#she would also try to put that metal thing in the hole where you put the coins

[money-and-dandellions]

Lester would definitely put Meg in a shop cart and run with her in it through the aisles and then at the parking lot and they would laugh feeling freedom in their hearts and how everything else vanished away for a few long seconds

[honeipie]

SEVEN

shoto todoroki x fem!reader

synopsis: you recognize his hair, his eyes, even his demeanor. but damn, you can’t remember his name.

song inspo: seven by taylor swift

author’s note: let’s also just pretend he got his scar at eight so it works with the song!

DAY 1

“i like your hair!”

shoto jumped in his spot from under the jungle gym not expecting anyone to find him. its not like you were trying to find him. you had just been trying to find places to put your treasure (sticks and mulch) then stumbled across the boy.

“sorry! didn’t mean to scare you but your kind of in my ship”

shoto looked around confused.

“this is a playground”

you huffed moving your body from the play structure going underneath with him.

“you don’t have much of an imagination do you? every time i come to the park i play pirates. and this is where i hide my buried treasure” you held your hand out with a smile “i’m l/n y/n, but just call me y/n!”

the first thing shoto noticed about you was the two bottom teeth you were missing. next was the overalls you were wearing accented with cute patches. he hesitantly placed his hand in yours.

“todoroki shoto”

“cool name! i think i’ll call you sho”

you sat crisscross next to him with a tilt of your head “so why are you down here anyway? kids usually play up there” you pointed above where you could hear laughter and the pounding of shoes hitting the metal. shoto shrugged looking down at his fingers.

“i’m not good at playing” he mumbled picking at his perfectly white sneakers.

enji would be extremely busy for the next three months trying to achieve that number one hero spot. it sucked up enough of his time to the point where he couldn’t train shoto like he was before. rei now had a mission to get her son out of the house as much as she could before enji came back to his regular routine.

“yeah i could tell” you sniffed a bit drawing some shapes in the mulch “but i could show you how! i mean we are friends now. i know your name and everything”

he was about to respond before a woman called out your name.

“i gotta go, but you’ll be here tomorrow right?”

shoto nodded, watching as you crawled out of the confined space “see you later sho!”

he sat there eyebrows scrunched together after the interaction.

DAY 2

“sho! are you here?” you asked laying flat on the metal to look underneath. there he was in the same spot as yesterday inspecting one of the sticks. his head lifted as you came down sitting across from him.

“are you ready to learn how to play?”

“uhm”

“you’re ready. i can tell” you shifted some of the mulch around into piles “so these over here is all my treasure. you don’t have any yet because you’re a new pirate. you get it?”

shoto shrugged at your words looking at his empty spaces “i think so..”

you peaked out of the entrance of the bottom “c’mere!” shoto crawled up next to you looking out “which one of your mom?”

shoto squinted then pointed to a woman far off sitting on a bench “she’s over there”

you nodded looking over at him with the same big grin from yesterday “that’s perfect! you see all the treasure that’s near her?” you pointed out the rocks laying near her feet.

“they’re rocks”

“yeah but when we play we pretend that it’s treasure okay?”

shoto nodded along attempting to get the gist of this.

“so we’re gonna have a plan so we can get your first pile of treasure. you can distract her while i take some of the treasure real quick! can you do that?”

“i think so. this is kind of like the hero missions my dad goes on. they make plans like this”

your eyes sparkled looking over at him “your dad is a hero? that’s so cool!”

“he’s not”

with that you shook your head starting to crawl out of the hole “let’s do this!” shoto climbed out slowly after you going all the way over to his mom.

“shoto?” rei shut the book she had been reading and held her hands out for him “are you alright?”

“i’m okay” out of the corner of his eye he noticed you go behind her to get the rocks you had been talking about.

“well did you need something? are you ready to leave?”

“no, i’m just supposed to be distracting you”

rei squinted her eyes in confused until she noticed you come from behind her proudly holding up the rocks “we got the treasure sho! now run!” you booked it back to the hiding spot with a delayed shoto right behind.

when the two of you sat back down you counted the rocks and split them between you evenly “not bad for your first heist! just next time when you’re being the distraction, don’t let them know you’re distracting them okay?”

“okay”

DAY 14

“sho!” you squealed excitedly swinging yourself underneath. shoto no longer flinched when he heard your voice. for the past two weeks he’s gotten used to your presence, and has been learning different games from you each day “guess what my mom said?”

“what?”

“you can come to the creek with us! it’s this really cool place fifteen minutes from here. just ask your mom if you can go! she can go with us to make sure you’re okay and talk to my mom so she’s not bored!”

shoto crawled out of the space and walked over to his mom with you bouncing behind him. rei smiled when she saw the two of you approaching her. deep down all she wanted to see was her kids be happy, and when shoto was with you, he was.

“mom? y/n’s mom said i can go to the creek with them. you can come too”

“please miss rei! it’s gonna be so fun!” you begged taking both of her hands in a plea. this made the woman chuckle.

“if you want to go then let me get my things”

“yay! cmon sho” you took his hand in yours getting a head start.

shoto didn’t mind you taking his hand or guiding him wherever you wanted to go. because where ever you went, he wanted to follow.

“here it is!” you stood on one of the rocks with your arms reached out. water flowed gently through the creek, glittering every time the sunlight hit it the right way “isn’t it pretty?” you asked reaching down to put your hand through the water. shoto leaned down to do the same thing.

“it is”

DAY 28

“you’re my best friend”

you blurted out of absolutely nowhere.

both you and shoto had taken your shoes off to dip your feet into the creek. he blinked at your words trying to decide how to respond.

“you’re my only friend”

this made you smile and gently knock your shoulder into him.

“that makes me the best doesn’t it?”

his head tilted when you said that giving him something to think about.

“it does”

you gently kicked your feet up getting some water on your calves.

“as my best friend, can i tell you something? but you can’t tell anyone else okay?”

“why are you telling me?”

“cause that’s what best friends do. they trust each other like that”

shoto wasn’t trusted with things. he was told what he should be doing, and he did it. so when he heard that you trusted in him, something inside him shifted. he relaxed his shoulders which always seemed to be tense.

“you can trust me”

you let out a sigh, picking at some of the dirt on your shorts.

“kids at school don’t really like me. i try to make friends, but i guess they don’t think i have cool clothes, or ideas.. or whatever”

for the first time shoto saw that light in your eyes fade, and he didn’t like that.

“why would they think that? you’re the coolest person i know” he watched as the smile started to creep back onto your face “and i really like your clothes. they don’t make a person cool or not. my dad has cool clothes and he sucks”

this made you burst out laughing, which made shoto grin.

“you’re funny sho”

DAY 57

“maybe your house is haunted. that’s why your dad’s such a jerk” you explained hopping to the next rock in front of you. shoto jumped onto the one that you were just on.

“you think the haunted house is making him hate me?”

you stepped back onto land with a sigh.

“you’re right that doesn’t make sense.. well what if you came and lived with me! we could play pirates everyday and read stories every night”

that did sound promising. being able to live in a home that wasn’t his.

but he couldn’t.

“i don’t want to leave my mom alone with him”

“that- that makes sense” you crossed your arms frustrated at the situation. not long after your confession, shoto let you in about his father and how horrible he actually was. you could see how it would affect him some days. the way he would lay his head against the trunk of the tree. bags growing under his eyes which isn’t normal for a kid his age.

“ugh! everything is just so stupid!” you picked up a rock about the size of you whole hand and slammed it into the water resulting in a small splash.

“that was tiny”

“well it still helped! you try” you handed him a rock that was a little bigger “say something that make you mad and throw it in really hard”

shoto stood there looking at his rock before he started to reel it back.

“i hate my father!” the rock made a bigger splash then yours making the both of you laugh.

“nice one sho!” you went to pick up another big rock this time going to throw it yourself “the kids in my school are mean!”

“i want to play with my siblings!”

“i want to have nice clothes!”

the two of you continued to toss rocks into the creek, each of you stating something that just wasn’t right in you’re lives.

prime seven year old activity.

your threw rocks until the two of your small chests were heaving up and down.

“do you feel any different?”

“no”

“yeah, me either”

DAY 74

“did you know that the moon is 238,900 miles away?”

“of course i did”

you were currently reading out of your book on planets with shoto sitting right next to you peering over at the pages. you turned to him with a big smile.

“no you didn’t!”

“yeah i didn’t”

you laughed at his new, and growing, sense of humor. shoto pointed to a little doodle in the corner with a speech bubble.

“i love you to the moon and back. what’s that supposed to mean”

“it means you love someone a whole bunch”

“oh,” he turned to you “do you love me?”

“mhm! best friends love each other. that’s just how it works” you shrugged flipping the page “but i don’t just love you to the moon. i love you to.. saturn!” you pointed out your favorite planet to him.

“what’s the difference?”

“saturn is 912 million miles away. that’s a lot more than the moon” you let him sit with the new information as you reread all of the facts on the page.

“do you think we can go to saturn one day?”

“i sure hope so! maybe we can find some aliens up there. see what kind of stuff they do for fun”

shoto’s face scrunched up when you said that.

“aliens aren’t real”

“yes they are!”

“no..”

DAY 91

you walked towards the creek holding a box full of beads and string. you pushed past one last tree to find shoto already sitting there, feet in the water. that had been his favorite thing to do since he was introduced to this place.

“hey sho” you said sitting down next to him placing the box in between.

“hi” his eyes watched as you took off your own shoes and socks. there was a small, rare frown on your face as you dipped your feet in “what’s wrong?”

you pursed your lips out shifting them to one side, and then another “i have to go back to school tomorrow. summer break is over”

“oh” he had gotten so accustomed to his new routine that he hadn’t even thought about you leaving “are you sad about going back to school?”

“yeah”

“is it because the kids aren’t nice?”

“.. yeah”

you went to reach for the box unclipping the sides. taking off the lid, he noticed many colorful and differently shaped beads. plus string that could’ve been at least two feet long.

“what’s that for”

“i wanted to make friendship bracelets so we don’t forget about each other. i can show you how to make it. hold your wrist out”

you unwinded the ball of string while shoto extended his arm to you. carefully, you measured the size of his wrist then cut it. right before you could cut your own shoto took the scissors and the string.

“i can do yours” he gently grabbed your wrist going to cut the string at the right length. in all honesty he had made bracelets one time before with fuyumi, but he wasn’t going to mention it and take away your want to teach him.

“don’t you think it’d be cool if we went to the same school?”

“it would be nice,” shoto placed the scissors down “but my dad would never let me go to school. well, one that isn’t UA”

you looked up at the mention of the hero school “you want to go to UA? that’s so cool! you’re gonna be the number one hero and i’m going to brag to everyone that he’s my best friend” you showed him how you were going to pattern your beads, but he could do them however he wanted.

“do you want to go to UA? maybe we could be heroes together”

you thought about it as you slid a purple bead onto your bracelet “i don’t think so. my quirk isn’t really hero-like” shoto decided not to ask about your quirk, because he simply didn’t care. his whole life had been centered around quirks and didn’t want to talk about it further if you didn’t push.

the two of you spent the rest of the time talking. about school, and about the games you’ve played. right until you tied the bracelet securely on his wrist. it all white beads on it along with his name in the middle. complete opposite of yours, which looked like a rainbow puked on your wrist.

“that should be tight enough! but shake your arm around just in case” shoto shook his arm gently and you shook your head “no, you’ve gotta really shake it. like this” you wildly waved your arm over your head. it was enough to hear the jingle of the beads, yet they were still secure.

over these past three months shoto had decided to embrace your personality instead of fighting it. so he raised his arm up and shook it like yours. the boy got a little too committed to the bit and accidentally knocked himself beside the head with his arm.

“sho! you okay?” even with concerns in mind, you couldn’t help but giggle seeing him rub his head.

“that freakin’ hurt!”

you burst out in laughter which made him huff out in annoyance “i’m sorry! i just can’t help it-” you leaned backwards and ended up hitting your head on one of the tree trunks “ugh!”

shoto’s eyes widened and he reached over to help “you okay?” he asked but you heard a quiver in his voice. you looked up from your laugh to see a smile on his face and a small shake from his body.

he was laughing.

“i’ll be okay, but let’s not forget who did it first!” you huffed making him laugh more. smiling you cleaned up the rest of your beads. an alarm went off on your watch making your smile quickly fade “i gotta go now. my mom wants to get home to get ready for tomorrow”

shoto didn’t know what he was feeling, but it wasn’t good. his only friend was leaving. the only one who didn’t care about his quirk, or his dad. the only one who let him be himself whether he was being clueless, or a know-it-all.

the only person who saw him.

he opened his mouth to say a couple of words, but he was cut off feeling your arms wrap around him tightly.

“i’m gonna miss you” you mumbled into his shoulder. with reluctance, but care, he went to wrap his arms around you.

“me too,” he let out a quiet sigh letting his shoulders relax “do you think i’ll see you again?”

you were quiet, which had him spiraling. what if you didn’t want to see him again? what if this was all some big ruse and you didn’t actually like him. all this time, wasted just to-

“yeah i do. because i get that feeling people get. riiiight here!” you pulled away placing one hand in the middle of his chest. shoto’s brows scrunched together.

“my diaphragm?”

“what is that? no! i mean my gut!”

“yeah well you’re a little high”

“nuh uh!” you noticed the tiny smile that you had come to know “you’re messing with me” he chuckled as you got up and grabbed your things. another alarm sounded from your watch indicating that you really had to go “bye shoto. i’ll see you later okay?”

he watched as you walked away from the creek, and in part, away from him.

“okay, see you later”

DAY 3650

“mom i’m just gonna go really quick. i haven’t been in what three months?” you were walking from your school down to the old creek that you used to go to. you didn’t go there as frequently as you used to but it was still a good spot when you needed serenity “i’ll do my homework there and i’ll see you later.. bye love you” you hung up the phone right as you passed the playground.

kids yelling to each other from each side of the jungle gym. it had been majorly renovated since the last time you were on it. new slides and monkey bars, but they never changed the little cubby that you used to crawl into with an old friend.

you picked back up on your walk letting the memories come back to you one by one. the trees were a lot thicker than they were back then. harder to push aside without getting all scratched up.

the sound of rushing water could be heard from where you stood. you knew you were close.

“shit..” you mumbled noticing a cut you got on your calf. you hobbled closer to the creek with your eyes still down on the cut. which led you right into him.

you knocked into his back almost falling but his reflexes wouldn’t do that to you. he had his hand securely on your arm helping you stand in an upright position.

“thank you! i’m really sorry for bumping into you. i just got this cut and i wasn’t to focused on what was ahead of me” after fixing your clothes you finally looked up at your savior. your very familiar savior.

two different colored eyes. one side of his hair red and the other side white. you wouldn’t be able to forget those features. not even if you tried. the only thing that was new was a burn patch on one side of his face. you tried not to linger to much on that though.

by now he had let go of your arm placing his one hand back into his pocket “don’t worry about it. i should be going anyways” he grabbed his bag from under a nearby tree. as he walked away you felt a twisting in your stomach. you weren’t letting him get away again.

“i think i might know you” shoto stopped in his place turning back towards you “from.. when we were younger. my name is y/n, i used to come here with a friend who looked exactly like you. i’m sorry i just- i can’t remember your name”

his face didn’t move which made you more nervous each passing second.

“i’m sorry if you’re not him. it’s just that you two look so similar”

“my name is shoto. and i am familiar with you as well y/n"

"so formal" you chuckled quietly looking down at his uniform "you got in"

he looked down noticing that he was still wearing his school uniform.

"i did. what about you? did you try to apply?"

you shook your head laughing at his question "me? a hero? hell no. i don't have a hero quirk and i've come to terms with that. plus i don't think i'd want to do that for the rest of my life anyways. no offense" you went to sit down on a nearby rock near the creek. shoto still stood there stoic, and awkward "do you still have to go? if not it'd be nice to sit and catch up.. only if you want though"

shoto didn't look like it, but he was going through a whirlwind of emotions all at once. he had come here once a month since his first year. part of him just wanting a hidden space to think, the other part wondering if you'd ever pop up again. it was stupid to think that after ten years you'd randomly show up and you'd become best friends again, but here you were. sitting right across from him and offering a seat, and there was no way he wasn't going to take it.

taglist! @sagejin 🫶🏾

lmk if you want to be added

[ms-demeanor]

oh my god this is random but i rarely come across people who like mike patton, i know he's very influential but for some reason almost no one talks about him, it was nice see you mentioning him!! i would love to hear more about your music taste

I am painfully and overwhelmingly obsessed with Faith No More to the point that I am the lone remaining admin of @faithnomoreshitposting. The first dance song at my wedding was Mr. Bungle's "Retrovertigo" (Mr. Bungle was the last band I saw pre-pandemic and it was fantastic) I also used to make a webcomic on tumblr called @punkpuns that's about goth, metal, and punk subcultures and at lease a few of those comics touch on my taste.

I'm also in a band called P.I.T. and a lot of the music we've made is music I like. It's a punk band but it's a punk band that's heavily informed by the two permanent members being goths who are really into industrial and metal. Here's one of our songs:

My singing style with my band is *very specifically* colored by the way I'm fixated on Patton's voice. That doesn't come across in all of our songs but I was definitely thinking "what would Patton do?" when I was figuring out key changes and breathing and switching between clean and distorted sound or trying to get to the very bottom of my range.

I also really like Orville Peck, Soul Coughing, Hole, Tom Petty, and ELO. I really like The Clash. I really like Body Count. I really like (the) Melvins. I had an obsessive Beatles phase from the ages of 13 to 17 and I grew up in a household where my dad was similarly obsessive about KISS so I kind of like KISS by default even though they objectively suck.

I generally like a lot of music. I like a lot of rap but I'm not deeply familiar with the genre and am mostly aware of stuff that was popular in the 90s. I like a lot of big band music but and a lot of jazz but I couldn't name a lot of albums or songs. I like a lot of country generally but I do not like a lot of country since the nineties. I have listened to and enjoyed a lot of emo but that mostly manifests as playing one Bright Eyes song on repeat. I am not terribly fond of pop music but I get why people like most of it (I don't understand swifties, sorry, she's the aural equivalent of dry toast except listening to her doesn't reduce nausea).

I will pretty much listen to anything, the things that I like the best are rarely played on the radio, and there's very little that will annoy me if someone puts it on (please don't make me listen to showtunes or pop country).

IDK music is good. I like music. On my website rec page I've got a running list of whatever piece of music I've been fixated on recently. I think I spent two months of 2020 listening to Janitor by Suburban Lawns on repeat.

[cressidagrey]

Something good and right and real - Chapter 3

Summary:

Azriel had spent centuries believing that he of all people didn't deserve a mate. And if anything, the last three years had just galvinised that particular belief. And then he meets her.

The first time Oriana met Azriel, she thought that he reminded her of a skittish cat. Shy and a little bit broken. Good for him that she absolutely excelled in fixing the things around her.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Azriel has a horrible time

Notes:

I put a lot of world building into this. If you don't recognise it from canon, I probably invented. Or I forgot that canon existed.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

“What exactly are you doing?” Oriana finally asked after she had spent a good five minutes watching Azriel fuss at his armour. 

She had first started watching because seeing the way the scars wrapped around his hand fascinated her. And then she continued to watch because, for the life of her, she couldn’t understand what he was trying to achieve. 

He was keeping her company in the forge for the evening, mostly because he would be going away for a few days somewhere. She didn’t ask, he didn’t volunteer…she just hoped it wouldn’t end with him bruised and dazed sitting at her kitchen table again.  

“I burned out one of my siphons. So I need to fix that,” Azriel answered, still fussing with it, until finally he managed to pop out the siphon…out of a side seam?

Now, she was interested. She watched more carefully, having realised that he had opened one of the side seams as the siphon was held in place between the two layers of leather. 

It was the stupidest construction method she had ever seen. 

“Why do you take apart the whole armour for that?” she asked him carefully. What was she missing? 

“It’s not armour. It’s fighting leathers,” he corrected her with some amusement. 

She just raised an eyebrow and he held them out for her perusal. 

She took them, and one quick look made her realise that there wasn’t one bit of metal in there at all. It was all just…leather. Not even particularly thick in places. How was that supposed to stop anybody from stabbing him?

“Is there a specific reason why you don’t wear armour?” she asked him. Wouldn’t that…be much safer? 

“I need to move to be able to fly,” Azriel gave back like it was crystal clear why he couldn’t possibly wear anything but this. 

Still, Oriana couldn't believe that there wasn’t a way to somehow make the metal work so that it wouldn’t be too heavy for him to carry around and also not impede his movement. 

That was just impossible. 

She stared at the hole that held the Siphon in place, thinking back to the leather straps with a similar construction method that she had seen wrapped around his hands. 

“And why do you take it apart to put a new siphon in?” she asked. 

Why like that? Why not some kind of setting, where the siphon was held in place and there was a mechanism to remove it easily? A setting that didn’t mean that he spent a good 20 minutes easing it out of the place it was.

“It’s the only way to do it. It’s held in place between the layers of leather,” Azriel explained, grasping hold of the chest piece and showing her the hole. 

“Is there a reason why it’s done like that?” she finally asked. “Do the siphons get hot with use so they would melt metal or…” she trailed off and he shook his head. 

“No?” he responded questioningly. “This is just…how it always was,” he admitted. 

Right. And because this was how it always was nobody ever thought about the idea that maybe…maybe there was another way? A better way?

Oriana’s mind was already reeling with all her ideas to improve it. This was what she used to do. She found something that already existed and then she perfected it. 

“Do you have an old set of these that I can borrow?” she asked, still staring at the black leather. 

She had used to do leather work, more of a hobby than anything, and she hadn’t been bad at it…if she had something that she could copy…then she had a chance. 

“Why?” Azriel asked her. 

“Because I am going to fix your Siphon problem,” Oriana said drily.  “Or do they have some kind of religious significance that I should be aware of and trying to make them better is blasphemy?” she wondered and he snorted. 

Out of thin air, suddenly the shadows dropped an old pair of fighting leathers on her workbench and she couldn’t help but grin. 

“Thank you!” she sing songed. “Do you also have some old siphons I can use? Burned-out ones preferably that are still intact?” They were dropped right next to the fighting leathers moments later. “There we go,” she said pleasantly. “I’ll get back to you in 3 to 5 business days, Azriel,” she told him, already pulling the old set of fighting leather closer to herself for a new perusal. 

She was going to fix this and they were going to be so much better when she was finally finished with them. 

“You don’t need to do this,” Azriel finally said quietly and she looked up to find him staring at her, dark eyes earnest. “You don’t need to…” he trailed off, seemingly searching for the right words. 

Right. 

She still had her work cut out for her on that front. 

She came back around her workbench, walking towards him who was still sitting in the chair that she had gotten him…and then sat sideways down on his lap, ignoring the soft noise of shock that he made. 

She settled the dress she wore around him, as always floor length, tight around the waist, laced shut at the back. 

Even when she no longer lived in the mountain, she was still…more comfortable in the fashion off the mountain than she was with the cropped tops and flowy pants of the Night Court. 

Azriel said nothing as she made herself comfortable, scarcely breathing as she settled on his lap, curling one hand around the back of his neck. 

“Look at me,” she murmured, waiting until hazel eyes settled on her. She took in the flecks of emeralds in the dark brown that reminded her of a smoky, dark and beautiful quartz. A thumb gently swiped over his cheekbone, holding him like he was the most precious thing in her life.“You are my mate ,” Oriana said. 

“And you still don’t need to do this,” Azriel disagreed. She smiled at him, softly, leaning up to press a chaste kiss against his lips. Her necklace warmed in warning and she pulled back slightly. 

“I am always going to do anything in my power to make your life easier for you,” she whispered. “I want to do this. I am going to do my damnest to keep you safe. Even when it’s the last thing I do.”

 It was the most she could say right now, the most she wanted to say. She wasn’t sure if it was enough, but it was the right words because there was Azriel, his eyes bright and near golden as suddenly strong arms pulled her against him tightly, burying his face against her neck. He said nothing. 

She said nothing as well, just trailed a hand through the edges of his hair and hummed softly. 

Still, it made her wonder if he ever had that before. A person willing to go to the ends of the world to keep him safe. A person willing to make his job even a little bit easier. She didn’t think so, especially not if such tiny things garnered this sort of reaction. 

The more puzzle pieces she collected that made Azriel who he was…the more Oriana’s temper flared. 

Not at him. 

Never at him. Not when he had done absolutely nothing other than thinking that she was going to turn him away again every time he turned up on her doorstep. Not when he thought that clearly, she deserved so much better than him, regardless of how ridiculous that notion was. 

At all the people surrounding him who seemingly took and took from him and never thought about the consequences of their actions. 

There was seemingly only her who was there to protect him when Azriel took on the world of the world on his broad shoulders and didn’t expect anybody to help him, to take some of the weight off him.

And Oriana was going to do her damnest to keep him safe. 

And so, when he left for his next mission, she handed over the shop to the two females she kept hiring for a few hours then and there, and buried herself in her work. 

She didn’t just do things that involved Azriel. She still needed to keep her shop stocked, though Azriel was at the forefront of her mind. 

Always was. Especially with his tendrils of shadows keeping her company. 

She talked to them, a non-stop commentary on her work and sometimes they answered her once again. Most of the time they stayed wrapped around her wedding necklace and out of the way as she soldered and engraved. 

She wasn’t one step closer to a prototype of armour that was actually useful and not just something that would hinder his movement, but she did manage to solve the Siphon problem in less than the 3 to 5 business days she had told him. 

Mostly because after she had spent a day trying to solve it the magical way and nearly signed off her eyebrows because siphon didn’t like it at all if you put magic on them that wasn’t the magic that they had been locked onto in the first place apparently…well, Oriana had solved it the mechanical way. 

A holder that slid in the hold the siphon had used to sit in that the siphon then clipped onto from the outside. To open it, you needed a simple screwdriver and it would take less than 3 minutes to change it out. She knew that. She had tested it. 

And as in the evenings she crawled into her bed and left her forge behind…Oriana was happy. She had missed this. 

There was only so much jewellery she could make which was a challenge to her. 

All the things she sold these days were not a challenge to her anymore. 

But having a problem and figuring that out… made her fingers itch to go back for more. 

And so she did. 

The longer she spent in her forge, the happier she was, giddy with excitement, her brain flowing over with ideas upon ideas of other things to make, to create, to enchant, to learn and to work…

She couldn’t even remember the last she had felt like that. 

She was in a good mood when Azriel suddenly stepped out of the shadows a few days later, even when she nearly lost control of the flames that danced in her hands as she finished with the pieces she had been working on. 

She looked up, decided that she was jealous of his shadow-travelling abilities and then pushed up her magnifying glasses into her hair, only to hop off from her stool and happily throw herself at Azriel who caught her with a surprised oomph. 

“You are in a good mood,” he told her with a laugh, the sound one of the most beautiful things she had ever heard. 

Oriana grinned wildly at him. 

“I spent all my time in my forge, I solved your Siphon problem, I still have no clue about armour, and I need to do some research, but it was so much fun!” she told him excitedly, as he leaned down to press a kiss against her unresisting lips. 

“Want to show me?” he asked her and her grin widened. 

She got to show off her new toys to somebody willing to listen to her ramble on? Perfect. 

He did watch her new Siphon mechanism with the kind of intense focus that she had gotten used to from him, fingers carefully probing the edges and listening to her. 

“Test it in training. Tell me if you have any problems that I need to iron out. I’ll fix it and then we go again,” she told him as she pressed them into his hands. 

“You are remarkable, Oriana,” Azriel said quietly and she couldn’t help but blush. 

“Well, thanks on remarking on it,” she quipped but pressed his hand in thanks. “And now as you have listened to me ramble on and on, what’s new in your life?” 

He snorted in amusement at that segway. 

“Do you have any plans this afternoon?” he asked her and she stared at him. 

“No?” she answered. “Penelope has the shop in hand for the day…she can lock it up too, if…we have somewhere to be?” she told him questioningly and he nodded. 

“I want you to learn to defend yourself,” Azriel told her earnestly. 

He looked like he was getting ready for an argument but Oriana was really not holding out to argue with him, right now when she just got him back. And really, how bad could it possibly be? 

“Alright,” she agreed and he looked so taken aback by her agreement that she couldn’t help but laugh at his dumbstruck expression. “What, did you expect me to complain?” she teased him.

“You keep surprising me,” he muttered under his breath. “I should be getting used to it now.”

“I’ll keep you on your toes,” Oriana corrected him brightly. “And if me learning to defend myself gives you any kind of peace…then I’ll do it,” she promised. 

It was such a small thing for her to give him. She could spend a few hours a week trying to learn it. What was the worst that could happen? 

The last thing she had expected was for him to suddenly push her back against her workbench or the way his hungry mouth descended on her…but Oriana was nothing if not highly adaptable. Hey, her mate wanted to make out with her, she was on board with that . 

Especially if that meant that she could bury her hands in his wavy curls and keep him as close to her as possible, as his tongue hungrily licked into her mouth and she moaned in response. 

The necklace of her throat warmed up, heated up to something that would have burned another person and for her was nothing more than a nuisance. (She really needed to figure out how to deal with it.) 

Still, she pushed it out of her mind, because she was going to do her best to enjoy that lovely kiss, to feel Azriel wrapped around her, and even ignore the way her workbench was biting into her hip. After all, it meant that he was still keeping her cornered against it, broad chest and arms casing her in. 

He pulled back a moment later, pupils blown wide, breathing hard. 

“I…sorry,” he apologised, his voice hoarse. 

Oriana wasn’t having that. 

“Don’t. It’s all good,” she told him fiercely, pressing another peck on his lips. 

“I still have both my arms,” he said nearly wonderingly and she couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Definitely not complaining,” she promised him. (Note to herself: Fix that stupid necklace.) 

He stepped back and she let him go, even when there was heat knotting low in her belly in a way that she…couldn’t even remember. 

Azriel cleared his throat. 

“I brought these for you,” he told her, holding out a a pair of knives that were very much not the ornamental, gem-studded ones that she made. 

These were far more practical. “I know you can make your own, but these are a bit more practical than your works of art,” he explained, reaching out for her hands and placing one of them into them. He mustered it for a moment, changing her grip until she held them in a way that he judged to be right. “They should be lightweight enough for your hands. Looks about right for size,” he murmured under his breath.  

“Am I supposed to throw these?” she asked him finally and he shook his head. 

“No. Stab people, yes,” he told her seriously. He said that like that was fully something he expected in her future and she wanted to grimace at that. Her people kept out of fighting and wars out of principle. “We’ll practice, of course,” he added. 

That was probably for the best. Just so that she didn’t accidentally stab herself. 

“Alright,” she agreed. “…So where do you want to practice?“ Oriana asked him. “I don’t think the forge is a good space for it.“ 

It was probably. going to mess up her careful organisation that only she understood. And she would much rather not fall into her own fire. She would be fine, but her clothing wouldn’t. And she liked the dress she wore. 

“It’s definitely not. Not enough room,” Azriel agreed. “So…how do you feel about flying?” he asked her, a hesitant smile on his face. 

Oh. 

Oh, yes.

“Well, I am willing to try anything once,” she finally said. Did that mean that she was finally going to see his wings in all their glory? 

“Do you have anything to wear that’s not a gown?” Azriel asked her and she stared at him. 

“Well, will somebody that wants to hurt me allow me the time to change my clothing?” she gave back drily. “Shouldn’t I train in the clothing that I would most likely wear when I need to use my newfound fighting abilities?” 

She much preferred gowns over trousers. 

“You are right,” he agreed and she shrugged. 

“I often am,” she quipped. “So, do we need to go on the roof or something?”

They did not need to go on the roof. They did find themselves in her stamp-sized backyard though, and the wings unfurled off his back with one single stroke. 

They were bigger than she thought they would be. That was her first thought. They were massive . They reminded her of a bat, with their black colour, though it seemingly shifted through a dark rainbow as the spring sun shone through them, shoving every vein. They were tipped with claws, so sharp that it seemed like he had honed them like she had seen him do with his blades. 

It was…beautiful. 

She couldn’t help the shocked sound that escaped her.

“You are beautiful,” she whispered, still staring at them. They shifted again, nearly like they had a mind of their own as Azriel held out a hand for her and she took it, because what else was she supposed to do? 

He pulled her closer to him. 

“You need to hold onto me. I won’t let you fall,” he promised her. She swallowed. 

It had seemed great in theory. In practice, it scared the shit out of her to be completely honest. 

“You have done this before, right?” she asked hesitantly and she could nearly feel the amusement rolling from him in waves. 

“Yes,” he promised her. “I swear, you’ll be perfectly safe,” he told her. “I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.”

“Alright,” she agreed, carefully holding onto the back of his neck with both hands as he leaned down slightly to hoist her up like she weighed nothing at all. 

And then, with one mighty flap of these enormous wings, they were airborne. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The noise that she made when he launched them into the sky was something between a squawk and a whimper, her hands clawing themselves into his leathers, and she kept her eyes tightly closed. 

He did his best to keep his movement as even as he could, easily adjusting to the extra weight that he was carrying. 

“Are you alright?” he asked her when they had finally reached a proper height and he turned towards the mountains and the forest. He had a clearing in mind for their training, somewhere where there would be more than enough space for them to move around freely. 

“I think I just realised that I am terrified of heights,” Oriana admitted and he bit back a laugh, feeling the wind whip around them. “Don’t you dare laugh at me,” Oriana complained.“Leave me alone, I was literally born underground.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologised but couldn’t help against the laugh bubbling up inside him. 

Every time he was with her, he felt so much lighter. Like all the weight in the world had been taken off his shoulders. Something in Oriana made him feel invincible. 

She still kept her eyes closed, her lips tightly pressed together.  “I am not going to let you plummet to your death,” he promised her instead. 

He wasn’t. And there was a part of him that wanted Oriana to love flying as much as he did. Love the feeling of freedom that it brought, the wind that was whipping around them, the sigh of Velaris beneath them. 

“I trust you, I don’t trust my stomach,” Oriana shot back. 

“Come one, just one look,” he cajoled her.  She blinked open one eye, staring over his shoulder.

Her stomach held strong and he relaxed as he felt her muscles stop being quite as locked up as they had been. “Sometimes I forget how beautiful Velaris is,” she said softly, the muscles that held her close to him relaxing a tiny bit. He chalked that up as a win as he circled the forest until he started a slow descent that brought her to cling to him tighter once again. 

He took more care to land than he would have if it was just him, making sure that she wasn’t jostled all too much and then slowed to a stop right there in the middle of this clearing. 

It was just at the edges of the land belonging to his house and there was a reason for that. If something went wrong, he would only need to push Priana over the ward boundaries he had set and she would be as safe as he could manage. 

“Alright?” he asked her and she hummed. 

“I’ll get used to it,” she murmured and he couldn’t help a grin, because that wasn’t a I am never going to do this again, you lunatic.

He let her down to stand on her own two feet, even when he would have gladly kept holding on to her for longer. 

“So, you promised me to show how to stab somebody?” she asked him and he couldn’t help but grow serious.

He wished that he didn’t need to teach her that. But he wasn’t stupid. And he was very much aware that Oriana was the biggest weakness anybody could exploit. He would lay waste to an entire world to protect her.

“We’ll start with the most important thing,” he told her and she raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Don’t stab myself?” she suggested and he snorted. 

“That’s a given,” he gave back. “Balance. You don’t want to be knocked off kilter.” 

He demonstrated the way every Illyrian boy was taught so that he could move in any direction immediately and easily. 

Slightly bent knees, ready to be attacked at a moment's notice. Keep on your feet, because if you don’t, you are dead. 

Oriana watched him, moving slightly. It was hard to tell if she had the stance right, especially with her swathed in the long dresses she tended to favour. They were modest to a fault, with a high neckline, and sleeves that always at least reached her elbows, leaving her hands and forearms free, because otherwise, she was going to accidentally set them on fire while working in the forge. Swishing along the floor at the wide hem. 

Still, this would be easier, if she wasn’t wearing them. 

His brain came to a screeching halt. 

If she was wearing trousers . 

Trousers. Not…not nothing at all, that wasn’t what…

Yeah, that was exactly what had been engraved into his mind now and he swallowed against the sudden stab of arousal.

“Azriel?” Oriana prodded, staring at him. 

“If you stand like this, you can move easily,” he said calmly, his voice not betraying everything that he had thought about just moments before. 

She moved a step to the left, then to the right, a hand tucking up her skirts so that he could see the surprisingly sensible and sturdy leather boots that she wore on her feet. 

He opened his mouth to correct her, but she already moved her feet exactly like he would have corrected her. 

“Oh, it’s like dancing!” she exclaimed happily. He blinked. 

Well, he supposed, it was…not that different? 

“You like dancing?” he asked her dumbly. 

Oriana nodded, a fond smile taking over her face. “I do. In the mountain, we used to dance every evening after dinner. I miss that,” she said softly. “One of the few things that I miss from there.”

“What don’t you miss?” he couldn’t help but ask. He was still hoarding every bit of knowledge he got to have about her and feeling horrible that he couldn’t get his mouth open to tell her much if anything about himself. It was like…there was a block there that he could do nothing against. 

“The fact that you are surrounded with the same people day in and day out. I was my mother’s daughter and that brought with it some…courtly duties of sorts. There wasn't really much to do other than being in the forge and dancing after dinner,” Oriana said with a shrug. “In Velaris…I can go out and about as I please and nobody gives me a second look.”

He could understand that. 

“So I move like that?” she asked him and he nodded. 

“Yes. Try to keep the distance between us the same,” he told her. Oriana frowned, brow furrowing in concentration. 

He stepped forward, and she stepped back, easily keeping her balance. 

And so they continued. He was surprised at how quickly she caught onto it, and that she had a surprising amount of stamina but then he supposed, she spent her days in the forge, using a surprising amount of magic and strength to bend metal to her will. 

“Alright. Good job,” he said, her cheeks growing pink. He held out one of the knives he had bought for her and she palmed it carefully. He reached out to correct her grip so that it wouldn’t go flying the first time she moved faster. “Try to get used to the weight.” She nodded. 

They picked it up again. 

The knife didn’t seem to match her, not when he had seen the kind of knives she made. Deadly works of art. just like the hairpins she had made. Nesta had gotten a kick out of them. 

These weren’t the prettiest knives he could have picked out, he had bought a lovely one set with ruby and given it to Morrigan, mostly because he had felt horrible that he had given Feyre and Nesta both gifts and hadn’t given one of his oldest friends one. 

He called an end to that round of practice quite quickly. 

“Good. Now try to stab me,” he told her and Oriana stared at him. 

“Excuse me?” she asked him. 

“Try to stab me,” he repeated. 

“This is life steel. What if I hurt you?” she asked him and he bit back a smile. 

“You won’t,” he assured her.

“How could you possibly be sure?” Oriana said, crossing her arms. “I could have beginner’s luck! I don’t want you to bleed out!”

He considered that. “Fine.” He held out a sheath for the knife. “Put the sheath on, and try to hit me with the covered blade. Go as hard and as fast as you possibly can. And I’ll show you why I am sure.”

He’s genuinely impressed by how hard and fast she moved. Still, he was faster. 

He didn’t survive 500 years without honing his reflexes. And so he caught her wrist in his hands, as gently as he could, gently enough not to bruise her and held down her weapon away from him. 

“See,” he whispers in her ear, breathing in the scent of warmth and fire and she grinned at him, the fire in her eyes flaming. 

He hadn’t actually thought that he would enjoy this any more than sitting in the forge with her. Enjoy it because he liked spending time with Oriana and not enjoying it because…well. 

Still, seeing her with a knife was surprisingly appealing. 

He hadn’t expected that. 

He didn’t think that he would like to see her in an actual battle, he would be too worried about her but like this, right here, where he knew that nothing bad was going to happen…and she had some fun with it, a grin covering her face…

He did enjoy it. 

She stepped back, and he let go of her, only for her to lunge for him again. 

And so they continued until she had enough, sweat covering her forehead. The sun was starting to come down and on the flight back to her house she was watching Velaris wide-eyed over his shoulder. 

All in all…a pretty good way to spend his afternoon. 

He was still in a good mood the next day, even when Cassian cornered him and had for some cauldron-blessed reason decided that…Azriel didn’t even know. 

The only thing he did know was that Cassian was really interested in the knife that he bought Mor. 

“Where did you get it from?” Cassian asked him and Azriel just stared at him. 

“I picked it up in a market in the Summer Court?” he answered. “I saw it and I thought Mor would like it.”

It wasn’t even a lie. 

“It’s…nice that you…thought of her,” Cassian said, even when his words were in stark contrast to his facial expression. 

“Cass…just spit it out,” Azriel said with a sigh. “What does it matter that I bought Mor a knife?”

Why should Cassian even care? If his brother was pissed off that he gave Nesta a pair of hairpins at least that would make sense. She was his mate after all. But about Mor and a stupid knife? 

“I just mean that…Mor and Emerie are really happy together,“ Cassian blurted out. 

So what, did Cassian think that Azriel was trying to steal Mor from her girlfriend? 

But as he looked at his brother, he realised that that was probably exactly what Cassian was thinking. 

“Yeah, they are,” Azriel agreed. Cassian stared at him like he had gone insane. “Cassian, whatever you are thinking…that’s not why I bought Mor the knife,” he said drily. 

“Well, why did you?” Cassian challenged him. 

“Because I bought Feyre paint and I got Nesta these hairpins,” Azriel gave back drily. “Seemed unfair to Mor.“ 

“Az, you hate giving people gifts,” Cassian said, sounding aghast. 

Yeah, he did. Or at least he hated trying to desperately come up with one and failing horribly. 

But none of these things had taken any time out of his day. They had appeared before him and he had thought the recipient would like them. Maybe he should just start to stockpile gifts away over the whole year for solstice. Why hadn’t he come up with that decades prior? 

“Yes, I do,” he agreed, “but I just across them,” he said with a shrug. “Don’t worry I’ll bring you back something next time if you feel like I am neglecting you,” he teased Cassian who made a squawking sound in protest. “Maybe some flowers.” 

“You are an asshole,” Cassian said darkly. 

Azriel bit back a smile. 

[desidarling123]

Summary: Toph and Sokka become unexpected partners for a top-secret undercover mission. Their cover is that of a newlywed couple -- but as the mission drags on, the line between fact and fantasy start to blur for these longtime friends...

A/N: The premise just tickled me, so I wrote a small scene from the larger story I imagine. Could I write the full thing out? Yes, probably. Will I actually, given how busy I am recently? Not sure.

READ NOW ON AO3 or below the cut :)

They've been at this shitty little hole-in-the-wall bar for what feels like hours, now, hashing out all the details they need for their joint cover story: where this couple met, how they got together. Their dreams, their ambitions, and their plans: past, present, and future.

They keep the details similar enough to their own to remember, but with just enough changed that they won’t reveal their true identities on accident.

And it's just as they're close to winding up that Sokka finally works up the nerve to spring it on her.

“We should kiss,” he says, trying for casual and unaffected, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Toph smiles and finishes off the last of her drink, like he's just told her a joke. 

“Heh. Good one, Sokka.”

“No, I'm being serious,” he insists, and although he knows she can't see him, he fixes her with a serious stare, anyways, as if he can somehow convey the gravity of the matter to her that way. 

She must sense the genuine shift in his tone, because she looks flustered, then. Well, as flustered as he’s ever seen her, and she’s hard to rattle to begin with.

“Why ?” she says, voice pitched low.

“Well,” he explains, “I don't want to look surprised the first time it happens in public.”

“Who’s to say it ever will?” she counters, and there’s an unusual hardness in her voice, one he’s never heard from her before.

“Really, Toph?” he says. “You know far better than I do how unpredictable these things get.”

She sits back in her seat from across him, slumping ever-so-slightly as she mulls it over. In the low, warm light, which glints against her metal armor, he’s struck by how authoritative she looks, despite it.

“Fine,” she says at last. “But it should be you kissing me, not the other way around.”

Now it’s his turn to be confused.

“Why ?”

“Because,” she says tightly, “my assumed cover is a blind woman who doesn’t have seismic sense. If I initiate a kiss, it could tip someone off. I don’t have the benefit of a low profile, these days.”

“Besides,” she finishes, “I don’t want to have to pretend to feel for your face before I kiss you. That would look objectively ridiculous.”

Sokka finds he can’t argue with that. Though he’d kind of been hoping she’d be the one to take the lead, here.

But it’s fine. It’s not weird. It won’t be weird.

“Go ahead,” Toph says, and despite the brusque tone, he knows this is the best he could expect.

So he goes for it. Sokka stands up and leans over the table. Lets one feather-light hand push the dark hair out of her face before he puts his hand on her cheek and guides her mouth to his.

It’s somehow both unnatural and yet also the most natural thing in the world, to kiss his best friend of over a decade. 

She doesn’t kiss him back, per se, but that’s not really a surprise. He pushes past that and kisses her the way her ‘husband’ would: gently but firmly, a hint of familiarity beneath it all. Takes note of the little things, in the moment: the way her lips are slightly chapped against his, the fact that she tastes faintly of the lychee beer she’d just finished off.

He pulls away a beat later.

The moment is over just as it started -- abruptly. He sits back down in his chair.

She nods once, leans back again. He notices, absently, that her arms are still crossed on the table. 

“Okay, got it,” is all she says. He’s passed this little test of hers.

Sokka exhales, then. Takes a swig of his own bottle, briefly abandoned on the table’s far corner.

“Next time,” he murmurs, “do you think you can pretend to like that?”

Her tongue darts out, tracing out her lower lip briefly, and if he watches her a beat too long, well, she’s none the wiser.

“Yeah,” she says simply. “I think I can.”

[rosemaeridream]

mercs have mommy issues. || aespa - uar

uchinaga aeri x reader (drabble)

warnings: guns, mentions of murder, reader is kinda insane but not so threatening, aeri just wants to live, reader’s got mommy issues (aeri give them a hug pls), aeri's weirdly calm?, stay away if u have a peanut allergy

A/N: i wrote this at like 2 am while i was delirious and had too many ideas for dialogue so enjoy xoxo also just realised there isn’t much romance it’s more aeri & reader — unless y’all want a second part which i would consider cause i enjoyed writing merc!reader and straightman!aeri (in the comedy sense - aeri’s not actually a straight man … ) anyway, just read and you'll understand what i mean.

Synopsis: Aeri just wants to have a happy and healthy life. So why can’t she get this stupid mercenary of her back. And why on earth do they keep calling her princess???

word count: 3.7k

(this is longer than a drabble but it’s my train of incoherent thoughts so it’s not worth putting in my actual works)

You scramble for the gun that’s placed on the table. It takes you a moment to get there, and by the time your favourite pistol is safely back in your hands, there’s a scream from the other side of the room and a vase is flying straight towards your face.

Dodging it with practised ease, you point your weapon at the new arrival who has just entered the apartment. The girl stands there with her eyes wide, long dark hair falling to rest messily over her shoulders after her overhand throw. She opens her mouth to let out a shriek. 

You physically cringe at the pitchy sound. “Oh my god, stop screaming-”

Clearly your words don’t work because a chair is flung in your direction along with another yell. Sidestepping the chair with a huff, you give her an exasperated glare, returning your gun to its position aimed at her. “I’m not trying to kill you! Jesus Christ-” You twist your wrist so the gun is on its side, a show of pacifism. “Stop throwing things at me.”

The girl pauses to catch her breath, glaring at you suspiciously. Her voice is shaky when she starts to speak. “What are you doing with that gun then?”

You sigh, still pointing it at her. “Okay fine, you’re kinda sort of slightly on my hit list.” Your eyes roll as if this is the kind of thing you deal with on a daily basis. 

She freezes, looking at you with her eyes wide. It’s not exactly a fearful expression, more surprised or astonished. “I’m on your what now?”

“Hit list?” She returns a blank stare.

“Uh… like a group of people to kill.” You explain, slightly confused. Who doesn’t know what a hit list is? Your empty hand goes to your combat jacket, slipping out a piece of paper. “See - hit list.” It has a couple names written underneath each other; the top few are ominously crossed out. 

“And your name!” You point to the scrawl with the gun, a little ‘Aeri <3’ written. Flashing a gleaming smile at her, like the tiny paper is your pride and joy. “I added a heart here because you’re the only one close to my age, and I thought you might appreciate it more than the others.”

“Uh-huh?” She steps backwards slowly, edging towards the door and you’re too caught up in explaining how the hit list works, and who your favourite targets were to notice. “Why am I on your list?” She squeaks out, picking up speed.

You shrug, pulled from examining your list. “I don’t ask questions, it’s not really my list.”

“Who’s is it then? And why am I on it?” She takes another two shaky steps, gaining ground quickly. 

You notice immediately this time, no longer looking at the piece of paper. Firing a warning shot at the door, she flinches and stumbles back in fright, putting distance between her and the door, where there is now a smoking bullet hole. Your trusty silencer makes sure that the shot isn’t too loud, but a gunshot is a gunshot and the firing pin still creates a metallic crack. Returning your gun to aim at her, your eyes light up in excitement. “Don’t move, princess.”

Aeri grimaces, clearly unimpressed with her new nickname. “princess? Don’t call me that, and don’t shoot at the door!” She scans around her apartment and you assume it's to look for other exits. Or maybe that’s just your brain working overtime and she’s just trying to figure out how much of a mess you’ve created in her home.

Feeling slightly guilty about the newly made peephole. “I’m sorry. It’s a lovely door. I’ll make sure the landlord adds in a fisheye lens for the next tennant.” Your words are said with utmost sincerity, clearly the door means a lot to her or so you assume. “Also, I think princess suits you! You’re definitely pretty enough.” You absentmindedly scratch your head with the gun.

Aeri rolls her eyes, as if being called princess was the very last thing in the large pool of nicknames she could have been given. “Whatever, I guess.” Your eyes get caught on the way she bites her lip, perhaps in thought. “Is there any way I can get off the list?”

You hum in thought. “You know, no one’s ever asked me that.” You move your gun down and think about it for a moment. 

“Probably because I’m usually quicker than this.” The words hang in the air between the two of you, just a casual comment for one, almost a threat to the other.

The beat of silence is disturbed by a frustrated sigh. “If you’re gonna kill me, I guess just get it over with, no reason to drag this out any longer.” There’s a flash of thick dark hair as the girl walks past you, slumps down on one of the kitchen stools with a huff, and rests her head on the benchtop, closing her eyes.

You blink, sort of puzzled. No one’s done that before either. Furrowing your brows, you sit down next to your target. The urge to comfort her comes before your trigger happy nature. “Woah, cheer up, princess, this whole accepting death thing is a bit depressing.”

“Well, what do I have left to live for? I’ve never met or seen you before, but if you’re here to kill me then someone clearly wants me dead. There’s no point living like this.” The words come out almost lighthearted but there’s an undertone of fear and sadness. Aeri glances at you from the corner of her eye. “What’s your name anyways?”

Usually you wouldn’t tell anyone your name, but thinking about it, it doesn’t matter anyway. Squinting in decision, you ultimately come up with a compromise. “That’s classified, but you can choose a nickname if you wish.”

Instantly, she throws you a look that screams ‘Seriously, what is wrong with you??’. “Yeah, no thanks.” And yet, Aeri still sits up properly on the stool and the tiniest of smiles forms on her lips. “So… is killing me like… your job? Or a hobby?”

“My Job.” You fiddle with the safety catch on your firearm. “You rack up a pretty price. Nearly 5,000,000,000KRW.”

A couple seconds tick by before Aeri reacts, she doesn’t really seem to register the amount. “Oh wow…” Her eyes move to the benchtop and she seems to deflate a little, if there was a sad sort of squeaky noise she’d 1:1 replicate a balloon. “Why are you still talking to me then? Shouldn’t you be killing me or something?”

“I don’t know.” You respond after a beat, confused by your own actions. Although she looks like the human equivalent of a slinky toy failing to get to the bottom step, you appreciate that she still looks stunning in her last moments. Her hair shiny and clean, jeans hugging her legs nicely and her top feminine but not extensively. “No one’s ever thrown a vase at me before. Or a chair for that matter.” 

Aeri tilts her head and considers you for a moment before she bursts out laughing. “Wait, so you’ve never met someone brave enough to fight back before? What about the other people on your list? Did they all just sit there and accept their fate?”

Your hand waves in the air like what she’s asked is silly. “Everyone else is dead within the first couple minutes. Or like, they beg and cry.” You look around her kitchen, eyes getting caught on the plate with a peanut butter sandwich you were making before Aeri came home. “I got a bit distracted tonight.” You push up from your stool, leaning across the bench with a small ‘sorry’ to pick up the sandwich, then you pull half your mask down to eat.

She stares at you like you're crazy. Maybe you are. “You’re not concerned about me seeing your face?”

“I mean, you’re about to die, sooo…” You bite half of the sandwich slowly. It’s been cut diagonally into triangles just how you like. “Besides, it’s only my mouth. How are you going to identify me from that?”

“I- yeah… I guess so…” Aeri trails off, seemingly lost in thought. Her body relaxes, like there's no trace of fear left, just pure confusion.

“You’re calmer than I thought. Usually people cry a bit. One guy pissed his pants.” Another bite of the sandwich. This time you make a little moan of appreciation. “God, what peanut butter do you use? This is so good.” 

Surprisingly, she smiles at you. “Oh, it’s Skippy. I know, pretty basic but it kinda slaps, right?”

You mull over her words. Skippy wasn’t your usual choice, but maybe you should start buying it. Taking another bite of your peanut butter goodness, crumbs fly as you speak. “You’re sorta cool. I’m starting to feel bad about killing you.”

Aeri sends you a sceptical look, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t doubt you’re going to kill me eventually.” She shifts a bit in on the kitchen stool, her leg bouncing. Whether it be with nervousness or adrenaline, you can’t decide. “So why did you choose not to shoot me the second you saw me?”

“Well, you threw a vase at me. And a chair. It’s hard to aim while you’re dancing around flying objects.” You point out, finishing up one half of the sandwich then moving onto the other. “Do you have jam?”

Eyeing you, she slides off the stool and walks to her fridge, rooting around, then sits back on the stool with a jar of jam. “Don’t eat the whole thing. My mum gave it to me.”

A beat of silence follows as Aeri watches you slather one side of the remaining sandwich in jam. Then she speaks again. “I know I’m not dead yet, but I'm guessing if I were to convince you not to kill me then you’d just go home and find another target, right?”

“Yeah. I actually have another one tonight, but I think I may have missed my window.” You think over your schedule as you spread the jam thickly before closing up the sandwich and taking a bite. “Strawberry… Can I keep your mum?”

Her lips quirk up and she rolls her eyes, almost playfully.

Then there’s a pregnant silence.

After a moment or two of Aeri watching you eat, she tilts her head over to the tap. “So… Do you think you would let me get some water?”

“Are you going to throw the glass at me?” You move the sandwich from your mouth right before you take another bite.

She sighs, rolling her eyes again, this time less playfully. “No, no I won’t throw the glass at you. I promise.” Her arms cross and she leans on the counter. She looks depleted, like there’s no hope. You suppose there isn’t.

Studying her with a sturdy gaze, you decide that even if she does throw the glass at you, it’d be easy to dodge. “Sure then.” But just in case, you put your gun down on the counter close to the jam.

Another round of silence takes over as Aeri fills a glass of water and gradually drinks it. Well, at least until she breaks the silence again. “Are you working alone?” Her body twists so that the question could be addressed directly to you.

“Hm? Like, am I alone here killing you or what?” Your tongue runs over your teeth, poking at little bits of bread caught then you take another rather large bite of the pb and j.

“Yeah, are you alone in this whole assassination thing? Like, do you have a partner or a boss that you report the mission results to?” Aeri moves back across the kitchen and leans close to you. You can feel her watching your every move.

“Nope! All anonymous. I’m really just a goon, I suppose.” Your words are muffled by the amount of bread and peanut butter and jam in your gob. Patting your combat jacket, you pull out a little tube. You can tell she’s about to ask what it is, so you just shake the contents onto your sandwich. Rainbow sprinkles come out. “The blue ones taste the best.”

She blinks twice before muttering something along the lines of ‘Don’t they all taste the same?’ but you’re too happy munching on your sandwich to really hear. 

“So… you’re literally just a mercenary getting orders on a random assassination from a client?” Her eyes light up for a moment. “I could literally just pay you more to not kill me, couldn’t I?”

You scratch your neck, slightly saddened that you’re about to burst her bubble. “You could. But where are you going to get 5 billion won? That’s like 3 mil USD. 5 mil CAD. Maybe… 500 mil Japanese yen?” Squinting you try to convert in your mind.

While you distract yourself with conversion rates, Aeri begins to freak out. “Wait, woah 5 BILLION??!” She steps back in shock. “That’s the reward?” Her hand flies out to grip the counter, trying to contain her panic. “What the fuck have I done to deserve such a high price??”

You shrug, not surprised by her reaction. This was closer to the type of thing all your other targets did. “Don’t ask me, princess. I just get the orders.” Your legs swing back and forth as the sandwich diminishes to a couple bites. 

Aeri glares at you. Assuming it’s about the nickname and not the fact that you’re here to kill her in general, you give her a polite smile. “Well… the money and the orders. I get paid half when I accept.” 

Her eyes widen and she takes a shaky breath. “So you’re getting 500 MILLION for walking into my apartment and having a chat with me?” She processes the information rather well, you think. “I could give you half of what you’ve already got and you can just call it a day, right?”

“Well, I mean, I get the other 500 mil after you’re dead.” You point out. “That would only be 750 mil. I’d be 250 short.” You go to bite your sandwich again and find that there’s nothing left.

“What if I give you the other half then? 500 million?” She takes a couple steps messily in a circle, her hands flailing. “My life is more than just 500 million fucking won, right?”

“I personally believe that lives cost $0 but you do you, princess.” You say nonchalantly, picking up your pistol again.

“Oh my god, why are you calling me princess all the time?” Aeri snaps at you. Then her eyes flick to the gun in your hand and she smiles nervously. “So you’re not accepting my offer? What if I make it better? Half the money, and get you a lifetime supply of Skippy peanut butter?”

Your eyebrows furrow. “You’re pretty like a princess. And you have those Disney eyes.” 

Standing up to stretch, your back crackles. Then your hand moves to slide your mask back down over your lower face, covering your identifiable features up again. 

Aeri watches you do so, almost glaring at you. “Ok, let’s put your attraction to me aside for a second and think about what I’m offering. You take the offer and you can have 500 million in cash, plus a lifetime supply of Skippy peanut butter. I’ll even throw in some of my mum’s Strawberry Jam.”

Your eyes light up when you hear her offer the jam, but then you remember your contract. “Mmm I don’t know. I already accepted the offer, and turning back would be a slight on the higher ups.”

“A slight? So they’d be upset if you let me go?” Aeri steps towards you again “Oh my god, I swear on my life I won't tell anyone you were here, I’d just prefer not to die.” Her voice is laced with fear, her eyes pleading. This is when you started to hate your job. Bargaining was always the worst part. “Couldn’t you just tell someone I ran away or something?”

“Not plausible. When people run I just make a mad dash after.” You pretend to run for a moment, then turn back to Aeri looking proud of yourself. “It always ends up with the target dead.”

That final sentence seems to get to her and her skin is a sickly pale sort of tint. Weary that she might throw up, you take a wide step back. “Are you actually gonna kill me?” Her face pales further and now she steps back, eyes wide open. The brown almost shimmering with tears. “Please don’t do this, I just wanna live happily and healthily.” Her voice cracks, and the tears start to fall. “I don’t want my mum to be sad.”

As she starts to make her final speech, you prepare your firearm. It’s beloved, having added your favourite silencer. LIfting it up to aim where it would hurt the least, you are a little sympathetic to your targets, your finger brushes against the trigger. 

But something about her last sentence makes you pause. It echoes around your mind. Bouncing into the depths and then running you over like a bullet train. “Your… mum?” The words aren’t meant to be said out loud but they come out anyway.

Aeri watches tearily as you freeze and her voice catches in her throat. “Mum, yeah.” She looks at the floor, trying to hold back her tears. But it’s always hard to stop crying once you’ve started. “She’s my whole world. Always telling me how proud she is. When I’m down I think about how much she’d miss me if I were gone.” She looks back up at you, and you have to look away, avoiding her ‘Disney princess eyes’. 

“She’s been through so much… having to deal with losing people. I promised her I’d stay safe.”

You grunt, your jaw clenched so hard you could feel the enamel scratching off your teeth. Then finally you lower your gun with a huff. “This is why I don’t talk to my targets.” You mutter to yourself before you flick the safety back on.

Your now ex-target rubs her eyes when she sees you lowering your gun. “Hey wait, you’re not gonna kill me?” She looks at you, her tear-streaked face staring earnestly into your eyes. You hold back a huff. “But what about the client? Your bosses? Will there be consequences for sparing me?” 

“Yeah, probably.” You move around the room, grabbing the bugs you had placed around her apartment a couple days prior.

Aeri watches you and something switches in her. “And what exactly are you going to tell whoever ordered the hit?” She takes a step towards you, for the first time since she entered her apartment. “What if they send someone else to do the job?”

“Oh, they’ll send someone else.” You nod to yourself before strapping your things to your combat jacket. “I’d say lock your doors, but I don’t think that’ll help much.” Humming, you make an advance back to the window you came from.

“Then what the fuck was the point in sparing me if you know they’re gonna come after me again? You saved me, what, like a week at most?” She crosses her arms and glares at you, her eyebrows furrowing in disapproval. “Why go through this whole charade? I could’ve just died and it would’ve all been over with.”

You pause, thinking over her words. They circle in your mind, turning into scenarios that lead to the loss of your job. Then you grunt exasperatedly. “Oh my god, princess. You’re not my responsibility.” You twirl in a circle, frustrated, before walking back over to her and giving her a childlike squint.

She rolls her eyes, clearly still not a fan of your nickname. “Then why even let me live at all? Why not just shoot me? Why go to all of this effort just to spare my life and prolong the inevitable?” Aeri points a finger, like a gun to her head, then moves it to the floor. “This, right here. You sparring my life was so unnecessary.”

You groan, moving your head in a circle. “It’s your fault for bringing up your mum, I can’t deal with old people being sad.” 

“She’s not even old!” Her voice raises a level. “And what about me feeling sad? What about YOU making my loved ones sad?” She moves her finger to your face now, clearly frustrated. It’s getting to the point that you’d be intimidated by her, except for the way her finger trembles. Now that the threat of dying seems to be over, she seems to realise how absolutely ridiculous this entire situation is. “Your clients are just going to send another assassin after me, so saving me was the most pointless, time-wasting choice you could’ve ever made.”

“Fine! Oh my god, Jesus Christ. I’ll make sure they don’t send another hitman.” You groan, then huff, then grumble to yourself as you check your pockets.

“And how the hell are you going to ensure that?” Aeri asks. “They paid you so much money to do this, do you think they’re going to just give up and be like ‘Aw okay, we’ll look for someone else.’? I honestly don’t think their next choice is going to be any nicer than you.”

You give her a glare behind your mask, annoyed that she can’t see the fullness of your frustration. “I’ll just kill the next one, jeez.”

Her jaw drops open as she stares at you, completely stunned. “You’re gonna kill them? Really? Even if it goes against the original orders?” Her eyebrows raise in shock, her head tilts and she crosses her arms. She’s clearly angry. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“I don’t know.” You sound meek.

“What a stupid answer.” Aeri rolls her eyes, looking at you with utter disbelief. “So, let me get this straight. You’re going to kill another assassin and probably get your loyalty card revoked and get into a bunch of trouble just because you feel bad for me because I talked about my mommy?” She shakes her head, looking completely flabbergasted at your responses. “Does the job matter that little to you? Wouldn’t you rather just ‘BANG’ and get paid?” She puts her finger back to her head and mimes the hammer striking.

“Mothers are important, okay?” You practically whine, taking a couple steps forward to remove her hand from her head.

Aeri takes another breath to continue her tirade, but your words and touch make her pause. Her entire expression dissolves into joint confusion and concern. “Huh? Are you like… mum-less?” You can tell her words are trying to be harsh but they just come out sort of flat.

“That’s classified.” 

She raises an eyebrow like she knows that you’re lying, and that’s when you decide it’s time to jump ship.

Moving away to her window again, this time you make it to the frame. Lifting the lower pane with ease, you wave your hand behind you in an aloof manner.  “Try not to die, princess.”

She looks at you, her mouth slightly ajar again. “Oh, ok.” She looks up at the ceiling as she tries to process what just happened. The more she thinks about it, the more ridiculous it seems. “Okay, I’ll try not to die,” Her voice is laced with sarcasm and she can’t believe she’s saying these words right now. “Thank you so much for sparing my life, Merc. The world is a much better place with you around.”

You flip her off as you vault through her window and into the night. 

A/N: my search history is full of peanut butter brands now (this is the dumbest thing i’ve written in my entire life)

[piss-pumpkin]

Reflections (Hunter/Golden guard x reader)

Tw- Mild panic attack description (I kept it pretty vague don't worry) Also Lilith is still a villain in this, but like Hunter is in the middle of his redemption arc 

3.2k words

~a world on which one can see their soulmate in the mirror~

You were quite familiar with the mirror in your bathroom. Each morning, you saw the face of a rather cute guy, and this morning was no different. As you brushed your teeth, the red eyes of a boy you didn’t know stared back at you through the glass. Sighing, you indulged in what had become your routine as soon as you saw him. Putting your toothbrush down, you pushed up to sit on the counter, inches from the mirror. You checked every angle, examined every detail, and did your best to memorize every scar and every pore to ensure that if you ever saw him, you’d know.

You carefully traced where his biggest scar was on your own face. His hands were scarred too. You wondered what he could have done to get that, or the bags under his eyes… you traced the shape of those too.

                                                       …

There were no mirrors in the emperors castle. Belos made sure that nobody was distracted, nobody could look and wonder, and his little Golden guard wouldn’t have anyone to hope for.

But his logic was faulty. At night, when he was sure nobody would see, the castle halls devoid of any life, he carefully took off his Golden mask, and stared at the reflection. In the dim moonlight and gold tint of the metal, he saw them. His soulmate. That’s what comforted him whenever his uncle lashed out. His eyes fell of their face again, and he smiled softly. One day he’d meet them. Maybe he’d even get them to join the emperors coven, and work side by side with his soulmate. Things would be better then.

                                                     …

The Golden guard was to accompany Lilith on a quick mission to snatch her sister. Walking together, they always had an air of power and authority, the two highest ranking members of the emperors coven. The citizens of the boiling isles didn’t know how childish the two really were together.

“Just stay behind me, Golden brat,” Lilith whispered as they approached Eda’s market stand. She was walking fast, trying to keep the Golden guard out of her sight line.

“You know I can report you to my uncle for insubordination, right?” Hunter threatened. The lighthearted tone of his voice was meant to be menacing, and Lilith was not immune, despite her status.

She huffed, “let’s just get her and get on with it.” She slowed down her pace so that Hunter walked beside her. “There, over there,” Lilith pointed to the stand. The grey haired owl lady was trying to drum up some business… and she wasn’t alone. While Eda stood on the table yelling at passing witches, a younger witch manned the till, taking money from the poor souls the owl lady was scamming. Hunter squinted through the thin eye holes of his mask, they seemed vaguely familiar. He couldn’t place from where.

”Alright Golden guard, I’ll talk to her while you go behind… only attack if I can’t convince her, okay?” Lilith sighed, ever hopeful. Hunter nodded, and stalked behind the curtain, listening in on the conversation.

He had never assisted Lilith in the missions to recruit her sister, but he’d heard from Steve that it was always the same. They talked, Edalyn refused, and Lilith inevitably failed. It was happening again, and the Golden guard leaned on his staff as he waited, eavesdropping on the argument.

“Edalyn just come with me, we can cure your curse together,” Lilith sounded desperate.

“I’m doing just fine in my own, Lillie,” Edalyn huffed, “if this is all you came to say, then you can leave!”

Another voice spoke from the other side of the curtain, “You aren’t welcome here anyway, coven head.” They sounded cold and quiet.

”You tell her’ Y/n!”

Lilith grumbled. She sighed before speaking, “Then I have no choice but to take you by force, Edalyn.”

That was his signal. Hunter crept out from behind the stand and placed his staff, alight with magic, against the back of the owl lady. With a smirk in his voice, he chirped, “This should be relatively painless if you don’t move.”

Before the owl lady had time to react, her apparent partner in crime did. In a blink the Golden guard felt the ground shake behind him, and before he could look, he was struck behind the head by a whip of vines.

Hunter stumbled forward, and Edalyn lunged at Lilith, owl staff in hand. She swung the staff and released a blast of magic toward Lilith, “You know you can’t beat me, sister!”

Teleporting up to his feet, the Golden guard swung his staff swiftly, barely sparing a glance at his attacker. Though when they blocked with a wall of lush green foliage, Hunter had to look at them proper, to counter their movement. And look he did. As his eyes fell on the face of the wild witch, he stumbled. He didn’t teleport out of the way of their strike, instead letting their vines knock him off balance.

For a split second he thought he saw himself. But no. It wasn’t him, it was them. Them, who he’d seen before, who he felt he knew, in a strange way.

They moved quickly, kicking him to the ground and standing over him as they grew vines to trap him there. His reflection, standing over him. His soulmate. He felt himself blushing despite himself as he looked up at them. Hunter silently hoped Lilith was better at her job then he at his.

                                                         …

As luck would have it for Hunter, his hopes were correct, however unlucky for you.

The prison cell was dark. It was dark, and the air smelled like mold and moss despite how clean everything else was in the castle.  

You patted yourself down as you paced the cell, checking each pocket. No elixir, and Eda’s time was running out. Usually you had a bottle on you, for situation me like these. Today though, nothing. “Oh, Titan, Eda, I’m so sorry,” you said, stepping closer to her and sinking to the ground beside her. “I should have had something.”

”Oh Titan no, this isn’t your problem,” she put a hand on your shoulder, “and I’m sorry you have to deal with it so often.” She sprouted a few feathers from her neck.

You winced, and stretched an arm out toward her, “Eda, try not to move so much, you’ll make it worse.” You weren’t sure what you were reaching for.

”Chill out, Kid,” she reached to take you hand, but stopped when she heard. A creak, and a crack of light began to shine through the room, the basement door was open.

Neither of you could see, but you heard. Somebody was walking down with haste on the damp stairway to the cells. You silently looked to Eda, both of you formulating a plan of escape.

Your eyes had adjusted to the darkness long ago, and you saw the figure approaching clearly. The Golden guard. You once again looked to Eda, but his voice drew your attention.

It was shaky. And quiet. He seemed almost scared. “There’s… been a change of plans. You two are free to go.” His words echoed around the empty dungeon.

Once again, you looked to Eda, who seemed just as confused as you.

“What do you mean,” she asked. “My sisters been hunting me down for ages, and now that you finally got me, you’re letting me go?”

The Golden guard shrunk and clutched his staff. “Yes,” he said, reaching for his pocket. You could hear the keys jingling inside. He fumbled with them a moment before bringing them up to the lock.

Eda whispered beside you, and nudged you with her elbow, “This is weird, right?”

The Golden guard hesitated before he put in the key. Silently and subtly, you pointed at him. Eda’s eyes followed. The Golden guard had stopped, and stared at the lock. Or that’s what it looked like. The mask didn’t give away any emotion, or where his eyes were pointed.

A small sigh could be heard from inside his mask, and he rested his head a moment on the bars of the cell just above the lock.

Despite his… everything. Despite the grievances the Golden guard had caused you, you felt curious. Maybe even compassion. He seemed so… defeated. You moved to the edge of the cell where he stood, only a few inches and the bars separating your. “Golden guard… are you alright?” You asked quietly. He sighed again. The dim light reflected your soulmate in his mask.

“I’m… I’m alright. Thanks for asking,” he muttered. This is not what you expected from the Golden guard, after everything Eda told you.

“Uh, okay, then- I guess…” neither of you moved. You didn’t dare to. “C-can I ask why we’re being released?”

He shuddered. Eda hissed behind you, “How bout we don’t ask questions and just get out of here!” She had more feathers then last you looked.

The Golden guard shook his head, “No, no, it’s… there’s been a change of plans, that’s all.” He turned the key, and the cell door creaked open. The room was strangely silent. Very few witches were held in the castle, most inhabited cells in town. But Eda was special, and you were both placed in the belly of the beast, alone. The creaking echoed throughout the space.

Quickly, you turned back to help Eda, who was using most of her energy to keep the owl beast inside. You scooped her up and swung her arm over a shoulder, helping her walk out with haste as you followed behind the Golden guard. Eda’s hair tickled the side of your cheek as you moved to whisper to her, “Is this really the same Golden guard that we… feared?”

”I don’t know, but I don’t see anything good coming from asking him,” she shuddered a few feathers sprouting from her neck. “Let’s just… take this one. I’m not in the condition to fight our way out, Y/n…”

You glanced back to the Golden figure you were following. His cape flowed with his stride, and stopped with him as he halted in front of the dungeon door. Light crept through the underside of it, and you could hear the echo of a sigh under the boy’s mask.  

He was slow in his motion, unsteady even. You looked at Eda, finding her eyes on yours in similar expression. Silently and telepathically, you recognized the… sketchiness of the situation. He was too scared. It was practically radiating off him, his composure was wrong.

The door opened slowly, and as soon as it was, the Golden guard rushed through. As he entered the hallway, his head was on a swivel checking left and right for… anything. There must have been an understanding between the three of you, because you and Eda stayed in the shadows of the doorway until he gave a nod, a signal for you to follow.

He looked at the two of you as you hobbled out with Eda on your shoulder. His voice didn’t paint an optimistic portrait of your escape plan. “You can’t run like that, can you, Owl Lady?”

“That would not be a good idea, no,” she whispered.

He took a deep breath, and rolled his shoulders. “Okay… let’s just get moving.”

He took off walking at a brisk pace down the corridor, and you linked with the owl witch as quick as you could behind, hallway after hallway.

Then footsteps. The Golden guard didn’t hesitate, he stuck his arm out in front of you, signalling to stop. Neither you nor Eda moved, Titan, you barely breathed. Shallow, quiet breathes as voices grew louder with the coming footsteps. The Golden guard muttered under his breath, “Kikimora… we have to hide.”

Before you could think, he grabbed you by the free arm and teleported in a golden flash to a nearby door. Unlocked. Lucky. It was dark, and empty, and the Golden guard closed it quickly behind you.

He positioned himself directly next to the closed door, ready to jump anyone who might enter. With a silent movement of the neck, he gestured for you and Eda to stand beside him. Where you were easily protected.

The footsteps were just outside. Their walking shadows danced under the door, and you may have heard their words if your heart wasn’t pumping in your ears. It was as if time was frozen, and you were acutely aware of your spine for reason beyond your comprehension. In that moment you were fully aware of the mild back pain sitting in that cell had given you. The curvature of a spine was a strange thought too. You pressed your back against the wall to try and correct your posture. Your breathing grew shallower, barely any air making its way to your lungs. Spinal fluid is strange, how did spine have juice in them, how odd. Your back hurt, and the shadows underneath the door were blurry. In fact, once you looked up you realized most things were blurry, with black encroaching on the edges of your vision.

Eda’s voice was faint in your ear. She was beastly, and nearly too weak to talk. She pointed at the Golden guard.

“Y/n? Are you still with me?” His whispering sounded far away. “Y/n!” He hissed as he came back into focus. “Y/n, it’s okay, breath.” You breathed. Your head had grown heavy, and tilted on its axis slightly as you looked at his mask. Your vision was clearing as your eyes focused.

“I’m… okay,” you muttered. “Slight… panic attack, maybe.”

He nodded, and took your free hand while he watched and listened for the people passing. You thought about that instead of your spine, with your head rested on the wall for support.

”Okay, the coast is very much not clear, I don’t think we can leave that way,” the Golden guard said, pointing at the door. He looked at Eda, who had recoiled into you, more of her weight falling on your shoulder. “Titan, she can’t walk much further can she?”

Eda tried to say something, an effort she quickly gave up. You shook your head, “I don’t think so, no.”

He sighed, and ran his gloved fingers through his hair anxiously. “Okay, uh, new plan then. Can you guys… keep a secret, perhaps?

”Um..” his mask gave nothing of his expression away. “I.. I think so, yes.”

He let go of your hand, and started to pace in a small circle while he fidgeted. “Okay, well, we are close to my room, which has a… method of escape in it.” His fingers tried to itch at his hands as he thought. “Maybe he’ll hear us from here.”

The Golden guard rushed to the window, opening it and leaning half his body out. He lifted his mask to speak. Awkwardly, you turned away still holding Eda, avoiding looking at his face. It felt disrespectful. He whisper yelled something, aiming and enhancing his voice by cupping his hands around his lips. You couldn’t make out his words.

As he crawled back in the window, your back still turned, you had to ask. “Uh, Golden guard, why are you doing this for us?”

His lie didn’t last long in your mind, he knew it was weak. Emperor Belos hadn’t had a change of plans, it was just him. “Well…” You felt a hand on your shoulder, “I… have too.”

You maneuvered Eda around as you turned to face him. What met your eyes was… you’re face? No. No, not your face. His. His unmasked face, which was also, somehow, the face you saw in the mirror every morning. You’d grown to think of it as your own. Your hand moved by pure instinct to trace where his scar is on your own cheek as you looked at him, mouth agape.

”Y/n, uh, I’m sorry…” he muttered. Titan, for what? You wanted to ask, but you mind was swarmed with every emotion, frozen. The thing to break you from your trace was a bird. A small cardinal stopped rested on the windowsill.

The Golden guard looked over, his eyes alight with pride, “Palisman! You came!” He teleported over to pet the bird, and in his hand it turned to a staff. The golden guard whipped his head back to you and Eda, “You can fly down with him, get far away from the castle and get her some help.”

Still overwhelmed, you nodded. You moved with a start as quick as you could with Eda in her condition. He handed you the staff when you stopped in front of him. His eyes were a little different in person. When his face had your expression he looked a lot different.

“Golden guard… what’s your name?”

“Hunter,” he muttered, fist clenched at his side. He looked to the floor. “And… sorry again. For… all this.”

You found it in you to smile, “Thanks for this though,” you say, waving the staff slightly in your hand. “We… really appreciate it, Hunter.” You found yourself avoiding his gaze, looking instead to the wooden bird.

He was still looking down, avoiding your eyes as well, but you could see him blush. His ears gave it away. “Yeah… anytime, Y/n.”

You started to speak, but felt Eda shift on your shoulder. She needed elixir, badly. Lips pursed, you turned back to Hunter, “We have to go, like, now.” You paused before starting for the window. “I’m glad I met you… we’ll see each other again, yeah?” you smiled back at him before shifting the staff between your legs and putting Eda’s weight on it.

Hunter nodded slightly, then eagerly, meeting your eyes again. His face reddened further. “Yeah, I hope so…” he balled his fists at his sides and looked down again. “Also, uh…”

A scream could be heard down the hall. A faint cry for guards from a woman’s voice, Lillith’s, you presumed.

The Golden guard looked at the door, then back at you. He teleported closer to help hold the staff as Eda shifted her weight, the two of you nearly out the window. He looked frantically back at the door again. “Okay, you guys leave, also, Y/n, you’re really pretty and I love seeing your face every night, okay bye.”

He sputtered it his words just as you were pushing off the windowsill, giving you no time to react. You could feel the heat at your cheeks as you sped through the air, flying as fast as you could back to the owl house.

When Eda  inevitably recovered, you’d have to see him again. Maybe commit a crime or two, that would get his attention.

[slocumjoe]

What do you think the companions opinions of ghosts and supernatural things are?

You know, I've actually done this before, years back!

Looking back on it now, I have some differing ideas, having spent more time really thinking these dudes over and writing about them. So,

COMPANIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 2; ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Cait; Surprises herself when she realizes this, but she believes in God. Not just agnostic, she believes in the Christian God. It never occurred to her until one day, when she caught herself and realizes that this was the belief she held. Her parents weren't religious, so it didn't make any damn sense to her. She just sorta defaulted to it. Obviously, Cait is not religious, but yeah, she kinda assumed a Christian mindset. Just never cared. Once she catches herself, becomes staunch atheist, but that shift was sudden and kind of wobbly. Its a "Wait, what do I actually believe in?" moment. As for cryptids, no. Maybe ones before the war. But as for the post apocalypse, anything is possible, so, why bother with trying to make it all mysterious?

Curie; Avid hater of cryptids and Aliens, but fascinated by religion. You ask her for her opinions on the topic, and she'll break off into a sociological discussion of the nature of religion and faith, and what's she's noticed in the apocalyptic modern era. You ask her if she believes in religion, and you can see her eyes go all blue screen of death, Ms. Nanny body or no. For one, the Ms. Nanny programming would never allow her to form an opinion on that. For two, the programming also kind of held everything in place. In a synth form, where her brain is looking for her own answer, but her instinct/programming remnant is looking for coded-in pre-recorded responses...it's a good way to send her into a kind of crisis. The move from metal to meat doesn’t do her any favors, here.

Danse; A loose agnostic. He sees no need to argue about it, but he doesn't believe, but he also doesn't...disagree? Danse's stance here is "we'll never know so what's the point." He tried religion, and he'll pray in...dire circumstances...but if you ask, he'll call himself an atheist. He'll also go into the sociology and go all nerd on you, but where Curie almost physically can't have an opinion, Danse doesn't have one and doesn't feel the need for one. If he needs God to be real, he'll hope for it. Otherwise, nah.

Deacon; would fuck with Buddhism. Would be that annoying dude at the Whole Foods check out buying hummus who holds the cashier at obligation-point to talk about karma. Normally this would be a Deaconism, an inside joke. Not here. This is a genuine Deacon. He'd also be very interested in all religions, but Buddhism is the one he's most likely to consider, if not partake in. Aliens and cryptids? Uh...Deacon likes to have fun, so yeah, but he's probably not a hardcore believer. He's just being a silly goose. Will double down and go full tinfoil hat to be obnoxious, but doesn't really put stock in it.

Gage; nah and nah. He was raised catholic and it didn't take. Or, maybe it took too well, or in the wrong way, depending on your perspective. He still privately considers Sunday to be special, but he doesn't act on it. Cryptids, also nah. Same reason as Cait. Have you seen what radiation does to animals? To people? Why the fuck would anything be surprising? "There was a giant moth the size of a man on my house!" Shit, that means the runoff from the nuclear power plant from up north has reached the watering holes. "I saw a large, hairy man!" That was probably Gage himself. Fuck sake. "There was a man with a goat head!" Thats a Pack member, which is arguably worse than what you think you saw.

Hancock; Religious in the traumatized way. The begging for God to kill you if you deserve to die but nothing happens, so clearly death is too good for you, kind of religious. Hancock has mental breakdowns in churchs, screaming at the remains of the cross in the middle of the burnt pews. Hancock is religous when thematically appropriate and suitably unhinged. Cryptids, he likes the fun of it, but seriously, if Hancock starts mentioning God and crucifixion, you need to check on him.

MacCready; Hardcore no on the religion, hardcore yes on the cryptids. This man would have Bigfoot bumper stickers. He would be on the reddit threads. I don't even know what to write here. Do I need to justify? You know. You know MacCready is a Bigfoot truther. Aliens? Don't talk to Bob about aliens. He'll hold you hostage in a story about the time he went camping up in [insert North Eastern Forest Here] and definitely saw [insert North Eastern Alien of Cultural Importance Here]. This man would go ghost busting.

Nick; religious, but like, very low key about it. He's not a praying man, but he does think the Big Man Upstairs exists. Mostly because there's so many times in his life where he's certain someone is laughing at him, and whatever dumb situation he's gotten himself into now. Does go to church every so often, and steps lighter in the ruins he finds. Aliens? Nope. Cryptids? Nope. Ghosts? Yeah, absolutely. He doesn't buy into those haunted house attractions, but he believes in the afterlife, and that some folks might get lost on their way there.

Piper; no religion. No aliens. No cryptids. Hard facts or fuck off. At least, thats what she says. But the moment something rattles in the basement at 2 in the morning? Piper is superstitious. She doesn't believe, but she's not gonna play chicken with demonic possession or alien abduction. Now, she has some ghost stories, but she doesn't think they're ghost stories. "Yeah, turned out the person I'd been talking to was legally dead for 30 years. Kinda weird." "Piper." "Say its a ghost and I'm throwing my drink at you. Who doesn't fake their death every once in a while?"

Preston; raised religious but didn't take. It's not that he believes in ghosts, it's that Preston has a good head on his shoulders. This man Knows when Something Is Wrong. Preston might not have the highest PER, but he knows when to get the fuck out of somewhere. Aliens, cryptids, whatever. Preston doesn't even know if ghosts are real. He just knows that some places don't forget what happened to them. If you're ever in a weird location, use him as a "back in the car right fucking now" meter.

X6-88; no religion, aliens, or cryptids, whatever. However. Very prone to believing tall tales. Myths. Legends. Mothman? Genuinely thought that was just a species of moth. He thinks they're bullshit, provided the info is being provided with air of literalness. If you open with "yeah, there's this story of a giant half man, half moth creature," he knows its a story. If you go, "There's a giant moth from Virginia that eats people", that's just what moths are like. Why would he assume there isn't a carnivorous moth? Gets very, very upset whenever someone pulls one over on him like this. By someone, I mean Deacon. Its always Deacon.

[indirecticn]

to say he was compromised was to put it lightly. so, loki didn't say it. he didn't even let himself think it, actually. he took that word and shoved it into some deep, dark hole in the recesses of his mind and said good riddance!

because saying it meant admitting to why he was compromised and in what way.

and that meant he would look too deeply into this little weekly habit of his of fucking off to the city he once was hellbent on destroying. well, not destroying so much as... okay, yes, destroying, but to be fair it hadn't really been HIS idea and if you asked him now he would easily say he was a different person then.

literally.

torture and mind stones tend to remake a person, divinely powerful or not.

looking at his visits as anything more than something to pass the time between his personal projects would be absolutely detrimental to his mental health.

so, he went with the flow, the natural pull of his life that called for him to spend more time in new york and thus more time with her. she was probably the only person who could truly keep him from going numb and dumb with boredom these days, too.

also, there was that thing about whether or not her illness was because of the aether, a little thought he had yet to share with her and likely would not.

loki had been on his way to the hospital when suddenly the perfectly blue sky cracked and crackled with an acutely formed thunder storm. was thor back from being off planet?? he followed the energy to where it appears a skirmish was happening with a pair of enhanced individuals trying to rob a bank.

but that... was NOT... thor.

"what the.... who-" loki was at a loss for words, mouth dropped open as he watched her gather the assailants, disarm them, and neatly tied them up by bending a fallen metal sign post around them.

"uhm-" he wasn't the only one watching of course, but he WAS the only one who stepped toward her to engage. "who in the HELL are YOU and how did you get that!"

by gods.. she was holding mjolnir!

@dr-foster

[corrodedbisexual]

Suck it better

Steddie | E | ~3.5k | AO3 link

Featuring: Porn With Plot (a little bit of plot ok I tried), Hand & Finger Kink, Thumb-sucking, Praise Kink, Competence Kink (if you squint), Hand Job, Blow Job, Masturbation, Fluff and Smut, Boys Kissing, Experienced Eddie Munson, POV Steve Harrington

A slightly belated gift for @stobinesque 🥰 happy birthday new friend!!!

“Sorry, sorry, just a sec,” Steve chuckles, scrambling to tug his sweatshirt from underneath Eddie’s butt. “I’d really rather not have a needle stuck in my dick.” Above him, Eddie giggles. Steve tosses the shirt away and looks up. “What?” Steve raises his eyebrows, unable not to smile back at Eddie’s cheeky expression. Eddie bites on his fist, looks away, then back to Steve, his grin impossibly wide. “Well. If that happened, I could always suck it better, you know.” *** An impromptu lesson in mending clothes takes an unexpected turn when Steve accidentally stabs his thumb with the needle.

They are in the middle of their weekly hangout at Eddie’s trailer, stretched out on the bed in his room, when Eddie suddenly says, “Hey, you’ve got a hole in your shirt, Stevie.”

Steve tugs on the edge of his green sweatshirt to see where Eddie’s pointing. There, he sees it; just below his armpit, the seams have come apart, revealing a gap about two inches long.

It was about time that happened, he supposes. He’s had this shirt for years, and it’s a little tighter on him now that he doesn’t regularly play sports or adhere to a diet. But it’s one of his comfiest ones, so soft and worn. Also, kind of a bittersweet reminder of simpler times, when he was just a high school student, blissfully clueless of what lurks beneath Hawkins. 

“Shit,” he murmurs. “I really liked this one.”

Eddie snorts.

“You sound like it got set on fire, or something. It’s fine, it just needs stitches.”

“Right, if only I had a… girlfriend who could fix it for me,” Steve replies. He almost said mother, catching himself at the last moment; it’s kind of pathetic to assume your mom would be mending your clothes at nineteen years old. 

Eddie narrows his eyes at him.

“Well, maybe not a girlfriend, but you do have a friend. ”

Steve shakes his head.

“Robin doesn’t know how to sew.”

Eddie groans, kicking him lightly against his shin. 

“And that is exactly why it’s sexist to assume you need a girl for the task, Steve.”

Eddie bends over the edge of the bed and reaches under it, pushing some items around audibly, then letting out a triumphant grunt and coming back up with a metal tin box. Bigger than the one he usually carries weed in. He opens the lid, and when Steve looks inside, he sees a bunch of various colored threads, a small pillow of different sized needles and pins, scissors, and several other items he can’t quite place. 

“Not all girls can sew,” Eddie speaks, taking a couple of green thread rolls and bringing them to Steve’s sleeve in turn, putting aside the one that looks almost the exact same color. “And not all those who can are girls.”

“Oh,” Steve says dumbly. “I wasn’t… trying to be sexist, sorry. I didn’t know you can sew.”

“What, did you think my battle vest was custom ordered?” Eddie smirks, untangling the thread and biting through it once he has the length he needs; Steve’s too ashamed to admit that it’s kind of exactly what he assumed. “I made it myself. I make a lot of things. Been sewing my Halloween costumes from scratch since I was thirteen. Plus, I patch up my own and Wayne’s clothes all the time. This kinda skill saves you a whole lot of cash.”

“That’s… really cool,” Steve finally says, genuinely impressed. Narrowing his eyes, Eddie pokes the thread into the needle once, twice, then swiftly pulling it through the eye. “Wow, how’d you do that so fast?” Steve laughs. “I remember my mum cursing up a storm for several minutes every time. She was obsessed with embroidery for a while.” 

Eddie smirks, setting the thread down and wriggling his fingers in the air. “I guess I just have very talented hands, Stevie.” 

Steve swallows, hoping his cheeks don’t look as red as they suddenly feel, because… he’s having a really, really hard time not thinking about exactly how talented Eddie’s hands could be. 

Steve blinks back to reality when he realizes Eddie’s saying something to him.

“What?”

“I said, gimme.” Eddie chuckles and tugs on Steve’s sleeve. 

“Oh.” Steve looks down at his sweatshirt, then up at Eddie, needle with a green thread already in hand. “Eds, you don’t have to do that.”

“I’m aware, I don’t see you holding me at gunpoint,” Eddie rolls his eyes. “I can’t bear witness to a perfectly good thing being thrown in the trash. Also, it literally takes five minutes, do I look busy to you? Come on, shirt off.”

Read the rest on AO3

[kekaki-cupcakes]

I dare you - Leo V x gn child of Nike/Reader

part one

┈┈┈┈┈◦•✩•◦┈┈┈┈┈

It wasn’t his fault. Really, it wasn’t.

How would Leo have known that challenging a child of Nike would turn out badly for him?

It wasn’t his fault they’d been so cocky, crossing their arms across their chest and doing that thing where they stick their chin up in the air slightly and stare him down with a raised eyebrow. It was infuriating… It was also really hot, but that wasn’t the point.

They had that ‘I'm better than you and I know it’ look in their glimmering eyes, so of course Leo had to smirk back at them and say, ‘prove it’.

That was how he found himself trying to work out the difference between a gold tipped spear and a double bladed spear in the weapons shed. Honestly, he didn’t know nor did he want to know all the different ways he could gut someone, but it was either hide in the musty wooden shed or become one of those gutted people. Leo wasn’t exactly a combat fighter, but he had dug himself into this hole, and he had to do something about it.                                                                                                                                                                                                  

He doubted anyone else was awake, and if it was up to him he’d walk back across the dewy grass and hop back into his warm bed. But then he thought of the satisfied look they’d get on their face, and he grabbed the least scary looking spear off the rack and took a deep breath. 

Once he’d made it over to the arena, they were already standing there, wearing the basic orange Camp Half-Blood shirt paired with black tracksuits, and… adidas sneakers, Leo noticed with a chuckle. When they made eye contact, his hand grew sweaty and he nearly dropped the spear, only just managing to catch it and not make a fool of himself. Yet. 

Curse his stupid stubbornness and need to prove himself. 

“C’mon Valdez, you chickening out already?”

“Nuh uh,” he muttered, sticking his tongue out at the way too excited for someone who woke up before the sun did, child of Nike. “You’re the chicken.”

Not his best work, he had to admit. Leo’s breath formed a cloud in the cold air, and he bounced on the balls of his feet, feeling anxiety growing in his gut. There was no way he could get out of it now, so he just had to put up a good fight. And hope the small crowd already gathering would go away.

Jason gave him a pathetic looking thumbs up and Piper just took out her vintage camcorder, the one Shel had bought her a while ago, with a smirk. When he glared at her, she brushed one plait over her shoulder and mouthed back, ‘you’re fucked.’ 

The rest of the Nike cabin [which was only really the twins] had come over too, elbowing each other as they ran to get the highest seat in the stands. They didn’t seem to have any worrie about the outcome of the dual, which only made Leo more sure of how, in Pipers words, fucked he was. He was briefly distracted by his inevitable death when his opponent twirled their golden tipped spear, the weapon of Nike herself, around a few times. “Are you gonna keep staring, or you gonna fight me?”

Leo knew which one of those options he preferred, and with a gulp, he did the opposite. The spear was heavy in his hands and the canvas grip shifted around awkwardly. “Fight you, obviously. What else would I be here for?”

“I dunno, maybe my stunningly good looks?” They pushed up multiple coloured bracelets from where they sat around their wrists, and moved quickly into a fighting stance, the spear tilted in a way that made the tip gleam in the only just rising sun. 

He gulped, and tried to copy their stance. They had already pounced at him, a wicked grin on their lips as the sound of metal clanging together echoed through the arena. He winced and took a few steps back, adjusting his grip as he tried to hold his defense. “Ah shit.”

Dust was churned up in their wake, and he lost count of how many times they spun circles around him. They poked and prodded with their spear. His only option was to jab randomly with his own, blocking the attacks pitifully. 

He ran out of breath quickly. Someone called out something in the distance. A stitch formed in his side. His misused weapon went flying, and landed meters away when a particular twist of the gold tipped spear caught him off guard. 

Then there was a dull jab behind his leg and something hard slammed into him from behind with no warning. 

Electric volts of pain shot up his spine, and his breath decided to leave as quickly as his pride when he realized he was already on the sawdust-y ground. An ache was growing in the base of skull as he gasped for breath, his lungs being squeezed by invisible hands. He was prodded in the chest, and he half expected to see Will Solace frowning above him with a defibrillator in hand.

Instead his crossed eyes were met with a spear tip and a smirk. Leo groaned and threw his head back, which only made the pain worse. He raised a hand over his eyes to block them from the assault of the sun, “okay, okay, you won.”

His opponent, with their stupid cocky grin and an eyebrow piercing he’d never noticed before, bent down and put a hand flecked with scars around their ear. “Pardon me, what was that?”

He glared back at them as they stood above, holding their spear out lazily as the tip rested on his heaving chest, probably poking a hole in the orange shirt he wore on top of his white long sleeve. Apparently his spite only made it all the more funny, because he got another held tilt. “What made you think you could beat someone literally born of strength, speed, and victory, of all things?”

Then to his surprise, was offered a hand up. 

 “Uhm, thanks.” He blinked, and then took the offer, brushing sawdust and sand off himself. 

They nodded at him in return and retrieved his long lost spear, holding it under their arm as they made their way back over. Leo ignored the exaggerated cheers on his behalf coming from where his friends sat. 

“Why did you say you could fight?” He was asked, while they grabbed their water bottle. It had a few faded converse logo stickers on it. “You obviously can’t, why’d you challenge me?”

Their tone wasn’t even rude or overly confident, like it had been a moment before, and Leo realized they were genuinely curious. He shrugged, hands in his pockets as they carried the spears back over to the weapon shed.

He followed them, “you would too, wouldn’t you?”

They thought for a moment, a little crease between their eyebrows that he sort of wanted to smooth out. “I suppose I would, but that’s sort of my whole thing, isn’t it? Beating people, taking up every dare, following through with every idea or thought i’ve ever had, never backing down from a challenge because otherwise it’ll kill me… complaining about my OCD.”

Leo might be bad at social interactions, but even he could see the little admission slipped in the end there, and he figured it’d probably be kinder to not mention it. 

“It won’t actually kill you?” He tried not to let worry slip into his voice. “Will it?”

“Not physically… Not that I know of.” They opened the swinging wooden gate to the weapons shed, letting a stream of light into the dusty little room. They waved a hand absently, like that would explain what they were trying to say. “What I mean, is like, I'd never let it go. It’d just sit in the back of my head until I die, telling me that I should’ve done it, that I'll never live it down.”

“Must be exhausting.”

“When I was eight, Butch asked me to fill in for his shift cleaning the stables. I said no, because I wanted to make friendship bracelets with Drew instead.” They took a deep breath. “I didn’t go to sleep that night, because it was all I could think about. I snuck out that night to clean the stables, even though Butch had had to do it anyway, but..I just.. I had to do it. 

They pointed at their bicep, and Leo had to draw his eyes away from their muscles and back to the long jagged scars stretching from their elbow to where they disappeared to underneath the sleeve of the orange top. 

“The Harpy’s found me.”

Leo’s stomach dropped down to his scuffed shoes, his breath catching. He couldn’t imagine thoughts spiraling so much they’d get you injured. His voice sounded too hollow to convey his emotions when he spoke. “Oh…that, like, really sucks…. You can’t do anything about it?”

“Me, Holly, and Laurel all have medication now, but it only just takes the edge off it. Upside is, I don’t break pinky promises, I guess.” They didn’t look over at him, just stacked the spears up on the rack in the correct order, and then picked up a stray shield from the ground and popped it back onto the hooks jutting from the walls. 

Then their eyes widened, the white of them showing as if they only just realized how open they were being. “Anyway, uh, maybe don’t try challenging anyone else at a duel again.”                                                        They cleared their throat and moved to the door, grabbing the rusty lock off the little shelf. Part of it fell out of place and onto the ground with a small thud. 

The way the poor lock was being glared at, it could’ve killed someone. Leo picked it up gently, hoping not to lose any of the small parts. “Oh, I can just-”

“You don’t think I can use a screwdriver?” He was asked with narrowed eyes as he pulled a few tools out of his belt. Even his nimble fingers couldn’t fix something this old and broken.

Leo shrugged, holding his hands up in defense. “I didn’t think fixing things is your area of expertise, but if-”

“Okay, you’re on.”

He shook his head, not wanting to rope the child of Nike into a challenge that’d rot in their brain and force them to go through with it. “Wait! No that wasn’t a challenge, you don’t have to-”

They shook their head back at him just as quickly, folding their arms like that would seal the deal. The way they looked down at Leo made him want to agree with anything they said though, so maybe they did have some reasoning behind it. “Tomorrow, the forgery, I'm gonna beat you.”

“At what?” He scoffed, fiddling with the lock in his hands, and pulling one of the wires back into place. Then he pulled the screwdriver back out of his toolbelt and screwed the bolt back. “Building?”

“Exactly.”

“Well if you’re gonna make it a thing, you can’t host a competition like this in the forge, we’re going to bunker nine.” He said back, jutting his chin out as they moved him out of the way and shut the door behind them. 

He passed them the fixed lock, as they stuck their tongue out at him. “You’re on, Valdez.”

[yanderepuck]

The Pets Favorite Toy

Jupiter

He likes anything metal. Anything that will make a clinking sound when he hits it against something. Metal sounds the most pleasing...and happens to be the most annoying

Schelm

Mozart needs to keep him away from his violin bow because he loves to swing that around and ruin the strings on it. But he really loves bells. He has one on his perch and loves to ring it. Sometimes it seems like he's trying to make music with Mozart.

Lumiere

A simple string does the trick. But he has a little stuffed mouse that he carries around. He's always batting it around Leonardo's room and losing it and he cries until Leonardo moves things to be able to get it back out

Brush

Anything he can get his hands on. For a week he just carried around a spoon. He also has a thing for taking Comte's ties and hiding them under the couch.

King

The boy wants to play tug of war with anything. So if he has something in his mouth and you go to take it, he thinks you also want to play. Theo has had shirts rip from this. However he's giving me sick vibes. He just carried around one of Theo's socks when he's working for comfort

Vic

He has a ball he loves to play fetch with, but man does he love to dig in the garden. That has to be his favorite thing to do. He also wants to find the biggest stick and try to carry it.

Harry

Isaac made him a wheel to run on and that's all he does now. Those little legs go so fast. Nyoom. But he would also love digging through packaging peanuts. Putting some treats in there for him to find.

Cherie

String also works for her. But she goes crazy for feathers. So when the birds are shedding, Jean gathers their feathers and puts them on a string for her.

Bunta

Paper. He wants to rip up paper. He thinks it's so much fun to rip it up and put it in his nest. But he will play with anything he can get to. He tends to steal paintbrushes.

Puck

He has a little tunnel he runs in and out of, and is acting like he is hiding. He will sit in it and watch Will do his thing, thinking he is hidden and cannot be bothered from inside the tunnel.

Time

Comte's shoes. If he leaves his shoes out Time will chew on them. But he also loves playing with a ball, chasing it up and down the hallway. Sometimes treats will come out of the ball and.he gets super happy.

Lottie

She has a little kiddie pool and she begs Sebastian to fill it up. If there's no water in it she stands in it and baaas at him. She just wants to play in the lil pool

Marshmallow

Definitely a squeaky toy kind of gal. But also anything crinkly. If it makes noise she wants it. But if it's a squeaky she wants to rip it out and then play with the toy. They have no clue why. She just wants to rip something to shreds and take it's heart out

Mephie

Faust gives her a lot of little kid puzzles and she loves them. The ones where you have to fit the right shape through the right hole? She loves it. But she also has a little stuffed animal she carries around and she CRIES when Faust has to wash it.

Louis

Basically anything he's allowed to chew on. They give him teething toys and he sits there and chews. However. He also loves the red dot. And the fact that he can climb makes it even more fun for Charles.

[jelliefishhhh]

hey i think you should. share some ninjago agere hcs. like yk it would be neat!!

Ooooh

I think that most if not all of the Ninja are probably regressors.

I think that Kai, and Zane are probably flip's, regressor leaning

Jay and Nya are flips's caregiver leaning

Cole and Lloyd are mainly caregivers but will regress sometimes

Also I feel like Lloyd would totally hide his regression a lot more post-season 7 because he has to be the team leader now and doesn't feel like he's allowed to regress :( (But he is and the other Ninja help him feel comfortable with himself as much as they can)

Now for more organised ramblings

Kai:

When he regresses, he's very clingy, but at the same time, he doesn't like to be treated as helpless

He's more likely to take charge when little. He'll try to do everything himself. For example, Trying to shove his way past Zane to do the cooking, even if it is something he's completely unskilled at cooking

He uses his powers a lot more mainly because he has very little control over them, meaning with the last example if he is trying to help with cooking, it is very likely for the kitchen to just end up in flames.

He would spend most of his time with Nya because she's most familiar to him, not to say he wouldn't spend time with anyone else.

He can commonly be seen asking Cole for uppies, or piggyback rides

He may look like an endless ball of energy but once he burns out he basically cuddles up and sleeps like a cat

Can be very grumpy

He also gets overwhelmed very easily, even more so than when he's big so loud sounds or bad textures may very quickly lead to a meltdown

Zane can help with that though, his ice somehow always seems to calm him down

Jay:

Jay is constantly off the wall when regressed

Do not give him candy because if you do he will never sit still again

He's still very into his tinkering but to make sure he doesn't hurt himself he's mainly given more of those kids toys to take apart instead

Loves playing with those boxes where you put shapes into the holes

As a caregiver as much as Jay loves to look after other people he very much struggles with it

He finds it easier to caregiver for Zane or Nya (Sometimes) as they are more so at a pace he can manage

But with him zooming around constantly he surprisingly doesn't mesh well with littles who do act like him

He likes alphabet soup, idk why this is just my truth for little Jay

Zane:

Zane will regress more in public than he is comfortable with

You can tell he's regressed because he will become fidgety and more quite than normal

He is perfectly able to do things for himself because he's a robot

But he loves for people to help him doing things it makes him feel so much more loved and little

He loves being picked up and Kai, Nya, and Cole seem to be the only ones capable of doing so (metal is heavy)

He has good control over his powers but that does not mean he does not use it to get up to mischef

Nya:

She is the kind of little who does not have a filter on what she says and it makes for hilarious conversations with her caregivers.

She's very picky with her food like her brother and will be vocal about

If she and Kai are regressed at the same time they will destroy the area

Nya is very good at roping other people into her shenanigans

Child who bites but it's out of affection

But at the same time if someone upsets someone she cares about she will become absolutely silent to that person and you can just feel her glaring across the room even if you did it by accident

And with the upset person she will do her very best to cheer them up

She likes to chew on things and it helps her calm

Cole:

You will barely ever see him regress but when he does he is sooooo eepy

The eepiest guy ever

He will just lie on you and then you will never be able to get up again

Crushed

But he is warm like a hot water bottle

Lloyd:

He likes to hide away when he regresses, and seeing his door locked is an immediate tell.

He loves candy but unlike Jay it won't make him jump of the wall

He likes blankets, not for there intended purpose but he tends to throw them around a lot

[papercutsunset]

what ain't gone is going

Clocking in (LOL) at 985 words, I've got a little piece about Aline October hanging out in Harlow's car for @flashfictionfridayofficial that I finished ON TIME. There's some stuff in here about an eighteen year old being super dead because of being shot and burned to death, because that's what Aline's deal is, so that's kind of the warning there; otherwise, I don't have much else. And it's RELEVANT because it's about Project Clockshift and about clock parts. Also about being dead. But whatever, she's just always dead anyway. There are ZERO real clocks here.

I researched clocks for this. Definitely compared Aline to Galileo on purpose. And then I got back into folk music. The title's a line from "Enough About Hard Times" by Caitlin Canty. And now I have to sleep because it's my 22nd birthday and I meant to be in bed two hours ago.

If anyone is going to figure out how to lay in the backseat of a car while being incorporeal, it’s going to be Aline October. She’s determined. With all this metal framing, there has to be a way. This ghost can’t keep making do.  

Not that she likes being a ghost. As if she could fix it. Yeah, right. Bringing back the dead is more than possible, but nobody here is doing it. She’ll focus on looking over the blueprints in Harlow’s messy-ass car and ways to improve them. Did he ever put those clicks and rivets in the box to attach to the prototype she had already been working on with him? Did he write down her idea about the potential potency of mixing the Avatars’ fluids into the clock oil and how it would affect backward- or forward-in-time movements? Did he consider quartz? And was he going to let her build her verge escapements into the central mechanism when they got home? 

Obviously, something happened after she suggested those things and shoved the blueprints in the backseat where she’d been lounging out with her rifle. Two someones kind of died. She was the one with the verge escapement implementation know-how anyway. Harlow’s a genius, but he let Aline October work on his project for a reason. 

He’ll have to make do now. 

At this point, there isn’t much else to do but blame herself. She could have fought Harlow harder instead of accepting that Wrench was bleeding out. She could have died in a blaze of glory. She could have stayed home and made a clock that you shit in, but there she was, with cops firing at her and the knowledge that she was going to die no matter what. It was written from the moment she was born. Strength’s Domain is a death sentence; that’s why the three of them needed to fix it. She needed to grit her teeth; press her toes into the gas; grip the wheel like it would keep her from remembering the rifle between her legs and that Wrench was too messed up to use it; throw the van in the other direction; go, get out of there while Wrench fired from his shotgun seat. And Wrench was trying, wasn't he? Good sport. Grit his teeth through the pain and her whirlwind of motion. Always a good fucking sport. Handed her his namesake in the workshop when they were working on PROJECT CLOCKSHIFT before Harlow told either of them what it was. As if the name didn’t make it obvious when she outed it; as if he didn’t ask her to work on the mechanics; as if Aline October wasn’t the best set of hands in their stupid fucking town and everyone knew it. 

Clockshift. Turn time back; prevent all of it. No burning flesh in the distance; no burning flesh on her. Here she is, right? Glass from the windshield sliced up her arms, hip and femur cracked from the impact, bullet holes in a dalmatian pattern across her torso, left side of her body smoldering in her pushed-up sunglasses and lab coat, eternally eighteen. She catches herself in the rearview mirror and doesn’t hate it. 

Past the dashboard, Harlow heaves the hood of the car, billowing smoke on the side of this overgrown old asphalt. No matter where you go, she smiles, the infrastructure sucks. The Avatars don’t care about the roads. 

She hopes he doesn’t blame himself for what happened to the two of them. Those hopes are as jagged and terrified as a click gear— and she can dig them into her skin, but they won’t take hold. Does he know, she wonders? Does he know he gave her the only funeral she cared about? Does he know she mustered everything within her to throw her sunglasses into the backseat of his car? Does he remember that burning everything down for the spectacle— all eyes on us— was her idea in the first place? 

Could she grab him by the collar as the days pass, as she loses herself in the monotony of being and being unseen, of giant birds running around the track, of time moving on and on and on as the blueprints get abandoned in the space under the driver’s seat? Could she tell him to get it together and own his shit? 

He thrusts his fists against imaginary posts, using his headlights as a rubber duck for his broken-down car. She knows she could fix the engine if she were here. 

With a soft groan, she assures herself she’ll figure out this whole haunting thing and mentally calculates the width of the frame on the machine. He didn’t ask her to refine the design at all, but she did. It’s going to be better for it, even if she and Wrench aren’t around to help. The work has to continue. Someone has to paradox and prevent this apocalypse they live in. If Harlow’s Galileo and Kronk are gone, then someone has to nudge him toward more finely-tuned verge escapements and away from the battery-acid-energy-drinks he’s been guzzling nonstop. 

Maybe she’ll find out. Sure as shit, though, she’s not going to mope around while she follows him to wherever the hell he’s going. 

She’s still Aline October. The tombstone her father made tacked his surname on there, too, like he’d ever been as important to her as her mother. That didn’t mean it was true. She’d never gone by Aline Saturnina Aritza October in her life. Crying like he actually missed her— they both know he didn’t. Aline and Wrench as remembered by Harlowis closer to the truth. 

She’ll snap back to her body when the government’s reconstruction makes her heart beat again. For now, she’s here. Thanks, throwing-sunglasses-in-someone’s-backseat. It’s an invaluable skill. 

She leans down and reads the blueprints again. PROJECT CLOCKSHIFT. What a thing to die for. 

[5mind]

There was a member of the mechanical squadron at the supermarket. In the fresh produce section, of all places.

Figures, Antares Terry would run into one of them on his day off. And despite clinging onto the prospect of defeating the mechanical squadron in some subconscious effort to give himself some form of purpose, he did not feel obliged to strike at the moment. Also he was shopping right now so ain't no time for that.

Terry watched as Pink Four was engaged in one-sided conversation where some highschooler, who clearly was just stopping by for an errand on her way back from school, was telling the android about her day.

The girl distractedly added the most pathetically withered bundle of water spinach to her shopping basket. While she wasn't looking, Pink Four replaced it with a fresher bundle of greens. The kid did not notice.

The two were taking their sweet time. And, quite frankly, blocking the potatoes. Terry wanted to get the potatoes. One could do a lot of things with potatoes.

He was about to just go ahead and try to squeeze past them when he caught the android in pink probing a gourd for ripeness with her metal claws.

Oh. She scraped a hole right into i-

Wait no!

Don't just put it back in the display!

Don't fucking turn it around to obscure the hole, you piece of shit robot!

[ninemelodies]

portraits in the attic

Donna is in the console room, tucked under the center console and reading a magazine, when a headline about summer swimwear reminds her of a question she meant to ask the Doctor. The alien in question is tinkering away somewhere underneath the grating. Every now and then, she hears the whir of the sonic, followed by some sort of muttered exclamation. The TARDIS won’t translate, so Donna figures it’s either Gallifreyan or he’s cursing up a storm. It might be both. 

She puts down her magazine and shifts closer to the hole in the grating he had disappeared down. “Doctor?” 

The sonic whirs again, briefly, and then she hears him yell back, “Yes, Donna?” 

He sounds muffled and distant, like he’s further away than should be physically possible. But then again, Donna considers, she’s in a spaceship that’s bigger on the inside. And anyway, what’s a little spatial nonsense between friends? It’s certainly not the weirdest thing she’s seen while traveling with the Doctor. When she doesn’t respond immediately, he starts back up with the sonic, so Donna raises her voice to be heard. “Why is there a swimming pool in the library?” 

Abruptly, the sonic cuts off, and Donna hears the tail end of a huffled laugh. His shoes squeak on the metal as he walks and then he appears at the bottom of the hole, looking up. He climbs halfway up a ladder she hadn’t noticed, until he can comfortably rest his arms on the grated floor. “Where else would the pool be?” 

“In its own room?” Donna asks. “The humidity isn’t good for paper, you know.”

The Doctor waves his hand nonchalantly. “The TARDIS makes sure nothing happens to the books. Besides, all of the books are cataloged and archived in a database, so even if something did happen to the books or the library, they wouldn’t be lost. But if you’re really worried, the humidity is contained and regulated by a thermo-” 

Donna cuts him off. “Yeah, yeah, Spaceman. The TARDIS keeps them safe, that’s all you had to say. You don’t have to go all techno on me. You know I can hardly understand you when you start babbling.” The Doctor’s face flickers with something like disapproval, but before he can speak whatever thought just skittered across his mind, Donna asks, “Was it always in the library?” 

“No,” the Doctor admits. “It used to have its own room, but I had to jettison it.” 

“You can just get rid of rooms?” 

“In a pinch, I can eject or destroy pieces of the tardis for a power boost,” the Doctor confirms. “Destroying them allows for more of the TARDIS’s power to be directed elsewhere. Ejecting rooms…” the Doctor tilts his head as he considers how best to explain exactly how launching rooms from the TARDIS is an advantage. “Weeeell,” he drawls, “Since we’re talking about a swimming pool anyway. You know how swimmers will push off from the wall to get a boost?” When Donna nods, he continues. “It works very similar to that. It's Newton's third law at work, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simply put, the room goes one way, and the TARDIS goes the other." He puts the sides of his hands together with his index fingers extended and then mimes them pushing off each other into opposite directions. “Very handy if you need a boost without attracting attention from scanners. I try not to do it very often because, somehow, I always end up needing the room I got rid of immediately after.” 

“Okay…” Donna shifts and draws her legs underneath her so that she is sitting cross-legged. The shift in her position has her leaning forward a bit, closer to the Doctor. “That part makes sense, but wouldn’t it have been better to launch the pool with the rest of the room? Otherwise the TARDIS would’ve had to launch the room and move the pool at the same time, right?” 

The Doctor gives her one of his half smiles. It tells her that she’s right, but the way his eyes are focused on something just past her shoulder also tells her that he’s miles away, thinking about something else. 

“Oi,” Donna calls. When she doesn’t get a response, she leans forward and gently flicks his forehead. “Hello? Earth to Martian.” 

That gets his attention. The Doctor’s eyes snap to her face, and Donna is not surprised at the depth of sadness in them. Most of the time, The Doctor looks more like an excited child than he has any right to, but sometimes, like now, when he starts thinking about the past, Donna can see each and everyone of his 900 plus years layered in his eyes. The sadness drags him down and down, until even Donna feels like she could drown in it. He grabs her wrist while she is distracted and pulls her hand away from his face.  

“On Messaline, I told you that I had been a father before.” He lets go of her wrist and she tucks both hands in between her legs. “I was more than that, I was a grandfather, at one point. My granddaughter, her name was Susan. She was my first companion.” The Doctor swallows thickly and looks away from Donna's face. “I taught her how to swim in that pool. She loved that pool. Out of every room in the TARDIS, that was the one she chose for herself.” The Doctor stops, takes a deep shuddering breath and runs a hand through his hair. “Didn’t feel right to just get rid of it.”

Donna watches him carefully, watches as his face smooths out and tears collect in his bottom lashes, so close to spilling over. He looks away and wipes his eyes and Donna pretends not to notice. “Do you do that for all your companions?” When he looks at her, brows furrowed, she expands. “Do you always remember stuff about them like that? Their favorite rooms and stuff?” 

And though the Doctor no longer has tears on his face, the sadness in his eyes and in the lines of his face lingers. “Oh, yes.” He whispers. His smile is so soft and tender. It's heartbreaking to see. “Every single one of them. I know you humans have this idea that you’re not important, that you’re such a small part of the universe and of my life that you’re nothing more than a blip or a speck, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I carry each of them with me, all the time, in here.” The Doctor taps his temple with his index finger, before moving his hand down to rest over one of his hearts. “And in here. Every one of them has been more important than they realized.”

“Did you love them?” It might be an odd question, but Donna knows that the Doctor loved Rose, and even Martha, in his own way. 

The Doctor tucks his hand into the crook of his elbow and rests his arm on the grating. He leans his head into the palm of his other hand and stares at Donna. “Yes,” he confirms. “All of them. I didn't love all of them the same, of course, but I did, yes.” 

When she had asked about the pool, Donna wasn’t expecting it to lead to this. She wasn’t sure why the Doctor was being so willing to answer her questions right now, or why he was revealing so much about his past. Normally, the Doctor kept his most painful memories close to his chest, locked tight and sealed until they absolutely couldn’t be contained anymore. He revealed more in moments of duress and strife than at any other time, yet, here he was, answering Donna truthfully and honestly. 

Maybe he had listened when she told him that he talked too much but said too little. 

The openness in his eyes was beginning to make her uncomfortable, and she wasn’t sure she would like the answers she would get if she continued down this line of questioning. She decided to give him, and herself, a way out. “So what does that make me then? The big, useless, ginger house cat?” 

The Doctor shakes his head and sighs. “I keep telling you you’re special, one day you’re going to believe me.” 

“In your dreams, Spaceman.” 

Before the Doctor can reply, the TARDIS gives a sickening lurch. Donna's hand shoots out to grasp the edge of the console to keep herself from falling forward. The Doctor is not so lucky. He jerks back, slamming his spine into the far edge of the hole he was standing in. He lets out a pained groan and leans forward to rest his forehead against the floor. 

Once the TARDIS settles, Donna hesitantly releases her death grip on the console. “Doctor? You ok?” 

He gives a brief thumbs up before he lifts his head from the floor. “I think that’s my cue to go finish those repairs. She's a little upset that I've left one of the stabilizers unplugged this long.” 

And now that he’s mentioned it, Donna can feel a vague sense of irritation sitting just on the edge of her mind. When she turns her attention to it, the feeling fades into something soft and warm. “She's only upset with you,” She snorts. “She adores me.” 

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “She's my ship, you can’t gang up on me like this!” He protests. 

“Maybe if you didn’t hit her with a mallet!” Donna shoots back. 

“Maybe if she’d behave I -” The TARDIS zaps him in retaliation. The Doctor jerks his hand away from the grating with a yelp and shakes out the remaining tingles. “Alright! I’m going!” He backs down the ladder with a sour look on his face. Just before he disappears from view completely, he looks back up at Donna. “You know that -” He cuts off abruptly, shakes his head and keeps climbing down. He opens his mouth, like he is going to say something, before he shakes his head and keeps climbing down. 

Donna watches him walk into the depths of the TARDIS again and figures that’s the end of the conversation, for now, until the Doctor has finished whatever tinkering he was doing. She retrieves her magazine that she abandoned, tucks herself back under the console and lets the humming of the TARDIS and the Doctor’s unintelligible muttering wash over her. 

It was a funny old world on the TARDIS, she mused. The Doctor hadn’t been lying, but there wasn’t another place she’d rather be.