#my fic: space fic

[goldeneyedgirl]

whumptober 2022: day 15: unimaginable things (jasper/alice, AU)

Title: Unimaginable Things

Prompt: day 15: lies

Rating: M (body horror)

He joined the Olympia seven years ago now, still on probation from everything that happened with Maria and the Monterrey... Everything about these people, he cares about fiercely. But they also scare the shit out of him just by existing. 

Viltri is a graveyard. It’s a place of death and dying. 

He used to like the story of Viltri. An old planet, a small one, riddled with volcanic activity that was slowly dissolving it. The Federation reinforced the surface with an alloy frame, one that reminded him of the old-fashioned models - an orrery, that’s right - from Earth. But shit happens, and slowly the planet dissolved and took more than half the frame with it and then Viltri was just a curve of alloy flowing in space, a docking station with slums surrounding it, carving out some kind of living with booze, weapons, sex, and scavenging. A real shithole. 

That was the Viltri he knew as a kid. A place to get totally shitfaced and gamble a month’s wages in a few hours, and wake up in a shitty box of a room with some stranger who was just a little too gaunt and a little too worn down to be beautiful. 

But five years ago, the Federation acknowledged that it was over. The remnants of the frame were decaying, crumbling away. Entire buildings on the fringe were quickly collapsing, and the deaths were becoming noticeable. And because of the docks, because of the risk to ships passing through, Viltri had to be evacuated and abandoned, no questions asked. Third-generation criminals had been delighted they had finally found a way off without Federation paperwork, whilst the handful of native descendants had staged ceremonies of passing for the remnants of their home. 

And now it was empty. No vermin underfoot, no smell of cheap food cooked and fried and replicated. No music or shouting or rumble from the dock station. No cloud of smoke that was. some kind of miasma of fuel and smoke and shit. Nothing. 

The lights are off, the buildings are empty, and Viltri is just waiting for its slow descent into nothing. 

They shouldn’t even be there; Carlisle is back on the ship, fielding numerous messages about why they passed the safety barrier against Federation decree. Promising that they have enough fuel and rations to last them. 

“We received an SOS, and whilst the origins and timestamp were corrupted, we’re doing a sweep of the area.”

Such an easy explanation, an act of a good Samaritan. Edward’s probably already created the false message in the system for proof when some bureaucrat demands it - they’ve already demanded fuel and ration records. Rosalie’s signed off on more documents in the last hour than all month, and she’s still pissy that they came at all. 

Glass and debris crunch under his boots, and he wonders if they were wrong, if the message was old. There had been no response to the reply messages that they had sent through and that’s… well, it was the I.D. chip in their wrist (her left one) that ran the messaging system and it was powered by their bodies. The lack of reply implied…

He doesn’t think about that. Instead, he focuses on the groan of the alloy frame, a death rattle. Viltri’s got only weeks left, if Edward’s analysis is correct. 

That its final orbit was always destined to be very slow and then fast and then over.

(That hits a little too close to home. Or it will, when he looks back.)

—

His story isn’t an interesting one, like Charlotte’s. Or an adventure, like Peter’s. Born on Earth to a pair of young parents who were dazzled by the promise of space, they set off with nothing but what they could carry. 

And it was everything they hoped for. Until it wasn’t. 

He remembers how his father died far more clearly than he wants to. 

(People are always visibly disappointed that his mom lives over in Panai with his stepfather and his three half-siblings. Things aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy between them - she insists she doesn’t understand him anymore - but he talks to her sometimes. She’s happy and safe. Apparently, his story would be better if she had become a vigilante or a villain or gone and died as well.) 

He’s the least interesting of the Olympia crew; Carlisle, the heavily augmented doctor, scientist, and engineer who was one of the early pioneers in space, and was right there when Earth signed on as honorary Federation members. The owner and leader of their little clan, he’s at least a hundred years old, and his augmentations are the oldest, hydraulic-powered type that he refuses to upgrade. 

Then there’s Esme, the Atargatian female. Something about her features - the slope of her nose and the tilt of her eyes - remind him of Earth deer from his childhood picture books. In all the documentation, she’s a personal care assistant for Carlisle. That’s not really his story to tell, though. But she’s the heart of them all, the one that never flinches back from the bad, the disgusting, the grotesque. 

There’s sad, arrogant Edward who is a monument to Carlisle’s grief more than anything else.

Sharp, vain Rosalie who captains the ship, a refugee in her own right, and smarter than all of them put together. 

And then Emmett, the one-man deck crew. Emmett had never met an order he wouldn’t take - especially if it came from Rose. The man had been mooning over Rosalie ever since he’d joined the ship according to Edward, and Jasper had to admire Emmett’s commitment. 

There wasn’t really enough for a ship the size of the Olympia - there were more than a few spaces that sat empty and forgotten - but they all tend to think of it as a luxury. They all appreciate the space to be alone, to not have to fight for water and food, and peace. And sometimes Carlisle would call up the Denali or any one of his old friends who freelance if they needed an extra body or some fresh blood for a season. 

A leader, a ghost, a nurse, a captain slash engineer, an… Emmett (whose job is everything and nothing; one day he might be co-piloting with Rose, but the next he’s running the comms. He’s too good to be on a ship like the Olympia, too reasonable and proactive. A jack of all trades, and a good one.) 

And him, security. 

No analyst, not anymore. 

He and Emmett cover the tech side of things, with Edward’s input. That position has been open for more than five years. Long-term dispatch under her name in the system, like the computer won’t archive her profile in a few months and the Federation won’t send them paperwork to confirm her permanent departure from their crew. 

(And it’s his fault she left.)

—

He picks his way north and pretends the only thing crunching underfoot is glass and rubble. A few candles are still burning, jammed into nooks of walls, and spilling the red and yellowy wax down the bricks, like a burst wound. He leaves them to burn because they were lit by the descendants, the ones who watched their planet dying, only to be saved, and then lost again. The ones who finally realized that the Federation, despite their promises, didn’t really care that much about a remote planet with no long-term resources they could lay claim to. 

Maybe he’s getting bitter in his old age.

Their farewell had been poignant, piecing together the reports from the final departure - candles and prayers and ancient dirt saved in jars for decades flung out in memory of where they had begun. 

There’s an old sign, dull and broken, and when he kicks the rubble off it, he recognizes it. Not the language - no one can read Viltrian, a language with more than 900 characters across five alphabets - but the English speakers (it’s fuckin’ ridiculous they still call themselves ‘English’ speakers, but it’s been over a century and Earth is still refusing to name its official language, and there’s still a furious battle between English, Mandarin, and - inexplicably - French. The next argument will be whether Earth changes its designation to Terra or Sol or something because ‘Earth’ does not translate well to a lot of Federation languages) called it Rocco’s, due to some complex series of events long before Jasper’s time. 

Either way, he’d spent more than a few nights there - drinking and smoking and ending up in a shitty cot above the bar with a glassy-eyed companion. It had been the safest bar in Viltri for humans, the one place they wouldn’t risk being beaten or skinned or molested or just killed. The one place where the food was guaranteed not to be poisonous, the drink wouldn’t burn a literal hole in your stomach, and most of the barmaids knew enough human first aid to be useful. 

The sign is too big to drag with him, and that’s regrettable. The loss of that little safe place, that sanctuary, reminds him of things he’d rather forget. Reminds him of people he’ll never see again, and a person he’ll never be again. 

If he reaches down to snap off the end of one character, brace-laser cutting through it clean, then no one is around to see it. 

He feels like a vulture, like a carrion bird, picking over a body. 

They shouldn’t have come, there’s nothing here. 

That’s when his radio crackles to life, Rosalie’s voice sharp and serious, summoning them west - and he turns on a dime, both reluctant and anticipatory. 

—

He joined the Olympia seven years ago now, still on probation from everything that happened with Maria and the Monterrey, and tired and used up by the scavenging ships. Even the legit ones were the kind of place that wore everyone right down to nothing. The Olympia seemed like a cushy job; security for some soft-hearted millionaire running a traveling medic ship. There was nothing special about the pay or the brief, but he’d applied and gotten the job in two days. 

It had been surprising, how small the crew was. There were three empty rooms on his deck alone - one used for overflow storage. But it was… nice. Nice to have his own room and not just a bunk. A private washroom. Requisitions that were more of a formality than a process or game of roulette. 

Meeting everyone was done over dinner, a communal meal that resembled the family meals at his mother’s home more than any he’d taken aboard a ship - second and third helpings were taken without a blink, and it was mostly fresh food and not the typical stock rations most ships fed their crew. Emmett is boisterous and fun, Edward is seated and irritable, with no food or drink in front of him (it’ll be a week before Esme clues him in to Edward and the perfect tragedy of his existence, and a couple of months before his presence at dinner isn’t uncomfortable. But he’ll never be comfortable with Edward’s complete and utter access to every corner of the Olympia, to every security camera and microphone and file.) 

And then she had breezed into dinner late, and he had frozen for a moment. 

Five feet nothing, easily, and with the biggest brown eyes he’s ever seen; the tell-tale gold disc fitted over her left iris revealing some kind of augmentation, mirrored in the slim vein of alloy outlining the left side of her jaw. Barefoot and in loose pants and a tank top, her hair piled messily on top of her head, she’s just the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a long time.  

“Jasper, this is Alice - our analyst tech,” Carlisle said, smiling brightly as the girl snagged the remaining plate on the counter. “Alice, Jasper is our new security officer.”

“Hi Jasper, the new security officer,” she replies with a smile that feels brighter than anything he’s seen in a long time. “Nice to meet you.”

(Her left arm has the silvery plates of alloy peaking through the skin, especially around her elbow and wrist; it’ll be several months later when he finds the plating runs all the way down her left side, and she’s gone through and etched flowers on all the surface plating, like tattooing over a scar. There are a million different reasons for augmentation and the invisible kind is outrageously expensive. Later, when he’s going over all the onboarding paperwork, he examines the crew profiles and is secretly pleased that there are no android disclaimers on Alice’s. Some people would say he’s discriminating, but he’s not fucking anything without a soul.

That’s crude and unfair. He just … doesn’t want to get his hopes up if Alice isn’t real, if she’s just a tool to help them get their jobs done. If nothing else, he wants the Olympia and all of its unexpected promises to be real.)

—

Rosalie is already with her when he and Emmett make it to the old docking station. 

And for a moment, he doesn’t recognize her. The tiny figure in the black hood, sitting on the ground with Rosalie crouched beside her, slapping some med-patches onto her, is not one he associates with Alice. 

“What a shithole,” Emmett says cheerfully. “No idea why you’d camp out here, Alice.”

Rosalie tugs the hood off Alice’s face to add a med-patch to her temple and jugular, and he’s surprised at how much she’s changed. Her hair is cut harshly to her chin, uneven on one side. She looks smaller, beaten, in layers of worn pro-tex that doesn’t seem to fit right. And clutching a worn-out duffle. She glances at him, and then immediately away. 

“I don’t even want you to fucking look at me, you understand?” His hand was fisted so tightly in her hair that when he lets go, the strands are tangled in his watch and he doesn’t give a shit when he rips the hair from her lying head. He pretends her terror, the tears rolling down her cheeks didn’t cut into him sharply. Pretends he’s in control of his rage and fear and trauma, and that this isn’t just him wildly lashing out like a feral animal. He just storms away and leaves her there, without looking back. 

“Ready to go?” Is all he says, as Rosalie checks something on the med-screen and nods. 

“I…” Alice begins, but the look Rose shoots her stops her. “Ready.”

She’s unsteady on her feet, but she doesn’t relinquish the bag. Instead, she trails after them, limping and fragile to watch. He can see how worn her clothing is, and pro-tex is compromised when it wears. And when it’s as ill-fitted as Alice’s set is. She might as well be walking around in pajamas. 

They had to dock on the opposite side, and it’s a slow walk back. Rosalie makes them stop a few times, offering Alice pouches of rehydration fluids, and checking her vitals with a blank look on her face. 

The luminous blue mesh of the med-patches on her face draws his eyes and he tries to remember his own first-aid training. He’s not qualified to use the blue ones, but the green ones need to be placed directly over the injury and she has them everywhere, and the worry is tight in his chest, and he hates himself for caring even a little. 

Emmett finds an old Viltri flag amongst the wreckage and ties it to a broken pole and carries it like they’re on some kind of adventure mission and not just an SOS call from an old crew member on a dead planet. 

What would have happened if they hadn’t come? 

How did she get here?

How could she have gotten off Viltri before it collapsed? 

She walks in silence, her head bowed, blue mesh glowing on her skin, and he wonders what he’s going to say to her when they get back. What can he say? Nothing has really changed; they’re both just five years older. 

The shudder and groan of Viltri’s death underscores their silence as they pick their way through the wreckage. There are a handful of bodies, and it’s not hard to imagine residents choosing suicide over evacuation in the face of everything… or even for career criminals to hide and choose to die free than risk being discovered. 

He breathes a sight of relief as the Olympia comes into view. It’s become home, somehow. 

But Alice’s head ducks further, and one hand shoots up to tug her hood up, and the fresh wave of guilt settles in nicely.

Why does he still care so damn much?

—

The first few weeks on the ship are weird, he decides. And then it becomes… not quite home, he hasn’t had one of those in a very long time. But a place he’s okay being in. 

Rosalie is one of the Faceless from Velea, and he is quickly warned to never ask about her life before the Olympia; she’s whip-smart, with an engineering background and Carlisle training her as a ship-level medic. Emmett had been working on ships since he was a kid, piecing together a living to help out his family and maybe save for his own small ship one day. Esme was a runaway, and he’s surprised that someone so kind and steady could do something as spontaneous as fleeing home and joining a med support ship as a barely-qualified nurse. 

Edward was an enigma until Jasper catches him walk through a fucking wall and Esme kindly takes him aside and explains that Edward is a hologram AI designed off of Carlisle’s missing son. The whole story is horrible, and there’s something morbid about sitting down with what is essentially a memory. But despite everything, Edward is smart and occasionally witty. 

Alice is a delight, and he hasn’t enjoyed someone’s company so much in a long time. She’s always smiling, always happy to pause for a conversation. She seems to have an easy back-and-forth with everyone on the ship. She’s terribly vague about her past - the most he gets out of her is that she doesn’t have any memories of her family, and was on her own until Carlisle was willing to offer her a place on the Olympia. 

He finds himself drawn to her, seeking her out when she’s on break. He tries to justify it to himself, that it’s just been a long time since Maria; it’s been a while since he’s spent time with friends, with people who aren’t as miserable as he is. It’s a good thing that he’s making normal friends.

(If he sticks close to her side when they dock, fetches the drinks, and turns down smoking, ignores the pointed looks of the willing around the bar… well, it would be fucking rude to abandon her.)

They are a sight to behold, he knows, about more than one person whispers about them when they are docked on a new planet. Two humans together? A rare sight on the more rural planets. And they are an interesting contrast; he towers over her, with blond hair and sharp grey eyes. She’s so slender, with black hair that she changes on a whim - sometimes it’s long and pin straight, or short and curly, or braided with bright purple streaks. 

It’s… nice to be normal. Ordinary. Emmett’s quick to show him how to hide the parole anklet in the style of boots they’re issued on the Olympia (nicer than anything else he’s ever gotten on any other job), and Rosalie is quick to pay the bill if she suspects he’s short on cash. No one judges him too hard when he wants to smoke; Rosalie huffs and rolls her eyes, Emmett jokes about it but very, very rarely joins him. Alice does, but she’s tiny enough that she’s a lightweight, and Emmett ends up carrying her back to the dock dorms more than once. 

It’s especially nice when those outings somehow turn into just him and Alice. Sometimes they bum around in the crew bars, the ones where the food is greasy, the music is loud, and the booze is cheap. Sometimes they end up in nicer places, where the lighting is low and the food is good, and they have to sit too close to each other. 

It starts with a drink and a kiss, a dance, and an awkward night bunking together at the dock dorms because they checked in too late and there was only one bed. 

Alice feels like a fresh start, like something good and happy and safe. Like maybe he’s been looking for a place where he could be happy when he should have been looking for a person. He never thought he’d meet someone he’d be okay with being stuck out in the middle of space for weeks on end.

Then he met Alice and, well, he’d get lost with her any time. 

(Too goddamn good to be true.)

—

Carlisle is delighted by their return, only a flicker in his expression when he glimpses Alice. 

“Food and then med bay,” Rosalie orders, pushing past to head to the cockpit, dumping the stash bags in the alcove. “Then rest. Anything else can wait.”

“Thanks Captain,” Edward says snottily and Rose just flips her fingers rudely at him, ignoring Emmett’s chortle, the flag still in his grip. 

“I’ve got food waiting,” Esme beams at Alice, and Alice nods silently, accepting the gentle squeeze on the shoulder that Esme offers as she takes them all to the galley, to plate up the food and settle around the table.

For a moment, Alice is wolfing down the food in the kind of way that indicates she hasn’t eaten in a while. Esme’s a good cook, even with the shelf-stable shit they have to keep between docking. 

But just as suddenly as she starts, she stops before bolting to the flush sink, hurling before she’s even still. Esme is there with water and comfort and Carlisle shakes his head. 

“A little too much too fast,” he says as Alice wipes her mouth. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, keeping her gaze on the ground as she sits back at the table, not bothering to reach for her plate again. 

It’s an odd reunion of the crew, Alice fidgeting for a while. He doesn’t know what to say to her because he doesn’t know how he feels about her. Five years is a long time, but nothing has changed. 

Or maybe he has. Maybe five years apart, knowing he was the reason she left, has shamed him and softened him. Maybe all of those lessons he was supposed to learn from the debacle with Maria, he really learned from Alice. 

She should have told him the truth. But he should never have been that angry, that cruel and terrible to her. 

He still hasn’t worked out what to say to her when Esme escorts her to the guest suite, with Carlisle promising to look over her med report, and Alice still clutching her duffle bag. 

“I-I need to talk to you, Carlisle,” Alice says in a small voice, and something passes between the pair when she says that. 

“Of course. After dinner - you need some rest,” Carlisle says and everything feels a little off-centre, so he skips the rest of lunch and spends the day locked in the old analyst office doing ship paperwork because somehow that’s more appealing than being alone with his thoughts right now. 

—

Every year, Carlisle gives them ten days off. They dock on one of the capital Federation planets so that the Olympia can be serviced and maintain its accreditation, and they get a break. 

They usually choose late summer-early autumn - or what passes for it - for Emmett’s benefit, so he can spend time with his family. This year, he’s loaded up with gifts and dragging Rose along with him; Carlisle (and Edward) are headed to the University of Namen; Esme and Alice are going off with the crew from the Denali, and he’s headed off to see his mother. 

Panai is one of the planets most like Earth’s visions of the future, of alien cities. A futuristic white city with abundant green-space, clean air, and children playing in the street. His mother lives on the hill, with her new family, a bit of a local oddity being the only humanoid living in the Panai equivalent of suburbia.

Cass Whitlock lights up when she sees him, her smile genuine as she embraces him and brings him inside the house, but he still feels the words they exchanged right before he left with Maria sitting between them. With every argument and disagreement and look of frustrated disappointment on her face. 

His half-siblings peer around the corner of the meal-room; two giggling girls and a toddler boy - Cat, Nori, and Baby Lo. Cat’s the one that looks most like him and his mom; the blonde hair, her nose. But all three of them strongly resemble their father with the mottled blue skin, the extra digits on each hand, and the two smaller eyes under each humanoid eye. Nori has sinuous blue strands in place of hair, and both she and Lo have the flat, serpentine nose of their father, Najo. 

Jasper’s never gotten along with Najo, whose strict religious leanings made him distant and cold to outsiders. The few times Jasper had been to the house, had chosen to stay there instead of at the dock dorms, it had been uncomfortable at best. But the man keeps the space for Jasper’s father in the shrine wall out of respect for Cass, and his mom is happy with her life. That’s all he wanted for her. He’s just hurt that her happiness never seemed to have a space for him when he was younger, and now that she has made a space, it’s not a shape that he fits into anymore. 

“How are you, Jas?” Cass is already preparing snacks, and he pretends not to hear Cat hush the others. He’s got gifts for them - Najo had been seething with offence the first time he’d arrived without traditional offerings, even as Cass tried to explain that human culture didn’t involve the guest - especially family - making an ‘offering’ to allow their presence.

“I’m good. I brought stuff,” he says, and there’s a whoop of delight as Nori darts out, visibly sniffing the air. He piles the boxes on the table - wine and tea and the candy Nori ferrets out. The books make Cass smile and kiss his head, and it’s times like this he misses the outpost he was raised, the quasi-human compound that was just familiar enough to give his parents confidence. 

“You don’t have to, you know,” she says as she scoops up Lo, handing him a piece of the candy. “Najo understands.”

“Najo was genuinely disappointed I wasn’t executed or sentenced off-planet,” Jasper says and regrets it when Cat’s smile disappears. Old enough to understand, then. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“I appreciate that.” 

The visit goes surprisingly well, and when Najo gets home, he is polite - warm to his children and Cass, so Jasper doesn’t really care how he’s treated. 

Unexpectedly, Nori seems taken with him, staring at him as they eat, but he really doesn’t know how to talk to kids, especially these children that share his mother. 

It’s late when he goes to the shrine-wall; dozens of little alcoves with photocells of the dead. Cass only has five alcoves - Jack Whitlock, her parents, a brother who died as a kid, and a friend who died at the same time as Jack. The rest are Najo’s family and friends. 

He leaves a stone, from Yavanna, at his father’s memorial. Najo hates it, hates the symbol of an Earth faith in his home. And Jasper himself was not raised in any faith, but his father had been and it was just … one thing he could do for him. 

“You seem lighter.” He turns to see Cass. The children are asleep, and Najo is in the sanctuary, so it’s finally just them. 

“Easier work,” he shrugs. And it’s true, the salvage ships are hellish; he lost fifteen pounds his first stint, and it had only been a half-time job.

Cass shook her head. “You’re less angry,” she clarified. “I’m glad you’ve found a better place.” She moves towards the opposite wall, the one that bears the photocells of the living with incense and coins to ensure a good life. His photo hasn't been there in years - probably destroyed when he was arrested - and he hasn’t been bitter about it in a while.

“Tell me about your new crew.” Cass begins to tidy up the shrine, picking up bits of dried fruit and candy that the children have left there, and he finds himself talking, explaining, and trying to gloss over the stranger or more personal details of the people he works with. He finds himself talking about Rosalie and Alice, about their educations and how goddamn smart they are, before musing about Alice’s fascination with all things Earth and how much more celebrated someone as skilled as she was would be back there. 

“Alice, huh? Are you close? She sounds like she likes you,” Cass has a knowing look on her face as she watches him, and he looks away. Alice is a lot of things, but they aren’t anything serious. A teasing kiss in the tech room, a drink at a bar wherever they’ve docked, a soft conversation when everyone else is asleep over coffee about everything and anything… it’s becoming something, but slowly. And he’s cautious. After everything that Maria did, promised him, and everything that she ruined… he never told Cass any of that, and he doesn’t want to confirm that it was worse than she already assumed.

He lets out a huff of breath and Cass beams at him, reaching out to squeeze his hand. 

“I only ever wanted you to be happy, Jas. To let go of that anger and fear and let yourself be happy. I know it’s hard, but that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. Sometimes it feels like I lost you and Jack at the same time, even when I had you by my side.”

He nods, but the old anger flares; the one that let her move on so easily. That she was sad for a while and she packed it away after a while. Met Najo and picked him over Jasper; build herself a brand new perfect little family.

“Do you even remember that day?” he asks, after she’s turned to leave, and when she looks around again, she just looks frustrated. 

“Of course I do, Jasper. I still have nightmares. But being angry after twelve years… it doesn’t fix a thing.”

“Maybe not for you.” Because you weren’t there. You only showed up when it was too late, when it was all over. The words he spat at her as a traumatized fifteen-year-old hover in the air. 

“I’m not having this conversation again. I’m glad you’re happy, and I’m glad you’ve made friends. Good night, Jasper.”

(Cass always thought it was like magic, the idea that a few chemicals in a petri-dish could create a fetus; he knows she was enchanted that she could go to the equivalent of a 711 and buy a baby, a child, another whole person, in a test tube. He wondered why she had never done it, grabbed the green and purple tubes of Synth, and taken it home to build the second child she and Jack could never manage. Afterward, well, she had always just been sad. Never angry.)

They don’t talk alone again before he leaves after breakfast, and he finds himself mulling over his mother’s words. Not about being happy - that ship sailed when he realised how deep he was in it with Maria. But about Alice. About that maybe being something. 

He still hugs Cass when he leaves and she wishes him well. As usual, he makes no promises when he’ll be back, and she doesn’t invite him. 

—

Edward shimmers as he strides irritably across the galley, and Jasper idly wonders what it’s like to be eternally seventeen. To have all the thoughts and feelings and memories of an ordinary kid, to think you are that kid but in reality, you aren’t. Just a database of code. 

(There’s a panel in the hall outside of Carlisle’s room and everyone hates it. Of a redheaded girl at a piano, smiling as she plays; then she looks over her shoulder and laughs. Miss Edythe Cullen, frozen forever at her piano; an eternal shrine that is a little too lifelike, a little too convincing.)

Rose strides into the kitchen and for a second, she’s faceless before her usual, perfected facade drops into place. He winces because Rose hates it when she lets her facades drop, when others see her in those moments. 

“She still in there with him?” She asks grumpily. 

“Yes,” Edward scowls. “Carlisle turned off the projection in there. Wanted privacy.”

“Esme’s retired for the night,” he adds in casually, and they all exchange looks. Esme is privy to so much of the crew’s … mess that it feels notable that she’s not included in whatever Carlisle and Alice are discussing in his quarters. 

He wants to not care, honestly. Not to desperately want to know how the fuck she ended up on Viltri after the evacuation. Why she had waited five goddamn years to call them. 

“Well, I’m not waiting up,” Rosalie said, turning on her heel and leaving. “Whatever she wants or has or knows is just going to be more drama.”

Edward huffs and continues pacing and Jasper slumps at the table and wonders again what its like to be eternally seventeen, and not being able to sleep or eat or fuck or do anything but wait. 

Everything about these people, he cares about fiercely. But they also scare the shit out of him just by existing. 

—

When he walks into the galley the next morning, he expects a crisis. He expects Rosalie to be percolating with irritation, Emmett to be shoveling in breakfast so that he can get on with whatever plans they need to put into action, Carlisle arguing with Edward and trying to talk Rosalie out of her snit, and Alice and Esme to be trying not to trigger an argument. 

He’s not expecting silence, of Rose and Emmett drinking coffee alone. 

“Where is everyone?” He asks. Esme prides herself on cooking for them regularly, but this morning is pre-packaged rations that Emmett is attempting to reanimate with gels and the precious bottle of honey they snagged during the last supply run. 

“Edward and Alice haven’t come to breakfast,” Rosalie said, her stern look masking her worry. “Esme is tending to Carlisle.”

That’s bad. ‘Tending’ means she’s there in a professional sense, as Carlisle’s nurse. ‘Tending’ means that something is wrong. He can’t even begin to understand Carlisle’s health or medical status, but the few incidents he’s seen are clear reasons that Esme is employed on the ship, her relationship with Carlisle notwithstanding. 

“Rose thinks she’s handing out a nice relaxing sedative,” Emmett says, taking an experimental bite out of his breakfast and looking satisfied with the results. “Eddie hasn’t told us anything.”

“Probably just a long night,” he says, snapping off a chunk of the breakfast bar and popping it in his mouth. He regrets it immediately; it’s the same brand and flavor the Monterrey used to stock and it takes him back to a place he’d rather not be, mentally. “Or his hydraulics fucked up again. You know how he gets.”

“Maybe.” Rose pushes her untouched breakfast toward Emmett and stands up. “If you see Alice, tell her I want to see her in the med bay. You two are on dinner duty - no reheats or rations. I’ll take lunch.”

That’s when the sense of dread really settles into his bones. Rosalie offering to cook. 

It’s nothing. What could it be? They’re all here, the ship is fine, they have supplies. 

Anything that has happened, they can fix.

He tries to convince himself of that as he throws away his breakfast bar, but the bad taste continues to linger.

—

Of all the secrets he kept - the ones that kept Peter and Charlotte out of prison, the ones that let him still see his mom, the ones that mean the difference between life and death - the dumbest is the one that has always weighed the heaviest on him, has gnawed at him over the last five years. 

They got married on Xevis, drunk and high and happy. It was a fucking cliche, and when they had sobered up, she had laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks and he was just embarrassed that he didn’t do it properly. 

(Grandma Whitlock was still alive down there in Texas, and he’d always promised himself that he’d take himself back to see her one last time. With a bride in tow… well, that would have made her so happy.)

The paperwork sat in the inbox for nine weeks before everything went to hell, and then she left the ship, and he didn’t bother doing anything with it. Just an ugly, sour memory split between fear and resentment of everything that she hid from him, and regret for how he had driven her out of her home. 

(The marriage was legal and binding on Xevis, but never filed with the Federation. Meaningless unless they wanted to work or live on Xevis, and that would never fucking happen. He’d be more likely to set up shop on Viltri.) 

But it was still a vow. A moment where consequences and rationality had been damned, and he - they - had just done what they wanted. And then, when everything had gone wrong, he’d become the person everyone feared he always would end up being. 

Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he’d never found out. If she’d just been another pretty augmented human girl to him, and his wife. He’d never wanted kids, and she’d never be able to have them, so that wouldn’t have revealed her. 

(He’d been shitfaced when Emmett dragged him back to the ship that last night, and loudly slurred if he ever saw the fuckin’ Synth again, he’d shoot her between the eyes. Esme and Rosalie had been horrified, and Emmett had blamed the drink. She’d already left by then, but it would take him another two days to notice her absence, those words echoing in his head.)

—

The compound he was raised on was one of two that Earth had contributed funding to, for expats. He remembered a scarlet sky with two suns, and lush grass that was more blue than green. He remembered their bungalow of straw and mottled wood. 

He remembers most of the residents at the compound being humans; the adults had grand plans of raising earth animals and selling them to alien worlds and making millions.

(He was only young. He didn’t know everything. He didn’t know anything. He knew three languages, and that watermelon, corn, and blueberries became poisonous when grown in alien soil, and that the half-alien girl in the house down by the northeast corner was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He didn’t know the price on human bodies, on human tissue. He was a white boy from Texas; he could never have dreamed up how dangerous and unfair and cruel life could be.)

He was nearly twelve, by Earth-time, when it all went to hell. 

They were supposed to be safe. 

That’s why when the compound bought the Synths as support workers, they included security. It was probably more expensive than necessary but it was important 

Back then, Synths were not really special, not to him. Humans made in Petri dishes and grown in labs weren’t all that interesting when he might see something blue and gelatinous or with five legs or sixteen eyes at the docking station. They were just neighbours to all the kids in the community. 

And the Synths ones in the compound weren’t fancy; they looked like regular people. They were treated like regular people, mostly. The only real difference was the tattooed serial number on the inside of their middle finger, a shade darker than their skin. Something you had to look for, designed to be subtle.

No one knew they were unhappy; they were good at hiding it. Or rather, they were upset as the Federation began the Synth restrictions - tougher than androids because Synths could blend in so much easier. But no one noticed their rage. 

(The trigger was when Earth refused them passports, refused their entry, and made them stateless. He remembers his father promising his mother that it would be okay, they would look after their own.)

He remembers it being a hot day, helping his father with the precious few chickens they were attempting to acclimatize in a corner of the barn.

He remembers being confused when the barn doors closed.

He remembers his teacher, her gaze hard and cold against him, holding him back as the others cut Jack’s throat. 

As they laid Jasper’s father down next to the other men, the older teenagers (nine of them died that day), and stripped them down.

When they began to cut and slice and peel, as they bagged and boxed each piece, they didn’t need to hold him back anymore. He just stared, blood sticky on his face and hands. Too young to be worth a dime. 

Sixteen hours in that building, before they packed up their bounty and bid him farewell, and left him there with nine splayed out bodies, cut down to the bone and hollowed out for profit. 

(The one with the dark hair blew him a kiss and promised they’d come back for him when he was older. He still has that nightmare where he’s just another body on the floor, eyes and tongue and organs scooped out.)

Cass had howled when she saw Jack, screamed when she saw Jasper, and grabbed him in her arms so tightly when he reached for her that there were bruises on his arms. He shook but he didn’t cry, didn’t make a sound. 

Not even when the community lined up the other Synths, the ones that were just as confused and afraid as the humans were, and executed them on the spot.

Monsters were real and they wore human skin. 

—

Carlisle comes to dinner with red, tired eyes. 

Edward appears not at all. Neither does Alice. 

The meal is eaten in silence, Carlisle looking exhausted and worn and utterly hopeless and nothing is said until the plates are cleared and Rosalie is pouring cups of coffee. 

“Rosalie, please run co-ordinates for Noctuae, Small Island,” Carlisle finally says, deflated. “They should be in the system.”

“Of course,” Rosalie says cautiously; she’s been quiet all day - like the rest of them, she’s been waiting for whatever bomb is about to be dropped.

“Emmett, send a message through to Masen House that we will be docking for three in nine,” Carlisle adds, staring down at the translucent slices of fruit remaining on his plate with the sort of hopelessness Jasper is familiar with. 

“Masen House?” Rosalie asks, and Jasper surreptitiously runs a search for the name in with his Lens, the name ringing some faint bell. Edward Masen Cullen. “What’s going on, Carlisle?”

There is a terrible, hollow pause as they watch Carlisle try to gather himself. 

“Alice brought me Edward,” Carlisle says simply, staring into his mug. “She found him being used as a tissue farm and…” His head bows and Esme’s gone pale in horror, and Emmett looks vaguely ill. 

Tissue farming had popped up before the Synths and continued on after them; it wasn’t something they could be blamed for. It just… wasn’t taboo in some quarters of space. DNA splicing, transplants, blood, and organ donation… it was all legal. The problem was in that there was always a demand for more variety, more choices, especially exotic ones. Like humans. And where there was demand, there was always going to be someone willing to provide. 

He imagines what Alice found when she saw Edward. If it was a nice place, probably a man kept alive on life-support, harvested at the whim of wealthy clients. Probably brain-dead from the chemical coma. 

If it wasn’t a nice place… he didn’t want to imagine that. Edward’s just a kid.

Or he was. He always has been. Always will be, now. 

Carlisle sets the metal box down, a rough label slapped on the front, along with a blood-stained microchip. 

“She had no way of traveling with him,” Carlisle began, and he can already see the sobs building. “And he couldn’t have anyway, he was gone.” The sobs break through and Jasper wonders what that level of love felt like when turned to grief. If he’d sob if any of his half-ling siblings were found too far gone to help. 

“We’ll take him to Small Island,” Esme rushes to comfort Carlisle, her own face streaked with tears. “With Edythe and Elizabeth.”

“Yes. The end of a chapter,” Carlisle manages with a shuddering breath. “A father without his children…” He shakes his head. 

“You’ve still got a child,” Rosalie says softly, and looks down the hallway and for a second, Jasper expects to see Edward’s mopey visage, trying to compute the idea that he’s a hologram and AI of a dead person and how exactly he needs to mourn himself. 

Instead, he sees a flash of black hair and worn pro-tex, and he just feels pity for them both.

—

It starts - or ends, really, with Alice flipping Emmett off.

They’re in the galley, doing the quarterly reports on supplies. It’s boring as hell, documenting every mug and every spoon, with the knowledge that once the galley is done, they have to check over every other common or unoccupied room in the ship. 

(“It’s fucking stupid, but at one time any human goods fetched a good price on the black market,” Emmett informed him solemnly during his first year. “When I was a kid, a potato peeler was worth more than a new optical drive. So now we log every fuckin’ dish towel for the Federation to make sure Carlisle doesn’t make his dough hocking tube socks and chopsticks on the down-low.”) 

It’s a good night; Rose mixed drinks for them and they’ve bypassed Edward to pick the music themselves, and Emmett’s making salacious jokes at their expense because their last date-night at the Peremai dock involved too much liquor and not a whole lot of discretion, and Alice flips Emmett off and that’s when he sees the tattoo. 

The shiny glint of the genetic-tattoo a shade darker than her skin, running up the inside of her middle finger, and the bottom drops out of his stomach. The world tilts, and he hears static, and then he feels sick before he feels anything else. 

Maria reassured him, all those years ago, that the Federation had outlawed Synths after the attacks on the Earth compounds, and the small population of them were tagged and monitored - virtually the only forms of employment for a Synth were wet work and sex work. You had to go looking to find a Synth.

That was what she was good at - they were good at. 

And Alice is standing there, laughing with a drink in her hand, and he doesn’t know how to speak. 

(What happens next is that he grabs her by the arm and drags her out of the room, and Rosalie demands to know where they’re going and Emmett wolf-whistles, but really he takes her back to his quarters and he demands to know the truth. There is screaming and crying and words that he doesn’t remember saying. He remembers punching the wall over and over again, and when Esme is bandaging up his hands the next morning, he can’t convince himself that’s the only thing he hit. It’s all a messy blur in his mind, of terror and rage and betrayal and the kind of fear that never ever leaves him, that remembers the shape of him. He doesn’t remember a word she says in her defense, and for a long time, he doesn’t care.) 

Carlisle finds him three days later and invites him into his lab. He’s hungover and an open wound, ready to be fired and dumped at the next docking station. He wants to fucking yell every obscenity at the man for not disclosing Alice’s status anywhere at any time.

But he’s not fired. He’s given a cup of coffee, and Carlisle is serious but kind. Every human knows of the Earth Nine, knows their names. They’re in the history books, even in space. 

“Alice has been put on an alternative schedule for the foreseeable future,” is the first thing out of Carlisle’s mouth and he is petty enough to be pleased that she - it - will be on shift alone, maybe with Edward for company whilst the rest of them sleep. The rest of what Carlisle says is the usual - counseling, time off. Nothing he hasn’t heard before, and he doesn’t want to admit that he can’t afford extra leave because of all the fines and shit that were a part of his sentence. 

It’s late at night when he’s trying not to listen out for her moving about the ship and get some fucking sleep, that he allows himself to mourn what he thought he had. To let the great well of sadness swallow up the rage. And he blames himself for thinking that he could ever expect anything to be good, to be safe, to be happy. 

(Maybe, after she’s gone, he starts gathering two stones from the places he visits - one for his father’s shrine at his mother’s house and a spare, one that he lines along his port window and never acknowledges.)

—

It’s quiet after they find out about Edward. Carlisle spends a lot of time in the mostly-unused sanctuary of the ship, lighting cells and whispering prayers from one of the Earth religions over the box of ashes. 

Esme takes to cooking, and everyone pretends they don’t see her sniffle over cookie batter - another child lost to them. If the world was a perfect place, everyone on the ship would have their children, their siblings, and their parents. But it isn’t, and he’s the one that goes with Esme with her little bundle of things - a cookie, some strands of hair from an old hairbrush, writing he cannot read on a piece of paper - to throw into the airlock and release into the sky as Esme kneels and whispers the prayers of her childhood. 

Rosalie just looks sad in the few absent moments he catches her; she prefers to remain busy, moving between the cockpit and the med bay, to make sure everything is textbook-perfect. 

Emmett’s in the tech room and Jasper runs into him having a conversation with his siblings on the video-comm, and Emmett looks a little sheepish, but he understands - you want to hold a little tighter to what you have when there is a loss. 

Edward and Alice are both absent from public spaces, and he feels slightly pathetic when he leaves a hydration pouch and some snacks outside the guest room door - along with a spare pillow and a set of clean pyjamas - instead of knocking on the door and talking to her face to face. 

He wishes she’d chosen to stay in her old room, but he understands why she doesn’t. She emptied it before she left; he remembers Carlisle telling him she’d left the ship, and going straight to her room like she’d be waiting there for him. And it had been empty, smelling of antiseptic, the bunks folded up and the walls blank. The guest quarters are always made up and ready. He doesn’t even know where her stuff is - he assumes in storage but he doesn’t know. 

He finds himself wandering the ship under the guise of keeping an eye on things but really, he’s thinking about Edward, about tissue farms, about his father and eight others splayed on the barn floor, hollowed out for profit. It makes him feel old and tired and lost. It makes him hope that Edward’s death was soft and peaceful, that he just drifted off and eventually his brain gave out from the drugs. 

He hopes it wasn’t ugly and dirty and scary. No one deserved the death his father had, what he witnessed. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone. 

It’s quiet, but the weight of everyone’s grief is the loudest thing he’s heard for a long, long time. 

—

Alice’s quarters were always the smallest on the ship, and she’d joke that it was because she was too. Narrow and programmed to have purple walls with flowers that bloomed around doorframes, it held a pair of single bunks, a locker, and a small desk. She used the washroom across the hall and he was bewildered that an analyst with seniority was given worse quarters than he was. 

But there was the window. The one opposite her bed that took up the entire wall and offered an uninterrupted view of the sky. It was beautiful, and the entire reason she kept the room. 

The night he spends in her room, he keeps finding new things to look at - the moons and stars and suns she’s painted onto the underside of the top bunk; garlands from every planet she’s visited, each of them with a different meaning, strung across the ceiling. How she requisitioned as many blankets as she could and cut them all up to make a hideously ugly quilt of industrials greys and greens and blues, and then spent a fortune on inks and brushes to painstakingly paint each square in bright colours. How she’s piled half the bed with pillows like she’s trying to create some kind of nest. 

“It’s a mess,” she says shyly, as she begins gathering up her clothing to cram them into her locker. She has more clothes than any of them, picked up at markets all over space. It reminds him of some kind of home seeing her swan down to breakfast in a floral bathrobe and duck-print pajamas; to drag him off the ship when they dock clad in a white sundress and ballet slippers. 

“It’s perfect,” he says, and she beams at him, crawling onto the bed with him. 

“You know what?” She asked him shyly, her hair falling into her face. 

“What?” She’s so tiny in his arms, he worries he’s going to hurt her as he gathers her up. 

“I love you, Jasper. The most I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life. I just wanted you to know that.” Her eyes are wide and she smiles at him before she kisses him, and that’s the moment that imprints itself on his brain; surrounded by stars with the scent of floral shampoo, and them wrapped up in each other. 

(Something in him breaks, months later, when he finds that room empty and grey, and smelling of antiseptic cleaner. It’s the kind of despair that cuts deep, and he knows that he deserves it, every ounce of pain. But it takes years for the rage to dull and let the shame and regret through.)

—

It’s Edward that finds her. 

Three days later - three days of Edward hiding away from everyone, three days of Carlisle shutting himself in his quarters to mourn. Three days of Alice emerging for meals she picked at in silence before returning to the guest quarters, never going near her old room.

He hears the alarm go off for med bay, and Rosalie and Carlisle dash through the ship to the guest quarters; he and Emmett follow and for a moment he wonders if she’s killed herself.

She’s on the floor in her sleep clothes, so pale she looks translucent, with Rosalie already slapping med-patches onto her and Carlisle checking her vitals. 

“I told her to go to the med bay,” Edward says waspishly, the first words he’s spoken since he found out, and it is comforting that he’s at least been confiding in Alice. 

“How long has she been sick?” Carlisle asks. 

“She wasn’t in great shape when she boarded, Carlisle,” Rosalie’s answer is short, and Carlisle looks away and he realizes that even though she arrived covered in med patches, Carlisle had been too distracted to look over the health report Rose had compiled. 

“Two nights ago,” Edward says quietly. “She said she found treatment before she left for Viltri, but she implied it wasn’t good.”

Carlisle nods, his whole demeanor changing. “Get her to the med bay,” he says, flicking the screens on the med-screen authoritatively. “I’ll stabilize her and pull up her records.”

Emmett is the one to carry her, with Rose and Carlisle hot on his heels. He stays back with Edward - he knows basic first aid, nothing useful at this moment and he’s seen enough dead bodies not to enjoy this part much. 

Edward’s looking at him, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. 

“How sick is she?” Is what he goes with, and he’s surprised how lost he sounds in that moment. 

“She’s been sick a long time,” is what Edward says. “Do you know how hard it is to find doctors that know human physiology and will see a Synth? Let alone treat one?”

Edward leaves without another word, and not for the first time, he wonders where she’s been and how she ended up here. 

—

Alice leaves them. 

There's not much else to say about that, really.

It's weeks after he found out the truth and she's been working second-shift the whole time. He barely sees her, and he's glad of it.

He goes with Emmett and Rose when they dock, and he walks past her on the ship, holding a cup of coffee and looking tired.

Edward tells them not to bother taking the projection cells, he's staying on the ship with Carlisle.

He walks out and goes and gets blackout drunk, and when his hangover passes, and they are two days out in the middle of nowhere, it finally registers that she's not on the schedule anywhere, that it's been Emmett in the tech office.

"Alice decided to take extended leave" is Carlisle's diplomatic answer when he asks. And that's it.

She's gone.

Alice left (and she never planned to come back.)

—

He’s not allowed to see her until the next day. 

Edward tells him everything, refusing to speak about anything but Alice when he appears - that she did regain consciousness but only long enough for Carlisle and Rose to question her. 

He selfishly wants to know if she asked for him, and the look Edward gives him implies that he knows what Jasper is thinking and that he really is a fuckwit to think that the girl he so fantastically terrorized out of her home wants anything to do with him anymore. 

“She was out of it,” Edward finally says. “Answered direct questions but didn’t realise she was here. Kept trying to give out our call-signal. Rose was pretty generous with the pain meds I think.”

Rosalie is never generous with pain medications; insisting on a stockpile in case they really needed them. Emmett needed laser-stitches up his back a few years ago, and even then Rosalie had been stingy. It makes his stomach twist, that Alice needed them bad enough that Rose was willing to give them. 

He waits for a while before decamping to the galley, where Esme is waiting with lunch and a sympathetic touch to his shoulder as he paces, uninterested in food. 

“She would hate seeing you so upset. Carlisle and Rosalie are beyond capable of handling this,” Esme says so gently, her words punctuated with a soft click-pop typical of her species. It’s comforting.

He shakes his head and keeps pacing, gets himself coffee just to give himself something to do. Esme sets the table and Edward slouches against the wall, scowling at the pair of them. 

“Do you think…” Jasper begins and Edward huffs. 

“Tell him Esme,” Edward says and Esme frowns before looking over at Jasper. 

“Alice corresponded with me a few times over the years. Very superficial messages,” Esme says, and he whirls around at the idea that there are clues and information that has led them to this moment. “There was nothing to tell, so I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”

“What did she say?” He wants to yell. That any message was better than nothing. As if it is Esme’s fault she’s so sick she doesn’t know where she is. 

“She said she hoped we were all well and safe. She mentioned that she hoped you were happy once or twice. Edward seems to think that withholding this information from you was tantamount to betrayal, but they were nothing, Jasper. I write longer supply reports.” Esme looks so sad.

“You went to her room the other night and spoke with her,” Edward retorts, and he and Esme have always had an odd, sibling-like relationship where they both know best and both want the best for Carlisle. Normally, it is funnier. Now, it’s just irritating. 

Before Esme can respond, Rosalie emerges from the med bay, looking tired. She plucks the coffee out of Jasper’s hands without a word and takes a long draw from it. 

“Carlisle said you can see her if you want to,” is all she says to him, as she takes a seat at the table and pulls a plate towards herself, ignoring Esme and Edward’s bickering. “He’s put her under though - advanced systemic shock.”

Life-support. It sounds worse than it is; he knows this. Humans are put on life-support for bad fevers, infections, setting badly broken limbs - anything where the body needs to be stabilized and supported. It just makes him nervous. 

The med bay is quiet when he slips in the door, his eyes finding her immediately. She lies on the gurney like a dead body, wrapped in medical modesty garments and nothing else, staring blindly at the ceiling and seeing absolutely nothing. He sees the white tubing threaded through her nose and mouth, into both wrists, and he knows that it's the life-support system that will keep her sustained until the treatment is over. But the tubes are almost as thin as wire, enough to render them invisible in the bigger picture, and mostly she just looks like a corpse on a slab. He can see her skin now, blue and black mottling all over her right side, pink and scarlet lines of infection just under the skin. 

(Did he read everything he could on Synths after she left them? Yes, he did. He knows about systemic shock, and he knows about every single hellish detail about the long-term effects of lab-generated tissue. Somewhere, Maria is laughing at him and calling him a hypocrite and a traitor.) 

Carlisle looks at him with pity. “I haven’t prepared her yet. Taped her eyes and such,” the man says and that makes Jasper want to gag a little. 

“How long will she be under?” is what he manages. 

“It’s been a long time since I treated advanced systemic shock, let alone of this severity,” Carlisle admits. “She’ll be under for a while, at this rate. Alice knows the risks and accepted them.”

Ninety days. That’s the limit of life-support for Synths. They die quickly after that; and it takes at least twenty-one to grow new tissue if the infection on her side is too far gone. He knows that. 

That’s why she’s got so much plating down her side, he realizes suddenly. A previous infection. He never asked and she never told him. But it makes sense. If a tissue-graft hadn’t taken or had needed some kind of binding and reinforcement, plating would have been the most effective option.

And this is all assuming the infection hasn’t gone to her brain or heart, he swallows hard and drifts to the seat at her side. If it has, there’s nothing anyone can do for her. She’ll just die.

Maybe that’s why she chose Viltri to send an SOS. Planned to be quietly dead when they arrived, with Edward’s ashes in her bag. 

Or maybe she never planned on coming home, and planned to pass on her message, and stay behind to die with the planet they met on. 

(Carlisle lets him stay as he tapes her eyes close, draws blood, and links up with the chip in her wrist. At some point, he finds himself holding her hand and pressing his lips against her knuckles as Carlisle drills into the bone of her thigh for tissue. 

If he finds himself praying, saying the words a half-remembered grandmother once taught him, well, maybe that’s okay.)

I’m here and I’m so, so sorry. 

I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m sorry for forcing you to leave, I’m sorry for forgetting how much I love you.

And I do, I love you, and I’ll wait for you as long as it takes. 

—

She’ll be okay. 

He doesn’t believe in much, but he has to believe that. 

—

Notes

For those who don't dwell in the same media spaces as I do, 'wet work' is killing for hire.

I have detailed backstories for every single character. I just need you all the know the idea captured me and became a thing. Thanks for the inspo, Archer 1999.

Jasper’s father was raised by a Jewish mother, and whilst Cass and Jack Whitlock were more science over religion, they did teach Jasper as much about his origins as they could. Leaving a stone from his travels at his father’s memorial was the way that Jasper could honour his father that had multiple meanings. But I really wanted to mention that yes, Jack Whitlock was raised by a Jewish mother. 

Rosalie’s backstory here is somehow grimmer than her canon backstory, but I hope to explore that in an expansion of this fic. Basically in this fic, Rosalie’s parents were far more active in her downfall, that Rosalie is a 100% self-made alien. 

Edward as an AI hologram allows him to keep so many of his canon personality traits, as well as some of the hurdles his relationship with Bella faces. Edythe’s demise weighs heavily on both him and Carlisle. There is a story there, and if I get the opportunity to tell the full, multi-chapter version of this fic I don’t want to spoil it ahead of time. But Edward and Edythe were not Carlisle's bio-children.

The Lens is something that didn't get explored enough but is essentially a permanent contact lens that allows users to access their computing network - that's what the gold overlay over Alice's eye was. Alice chose one that was very visible over her eye, mostly people chose them to blend in with their eye colour.

Cass Whitlock's story is a lot more complex than gets touched on here - I have a whole backstory for her. I'm still undecided whether she's kind of an asshole to her eldest son, or if she was just totally unprepared to deal with his level of trauma.

[tubesock86]

idk what happened I’m fully back on my steddie bullshit HAHA

[fictionadventurer]

I love libraries.

I'm browsing the WWI shelves (as you do) and notice a very old book about the war. I glance at the first pages that talk about how one day the war will be over and we'll look at this place and not see any signs of the battlefield.

Then it hits me. And I check the publishing date.

This book was printed before the war's end. Not written. Printed. The physical object was created in 1918, while the war in question was raging and the end was as yet uncertain.

Now I'm standing on the other side of the apocalypse, with this physical link to that era in my hands. I'm living proof that the war did end and life did go on and we can all look at the end of the world as a long-ago memory.

Reading old books is cool enough, connecting our minds and hearts through the ideas of people who lived long ago, but there's something extra profound about holding a copy of the book that comes from the time that it was written. It's a physical link between the past and the present connecting me to those long-ago people. A piece of the past come into the future that gives me the chance to almost take the hand of some long-ago reader, to hold something they could have held, connecting not just mentally but physically to their era, a moment of connection across more than a century.

Excuse me while I go weep.

[huaiian]

Imagine Being Loved By Me (Sylus x Fem!Reader)

Summary:

“I’ll relent. Give my kitten a few hours to…play with her toy. To do as she pleases.”

In short, it’s the MC/Reader’s birthday and Sylus let’s her have her way with him.

Pairing: Sylus x Fem!Reader or MC

Rating: Explicit, 18+ ONLY

Words: 4.6 K

AO3 Link Here

Tags: Light Dom/Sub, Dom!MC or Dom!Reader, Sub!Sylus, Bondage, Cumming (kinda) Untouched, Overstimulation, Porn but there's a thread of a plot

Author's Note: Hope you all enjoy! I haven't really written anything like this in a LOOOONG time so if it's not great I apologize. This is basically just me going hmm, what if you tied him up and made him cry. And well uhh….idk this happened. If you aren't into Submissive Sylus then I'm sorry, you'll probably want to skip out on this one ╥﹏╥

You awoke to rays of sun gently fanning across your face. Your nose scrunched up and you stretched your hands above your head, groaning slightly as your joints began to pop. You felt arms wrap around your waist and you smiled slightly, eyes opening slightly, glancing to the side.

“Someone’s up bright and early,” Sylus sighs, arms bringing you closer to him. His head moves to the crook of your neck, taking a deep breath and giving you a gentle kiss on your pulse point. Your smile widens, cradling the back of his head and guiding him upwards. You share a small peck before pulling back, adoration clear in your gaze.

“Happy birthday, my love,” he whispers into the morning air. You kiss him again as he envelopes you in his embrace.

The day progresses as any other day would, aside from the fact that it’s your birthday and Sylus will stop at nothing to shower you with gifts and attention. Did you mention a beautiful Tiffany & Co. necklace you wanted? He got you the entire collection. You said you wanted a new purse right? He took it upon himself to get you every Birkin he could find in person. It was all too much for you, having a more reserved and shy personality usually, but it’s your birthday so why not live a little.

Sylus led you from place to place, joining you in all of your favorite hobbies before surprising you at the end of the night with your closest friends and coworkers at the local karaoke bar. Sylus had to use his pseudonym, Skye, just as he did when you had coincidentally met him in a similar circumstance. Only this time, instead of trying to distance yourself from him the entire night, you were doing your best not to drag him towards you and kiss him until you saw stars.

“Sweetie,” he whispered in your ear, a shiver running up your spine, “you still have one more gift that you’ll need to open.”

“Oh?” You questioned, your eyebrow raising ever so slightly. “And what might that gift be? Don’t tell me you bought me an entire island or something ridiculous.”

Sylus was silent for a beat, causing you to straighten and whirl around, eyes wide and mouth agape at the implication. He chuckles while shaking his head, eyes scrunching up at the corners. “No my dear, though it can be arranged. All you need to do is ask,”

“NO, no I’m definitely happy and definitely don’t need you to spend anything more than you already have,” you stammer, a light blush coloring your cheeks. His laughter dies down and he smirks, leaning forward so his mouth is up against your ear.

“No love, this gift won’t cost me a thing,” his breath fanning out across your ear. Almost as if he could hear your confusion, he clarifies for you.

“I’ll relent. Give my kitten a few hours to…play with her toy. To do as she pleases.”

You could feel warmth rush through you in that moment, understanding the implication of his words. You never believed in the phrase ‘butterflies in your stomach’ until now, feeling the strange sensation combined with your heart stuttering in your chest, you could tell that it was going to be a long night.

After Sylus’ slight teasing, you slowly begin to exit the karaoke bar, hugging friends and catching up with some old co-workers here and there before finally making a subtle departure. You didn’t want to ruin the party for everyone else, but you also had a present waiting at home that had been plaguing your mind for hours now. You snatched Sylus’ hand and started dragging him over to his motorcycle, the man squeezing your hand gently. 

“I see someone’s anticipation is slowly getting the best of her,” he teased. The motorcycle came into view, which only made you take larger strides.

“If I had known how much you’d enjoy this gift, I would’ve departed a long time ago-” his voice was cut off by you suddenly swinging him forward, leaning him against the bike before cupping his cheeks. His eyes widened before you brought his face forward, your lips colliding in an aggressive kiss, showcasing your pent up frustration. He hummed into the kiss before his hands came to rest on your hips. 

As the kiss deepened, his hands snake towards your ass, that is until you swatted them away. You broke the kiss to find an adorably confused expression on his face. You lean forward, slightly on your tiptoes to try to make eye contact.

“I’m sorry, I thought the birthday girl was going to call the shots. Isn’t that right?” You questioned him with a smug demeanor. His eyes darkened before nodding. You grabbed his chin and pulled him in for another kiss, where it was obvious that you were in complete control. He could feel the smile on your face before pulling back again.

“That’s my good boy.”

He groans, eyes closing again before you bring him back into a possessive kiss. You wanted to muffle any sounds he might make in case anyone had the audacity of hearing him in this state; a state only you were allowed to see. You broke apart from him again, his eyes opening again and looking towards you for further direction.

“Let’s get you home baby, I’ll take care of you,” you softly tell him, hand cupping his face and thumb gently wiping just before his eye. He nods mindlessly at you before whispering “yes ma’am.” He climbs atop of the motorcycle as you follow close behind. Before you realize it, Sylus is weaving in and out of traffic at speeds you knew were nowhere near safe. Could it be due to your hand squeezing his inner thigh, your chest pressed against his back ever so tightly. 

When you arrive at home, you notice that the twins and Mephisto aren’t there to welcome you home. You sigh slightly out of exasperation, taking Sylus’ hand once more before leading him inside the house. The darkness and silence is all encompassing, all that can be heard in yours and Sylus’ breaths desperately trying to calm yourselves of your racing heartbeats.

As you move through the house, you finally locate the bedroom door, noticing that candles had been lit, illuminating the room in a gentle glow. 

“I’ll have to give the boys their thanks later,” you state, giggling slightly to yourself at the turn of events.

Sylus frowns slightly before squeezing your hand harder to indicate his irritation at the mention of the twins. You laugh openly now, ushering Sylus to sit on the bed.

“It seems that someone’s a jealous little toy huh,” you speak, an authoritative tone engulfing your words in a new weight. Sylus scoffs, crossing his arms and turning his head to the side.

“As though you wouldn’t be upset with me if I starting bringing up other women in the bedroom,” 

“What other women Sylus,” you speak up, your hands grabbing his wrists and unfolding his arms. You widen your stance and take a seat on his lap, your index finger and thumb grasping his chin to force him to look you in the eye. He looks at you with a slight scowl on his face, but his widening pupils and growing bulge in his pants tells you that the expression is just for show.

“Enlighten me,” you tease, leaning forward so your lips ghost his ever so slightly, “what other women are you talking to?” The question falls upon deaf ears as your hand moves from his chin to his hair, curling around some strands before gripping tightly, tugging his head backwards. Sylus gasps sharply as you feel his cock twitch below you. You move your head swiftly to his neck, kissing up his neck before reaching his jawline just below his ear. You start sucking sharply, nipping at the skin to ensure that a mark appears in your wake. 

He moans low, his hands fisting the sheets below him. His head falls to the side, allowing you greater access to his neck. You let go of the sensitive skin, but you don’t move away. Your breaths dampening the skin below you before you ask again, “Answer me Sylus: What other women are you talking to?” 

“No one,” he states, sounding out of breath and ragged before groaning again as you bite his neck with pressure just enough to leave a mark. You release his neck before licking a stripe upwards, whispering in his ear, “that’s a good boy,” before softly biting his ear lobe.

Sylus’ hips buck upwards, searching for any kind of friction. You let out a ‘hmph’ before grinding down harshly, forcing a muttered ‘oh fuck’ out of his mouth. 

“Now that won’t do,” you state, slowly getting up from his lap. He opens his eyes slowly, half lidded. His eyes watch you as you move your way towards the dresser, his breath stuttering as he sees you grab rope you both are all too familiar with. He kicks off his shoes and climbs onto the bed, positioning himself on his knees with his hands behind his back. 

“How obedient,” you observe as he sits, awaiting for your instruction, “but we won’t be in this position today.” He quirks an eyebrow up at you, the ghost of a smirk on his lips. You smirk as well, knowing that the poor bastard had no idea what he had signed up for when offering his last present to you.

You kick off your heels and crawl in front of him on your knees. His chest starts rising and falling more noticeably and he tries to calm his breathing. You start undressing him, giving gentle instructions as needed. He obeyed without any resistance and as you were slowly peeling off his last layer, cock springing upwards and onto his stomach, you heard a quiet moan leave him. 

You remove the boxers and throw them to the side, attention stuck on the pretty pink length twitching slightly at your gaze. You lean forward, licking a fat stripe on the underside of his cock, reveling in the way his breath stutters and his thighs shake. You give a quick suck to the head before pulling back, raising your head upwards to make eye contact with the man.

“Sweetie please,” he whispers, hand reaching forward to grab your waist. You quickly took his wrist and put your other hand on the middle of his check slowly pushing him backwards on the bed, pinning his hands above his head, straddling his hips. You could feel his cock underneath you through your jeans, moving your hips in a subtle circular motion. You hear him whimpering faintly, and you squeeze his wrists before letting them go. His wrists stay above his head, his gaze pleading with you to let him feel you in his rough grasp.

You grab the forgotten rope at your side before cupping his cheek, bringing him into a tender kiss. Sylus attempted to deepen the kiss, but you smiled and pulled away. 

“Spread out baby,” you say to him, unraveling the rope. He rolls his eyes and spreads out, his hands and feet pointing towards their respective corners.

“You know, when I offered up this as a present, I wasn’t expecting…” he trails off, trying to find the right words, “all of this enthusiasm. I thought you enjoyed begging underneath me,  begging for my co-” 

He was cut off from his bratty tirade by a sharp slap to the inner thigh, causing his hips to buck and the words to die on his tongue.

“I didn’t think I needed to keep that pretty mouth of yours in check,” you say with a bored tone, sighing slightly. You finish up tying the last ankle to the corner of the bed, using a single column tie for his wrists and ankles. As you lean back to acknowledge your handiwork, you can see his arms and legs straining a little, testing out the ropes. Unfortunately for him, the ropes are secure and unless he’s willing to beg, there's no getting out of them now.

You straddle his midriff and he looks up at you with a slight scowl at you tying him down. You cup his cheeks with your hands and kiss him deeply, languidly. You’re able to take your time now and you’re going to savor every second of it. He kisses you back, matching your leisurely pace.

You part the kiss, a string of saliva connecting the two of you. “I have scissors in the left hand drawer,” you mutter, kissing the corner of his mouth. “The safe word is Featherstar. Do I make myself clear?” You look at him sternly, wanting him to take this seriously. He nods his head and attempts to lean forward to kiss you once more. You click your tongue at him, moving away. 

“I’m gonna need you to use your words my love,” you tell him in a hushed tone. He pouts at you but nods again, replying with a simple “Yes ma’am, I understand.”

“Thank you sweetie,” you whisper in his ear, causing him to shiver. You start kissing down his neck, leading the middle of his chest. You start sucking and biting different areas on his chest, knowing that the man would start unraveling at the seams. Sure enough, he was humming and groaning at the attention his chest was receiving.

You moved towards his nipple, dragging your tongue across the sensitive bud. You felt it perk up and start to harden as you swirled your tongue around it in small circles.

“Oh sweetie, fuck,” he sighs, his arms straining against the ropes. He lets out an annoyed huff followed by a low pitched groan and you start to suck on the raised bud. You continue sucking and your other hand caresses his side, trailing your fingers upwards until they reach his other nipple. You tweak the unoccupied nipple in between your fingers, pinching and rubbing it in small circles similar to your tongues movements before swapping the two. Your mouth comes and replaces your hand while your other hand comes up to caress his pec. 

Sylus moans and twitches underneath you, becoming more and more agitated by his inability to touch you. “Baby, when will you release me? This is getting a bit boring, don’t you think?” He tries his best to keep his voice from wavering with arousal. 

You look up at him and bite down on his nipple, causing the man to moan and tip his head back on the bed. You release his nipples and kiss your way to the center of his chest again. “Bargaining isn’t going to work my dear, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to get used to this.”

He tries to calm his breathing as you start caressing his body, your fingers applying feather light pressure to him, goosebumps rising on his skin. You venture lower until you’re sitting back, his cock straining against his stomach in a red color that looks somewhat irritated from the lack of attention. 

Your touch delicately brushes against his length, his cock jumping and twitching with every touch. “You’re killin’ me sweetie,” he says, sounding out of breath. You continue the movements, making no effort to apply anymore pressure or stimulation. He whimpers as his dick starts leaking a constant stream of precum, creating a shallow puddle on his stomach. 

“You can come just from this can’t you?” You ask, tilting your head to the side. He shakes his head slightly before flinching as your fingers gather some of the precum, teasing the tip. His thighs flex, trying to plant his feet onto the mattress but to no avail. You giggle at his reaction, playing with the slit before leaning forward, licking the shell of his ear.

“Don’t you want to make me proud? It is my birthday after all,” you purr into his ear, his breathing becoming erratic. You could tell he was close, all he needed was some pushing. You took your free hand and grasped his hair. 

“Don’t you want to be a good boy, make me proud?” You say, tugging his hair so his head would be pulled back. He made a choked off noise and shut his eyes suddenly, whimpering as he came, hot streaks of cum shooting up towards his chest. You could see the veins in his arms protruding from being restricted. You smiled, cooing in his ear praises of how well he was doing. 

Sylus took a few calming breaths before looking at you, his eyes glassy and gaze filled with longing. “Please baby, let me go,” he tries again. You shake your head before getting up, straddling him again. He quirks an eyebrow before you start to undress yourself, shimmying out of your jeans and pulling off your top, only left in a matching underwear set you treated yourself to for your big day. His eyes widened as he gazed upon the maroon lace seemingly painted across your breasts.

His distraction was evident as you started to crawl your way upwards, pussy hovering over his face. Even so, his eyes had not left the lingerie once. It seemed as though he was unaware as to what your next move would be, completely taken aback by your choice of attire to ask any questions. You gripped his hair again to tilt his head backwards so he made eye contact with you. 

“Try to keep up,” you stated, using your other hand to push your panties aside. His mouth drops open, saliva beginning to pool in his mouth. Before he can retort, your thighs spread further apart, sitting yourself on his mouth, nose nudging your clit. You moan out as he tongue begins to work you open, lapping up the wetness with a new refound vigor. You started rutting against his mouth, grinding downward so his nose would grind against your clit at an addicting pace.

“Your tongue-” you groan, removing your hands so you could place them behind you, leaning back against his thighs, “God you’re good at this.” You gripped his upper thighs, feeling the firm muscle underneath your hands quivering. You lifted your hips up and away from his mouth for a moment to let him catch his breath. The smug satisfaction pools in the pit of your stomach as you see his chin glisten, mouth open while he takes a brief reprieve. 

“You better get your ass back over here sweetie-” he starts, impatience in his voice. You roll your eyes at him once more pushing yourself back into his mouth. “I’m gonna need to punish you for speaking out of turn like that, ya know,” you tell him, grinding down harder and harder as he works you open. You gasp as he starts fucking you open with his tongue, moaning at your taste. 

You glance behind you and find not only is he fully erect again, but it seems he’s just as close to release as you. And well, we can’t have that can we?

You could feel yourself getting close, and as rode him harder and faster, you reached for his cock behind you, squeezing just under his head. Sylus whimpers loudly in response, but continues to bring you closer and closer to the edge.

With one last nudge of his nose against your clit, your eyes rolled in the back of your head, body going stiff and you came on his tongue. You could feel him pant against your thigh as he tried to calm himself, hips thrusting upward to try and reach his release as well.

“Love please let me come, please, you tasted so good I wanna come too, please,” he begs, mumbling against the inside of your thigh. You pull back from his mouth as he whimpers in protest. You raise up, letting go of his cock as it falls against his stomach heavily. You take off your bra and panties, looking at him with a devious glint in your eye. 

You grab him by the chin so his mouth would open slightly. “Open up,” you ordered and he reluctantly obeyed. You realized he was going to try to come up with a witty retort, but you knew how to satiate him for the time being. You took your panties coated in your wetness and shoved them in his mouth, gagging him. His eyes rolled in the back of his head and moaned loudly. 

“Don’t worry Sylus, I just wanted to save your stamina,” you tell him, moving backwards so your cunt was hovering over his cock. He shivered and moaned at the feeling of you grinding down on his dick, heavy with want and radiating with heat. You moved your cunt against him, slicking up his dick. You finally lifted up and grabbed the base of his shaft, circling the head around your entrance. He started breathing heavily through his nose, the pressure from his yanking causing the ropes around him making the bed frame creak. 

“Such a patient boy, you’ve been waiting so nicely,” you gasp out as you slowly start to sink down on him. He moans loudly, voice muffled by the panties. You take him inch by inch before sitting fully on him, feeling filled to the brim. All that can be heard are the desperate breaths between the two of you. You place your hands on his abs before raising yourself up, tip almost slipping out. As your hips come down forcefully, you hear a punched out moan escape Sylus, little noises escaping him the more you move, however slight.

You start riding him with new vigor, bouncing up and down on his cock, trying to get him to reach deeper and deeper inside you. His moans are becoming louder and louder, with whimpers escaping him whenever you take a moment to sit and swivel your hips in circular motions. The sounds Sylus begins to make sound more and more frantic, wobbly from desperation.

“It’s ok, cum for me Sylus. Fill me up, I wanna be filled with your cum,” your tone sounding strained and you uncontrollably start moving on his cock, desperate for him. It only takes a few more times bouncing on his cock before you hear a muffled shout, feeling warmth spread through you. You moan out, a high pitched squeal leaving your lips as you cum around his cock, milking him inside of you.

You look over and see his head lolled to the side, saliva dripping out of the side of his mouth around your panties. You lean forward and gently move his face so he looks at you. You cup his cheek and praise him as you gingerly remove the panties from his mouth. He breathes through his mouth deeply, coughing slightly. 

You had planned to be done from here, thinking that you've had enough fun, but you can’t help but think of how far you’ll be able to push the infamous leader of Onychinus. A devious part in you wants to break him, while another part of you wants to give him mercy. 

You decide to be selfish, still craving more and more from him. You squeeze around his cock and he groans out, mumbling a soft “baby, please”. Before long, you start moving in circles again, and Sylus is below you, pleading with tears in his eyes.

“Oh God, oh fuck, I don’t- I don’t know if I- SHIT!” He yells out, tears escaping from the corner of his eyes, head hitting the bed behind him hard as he tries grasping for something, anything to keep him grounded.

“Miss please, please, I can’t I- I need to touch you please please,” he begs, voice coming out shaky as you start lifting yourself up and down on his cock again. You were getting tired and felt as though his punishment had gone on long enough.

“Just your legs-” before you could continue, Sylus’ evol appears out of thin air, slicing the ropes that are connecting his ankles to the corners of the bed. You startle, stopping for a second before yelping, bracing your hands on his chest as he plants his feet into the bed, roughly thrusting up into you. You moan out harshly, sounds punching out of you with every thrust of his hips. 

“You feel so good around me sweetie, so hot…so soft…kiss me,” he babbles. You prop yourself up and surge forward, meeting him in the middle. Your teeth clash and you can feel desperation in the kiss as you both try to ground yourselves with the other. 

“Sylus please…please I need more, I need you to mark me, claim me, I’m all yours,” you whimper. His arms flex and his biceps bulge at the urge to grab you, feel your plush skin against his roughened palms. He whimpers at the realization of the restraints, giving you a pleading look that could send you to your knees.

“Touch me Sylus,” you order. Within an instant, his voice evol slashes the ropes and he’s grabbing you, taking you by the hips and physically lifting you up and down his cock. You scream out in pleasure as you can feel your release approaching swiftly. You can tell by his sloppy movements and frenzied expression that he��s close as well. 

You begin to chant his name over and over, having the words be punched out of you by his thrusts. You feel him hitting you deeper and deeper, fucking his cum back into you over and over again. You grasp the back of his neck and pull him to you, kissing him sloppily. 

As he returns the kiss to you, you break away slightly with a silent scream, hurdling over the edge and feeling nothing but a white static. Your body feels euphoric and, at the sight of your pleasure, Sylus gasps and thrusts up into you with one sharp movement, cumming hard to the point where it bordered on painful. After coming down from your highs, You languidly grab one of the random pieces of clothing you had discarded before to wipe off his chest. 

Before you could get up to get some more cleaning supplies, Sylus holds you captive in his arms as he slowly leans back onto the bed, cradling your head and bringing you to his chest. As your breaths slow and the drowsiness starts to appear, you look up at Sylus.

“Thank you Sylus,” You whisper to him, kissing the center of his chest. He clutches you harder, kissing the top of your head. “I had no idea my love could be so…domineering,” he chuckled as you blushed, hiding your face into his chest. He laughed once more before kissing your head again. 

“I don’t mind it though. We can play around a bit more in the future but,” he stops, contemplating for a moment. You look up at him with hope and mischief in your eyes. He sighs and holds you tighter, mumbling “maybe for special occasions only though. Don’t want my kitten to get too greedy with her toys now.” 

You laugh and hug him closer to you, craving the intimacy of just being close to him. He tugs you upwards and burrows his head into the crook of your neck, taking a deep breath in before he confides, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let you go.”

You giggle a little at his words and kiss his shoulder, “I don’t think I mind that. Not at all.”

_____

Author's Note: HOPE YOU ENJOYED!! If you'd like to see any other stories or continuations of this let me know, I'd be happy to write some more.

[mingis-orangejuice]

How do the OG love interests react to you with Sylus?

*a/n: Hi guys this is my first headcanon so please be nice :) In this none of them are officially dating MC but it's pretty obvious that they all have feelings for her. Also, it takes place at a work event for MC and I know technically in the main story there's no way Sylus would be allowed into a hunter’s association event, but I couldn't think of any other type of event where they would all happen to be at the same time. Either way, this is just for fun so it doesn't really need to make sense.

Genres/Warnings: fem!reader, nothing to really worry about, this is just some good old-fashioned fluff/crack. Some jealousy tho

An award ceremony was coming up at Unicorns to award the best hunters at the company, You were surprised when Captain Jenna told you that you’d been nominated for a few categories like most wanderers eliminated in a single mission and even Hunter of the Year, but since you were a rookie hunter you didn't think you’d win any of them, still, it was nice to be included, especially since you were one of the only rookies to be nominated.

That evening you got a call from Sylus congratulating you on your nominations. 

“How did you even know I’d been nominated” you asked. 

“Mephisto informed me,” he said with a small chuckle

“Oh so you have him monitoring me at work now?” you questioned, slightly annoyed.

“He was simply in Linkon doing some business for me, is it my fault that he happened to pass by your office on the way back to the base?” Sylus sarcastically asked, you could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

“Anyways, I wanted to ask you, have you decided on what you’re going to wear to the award ceremony yet? 

“Yeah, why?” you were suspicious of his sudden interest in your fashion choices.

“Good, come over to the base I want to see it,” he said flatly

“Why?” you were even more suspicious of his motives now. 

“Well, we’ll need to match if I'm going to be on the arm of the Hunter of the Year right?” *click*

Sylus didn’t even wait for you to reply and just hung up, almost like he knew you’d come over anyway so he didn’t need confirmation. He was right. Somehow he had not-so-subtly invited himself to your award show as your plus-one.

As you walk into the banquet hall, arms linked, you see a familiar face in the crowd…

Zayne: 

-Zayne would be a little bothered but would hide it by asking Sylus a million questions. about how he knows you, when he met you and how long have you and him been friends.

-He would make sure to emphasize the word “Friends” to know for sure if you two were dating

-his logic is if you and Sylus are dating, one of you would correct him, but if you are indeed just friends you wouldn’t say anything.

-to his relief, you  didn't correct him

-Sylus would sense the fact that Zayne probably has some type of close relationship with you too so he’d pull you a little closer by your waist as he proceeds to ask Zayne his own series of questions about how he knows you.

-Zayne would be satisfied after the conversation and excuse himself to go find his seat.

-even tho he was relieved that you weren’t dating Sylus he’d still glance over at you every few minutes because he couldn’t put his finger on it but he has a hunch that Sylus might be bad news and he wants to make sure you’re safe.

-Sylus would keep his hand on your waist the whole night because even tho you didn’t notice Zayne’s glances Sylus sure did.

-Overall while Zayne wouldn’t like the fact that you came to the ceremony with another man (especially since you didn’t even think to invite him) he’d respect your choices and leave you be (mostly)

Rafayel:

-He’d be the most openly bothered by it.

-the second he sees you walk in he runs up to you, ready to playfully scold you for not inviting him and that he had to find out about the event from Thomas, so he thought he’d invite himself. He told the person at the door that he was your plus one (he also slipped them a $100 bill)

-as he ran up to you his smile faded as he saw your arm linked with another man that wasn’t him

-oh so this is why you didn’t invite him

- He would greet you with a long hug hoping to make Sylus Jealous 

-he would instantly turn on his best customer service voice when greeting Sylus to try and hide how hurt he is that you invited some random guy instead of him

- but that would quickly fade once Sylus starts answering his long list of questions he just has to ask to make sure this random not important guy that you invited instead of him was worthy of being your plus one.

-Rafayel takes every answer as a challenge to try and one-up Sylus

-if Sylus mentioned that he took you to a fancy Italian restaurant in Linkon City last week, Rafayel would mention how he took you to a real Italian restaurant in Italy last month, (or at least how he wanted to but you were busy with work and couldn’t just drop everything and join him in Italy)

-if Sylus said he bought you the dress that you’re wearing, Rafayel would remind you of the time he bought you a cute mermaid-themed hoodie which is actually your favourite and you use it all the time, therefor it’s more important than a dress that you’ll only wear once

-while Rafayel was getting worked up trying to keep up with Sylus. Sylus kept his calm demeanour the whole conversation, he noticed that the calmer he was the more annoyed Rafayel would get and he found it amusing. 

-Rafayel would constantly text you throughout the night to check on you even though you were sitting only 1 table away.

-Sylus took note of this and would purposefully do things like put his arm around your shoulder or wipe the food off your lips to get Rafayel to frantically text you making sure you’re ok, and ask if you want to switch seats and come sit next to him where you won't have a random guy constantly touching you.

-overall he will be suuuuper jealous and will make it very obvious (even though in his mind he thinks he was being subtle) 

Xavier:

-I think he’d be extremely bothered but he'd be way better at hiding it than Rafayel

-like the others he’d also have a few questions for him about what his relationship with you is but he would very casually drop them into a normal conversation

-he, much like the others stared at you the whole night, but only just to make sure you were ok, definitely not because he was jealous or anything. You’re his co-worker and friend so he feels responsible if anything happens to you.

-he would try and do a background check on him during the event on his hunter's watch but nothing came up, since Sylus obviously didn’t tell Xavier who he really was. 

-this made Xavier even more worried, who is MC really sitting with, how is she so calm and why would he give him fake info, just what is he trying to hide? 

-he was so focused on staring at you and Sylus that he didn't even notice that he downed 3 full plates of finger foods, every time the waiters would pass by he would unconsciously grab the plates out of their hands and bitterly eat while staring, almost like he’s in a trance.

-once you guys get to the apartment building and the adrenalin wears off he’ll notice that his stomach is in so much pain from all the food he unknowingly ate while staring at you and Sylus.

-he nearly collapses in the elevator on the way to your apartments, so you decide to invite yourself over to his and take care of him

- he may be in tons of pain right now but at least he gets you all to himself 

*Please do not reupload anywhere this is my original work

[cloudpalettes]

space, gardening, and tenderness 🌱

my piece for @mdzsrbb !!! with an amazing fic written by the lovely @lamusadelils 💗 you can read the fic here !!

[reegis]

✨mechanisms character designs!!✨

lyf gets to be blue because i said so

who else should i draw!!!!

[california-112]

[unfinishedslurs]

party king (steddie)

“You want me to what?”

“Go to a party with me,” Eddie says, looking at Steve like he’s the weirdo here. “What’s the big deal, King Steve? You’ve been to plenty of parties.”

“You know, no one actually called me that,” Steve tells him, abandoning his tapes to put his hands on his hips. “Billy started it. I think he just wanted people to call him a king.”

Eddie visibly considers this before nodding, like it makes sense. Which it does. Billy was, in Steve’s private thoughts, an egotistical maniac who needed to calm down.

May he rest in peace.

“But you’ll come to the party with me, right?”

“Give it up, Eddie,” Robin calls from where she’s rewinding tapes. “Steve hasn’t been to a party in forever. He’s basically a grandpa now.”

“Hey!” Steve objects. That’s rich, coming from her. Going to bed at nine some nights so he gets a few more hours of sleep before waking up in a cold sweat does not make him a grandpa. It just makes him traumatized  

“Steeeeeeeve,” Eddie whines, widening his eyes until it looks like they’re going to pop out of his sockets. His exaggerated pout isn't going to do him any favors either. No matter what the kids say behind his back (looking at you, Henderson) he isn't a pushover.

“Why would I want to go to a high school party?” He crosses his arms, leaning against the counter. “I graduated. I have better things to do with my time.”

“Like lose arcade games to freshmen?” Robin asks. He flips her the bird.

“Please, Steve?” Eddie asks. “Pretty please? Pretty pretty please, with cherries and whipped cream and six little nuggets on top?”

“What the hell are you even saying anymore?”

“You want him to eat his babies?” Robin shrieks. “Like Kronos? Is one of them going to cut off his head and free the rest?”

Eddie’s eyes light up, and Steve slaps a hand over his mouth. He doesn’t know who that guy is, and he doesn’t want to deal with the two of them chattering over whatever movie villain he’s assuming is in their weird cult classic films when he still doesn’t know why Eddie is asking him to this party.

He doesn’t even flinch when Eddie licks his hand.

“I’ve been slobbered on by actual monsters,” he says flatly. “Your spit has zero effect on me.”

Eddie bats his eyes and gives his palm a kiss, right where he’d laved his tongue. Steve rolls his eyes and wipes his hand on the side of Eddie’s face.

“Hey!”

“Don’t dish what you can’t take,” Steve says. “Now, why exactly am I getting asked to go to a high school party?”

“Jessica Roberts needs some kush, and she asked me to sell there.”

“Okay? Still not answering my question.”

“There’s gonna be jocks at the party,” Eddie finally confesses, “and I don’t know if they’ll try shit. But given my track record lately…”

“So you need a bodyguard?”

“Hey!” Steve shouts, and is summarily ignored by everyone. So he does what any normal person would do, and slams an abandoned beer bottle against the edge of the counter so it shatters. 

The jocks turn and look at him after that.

Steve glances down at the jagged edges of the bottle in his hands, flipping it like it’s his old ice cream scoop. Yeah, this should work. 

“Leave him alone,” he says, steely inflection to his voice. 

“Or what, Harrington?” One of them asks. “Heard you just been sittin’ in this room all night. What, you hanging around the queers now? Didn’t take you for a f-”

He stops talking when Steve grabs him by the hair and presses the broken bottle against his throat.

“Here’s what's gonna happen,” he says quietly, taking a look at his buddy. He’s let go of Eddie, a lot more spooked now that his friend is shaking in his Nike’s. “You’re going to leave this room. You’re going to leave Munson here alone. You’re not going to bother him, or anyone else in his dragon club ever again. If I hear that you or your little friends are fucking with him, I have a very nice nail-studded baseball bat in my trunk I’d be more than happy to introduce you to. Capisce?”

“Woah, woah, woah,” the guy that was holding Eddie says. “What the hell, Harrington?”

Steve doesn’t break eye contact with the guy he’s threatening. “Capisce?” He asks again, putting a little more force into the word.

“C-capisce.”

“Good,” he says, shoving him away. “Now get outta here.”

They scramble away. Steve walks over to the trash can and throws away the remains of the bottle, running a hand through his hair. He finally turns around to see Eddie staring at him with wide eyes, frozen.

“Sorry-”

“Fuck me.”

“What?”

Eddie’s entire face flushes, like he didn’t mean to say that. “Uh.”

Steve looks at him, and then around the kitchen they’re in. Glass and beer on the floor, music blasting loud enough to set him on edge, a crowd of people that look at him like a zoo exhibit. Fuck, his head hurts. 

“Yeah, okay,” he decides. “We’re going to mine, though.”

“Wh-what?” Eddie looks like a deer in headlights, even though Steve’s offering exactly what he asked. 

“I…have no idea what I’m doing,” Eddie confesses. 

“Oh, are you not…” He trails off, gesturing towards Eddie’s back pocket. “I assumed…”

Eddie laughs abruptly, slapping a hand over his mouth like he startled himself with it. “You know hanky code, Harrington?”

“Can you call me Steve when you’re in my bed?” He’s already got his shirt off, for God’s sake. “Listen, man, if you don���t want this, it’s no biggie.” He starts to get off, and Eddie’s hand clamps over his thigh. 

“No, no, no, don’t you dare. Just gimme a minute, I’m processing.”

“Processing,” he repeats flatly. 

“Yes, processing. I’ve got the guy of my extremely virginal wet dreams shirtless on top of me. I did not think this would ever happen. I didn’t even know you were queer until tonight.”

Steve’s mouth shapes into an “o” of understanding. “You’re a virgin?”

“Jesus, could you focus on anything else I said?”

“You dream about me?”

“Let’s go back to the virgin part.” His fingers start nervously tapping against Steve’s leg. 

“You’re not subtle,” Steve says flatly. “I know when you stare at my ass.”

Eddie colors in a flood of bright red. “What if I wasn’t? What if I was…uh, jealous or something?”

“I guess that’d make sense, since you’re flat as a board.”

“Wh—hey!”

[yuurionviktor]

90s Harrow and Gideon from @griddlebait ‘s semi-charmed kinda life

[izzystizzys]

When the 212th collaborates with the 501st, chaos is sure to follow in their footsteps. This has been largely true of every engagement since the start of the war, in Cody’s experience. Had he even an ounce more of a rebellious streak, he might question why and whether the success rate is worth the feral instinct for mayhem his battalion and Rex’ awaken in each other - as it is, he simply fills out the after action reports and then screams into his pillow, which is hard as durasteel and doesn’t warrant the name.

Or, on some days, he steps into the training rooms to work off some nervous jitters only for his foot to catch on someone’s armoured shoulder and faceplant straight into what looks like the entirety of both battalions piled together in a massive cuddle pile.

“What”, he manages between gritted teeth, heaving himself up with one hand supported on Crys’ arm and the other planted in places that make Boil jackknife up with a strangled yelp, “the kriff is this?!”

“We’re watching the Corrie Reality Special, sir”, his own voice calls from somewhere across the room. “The 91st is passing by, so we have satellite access to the Coruscant Broadcast network for a few hours, and we couldn’t settle on a specific show -“

“- so we decided to watch them all”, Rex finishes, sheepishly, where he’s fought his way through wiggling piles, hoots and badly imitated monkey lizard noises. The thought that he shares DNA with these degenerates is enough to drive Cody to the brink of a nervous breakdown some days. “Spopcorn?”

Ah. The Corrie Reality Circuit. When Cody first heard of it, he’d thought it was a prank. Then, they were deployed to the middle of bumkriff nowhere on the edges of Midrim space edging on Outer Rim, with a connection so spotty even classified military intel only got through about half the time, and the whole idea got shelved in favour of clankers and keeping his General’s lightsaber in his General’s hand where it belonged.

Now, a gaudy, glittery monstrosity of a logo announcing a Coruscant Rotational special appears on a rigged up screen, which means one of two things: either Fox is pulling the Galaxy’s greatest long con on all of them, or he’s been murdered and replaced with an evil clone (ha!), because there are no circumstances in which he would agree to star on Coruscant Reality TV.

Cody tilts his head consideringly. Rex smiles at him sheepishly. Tilts the spopcorn bowl at him, invitingly.

“Oh, dank farrik, sit your shebs down!”, someone (Fives, probably) yells out, fed-up…ly.

Cody sits his shebs down.

“Good morning and welcome all of Coruscant to the Great Coruscant Rotational Special: Our Boys in Red Edition!”, a bright red Twi’leki man announces on the screen amidst cheerful jizz music and loud hooting from the training room. “My name is Braham Horton, and I will be your exalted host for this fine, fine late night cycle!”

“And now, gentlebeings of the metropolis, I present to you the images that have driven us all to laughter, joy, and even tears at times over these past few weeks - whodathunkit, that the CSF media project would enthrall a whole Galaxy of viewers and cause the largest recorded peaceful civil protest of all time?!”

“The sorry what now”, says Cody, suddenly thinking back to the urgent meeting General Kenobi was currently in with Generals Windu and Yoda - passing by on the Venator in orbit. “Uhm”, says Rex. Braham Horton, unfazed by the commotion he’s causing lightyears away, chatters on.

“- many hours, so we’ve compiled an introductory little best-of for you, exalted viewers! And what better best of to start off on than the hottest entry of the most explosive bombshell into the villa - please give it up for Commander Thorn and how he stole all of our hearts on Love Island!”

A garish, club-tech jingle Cody has so far only heard buzz through the walls of establishments that generally didn’t allow clones thrums through the training room, followed by what can only be described as the sort of noises spiced up banthas might make. Thorn appears on screen, more oiled up and half-naked than Cody remembers, though just as bleach-blond, hair slightly longer than regulation and smile blindingly perfect.

“I’m Commander Thorn, baseline twenty-four years humanoid - during daytime I might be the scourge of Coruscant’s criminal underworld, but at night I don’t mind playing good cop for you!” He punctuates it woth a sleazy wink and fingerblasters that have Rex honest-to-god gagging, and Cody seeing his life flash before his eyes. If Alpha-17 finds out about this…

Suddenly, Thorn’s smile drops in favour of what might almost be called a scowl on even his handsome face, and the music cuts out. “There, got your soundbyte. Can I go back now? I’m supposed to be on shift.” Indistinct, off-screen chatter and a captioned oopsie… appear in a shower of glitter. Thorn’s face does something complicated. “For HOW MANY MONTHS?!”

Cut to a montage of what Cody can only describe as beaches, oil and abs galore, Braham Horton narrates and extremely close-up shot of what Cody tries very hard not to identify as Thorn’s crotch. His own crotch, in a way. Oh no, that’s weird, stop that train of thought immediately-

“Although our favourite bombshell’s entry into the villa wasn’t without its hitches and hurdles-“, emphasized by a zoom-in on Thorn’s form in a speedo huddled away from a partying crowd of softcore-kriffing contestants on a yacht, “- as well as all know, he would soon find his place in the villa - or places, rather!”

Two crying humanoid women appear on screen, with eyeliner smudges down to their knees. A hoot goes through the room. Cody watches with a sense of impeding doom. “You slept with her after I chose to match up with you instead of Chad?! How could you!”

Thorn, still oiled up with both blasters out for the world to see, winces. “I didn’t me-“

A hysterical gasp, a camera swerve. Three more people stand by the doorway, all clutching their chests with wide eyes. A broad, green Twi’leki man raises a finger to point accusingly. “You were sleeping with them too?! I thought I was the only one!”

“Dear Force”, Cody murmurs, unable to look away from the building speeder wreck on screen. Braham Horton laughs good-naturedly at his misery. “Ah, good times! And who could forget the all-out brawl of the following matching night, where a record number of every single other contestant attempted to physically fight the others for the right to match up with Commander Thorn! Including a somehow returned Chad, who nearly won thanks to the element of surprise. I wish we could show the footage, but then we’d have to slap several warnings on it and probably still get taken off the air.”

“I didn’t know Corries kriffed like that!”, someone (Fives, let’s be honest, it was definitely Fives) calls out into the room, receiving snickers and a well-aimed pillow to the throat for his trouble. He goes down with a choking scream.

“Someone who was less impressed by the hot’n bothered beach weather was Commander Thire, who found himself Less than Impressed by his co-contestants inability to keep it in their pants on Too Hot To Handle!”

Thire’s face, identical to Thorn’s in every way except the ones that matter, appears on screen. His black hair is cut in a cropped mohawk, arms folded over a button-up he’s carefully pieced together with… safety pins? Where are the buttons on it?

“These people are pathological and pathetic and I will spend not a second longer on this farce of an attempt at ‘entertainment show’”, says Thire, air-quotes so sharp they could cut stone. His scowl might be permanently etched into his face, Cody can’t tell. “Unlike literally everyone else, I have an actual job to do. Now move.”

A brief pause, in which cheerful jizz music plays over what is obviously a producer begging off-camera, followed by an eyeroll so hard it hurts Cody’s brain to watch. Thire throws his hands into the air in defeat, marching off into the sea behind him still fully clothed.

“When they didn’t find him until the last episode, I’ll admit, I thought he’d died too!”, Braham Horton cuts in cheerfully. “But would you look at his little lonely island lair - now that’s a fulfilled man, and too many coconuts for my taste! We’ve had to blur his hands out as he discovered the cameras just moments before these holos were taken, unfortunately. And, dear viewer, who could forget this exit-interview for the ages!”

A considerably more clothed Thire appears on screen, eyeing a microphone like he’s about to use it to stab out his own eyes. The reporter clears their throat in audible anxiety. “C-commander, how would you describe your reality experience in one word?”

“Demeaning”, says Thire, blandly.

Silence.

“Um, o-okay”, squeaks the reporter.

“Would you like some more words?”, asks a dead-eyed Thire.

“No, um, I think - I think we’re alright.”

“Because I have many words. Mostly for whoever the *bleep* thought this was a *bleep* good idea, and *bleeeeeeee-*”

“We’ve had to censor most of the Commander’s on-screen appearance, dear viewer, for your sensibilities”, says Braham Horton, eternally and painfully cheerful. “And speaking of sensibilities, who could forget Commander Stone honouring his name in several challenges on ‘I’m A Holostar - Get Me Out Of Here!’”

Soulful violin music fills the gym, overlaid with images of a bald vod Cody surmises must be Stone. Stone stares stonily into the void, glass of bright green something raised to his lips and already half-empty.

“Memorably, he downed a pint of acklay urine within seconds-“

Horrified screams are followed by an image of Stone chewing, yet another thousand-klick stare.

“- or when he ate Tauntaun anus -“

Rex doubles over gagging, and Cody slowly puts his handful of Spopcorn back down.

“- of course the ten minute worm-bath challenge cannot go unmentioned -“

“FORCE PLEASE NO!”, screams someone (Echo) tearfully. Commander Stone, buried to the chin in wiggling orange worms, looks less impressed.

“ - and who could forget his encounter with a horde of ginntho spiders and nests of vexis snakes!”

A remote goes sailing past the screen, missing by a mile, as images of Stone with his whole arm stuck in various boxes fly past. Someone is retching. It might be Cody.

“We would show the infamous butchery challenge wherein the Commander found himself drenched in nexu guts and sandworm brains, but once again, this is family friendly programming and we are not allowed. Nevertheless, a win well-deserved. And now, please welcome the one, the only, the awe-inspiring, the unbelievable: Marshall Commander Fox!”

Another Force-awful jingle, big, blocky letters, and Cody chokes on his own spit when Fox’s scowling face appears on screen. He’s thinner, greyer and angrier than the last time they saw eachother in person. Only the last one is really a surprise.

“I am neither naked nor afraid”, says Fox, arms crossed firmly, foot tapping impatiently on the ground. “I am, however, quickly losing my patience. Explain to me again the point of spending my valuable time undressing in the middle of bum-*bleep* nowhere on the Midrim instead of doing my job as the head of planetary security in the middle of a Galaxy-wide war?”

Several beats of silence follow. Fox grows less impressed with each. Cody knows that look well. Usually, it precedes handcuffs and a cold sonic blast to the face.

“Um… you signed a contract?”, says a producer’s voice uncertainly off-screen. Fox barks out a harsh laugh. “I’m legally classified as military property, my signature holds less weight than if I’d had one of the Guard’s massiffs shit on that contract for me.”

“Ouch!”, calls Crys.

“Gettim!”, adds Longshot.

“But… don’t you sign off military documents all the time for the Senate?”, sputters the producer.

Fox smiles with far to many teeth. It’s also a look Cody knows far too well, and even lightyears away it has a shudder going down his spine.

“Really makes you think about the technicalities of that definitely-not-slave-army, doesn’t it?”, he says, dryly.

“Although considerably less naked and afraid than all other contestants, Commander Fox left us with many memorable moments - such as when he saved the entire crew from an angry Acklay!”

Most of the next holovid is blurred out, though Cody can (unfortunately) guess at the why and how. So can most everyone else, judging by the collective groan.

“Down, boy”, says Fox, flatly, to a hissing Acklay twice his size. It rears its fanged head, and a shudder goes through the room. Fox simply crosses his arms and nails the beast with an unimpressed look. “You are making a fool of both of us. Cut it out.”

Chastised, the Acklay blinks at him, slowly lowering itself back down with a confused hiss.

“No kriffing wonder all the Corrie shinies are such hardasses”, mutters Rex, whom Cody is hard pressed to agree with. “I came from a tube and that look gave me daddy issues.”

“Yes, dear viewer, who could forget these heart-warming moments of good, quality television!”, sighs Braham Horton, dreamily. “Not Coruscant anytime soon, that’s for sure! We are now entering the twentieth rotation of the sit-in protest of a petition to allow the Commanders of the Coruscant Guard to compete on Dancing With The Planets, Coruscant Rotational’s epic dance competition!”

“Dear bum-kriffing Force”, whispers Rex, wide-eyed and awe-struck. “Does Fox know about this?!”

Cody, who’s already dialing the kriffer’s comm-code, wipes a singular tear from his eye. “Not a clue, but kriff, am I going to enjoy telling him.”

[goldeneyedgirl]

Listen, I NEED more unimaginable things 😭. I need Alice to wake up and for Dumbass Jasper to somehow make it better, okay? 😭😭

... okay listen, this is spooky because I just started this year's (very goddamn late - it's been a chaotic week) Valentine's Day fic set in Space!verse before I got this ask (also thank beautlilies because she was the one that got to pick which verse I wrote for Valentine's Day, and I was certain she'd pick Option A.)

However, the sequel to Unimaginable Things is coming! It's called A Sky Full of Stars, and is Alice's origin story and continuation on from Unimaginable Things. Jasper has a lot of bullshit to apologize for, honestly. It's a good thing I love fixing the messes I make.

There will also be a one-shot of Rosalie's origin story, but I haven't settled on a name. (That one might be borderline horror, tbh.) And Bella hasn't even made an appearance yet!

I have plans, anon. It's going to be so much fun!

[luxaofhesperides]

For ghostlights: baby Ellie + tired Danny + Duke the baby whisperer?

He has no idea how his parents did it. 

Babies are exhausting. Toddlers more so. Any infants in the strange stage in-between? Doubly so. 

Ellie is wonderful and sweet and cute and such a terror that Danny genuinely has no idea how his parents managed to raise not one, but two kids. For all their eccentricities and absent-mindedness, he and Jazz turned out pretty well. Ignoring the whole halfa thing because that’s more his fault than theirs even if Jazz says they shouldn’t have created the dangerous environment in the first place.

That environment is exactly why Danny refuses to let Ellie go to his house in Amity Park. His parents say they’ve disabled all the weapons and ecto-sensors since he’s had to reveal himself as Phantom, but he knows that things slip their minds and if they can’t guarantee that the house is safe, then Ellie isn’t going in there. Simple as that. 

This means that they live somewhere else now. Danny had thought about it, during the hours Ellie was asleep and he was awake, exhausted and worn down to his bones, and took Jazz’s advice to accept Vlad’s offer of buying a house for him. Except he argued Vlad down to an apartment in a city of his choosing where he wouldn’t stand out too much and he would be safe, or as safe as he can be, from anyone trying to hunt down ghosts. 

So here they are. Standing in the empty living room of their new apartment in Gotham. 

Gotham may not be very safe as a city, but it’s good for two ghosts trying to pass as normal. 

Danny sighs yet again, and looks at the space he’ll need to fill. At least Vlad is footing the bill. It’s the least he can do for creating Ellie. Frostbite was the one who was able to stabilize her, though it was almost too late and resulted in her reforming as a baby, just one and a half years old. Jazz is the one who’s choosing most of the furniture, thankfully, so it’s something that Danny doesn’t need to worry about it.

It’s a new start to their lives and it feels so empty. So overwhelming. How did his parents do it? How do any parents do it?

Ellie smacks a small palm against his cheek and babbles lightly.

“I know, Ellie,” Danny says, giving her a tired smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll have this place looking good in no time.”

He adjusts her in his arms, then heads towards the bedroom. It’s the only room that has any furniture, and all that’s there is a bed, a crib, and a bookcase. There are a few boxes on the floor, labeled ‘bedroom’ and ‘clothing’ and ‘books’. Most of it came from his bedroom in Amity Park, but he’s pretty sure he caught Jazz sneaking a few things in before they closed the boxes and loaded them up into the car. 

“Can you be good for five minutes?” he asks Ellie. 

She babbles again and smacks his shoulder.

��I’m taking that as an agreement. Just let me open these boxes and start unpacking before you start causing trouble, okay?”

Ellie makes another sound, but it seems agreeable so Danny carefully lays her down in the crib and gets to peeling off the tape on the boxes. The opens the one labeled ‘bedroom’ first, finding blankets and sheets folded and stacked in vacuum sealed bags. One of them is his old childhood blanket, the one he carried around everywhere that was faded with age, barely blue, with white bunnies decorating it. 

He was so small when he had this. It makes him oddly emotional to unpack it and pass it on to Ellie, draping it over her so her pudgy little hands can grab at it. 

This is no time to cry, though! He forces himself to focus and makes his own bed, shaking out the sheets and fluffing up the pillows. He’ll worry about washing everything later; Vlad made sure to get an apartment with an in-unit washer and dryer, which means he was actually sensible while apartment hunting for Danny. 

He doesn’t mean to flop onto the bed once it’s made, but he ends up there anyways. He’s barely gotten a full six hours of uninterrupted sleep since Frostbite deemed Ellie healthy enough to leave his care. The drive up to Gotham was long and wore him down to his bones.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he does, drifting off as he wonders, distantly, when Jazz will be back from getting them dinner.

Ellie wakes him up at dawn with a loud cry. Danny jolts awake, heart pounding in his chest as he panics because Ellie isn’t here, she’s supposed to be in his arms, where is she? And then he sees the crib, where Ellie is staring at him through the bars, and he nearly collapses with relief. 

“Morning, El,” he says, voice rough from sleep, as he picks her up. She just stares up at him, then leans forward and rests her head against his shoulder.

It’s quiet moments like these that make his heart melt. Ellie’s had a hard life already; he wants to give her a better one, this time around. 

A quick check of the time on his nearly dead phone shows that it’s barely past six in the morning, and Jazz texted him a few times. All about furniture, saying that she didn’t want to wake them and that food is in the fridge. 

It’s only the mention of food that makes him realize how ravenous he’s feeling. Danny makes a beeline for the kitchen, ignoring everything else, and pulls out the boxes of take-out Jazz left stacked in the fridge. He devours it like he’s been starving for weeks, then gives Ellie her Ecto-Jello, the only food she’s allowed to eat until Frostbite gives the okay for solid, human food. 

Once he’s got her burped and cleaned up, Danny looks out of the kitchen and realizes that Jazz was very productive while he was asleep. The living room isn’t empty anymore; a dark green couch is against the wall, a low, rectangular coffee table made of dark wood in front of it. Two armchairs are on both sides of the couch, and a television has been installed, fixed into the wall. 

Jazz is asleep on the couch. Her legs hang off an armrest and she’s drooling slightly. 

Her phone is charging on the floor, so Danny takes it and snaps a picture of her for later teasing, then sends it to himself and writes a note to her that he’s going out with Ellie to explore the neighborhood.

He’s finally feeling more settled, energized from sleep and food.

In the warm dawn light spilling in through the windows, Danny looks down at Ellie and thinks that they’ll be just fine after all. 

. . .

Four months ago, Danny had hope. He was optimistic. 

Gotham was a fresh start, a new lease of life for Ellie. It is Danny’s attempt to be a single parent, sacrificing college for Ellie, and he’s planning to go out and beat the gangs black and blue if they start anymore shootouts in the next year.

He had just gotten Ellie to sleep. She was actually peacefully taking a nap.

And then a drive by shooter raced down the street, gunshots echoing down the road, and Ellie work up crying. She still hasn’t stopped, despite how Danny rocked her, soothing her as best he could.

They had been outside when Ellie fell asleep, her head on his shoulder. He had been catching up with Sam and Tucker when the car drove by, people ducking and crying out to avoid the bullets. Danny instinctively covered Ellie and made them both intangible, saving them from any stray bullets, but they ruined her nap and he needs to make them pay for that. 

“Shh,” he soothes, “You’re okay. We’re both fine. It’s okay, El, it’s okay.” 

Her little hands clutch at his back, twisting the fabric of his shirt, and she lets out a heartbreaking wail. He pats her back, hurrying down the street to get back to his apartment building, ignoring the looks people were giving them as they passed by. 

“I know it was scary, but you’re alright. You’re always safe with me, El.”

Ellie’s cries down down a little, but they don’t stop. She whimpers, burying her face against his shoulder as he finally reaches their apartment building.

The door’s locked, which wouldn’t be a problem except Danny can’t get his keys from his pocket. He knows he has them! But his pocket refuses to relinquish them and he has to stop every few seconds to pat Ellie’s back, trying in vain to calm her down. 

“We’ll be inside in a second,” he tells her, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, “as soon as I can get these freaking keys!”

“Hey, you alright?”

Danny startles, whirling around so fast it makes Ellie go quiet, clinging to him so she doesn’t get flung into the air. There’s a guy standing before him in a gray hoodie, looking at him with clear concern. It speaks to Danny’s level of constant exhaustion that he hadn’t clocked someone sneaking up behind him. 

The guy offers an awkward smile. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you or anything. Um, do you need me to open to door? I live here too.”

Danny wonders for a moment if this someone dangerous, someone hoping to hurt Ellie, but she starts to cry again and he steps to the side. “Please. I can’t get my keys.”

“I’m Duke, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

“Danny,” he replies, watching as Duke pulls out a large key ring, jangling with the amount of keychains on it, and easily opens the door. “I’ve been here a few months, but I’m usually inside. Or walking around in the mornings with this little monster.”

“That would explain it,” Duke says as he holds the door open, letting Danny in first. “I’m usually in classes at GCU, but I decided to take a mental health day after my lab, so here I am.”

Danny walks in and waits for Duke to follow, making sure the door closes properly behind them. “Thanks. How is GCU? What do you study? I was thinking of going there myself once she gets a little older and can go to school.”

“Oh, I’m majoring in English and Human Services.” He goes to say more, but Ellie wails again and Danny winces.

“I’m so sorry. That drive by woke her up and it’s really rattled her.”

“Hey, no need to apologize. I get it, Gotham is rough to kids.”

Danny tries rocking her back and forth, but it doesn’t help. He resigns himself to another hour of her crying before she exhausts herself, and makes for the stairs, going up to the fourth floor. Duke holds open the door again, then follows after them. It makes Danny wonder if Duke is planning to do something to them, then decides he can beat Duke in a fight, so it’s fine.

Duke doesn’t try to hurt them or steal Ellie away. He opens the door to their floor and stops before they do. “I’m in here,” he says, “If you ever need me to open more doors.”

“Thanks. Um, actually, I might need help opening mine?”

Duke just smiles and makes his way back to them, following them farther into the hall until Danny stops in front of his apartment. 

“If I could just get my keys,” he starts.

“Here, let me hold her for a second so you can get them,” Duke offers. Danny wants to insist that it’s fine, but Ellie cries directly into his ear and Danny, at the end of his rope, passes her over. 

Like magic, Ellie settles as soon as she’s in Duke’s arms. She sniffles and hides her face away, clutching to Duke’s hoodie, but she stops crying. They both go still, surprised, and stare down at her. 

“Seriously?” Danny says as he finally pulls out his keys, “Are you trying to say that I’m the problem?”

Ellie babbles lightly, and Duke turns his head to futilely hide his grin.

He grumbles as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. Ellie is acting as if she’s never been upset before a day in her life, making herself at home in Duke’s arms. 

“I can’t believe this. Betrayed by my own blood.”

Duke laughs as he follows Danny into his apartment, lightly patting Ellie’s back. “It’s always the smallest, cutest ones that do this.”

“Yeah? Do you work with a lot of kids or something? Used to being betrayed by the little ones?”

“I don’t work with kids per se,” Duke says, “But my foster family is a hot mess and the youngest of them likes to keep us all on our toes.”

“Family,” Danny says in a tired, fond tone.

“Family,” Duke agrees.

With his door open and Ellie calm, Danny’s ready to just lay face down on the floor for the rest of the day and not deal with anything else. He moves to take Ellie back, holding his arms out, and Duke tries to pass her over.

The key word being tries. 

Ellie tightens her grip and kicks at Danny. She refuses to be taken away from Duke, making him awkwardly try to pry her off his hoodie. Danny really hopes Duke doesn’t notice how she goes slightly intangible to make his hands fall through her arms and legs. It shouldn’t be noticeable, but it’s hard to focus on anything but a kid that clings to you, so Danny holds out for Duke’s goodwill and silence.

“As nice as it is to meet you, you need to go back to your… parent?” Danny nods when Duke looks at him in askance. “You need to go back to your parent. Okay? Come on, kid, he’s waiting for you.”

Ellie shakes her head, makes a frustrated noise, and then turns and reaches out a grabby hand towards Danny. 

She still refuses to be taken from Duke when Danny tries to pick her up again, so he settles with just letting her hold two of his fingers. 

“I’m so sorry about this,” he says to Duke, face burning. This is why he hasn’t been going out and being social since he moved in; Ellie is a handful even on the best days, and Danny doesn’t want someone to judge him as unfit to parent her and have her taken away.

Duke shakes his head, stepping closer. “It’s all good, man. I don’t mind. It’s not like I had any plans today. I’m already skipping my classes, might as well spend it with you two than sleep all day.”

“Are you sure? I’d be happy to invite you in, but I know Ellie can be a lot and not everyone wants to spend their day off with a baby.”

“I’m sure. Besides, I’d just be down the hall anyways. It’s no skin off my back, man.”

“Well,” Danny says, stepping to the side to give Duke full access to his open doorway, “Come on in, then.”

Ellie keeps them connected, one hand in Duke’s hoodie and the other holding Danny’s fingers, and though her cheeks are still red from how hard she had been crying, she’s calm now with her eyes shining with mischief. 

As the door closes behind them, Danny realizes that this is the first time someone he’s not related to has been inside his apartment. Not even Vlad has come in, always choosing to invite Danny and Ellie out for lunch instead. 

It should make him nervous, but Duke is calm and easy going and kind. 

He’s making silly faces at Ellie to make her laugh, completely at ease with her in his arms, as if he’s done this a thousand times before. 

Gotham is a second chance at life for Ellie. It’s a sacrifice for Danny, to be alone and without friends or family around. He’d been ready to give up everything for Ellie, to focus solely on raising her, but with Duke filling his apartment with laughter, he thinks that he can make a life here too.

All he needs to do is take that first step, reach his hand out, ask Duke to stick around.

He can do this.

[existence-rae]

"For the first time, it's as though the coldness of the rain is warmer than the touch of my family."

Prompt:

Danny Phantom in a world where jazz died in a crossfire fight with pariah dark, although he inherited the crown he's not yet old enough for the throne and only titled the crown prince, Maddie and Jack would be alive and mourning their daughter's death, they'll completely start focusing more on killing phantom more than ever and forget the Human Danny Son they know. Out of grief and self-blame he runs away therefore ripping himself out of his own haunt, heading to Gotham, he'll probably stay homeless but eventually find a job using his ghostly powers to feed himself 90% of the time and possibly having been taught by wulf on how to open portals to the ghost zone so he can process ectoplasm in his system and such.

In Gotham he does minor vigilante work such as bringing down muggers and protecting innocent people or basic stuff such as helping a cat out of a tree for a kid.

There he unfortunately comes across one of the bats, and they out of... Batsy Curiousity and Wariness start trying to hunt him down trying to figure out who he is and Bruce being Bruce Trying to adopt the kid vigilante.

In the end the bats don't succeed but perhaps Alfred manages to get the little hero's trust after being 'saved' by the little hero. To pay the little hero back Alfred decided to bring him home and then.

Shenanigans ensue, trope will be found family, angst with comfort and Fluff, identity reveals and also the overcoming of grief and how grief affects a person overall especially a child and Danny getting adopted into the Wayne family in the end. I'd think he's younger than Damian for more new baby bat effect.

:3 hope someone likes this prompt cuz I can't find any that's like this.

[robbinghisdick]

It's as they're wrapping up yet another potential world ending threat when Hal's voice cracks across Bruce's comm-link.

"Hey, heard everyone's still alive."

Bruce is more relieved to hear his voice than he'd ever be able to let on. "We could've used your help." It comes off harsher than he means to.

"Missed you too, Spooky." Hal sounds tired. "Any chance you can come meet me in the Watch Tower?"

It has been a solid nine months since they had last seen each other. Their ambiguous relationship meant they had sex before Hal left and Bruce pretended that he wasn't bothered by the radio silence. It was better to keep things more professional, less involved, in any case.

Bruce glanced around at the barely contained destruction around him. They might've actually come away from this incident with no casualties. Superman and Flash have doubtlessly already scoured the affected area for anyone caught in the crossfire.

"I'll come up in a few." He didn't bother asking why Hal wasn't coming down to talk to him. If he could, he would have.

"A few what?" Hal asks in exasperation. "Minutes? Hours?"

"Maybe more."

"Oh my god," Hal hisses, "you are insufferable."

The slightest of smiles twitches on Bruce's lips. "I'll be up as soon as I'm sure I'm not needed down here."

///

Hal looked just about as tired as he sounded over the comm. It was clear he hadn't showered in a few days, hair disheveled and greasy, tired bags under his eyes. While there weren't any apparent injuries on his body...

"You had a baby."

Babies, especially newborns, grew up fast. This baby looked only weeks old at most. If Hal hadn't joined the fight, Bruce estimated the baby was only days old, and that Hal was far from recovered.

Hal snorts. "Great deduction skills there, detective." He swallows hard. "Can you solve the rest of the mystery?"

For a moment, Bruce doesn't say anything. He stares at the sleeping baby, at its whispy locks of dark hair. He glances back up to Hal's eyes, notes the guarded look on the other man's face given away by his tense shoulders.

It doesn't take a genius to put together the fact that Hal wasn't pregnant when they last slept together nine months ago.

Bruce's eyes fall back down to the baby, chest constricting as he finds himself moving forward towards Hal. He wordlessly reaches out, and Hal responds in turn after only a moments worth of hesitation to hand over the baby.

Cradling the baby in one arm, Bruce pulls off his cowl with the other. Bruce suddenly finds himself needing to sit and finds himself sinking into the nearest available chair.

"For what it's worth, I tried to get back to Earth before he was born."

Bruce barely hears Hal, making a small hum of acknowledgement. His hand reaches to touch his son's face before freezing. He's quick to bite off his glove and drop it off to the side. The baby barely stirs as Bruce rubs his finger against his cheek. The tiniest eye peeks open, not enough to really see his eyes before it closes again and he grunts softly.

When Bruce is finally able to tear his gaze away, Hal is looking at him nervously.

Suddenly there is issues to be had with their ambiguous relationship... but Bruce doesn't really feel like getting into all of that at the moment.

"Have you..." His voice comes out hoarse, prompting him to clear his throat "Does he have a name yet?"

Hal relaxes a little. "I've just been calling him "little man" the past couple of days. Been thinking of some names, but I really thought I'd have time to talk to you first."

The thought that Hal had an entire pregnancy on a foreign planet was enough to unnerve Bruce. Hal could've died, the baby could've died, and Bruce might not have ever found out.

"Are you mad?" Hal asks after a beat of silence.

Anger was far from Bruce's mind. "Did you purposely keep your pregnancy from me?"

"It pains me that I couldn't use the pregnancy against you and you wouldn't have been able to fight back," Hal laments with a sigh, an attempt to lighten the tension. "But no. I couldn't get back home, it was out of my hands." He studies Bruce for a moment, a serious look on his face. "You're not upset at another kid being sprung on you?"

Bruce had met Damian not too long ago, all things considered. He had wanted him, back when he found out Talia was pregnant, before she lied about a miscarriage and left him. Ten years he was left out of his child's life.

"No," Bruce says, looking back down at the infant, "this is the first one I've been able to hold."

He's carried his Robins before. When Dick was still so young and tired, when Jason was hurt and could've walked it off, but didn't pass off a chance to be carried, Tim in a rush to get him somewhere safe when he got injured, and Damian as huffed and puffed about being fine, but didn't fight Bruce too hard on it. He's held Cass hard enough to hurt and she held him back just as tightly.

This was different. He never got to hold his own baby.

Bruce feels his throat constricting. He swallows hard and takes a deep breath. "What names did you have in mind?"

"Was considering maybe Thomas after your father, Tommy for short."

Bruce briefly considers it, but is very quick to decide no. "Maybe as a middle name. What about your father?"

Hal immediately shakes his head. "No. He's too young to be a Martin."

It's not like Bruce had never thought of names before, names he would've potentially given Damian... but that was for a different time.

They lapse into silence.

"Are you okay?" Bruce finally asks, taking another good look at Hal. He wasn't sure where they were going to go from here.

"Just need some rest, really." Hal rubs at his eyes. "It's been non-stop for weeks now--"

"Hal!"

In a blink, Barry is there, hand on Hal's shoulder. "Where you've been, man?"

"Oh, you know, space," Hal smiles and brightens up a bit.

"Very descriptive," Barry said with a huff. "You look like shit. You alright?"

Hal waved him off. "Yeah yeah, I'm fine." He gestures over at Bruce. "What should we name the baby boy?"

Barry glances over. "Uuhh, Finneas?" He then does a double take. "Wait, what the hell?" He immediately drops into a crouch in front of Bruce, a grin on his face as he coos at the baby. "Hey there little guy!"

Barry holds out his hands and Bruce reluctantly hands the baby over.

"He's way too cute to be your baby," Barry teases Hal before booping the baby's nose. "Am I the god father?"

Hal spares a glance at Bruce before saying, "Of course!"

Bruce didn't have any complaints anyways.

"I like the name Finneas too, Finn for short." This time Hal's look towards Bruce was seeking actual approval.

"No objections here," Bruce finally decides on.

He notices the way Barry's eyes dart between them, realization suddenly dawning on his face. "Hold up! Hal, you and Bats are a thing?"

"No!"

That stung a little.

"Well, I mean," Hal runs a hand through his hair, pointedly not looking at Bruce as he seems to reconsider. "Kinda. I don't know. Either way, yes, he's the other parent."

Barry hums thoughtfully, looking down at the baby. "So... who's last name is little Finn here gonna take?"

Hal and Bruce stare at each other.

"I carried him for nine months."

"Finneas Wayne sounds better."

(Art of Finneas!)

[lovelesslittleloser]

Tbh this has been on my mind for MONTHS

Human codes… but they’re not actually codes??

A small group of humans is discovered by some curious aliens. Both sides can assume that the other is sentient. The aliens are trying to translate the humans’ language to their own, and the humans are trying to learn the aliens’ language. But since humans are tricky, they’ve decided that they don’t want the aliens to know their language, so they can have secret conversations.

So they go a little crazy. With written words, they randomly use lowercase and capital letters, even using numbers and symbols, and use a lot of slang, occasionally using words incorrectly on purpose. They’ll jumble the words a bit so that only human brains can guess their meaning (that thing where if you use all the letters and put the proper letters at the beginning and end it’ll be comprehensible), and even use additional or unofficial languages (commonly known words like ‘hola’, ‘si’, ‘oui’, etc, and piglatin, in which you typically take the first letter or syllable of a word, place it at the end, and add ‘ay’ to the end).

As for spoken words, they will do a bit of the above, mashing languages and slang, perhaps mispronouncing a few things, and quoting memes, vines, movies, and even singing parts of songs to throw off the aliens. Perhaps they will say something with a somber meaning in a joyful way to throw off the meaning, or even just naturally (‘I wanna die!’ ‘Mood’), or vice versa.

Additionally, there would have to be a TON of body language. Maybe even sign language, should they know any. Gestures and expressions, eyebrow wiggles and poorly-hidden grins. Ah, the beauties of communication.