?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said snapping out of it.

“You feeling okay?” I asked placing my hand on his cheek.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks...”

“Anytime,” I said pecking him on the cheek.

We continued investigating and got plenty of evidence that made sleeping not an option for the next year.

That night we were hold up in a hotel. I couldn't sleep so once I was showered and jammied up I went for a walk. So many different things ran through my mind and I tried to sort them out as best I could. But then I heard the shouting...

“LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!” Zak damn near roared. “For fucks sake!” I heard him cry.

I went up to his door and knocked furiously. “Zak it's me, let me in!”

“Not now Y/N,” he begged.

“Yes now,” I snapped at him. “I know there's someone there with you and I'm the only one who can help, so let me fucking in!”

A moment later the door opened and Zak stood there looking exhausted and just done with life. It was terrifying and heartbreaking. ..but it was nothing compared to what his friend looked like. It was a snarling beast with skin resembling that of a dried date; brown and shiny. It's arm was around Zak's neck, holding him in a choke-hold. “He is mine.” It said, it's voice deep and chilling.

“No,” I said. “No he fucking isn't!”

I wrapped my arms around Zak and the demon let go as though it had burned. “A daughter of Michael...why am I not surprised?”

“In the name of my father leave this place!” I demanded.

“Brave like your father...” It said. “Unfortunately you're as foolish as he is as well. Watch your back daughter of Michael for I am not the only one in this world and my brethren aren't as friendly as I...” Friendly. My. Ass.

“IN THE NAME OF MY FATHER LEAVE THIS PLACE YOU COCKAROACH LOOKING SHIT!” I demanded once more...this time he listened.

With the demon gone I pulled back. “It's gone.”

Zak nodded. “Which one was it?”

“I think it was one of the pests you picked up at Bobby Mackey's.” I explained helping him to his bed.

“I thought we got rid of all of them?” he asked.

“Yeah well it seems this conniving little fucker did a good job of hiding during the clean up,”  I said. “You gonna be okay?”

“I think so,” he said. “But I'd still feel better if you stayed...if that's alright.”

“You don't even have to ask,” I said rubbing his back with my hand. “Jesus,” I gasped. “You're burning up!”

“I just had a hot shower...the tap might have been busted 'cause shit was that water scalding.” I rolled my eyes.

“It didn't burn you too bad did it?” I asked. He shrugged. “Alright off with the shirt.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “Not like that...I just wanna check for burns.”

He pulled off his t-shirt and tossed it aside. I crawled behind him on the bed and inspected his back. His skin was smooth, without so much as a scar. Even the tattoo on top was left unscathed. I leaned in and brought my lips to it. “You're good,” I said.

He turned around and our faces were suddenly closer than they've ever been. “Z-Zak?”

He said nothing...just leaned in and brought his lips to mine. So far in this brief life I've had four unforgettable nights.

The first was when I first met my dad when I was five. The second was when I found out what I was when I was thirteen...I felt at peace knowing everything I'd experienced finally made sense. The third was when I used my power to help the spirit of my best friend move on after a drunken asshole took her life. The fourth was the first time I went to Zak's house and gave him answers about the entities there.

And now...I was experiencing my fifth.

After a while Zak and I leaned back on the bed. His pants wound up joining his shirt, and eventually my clothes followed. I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight as he pushed into me. I gasped. Like the rest of him, his length was pretty... thick.

I whimpered as he moved inside me. Our skin slapped together and he grunted with almost every thrust. I don't know how much time had passed but eventually I tightened around him, my toes curling up. “ZAAAK!!!” I moaned as my whole body tensed up.

Zak thrust a few more time, each time becoming more sloppy. “FUCK!” He groaned as he filled me up. He collapsed beside me and eventually sleep overcame us.

“I love you,” I whispered just before I fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up needing very badly to pee. I tiptoed to the bathroom (not wanting to wake Zak) and relieved myself. When I got back Zak was sitting up with a confused look on his face.

“Zak?” I said sitting back down next to him.

He looked at me and tightened the blanket around his hips. “Y/N? WHAT THE FUCK?”

“What? What's wrong?”

“What's wrong? Are you fucking serious?” he said freaking out. “You're naked! FUCK, I'M NAKED! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?!”

“Y-You mean you don't remember?” I said suddenly feeling uneasy.

“I remember coming back to the room after the investigation. I-I remember the inhumanly hot shower...then I saw this..this thing...next thing I know I'm waking up naked and raw.” My unease grew.

“I-I don't under...” I suddenly saw a dark, leathery skinned figure standing beside Zak's side of the bed. It had a sickening smirk on it's face.

“My brother was right, daughter of Michael,” it snarled. “You really are foolish.”

Realization hit me like a truck.

“SON OF A-!”

[immortalcoelacanth]

Between the Walls, Chapter 3: To Earn His Keep (Dream SMP fic)

*hits table*

I have so many wips, why is my muse just like this?

Word count: 5313

Summary: Jobs are assigned and questions are asked as to why the hell Tommy and Techno are still putting up with one another.

Tommy had been confused as to what Techno meant by him having to work to earn the right to stay in his house. What work could he possibly do that would benefit him?! He couldn’t chop wood, or mine any precious resources. Crafting was also out of the question since he could only make things that were good for someone his size, so that left…

Nothing.

There was nothing he could do. There was no possible job that would suit him that Techno would benefit from, so he honestly had no idea what would come of the deal they had made. Perhaps nothing at all, and he would be allowed

Yeah right, as if he had ever been that lucky.

“TECHNOBLAAAAAADE! YOU FUCKING DICKHEAD!” Tommy howled as he clutched the wooden bars of the makeshift cage he was in. It was practically a repurposed box, the gap between the bars being too slim for the borrower to slip through, but even if they were big enough, he wouldn’t dare escape.

Primarily because of the large pit of groaning mods below him.

Apparently, the “work” Techno had planned for him was nothing more than him acting as bait for a basic mob farm. He was suspended above a pit, his cage attached to a wooden outcropping, and the faint glowing of the strange, red and orange cubes below him allowed him to easily see the hoard of zombies, skeletons, and the occasional creeper milling about.

He glanced back at the house and scowled, knowing Techno was probably sitting inside, all safe and warm. The cage barely blocked out any of the freezing winds, and since Tommy hadn’t been able to grab a jacket before being put out here, there was nothing to protect him from the cold. He was stuck, freezing and yelling at the top of his lungs.

Damn that stupid pig-

… Or hybrid.

It was a term the borrower was vaguely familiar with, he had been eavesdropping when one of the farmers back in Borrowton mentioned “hybrid plants” and how useful they could be. From what he knew, hybrids were like a sort of mixture, two different things being used to make one. Two different plants producing a new one.

He guessed one of Techno’s parents really was a pig fucker.

Tommy snorted at the joke before shuddering in the brisk breeze, arms wrapping tightly around himself while he huddled up on the floor of the cage. It sucked, being out here with nothing but the mobs for company. At least when he had been with Techno, he’d been able to interact, to socialize. It was something that he had always craved, to be able to reach out and connect with people. Even Techno’s occasional barbs, jokes, and the anger he caused Tommy to feel was better than being stuck outside.

Bastard, going from acting like he wanted to protect him to sticking him out here.

… Speaking of which, it had been very strange to witness that exchange. See the way that Techno hesitated to reveal his presence, and the fact that he had tried to hide Tommy further after the librarian made it aware that he knew the borrower was there. Some part of him had cheered, recognizing that maybe the pig-hybrid actually cared about him in some way, even though they had only known one another for about a day, but Techno’s actions earlier-

“What’re you making?” Tommy hesitantly asked as tried to stare at the crafting table. He had basically been told, ordered, to wait on the table while Techno finished whatever it was that he was making. Not wanting to anger the pigman, he had reluctantly done his best to stay in place.

Fidgeting the entire time, of course. Staying put had never been his strong suit.

“Just something to help with your new job.” Techno explained before turning around and showing off the cage he had made. “Gonna make things a lot easier.”

“... What’re you gonna put in it, then?” Tommy questioned, not at all liking where this was going. Of course, the answer he got was one he had expected, but still never wanted to hear.

“You, duh.”

Techno grinned, and Tommy felt his heart drop.

“You’re gonna be the bait.”

Had obliterated the small sparks of that hope. Techno didn’t care about him and only saw him as a means to an end. Probably why he got so huffy when that other guy noticed him. Clearly no one was allowed to mess with or torment Tommy unless it was Techno himself-

Twang!

The borrower let out a startled yelp as an arrow slammed into the side of his cage, making it rock and sway. He scrambled to the side of the enclosure and tried to spot what had shot at him. His eyes scanned the empty yard, briefly landing on the empty stall that Techno must have built for some reason. It was weird to just have that structure sitting there, all empty and ready for some animal to inhabit it-

There!

Tommy shook himself out of his thoughts as he spotted the source of the arrow. A lone skeleton that had, somehow, not stumbled over and fallen into the pit, was aiming at him, bow drawn and another arrow pointed in his direction. He immediately backpedaled, arms flailing as the newest arrow was released, just barely missing the cage.

Shit, shit!

“Fuck off you stupid bitch!” Tommy howled as the skeleton readied another arrow. As it was aimed at him, his panic and the pitch of his voice increased until he was practically shrieking. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU-”

Twang!

Another arrow slammed into the skeleton’s skull, bone shattering and turning to dust. The monster dropped to the ground, the fallen bow and arrows the only sign of it ever having been there, and he quickly looked over at what, or who, had shot the arrow.

Technoblade.

Of course.

“Couldn’t have shown up any sooner, you bitch?!” He shouted, internally cringing when those too bright, red eyes landed on him. He watched as the hybrid rested the crossbow he had used to kill the skeleton on his shoulder before making his way over to the wooden post. He glared down at Techno, more than aware of how not intimidating he looked as he shuddered in the cold. Although, his glare lightened up when he was finally removed from the post, less exposed to the winds as he was unintentionally sheltered by the hybrid’s body.

“I was just testing a hypothesis I had.” Techno simply responded. The borrower waited to see if he would elaborate on what that meant. A moment passed, then two, and then-

“Well tell me then! You don’t need to act so secretive!”

That tiny, near invisible smile on Techno’s face grew as he started to speak. “A hypothesis on whether your voice is annoying enough to instantly agro mobs, and it is from the looks of it. Congratulations-”

“Wh-you bitch!” Tommy sputtered as he raged and pointed aggressively at the amused hybrid. “I have the voice of an angel! It’s not annoying!”

As if trying to prove Techno’s point, and in turn prove the borrower wrong, another arrow was launched at the duo. Techno easily dodged it, hardly sparing a glance at the new skeleton as he returned fire and took it down, while Tommy was jostled about thanks to the sudden movement. He just barely managed to stop himself from smacking his head against the wooden bars, and that scowl on his face grew deeper.

For some reason, Techno possessed the uncanny ability to infuriate Tommy no matter what he did. Whether it was his occasionally smug, know-it-all attitude or how obtuse he could be at times, there was just something about him that never failed to upset the borrower.

… Not that he would ever tell him, of course.

Of course, his general unease and anxiety towards this new situation did not help in the slightest, leaving him on edge and ready to snap when something potentially bad happened. It was a miracle he had not been killed yet, and he quietly wondered how much longer his luck would last.

Not that such a thought would stop him from acting like how he typically did.

So, as was in his nature, Tommy immediately started shouting and cursing once more. “And why the fuck did you stick me up there for so long, anyways?! It was freezing up there-”

“You wanna go for round two?” Techno interrupted, lifting the cage up so Tommy could easily see the wooden post he had been hanging from. Immediately, the borrower backed up and started shaking his head.

“No! No, c’mon man! I was just teasing you!” He backpedaled. “Just a little joke, I swear!”

“The only joke here is your accidental pun.” Techno quipped, his smile growing as he watched realization, and then horror, cross Tommy’s face.

“Listen! It’s-it’s a crime to make jokes about me being small, because I’m not! Absolutely criminal!”

Techno let out another chuckle as he shut the door behind him and made his way towards the table. “It’s a good thing I don’t follow laws, then.”

Tommy didn’t dare ask what that meant.

Fortunately, a distraction soon appeared in the form of the cage being set down on the table, followed by one of the sides being removed. He quickly jumped out once there was enough room for him to move, stumbling a bit over the lip of the cage before he straightened himself out.

He ignored the amused snort he heard from beside him, not at all looking at Techno, and instead chose to bask in the sensation of finally being indoors, even if he was still freezing. Tommy shuddered as he wrapped his arms around himself, doing his best to heat up after being exposed to the cold for however long he had been stuck outside. The roaring fireplace definitely helped to chase away some of the chill, and he found his eyes lingering on the large pot that had been added to the fireplace. The air smelled… nice, and it looked like Techno had decided to make soup for himself.

Strange, since he swore the hybrid’s diet consisted of nothing but steak and the occasional, weird sparkly apple.

God, he’d been dying to bite into one of those and see what they tasted like…

He jumped in surprise as Techno placed a small, obviously handmade, wooden bowl filled with soup on the table. Curious, he slowly walked over and checked it out. It was still a bit too large for him to use, he’d probably drown himself if he tried to drink straight from it, but it was definitely much more manageable for him to use.

“Is… is that for me?”

The hybrid just nodded as he got himself his own bowl of soup. As such, he was unaware of how Tommy’s jaw dropped in pure shock, as he carefully traced the side of the bowl. The guy who’d spent the last twenty four hours tormenting him had made something for him, made something that would make his life easier!

He hadn’t been given any cutlery when he’d been kicked out of Borrowton, all he had were some basic tools and rations of food. The absolute bare necessities. And, instead of letting him suffer and search for something he could use, Techno had made it using his own two hands.

It dawned on him, in some strange, iconic twist of fate that he had unintentionally helped Tommy out more than his own people had. Invested more care into making sure he didn’t just survive, but was also comfortable.

… And not spilling soup all over the place-

Regardless, it was one of the last things he would have ever expected from Techno, and he quietly wondered if the hybrid had been working on the bowl while he had been stuck outside. Was this…

A reward?

Tommy’s breathing hitched and he quickly wiped his eyes before any of the budding tears could fall, idiot, crying over something as stupid as a bowl. By the time he had gotten his emotions under control, Techno had looked over to find him just staring at the bowl, appearing to be doing nothing.

“Did you expect me to spoon feed you or something?” He chuckled, waiting for Tommy to respond. When the borrower said nothing, his smile faded. “Bruh-”

“Don’t look at me like that!” Tommy objected, nearly knocking the bowl over as he turned his attention to Techno. “I’m just surprised! Big, bad, Blade making a bowl, never thought I’d see the day. Guess you’ve got little dainty girl hands for that!”

Techno rolled his eyes as the borrower continued rambling, tuning him out as he went about his supposedly dainty hands, and questions about if he made bird houses in his spare time. Eventually, Tommy got that he was done interacting, and the duo focused on their respective meals, with the borrower burning his tongue in his haste to try the soup.

“Fuck.” He hissed, waving a hand over the bowl to help it cool down as he cringed in pain. After waiting for the burning sensation to fade, as well as checking to see whether the soup had cooled down enough, he carefully tried again.

As he slowly sipped away at his soup, he watched as Techno made his way over to a chair, picking up the book that had been placed on it, as well as putting on his reading glasses. They were surprisingly worn, primarily held together by tape, and just barely managed to stay on the hybrid’s face as he sat down and cracked open the book. He then quickly realized that the book was the one he had gotten from the librarian.

The one about borrowers.

He felt… weird knowing someone was basically researching him, studying up on the supposed myths about his kind, and wondered to himself when he would get interrogated. Would Borrowton be mentioned in that book, or one of the other settlements? Tommy had never visited them, but he knew they were out there.

Knew about the rumours of the secret tracks that had supposedly connected each settlement to one another and was used to ship goods back and forth. He and Tubbo had tried searching for them one day and had only wound up with bruises and a stern scolding from the adult borrowers, telling them it was foolish to believe in made up stories.

But he never listened. Those tracks were there, had to be there. He and Tubbo had spent so many nights dreaming of how they’d get away, racing down the rails in a minecart. The angry yells and shouts fading as they raced off into their newest adventure.

They had planned to find a home using those rails.

And they would, Tommy promised himself as he grit his teeth. They would go on that adventure, they would find a home. He would get back to Tubbo, no matter what. All he needed was to figure out how to get back to Borrowton, and perhaps snag some supplies from Techno when he wasn’t looking.

… Maybe that book would come in handy after all.

Not that he had any hope in hell of stealing it, or even really reading it since the book was considerably larger than him, but it was the only chance he had at figuring out where Borrowton was and how he might get there.

It was ironic, to think he had spent so long dreaming about getting away from that hellhole and then ending up stuck in a situation where he needed to do everything he could to get back.

All in the name of Tubbo, of course.

He’d rather spend the rest of his life stuck with the annoying prick known as Technoblade instead of going back to Borrowton if it weren’t for Tubbo.  

… He did need a proper plan, though. He had to survive, figure out how to escape the hellish tundra he was in, get supplies for his journey which would probably last several days, and figure out what path he needed to take to reach Borrowton. Plus he’d need to figure out how to sneak in and find Tubbo, too.

So many things… did he even have a chance at completing them all? He could easily freeze to death in the snow, get mauled by some monster, starve, get lost and never reach his destination-

Don’t think about it.

He let out a sigh and placed the bowl down, distantly noticing he had finished his soup. It was nice, tasted like potatoes and something else. Unconsciously, he started rubbing his thumb against the smooth rim of the wooden bowl. All in all, being exiled wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it was going to be, aside from him missing Tubbo of course. Techno was a bastard, a prick through and through, but he was surprisingly…

Nice wasn’t the word. Less cruel than he thought he would be? He thought back to the discussion with that nerdy librarian and let out a snort. Borrowers and hybrids working together, living together, sounded like a load of crap.

… Even if he was technically doing that just now.

But it wasn’t like there was some mystical force making them act all soft! Like… like they were best friends or something! He and Techno weren’t buddies or allies, they were just stuck together until either Techno got tired of him and kicked him out, or he left.

Nothing more, nothing less.

With both his meal and mental contemplation finished, he stood up and made his way over to the edge of the table, attaching his grappling hook to the end and throwing the rope over the side. He didn’t bother to check on what Techno was doing as he slid down, bowl carefully pinned between his arm and his body, and felt no need to tell the hybrid he was leaving. The last thing he wanted was to piss him off or something.

As he made his way over to the hole in the floor that would lead to his home, he was unaware of the contemplative, glowing red eyes that followed him. Nor did he see how those eyes narrowed as they landed on the bowl he was still carrying.

The next day, Tommy jolted awake as the sound of knocking reverberated through the hollow he lived in. He yelped in surprise and promptly tumbled out of his makeshift bed, a pile of wool and other fabric he had managed to steal from Techno. For a moment he stayed on the floor, looking up at the carved ceiling as he contemplated whether it was worth it to get up or not.

The more trust you gain, the more you can get away with. Work. Take what you can. Find a way back to Tubbo-

Yup, that was enough motivation to get him moving.

Slowly, he pushed himself upright and got ready for whatever Techno had planned for the day. Since it was morning he doubted he’d be acting as bait again, nor did he think he would have to deal with any mobs. Perhaps he would get a chance to relax?

Maybe he might be able to scope out some of the more valuable items Techno had that could help him since he didn’t have to worry about sneaking around as much. Or he could always try and check that book out and see if he could actually move the pages enough to read it.

But before he could even consider doing that, he had to figure out what Techno wanted from him.

It didn’t take long for him to finish freshening up, and soon enough he was quickly making his way back through the tunnels towards one of the few exits he had made. Fortunately, the section of the tunnel that Techno had damaged had been replaced.

Of course, the hybrid had left it up to Tommy to actually carve out the replacement tunnel, which left the whole system feeling pretty disconnected since the walls no longer lined up.

The prick.

Eventually he made his way out of the tunnel, climbed out of the hole in the floor, and walked out into the open. Instinctively he shuddered, hating how exposed he felt. This feeling only increased as he felt the ground shake with each of Techno’s steps. In no time at all, he found himself in the hybrid’s shadow once more, reminded of just how vulnerable he was.

He hated it, hated it so damn much, but he did his best to swallow his fears and not retreat back into the comforting shadows of the shelf.

“So, what’s the plan for today, big man?” Tommy asked, rocking back and forth in place as he stared up, and up, and up, at the hybrid. Damn Techno and his stupid tallness, making his neck hurt with how far up he had to look.

He let out a startled yelp when he was picked up, the back of his shirt pinched yet again as he was moved from the ground and carried over to the crafting table. It took all of his willpower to stop himself from struggling, lest he was dropped, and he felt no small amount of relief when he was put down.

“The fuck was that for?!”

“I didn’t feel like watching you fumble with a rope.”

“Fumble?” Tommy scoffed and flexed his arms. “There ain’t no fumblin’ with manly muscles like these-”

“Are they just for show or do you actually know how to use them, then?”

Well that question definitely caught him off guard. The borrower paused, momentarily uncertain as to how to respond, before he that cocky smile appeared on his face once again. “I’ve won plenty of fights with these bad boys-”

“Great.” He didn’t miss the way Techno rolled his eyes, nor did he miss the heavy sarcasm that laced his voice. “Try this out.”

The item that the hybrid nudged over was… surprising to say the least.

“It’s… a stick.” Tommy blinked as he picked the stick up and looked it over. It was a bit longer than the length of his forearm, and if it weren’t for the lack of a sharpened end he would have assumed it was just a toothpick. “You gave me a stick.”

“It’s for practice, I’m not gonna give you a sharpened one and watch you trip and stab yourself with it.”

“I wouldn’t-practice?” All the anger Tommy felt at the implication of being a clutz, which he absolutely was not, evaporated as what Techno was saying registered. “For what?!”

“Self defense.” Techno shrugged. Upon taking note of the aghast expression on Tommy’s face, he elaborated further. “Not everyone you meet is gonna be as nice as me.”

Especially if I need you to spy on L’Manberg.

“Yeah, like you’re just the shining beacon of goodness.” Tommy scoffed while rolling his eyes.

“Beacon? Paragon has more impact to it. You really need to work on that lexicon of yours, kid-”

“And there you go makin’ up words again! Paragon! Lexicon! What’s the next word you’re gonna make up? Ontological?”

“... Tommy, that is a word.”

“Your mum’s a word, and that word is bitch!”  

“Are you going to keep throwing a tantrum over the tiny dictionary you call a brain, or are you actually going to listen to me?”

Tommy grumbled and kicked at the ground before sighing and looking up at the hybrid. It was time for him to pay attention, no matter how reluctant he was about this whole practicing thing.  “Yeah, so what should I practice, huh?”

“Stabbing me.”

A burst of high pitched, somewhat hysterical laughter escaped the borrower upon hearing Techno’s deadpan response. He slapped a hand over his mouth as he struggled to control his response, not wanting to piss him off further.

What a weird day this was turning out to be.

“You want me… to poke your hand? What the fuck, man.”

“Are you planning on just asking questions or are you going to use those manly muscles of yours?” The narrowing of Techno’s eyes combined with the immense amount of sass in that question told Tommy that his patience was running thin. The borrower quickly nodded and took a step forward.

As the hybrid’s hand stretched out in front of him, fingers uncurling and palm facing upwards, Tommy quietly realized this was the best look at Techno he had ever gotten. Previously, he had only ever really processed snapshots of the hybrid. The long braid, the glowing eyes, the sharp tusks that seemed to shine in the light, everything had only ever been pieces and not the whole.

But now here he was, and his situation felt far more real than it had before.

He could feel the heat radiating off Techno, the natural warmth his body produced reminding Tommy of the furnace he would huddle next to with Tubbo when the weather grew too cold. He could see the scars that littered the hand in front of him, and the callouses that covered the palm and fingers. He could also see the nails, dark in colouration and dangerously sharp, that tipped each digit.

He had been wrong about Techno having dainty hands, and for some reason this realization only made his appreciation for the gift he had been given grow stronger. It was so easy to imagine the hybrid hunched over with a tiny block of wood held in his hands, struggling to carve it and muttering curses when it accidentally broke. How long had he spent working on it-

“Tommy.”

Shit, he’d zoned out.

He could practically feel Techno’s eyes narrowing in disgruntlement, and he immediately looked up and threw his hands into the air in exasperation, nearly conking himself on the head with the stick in the process. “Don’t give me that look! It’s all so… so weird!”

Weird to be doing this! To be so close to someone who could kill me! It’s all wrong!

And yet, it felt right in its own way. The weight of the makeshift weapon in his hands, and the part of him that longed for some shield to hold up. Tommy had always been a fighter, using dirty tricks to get out of dangerous situations while quite literally throwing hands with anyone who threatened him or Tubbo, but this was another kind of fighting entirely.

A style that felt both familiar and alien at the same time.

The hybrid, choosing to not engage with the turmoil visible on the borrower’s face, decided switch tactics. Demonstrations would happen later when he was more settled and less likely to break down in borderline hysterical laughter, the time for basics was now.

For the next several minutes, Techno explained where it was best to attack in order to do the most damage and even disable his opponent for a short period of time. He was… strangely calm, and knowledgeable as he pointed out which parts of his hand were softer than the rest, more vulnerable.

It was unexpected, and Tommy could only ask himself one question.

Why?

Of course, he got no answer, not that he had ever asked the question to begin with. Rather, he just threw himself into practicing the maneuvers he had been shown over and over again, quietly thinking about how helpful they might be.

Tubbo, he might have to fight to get to Tubbo, and if practicing whatever Technoblade taught him would help, he’d do it.

Meanwhile, the hybrid silently studied the borrower as he thought about all that he had learned so far, from the book to his general observations of the kid. There was obviously something else going on with him, from the way he randomly spaced out at times, to that determined look that would sometimes appear on his face. Anger would occasionally appear, too. A kind of anger that Techno was intimately familiar with.

Tommy was expressive, too expressive.

At least that made things easier for him, but it also left him with far more questions than answers. Questions he didn’t really want to ask, but was still curious about.

It was obvious that the borrower had lived somewhere else before he had decided to invade his cabin. According to the book, most borrowers either stuck to a house they stayed in for their entire lives unless they were forced to move, or lived in community settlements. There were also the “wild” ones, but Tommy’s clear lack of any self-preservation instincts made it clear he did not fit in that category, and yet both of the remaining options made little sense as well.

There were no nearby houses nearby that he could have previously lived in, he doubted the kid would have been living in the village without the librarian’s knowledge, and a tundra biome was one of the last places he would expect to encounter a settle of tiny people. So, what had happened that wound up with him being out here in the first place? And why did he care so much?

Ah, the greatest question of all.

Why?

Why was he putting so much effort into this obnoxious kid? Sure he had his reasons, but were those reasons enough to justify the work he was going to have to do. Why had he let Tommy stay instead of throwing him out like he would have done to anyone else, aside from Phil.

Why had he gotten so protective of the kid at the library? It didn’t make sense-

“Look Techno!”

Tommy’s shout snapped Techno out of his thoughts, and the hybrid looked over to see that he was now holding one of the other practice sticks. He grinned and enthusiastically waved them.

“I’ve got two sticks!”

He raised a brow as the borrower started hitting some made up enemy, swinging the sticks through the air and letting out noises that he probably thought were intimidating, but only made Techno quietly laugh to himself. His laughter grew louder when, during one of his more enthusiastic swings, Tommy ended up smacking himself in the face.

“You’re supposed to hit other people with those.”

“Oh fuck off!”

Hours later, Tommy let out a groan as he flopped into his makeshift bed, burying his face into one of the pieces of fabric. The cloth was cool and soft, and he let out a happy little sigh as it helped him cool down. His muscles ached, and he wanted nothing more than to pass out for the next couple days, but his mind was abuzz with thoughts.

Techno was teaching him how to fight and was apparently making him armor. It sounded like such a horrible idea, teaching the person who was practically a pest in your house how to fight back, and it made Tommy wonder why.

Why was he being taught how to fight? Why was he being given weapons and armor? Was there something he needed to keep himself safe from? Someone?

“It’s a good thing I don’t follow laws, then.”

The hybrid’s “retirement”. The amount of weapons and armor Tommy had seen. The potions.

Was… was Techno a criminal? Had he unintentionally put himself in more danger by choosing to stay here? He knew nothing about him other than his dry sense of humour, his aloof personality, and how intimidating he was.

Dammit, this is why he needed Tubbo. Tubbo would have warned him about the possible dangers, discouraged his ideas, and brought reason to his chaotic thoughts.

It was at this moment that Tommy also realized that among the training and sparse breaks, he hadn’t been able to check out the book either.

Fuck.

                                   xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ah yes, the slow development from “you’re a pain in my ass and I’m only putting up with you for personal gain” to “okay, you might be decent”.

Also, there are many things I'm gonna make Tommy kind of cry over. A bowl of soup is just one of the more out there instances XD

[bakubitch-minusultra]

Not Alone: Chapter Eight

-> an apocalyptic series with bnha characters but without quirks because im the writer and i can do whatever the fuck i want -3- this one is a lil ;-; at the end and i apologize in advance i just like fucking with people c:<

-> Word Count: 2.8k

-> Warnings: pervy doods, blood(?), descriptions of sexual assault

-> Taglist:@5sosfckss @laudthingcat [if you wanna be added lmk <3]

A hand slipped over her mouth and Y/n instantly thought of the germs and squeezed her lips together.

“Don’t move, princess. They’ve come for you. Those fuckers sold you out to the breeders. Or it was that old bitch. You should know better than to trade with the first person who talks to you. You bush people are stupid.” Her bright white smile flashed in the darkness. “Don’t look so scared, I have a way out.”

Y/n nodded as the lady pulled her hand away from her face. The lady held her hand out and Y/n fished a ruby ring out of her sports bra and put it in the lady’s hand. She turned her back on Y/n and walked to a closet.

She opened the door and Y/n followed, holding her sack close to her chest. The lady pulled on the rod for hanging clothes in the closet, which made the wall pop out. She pushed it inside and walked into the wall. She entered the darkness and Y/n put her hands out. She heard voices coming to the room and she quickly closed the wall behind them.

She felt the lady’s hand grip hers suddenly. Y/n wanted to scream but she didn't. Her pulse was vibrating throughout her body.

Words were whispered into the darkness.

“Stairs.” Y/n put her feet down to the next level slowly. They could hear men’s voices above her.

“What the fuck is this?” The men sounded like they were right on top of her.

“She was here.”

Y/n heard the old woman’s voice. She felt cheated and betrayed. For trade she would sell Y/n out. Sell her out to the farms. Y/n knew humanity was a disgusting disappointment, but she still had a hard time imagining a woman turning in another woman to the farms.

“She was here, please. Let him just come home for a few days.”

Y/n continued down the stairs, feeling each step with the tips of her boots. It felt like an eternity had passed by the time they reached the bottom. The voices were gone and what replaced them was a dripping sound and damp cold air. The kind that could only be found underground.

“This was your house wasn’t it?” Y/n whispered.

“Yup. My husband had this installed when we built the house. He worked for the CIA.” Y/n felt her grip her hand again and pull her. “The ground is flat. We have to hurry.”

Y/n was stunned at the fact that no one knew about her underground bunker. But not as stunned as she was about her willingly helping Y/n escape.

“You could’ve sold me to them.” Y/n felt the lady’s fingers grip hers. Her voiced had changed.

“They have no right. No right to do what they’re doing.” The lady’s finger bit into Y/n’s shoulders as she shook her. “You gotta hurry. Don’t come back here. The girls get taken. The hunters are dressed up as traders but they’re not. Run. Feel your fingers along the wall until you see the light in the ceiling. Climb up there. It’s a latch. I have to get back now.”

Before Y/n could thank her the lady was gone. She was alone in the dark.

The fear was crippling her. She reached a trembling hand out into the darkness. Cold hard stone met her somewhere in the dark. She ran her fingers along it, running as best as she could. She was scared. She hated being scared. She decided that she needed a rule about being scared and doing things that made her scared.

She saw the ring of light up ahead. It had cast a dull beam in the shape of a circle on the floor. The morning sun was rising. She had slept later than she thought she would have. She should’ve been halfway home by the time the sun came up.

She felt like she was stepping into a magical light, like in the movies she had watched with her grandmother. The dark of the bunker was held at bay by the tiny ring of light. Dust particles sparkled inside of the ring. She reached her hands through it, watching as she made the dust dance in the light.

She looked up at the ring of light and then put her hand out at the small ladder she could see. She climbed until her head was at the wooden hatch. She listened to the silence. Nothing made a sound. She didn’t want to open the hatch. She wanted to hide in the dark of the bunker and never come out.

She heard a whisper in the wind. It was a sound she would know anywhere. It wasn’t close to her location, but it hurt her just the same. It could’ve been her.

She took a breath and put her hand on the bottom of the hatch. She tried to calm the shaking but she couldn’t. She pushed on the hatch and light flooded the small space even though the crack was tiny. The sun hadn’t completely risen, just as the moon hadn’t fully set. It was dawn.

She saw greenery everywhere around the hatch. Moss and brush surrounded her. She didn’t see anything but the sounds of the screams had filled the air. The animals made no noise, as the people had taken over the space with their screams again.

“Please! Please! Stop, please! I have money!” Her voice scared Y/n. The desperation frightened her. She had never been that desperate but she knew she had it in her. “Please sir, please! Don’t you have a sister or a wife you would want to keep safe?! Please! I’ll let you do whatever you want just don’t take me! Don’t take me back there! I’ll die in there!”

Y/n wanted to rock back and forth on the ground. She wished they would just kill her already so she would shut up. She was frozen. She didn’t leave the bunker but she didn’t close the lid either.

She knew she was in danger. She took a deep breath. She thought of Hades and Kirishima. She thought of poor Mina alone and taking care of Kirishima. She felt bravery, or stupidity, for the smallest of seconds and pulled herself out of the bunker and slid along the moss and brush. She made very little noise but every movement or rustle felt as loud as a gunshot. She crept along the ground on her hands and feet like Hades did. She moved away from the town. She didn’t know where she was but she was scared.

She got to a crowded bunch of trees and bushes and decided she needed to risk it and stand. She needed her bearings. She took another deep breath and slid her body up along the side of a tree. She tried to blend in. Hoards of people had gathered in the street in front of the town. Y/n could see the field and the cement road. She knew she was on the right side.

Women and children were being loaded into trucks. They sobbed and reached for their loved ones. One girl looked about thirteen. Y/n felt anger welling inside of her. There were four guards from the gates and five other men milling around the trucks. The tenth man was inside the cab of the truck.

Her brain was screaming at her to help the girl. She was a kid but that wouldn’t stop them. The sweaty men who took turns. She closed her eyes and shook her head to rearrange her thoughts.

She turned her back on them. She ran away like the coward she was. She ran until she found the broken branches. She used them to lead herself back to her weapon stash. She breathed easier when her bow was back in her hand and she could just kiss her knife. She tucked it into her boot and started the run back to her house. She ran faster than she did the day before. She ran with a new fear.

Xxxx

She reached the house in the middle of the night and saw Hades' eyes. He stalked toward her and sniffed her everywhere. He was checking to make sure she was okay. When she bent her knee to kiss him, she started to sob. He had seen that before. He knew sometimes she just needed to get it out.

“Y/n?” She looked up to see Mina pointing a gun at her. Y/n smiled and held up her sack and Mina lowered the gun. “You okay?”

“No, but it’s not anything new. How is he?” Y/n could see the grim look on Mina’s face in the moonlight and her stomach sank. She wanted to panic and cry out.

“He’s fading fast. I was about to cut his leg off when I heard you.”

Y/n sighed and broke into a run and bursted through the farm door, something she’d never done before. She pulled the needle out of the sack with one of the vials as she kneeled before Kirishima. His red hair was matted against his face and Y/n could see where his black roots were growing in from the lack of dye. She could see the moisture in the moonlight.

Mina poured the vodka she found in one of the cupboards all over Y/n’s hands and the needles and vial. The liquor was splashing all over her. She held the bottle up to Y/n’s lips and it burned its way down her empty stomach. The bits of food she had eaten were long gone. Thank god. Mina wiped his arm and Y/n finished putting the vial together and stabbed him in the arm. She pushed it in slowly like her dad had showed her. Kirishima didn’t stir. He didn’t register that Y/n was pumping his arm full of antibiotics.

She pulled the bandages off his wounds. The red lines were everywhere and she swallowed hard. Mina put the vodka back to Y/n’s lips and she drank again. She poured the tea tree all over the wound and blade of her knife. She sliced into the swollen part of the injury and milked the puss from it. She poured more tea tree after, being careful as to not rupture the blood vessels and cause more infection. When it was clean again and there was no more puss she smothered it in the old tube of medical salve. She covered it again with a gauze bandage and tape.

His fever was still high and he licked his lips and looked down at Y/n with blood shot eyes.

“You made it back.” Y/n nodded, his expression was breaking her heart. He looked so weak. He reached a hand to hers and squeezed. “I was worried.”

“I can take care of myself.” Y/n didn’t even let the bizarre day she had cross her mind. It was not the time to stress him out.

“I don’t doubt that, you scare me.”

Y/n laughed. She couldn’t help herself. He was huge and no doubt strong, stronger than he knew. Stronger than Y/n. She tried not to think about the young girls in the truck. She was a coward.

“I’m goin’ back to watching.” Mina was gone and suddenly Kirishima and Y/n were alone. She felt funny about it.

Kirishima pulled her up onto the couch, “Come lay with me.” It was the first human contact Y/n had had in a while. Watching t.v with friends was the closest thing to cuddling she had ever experienced. She didn’t know what to do and went limp. Kirishima laughed and pulled her alongside him on the couch. His arm was burning hot, it felt amazing. He wrapped his arm around her and she shivered from the heat.”

“Tell me a story Y/n.”

Y/n paused, she didn’t have any. She wanted to tell him something fun about her childhood but it basically looked just like her life now, but with more showering.

“I went to the town once a long time ago. The infection was newer then. I ran through the woods and broke the branches to make a path for myself to find the farmhouse again. Just like my dad taught me. I was excited when I saw the gates. I was so stupid. I thought being with other survivors would be better for me. I went in and begged for food from a lady. She laughed at me.” Y/n felt her air getting trapped in her throat. The shame filling her was her punishment. She deserved it. “I went out her door and sat in the narrow alley near the back of the house. I was hidden by a bunch of old buckets and garbage. The lady and her daughter were walking around the back with bags of stuff. Some men came. They started tearing at them. They stripped them and hurt them.” Y/n choked slightly on her next sentence, “I ran into the store and stole as much food as I could carry. I ran and gorged myself in the back of her store. I could still hear her screaming and I did nothing. I just ate.”

Kirishima squeezed her and kissed the top of her forehead. She stared into his black t-shirt that was soaked with sweat.

“You’re kinda bad at storytelling. I sorta wanted to go to sleep. Now I think I’ll never sleep again.” Y/n laughed with him. It killed the moment of suffering she deserved. He kissed her forehead again, “Do you have anything lighter? I don’t want that to be the last thing I think about when I die.” Y/n laughed again, but this time she wanted to cry. He was dying and Y/n knew this. Instead of her leaving him, he was leaving her and it hurt.

“I have one memory of my mother. She was in the hospital bed. I was two years old. She looked like me, but she was really pretty. Her lip looked like she was pushing them out.”

“Duck lips.”

“What?”

He laughed, “They were called duck lips back then.”

“Oh. Well she had those. She was in the bed and she let me climb up with her. I sat on her lap and we watched t.v. It was a cartoon about a bald kid and his family.”

“Caillou. I loved that show. LOVE IT.” He spoke in a high pitched voice. It made Y/n smile, he remembered things so clearly. He nudged her, “What happened then?”

Y/n shook her head, “Nothing. We just sat in the sun on her bed. I remember how soft her nightgown was and she let me eat her pudding.”

“Yeah okay that’s another bad example of storytelling.” Y/n wanted to defend herself, but she knew it would only make him feel sorry for her.

He smiled, “Once when I was six, me and Bakugo went and played down by the river behind my house. His mom was really strict about it and never let us go down there. We figured because Bakugo was old enough to babysit we were good. We brought boats we made out of paper and put them on the water.. They floated perfectly until mine flipped over. I reached for it before it got too far away and of course fell in. Bakugo grabbed me before I got pulled away. I would have drowned for sure. We ran back to my house but we were too long getting back and his mom was there already. We snuck in the backyard. I thought we were dead but Bakugo grabbed the hose from the side of the house and sprayed me. His mom came out the back door at that moment. So she walks to the backyard to see Bakugo hosing and me screaming. He got grounded for a week for being a bully. He was the best friend ever.”

A weird feeling overtook the other feelings Y/n had. She was jealous that she didn’t have a single story like that one. She looked into his eyes and felt lost. She felt like she was part of them.

“Now that’s a story, jackass.” Y/n frowned at him. He lifted her chin and pressed his warm lips to hers. She loved it. She loved him. His warmth rushed through her. His lips parted hers and his tongue caressed her lips softly. He pulled back but she wanted more and watched his laps as he pulled away. “You’re supposed to close your eyes Y/n.”

She blushed, “I liked that.”

He laughed softly, “It was on my list of things to do before I die.” His words stung.

“You haven’t kissed a girl before?”

He shook his head, “Not a girl I really like.”

“Your fever is making you crazy.”

“Good.” He pulled her close and kissed her until she was dizzy.

--

haha cliffhanger go brrrr

[antiquechampagne]

Silver Linings - Chapter 2

Dust watched as she sat on the ground, the pain in her arm slowly melting away. Her eye had even started to open a little, the throbbing ignorable with a little effort. The ghoul, while coolly leaning against a rotted wooden post, effortlessly held his shotgun at the ready. The woman shuffled things in and out of her pack, shifting through the junk laying around and seeing what would fit. Nora grumbled to herself before picking out several rolls of duct tape, replacing it with a pristine looking camera.

“You sure you want to leave those?” the ghoul asked. “You normally hoard those things.”

“Yeah, I know.” Nora answered. “But the new Jamaica Plain settlement needs a settlement beacon. I’m missing crystals for the emitter.” She glared down at the rolls, frowning. “It’s not exactly like I was planning on hauling more crap after everything we scavenged back in Quincy.”

Dust’s jaw dropped. It took her a second to process what the vault dweller was saying. “Wait a minute… Quincy?” Her dark hazel eyes glanced between the woman and her companion. “What did you do in Quincy?” Dust’s mind raced. Everyone with more than a couple of brain cells knew to stay away from that place. The Gunners who camped there were basically their own army, easily raining death on anyone and anything that stepped close.

“Oh, the General here decided it was time to clean that place up. Gunner green was so last season.” The ghoul smirked as he shrugged. “So we did.”

“No fucking way!” Dust blustered, thinking. “Just the two of you made it out?”

His smirk grew into a wide grin. “Just the two of us went in, too. We had one hell of a blast, didn’t we, Sunshine?”

Nora laughed at their inside joke. “We sure did.”

Dust mulled over the implications of their words. It didn’t seem like they were lying to her. “If you guys are so tough you can take out a fucking Gunner camp without breaking a sweat, why the fuck did you attack us?” Dust motioned to the handful of raider corpses that had been moved to one end of the trench they had called home.

“We were trying to sneak around, to be honest,” Nora shook her head. “but I guess someone spotted someone with a huge red target on his back.”

The ghoul just rolled his eyes and shrugged again. “What can I say? No one can get enough of my threads. Either way, you guys shot first.”

That seemed true enough. Most of the time you didn’t live long unless you adopted a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude in the wastes. But… if these two really offed all those Gunners…

“Hey,” Dust pushed herself up on her knees slowly. She didn’t need to give anyone another reason to start shooting. “If you really need all that stuff, just load me up. I can truck it wherever you need it to go.” In the corner, Dust could see the ghoul step forward. “To pay you back… for not killing me and shit.”

Hancock nodded to Nora, his eyes never leaving Dust. “Your call.”

Nora’s eyes studied her for a moment.

“How much can you carry?”

Dust stood up. She knew her short frame could be deceiving. She barely came to the vault dweller’s shoulder. Over the years, quite a few people learned the hard way that every square inch of her was packed full of rock hard muscle. Walking over to a weathered table, she pulled out a large military rucksack tucked underneath it.

Confident in her abilities, she simply stated: “Fill’er up.”

Twenty minutes later, Dust was trudging across the wasteland, the stuffed rucksack slung between her shoulder blades. Hard points from the objects inside pushed against her ribs like a sack full of elbows, but she shrugged it off. She thought better than to complain that she was not given a weapon. The woman took up point in front of her, the ghoul a few steps away taking up the rear.

After a while of walking in silence, Nora piped up.

“So, how long had you known those guys?”

“Um,” Dust tried to shove her shoulder against the most offending corner, trying to force something to shift into a more comfortable position. “I think about a week or so.”

“A week?” Nora shot a look back at her before turning back to scan along their path. “What made you join them, then?”

“I needed something to eat.” Dust replied flatly. She didn’t understand what was so confusing about the concept. “Plus, they had a good supply of chems.”

Hancock nodded. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

“What were you doing before that?”

“I ran with a different crew before that. Good bunch of guys. Hard as fucking steel.”

“What happened to them?”

Damn, this bitch is chatty. Dust thought. “We made a pretty good living hitting caravans. Sneaking up on them at night, that kinda thing. One night, we were stalking a real juicy mark when we ran up on a pair of sleeping yao guais. I barely made it out after one of those fuckers took a chunk out of my leg.” She frowned at the memory. “But at least I made it out. No one else did.”

“What about before them?”

Dust was getting frustrated with all these questions. “Why the fuck does it matter?”

“I’m just trying to figure something out,” She answered. “Like, what makes a person turn to raiding.”

“You do realize ‘raiders’ fuck and pop out brats, right? Those little fuckers learn real quick what it takes to survive out here… and it ain’t playing nice with soft townies. Not if you want to get your share of something to eat.”

That shut her up. They walked in silence for a few more hours. The light in the sky started to dim. Even though they were close to wherever they were going, it was decided to find a secure place to hole up for the night and continue in the morning. They found some kind of old shop and boarded up the door. Dust took off her heavy load, sitting in a corner. After starting a fire in an old metal trashcan, Nora began to prepare a few cans she pulled from her pack. Mayor Hancock took off his coat and began to clean his gun in the fire light. Once the food was warm, the vault dweller brought a can and spoon to Dust. She took it with a cautious nod, sniffing what looked like beans before shoveling them into her mouth. The other two chatted as they ate, occasionally glancing over at her.

Dust ignored them. She kept to herself, trying calm the sneaking itch in her brain. She couldn’t help focusing on how long it had been since her last hit of jet. It took all her concentration to keep her leg from bouncing. Instead, she repeatedly twisted the ends of her bandana in between her fingers,a nervous habit she had picked up as a child.

After a while, Hancock walked over to her. “I’m taking first watch, Nora’s taking second. You should get some sleep while you can.”

Even though that made sense, Dust knew her feet and back ached something fierce, she was far from exhausted enough to sleep. Not when she was like this.

“I’m good,” was all she answered.

The ghoul seemed to study her. “Since we are almost to Jamaica, you might want to rethink that make up job of yours.” He pointed to her face.

“What’d’ya mean?”

“The locals know us… but you?” His mouth tightened into bit of a grimace. “Well, they tend to shoot raiders on sight… and right now your face screams ‘I’m here’ ta fuck you up’.”

It had been a while since Dust had smeared broad swaths of black kohl across her face, but come to think about it… not a lot of townies she’d run across marked themselves like that. She supposed the ghoul was right.

“Fine.” she asked. Dust untied her bandana.

Hancock pulled out an open carton of water and handed it to her. With a good dash of water, she rubbed most of the paint from her face, pinpricks of pain reminding her of the tender new scars forming over a good portion of her face. When she thought she was done, Dust turned to the ghoul.

“Good?”

“You still look you’ve got two black eyes, but close enough.”

Dust nodded. She thought the ghoul would return to the other side of the room, but he stayed by her. Her pointed to her hands.

“Are you sure you’re good?”

Looking down, Dust realized that she was continuing to violently twisting her soiled bandana in her hands.

“Yeah, well ya know… the Jet will make you jittery.”

This time it was Hancock who nodded as he reached into a pocket.

“There ain’t much left in this one, but here...” He handed her a red inhaler. “I don’t need you jonesing all night.” He got up and returned to fire.

Dust turned over the canister in her hand. Food and chems… well, she could have done worse. She had in the past, and for less… but then again, you don’t get anything for free. She’d just have to wait and see what that price was going to be.

She put the plastic mouthpiece between her lips and inhaled. She felt a small burst of chems coat the inside of her mouth and throat, it’s burning kiss burrowed into her blood through her lungs. The flickering flames across the room slowed to a languid pulsing. A wash of heat traveled like lightning through her body, soothing her frazzled nerves.

Any exhaustion from the stress of trekking across the wasteland she might have been feeling evaporated. The only problem with all this added energy was she had no outlet to use it up. The only thing at hand was her dirty bandanna. Quickly, she ripped the flimsy fabric into a handful of thin strips. Nora stirred at the noise but turned over after Hancock put a hand on her shoulder. Dust ignored his scowl, focusing on weaving the red strips into thick braid she could fit around her head. After a few attempts, she had something that would keep the sweat and hair out of her face. It took long enough to burn of the remainder of her Jet-fuel energy binge. Soon, she scooted herself into a corner, propping herself up in a sitting position to doze the rest of the night.

Early the next morning, after a quick breakfast, the group headed out again. It was just before lunch when they reached the new settlement. It wasn’t much more than a half-collapsed building with a patch of dirt on the side. Two thin figures poked their heads out from behind a crumbling corner, gun barrels trained on them, but they waved a hearty welcome once they saw the vault dweller in the distance. She waved back. Soon Dust’s bag was off her shoulders, the contents spread across the dusty floorboards.

Dust parked herself in the corner on a stool, studying the scene playing out in front of her. The pair of settlers eyed her suspiciously, but begrudgingly ignored her as Nora pulled out random bits of armor and weapons for them to try. Soon, the two were outfitted with a ragtag collection of gear marginally better than the rags they wore underneath it all. After that, Nora got to work explaining what she needed to make them this tower beacon thing. Soon, everything was collected and piled together on the sidewalk, ready for assembly. Before work could begin, they sat down to eat.

“Here you go.” One of the settlers held out a bit of scrambled Cram and eggs. When Dust didn’t move, she put it down on the broken windowsill next to her with a shrug. It smelled good, but Dust did not touch it. She felt strange. Out of place. An imposter.

“Don’t be rude, now.” Hancock nudged her.

Dust sheepishly gulped down the food as fast as she could. The settler who had handed her the bowl came back to collect it.

“Guess it wasn’t too bad, eh?”

Dust shrugged.

“Not much of a talker? That’s alright.” She flashed a small smile at the silent Dust before shuffling away.

Dust felt like every eye was burning on her, even though she could clearly see that their attention had turned to construction of the tower. She skulked away to the other side of the building, away from the imaginary stares. She scanned around the perimeter of the ‘settlement’. There was a giant blind corner and holes in the perimeter everywhere she looked. This place was an easy mark, just ripe for an attack from nearly any direction. She’d burned plenty of settlements just like this to ground for less than the lunch she had just been given. Hearing gravel grind into the pavement, she turned around to see Hancock stepping around the corner.

“You okay back here?” Dust shrugged again. “You thinking about taking off?” he asked.

Dust shook her head. “I’m just no good at building shit. That’s all.” That part of was true, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. Before the ghoul could say anything else, she pointed to the blind corner across from them. “This corner is a death trap, if no one is watching it.”

“And you should know…” Even though it wasn’t an accusation, his words stung. “I’ll see if we can rig up a trap or something. Nora’s a damn genius when it comes to that kind of thing.” He looked at her, like he was trying to read something on her face.

“They would want me over there… if they knew me.”

“They know you helped us make their life easier. Hell, you’re even going to make their home safer for them.” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one.

She took it and mulled over his words. They stood and smoked in silence. Eventually, Hancock dropped his spent cigarette, grinding it out with the heel of his boot.

“We need to haul that scrap over to Hangman’s Alley. Think you can make the trip?” he asked.

Dust had no idea where the fuck that was.

“Sure,” she replied.