#or banging away on his prototypes

[starcurtain]

I have this small, deeply personal headcanon that after his grandmother's passing, Alhaitham's home was so unbearably quiet that he started--just barely, just one or two words--to speak out loud to her as if she was still there.

"I've been accepted to the Akademiya, Grandmother."

"I passed my promotion exams."

"I debated with Haravatat's sage."

Just that, and quiet again.

But one day, it's: "I met someone strange."

"He keeps showing up when I'm trying to study."

"We don't agree on anything. Still..."

"I made a friend."

"Today, Kaveh and I were researching--"

"It's already dark. I didn't realize we spent so long in Razan Garden. Kaveh wanted to hear about my article--"

"He's going to be furious when I tell him the whole point for his portion of the lecture is based on a false predicate--"

The house where his grandmother used to be gets a little louder again; the noise lasts a little longer.

Until one day, when there's no words at all.

One day, when there's just the sound of a single sob, and then a long, long silence.

[hungerofhadarr]

Sometimes I cannot tell if you guys want villains who do not want to be redeemed or not bc we get gortash and everyone trips over themselves to make this version of him that is absolved from his actions and he’ s changed … Anyways another day another time Wyll gets put to the back burner with crumbs of content yet everyone huddles around like “ OMG THANK YOU LARIAN … oh yeah sorry about Wyll : ((( “

You guys get you are a part of the problem right . You are letting Larian know they can get away with being racist as long as they feed fandom and whatever . Instead of actual quality of life updates and patching in content that would Actually help the game run better and feel finished , they just bloat the game and let companions go untouched with minimal content while playing into whatever the loudest voices in fandom demand the most .

The studio account should not be interacting with fandom so often . This blur between creators and fans is bad ! This leads to fans blindly defending and protecting a Game Studio that they have no connection to because haha larian mad a funny reply . And this also causes a feeling of ownership that should not be there ! You do not own a piece of bg3 and you should not be dictating it ! This is different from criticism btw . Just so we are Clear . Larian deserves and needs criticism .

It is super telling that they voices they are choosing to listen to are not voices that actually care about the game at its story . If they were , we would not have Zero Story for the Son of the Duke of Baldur’ s Gate and yet we have so much for a character that isn’ t actually tied into any major story beat ! We have no more for the character directly tied to Gortash with a prototype of the Steel Watch in her chest , but we can take a side character a few people wanted to bang and speed to have him included ad a full companion ! Instead of Dark Urge getting more content with Orin , Savrok and anyone else that had a tie to Bhaal , they get their relationship with a guy unrelated to all that be made to be read more and more explicitly romantic when that is just ruining the character !

Wyll should have a proper sex scene . He should have a romanced greeting that changes after the proposal . He should have more personal story content . He should have scenes of him in Baldur’ s Gate . The Emperor reveal as Balduran should not have been the main focus of HIS FINAL STORY QUEST . He should have hug and kiss options in the epilogue . People should comment on the engagement ! He should have all of this !! AND MORE FRANKLY .

But because everyone is so quick to forgive Larian , they’ ll never feel pressured to add any of this . They’ ll never feel like they’ ll loose players if they don’ t . Because you guys don’ t actually care . No , I am not saying thank you to larian for not giving me anything I have been asking for and sending feedback on for months . I am not thanking larian for choosing to bend over backwards to random big name fandom people who are racist and just want to fuck the pale guys again and again .

Larian Studio is not your fucking friend, stop acting like they are .

[fatuismooches]

Ohhhh vulnurable Dottore 😶 What if this is a moment when he realises he can't heal us? He's trying and trying and trying, using all accessible methods (smt questionable and anti-sciense) but n o t h i n g works, there is no way to make us feeling better. And a new reality breaks him down, this is his breaking point.

But you're a sweet, lovely soul, you understand everything and never blame him for failures. When he's crying all you can do is holding and kissing him.

(uhhh finally I'm brave enough to reveal myself haha 😬 I was that anon with several Pantalone's hcs about him speaking French and a reader changing their ring to simple one 🙈)

The crashes that came from Dottore's private lab were so loud it probably echoed throughout the entirety of the whole research building. And it wasn't the sound of an experiment gone wrong exploding, or something fell down by accident, or perhaps some screaming, no. It sounded like something was being forcefully destroyed, on purpose too at least with how much crashing and banging there was. And you just had a horrible feeling about it.

You were right.

You didn't even bother knocking on the door, instead just shoving it open before you called out his name, although you cut yourself off when you saw the state his lab was in. It was a dreadful mess. There wasn't one thing that hadn't faced his frightening strength. The desk and bookshelves had tumbled to the ground, the chairs had been snapped in half... somehow, but considering his power that shouldn't be surprising. Even the operating tables were damaged, glass on the floor from the breaking of his tools and capsules. On the floor, you could read all of the documents scattered around, at least the ones that weren't torn to shreds. The books from the toppled bookshelf? All dedicated journals to your condition over the years. The photos on the floor? Pictures of your body, internally and externally. The random bottles on the floor? Prototype medicines that didn't work with your body. And all at the center of it was your husband. Dottore. Or rather Zandik, as you called him when it was just the two of you. His back was turned to you as he didn't seem to acknowledge the mess around him or even you. You slowly walked towards him, your heart already hurting as you were pretty sure you knew what this was all about.

"Zandik, look at me, please." Dottore's fingers twitched at your words, but then he balled them up, not able to bring himself to face you. You had no choice but to walk in front of him instead. "Zandik, I-" you paused abruptly when you saw his face. Zandik was crying.

He was like a statue. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He didn't sob. He merely looked at you, tears gliding down his cheeks completely unmoving and expressionless. You were speechless. In all your centuries of being with Dottore, you had never seen him cry. You've seen him genuinely happy, genuinely mad, genuinely sad - but never any tears, not even remotely. But here he was crying in front of you anyway... because of you.

The state his office was in was surely no state for you to comfort him, not with the chairs and desks toppled and in shambles... so you silently took his balled hand in yours and peeled away his fingers, allowing you to hold his hand. You led him to his own room (which was connected to his own lab, you know he can't be separated from his research) and he followed you, this time not putting up a fight. You two sat down on his bed and you immediately pulled him against your chest, holding him. Dottore remained unmoving for a bit, until he reciprocated and wrapped his arms around you carefully, as if you would disappear at any second. It was a very silent moment, as neither of you said anything for a long time. And well... it was kind of a learning experience for you too. You couldn't do much besides this but... you hoped it helped. But you needed to say something too...

"Zandik," you murmured, pulling him away from your chest which was only damp now, it seemed like he stopped crying a while ago. Though he still had that empty expression on his face. You reached to take off his mask but his arm quickly grabbed yours before you could even touch it. Ah, of course, he didn't want you to see him. He didn't even want you to know about this in the first place, probably. But that simply wouldn't do. "Zandik," you repeated again, "let me see you. Please," your fingers glossed over his cheek tenderly. "It's only me here, you know," the metal of your wedding ring felt cold against his skin, "And I'm not going to give up or leave, love." You hoped the look in your eyes read - it's okay to be vulnerable, Zandik. Please just be you when you're with me. The Harbinger gritted his teeth and held your waiting arm a little harder, as your other one came to cup his cheek. It wasn't easy to break him down, but eventually, he reluctantly let you go.

You took the mask off and set it to the side, focusing on your lover's expression. His eyes always told so much. And this time, they looked very, very tired. Though even still, his gaze was cast off to the side. But, this time you wouldn't force him. Dottore still acted high and mighty even in his lesser moments. He didn't like being seen like this. He was supposed to be the Doctor, the one who controls the game and has all the power. Not a vulnerable boy who was the opposite, who could have anything in the world except this one thing - your cure.

"It's alright," you whispered, kissing his forehead. "I'm alright." You kissed the corners of his eyes this time, a tiny bit red from crying. "Okay?" This time you went for his lips, and although he took a few seconds to reciprocate, he slowly kissed you back. As if he would never be able to kiss you again, neither of you let go. "There's no need to worry, I'm here," you combed your fingers through his hair. "I know that no matter what happens, I'll be next to you. I love you." Dottore didn't respond nor did he look at you. But he heard it. And he crept his hand under your shirt as he placed his fingers above your heart, counting the beats. His way of reassuring himself you were still alive. And for now, that was enough.

A part of you wanted to apologize. Apologize for putting this burden on him. If only you... were not you. If you could be someone else, then Dottore wouldn't have to invest so much into you. You know he loves and adores you how you are but- you know it's not the time to go down into those thoughts. Instead, all you need to do right now is comfort your beloved. Make him know that you see him. You love him. You accept him. You believe in him. And that regardless of all the failures he may endure, nothing would ever make you love him any less.

...

UM HI HELLO. Thank for this idea omggg i went through all stages of pain 😭 AND YOU WROTE THOSE OTHER HCS TOO?? Gosh you have such *chef's kiss* amazing ideas I LOVE THEM !!

[rea-can-yeet]

Not me casually dropping part two after a long time of me being MIA. Sorry about that! Y'knowzzz life and all hahahaha! I edited my tumblr pinned post where I put my current status there so yeah if you wanna know what's going on with me you can check it out haha anyway here's chapter two of 'mutineer'! Does anyone still remember this?? Or even this blog??? Oh god what if y'all thought this blog was dead??? Or worse- sagau ain't a thing much now? Wait lemme double check after I post this-

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REMINDER: This is gender neutral for all readers. Sagau stands for Self Aware Genshin Alternative Universe, but this is leaning much towards the God/Creator AU where the characters are aware that they’re being controlled but not aware enough to know that they’re in a game. This story is set in God/Creator AU, imposter AU, and lastly villain AU. This contains religious and cult themes, graphic violence, and probably some suggestive scenes (not this chapter yet, but the series will show some) so viewer’s discretion is advised.

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🔻

🔻

♦️

𝕄𝕌𝕋𝕀ℕ𝔼𝔼ℝ

"Damn, Y/n. There you are."

A friend, who she met when they were little and still vibe with even when they first became aerospace engineer students, commented while leaning against the old chipped doorframe. Her eyes landed on s/c skin, the arms to be specific, sweating. Her friend was huffing while holding a wooden bat, hair covering e/c eyes from her view.

She looks around at the damage the h/c haired had caused. Broken glass bottles, wrecked armchairs, holes in the blackboard, mirror shards around the floor, some damaged computer screens, and keys from shattered keyboards near the left cracked wall.

If this classroom wasn't abandoned or owner-less, she would have to use her wealth to bail her angry friend from being punished.

She had to witness Y/n being reprimanded for something they didn't do.

Stealing.

Ridiculous, she thought. Just because you hate a student doesn't mean you get to blame them for stealing your stuff just cuz they happen to be the last one to get out of your classroom, stupid petty karen teacher. If her friend wanted something, she knew that her friend wouldn't try stealing. And besides, she was willing to buy whatever Y/n asked, but she knows that idiot wouldn't like to ask for a lot of money from her. Y/n is greedy, but she knows Y/n is not that greedy. And of course, not greedy enough to steal.

And if the Y/n did resort to stealing, Y/n would have never been caught. She would bet her whole wealth on that.

Not only that, her prototype project for Aerospace Design class was dropped on the floor, breaking it. The culprit? One of the rowdy jocks. The man didn't even apologize and proceeded to run to who knows where while being chased by his friends.

And as if two bad things were not enough, Y/n somehow left a very important item back home; lunch.

That must have been their breaking point. So she had to follow Y/n. It took some time to find them, but she somehow found a Primogem keychain and thought 'Ah yes Y/n must have been here', and was led by crashing and banging noises. That was how she found this abandoned school a few streets away from the main road leading to their university and into the woods.

She knew Y/n's side that they rarely show to some extent, knowing her friend's tendency to be a daredevil, but she didn't think that Y/n would actually go destructive if being angered without a proper cause. There's an inkling feeling, of course, just being proven correct was a whole different feeling.

Her friend got a bad record and is being under surveillance and suspicion, hard work was unjustifiably destroyed, and lunch was left at home.

One bad thing after the other.

"Sorry." Uttered her friend, not much making a move of some sort, not even a turn of a head, still catching their breath.

She only sighs and lets out a little chuckle. Y/n is a nice person, loyal, and dependable. She understands that people have their own bursts of anger sometimes. Though, her friend has a little destructive flavor to it.

"You okay?"

"...Yeah." Y/n takes a few more breaths, taking in a deep one, then exhale. "I calmed down a bit." They say as they stood properly and turned to the person leaning on the busted doorframe that Y/n may or may not have also hit a bit. Dropping the bat carelessly, glass clinking from the impact, Y/n dragged up an armchair that miraculously survived their wrath. They sat down and wiped the sweat from their brow, their friend pushing herself from the doorframe and proceeded to sit on the armchair's table.

"Here." She pulls out Y/n's favorite drink. "Got you your bag and some sandwiches too." She hands them and Y/n accepts them with gratitude. Y/n puts the bag beside the chair and opens their drink.

"So question, how'd you find this place?"

"I have an attraction towards signs that have 'do not enter' or 'danger, not safe' on them if you didn't noticed. Or places with rusty barbed wires in the middle of nowhere." They take a swig of their drink. A breath of relief and satisfaction escapes them after. "This place was abandoned because of a strong earthquake years ago. This place will be bulldozed into a new establishment soon. Until then, this has become one of my 'Escape Places'."

She had to ask about this list of places her friend tends to escape to when she gets the chance later today when they play genshin at her mansion.

"How'd you get in the barbed wire fences anyway?" Asked Y/n as they eat their sandwich, e/c eyes turning to her.

She just takes out her assortment of skeleton keys. "I'm not athletic like you who can jump or scale over wired fences. I went through the gate. The padlock was rusty so it took some time."

Y/n hums, impressed. Then the face of amazement turns to surprise when she just drops the key on Y/n's lap. "You can have it."

"Why???"

"I found a shop that sells these in any color you want. I want them pink so you can have these since I'll be buying new ones anyway."

"You gotta stop giving me free stuff, I'm being spoiled rotten." The friend just laughs, picks up the keys, and shoves them into Y/n's bag. "You also gotta stop shoving people stuff when they try to refuse."

"Hush my child, eat and replenish. You have to help me farm soon. Those Regisvines are a pain." She zips Y/n's bag shut and sat back. "So... What are you gonna do now?"

Silence came between the two, though it wasn't uncomfortable. Her eyes scanned the destruction caused by her friend. She knew Y/n was a kind person at heart, and they tried their best to be good. To mind their manners, to be respectful. But she knows Y/n gets these impulsive thoughts sometimes. But she knows Y/n is goodhearted. Y/n knows their limitations and where the line is drawn. A very good friend.

But she knew that if being pushed to a corner, left with no choice, being wronged unfairly... Y/n wouldn't just stand by. And if given an unholy amount of freedom or autonomy, in short, freeing Y/n from any restriction or any 'leash', who knows what Y/n might do.

Y/n's chewing could be heard after some seconds before gulping followed.

"Not to worry," there, she saw it, that smile, that fucking smile that only meant one thing.

Throughout the time they've been friends, practically became soulmates, she knew Y/n had a variety of smiles that indicate different things.

A smile that meant Y/n was not okay.

A smile that meant Y/n's up to something.

A smile that meant Y/n's on their last bit of sanity.

A smile that meant Y/n found something interesting.

A smile that meant Y/n is in trouble.

There were many smiles belonging to Y/n where she knew what they suggest.

And this one... This smile meant only one thing...

"I happen to catch a glimpse of that asshole's ID and locker number, I'll be putting that skeleton key to good use. And I got a receipt at the same time the crime happened. But I won't stop at just proving my innocence. I happen to know how to retrieve deleted CCTV footages."

A smile that meant Y/n had won.

.

.

.

.

.

Bennett walks around the edge of Dragonspine in hopes to find any treasure in his ‘adventure’. It may be uneventful, but his optimistic self continued on his path determined that today may be different.

Of course, he wishes to go on adventures with his creator guiding him again. Adventures with the divine one spreading their warmth upon him has always been the best feeling he has experienced, thrilling adventures brightly shining on his path. But he understands that someone as mighty as his god can also have weeks where they’re busy. In fact, he is already grateful to be one of the lucky people graced with their god’s blessings and guidance. Bennett never once thought that he’d be one of the blessed vessels in his lifetime. As if all his bad luck was meant for this very good one.

So while he waits for their holiness to come back, he embarks on another adventure on his own.

It was getting dark, but the moon was kind enough to illuminate his path to the camp he had set up. As he walks along the trees, he notices something swirling in his chest. The same warmth he feels when his creator was visiting Teyvat. His lips formed a huge happy grin as he jumps excitedly around. He awaits for the dreamlike subconsciousness to seep through.

He waits…

And waits…

He stopped to raise his palms, he was still in control.

That is strange. By now, he should have started running around or scaling high mountains, visiting foreign lands, or even doing simple commissions for others. He puts one hand to his chest, and he takes note that the divine aura felt strange, different even. As if the aura itself was thin and feeble, yet, it was not unnoticeable that’s for sure. As if the aura was swaying along the cold eternal winter wind from the near mountain, unlike the warmth that usually resides within him.

As if the aura feels less like an ‘aura’.

He can’t quite put a finger on it yet, but the change in the usual sensation of being guided by his god was concerning. He was just about to leave when he notices something from afar, much deeper into Dragonspine. He squints his eyes at what seems to look like a leg. Was there a person behind that bush? Worried for someone’s well-being to be threatened by the harsh weather of Dragonspine, he immediately runs to it.

But upon arriving to assist the person, his eyes widened at the sight before him. Laid behind the bush was a figure he frequently see around Mondstadt’s church, little statues of them on altars in households around the city. A face that he sees in paintings and on some Bibles. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, not trusting his eyes as they could be playing tricks on him.

There stood before your unconscious body was Benny, eyes wide with only one thought running in his mind.

Is he actually looking at the Creator right now?

He snaps from his frozen demeanor when he realizes that he was supposed to help you. He can’t leave you laying here in the freezing cold. But Bennett was hesitant, not sure how to approach you. He shakes his head from the nervousness, ready to help regardless of what identity you may have.

He kneels beside you, taking note of the rising and falling of the backpack on top of your chest. You were breathing, which was always a good thing to him while he places his hand on your shoulder to gently shake you awake.

He hears you groan, making him sigh a bit in relief that you were not completely out of it. He backs away on reflex as the person he is currently helping gently pushes the foreign and weird-looking backpack to the side. You inhaled deeply, making Bennett realize that the bag must have been making it hard for you to breathe due to its weight.

“H-Hey! Are you alright!?”

He can see your eyes still hazy and unfocused, but the air in his lungs was stuck to his throat by the sensation he was feeling from your waking presence.

It was undeniable to him now.

No wonder the aura felt less like an ‘aura’. Because it no longer felt like an aura, it felt more like …a presence.

He is kneeling beside his god. They’re there, with him, in the flesh.

His god blinks a few times, e/c eyes that he reads about shine under the moonlight. Glimmering eyes that seem to be glaring angrily towards the sky. Bennett stops his staring to avoid being rude and checked your body for any injuries.

“…That’s some rad Benny cosplay.”

You spoke, and Bennett never felt so stunned to hear the same voice that whispers around him to be murmuring coherently in front of him. And their first words were about… cosplay?

You sat up, with his help of course, and you looked closely at him. He sweats while casting his eyes away from you, unnerved to be narrowly stared at by his god. You looked around and Benny can tell that you were confused.

“Okay, what the… This is not my friend’s garden. And I swear it was summer. Why am I seeing snow?” You said as you looked at him, seemingly looking for an explanation. Of course, he is also as lost as you. But he did manage to find his voice and answered.

“Oh, um, we’re in Dragonspine…?”

And your immediate response was to laugh. “And you sound like him too!! Hahahaha! Oh man, and I’m in Dragonspine? Pff! Funny man.”

Benny only smiled while trying to make sense of your words.

“Man, not only does your voice sound similar to Bennett, your costume is so on point! Like- look at the detail! The shop you buy from is literally doing justice for Mihoyo’s drip marketing.” You looked around again, becoming more concerned. “No seriously, where are we? I don’t see my friend or her mansion or the tree house I fell from.”

You turned to the boy who held a nervous and unsure look on his face. “And what’s your name, exactly?”

“You just said it, your grace…”

“… You’re Bennett?” E/c eyes wide as saucers stared back at his green ones.

“Yes. I am. Your grace.”

You stayed seated, ignoring the cold as you stared into his eyes, looking for any traces of a lie. You trust your instincts in evaluating a person, your survival skills were honed by your parents after all. But it was still so surreal. You? in Genshin? No fucking way.

No fucking way.

You're in Genshin.

You see a flaming flower stamen nearby, and a sweet flower. The familiar sky. Dragonspine from afar, HD and all.

No fucking hell.

"... I'm actually in Teyvat."

You were well aware this isn't a dream. Despite your ability to discern reality and dreams, you tried pinching just in case. Yup, you were in your game alright. And surprisingly... you're not actually losing your shit.

Surprised? Sure.

But you can blame it on your survival reflex behavior to be whelmed in an unbelievable situation. You could release your burst of excitement later, right now there was an important matter at hand.

It'd be nice to chill in Teyvat if only you knew how to get out. Yeah, you weren't just gonna decide to stay forever. Teyvat may be cool, filled with characters you simped for and adventure and magic you could only dream of!

But you have a life.

It may not be perfect, it had downs and failures, but you couldn't just abandon that.

You wanted to become an aerospace engineer! Be close to the stars! Further the studies of astronomy! Help humanity reach the furthest parts of the universe, however small your contribution is!

Animes! Shows! Fics! Games! There were so many on your lists that you haven't checked yet and some are still unfinished and waiting for updates!

And also there were some people you want to get back at too. There's no way you're going to hell without settling some scores. You promised that when you're successful enough, there wouldn't be any reasons for you to stay as a goody-two-shoes anymore. And you would have to show those who wronged you who's boss, directly or indirectly, depending on that person and how they slighted you.

So you can't stay. You want to go home.

"Um..." Let out Benny as you turned to him. He was unsure. Not the unsure of someone so strange suddenly showing up, no, you were not that dumb or oblivious. It was much more. As if he wasn't sure what to tell you, movements showing that he knows what to say but is unsure when is appropriate.

He knows something you don't.

He called you something earlier. Your Grace. Were you some kind of high-status person? Is this a reincarnation scenario? Where you wake up one day as royalty who turns out to be the villainess in a novel for someone's amusement while stuck in class?

Nope, you checked yourself, and still in the same state as you were before you and your friend were falling to the ground. Dang, you hope your friend was okay, it looks like you were the only one who got sent here, which was good in a way. You like your friend's company, but dragging her to a place where she could get plummetted by a wild boar? Yeah, your friend would not survive long enough.

So what's with the title? You seem to have some sort of identity already in Teyvat despite being here for the first time, at least with the memories that have served you so far.

Maybe you could ask right now. But you want to butter him up first, get him comfortable. Of course, you know what kind of person Benny is. But with the off chance that Benny would be different than what Hoyoverse has displayed, you want to play it safe. At least, complete the evaluation to be sure that Bennett is the same Bennett that you knew in the game.

"Hey... I'm also at a loss here. I don't know how I got here. But I do want to find a way back somehow. Do you think you know where I could get help?" You asked, smiling nicely.

"I-I-I-!" You notice that he looks so surprised, there was a linger of disappointment too. Interesting, he wants you to stay a bit longer?

"I w..." There was a pause, you noted, "I could show you to Acting Grandmaster Jean. She should know how to help you!" You smiled happily, showing him you were grateful for the help. He slightly gets flustered and says that he has something to warm you up in his bag as an excuse to hide his face.

As soon as he distracts himself finding the item that might have probably been dropped somewhere with his luck, seeing as he's frantically still looking for it, your smile dropped, and stared at him.

He seems to know you to some degree, but he did not explain further, only saying that you should meet Jean for help. He should have explained something, seeing that he held no suspicion on you when you knew his name, and with the title he used for you, there was something. You heard his hesitation before he suggested Jean. He looked like he wanted to say something else. Of course, you could tell that he doesn't have any ulterior motives, but more so that he chose a different action instead.

Is it out of caution? Was he trying to be careful?

You have no choice but to gauge that out of him later when you get him comfortable enough.

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End of chapter 2: Rhododendron

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[faulty-writes]

[ Hello my dear followers and or fans. I present to you a Keigo piece, written for the Hawks Big Bang 2023. This was exceptionally fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy this piece. Hopefully, I'll come up with a few more ideas for some Keigo-based fan fics in the future. ]

[ As a support specialist, you were used to receiving attention, and it wasn’t just because you were the child of Endeavor, but you had your suspicions that might be why a certain winged hero liked you. Furthermore, it might explain why you were assigned to create his new feathers. Unfortunately, you run into a certain complication while trying to craft them. ]

It wasn’t easy being the child of Endeavor, the number one hero. When you think about your past, all you remember is how busy he was and how you constantly pleaded for his attention, especially when you came up with invention ideas.

Yes, your love of technology and keen sense of curiosity set you apart from the rest of your family. It was common for you to spend time in your room creating blueprints, drawings, or lists of the inventions you wished to create growing up.

On more than one occasion, you’d fall asleep at your desk with blueprints scattered underneath your sleeping head, half-made prototypes lying in front of you, and your hands still loosely gripping a screwdriver or wrench.

This made it difficult for your siblings to spend time with you and it was always a fight to get you out of your room and away from your passion. You recalled being dragged away by your caretaker with your nails scraping against the floor of your bedroom more than once.

But even this wasn’t enough to tear you away from your life’s purpose. The desire to change the world through your inventions led you to enroll at Yuuei, despite your father’s wishes, and though countless support manufacturing companies offered you positions after you graduated, you chose to start your own business.

Many thought this was impossible, but you knew that your inventions were unique and that potential customers would come to you for your customization abilities. The fact that you never said no to a challenge, no matter how difficult, was another characteristic that set you apart from other support item specialists.

In that aspect, you were sure you had inherited your stubborn nature from your father, but at least he had softened his attitude since Shoto had started attending Yuuei. However, despite your success, you have been unmotivated as of late and who could blame you?

Touya, your oldest brother who happened to be alive but turned into a villain, was responsible for attacking and critically injuring your father and youngest brother. You had originally thought focusing on your work would help you forget about him and the heavy overwhelming feelings that consumed you.

Clearly, you were mistaken. Your thoughts kept drifting back to the current events you were dealing with, causing your chest to ache so fiercely that you almost wished you had inherited your mother’s quirk so you could numb it and feel cold.

In any case, you didn’t inherit your mother’s quirk, at least not in the way you had hoped. Just like your father, you possessed a fire quirk and like your brother, Touya, the fire you produced was blue but…cold. Yes, you had some sort of cold flame ability, but it was nowhere near as powerful as the ice quirk your family possessed.

You weren’t as able to control your fire as Touya, Shoto, or even your father either. Although, like your older brother and sister, you didn’t use your quirk for anything practical outside of experimenting with some inventions that were powered by it.

You will always remember the first time you tried this new type of quirk-powered technology. You thought it was going to be a breakthrough, a new source of energy. Of course, you were still a support student at the time and that could have played into your naive nature.

Anyone in the support business knows that sometimes your inventions don’t go as planned and, in some cases, literally blow up in your face. This is what happened to you, instead of your quirk-powered invention doing as it was designed, it went haywire and blew up when you were within close range of it. 

As a result, your dominant hand’s thumb, index, and pinky fingers were severed and the Development Studio was off-limits for a couple of weeks while you adjusted to living with seven functional fingers. Unlike most rational-thinking individuals, you refused to have them reattached.

Rather, you saw this as an opportunity to make another version of your failed invention which is where the origin of your robotic fingers came in. Countless individuals chose to have certain body parts or limbs replaced with robotic ones and in that sense, you didn’t feel any different.

Of course, it had been tricky learning how to channel your quirk to your automated fingers and gauge just how much of your power you needed to make them work efficiently as you needed them to, but eventually, you mastered it.

Now only if you could master the ability to turn your feelings off, but you knew that was impossible. Even so, the latest project you had been given by the Winged Hero: Hawks could distract you for the time being.

Even though most would feel honored to create prosthetic feathers for the number two hero, you felt guilty knowing that those wings were burnt by your brother’s flames. Then again, maybe this was a way to help atone for his wrongdoings and this wasn’t the first time you had been assigned to craft something for Hawks.

He had been coming to you for several reasons since you graduated, and part of you thought it was because of your connection to Endeavor, who he was a big fan of. As time passed, you began to associate his unexpected visits with his desire to spend time with you.

The only problem was that you were too busy for him, and he often disregarded this. You leaned away from your work table to examine the blueprints you had created. “At least these feathers are pretty straightforward,” you tapped the end of your pencil against your lips being careful not to break it with your artificial fingers.

They were made up of three parts to give realistic joint movement, and these three parts gleamed the faintest blue color. The fingers were attached to a special device worn over your hand that looked like an ordinary compression glove but was made from a special type of metal.

As with your artificial fingers, it had a lining that glowed, and three circles across the top, and each circle was connected to one of the three mechanical fingers via a small wire. You paused when a soft vibrating sound filled the air causing you to look at the table.

You noted that the noise source was your phone. If there was one thing people should know about you, it was that you hated being interrupted when working. You sighed when you grabbed it and noticed a familiar number flashing across the screen.

“Bothering me already?” you muttered. You placed the device back down and grabbed your blueprints. “He can wait until I’m done with these,” it was standard for your customers to have your number, but you noticed Keigo had a bad habit of calling you whenever he pleased, and you didn’t have time for that.

You couldn’t even imagine how he had time for that, especially in his current state. He couldn’t even speak and needed a voice assistance device. Of course, it was only temporary and most likely given to him in the rush of everything else that was going on.

Still, you couldn’t help but think you could have made him something better. But it was time to forget about that. You glanced over the table which was currently cluttered with scraps of metal and beaten-to-death-looking tools.

“Let’s see…” you leaned over to the bulletin board that was hanging on the wall directly in front of said table and proceeded to hang the blueprint up. It was good to have a reference to look at when you were creating, although you were the type to tweak things here and there along the way.

Luckily, it never resulted in anything catastrophic. “There,” you leaned back, placing your hands on your hips and smiling proudly. “Now it’s my favorite time of the day,” you pulled your work stool out from under the table and sat down, pulling up the sleeves of your hoodie.

Well, okay. It was Natsuo’s hoodie, and you might have stolen it out of his closet without permission. But he had a million more and as much as you hated to admit it, the simple piece of clothing did bring some comfort.

You cracked your knuckles before leaning over to grab your work computer that was resting against one of the legs of the table and opened it. A few clicks sounded and seconds passed before a building program popped up on the screen.

Yes, even support item specialists used building or modeling software, and if you wanted to create prosthetics, feather prosthetics at that, you had to build a 3D structure that you could work with. However, unlike when you crafted things by hand, certain programs used to create more specific support items needed to be precise.

This also meant you had to spend hours and hours perfecting each little detail based on the hand-drawn blueprints you created before moving on. It wasn’t uncommon for you to get so caught up in your work that you drowned out the world around you. Noises such as your phone vibrating were deaf to your ears.

“Mm…” Keigo frowned, shrugging his shoulders. His yellow-golden eyes were fixed on his phone screen. Since he couldn’t talk right now, he wasn’t sure why he was calling you. However, his concern was heightened with every attempted call as they all went to your voicemail.

Tsunagu, more widely known as “Best Jeanist” noticed the distressed state the younger hero was in. He narrowed his eyes and approached, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. As expected, Keigo glanced up at him. “Perhaps it’s best you leave them be,” he suggested.

While he would normally support a fellow hero and their pursuits, he didn’t think it wise Keigo continue bothering you. It was evident that Endeavor was still recovering from his physical injuries, and his family was suffering emotionally now.

Keigo blinked and refocused his attention back on his phone, seeming to disregard the elder man’s words. He closed his eyes and after a few seconds, looked at Tsunagu again. His thumb quickly glided over the screen of his phone, and he typed out the message, “I need to check on them.”

Tsunagu sighed, pressing his hand against his forehead. He had his suspicions as to why Keigo wanted to see you, and it wasn’t just because you were assigned to create his new feathers. He didn’t want to see a fellow hero go down the dead-end path of romance.

At the same time, he knew far too well that he could not tell another adult, much less another hero what to do and in that sense, he could not rightfully refuse Keigo’s request. “Very well,” he replied, trying his best not to sigh and turning to walk to his car.

“Finally!” you leaned back, grinning at the 3D model of a prosthetic feather on the screen. “Now all that’s left is to print it,” you dragged the mouse over to the ‘File’ button and scrolled down. You were about to click ‘Print’ when you heard something.

“Hm?” your head turned to look at a small monitor nestled in the corner of the room, it was activated by a motion camera and much like a phone notification, it chimed when someone approached. You narrowed your eyes when you noticed the individual standing in front of the door.

His ash-blond feathery hair caught your attention first, followed by the medical bandages that were wrapped around his head but still exposed his face. The next thing was the respirator mask he wore, and the black button-up shirt he had on.

In his right hand, he was holding a small device which you assumed was his phone. The only thing that was missing was what you were currently working on, those beautiful bright red feathers that made up his wings. “What the?” your eyebrow twitched, and you clenched your jaw, immediately feeling annoyed by his presence.

‘What is he doing here!?’ you thought, balling your trembling hands into fists. ‘Well, I’m going to find out!’ With that, you stood from your seat and marched over to the door just as a few knocks sounded. You roughly pulled the door open, ignoring how it smacked against the wall.

You glared at the injured hero. “What do you want?” you demanded, crossing your arms. Yes, most wouldn’t be rude to pro heroes especially when they were as injured as Keigo. But, in your defense, he should know better than to bother you while you are working.

He stared at you, and you weren’t sure if he was in shock or disbelief over your words. “You ignored my texts” he replied. You furrowed your brow. “Texts?” you repeated. With a pointed artificial finger, you said, “You didn’t text me!”

You expected him to make a smart remark, but silence followed, and his attention was focused on your finger. In response to the glowing blue finger, his body stiffened and memories of the flames that had stolen his wings and voice came flooding back to him.

You noticed the blue-hued reflection of your finger in his eyes but quickly turned to march back to your work table and snatched your phone off it. After unlocking the device, you looked to see…you were wrong. There were several text messages from him and a few missed calls, but you weren’t sure if all of them were from him.

“Told you,” a robotic voice said. “Ah!” you jumped and turned around, swinging your fist at him. Even in his weakened state, he was quick enough to block you. “Whoa there,” his facial expression softened as if he had enjoyed the fact, you almost punched him. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” you rolled your eyes, looking back at your phone.

Part of you was curious to see what Keigo’s text messages said while another was annoyed that you were wasting your time, you had work to do! You clenched your jaw, lowering your phone before snapping, “Why are you always bothering me!?” Keigo leaned back, his eyes widening.

You could only imagine the shocked or disbelieving expression that was hidden underneath that respirator mask. He blinked once or twice before typing into his phone, “I wanted to see you today.” Well, that didn’t answer your question.

You sighed, placing your hand against your head and being careful not to let your hair get stuck in the small spaces of your robotic extremities. Keigo stood there, his eyes shifting ever so slightly as he absorbed each detail of you.

Even though he could see Endeavor’s anger and stubbornness in you, it was more charming, even cute coming from you. Yet, it was still hard for him to accept that you were the child of his favorite hero. “Look,” he immediately shifted his gaze to your face when you spoke.

“Your feathers aren’t finished yet, and you’re distracting me, so leave now!” you demanded, pointing to the door. You turned your back to him. “Jeez…” you muttered, slamming your phone back onto the table. You couldn’t fathom why he had wanted to see you, since you didn’t see yourself as interesting.

In addition, your life was consumed with work. There was always something to be done. Day in and day out, inventing, fixing, and creating. It was a miracle you even had time for your own family, let alone others. Keigo frowned, although he knew this was how you’d react.

He assumed Endeavor taught you to keep to yourself and to keep everyone at arm’s length. But that only made him question what were you trying to hide or was it that you were afraid of what would happen if you let someone in? He understood how that felt, given his neglectful and abusive childhood scars.

There was a part of him that wondered if life had led him to you only to remind him that he was nothing more than a villain in disguise and that his effort to dirty his hands to keep yours clean was all for nothing since he could never reach you no matter how hard he tried.

He curled his free hand into a fist, hearing the gentle cracking of his knuckles. But heroes and villains had one thing in common: they never gave up. So, damn the world because he’d keep trying, and with everything going to hell in a handbasket, now was the ideal moment to capture your heart and fuck the consequences.

His eyes lingered on you, once again taking in every detail. Although he was struck with curiosity when he noticed the hoodie you were wearing, it looked a bit too large for you and he swore he had caught a musky scent earlier that contrasted your typical fruity but spicy fragrance.

His suspicions were heightened and frankly, he didn’t like the fact that you were wearing another man’s clothing. He intended to disregard your wish, not that he would abide by it anyway, and he anticipated how you would react when he leaned forward, pressing himself against your back.

“What the-” You tensed up and lifted your arm, fully intent on elbowing him in the stomach, but once again he was too fast for you. The sound of his phone hitting the table echoed through the room. “Hey!” he grabbed your left wrist and pinned it against the table.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” you demanded, feeling him pin your right hand against the table as well. It was a tad odd to feel the cool metal touch of your artificial fingers against his. Part of him wondered if you missed the sensation of being able to feel or touch.

After all, even you couldn’t invent something that brought back the nerves that were taken away after that incident years ago. Yes, he knew about it, and he was still at a loss for why you didn’t choose to simply reattach your fingers.

Then again, there was a chance that even if you did, they’d hold no or very little feeling at all. But flesh or not, nothing was going to stop him from tightening his grip and enjoying how his fingers fit perfectly between yours.

When he rested his chin on your shoulder, you tensed up in response. He tried to get a glimpse of your face before he moved your wrist closer to his phone and used the bottom of his palm to keep it pinned against the table while his fingers typed out another message.

“Whose hoodie are you wearing?” The question threw you off and you looked dumbfounded before knitting your eyebrows and the sound of your growling filled the air. “Why do you care?” you replied, glaring at him from over your shoulder.

An expression of distant longing filled his eyes, and he offered no words in response to your question. “Huh?” you froze when he released his hold on you and stepped away. Although he knew it was dangerous, he didn’t care since he had nothing left to hold back.

The moment you saw him reach up to remove his mask, your eyes widened. “Wait!” you cried out, grabbing his hand to force it away from his face. “What are you doing? Are you crazy!? You need to keep your mask on!” you exclaimed, almost hating yourself for showing that you cared about him.

Your words were met with silence, and his eyes remained with that distant look as if he didn’t comprehend what he was doing or what you were saying. Although your robotic fingers might be digging into his flesh and causing him discomfort, you tightened your grip.

After a moment, however, you took a deep breath and dropped your hand. “Fine,” you said, crossing your arms. He almost hated the frown you wore, but he knew you needed to hear his voice even if it physically pained him to speak.

“Do what you want!” you yelled, latching onto your lip, feeling embarrassed that you had let your emotions slip. Yes, maybe you did care about Keigo, a little, but he didn’t need to know that! He lowered his eyebrows and resumed removing his mask. “Mm…” you glanced back at him, dropping your arms instantly.

Your eyes widened and your mouth hung agape. The left side of his face was marked by a jagged scar, which ran down to the side of his neck. It was red and in the process of healing. You wondered if it still required treatment, but his hardy and struggling breathing distracted you from any further thoughts.

“You…wearing another man’s…clothing,” his voice was barely audible, “makes me jealous.” Your eyes began to water at the sight of the damage left on his skin and at the sound of his vocal cords straining to speak. Stepping closer, you said “I-It’s Natsuo’s hoodie,” and cursed yourself for trembling when you spoke.

“Mm...” his eyes narrowed as if he were debating whether you were telling the truth or not. “Is…is that what you really care about right now!?” you growled. “You are so…” you wanted to call him stupid, an idiot even. Instead, you swallowed and looked at him, with a few stray tears running down your cheeks.

Your hand came to rest on the side of his injured cheek, and you almost wished you didn’t have these damned metal fingers so you could properly brush your thumb over his skin. Your compression glove’s cool metal texture made him recoil and at the same time, a sense of sadness filled him.

He would have much preferred to feel the touch of your warm palm, of course, then you wouldn’t have the use of a thumb period. “Did Touya really do this to you?” he frowned at your question and reached up, clasping the side of your face. It was apparent that your tears were now streaming over his hand and down his wrist.

Although most tears felt warm, yours were cold and left faint red lines on his skin. He quickly assumed this was because your quirk was cold enough to burn and partly wondered if your tears would leave a kiss of frostbite or at the very least, leave his skin feeling cold for a while. Not that it mattered.

He almost wanted to laugh, because unlike your brother, who shared that his tear ducts were burned, yours seemed to work just fine. Seeing a hero in such a fragile state, one that everyone looked up to, was always hard to accept.

But this was reality, and he didn’t fear showing you his weaker side, he just wished you’d do the same. Although you were already going through a lot emotionally, he felt a tiny bit guilty that he was only adding to it. At the same time, he felt hopeful that he was getting closer and closer to tearing down your walls today.

As he cradled your face in his hands, he gently moved his thumbs, collecting your chilly teardrops and wiping them away. You latched onto your lip, feeling your heart speed up at the caring and gentle gesture he was performing.

You were typically someone who bottled up their feelings and if you had to cry, you usually did it in private as you believed it was a sign of weakness. But it seemed that you and Keigo were both weak and needed to lean on one another for the time being.

The answer to your earlier question was obvious, and frankly, you didn’t know why you had even asked it in the first place. “Damn it…” you hissed under your breath and tried to turn your head, but Keigo refused to allow you to look away from him.

His noisy and raspy breathing made you cringe, and you hoped that he wouldn’t collapse. Your eyes closed and you pressed your teeth together, you couldn’t take any more drama. A soft hitch of breath came when Keigo stepped closer and pressed his forehead against yours.

Tears continued to trickle out of your eyes, possibly a sign of all the emotions you had been holding back until now. Silence filled the space between you, apart from the man’s continued breathing and it was only in this moment that you noticed the unfamiliar heat coursing through your cheeks.

As he cautiously stepped closer, his hands slipped down to your shoulders, drawing his breath against your face and you felt the warmth of his lips so dangerously close to yours. “I’m...not a good...guy,” he said, struggling with his words once again.

“What?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. You lowered your hand from his face, how could he say that? Yes, you were aware of what he had done. Your brother had told Japan that the Winged Hero: Hawks had murdered Twice, the villain.

However, you knew from your own experience that heroes aren’t always heroic. Your father was a prime example of that, but as of recently, he aimed to improve himself, despite the hatred the world now held for heroes. You could only assume that Keigo was following in his footsteps.

His hands brushed over yours and he took them in his grasp, holding them to his lips. As he kissed each one of your knuckles, he closed his eyes, taking another breath. “You…make me…feel like one.” Tingles ran through your body, and when he opened his eyes again it felt like those golden orbs were staring directly into your soul.

Yet, you felt comfortable for a moment. As if all the troubles you felt were suddenly lifted. Your eyelids lowered and you squeezed his hands, almost unconsciously pressing yourself against him. The tiniest smile came to your face, and Keigo’s eyes softened when he returned that smile. It was good to see you in this state.

Maybe now he could…he paused, releasing your hands and instead, wrapped his arms around you. His fingers almost possessively dug into your back, and he leaned forward. A soft coo escaped him as he carefully nuzzled against your neck making you tremble in response.

It was hard to tell if you were shocked by the way he embraced you or by the bird-like noise he made. Of course, you should have expected it given his quirk. Your hands remained at your sides, and you thought, ‘Should I hug him back?’

You were never one to express your affection physically, but it seemed the two of you were already past that. “Mm...” you hesitantly slipped your arms beneath Keigo’s, allowing your fingertips to graze along his back while remaining conscious of not harming him with your robotic fingers.

Your eyebrows knitted as you felt two distinct bumps on his shoulder blades and quickly realized they were the remains of his wings. ‘Oh right...his wings…’ you thought bitterly, glancing to the side. ‘I should be working on his damn feathers, what am I doing!?’

Despite your rational thoughts, your body didn’t listen. ‘Why…why can’t I move away?’ Was it because this felt nice? His body was warm and comforting despite being bruised, beaten, and fragile. Your eyes began to water again, and you tightened your embrace.

Your fingers, or at least the flesh and blood ones, were trembling. As soon as he noticed this, he drew back but kept his arms around you. He noticed your watery eyes first, followed by your frown and overall look of hurt across your face.

He wanted to ask what was wrong, but words were useless. Maybe he should show you that everything was okay or as okay as he could make it at this time. Pulling back his hand, he lightly grasped your chin and grazed his thumb along your bottom lip. The moment he leaned forward, your heart pounded faster.

What was going on? Was he going to…and why did you want to? Your eyelids lowered, and your lips parted, prepared to feel the warmth of his against them. However, the door opened right as your mouths touched, and both of you froze. Then a familiar voice came, “Y/n?” 

You instantly pushed your hands against Keigo’s chest and glanced past him to see your father. What was he doing here, shouldn’t he be in the hospital!? Well, unless he got discharged. But if that were the case, then Fuyumi should have informed you. Then again, you weren’t exactly paying attention to your phone today.

You expected him to react with anger, but instead, he frowned and lowered his eyebrows, confused at what he was seeing and why Keigo was so close to his child. “Apologies,” Tsunagu’s voice came and seconds later you watched him squeeze past your father.

“I attempted to explain to Endeavor that you were currently engaged in conversation with Y/n, but it appears he favored disrupting regardless.” Well...in addition to ignoring your phone, you realized that if someone was preoccupying your attention, you also ignored the chime of your motion camera. Lovely. “However, they are his child and I believe we have interrupted Todoroki family matters enough,” he was somewhat concerned as to why Keigo hadn’t turned around yet. But knowing the young hero, he was more than likely attentively listening to and acknowledging the two men now present in the room.

In addition, due to his years of conditioning as a hero, it was also likely he was continuing to shield you because he wanted to make sure you and everything else were safe. Enji glared at Tsunagu before shaking his head and looking back at you and Keigo.

Though he didn’t say a word when he walked over, his eyes burned with an intimidating gaze that made you tremble. “Uh...hi Dad?” you awkwardly said and, with some regret, stepped away from Keigo. Without warning, he grabbed your wrist and pulled you away.

You were surprised that he said and did nothing given the fact that in the past he had no trouble laying his hands on Keigo and threatening to turn him into fried chicken. Maybe double-fried chicken in this case. You shifted your gaze to Tsunagu as you passed by, and he merely shrugged.

“Mm…” your cheeks were flushed, and Enji loosened his grip on your wrist when the two of you got closer to the door and instead, took a secure grip on your hand. As he yanked it forward, three distinct snaps echoed through the room.

You paused, realizing that he had unintentionally taken your artificial fingers off, but luckily that was part of their design. It enabled you to replace whichever finger you wanted or fix them if necessary. He paused and looked to see three metal appendages now in his palm. His eyes widened, and he looked back at you.

“Shouldn’t have pulled that hard,” you said, holding your hand up. The metal compression glove remained, but the three wires that connected to your fingers were hanging against it. Judging by your father’s frown, it was difficult for him to see just two flesh and blood fingers because it reminded him of his shameful past.

After losing your fingers, he should have been stricter with you and consulted you about what you needed to do. He curled his hand into a fist and grabbed your wrist with his opposite. “Let’s go,” he finally dragged you past the door, leaving the two fellow heroes behind. 

Upon hearing Keigo fumble with his respiratory mask, Tsunagu asked, “Is this what you meant when you said you needed to check on them?” Keigo ignored his words and grabbed his phone from the table, briefly glancing at your computer which was left open.

He noted the odd program you had displayed on the screen and the strange feather-like image on it. He turned to Tsunagu, “They’ll be back later,” he typed out. “Endeavor wouldn’t distract them for long, after all, they’re obsessed with their work,” he noted before walking past the fellow hero.

“We need to make sure to lock the door, I don’t want Y/n’s possessions to get stolen,” he paused in the doorway, focusing his gaze on a black vehicle pulling away from the building in a hurry. It was safe to assume that it belonged to Endeavor.

Your hands curled in your lap when your father finally got you into the car, though it was a tad odd to see the three stumps where your fingers used to be. “Hi Y/n,” Fuyumi greeted but only received your glare in response.

It must take a lot out of her mental health to have to force herself to remain optimistic over everything she does, and part of you hated her constant positivity even when there was none to be found. You shifted your gaze to Natsuo, who, like your father, had a temper.

But he was at least honest with you and expressed his opinions without remorse. He saw the truth in everything and accepted it no matter how hard. Shoto seemed to be missing, but you presumed that his injuries would take more time to heal and further presumed that your mother was with him.

“Mm…” you turned to Enji, holding out your opposite hand and he hesitantly handed you the metal fingers. After clicking each one into place and ensuring they worked properly and that the wires were firmly reattached, you muttered, “Thanks” and looked out the window.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t annoyed that you were once again being distracted from your work. Enji frowned, staring at the back of your head, and contemplating his next words. “Stay away from Hawks,” you looked at him in disbelief.

However, your reaction was not surprising to him, and he remained with a stern expression and crossed arms. “What?” you hissed out, your eyebrows slanted, and your teeth bared as if ready to pounce on him like a hungry animal after its prey.

“Wait…” Fuyumi said, her voice full of concern. “Hawks visited you?” she frowned and pressed a hand against her chest. ‘That must be why Dad was so upset,’ like your father, she was unphased by your glare and her facial expression reflected her concern and loving nature.

She cared about this family as hellish as it was and wanted nothing more than to take care of her younger siblings, especially in the absence of your mother. Granted she decided to come back into the picture quite recently, which was yet another emotional toll you had to deal with.

Like Shoto, you kept a distance from your older siblings, and no matter how hard they tried to connect with you, there never seemed to be anything in common between you and them. You preferred to stay indoors and often refused to play with them growing up.

This, of course, was a result of your passion for support items which drove you to confine yourself to your room where you spent hours creating, fixing, or making blueprints of inventions. You paused and glared at her again, was she really asking such a dumb question?

You turned to Enji. “He’s not that bad you know. After everything he’s been through because of Touy-” a deep growl rumbled from his throat. “I know very well what happened,” he remarked, anger seeping from his words.

Guess he didn’t want to be reminded of the awful deeds his own flesh and blood committed. Natsuo sighed, pressing the tips of his fingers together. He felt hopeless that he couldn’t do anything about Touya. He glanced at you, crossing his arms before pressing his back into his seat.

“Lay off Y/n,” he demanded, now glaring at your father. “It’s not their fault that Touya ended up the way he did,” he noted, ignoring Fuyumi’s hand on his shoulder. “Don’t say that Natsuo,” she urged in a quiet whisper, why she always felt like defending your father was unknown.

You sighed, glancing out the window again. “What did he want?” Natsuo asked, catching your attention. “Hm?” you responded, not fully catching his question. “What did he want?” he repeated, slightly annoyed. You knitted your eyebrows and huffed. “Nothing,” you replied nonchalantly.

Natsuo narrowed his eyes, with the way you were dragged out the door, he didn’t buy it. Before he could inquire anything further, Enji said, “So it was Hawks who initiated it then.” You stared at him silently as you pressed your lips together.

He narrowed his eyes, returning your stare. “I’ll have to have a chat with him later,” he stated, it wasn’t in his interest for Keigo to have a romantic relationship with his child. “What?” you replied before pressing your hands against the empty space between you and Enji.

“No, you won’t! Nothing happened between us, he was just…” Your words faded into the air, and your eyes shifted back and forth. “Just what?” Enji asked, daring you to complete your sentence. “W-why does it matter?” you replied, knowing you were acting like a love-sick teenager.

As you stared out the window yet again, you took notice of the clouds passing by. “Y/n,” Enji snarled possessively. You sighed. “What?” you asked, glancing at his reflection in the glass of the window. He was wearing a frown, and his eyes held a hurt expression.

“I want to protect all of you,” he stated, once again attempting to show his softer side. You heard Natsuo huff in response while Fuyumi remained quiet. You lifted your hand to brush the cool metal tips of your artificial fingers against your lips, ignoring the blue-tinted hue that reflected off the window.

You recalled the feeling of Keigo’s breath against them and the faint butterfly kiss of his mouth against yours. ‘What would have happened if Dad didn’t interrupt us?’ You weren’t sure if you wanted to know, but one thing was clear.

“You can’t protect someone else’s heart,” you replied, your voice soft but audible. That hurt expression on his face deepened, but you didn’t bother turning your head or looking at his reflection any longer. Instead, you were more concerned over the realization that maybe, just maybe you liked Keigo after all.

[son1c]

what lies beneath

falling stars fic masterpost

The manta ray battleship was a prototype. It was easy to forget that fact while lounging in the cabin, but down on the lower deck, it was impossible to ignore. It was stuffier, for one thing. And it reeked of budget cuts.

Eggman was a man with very clear priorities. He would allot as much time and money to things as he thought they deserved. And when it came to something that was never supposed to leave the garage, he skipped out on lights for the underbelly.

It wasn't like he was going to answer the door if the Federal Aviation Administration came knocking for a safety inspection.

The oppressive darkness of the lower deck was assuaged only by Omega's eyes. Twin red beams cut through the blackness, revealing a space cluttered with walkways and skinny guardrails. Thick metal tubes snaked around the space as well, and far off, beyond the reach of Omega's eyes, the three Team Dark members could hear the pulsing sound of the engine as it kept the manta ray airborne.

Rouge stretched her hands above her head. "Well, boys," she said. "Let's get to work."

Omega, being a robot, had no problems seeing in the dark. And Rouge, being a bat, also didn't have much trouble. Shadow, however, was cursed by his hedgehog genes to struggle, so he let the two of them lead the way as they explored the lower deck.

Shadow kept his ears standing straight up, listening for anything that might sound out of the ordinary. What he heard was a lot of whirring mechanisms and hissing pipes. The heavy clanking of Omega's footsteps also filled his ears as they descended deeper down the outer staircases. And as they approached the engine, the sound of its roars nearly drowned out everything else.

But not entirely.

Shadow's ears swivelled. He stopped in his tracks, his hands clenching the guardrail as he stared out into the darkness. But the black wall didn't move. There was nothing there. He let go of the guardrail, only to stop for a second time, his finger catching on a nick in the metal.

"Omega," Shadow called. "I need your eyes."

Omega rotated his head like he was an owl, illuminating the guardrail that Shadow was still standing in front of. Now bathed in red light, the metal revealed a secret: two sets of five lines gouged into the metal. They were thin and straight, almost like someone had dragged their fingernails across the guardrail. But even the toughest claws would need to apply a lot of pressure to dent metal.

Rouge walked up to Shadow. When she saw what he was looking at, she muttered, "How kind of the Doctor to put together this surprise for us…"

"Be on your guard," Shadow said. His ears twitched again. "We're not alone down here."

Beneath them, the landing gear shuddered. Omega looked down at it, and through the lattice of the staircase, everyone could see a dark shape dart across the wheel. Shadow lost sight of it when it left the scope of Omega's gaze, however.

Omega started to get excited. But before he could draw his weapons, Shadow said seriously, "Hand-to-hand only. We can't afford to damage the engine with stray projectiles."

Omega's shoulders slumped. If he had a mouth, he'd be using it to pout right now. "FUN LEVELS DROPPING," he said. "EXCITEMENT DECREASED TO 'BELOW AVERAGE.'"

"Oh, please," Rouge said. "Aren't you forgetting about something? Or were you being too generous before, and those hands of yours can't really crush cars between them?"

This reminder perked the robot up. With newfound excitement, he scanned the space below them, but whatever had been there before was gone now. The only things caught in the red beams of light were dust particles and the dirt stuck to the landing gear.

A sudden bang made everyone turn to look at the engine. Standing on top of it was the figure from before. It glared menacingly at Team Dark, its black body glinting when the red light from Omega's eye beams hit it. It focused its orange gaze on Shadow. Even from this far away, Shadow could feel the coldness of its stare.

It was the Shadow Android.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the claw marks weren't just on the guardrail. They were all over the landing gear too. The fake hedgehog must've clung to it when the ship had taken off, and made itself a stowaway within the bowels of the manta ray.

And now it was raising its hand up, preparing to smash down on the engine.

"Omega!" Rouge said, her eyes wide with alarm as she realized what the Shadow Android was planning. "Throw me!"

"QUERY: WOULD YOU NOT COUNT AS A PROJECTILE?"

Rouge stomped her foot. "Oh, for the love of--"

Shadow intervened. "I won't miss," he said as he picked her up. Then, he threw her at the Android. With his superior accuracy, he managed a direct hit, and Rouge knocked the fake hedgehog off the engine right as it was about to ram its fist into the power core.

The two of them disappeared over the side of the large engine, locked in an intense struggle.

Shadow and Omega leapt over the guardrail and chased after them a moment later. They landed on the landing gear, and the mechanism shuddered from their sudden weight. But Shadow ignored the creaking metal--his eyes scanned the darkness, his ears held as high as they could go.

Then, he heard it. The faint sounds of someone choking.

Shadow didn't hesitate. He raced toward the far end of the lower deck, where the noise was coming from. As he got closer, he could begin to make out the orange glow of the Shadow Android's eyes. It illuminated Rouge's face as well as the pinched expression she wore. The Android had her pinned up against the wall with its hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing.

Rouge's fingers weren't strong enough to pry the Android's metal ones off of her. Thankfully, Shadow's were, and he wrenched them free before the bat's lungs could start to burn from a lack of oxygen. She gasped, her heels clicking when they reunited with the floor.

The Android swung around to face Shadow. In the low light, it almost appeared to be glowering at him, the darkness creating the illusion of a vitriolic expression. Shadow matched it with one of his own, his heart clenching painfully as he stared back at his own face.

Why should this thing exist? Shadow still wasn't sure who he was, or who he was supposed to be. To create an imitation of him was to paint a picture of nothing.

But this Android wasn't nothing. Unlike Shadow, it knew its purpose. The machine was comfortable in the knowledge that it was a pawn. Shadow, meanwhile, despised the thought of bending to Doctor Eggman's will.

And yet, the Shadow Android still had something that Shadow didn't.

And it made Shadow sick.

The dark hedgehog slammed the fake into the floor. The force of the impact dented the ship, but the Android remained unharmed. It attempted to break free of Shadow's grasp with a kick to his stomach, but Shadow wouldn't be shaken off so easily. He held firm to the Android's neck with one hand, and drove a punch into its jaw with the other.

But again, the Android was unharmed. Its head whipped to the side, but there was no dent left in its cheek, and when its eyes returned to meet Shadow's, it was as if to say, Is that all? Pathetic.

The Android's stripes began to glow. Its body grew hot, too hot to touch, and Shadow was forced to let go, his glove smoking from where it had been grasping its neck. Then, the Android slid back before jumping onto its feet, its whole body shimmering like the hood of a car that had been left out in the summer heat.

Shadow got back to his feet and balled his hands into fists. He wondered how long the Android could keep up this impression of an oven before it started to melt.

The fake hedgehog surged forward, still radiating heat. It raked its claws at Shadow and managed to graze his cheek, the superheated metal slicing through his skin like it was wet tissue paper. With a hiss of pain, Shadow backed further away, realizing he wouldn't be able to rely on the Android self-destructing. He needed a new plan, and fast.

Omega chose that moment to rejoin the fight. The large robot grabbed the Shadow Android with his big mechanical hands, unfazed by the extreme temperature the Android was letting off. He then tore one of the Android's arms off, and the detached limb sparked hideously when it hit the floor.

"HOSTILE HAS BEEN DISARMED. LIMBS PENDING REMOVAL: 3."

A second later, the Shadow Android slammed a kick into Omega's chest, and the subsequent clang rattled the robot enough that the Android was able to wriggle free from his hands' iron grasp. Now on the floor, the Android grabbed its detached arm with its one good hand before hurling the broken limb at Rouge's head.

The bat easily avoided the arm. But the Android hadn't actually been aiming for her--instead, it was trying to hit the button behind her on the wall. And when its detached arm smacked into it, the mechanism holding landing gear in place released, and the floor of the manta ray ship suddenly had a great big hole in it.

Wind rushed up from the gap in the floor, and the air inside the engine room was pulled out, toward the hole. With nothing to hold onto, the four combatants struggled to retain their footing as they were all dragged across the deck by the wind.

And then the Shadow Android grabbed Shadow's shoe. Taking advantage of the hazardous conditions it had just created, the Android kicked itself up off the floor, and flung Shadow at the landing gear. But Shadow wouldn't go without a fight, and he snagged the Android's wrist at the last second.

The two of them sailed through the air, the suction from the outside of the ship drawing them in like water to a drain.

"Shadow!" Rouge cried, but her voice was drowned out by the wind.

Thinking fast, Rouge reached into her pocket and pulled out a big green gem. How something that large had managed to fit inside of her pencil skirt's pocket was anyone's guess. Maybe she had picked up a trick or two from Amy, and developed her own sort of hammer space. Or maybe it was just a really good pocket.

Regardless, she now had the gem in her hand. With a pained expression, she thought, He owes me big time for this.

Then, Rouge threw the gem to Shadow, hoping it would reach him in time, and that he would catch it. Thankfully, he saw the flash of green over the Android's head and reached up at just the right moment.

The Chaos Emerald smacked into Shadow's burned hands like an oversized baseball. And he could feel it--that mystical, familiar energy. Unlike the kind his own body generated though, the energy emanating from the Emerald was soft and warm. He knew it wouldn't hurt him to use even before he tapped into it.

And as the gem hummed between his fingers, he remembered something.

A phrase.

He said it now.

“Chaos Control!”

The Android attempted to knock the Chaos Emerald out of his hands with a kick, but Shadow was faster. He let the Emerald's Chaos Energy fill his heart, and he kneed the Android in the chest with a javelin of green energy. It pierced the Android's metal chest plate and short circuited the imposter, its orange eyes flickering out instantly.

Dead.

The sight of it unnerved Shadow. He hoped he would never have to fight another fake of himself again.

And then the wind pulled Shadow and the corpse of the Android out over the gap in the floor. Shadow kicked the Android downward, where it was taken by the wind and presumably fell to the desert far below.

Before Shadow could meet that same fate, Rouge grabbed his arm. With her other hand, she held onto one of Omega's fingers. The robot had torn a hole in the floor with his other hand, keeping them all anchored.

"Sorry, sweetheart," Rouge said to Shadow, "but I've had enough of your dramatic exits for one lifetime!" A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, but she still managed to wink.

It gave Shadow pause.

Rouge’s words. Her actions.

Because Shadow didn't need her or Omega to save him. With the Emerald, Shadow could've easily teleported himself back onto the ship if he fell. And yet, it was only because of Rouge that he now had the Emerald in the first place. And that meant something to Shadow.

It meant that when she held his arm, he didn't try to wrestle himself free, and instead he allowed her to hold him there, dangling precariously over the ten thousand foot drop.

Then, the landing gear groaned as it pulled itself back up into the ship, and the three Team Dark members quickly followed suit. They all turned to look at the wall where the button was, and Omega's eye beams revealed Sonic standing there with a buzzy bomber hooked under his arm. Once the wind was no longer ripping through the lower deck, he released the buzzy bomber, and it hovered by his shoulder.

The blue hedgehog waved at his friends. "Not too shabby," he said. After speeding over to them, he knocked Rouge on the shoulder. "Maybe there's somethin' to this 'team' thing after all. You ain't half bad, Rouge."

Rouge puffed up, a little indignant. "Obviously!"

Shadow asked, "If you're here, then who…?"

"Don't sweat it! My copilot's the best there is." Sonic snickered at the stares he received. "What? You guys were takin' awhile, so I figured I'd teach Buggy the ropes. And it's a good thing I did, too, cuz Mr. Ivo forgot to install the switch for autopilot!"

[simplydannie]

Part 1

Floyd now understands the true reason behind his kidnapping and the fraud…. Velvet just wants her brother cured. Floyd can’t help that some is pulling the strings…. Lying to her.

Today was the day of the concert.

Velvet and Veneer were to use some prototype made by Crimp for this night…. Floyd wasn’t looking forward to it. As he sat there in the small, enclosed diamond he couldn’t stop but think what he learned a couple of weeks ago…. Veneer was sick.

This is the reason why Velvet was doing it… why she was so desperate… she didn’t want to loose her brother. What Floyd couldn’t get out of his head, is who in the world told them about Trolls? Who gave them that idea?…. His thoughts were cut short as her the sounds of a small stifled cry.

Floyd turned to see Velvet sitting on her vanity…. She was fully dressed already…tears coming down her face. He had been witnessing along with her that Veneer was slowly declining…

She didn’t know what else to do… somehow the Troll wasn’t helping… Veneer looked thinner…His voice softer… Velvet was slowly seeing her brother whither away to this stupid sickness. She had done everything they said, everything they asked for… yet there were still no answers…. Veneer still wasn’t better… were they lying to her?

“….Velvet…” Floyd said softly. He could see Velvet glance at him with anger in her eyes through her vanity.

“What Troll!” She demanded… she quickly wiped her tears away and resumed her usual demeanor. Floyd really had to choose his words carefully…

“…. Maybe there’s a way we Trolls could help your brother… without really sucking our talent or anything like that.” He said. This caught her attention… she was silent…. She was listening.

“Maybe where I’m from or any Troll for that matter, we could find a cure? There’s so much out there Velvet, I could help you. I hate seeing Veneer decline just as much as you do.” He admitted. There was silence between them for a few moments….

“I can’t….. I can’t risk it.” She finally said.

“Risk what?” Floyd asked.

“Loosing all this.” She replied.

“Velvet there’s more to life than luxury and-“ She cut him off.

“No! You don’t get it! If they see Veneer can’t keep his end… if he can’t keep up, they’ll remove him! They’ll take him away from me!” She said. A terrified look filled her eyes…She glanced at Floyd…Velvet bit her lip…. She had said too much.

“Who? Velvet, who is threatening you guys?!” Before Floyd could get any response, Veneer walked out the bathroom fully dressed.

“… I look stupid.” He said in a monotone voice, disapproval in his eyes. Again in the flip of a switch Velvet adapted her usual attitude.

“Oh shut up you look fine. Let’s kill this show!” She said. Veneer looked himself over in the mirror, he began to feel less and less himself… Floyd saw this… something slowly started to change in Velvet. She then started slowly changing her brother.

“Remember, everyone wants to be you. You’re the star, not them!” She lifted Floyd off from where he stood. She took a few spritz before placing him inside Veneers chest piece. Veneer was hesitant… he knew this was wrong, but he also knew that he couldn’t let his sister down…. She knew what was best for him….right?

“…ya okay. Let’s do this!” He finally said.

The crowd cheered and screamed as the lights dimmed.

“WHATS UP MOUNT RAGEOUS!” Velvet screamed into the mic. The crowd roared with excitement as Velvet and Veneer took center stage.

“WHOSE READY TO LIVE IT UP TONIGHT!” She screamed again. A burst of energy through the crowd. Floyd could make out all the young faces; waiting for anticipation for the idols to take the stage. He glanced sideways at Veneer….

…..He had a distant look in his eyes…. Floyd could feel him swaying back and forth…

“Veneer?” He said. The young Mount Rageoun glanced at him…. Blood began to trickle down his nose.

“Oh gosh! Veneer!” Floyd exclaimed banging on the diamond.

“I’m fine.” Veneer said wiping the blood away. Floyd desperately tried getting Velvets attention by calling her name, banging on the glass. “I’m fine.” Veneer said again.

The lights started to become a blur to him… the sound of Velvet and the crowd grow slow and muffled…. Blood came down his nose again…he could see Velvet turn to look at him… horror in her eyes… he didn’t know what she said….his eyes then rolled behind his head… he fainted right there on the stage….

“Veneer!” Velvets scream echoed across the arena.

… the crowd gasped and grew silent.

[the-enzyme]

I'm done with my GDToys Sesshomaru's "customizing." I might rework his bangs someday, in the not too far away future. I suck at styling my own hair, so it's no surprise I would suck at tiny headed 1:6 action figure's bangs. However, for now, I am super happy with him. There are many things that could be improved, but my shaky hands are not something that will be improving, ever! Lol! DX

My current cell phone's camera hates me, and I struggle with it as well as setting lights. These are terrible, there's so much noise. The other older than dust phone's camera, seems to want to make everything look washed out. However, this one adds so much noise and sh1t, for no reason. It's frustrating. I won't be getting a new camera. I want to, but I don't want to waste money when I know I suck at taking photos anyway...

Regardless of the suckyness, I am super happy with my customized Sessho! I felt like Sephy was my most beautiful 1:6 figure I owned, but this one is a very close second. Too bad I can't do it justice, painting wise, as well as photography wise. I suck! T___T;; I added a comparison, because a friend wanted to see the progress from the GDToys prototype, to the in-box factory paint apps, to my struggle to re-style his bangs. A one inch hair straightener might be too small for a human, but too freaking large for a 1:6 head sculpt's bangs! >.<;;

[waltwhitmansbeard]

Perc'ahlia Week Day 3: Mask/Trinket

another day, another @percahliaweek fic! this one was supposed to be the shortest one. lol. also available on ao3!

Vex hasn't seen her husband in days. She only knows he's even in the castle because of the meals being brought up into his study at semi-regular intervals. This is part of the deal, loving and living with the Terrible Tinkerer of Tal'dorei, but she's so curious. The last time he got like this, he disappeared for two and a half weeks and emerged, eyes bloodshot and hair stringy, with the prototype of the acid-powered streetlamps that now illuminate the paths of Whitestone each night. She's sure that whatever he's working on now, the city will be all the better for it, but that doesn't stop her from being grumpy in the meantime.

It also doesn't stop their children from noticing their father's absence. Luckily Gwen, still too young to recognize his odd behavior, has little to say on the matter, but the twins keep trading jokes about the elaborate, world-ending device Percy is surely working on, and Vesper grumbles that he's postponed their scheduled Celestial lessons again. Little Danny, however, is taking things the hardest; every night, when Vex tucks him in and kisses him good night, he murmurs, "Mama, he's gonna come to my birthday party, right?"

And every night, Vex makes a promise that she'd rather kill Percy with her bare hands than break. "He wouldn't miss it for the world, darling boy."

When the party in question rolls around, a raucous affair to be held on the castle grounds, with all manner of games and music for each and every child of Whitestone to enjoy, Vex steals away early in the morning to bang on the locked door of her husband's study. "Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, open this door now."

There is clanging and shuffling and crashing, and about forty-five agonizing seconds later, the door creaks open, revealing a sliver of manic blue eye. "Hello, dear."

She could throttle him. "Do you know what today is?"

"I do."

"Do you plan on joining your son at any time today?"

"I do."

"At any particular time, or...?"

"The party begins at noon, yes?"

His funeral will begin at noon if he doesn't stop being the most aggravating person she's ever met in her life. "Yes, and Danny would very much like both of his parents to be in attendance."

Percy seems not to have heard her. "Noon...yes...noon should be fine...I should be done by noon..." And then the door is shut and relocked unceremoniously in her face.

Well. She supposes she must trust him to keep his word. She spins on her heels and marches off to get dressed.

All of the children of the city start gathering in the late morning, and soon the castle grounds are alive with screams and laughter as the noble family of Whitestone celebrates its youngest son's birthday. There are endless tables of pastries and treats, courtesy of the Slayer's Cake, and Trinket's cub Charlie bounds around happily, hoping for dropped scraps from the young mouths eating them. Grog, in his esteemed position as Grand Poobah de Doink of All This and That, has been tasked with games, which all seem to involve either throwing or being thrown, but Vex gauges from the shrieks of delight that they're having fun. The height of entertainment, of course, are the magical rides offered by Keyleth and Scanlan, who use their shapechanging powers to transform themselves into a magnificent silver dragon and an ostentatious purple winged horse, respectively.

Vex has a hard time focusing on the party, though, because she's keeping a weather eye out for her wayward husband. As the party wears on, he still has not appeared, and even though Danny is currently occupied by Keyleth's mesmerizing ice breath, she knows that soon enough, he's going to notice that his father is missing.

Just as Vex has resolved to set the castle ablaze with the aim of smoking Percy out, the man himself appears, freshly washed and shaven and not nearly as frenzied as he'd seemed this morning. He has a wrapped box tucked awkwardly under his arm. She charges up to him, fists clenched at her side. "Where have you been?"

He at least has the nerve to look sheepish as he says, "It took longer than I'd hoped to finish, but I think it'll be worth it. Where is he?"

She has no clue what he's talking about, but for his sake, he better be right. "He's with Keyleth."

Just then, a loud groan erupts from where most of the children had gathered, and Vex sees a familiar head of red hair, and she knows that the hour must be upon Keyleth's Shapechange. Percy tuts happily and strides off in that direction, and Vex scrambles to keep up. "Danny!"

The birthday boy turns at his father's call, a grin breaking out like sun rays through clouds. "Dad!" He runs and launches himself at Percy, who kneels down just in time to catch him with his free arm. "You came!"

"Of course I came, little bird. I am very sorry that I was late and I am very sorry that I've been gone for a while, but I hope you'll like what I was doing while I was gone."

Danny frowns, confused, but then he notices the present, and delight sparks in his eyes. "Can I open it?"

Percy hands it over, and Danny, with an eagerness only a kid on his birthday can manage, tears into the wrapping. The box beneath is square and a few inches thick, and with shaking excitement, Danny lifts up the lid.

The mask inside is so lovely it takes Vex's breath away. It is entirely mechanical, a pastiche of clockwork pieces and whitestone that all weave together to form the unmistakable shape of a bear's face. Danny squeals, carefully picking it up out of the box. "Whoa..."

"I know how much you love playing with Trinket and Charlie, little bird, and I wanted to make you something to fit in. Look here." He flips a tiny switch on the inside of the mask, and like magic, the wheels and gears begin to move, and the mouth and eyebrows twisting together to form a mighty roar, which emanates from somewhere within the mask. "Now you'll be just a fierce as they are."

"Can I put it on?" Percy helps him strap the contraption to his head. Vex is sure it must be heavy, given its component pieces, but Danny can barely contain his glee when he announces, "I can't even feel it! It's just like I'm a bear!"

As if on cue, Trinket himself lopes over to nudge Vex's shoulder. She pats him on his graying muzzle, and then he leans down to sniff at the mask. Danny reaches up to flip the switch, and the resulting mechanical roar makes the enormous bear jump. Danny lets out a peal of laughter, then rushes up to wrap his arms as far around one of Trinket's legs as he can manage.

"Do you like it, Danny?"

Danny releases Trinket to throw himself mask-first at his father, who ducks his head out of the way just in time to avoid being brained by the metal parts. "I love it! It's the best birthday present ever!"

Then he's off, eager to show all of his friend his new bear mask, and Percy straightens up with a groan. He gives Vex a self-satisfied side eye. "Well? Was it worth it?"

Oh, he really is the most aggravating person she has ever met on this plane or any other. "Yes. Well. You could tell me what you're up to next time. So I don't think you're neglecting our children."

He wraps an arm around her waist, his hand broad and warm on the center of her back. "Would I ever?"

"So I don't think you're neglecting me."

He hums low in his throat, and she watches his Adam's apple bob hungrily. "Yes, well, fair enough. Should I make it up to you tonight?"

This plane or any other. "I really think you should. Several times."

"Yes, dear."

[m-a-n-c-a-v-e]

Borrowed from No al Motociclismo Moderno FB page :

“Swissauto V4 500 two stroke: (maybe) the best two stroke engine ever built.

Born from Urs Wenger's "pencil", initially born to replace their 4-in-line sidecars, he made his debut in 1995 on Rolf Biland's LCR sidecar, who finished second, winning four races.

The engine immediately developed a significant maximum power (180hp) and the secret was in its configuration: a single engine shaft but only two crank chambers, that is, each V worked in sync, with two ignitions at a time, almost a natural "big bang", so less friction, less load losses fluidodynamics and output was immediately high.

The V was 108°, the slate intake in the cranket and the weight was incredibly low: 37kg, that is the same as April 250 and 7kg less than the Yamaha 0WD3.

In the meantime, Wenger tried to install the propeller in a '93 Harris chassis, doing a first test on the track and got the interest of Serge Rosset (ROC), whose headquarters were 200km away from Swissauto.

The turning key to the realization of the Swissauto motorbike was the intervention of Swiss entrepreneur Michel Métraux, president of IRTA and committed sponsor of all the best Swiss GP drivers, as well as owner of the Parisienne 250GP team of the mid-1980s and the Swiss Automotive Group of Métraux which included the Swiss distributor of ELF lubricants, one of the reasons why all the bikes it sponsored for over twenty years always carried ELF stickers. From there, gaining the support of the French multinational to support the development of a brand new all-European 500GP motorcycle, was only one formality and at the '95 GP of Catalonia the agreement was announced: the elf was returning to the 500 after seven years of absence.

The Swissauto engine raced in the World Cup from 1995 to 1997 with the LCR sidecars, in 1996 and 1997 with the Elf-ROC, in 1998 and 1999 with the MuZ, after which the Swiss house, with the amendment of the sidecar regulation allowing the 1000 4-stroke, decided to withdraw.

In 2001, with the name Pulse, the elf reappeared in the Moto World Cup 500.

For the record, the Swiss V4 was installed on a Proton KR chassis in 1999 (a prototype that never raced) and starred in one of the most monumental April Fools' Day in motoring history: the Aprilia 500 V4.

But that's another story.”

[civilization-illstayrighthere]

“I don’t know why you let that slimy fuck work on you.” Johnny grouses, “you’ve got Vik.” Their collective heads are still pounding a little from the anesthesia. V leans against one of Jig-Jig streets walkway railings, and Johnny glitches in next to him. It looks casual, the way he sags against the metal, even if Johnny can feel that V’s trying to catch his breath and keep his head from spinning. “Vik don’t always like the amount of chrome I want,” V simply says. He adds, nonchalant, “Fingers isn’t the worse I’ve had.” At the hour they’ve left the clinic, the streets are thick with people. Nobody gives a second glance towards the man in second-hand Entropic clothes talking to himself. Johnny snorts. “Seriously?” “Y’know, when you’re on the road, you just take whatever ripper you can get.” V says, all casually avoidant as he pulls a pack of Vargas from his back pocket. There are memories banging against the back of his teeth like bile; he swallows them down before Johnny can get much more than the acrid taste of fear. There’s remnants. A self-orphaned Shiv running away from his clan. Prototype military-grade Militech gorilla fists klepped from the back of a truck. Waking up in a makeshift ripper’s tent, numb and alone. Johnny watches those white chrome hands of his flick the lighter with a mechanical precision, first try, and lights the cigarette between his lips without a care of the flame brushing against his knuckles. He knows V barely feels it, because he feels nothing. The left one goes silver, sometimes, the hand and up his entire tattooed arm. Johnny sees it. And sometimes, especially after a fight, those white hands turn brick red. Even after he washes them; soap, then borax, then bleach. In the right light, they still seem red. Johnny sees that, too.

[robynlilyblack]

congratulations on 1k!!

can i request: can’t believe she's gone - coming out as asexual to boyfriend!sirius? maybe reader is nervous he’ll break up with her, but instead he’s super loving and supportive about it? thank you and congrats again!

You can tell me anything

Sirius Black x fem! asexual! reader

Summary: Y/n comes out to her boyfriend as asexual

Warnings: swearing, mentions of eating, food and talks about sex, established realtionship, light angst but mostly fluff, like so much fluff

A/n: 1.7k words, thank you! I’m a lil nervous about this one but I hope I did a good job, enjoy xx

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Sirius led the way to his dorm happily, already eating the snacks you were bringing up, while you followed on behind feeling more than a little bit nervous.  

“I really need to stop eating while I walk…” Sirius groans, flopping backwards onto the bed “…ugh I think I have a stitch” 

You giggle at him but stand rather awkwardly just by the bed, fiddling with the opening of one of the chocolate frog packages.

He tilts his head over to look at you, eyeing you for a second before sitting up and talking rather abruptly “You alright darlin?” he asks softly but you still jump

“Fuck” you curse as the sudden jolt ripped the packet open and sent the from flying across the room

Sirius bursts out in laughter, clutching his stomach as you both watched it smack against the window before jumping out of it

“That was your fault” you whine, shoving him before plopping yourself next to him

He’s still chuckling “You have my humblest of apologies darling” he bows his head to you, smiling away

Sirius places his hand over yours “Want me to go steal you another one? Trust me there is no shame in being a chocoholic, I’ve shared a room with one for years” he assures 

You wear a little smile at that, eyes trailing down to his hand and yours, watching him interlace them.

You and Sirius had been dating for three months, and being friends prior your confessions you took things slowly. The slow pace worked for you, especially as you didn't know how he would react to you being asexual. He had been with people before you, and you were so worried he would was going to break up with you when he found out

“The chocolate isn’t the problem…although, it is a tragedy we shouldn’t tell our resident chocoholic” 

He giggles with you, smiling so brightly it hurts your heart to think that in a few minutes he may never look at you like that again

“So…” he shifts, lifting one leg onto the bed to look at you “…what’s got you down?”

You copy his movements and let your still held hands fall loosely out of each other as you play with his fingers, in a nervous habit. A small silence follows but it’s comfortable, and Sirius waits patiently for you to speak. Eventually, your head lifts and you open your mouth to say something, but as you meet his eyes nothing escapes and you sigh

“Is this got to do with what Prongs was joking about?” he asks and it was funny, how he can be both bang on the money and yet completely wrong at the same time “I’m glad we're getting to spend some alone time, just the two of us, but I didn't bring you up here to do that, truly” 

“It is and I know that, it’s…it's something else” you look down, pressing your lips together 

He gently brings his finger to your chin and lifts your headto face him “You can tell me anything” he smiles at you "I'll never judge you"

Guess it was now or never to test that

“I’m…” you take a small breath “…asexual”

Closing your eyes, you wait for the eminent break up, but nothing happens, his grip on your hand doesn’t change and he says quiet. He does chuckle as you open one eye and peak at him though but in general he just looks a little lost

He goes to speak but stops himself, like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle and you realise…

“You don’t know what that means, do you?” you say, nose scrunch slightly

He nods “If I’m being honest my brain is going to you being the prototype before bisexual?” he chuckles “Sorry” he cringes 

You let out a small laugh at his logic “It’s okay” you give him a small smile

“What does it mean?” he asks, looking so interested, it warms your heart

“It means I feel no desire to have…sex” you say, pressing your lips together

You watch his reaction, his head tilting, processing, before he nods, face brushing with worry

“I haven’t made you uncomfortable have I?” he checks and you sit a little surprised by his words “I know I’m kind of touchy. Maybe you could tell me how much is too much, like if we can hold hands, or cuddle, that kind of thing, where your realm of comfort lies” he suggests, thumb rubbing over your knuckles while you just stare at him

“You aren’t mad?” 

He looks like he was going to laugh before realising you were serious “Course not” his other hand cups yours 

“And you still want to be with me?”

“Yes” he answers straight away, no hesitation whatsoever 

“And you understand I don’t want sex ever” you check

This time he smiles “I understand darling” he tries to bite back his chuckles 

“You aren’t supposed to laugh at my coming out, you prick” you start giggling but contain it in a playful mad pout, sliding your hand out from his and crossing his arms

“I’m not” he defends whilst laughing and you look at him as if to say ‘really’ “Okay maybe I am but you’re being very cute and you being you makes me happy” 

You poke your cheek “You make it very hard to be annoyed at you” your smiles start to break free

“It's just my natural charm and charisma at work darling” he does a little hair flip 

You begin to giggle with him. This wasn’t how you expected it to go, even when you practiced in the shower, the best outcome was nothing compared to how perfect it actually went. He really didn’t mind, and it wasn’t an I don’t care and then the air shifts in the room i don't mind. Nothing changed and if anything, the air lifted

“Can someone be asexual but have had sex in the past?” he asks after a while, the two of you now lying flat on the bed, staring up at the canopy

“Yes? I mean a man could be gay and have sex with a woman before he realised” you say turning to look at him, watching the small smile on his face grow at your words

“My whole life I felt like I was missing something, I mean you know everything about me so it’s not hard to imagine I lacked love when I was a kid” 

He starts and you hum in agreement

“So I tried to fill the hole, hoping after one of those one night stands I’d feel…fulfilled in some way, but if anything I just felt more alone, emptier” 

He turns his head to face you, a smile forming on his face as he continues

“Only time I didn’t was when I was with you. I won’t bore you with my big confession speech cause we’ve been there done that, and you stole my t-shirt”

“You split the butterbeer down me!” you sit up gasping

He sits up as well “Only because you decided it was a brill…” he stops himself, placing his hand on your upper chest briefly and pushing you back down on the bed again before laying down himself “You know what, no interrupting my second coming” he chuckles pointing at you 

You giggle too, and a sense of peace falls over you as you realise what he’s trying to say

“Anyway, think your beautiful, and I love you, but above all, I feel...whole. These past three months have been the best of my life, and I haven’t felt the urge to want to have sex…what I’m trying to say is, I think I'm more than okay with the idea of not having sex again...and maybe I’m be asexual too” he confesses

You both just smile at each other for a moment

“Looks like we both came out" you say before giggling "Of course Sirius Black comes out twice” you tease earning a light shoulder shove before he takes your hand in his

“This okay?”

He checks loosing his grip, smile widening and grasping it properly when you nod

“You know, in my defence this is the coming out I wish my first was, flipping off your mother and father whilst saying…well…I can’t even remember now but is was exactly the safest nor healthiest. It’s was however one hell of a comeback since it made my grandmothers portrait faint” he says and the two of you break into a fit of giggles

“What do you want to do now?” you ask once the laugher dies down

“Stuff our faces whilst you read and I design my next tattoo?” he proposes

You give him a firm nod “Sounds perfect...” you grin at him “...but before we do that we need to go steal another chocolate frog from the chocoholics stash” 

He smirks, letting go of your hand and standing up “Come on the darlin” he says, holding out his hands for you to take and pulling you up

“Thank Siri” you squeeze his hands before letting go

“Anytime” he says walking towards the door, stopping as he begins to open it “If I’m bi and asexual am I like ba-sexual?” you giggle “Hey, don’t laugh missy”

“You laughed at me”

“So...no wait...actually that's fair darlin but at my third coming you better not laugh”

Thank you for reading and let me know what you thought 💛

[pixelmensupremacy]

Omg! You write for Markus? I wanna see what you can do with how Markus saves his beloved android s/o from Zlatko who got kidnapped because they were a unique RK model and was easily fooled. I've been having this idea in my head for weeks but idk how to write

A/N: Dear, Nonny, I'm so so so sorry for taking astronomically long to write this. I had quite a fall out of the dbh fandom, though I'm slowly coming back and working on the other dbh requests.

Word count: 0.7k

WARNINGS: body horror, hurt and comfort, body horror, hinting at inhumane practices (cause that bastard Zlatko)

Good was all (Y/N) ever strived to do even if sometimes it meant they would have to suffer; maybe that flaw of theirs is what brought them close to the android’s leader. Or rather it was just a flaw of their prototype model that got them in trouble like it always has; ironic as it was their whole existence revolved around humanity and empathy, yet they never got to experience such empathy themselves. That was until in their darkest moment- the one in which they lost everything, despite giving it their all- (Y/N) came across the community of Jericho, their new family.

Now darkness engulfed their field of vision much like in that one fateful night; clicking sound echoed across the space along with a piercing static sound that only enhanced their distress. System errors clouded their CPU, notifying them of damaged and even missing bio components; agony was all they felt as they contemplated the events that got them to this very situation. Their trust was once again broken and now (Y/N) wasn’t lucky enough to get away with just the bitter taste of betray; it pained them deeply, despite knowing deep down they couldn’t trust anybody- maybe in that case not even themselves. Still there was person that came to mind when the single flicker of hope left resurfaced akin to the light at the end of the tunnel; Markus, the one who opened their eyes, had been there for them through thick and thin. To them, he was like an angel that always supported not only them but also his community, which only made them respect him more.

A dreamy exhale rolled down their lips at the thought of him; (Y/N) wondered if his ambitious plans were already playing out, though yet another thought occurred to them, one that even more overambitious than a successful android revolution- salvation. Even though their situation was beyond hopeless, they still had a sliver of faith within them that things will turn out for the better but that hope was gradually fading away as the eerie pants and moans of the other androids echoed in their ears. Dread filled the air as gloomy neon lights of malfunctioning LED’s did a poor job of lighting up the darkened space of what appeared to be a basement.

Hot tears rolled down their cheeks as despair slowly nestled within them; abrupt commotion caused them to flinch. The distinct sound of footsteps grew louder and louder as so did the distressing noise of desperate pleas; memories of the past arose in the back of their mind, reminding them of the times they would rather not think about, though it was hard not to as the same nightmare was about to repeat itself.

Loud bangs resonated across the space just as abruptly as the unsettling cries for help; reluctantly, (Y/N) lowered their hands from their face and peeled their eyes open only to be met with the sight of crimson creak running down the dimly lit hallway, forming a pool of deep red. Lifeless body of a middle-aged man lied on the concrete; numerous bullet holes oozed with thick scarlet liquid. Their breath hitched at the unexpected touch of one the fellow androids that leaned in their side.

“rA 9 is coming to save is!” The deviant exclaimed, its distorted features curled in a wicked expression of happiness, covered in numerous scars that made up for the most grotesque sight (Y/N) had the displeasure to witness; though they felt pity and even sympathy towards the poor, distorted beyond repair deviant- only then did it occur to them where they had found themselves in. Horror shook them to their very core just at the thought what was to happen to them; right then their train of thoughts was interrupted by a familiar voice, calling out their name.

“Markus!” A new wave of tears formed in the corners of their eyes, blurring their vision though they clearly saw the familiar silhouette of the one and only deviant leader. Strong arms wrapped around them and they were suddenly ridden of all fears and horrors as if they have never occurred.

“I was so afraid I was going to lose you.” He only pulled away to press a gentle kiss atop their forehead, sending a wave of warmth across their systems that hummed in delight. They were safe.

divider credit

[vro0m]

vro0m's rewatch - 171/332

2016 Russian GP

Okay. Round 4. Let's see if Lewis can turn the tide. Aha and this time I have access to the pre quali build up as well. Ferrari is facing reliability issues. Seb will have a grid penalty for a gearbox change and now they're struggling with Raikkonen's car as well. 

Another big story of the weekend is Daniel trying a halo type thing prototype on his car. It's a cockpit basically. It's not entirely covered, like you can get in the car from above like with the halo, but instead of the y-shape of the current halo, the half circle is covered in some kind of windshield. It seems dangerous to put any type of material on that that could shatter and cut the driver. Paul di Resta has some stupid opinion on it like most commentators do at this point, saying things like "most drivers think we should keep it open and be able to see the helmet, that identity" which is. Fucking ridiculous. Apparently though, RBR is pushing for it mostly because they think if they start developing it now it might give them a headstart as far as aero goes compared to Merc which is. On brand. Brundle is saying "shouldn't F1 be risky?" which is insane. He thinks we start with the halo and we end with "driverless cars" to take all the risk away. I'm banging my head on the walls from the stupidity, that's more than I can handle for real. Horner is defending the thing. He says from a purist POV he agrees, but the FIA is pursuing it and their concept is a more "elegant" solution than a "flip-flop style halo" that was tested earlier in the year. I have no idea what he's referring to there. He also says of course a purist wants to keep it open but there's been too many incidents over the years where something like this could have saved someone's life to ignore it. 

Massa organised a race in tiny kart cars between Daniel and his own son around his terrace I believe? It's funny af. 

Unfortunately, during quali, Lewis has the same engine failure that he got in China and can't take part in Q3, leaving him 10th on the grid. Of course, Nico is on pole.

Lewis is unsurprisingly unhappy about it. He's over being interviewed. In his usual attitude he's looking around, giving short answers, ready to go. He's gonna need a new PU and that means another penalty as well. The journalist says the season is really testing him in terms of making him work hard. "Definitely," he answers with a curt smile.

She asks how he copes with it because he seems to be taking it very well, very chill. (I completely disagree with that.) He takes off his glasses, lightly wipes his eye, makes a hand gesture as he's shifting weight on his feet, shakes his head and smirks. "There's nothing I can do," he says.

He's so frustrated. She says he's still in the fight for the championship and he's not gonna give up. "I never give up, so…" he says, defiantly. That's all. 

I don't understand why but in the end he didn't get a penalty for the PU. He does start 10th. Johnny asks him how he feels going into this race starting from 10th after a couple frustrating races. "Pretty chill."

Johnny wheezes. "Is that it?" Lewis smiles, mischievous. "You must be pretty hungry for it though," Johnny goes on, "because you know, you know how important it's gonna be to get a good result, the car is very very good around this track, so you've got an opportunity, do you think, down turn 2?" Lewis says there's a lot of opportunities ahead, he's chill, what will be will be, he'll give it everything he's got. Johnny asks how is his motivation, as good as ever? "Absolutely. I've never ever in my whole life ever struggled with motivation, so that's never even in question." 

Toto is interviewed and Crofty reports that many fans on twitter are spinning conspiracy theories about sabotage and Mercedes going against their own champion and shit like that. Is that how all the bs surrounding brocedes began? With stupid fan theories? Toto says he's not gonna answer to every lunatic that tweets and some of them are abusing the team. He denies all allegations and says they feel awful about him not being able to perform as well as he can. 

Niki is also against the halo which is preposterous. 

Anyway. It's time for the race. Here's how they line up then : Nico, Valtteri, Raikkonen, Massa, Ricciardo, Perez, Seb, Kvyat, Verstappen and Lewis. 

Formation lap. 

And they're racing! 

Just as I was about to say it's a clean start, it's not. Reaaally not. And just as they come out of the first round of contact, a Ferrari spins. I'll wait until we know more to tell you precisely what it's about. But Seb has crashed for sure. VSC. Lewis is up 5 places though! Hulkenberg is also out. Safety car. Perez is limping to the pits on three tyres and apparently Ricciardo has pitted as well. And Kvyat. And Ericsson. Those are looong stops. Gutierrez is in as well. That's a lot of damaged cars! Seb is driving the moped back to the pits himself lol. 

Okay so. Someone's RedBull hit Seb from the back. It's Kvyat lol. Maybe these two are still salty about China? It sends Ricciardo, who was wheel to wheel with Seb, wide. Meanwhile in the back, someone also collided with someone's back, who was sent spinning, collected the same person as he went AND another car that made contact with a final car by trying to avoid getting hit. Seb was still able to keep going at that point, but someone hit him again shortly after and that's why he crashed. He is PISSED. Who's the second one then? Safety car coming in. And we go again. 

So it's now Nico, Raikkonen, Valtteri, Massa, Lewis, Verstappen, Alonso, Grosjean, Magnussen and Palmer. But Valtteri attacks! He's ahead, and right behind, right at the same time, Lewis overtakes Massa. Verstappen attacks Massa as well but he's not letting it happen twice. Now it's Alonso attacking Verstappen. But that's also not happening either. Kvyat and Ericsson are battling for P15 and Kvyat, who's definitely not my cup of tea, maintains his track position by going off track which is arguable. Especially after already taking out one driver. Lewis is closing on Raikkonen who's closing on Valtteri. Valtteri defends. It's Lewis' turn. He's ahead but well. Raikkonen had to avoid contact there. "Get in there Lewis, come on man!" Bono rejoices on radio. On a on-board replay we see it's Kvyat who ran into Seb BOTH TIMES. So maybe Seb was right about what he told him in China lol. Anyway Lewis is breathing down Valtteri's neck now. Kvyat pits. Ted thinks he's about to retire. Indeed the mechanics are not touching oh no. It was to serve a 10 seconds stop go penalty. He's out again. Gutierrez also gets a drive through penalty for the collision on lap 1.

And it's lap 10. Nico, Valtteri (+5.8), Lewis (+0.4), then Raikkonen, Massa, Verstappen, Alonso, Grosjean, Magnussen, Palmer. Oh and Rio Haryanto is also out of the race. No idea when it happened. Lewis is falling back a bit. Too much dirty air I think. It puts him way closer to Raikkonen now. Like DRS range close. One lap later Lewis is closing on Valtteri again. He sets his best lap of the race, chasing. And Valtteri pits. He's back out in P7. In a real BDE move, Seb went straight to RBR's pit wall to talk to Horner about Kvyat.

And Lewis pits. It's a longer stop than the Williams'. THEY ARE WHEEL TO WHEEL! LEWIS IN THE PIT EXIT AND VALTTERI DOWN THE STRAIGHT! Valtteri stays ahead! Good job, Williams ! But Lewis is still very very close, it's down to the pit stop, really. Come on, come on… Massa pits. Lewis gets on the inside and overtakes Valtteri! He's already on Alonso, who was close ahead. And he made it very easy. And Lewis sets another fastest lap. 

That's lap 20. Nico, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Lewis, Valtteri overtakes Alonso ! Massa, Jenson, Perez, and I don't know who's P10 because Raikkonen pits so the graphics disappear. Lewis is clearly ahead, but Valtteri is behind Raikkonen! So that's Lewis back in P3. Nico pits. His stop is shorter. Of course he's still in the lead, 13 seconds ahead of Lewis, who will be P2 as soon as Max pits. And he does. All that's left to do for Lewis is chase Nico. Sainz gets a 10 second time penalty for forcing Palmer off track. 

On lap 30 there's racing in the midfield. Lewis is still 12.2 second away from Nico and that gap is not closing much. Raikkonen is P3, Valtteri P4, Massa P5, Verstappen P6, Alonso P7 and then there's a 4 way fight for P8 between Magnussen, Grosjean, Ricciardo and Sainz. Nasr gets a 5 second time penalty for "not respecting race directors instructions regarding turn 2". But then Nico hits traffic and Lewis gains on him like crazy. On lap 34 the gap is down to 8.4. And Verstappen slows down, parks his car on the side. He reported issues on his way to the grid earlier on. "Something with the engine," he says. DRS is disabled, yellow flag. 7.5. "You there, Bono?" Lewis asks. "Affirm Lewis, we’ve got a bit on at the moment mate." And then we immediately hear another message although I doubt they happened simultaneously : "So Lewis it looks like we’ve got a water pressure issue, water pressure issue." That's yet another mechanical issue for Lewis then. He loses speed. 

On lap 40, the gap is back up to 11.4. We're in for a boring ending I'm afraid. "Lewis the situation has stabilised," Bono says. So maybe not so boring? Can I hope? But the gap is still expanding, actually. We're almost done and it's 15 seconds. So yeah. Boring in the end. 

And it's the end of the race. 

So Nico, 25 seconds ahead of Lewis, Raikkonen. 

While Nico finishes crowd surfing his team, Raikkonen is casually chatting with dictator Putin in the cool down room. It's insanely cringe each season. Lewis gets there and shakes his hand while still wearing his helmet. Btw Putin is surprisingly short now that I think about it. Nico takes ages before he salutes him as well. Never do you see such a silent cool down room. Everybody is visibly tense and uncomfortable. Lewis stays away, back to the small crowd in the room. 

They nicely wait for all the officials to get away before they start with the champagne and Lewis immediately hands his bottle to the Merc representative rather than spray it himself and stand slightly to the side while he drowns Nico in it. He's smiling though, he's not doing it out of spite. When he gets the bottle back he pours some down on the man as well, then cheers with Nico and they both drink, synchronised. 

Lewis says it wasn't the easiest first corner. He's happy for the team and he got the points so he's satisfied. He says it was quite easy to overtake Valtteri who didn't seem to be defending. He has no doubt he could have won but then he had a problem with the engine "again". He's calm, not cheerful but not annoyed. 

In the end, Brundle asks Nico about the 42 points lead he has. Nico says it's only been 4 races, "Lewis is gonna come back of course you know, I mean he's on it and as motivated as ever so… Early days."

Horner says he could only apologise to Seb as it was Kvyat's fault, btw. 

In the post race, Lewis seems satisfied. He thanks the guys who flew over the previous night to fix his car and his engineers who stayed up late. About the water pressure issue, he says he's just happy he was able to finish the race. He says it wasn't due to pushing too hard, it's just another failure. "We just need to do a better job," he says, given they have few engines to go around for the year. The journalist says they get a lot of tweets from his fans saying it seems like the team has decided it was Nico's turn to win the title and a lot of conspiracy theories. His face is uncharacteristically controlled, I can't tell what he's thinking about this, he's usually so easy to read… He says what he can say is his side of the garage, his mechanics, are definitely having a hard time. He hums. Pause.

He has complete confidence and faith in them. It's an unusual situation for them (the mechanics), the majority of them were on Nico's car the previous year, and Nico's current guys were with him since he's come to the team, he smiles. "And all of a sudden," he shrugs, "you know, we've swapped."

He shakes his head. "For no apparent reason, but… that is not the reason why we're having these issues they're somewhere else, I don't know where these little issues are coming from but for sure, the team, the guys in the background, they need to work hard to try and rectify these." He says in testing they did 800 km a day and the car was thought to be bulletproof. "And all of a sudden… Hah!", he chuckles shortly," We're having all these problems so… No I would say that… Don't jump the gun." He smiles, very very calmly, confidently. "I don't believe that that's happened, it's not happened in the last three years and I don't have any reason to believe that would happen now." 

Huh. That's very very interesting. First of all I didn't know about the mechanics thing. So I went to read to see what that's about. Nico says it was because the two sides of the garage were at war and Toto decided to swap them to stop the feud. Something that was also stated by Mercedes. Lewis said later in the season he would tell his true feelings about it only 10 years later. Anyway it seems it will come up again during the year so we'll see. Lewis said it threw him off basically. Which is not surprising just generally speaking but also specifically when it comes to him. I mean we've talked at length about his trust issues lol. It must have shaken him. 

Second of all, he's very very calm and confident about his answers. I feel no hint of the paranoia he sometimes shows when he gets under pressure at that point. I would have expected him to start ruminating already but it's not the case. Either he's learnt to lie better or he's sincerely not worried about it. I would go for the second option because I don't believe for one second he's capable of hiding how he feels to this day lol. It's good to see, because you can tell he's evolving. I'm doubting that it will last in the long run though. 

Brundle says right after the interview he felt on the podium he was in the waiting room for the dentist and none of them seemed as happy as they should've been. He says Lewis has a thousand yard stare. He indeed seemed weirdly controlled. Johnny mentions that during the drivers parade he also was only able to get 3-word answers out of him and you wished he'd be slightly more outgoing. Then Brundle points out he was again sitting alone at the front. I feel like they're mixing things up. Lewis never likes to talk to them or anyone before the races, but that might also just be a matter of focus. It's very distracting having to do all of that right before you have to put such a performance in. Most other athletes don't have to do that. But yes, even through the thick composure you can tell Lewis is unhappy about the mechanics situation, and the engine failures of course. In his post race interview, the moment he talks about the swap is the only moment the composure slightly breaks. He's gracious towards the mechanics because he knows they don't wanna be working with him either, but he also says "we need to do a better job" and then "they need to work hard and rectify [the issues]" which tells me he thinks globally the team isn't doing its best at the moment. 

Oh I paused to write all that and actually Johnny does say to Brundle he doesn't mind Lewis separating himself from the grid because that's him getting himself in his bubble and focusing on the job at hand. 

Nico is happy but he also points out Lewis had issues. He's asked if he can take that confidence into a straight fight with Lewis, which they haven't had yet this year. He says that's what he's here for. That's the best racing "because he's the benchmark in the end," he smiles. He looks forward to it happening again. It's always gonna be a hard battle against him. He's still as motivated and quick as ever. She asks if he misses it, if he gets the same sense of achievement without it. He says he can't say he really missed it because it's awesome to win, he wants to win and it doesn't matter how. "But of course the ecstatic feeling isn't there, it's there when I win a battle against Lewis, you know? That's what really gets the ultimate thrill." Omg you guys are so gay. 

[and-stir-the-stars]

In your age swap AU, does Mike still grow up to get scooped and then try to put William's victims to rest? I think I remember whence upon a time you made a post that Evan would still die after a prank gone wrong. Considering how differently both of them handle the same situations, would big bro Evan forgive Mike for the accident and continue to protect him, or would his violent death cause him to take out all of the pent up frustration and anger out on Mike when they meet again? ~Dire Kumori

Damn, did I make that post? I don't remember it if I did, lmao XD

To be fair, I make... a lot of posts. I spam so much I wonder how people follow me at all, if I'm honest.

I think Mike-Evan age swap aus have a lot of hella interesting potential endings whether Mike is the one to kill Ev or if Ev ends up killing Mike.

Right now, I'm thinking about a version of events where Mike accidentally kills Evan.

I'm thinking about Evan still being afraid of animatronics after he witnesses them killing Liz. Maybe the kids are at Circus Baby's Pizza World, and Evan cannot for the life of him find his younger sister. Exhausted Evan trudges into the security office, hoping to find where Liz is on the cameras, and what does he see on the screen but Liz standing in front of Circus Baby, the animatronic offering her a ice cream cone before... bang.

Evan runs to the animatronic, only to find the large clown animatronic is now surrounded by kids; he shoves them all aside and tries ripping Circus Baby open with his bare hands. When William enters, he screams at his father about what he saw on the camera, begging for help. William... isn't happy. By the time Evan tries showing William the security footage to PROVE that he knows what he saw and his little sister needs help, the footage has already been scrubbed clean. No murder in sight; in fact, it doesn't look like Liz was near Circus Baby at all. Some well-placed scathing comments from William, Liz's death being absent from the security footage, and Circus Baby being surrounded by kids when Evan clearly saw Elizabeth alone just moments before he burst into Baby's room all make Evan doubt himself; he wonders if he fell asleep somehow and it was just a dream, or if he's just plain crazy.

But, it's enough to spark that fear of animatronics. Not just a fear for his own safety, but a fear for Mike's safety as well. He doesn't want his little brother anywhere near those things.

From here, I see two different options.

Maybe Michael gets annoyed with how paranoid, overbearing, overprotective, and controlling his big brother gets when it comes to those animatronics. Mike isn't a baby. He's not scared of them; he likes them, and Evan doesn't get to keep him away from them just because he's scared for no reason!

Or, Michael hates seeing his big brother so distressed and wants to show him that there's nothing to be scared of when it comes to animatronics. Maybe he just wants his big brother to have as much fun around them as Mike does.

Either way, the end result is the same: Evan follows Michael after Mike sneaks into the basement/William's study where William has some of his death-traps-in-progress.

Mike ends up triggering one. Evan tries pushing Mike out of the way, and succeeds in getting himself killed instead.

Although, it'd be a lot of fun if Evan didn't die right away, right? Maybe Evan's bleeding on the ground, sobbing for Mike to go get their father or to call the police; maybe he's stuck inside an animatronic prototype designed to capture kids, sobbing for Mike to get him out and go get help. And Mike doesn't. He can only watch, his feet glued to the ground, his eyes glued to his big brother's dying body, too terrified to move even as Evan screams for help.

Evan dies slowly, but he IS dead by the time William finds them.

From there, I'm thinking William manipulates Michael into being his accomplice. Whereas Saffron Pawn has Evan being manipulated into William's accomplice in a slow and gradual process, I imagine that here, William would throw Michael in the deep end.

William tells Michael that he has to do exactly what he says, because he's experimenting with a way to bring Liz and Evan back to life, and if William goes down or Michael doesn't listen to him, then Liz and Evan stay dead and suffering, and Michael will never be able to make up for killing his brother or bring their family back together.

But as the years pass, Michael becomes more and more sure that this whole child murder and experimentation thing ISN'T what he wants to be doing, until he runs away and tries to fight against William and the feeling that he's betraying Ev and Liz.

Eventually, William sends Michael a message: "come put your sister back together and bring her back to me, and I'll tell you where your brother is."

As for the second part of your ask, I can't see Evan being mad at his little brother for what happened. Maybe after spending time possessing whatever death trap that killed him, Evan saw for himself that William was a killer or saw what William was doing to Mike; maybe an anger and hatred of William festers and, thinking older Mike is their father, he attacks Mike when they first meet again. But I genuinely can't see him being mad at Mike, even in the version of events where Mike sneaks into the basement/study specifically to defy Evan.

Evan didn't die with any hatred or anger in his heart, just desperation and fear and pain. Of course, I don't think canon Evan died in hatred or anger, either. But the difference between them (ie why I think canon ghost Evan would/should be mad whereas this au ghost Evan wouldn't) is that canon Evan viewed Mike as the person who was supposed to keep him safe and as someone whose love he desperately tried to earn but was constantly denied. Age swap Evan doesn't view Mike as someone who was meant to keep him safe; he knows that Mike is just a kid and that it's HIS job to keep Mike safe. He can't even be mad at Mike for not trying to get help because he still sees the pure fear and terror in Mike's face every second of every day. (And, ofc, I'd like to think that this Evan knew Mike loved him, even if Evan never felt very worthy of it).

[gimme-gimme-georgie-weasley]

Even After all Those Years. [G.W. x Reader]

Part 2 of “That Cold, Wintry Night.”

Summary: You and George reconcile after the war after having a disturbing nightmare about Fred’s death.

Warnings: avada kedavraw

Word count: 1.3k

a/n: i’m so sorry the ending seems rushed and the lack of length oh my god

--

Green and red. Crucios and the dreaded Avadas. Your dreams had been plagued by the events of the battle. Sometimes you'd even dream of the tragic Yule Ball. Night after night, you woke up in a cold sweat clutching your sheets as though something was going to sweep you away.

 'I'm sorry, Y/N,' the voice echoed, with baleful undertones.

 You were caught in the middle of a blizzard, keeled over in front of George, crying desperately as flakes of snow piled on top of you. You were like a snow-capped mountain that moaned with grief as you begged for him to look at you just once.

 'Why?' you cried out, voice hoarse from grief. Your sobs reduced to snivels, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

 Suddenly, an emerald green light flashed in front of you, then a wall exploded far off in the distance. Voices, familiar voices, wailed in grief.

 'Fred...!' the voices howled, disembodied. Fred had died in the explosion, but how? Wasn't he running the joke shop in Diagon Alley with George?

'Avada...!'

 You shot up from your bed, covered in sweat, once again, and panting. Only this time— you worried about Fred. You knew he was alive, you'd see him and George every day through the window of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, but the dream seemed too real to ignore.

 You slipped a coat on, not bothering to change out of your nightgown. Slipping your feet into your boots, you tapped them on the wooden flooring to ensure they were snug before you headed to your fireplace to help yourself to a handful of Floo powder. You were fighting with time.

 "Diagon Alley!" You shouted with purpose, though you breathed in a bit of the ashes. Your body was engulfed in emerald green flames as the world around reduced to twisted disfigured streets. Then, you were met with a dimly-lit street that led up to the shop. You coughed and wheezed as you tried to expel the ash that entered your system whilst travelling by Floo.

--

 You hastily made your way up the cobbled winding street. The shop had just closed for the night, and you banged desperately on the door. With each thrust your hand made, you could've sworn that the door was on the verge of collapsing.

 'George?! Fred?! Anybody—?' You called out, but was immediately silenced by the rustling of feet. The door swung open, greeting you with the sight of the twins who looked just as disheveled and perplexed as you.

 'Y/N?!' said George incredulously, 'What are you doing out here a quarter to midnight?!'

 ‘I saw,’ you paused to look at Fred, who looked back at you, seemingly unscathed, ‘ I saw visions,’ you shuffled in your spot uncomfortably as George’s gaze bore deeply into you, ‘Horrible, horrible visions.’

--

 The twins beckoned you inside as the night grew colder by the second. They ushered you upstairs into their apartment, where lie prototypes of their newest products. The wall was tattered from small explosions. Tiny vials of unfamiliar substances were scattered across the shelves. You looked out the window to see the night sky blossoming with stars.

 ‘It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?’ George called out from behind you, ‘I believe it’s about to start snowing soon.’ You kept quiet and only hummed in agreement, remembering the unfortunate circumstances between you and George.

 Ah. Snow. You forgot about the advances of winter. You ran your finger across the windowsill, seemingly deep in thought. Your mind raced. That day was the day the Yule Ball was held. Then, in the corner of your eye, a flake of snow fell. Then two, then three, then the world started to glimmer with white.

 ‘Y/N,’ George started towards you, ‘I didn’t mean to leave you that night,’

 Your stomach lurched. Then, you turned to him. Fred had retired to his room, leaving the two of you alone in the living room. It was dimly lit, the only source of light being the candelabrum that stood in the corner of the room. The howling of the wind signaled that a blizzard had formed outside.  Your eyes danced around, refusing to make contact with his as he advanced closer to you.

 ‘Y/N, please,’ he grasped your shoulder. Your eyes finally locked with his. Suddenly, the whole world was at peace. Death Eaters were a thing of the past, now that his presence graced you.

 ‘Then why did you leave?’ you asked, rather weakly as your voice wavered; as if you were holding back the same tears you spilled that night, years ago. It was years ago, but the scar forever remained.

 ‘I just-’ George paused to wet his lips and search for words, but nothing came out. He ran his hand through his hair. The locks that raked through his slender fingers fluttered messily back into place.

 ‘George Fabian Weasley,’ You beckoned, now grabbing his full attention. Everything seemed to fall in place, just like that night, ‘You knew. Everyone knew.’ Your voice began to break. All those years ago, but your feelings never once wavered like how your voice did in that moment.

 ‘And even after all those years,’ Your breath then hitched, ‘I still loved you so,’

 Just like a rubber band stretched to its limits, you snapped. Everything came gushing out. All those years of pent up longing and desire, wishing you were in the warmth of his arms. You were vulnerable. Your glistening, red eyes broke contact with George’s deep eyes as you crashed into his arms. He welcomed you into his embrace, snaking his arms around your waist. He rested his chin on the top of your head, as his hooded eyes seemed to glitter with slight relief; the relief knowing you still chose to seek refuge in his arms despite everything.

 ‘Even after you confirmed your feelings for Angelina, the flame in me never fanned out.’ You breathed out in between your sobs. George felt the strings of his heart pull. George rubbed your back gingerly as he led the two of you to the moth-eaten couch, propping you down gently with a small huff.

 ‘I’m sorry, Y/N,’ George whispered into your ear. His voice was soft yet raspy, it almost cracked, like a small firework. The guilt ate away at him, ‘I knew everything, you were right,’ Your sniffles died down.

 ‘Night after night, all I dreamt of was the war. I dreamt of the Yule Ball, how I knelt in front of you. It was pathetic,’ You chuckled at your confession that seemed to slip out on its own. You smiled up at him weakly, your puffy eyes formed crescents as your plump lips quivered, ‘Then, I dreamt Fred died. It was a dream, but it was too real to ignore. I heard your family’s cries,’

 George’s eyes were wide in shock. For how long had you been plagued by nightmares? Nightmares of him? He pulled you closer, as if you would be blown away if his grip on you were to loosen even in the slightest bit.

 ‘It’s okay,’ He soothed you as he brushed the hair out of your face, ‘It’s okay- Fred’s here. I’m here.’ Then, he placed a kiss on your forehead. It was gentle, like a warm feather tickling you. For a brief moment, sparks shone.

 You looked up at him in disbelief. Your tears stopped, as if his kiss magically stopped you from crying. Your lips curled up into a weak smile. Your face was flushed from all the release of your pent-up feelings.

 You stared at him, dumbfounded, ‘Is this a dream?’ You murmured.

 ‘No it isn’t, love,’ George tittered at your shock.

 ‘Pinch me-- OUCH! Not literally!’

 Then, the two of you broke out into loud, melodious laughter. The world didn’t matter anymore; for it was both of yours now. The rest of the night was spent catching up, talking about the battle, reminiscing about your Hogwarts days, and reconciling.

--

 ‘I hope this means we can turn over a new leaf?’ George looked down at you. His eyes glittered with hope. You felt your heart stop at the way he grinned at you. You stopped to bask in him. This was the boy you had loved since the moment you laid your eyes on him.

 ‘Definitely.’

--

[GIF not by me]