#so they just go along with whatever he tells them for their own safety

[hazbin-a-helluvamagines]

hey, can you do rosie, carmilla and sera x platonic! adopted son! male! reader with depresion and androphobia like in my last request

"Momma's Boy" ; Carmilla Carmine, Rosie, Sera

She's one of the fiercest defenders of anyone who needs it, honestly, and she's very glad you're comfortable with women.

It doesn't take long at all for her to take you in, integrating you into her family and getting you acquainted with Odette and Clara, who eagerly accept you as another Carmine.

If you're comfortable with it, she'll also make you part of Carmine Arms Dealing, but if not, no pressure. She won't force you.

If your father is already in Hell... well, don't expect him to be for long. :)

Odette and Clara help hide the body.

The same fate to whoever intentionally disrespects or makes you uncomfortable, actually.

"And what do you think you're doing, violating my children's security in their own space?"

- Carmilla, after stiletto-ing someone's hand off for making you uncomfortable and refusing to back off.

Doesn't really understand mental health much, since she's more focused on physical safety.

Fortunately for you, your new sisters can help you with that, instead. :)

Rosie is just the sweetest! It doesn't take long to open up to her about your past at all, and she immediately takes you in as her own!

She'll probably over-baby you, asking if you "want Mama to do that for you?", "need help with that?", etc. It's a little annoying, but her heart is in the right place.

"C'mon, baby doll! Tell Mama Rosie all about it!"

She's honestly really hard to say no to because she's so sweet.

Understands mental health a little better than Carmilla, but not enough to help you, herself, so she takes you to see a therapist.

A female therapist, of course.

And she'll go with whatever treatment she recommends and you're comfortable with, whether that be CBT, hypnosis, medication, or anything else along that line.

She's also not above threatening people who frighten you on purpose, either.

"Hmm... Y'know, sweetheart, you remind me of my first husband! I'd say he could tell ya himself, but sadly, my steak can't talk anymore."

That tends to shut people up, quickly and easily.

She'll take you in, but... unconventionally. You won't become a Seraphim or anything, but she'll keep you close by at all times, not trusting anyone in case something happens to you.

Fortunately, there are places in Heaven for people with phobias like yours.

She'll keep any men she possibly can away from you, and won't hesitate to reprimand anyone she spots making you uncomfortable. After all, who would defy their benevolent queen?

"Excuse me, but I have to ask you to stop what you're doing. My dear son isn't comfortable with this kind of attention."

And like the protective mama bear she is, she'll shield you with her wings and let you play with them if you want while she handles the situation, if it keeps you calm.

Like Rosie, she gets you a therapist, and does whatever technique suggested, just wanting to see you get better and be okay again.

If your father ever somehow did make it to Heaven, she'd have a bone to pick with God, himself over it, wondering how he could let someone so cruel into paradise.

"What kind of joke is this? You represent purity, yet you let this filth into our midst?"

She also uses her angelic powers to soothe your mind at times if it ever gets to be too much for you. She knows all too well what painful memories can do to a person.

And best of all? You get to be like a brother to Emily! It's a win-win all around, really!

[wilsonsmcgillsweatshirt]

I can't get over Wilson straight up dragging Cuddy and House to Cuddy's mom's place and forcing them to make peace with her. He's got House actually giving a decent apology even though he doesn't mean it, and Cuddy completely conceding and giving up control over the situation by telling her mom she was wrong and they could compromise. And then when they attempt to go off the script Wilson gave them, he's just standing there glaring at them threateningly, and suddenly they snap back in line. That's why he's so scary. He's got everybody on a fucking leash lmao.

[ckret2]

Chapter 51 of human Bill Cipher is once more the Mystery Shack's prisoner: Dipper and Mabel try to figure out what the Axolotl's poem means; Dipper gets the hang of astral projection; and... whatever's going on up there happens.

####

Ford and Dipper came back into the shack through the gift shop; Ford didn't want to risk crossing paths with Bill. While Dipper went into the house, Ford went down—returning to the safety of his subterranean study.

Once Ford had put on the old black trench coat he'd worn during his multiversal travels and gotten comfortable at his desk, he pulled out Journal 5 to document the events of the last few days. In a cheap ballpoint pen, he wrote, I've lost my #1 Grunkle pen (and favorite coat) to the waters of Lake Gravity Falls. And then, deciding this didn't adequately express his feelings, he drew a small frown. That coat had served him well for decades, and he'd really liked that pen. It did write excellently, and it had reminded him of his gniece and gnephew.

He spent three pages documenting the eclipse—what happened, what readings he'd taken, what he and Dipper observed—and then another four pages talking about Bill. What he'd told them, why Ford had dismissed it; his claims about a trans-dimensional axolotl distorting gravity with its migration; the statue, the rescue, the breakdown.

The act of writing always helped Ford clarify his thoughts and untangle mysteries; it wasn't until he was writing that he realized the limbs Bill had said he couldn't feel were the ones that had broken off the statue.

He listed the rules of the chess variants he could remember Bill inventing. He drew Bill huddled in front of the board, grim, tear-streaked, exhausted; and then scratched out his face, embarrassed at the thought of immortalizing such a raw moment for his private viewing.

He wrote, There's still a slim possibility that the entire "eclipse," start to finish, was Bill's masterfully-orchestrated scheme to make us pity and trust him; but it's unlikely. Although Bill is fiendish enough, he isn't currently powerful enough, and his lies certainly aren't elaborate enough. If he could pull off such a byzantine ruse, then he could just as easily escape—and if he can escape, why hasn't he? Bill may be insane, but he's never been THAT irrational.

And so, even as twisted as Bill's idea of "friendship" is... for the very first time, I'm convinced that he was telling the truth all along when he said he wants me as his friend. It's not an act. He risked his life to save someone who's an active threat to him.

And at the end of it all—though I'm grateful to be alive in spite of my own stubbornness—do I like him any better for it?

Ford leaned back and shut his eyes, sifting through the inner tumult of anger and old hurt that defined most of his memories of Bill, looking to see if anything had changed.

There was a sore, tender spot in his emotions, a place beginning to rot with remorse; when he prodded at those emotions, he found that it was shame over his own harsh conduct of the last couple of days. But he was only ashamed of how cruelly he'd acted; he wasn't ashamed that Bill was the one he'd done it to.

Outside of that tender spot—regret over his own behavior—nothing else had changed.

No. I still hate him. I'm grateful to be alive, but I hate him. He hasn't undone anything he did to my family and me, and he never will. Forgiveness can't be purchased with favors.

I'm only relieved at the certainty of it. Bill has committed an act that can't possibly be a lie. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's shown me the truth; and the truth is he'd rather see me alive than dead. Whatever other lies he may tell, I can hold on to that fact.

Bill's miserable eyes peered out at Ford between the scribbles he'd drawn across his face. It was truly a pity that Ford had to hate him. Pity that Bill hadn't been somebody better. He could have been better.

Ford couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed that he'd filled four pages talking about the monster he'd already wasted so many more on. Bill had been right about him: You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. The only thing Bill didn't understand was that hatred and obsession weren't mutually incompatible.

####

"Hey, Dipper," Mabel said, unfolding the living room sofa bed. 

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, passing through living room on his way to the stairs. He climbed up to the attic.

He came back down from the attic. "Mabel. Why's Bill asleep in your bed."

"He really needed a nap," Mabel said.

"Okay but why on your bed?"

Mabel pouted. "Dipper, do you realize he's never slept on a real bed? Ever?"

Dipper tried to imagine sleeping on a couple couch cushions on the floor every night. "Yeah, okay, that does kinda suck." Even if it was Bill's own fault he wouldn't sleep in the living room.

By unspoken mutual agreement, having a Bill in the bedroom followed the same law as finding a centipede in the bathroom. The law was "that's the centipede's bathroom now." So once the folding bed was set up, they sat on it to serve as their hang-out spot for the evening and caught each other up on what they'd done the last couple of days.

After Dipper & Co. had left, Grenda had come over to take advantage of the low gravity to retrieve the kite that had been stuck in a tree near the Mystery Shack since last summer (it was, tragically, too tattered to salvage), and then they'd gone over to Candy's house to photograph each other performing feats of impossible strength. (Mabel would be sending some pictures to their parents to confuse them, and adding the rest to her summer scrapbook.) She'd spent the next day breaking the trampoline world record until Soos came outside and said gravity was probably too low for it to be safe to be up in the air anymore, if Bill's warnings about being off the ground when gravity hit zero were true; at which point Mabel had hung around inside air-swimming until she suddenly slammed against the ceiling, and then the ground. She was fine. She just had a couple of bruises. She showed Dipper her bruises.

In return, Dipper told Mabel about how their quest had gone: the checks for micro-rips, Bill's increasingly frantic warnings, the lake—

("You got to see a bajillion magical axolotls and I didn't?!")

—the cliff, the Axolotl, Dipper's near-death experience, and what he now knew about his out-of-body dreams.

"Seriously?" Mabel hissed, eyes bugging out. "And he had us looking up lucid dreaming books! What a jerk!"

"I know! He could have just ignored the whole thing, we didn't even think it was anything but dreams."

"And I'd thought he was being so helpful, too! Like he was really trying to make up for giving you 'nightmares'!" Mabel laughed in disbelief and flopped down on the flimsy mattress. "All that because he just didn't want us to know how it was really his fault? Biiill, ugh."

His fault. Dipper hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Mabel what Bill had said about Mabel's Fault; then decided against it. Bill had probably been telling the truth when he'd said he only wanted all the credit for Weirdmageddon.

But—Dipper did tell her about Bill saving their lives. He would have felt like a liar if he hadn't—like he was trying to trick his sister into thinking Bill was worse than he already was. He hoped Ford wouldn't mind; but how could he not tell Mabel?

"He could have just let you die and didn't?" Mabel turned that over in her head, processing this sudden shift in Bill's behavior. "Wow. I'm impressed."

He also told her about their previous encounter with the Axolotl. Considering the other lies Bill had told recently, anything he said about them meeting the Axolotl was dubious at best; but Dipper could remember the Axolotl, so maybe some of it was true, even if Bill had twisted as much as he could. ("The Axolotl said hi, by the way." "Aww. Tell him hi back!" "Yeah, I... don't know how to do that.")

Dipper laid out his journal between them on the folding bed, and Mabel read over the couplet a few times. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees'..."

"It's got to be talking about Bill," Dipper said. "Equilateral triangles have three sixty-degree angles. I just don't know why the Axolotl wanted to talk to us about him."

Mabel frowned at the lines. "I think... I remember meeting him too," she said.

"You do?"

"Kinda. Like in a dream," she said. "We were in some kind of futury space race car. And he had a really comfortable beanbag chair."

"Yes! I remembered the beanbag chair, too!" And he hadn't mentioned it in his journal. "This is great! Talking about it must... must cause us to remember, somehow. Maybe since the universe where we met the Axolotl doesn't exist anymore, our memories of it are... detached or something? Psychically floating around between dimensions until we try to remember them?" He took in Mabel's skeptical frown and shrugged. "I don't know!"

She scrunched up her face. "Ugh. Last summer's first-grader time travel was complicated enough. This is like college-level time travel. Maybe we can ask Bill how it works?"

She said it so easily, like she thought it was actually a good idea. Right after she'd heard about the lucid dreaming thing, too. "I don't think he'd help." Dipper lowered his voice. "He really didn't want Grunkle Ford and me to find out about the Axolotl—and he kept telling me not to think about what the Axolotl told me. He's trying to cover something up."

"Oo-oo-ooh." Voice dropped to a whisper, Mabel said, "Do you think it's some kind of Space Axolotl conspiracy?"

"It could be," Dipper said. "All I know is he was trying to tell us something important about Bill. Some kind of prophecy, or... maybe a warning...?"

He trailed off. Mabel had stopped listening to Dipper. She was rereading the couplet Dipper had written, moving her lips like she was murmuring under her breath—but whatever she was saying, it was much longer than the couplet Dipper had written down. Distractedly, she said, "Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, here." Dipper quickly handed over the pen he kept in his vest.

Mabel clicked it, went to the bottom of the page, and wrote: A different form, a different time.

Dipper sucked in a sharp breath as the words snapped into place in his mind. "That's it! That was the last line! What else do you remember?"

"That's it," Mabel said. "It was free form poetry with a bunch of rhyme pairs."

"I don't think free form poetry rhymes."

"Pbbbt." Mabel blew a raspberry and shoved Dipper's face. "Whatever! You know what I mean." She pointed at the last line. "Do you think the poem's about why Bill's here? He time traveled to the Mystery Shack in a new body..."

"Exactly! Bill must be back here for a reason. He's got all those powers—or, used to, anyway—and he knows more about the multiverse than anybody on Earth... Maybe there's some kind of big threat coming, and Bill's the only one who can stop it, and—and the Axolotl wanted us to know...?"

"I like the sound of that," Mabel said. "That'd basically make him a hero, right?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean. I guess? But we're talking about Bill. If he does help us stop a threat, it'd be like if a serial killer picked up a hitchhiker and killed him, and then it turned out the hitchhiker was an even worse serial killer."

"That still sounds kinda heroic to me."

"Pfff, okay." He looked at his journal. "But... what is he here to do?"

Mabel considered what they'd already written. "Maybe we can use him to spy on our enemies through birch trees!"

"Thaaat's probably not it."

"No, I think I'm on to something. I can feel it."

There was a lot of empty space between his couplet and Mabel's line. "There's more we're missing, though. Maybe the rest of the poem describes the threat? Or what we need to get Bill to do?"

"I can't remember anything else, though."

"Me neither."

They stared at the page together, waiting for something to come to their blank minds. Mabel looked at the fish tank. "Hey, Primrose! Do you know anything?"

The pet axolotl in the tank ignored her serenely.

Dipper said, "'Primrose'?"

"Yeah, last summer Grunkle Stan said her name is Freakface, but I thought she deserved a cuter name. She's primrose color!"

"Ford says he originally named him Nikola."

Mabel gasped. "Nikki..."

Dipper twisted around to look at the axolotl. "Do you know anything? Do you... get messages from the Axolotl's heralds, or anything...?"

Nikola slowly opened his mouth, and slowly closed it.

Mabel said, "Hey. The Axolotl's one of those dimension-crossy time-travely guys, right? He probably wouldn't have given us a prophecy in the wrong timeline and then made us forget it unless he knew we'd remember it in time in the rightdimension!"

"I guess," Dipper said uncertainly.

"So we don't need to worry about it! We'll remember it when we need to."

"Unless this timeline's going to branch, and the only one where we survive is the one where we put all our effort into trying to remembering—"

"Shhh!" Mabel put a finger over Dipper's mouth. "Uh-uh. No college time travel. We'll be fine!"

Dipper pushed her over. "Okay, but we should at least try a little to remember what the Axolotl told us."

"What if we work on it separately?" Mabel propped herself up on an elbow. "Instead of just sitting around thinking about it. And whenever we remember a line, we can tell each other and see if it makes anything click."

"That might be faster," Dipper said, stroking his chin. "We're already remembering different lines."

"Yeah! And that lucid dreaming book said something about focusing on a problem before you sleep so you can figure it out in your dreams! We can just work on it in our sleep and we'll remember it all in no time!"

Dipper laughed. "What? No way, I think lucid dreaming is just one of those made up pop psychology things. I didn't get it to work at all." Either it didn't work or Bill had deliberately recommended a terrible book.

"I did! I can remember like... eighty percent more dreams. And I can tell when I'm dreaming a lot more often!"

"Huh." Or, maybe Dipper just wasn't doing it right. "Maybe I need to start over from step one. Do you know where the book we were using went?"

"Over here!" Mabel had set a couple library books on the end table next to the sofa bed; she pulled out the second one, which had a glittery pink bookmark with a cat on it stuck two-thirds of the way through. "Just don't lose my bookmark."

"Thanks." He'd reread the first step before bed. "We should probably be getting ready for bed anyway, huh?"

"Seriously?! It's barely bedtime!" And when the adults weren't watching, official bedtime was an hour and a half before Actual Bedtime.

"I'm exhausted. I just hiked up and down a mountain and faced down death."

Mabel pointed at Nikola. "You faced down a big salamander."

"Close enough."

They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, went to their bedroom...

And stopped in the door. Bill was still asleep. "Oh. Right," Dipper said.

He was curled into a ball on his left side, facing the wall, covered with only the zodiac blanket and his borrowed/stolen top hat sitting on the side of his head. He didn't use a pillow; he'd pushed Mabel's pillows and dolls behind himself to form a squishy makeshift fortress.

"Please don't wake him up," Mabel whispered. (She'd already set up the folding bed for herself; she'd clearly planned on this.) "He's had a really really hard time the last couple of days, and I think he needs as much sleep in a real bed as he can get, and it's just for one night, and I'm sure he'd rather sleep than do anything evil—"

"He said something, didn't he?"

Mabel paused. "Yeah. I think seeing his body really messed him up."

Dipper sighed. "We were trying to keep him away from it." He didn't want Mabel to think they'd forced him to stare his own death in the face. "But he did that... eye thing and looked through the trees, and..."

Mabel nodded.

Well. Dipper couldn't kick him out now. For Mabel's sake.

As children, occasionally when they got hotel rooms with a bed too few, their parents would stick them in one bed with a barrier of pillows in between them. At age thirteen and without two crabby parents trying to get them to just go to bed after a long plane flight, they unanimously vetoed that plan. Dipper decided against asking Stan if he could sleep in Ford's unoccupied bed, both because he suspected Stan would just go upstairs and drag Bill out of the room and because he didn't want Stan to think he was scared of Bill. He wasn't scared of Bill. Not anymore. He could handle one measly night in the same room as him. Anyway, somebody had to make sure he wasn't unsupervised in their bedroom all night, right?

Dipper and Mabel quietly set a floor mirror and old lamp next to Mabel's bed, draped a sheet between them, taped on a pink poster that said "WARNING! TRIANGLE ZONE!" and was covered in stickers of triangular objects, and decided Dipper was adequately shielded. If Bill did get up during the night, he'd probably trip through the sheet and wake half the house before he got anywhere near Dipper.

Dipper went to sleep with a baseball bat in his hands.

####

"Okay," Bill said, hands on his sides, "what am I looking at here?"

The feral band members of Sev'ral Timez turned toward Bill, eyes reflecting in the dim light. They were squatting around Bill's petrified corpse like a pack of apes examining a sleek black monolith.

"Hey girl," Creggy G. said.

"Hey," Bill said. He looked down at himself. His onyx black feet hovered over the ground and the yellow glow from his exoskeleton illuminated the clearing. "Lemme cut to the chase, is this gonna turn into a raunchy dream? My corporeal love life is about as cold and dry as Antarctica, I keep hoping one of my dreams will get a little hotter and wetter—"

"Nah, G," Deep Chris said. "Mr. Bratsman got us fixed."

"Aw."

"We're here to pay you reverence for freeing our minds from the chains of the conventional," Greggy C said, gesturing to Bill's corpse. Leggy P was kneeling and bowing to it and Chubby Z was posing for it. "We want to help free you like you tried to help free humanity."

Bill's eye narrowed. He tapped a finger against the edge of one brick as he considered this offer. Finally, skeptically, he said, "Fine. I'll bite. Why should I think you can help me?"

"Because we can give you the understanding your heart's been missing, girl. You're just like us," Chubby Z said. "A horror never meant to exist, born of a dream to construct the perfect golden idol, forced to dwell within an unnaturally-fabricated human shell."

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm with you so far."

"We want you to join us," Deep Chris said. "Cavort with us in the silvan night, G. Shun the harsh light of the spotlight for the healing salve of moonbeams. We'll get drunk on the sweet fermented summer berries, uncaring of how the brambles prick our flesh. We'll dance in a frenzy of ecstasy and only sleep when the morning sun lifts the dew from the flowers and the sweat from our skin. It'll be straight Dionysian, boo."

"We can kiss the hot trees," Creggy G said.

Bill grabbed his shoulder. "Oh, you're the human that keeps making out with birch trees! I knew your face was familiar!" He paused. "So... are there any eligible ones around here?"

"Sure, girl, just downstream."

"If I'd known, I would've polished myself first."

"Say you'll join us, Bill girl," Deep Chris said. The band crowded around Bill to either side, posing around him—the backup dancers for the star singer. "You'd be one of us."

"We're already exactly the same," Creggy G said, holding up a mirror so that it reflected his and Bill's faces beside each other. In Bill's human face were two empty white eyes with pinprick pupils and pale blue irises, exactly the same as the eyes of the Sev'ral Timez boys.

He sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his face. There were still green boughs at the edges of his dreaming vision, blending into the wooden boards of the Mystery Shack's attic. Before sleep had fully fled his mind, he seized up the zodiac blanket draped over his body and stared into his embroidered eye.

The eye stared back at him. Through it, he could see his horrified sleepy face, and his normal slitted yellow eyes. His connection to the blanket's eye disappeared as he finished waking up.

He heaved a sigh of relief and flopped back down. He'd been lucid, but he hadn't been in control of that dream. He still needed practice.

He rolled toward the light of the window, groped around beneath it until he found his journal, grabbed up his crayons, and flipped pages blearily until he found the first blank one. He started writing down his dream, pausing only briefly as he tried to figure out how to translate "Sev'ral Timez" before settling on a sufficiently goofy way to misspell "several times" in Plaintext.

He made it halfway down the page before he stopped. Hold on. This wasn't his beautiful journal. These were not his beautiful crayons. He checked the cover and grimaced in displeasure when he saw a pine tree rather than a hand. Dipper's journal. Bill ripped out the page, ate it, and set the journal and Mabel's crayons back on the table  under the bedroom window.

"What was that," Dipper asked, "some kind of Morse code?"

Bill yelped and twisted around. Dipper's soul was hovering above Mabel's headboard, watching over Bill's shoulder.

"Hey! Back, foul ghost!" Bill snatched up Mabel's pillow and swung it at Dipper.

"Ow—Hey! How did you hit me, I'm in the mindscape—"

"I said back!" Bill swung again, chasing Dipper off the bed. "Back into your fleshy tomb!" He climbed off the bed, stumbled into Dipper and Mabel's trap, tripped through the sheet and probably woke up half the house.

He yanked the sheet off and flung the pillow at Dipper by its corner. "Now get back in your body, go to sleep, and leave me alone."

"I don't know how to get back in it. I just wait until it happens by itself," Dipper said, floating irritably over his sleeping body, arms crossed. "Why do you think I just wander around every time I have this dream?" He paused. "Right—it's not a dream, is it."

Bill sighed heavily. "Try putting your body on like..." He almost said like an exoskeleton, remembered his audience, and amended himself: "Like it's clothing. I usually start with the hands. Just like putting on gloves!"

Dipper looked at the cold fingers wrapped tightly around the baseball bat. "How do I put hands on like gloves? There's no opening or—"

"Just try it, would you?" Bill sat tiredly on the edge of Mabel's bed.

Dipper shot him an irritated look, but pressed his ghostly hands against his fleshly ones, passing through the skin until one set of fingers rested inside the other. A fingertip twitched. 

Bill gestured with one hand, continue. "Now the sleeves."

"I know how to get dressed." Dipper laid down in his body, forearm into forearm, shoulder into shoulder—until he was wholly back inside. He sat up, awake. "Huh."

"There, see?" Bill said. "And if you want to take it back off, just do the same thing in reverse. Like degloving your body from your soul!"

"Did you have to phrase it like that?" Still, Dipper tried it, peeling out of his body from the fingertips up. He left his body sitting upright as he hovered over it.

Bill chuckled tiredly. "Lookit your face, staring at nothing. Stupid looking."

"Shut up." He slid back into his body, more quickly now that he knew what he was doing.

"Great," Bill said. "Now that you know how to get back in your body, never do that again." He flopped back onto Mabel's bed and rolled over to face the wall. "It's a pain in my base having you wander around all night."

"Then you should've thought of that before you ripped my soul out of my body," Dipper grumbled. "Can you reattach me to my body?"

"Sure, easy." He lifted a hand to point down at his regrettably human form. "Not like this, though. Wanna help reattach me to my body?"

"Never in a million years."

"Then come back in a million years. There's nothing I can do for you until then." Bill dragged Mabel's zodiac blanket back over himself. "So sorry. Go to sleep. Leave me alone."

Dipper bet Bill could do it and was only saying he couldn't to try to trick Dipper into helping him. But he lay back down—clutching his bat again—and shut his eyes.

After a moment, Bill asked, "Where's Mabel? Sleepover?"

"Sofa bed in the living room."

"Right."

And then there was silence.

Several minutes passed. Dipper nearly fell back asleep. He heard Bill climbing out of bed and creeping across the room; but the footsteps didn't approach Dipper's bed, so he didn't open his eyes.

A few minutes after that, Dipper heard him come back, walking more heavily. He cracked open an eye to see what Bill was up to.

He was carrying Mabel, who was still asleep; his arms were trembling from her weight, but even at that Dipper hadn't known Bill was that strong. With a quiet grunt, he set her on her bed, then haphazardly tossed her sheet and zodiac blanket over her. He picked up his top hat from the bed and put it on; and then he wandered off, footsteps quiet as a ghost, and Dipper heard the creak of the door as he left the bedroom.

That was a lot nicer than Dipper had expected from Bill. Maybe he did care about Mabel in his own way.

Mabel rolled over and latched on to one of her dolls. Dipper shut his eye and fell back asleep.

####

(My favorite part of writing this was Bill dreaming about Sev'ral Timez saying the most absurdly flowery things imaginable. Anyway, let me know what y'all think about this week's chapter! And reminder that I MIGHT skip next week or the week after because the next couple chapters need heavier editing than usual.)

[temiizpalace]

☆┊WALKING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND !

SUMMARY: ah, it’s snowing at ramshackle. since there’s so much snow, you should invite somebody over just so there’s something to do. who do you invite, and what do you do together?

CHARACTERS: all dorms (+ grim)

GENRE: fluff

WARNINGS: cursing

CAN BE READ AS PLATONIC OR ROMANTIC (EXCEPT ORTHO)

reader gender is not mentioned, reader is yuu

snowball fight

he walks up to you, smiling innocently with his hands behind his back. you knew he was faking already. before you could even say anything, he had already chucked a snowball at your face. okay bitch it’s on. you form a ball and throw a snowball back at his head. snowballs could be seen flying left and right, hitting each other almost everywhere. you get the in the last hit before sprinting away and hiding behind the trees.

before you knew it, this was war.

grim, ace, leona, ruggie you forced leona outside

building snowmen

he already brought things to make snowmen in a little baggy before he left. it wasn’t stuff to make ONE snowman.. it was enough to make an entire army of them. somebody was excited.. still, it was fun! rolling the snow into 3 different sizes, stacking them on top of one another, finding sticks for the arms, it was great! you both decided to stop at 5 snowmen cause there’s only so many snowballs you could roll. obviously you named them. if you don’t where’s the fun in that? he loves these snowmen til the end of time, and would protect them for as long as he can. (don’t remind him about spring..)

deuce, trey, jack, kalim, ortho

sledding

there was a small slope at ramshackle, a sled in hand, and two people ready to go down at alarming speeds. he tells you it’ll be okay and that everything’s going to be fine, but as soon as he pushes off it feels like your life is flashing before your eyes. while he’s smiling and laughing, you’re worried about whether you were going to survive or not cause unfortunately you’re sitting in the front. thankfully you lived to see another day, and tell him it’s his turn to be in front. to your dismay, now that he’s in control you’re even more worried for your safety.

floyd, epel, lilia

ice skating

there was a large patch of ice nearby, and you couldn’t help but want to skate across it. finding skates was the problem though.. oh. nevermind, sam has those too! being such a generous person, he purchased the skates for you so you can save your money for more important things. you both stepped onto the ice, nearly slipping and falling right onto your face. it’s been too long since you’ve skated..

vil knew how to skate and glide gracefully across the ice. he looked so much like a figure skater right now.. just deadass elegant. it made you look like a noob.

however, if this isn’t vil you’re thinking of, he has ZERO experience on ice skating. there either was no snow where lived, or he wasn’t allowed to skate on his own. he requires some assistance. you held his hand, guiding him on the ice. almost falling over several times. exchanging smiles and laughter with each other as he learned along the way.

riddle, azul, jamil, vil, malleus

building a fort

you both decided to build a “secret base” together just for the heck of it. you and him were building the wall, occasionally throwing a snowball or two at each other, til finally the fort was complete. he was insanely proud of it and invited you in immediately. he was so excited, he even made some furniture inside. seriously there was a little booth and table when you walked in. it was kind of tight inside but at least you two being close together was keeping you warm.

cater, idia, sebek

walking in the snowfall

snow was falling from the sky as you both walked through the forest of snow covered trees. winter seemed like the only time of the year where ramshackle was a beautiful sight to see. you and him were having conversations about whatever the hell you wanted without any judgment whatsoever. he was also telling you about how beautiful the sky is at night during the winter. how the stars truly shine this time of year. he so graciously invited you to see it with him tonight as you accepted with a joking curtsy.

jade was totally freaking out about every pinecone though

jade, rook, silver

A/N: was thinking about jamil the entire ice skating segment 🫶🫶

date written: 11/26/23

© temiizpalce — don’t steal or copy my work!

[charlietheepicwriter7]

V The Mysterious Wayne Family

Dick Grayson V Gotham - Chapter 2

“Why can’t I sit in the front seat?” Danny demanded to know, crossing his arms from the back of Dick’s car. 

Dick sighed, peering back at him with the rearview mirror. He’d been shaky as they escaped the apartment without getting attacked by the media. Did the idiot get sick? Was the media in this dimension such a big threat? 

Truthfully, Danny didn’t know a lot about this dimension, despite having lived in it for around a year. That year was spent almost entirely homeless, spending only the last few weeks with Dick. Otherwise, he was sleeping where he could, spending his days in libraries and conning people out of cash as a child medium. 

…Well, calling it “conning” was a bit of an overstatement. He did get people in contact with dead relatives and the like. He just… didn’t always quote them exactly, especially when it meant he could get enough money to eat for the day. 

“It’s unsafe, Danny, you know that.”

Danny glared at him from his booster seat, which put him perfectly at eye level so he could lock eyes with Dick with the rear-view mirror. He hated this whole situation: the booster seat, his age, needing to rely on an adult, the stupid media, the stupid police, the stupid Dick… Okay, he kinda liked the booster seat. It was based off of some hero—Superbman—who was an alien? But looked like a human?

That may be one of the biggest differences between this dimension and his hom–the dimension he was born in. Danny had been one of the only heroes back there, along with Valerie and Dani, if you could even call them heroes. In this dimension? There were hundreds. There were space aliens to normal people in costumes to other humans with powers, and while not all of them were heroes, a lot of them were. 

And Danny hated how easy they had it. 

Every day back in Amity Park was a fight for acceptance, a battle to convince people that yes, he was a ghost with good intentions, only for that trust to be lost the moment he wasn’t fast enough to stop a ghost from hurting someone, or got thrown through a wall trying to protect people. It was constantly one step forward and one step back, and nothing Sam or Tucker or Jazz said ever truly made him okay with it.

Despite everything, he hoped Amity Park was doing alright without him. He couldn’t go back—wouldn’t go back, even if he had an open portal and his powers, not after what happened—but hopefully they were doing okay. 

He hoped his rogues had listened and stayed away from the Fenton portal. For their own safety.

Like every time he thought of his pa–the Fentons, the scars across his chest flared up. They might have been long-healed, but the pain always lingered, a sharp lance that lingered in the thin skin of his wound. Fiddling around in his pocket, Danny found his juul and puffed. Exhaling, a bubble gum smoke filled the cabin as the CBD started to work its way into his blood. 

Dick coughed. “You know you won’t be able to do that in the manor, right?”

Danny grumbled, rolling down the window a crack. 

“I’m serious, Danny. I know you need it, but the rules are different at the manor. You’ll need to go outside to smoke.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll smoke outside. Wouldn’t want your gramps to get bent out of shape.”

He laughed. “I think Alfred would be alright, once we explain your medical issues. It’s Bruce we’ll have to worry about. He’s got this thing about drugs… once he learns what’s in your juul, he do whatever it takes to get you off it. He won’t even listen if we tell him about your chronic pain, he’ll just think you’re lying!” Dick threw his hand up in the air. “Honestly, it’s just lecture after lecture with him.”

“He can suck a cock then!”

Dick laughed, all traces of anger gone as his bright eyes glanced at him through the mirror. “Say that to his face, and you get ice cream for a week.”

“Done!”

The illusive Bruce Wayne. Danny had heard the name from the TV that morning, and apparently he was Dick’s dad. Not that Dick ever mentioned him in the months they knew each other. Not that this Bruce guy ever visited on the occasions Dick managed to convince him to stay the night, nor in the weeks after his foster placement was finalized. Danny didn’t even know Dick had a dad until this morning, so clearly something was going on here. 

If he focused on this case—the mystery behind the estrangement of Dick and Bruce—then he’d finally be able to get his mind off Mrs. Bennett’s case. The Shade had approached him early that morning, flickering in the moonlight, barely visible and just formed. Her case was so easy too; her killer was her son-in-law, she’d been awake when he killed her and he’d definitely left behind evidence too, but there was no telling if the other detectives at Bludhaven PD would find it. Or would care enough to find it. 

Corrupt bastards. 

Speaking of which—”Are we actually going to be able to consult on cases while we’re in Gotham, or was that just something you said to make me feel better?”

“I believe I said case, as in the singular one with Mrs. Bennett. But yes, I’ve already arranged it with the Commissioner.” 

“But she works for the Damir family! We can’t trust her.”

“We can’t trust her when it comes to cases related to the Damir family,” Dick corrected. “Other than that, she’s decent at her job.”

“That’s not a compliment.”

“She’s better than the other officers in our department?” he tried again.

“Also not a compliment. I’ve met dead guys that are better cops.”

They bantered back and forth, but the closer they got to Gotham, the tenser Dick became. Dick wasn’t the type to get serious out of nowhere—the only times Danny could remember were when a case involved a gang or that one terrible time when some ugly-ass assassin with a stupid-ass name came to town—but whatever was waiting for them… must be bad. Right? 

Gotham, Danny noticed as they drove through town, looked better than Bludhaven, like how rats look better than turds. Danny had heard the rumors about Gotham, mostly about all the dangerous villains, but there was clearly some money going into infrastructure. Beautiful gothic buildings dripping with gargoyles towered overhead, and there weren’t nearly as many boarded up shops and potholes. 

It wouldn’t have been a bad place to set up shop if it weren’t for all the Shades around.

The ghost population of this dimension mostly comprised of Shades with the occasional Poltergeists and Wraiths. Ectoplasm wasn’t as accessible here; just traveling to this dimension had stripped Danny of almost all the ectoplasm in his body and he still hadn’t recovered, so his powers barely worked. But Shades were shadows of humans when they were alive, weak and incorporeal unless you were a ghost too, barely kept together with their obsession.

Bludhaven had a lot of Shades. That’s why Danny settled down there when he first arrived. He wanted to help people move on if he could, either by solving their murder or contacting their loved ones. 

If Bludhaven had a lot of Shades, Gotham had a colossal number. 

Shades clogged the walkways and the streets, dissipating when someone or something went through them and reforming in an instant. Some alleys were plugged with them and some alleys were empty. Danny watched with wide eyes. Ghosts were supposed to be rare. He’d thought ghosts were rare. But Gotham was plagued with violent crime… violent, unique, indescribable crime, worse in intensity from Bludhaven, but not quite there in frequency. There were women with their faces melted off, men ripped in half down the center, children blown to bits, creeping around the streets of Gotham. 

Danny sunk down in his booster seat. “I want to go home,” he admitted quietly. 

Dick sighed. “I know, kiddo. I want to go home too.”

He blinked away stubborn tears. Dick didn’t understand. This wasn’t Danny’s home, this dimension wasn’t Danny’s home, Dick wasn’t Danny’s home (as much as Danny appreciated Dick, he wanted his family, but they hated him, they attacked him, they—)

Dick continued talking. “But you know what? Everything’s going to be okay. Because my grandfather is going to love you. And Bruce— He’s a little rough around the edges and we might not get along right now, but he’s going to love you too.” Dick sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Danny. “Tim’s going to adore you; he’s told me that he’s always wanted a younger sibling and I can’t blame him; his house looks so lonely and his parents were always gone. He’s staying with Bruce now as a foster since his dad’s in a coma, but he’s been family long before that…”

He listened to Dick continue to ramble about his family. Bruce was rarely touched upon in his stories, but Alfred was spoken of with unmistakable love (Danny never knew his grandparents, Mom and Dad were disowned years before he was born, he could probably guess why), and he clearly adored Tim (He could understand that, Danny loved Jazz with his entire soul, but what would it have been like if he had a younger sibling? Would his relationship with Dani have turned into this if they could’ve spent time together?). Dick continued with stories about his best friend and ex-girlfriend, Barabra (Sam and Tuck, Tuck and Sam, his friends were dead and it's his fault—), and even a few including Tim’s ex-girlfriend too.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think. 

Before long, the car slowed to a stop. Ahead of them was a grand manor, the kind shown in those regency tv shows that Jazz loved watching, with obsessively maintained gardens and beautiful, clean exterior. A stone staircase led up to larger-than-life wooden doors; Danny couldn’t identify what kind of wood, but it was probably something expensive and old. Mahogany? That sounded like an expensive wood. 

Dick put the car in park before turning around in his seat to look at Danny. “Alright, buddy. Are you ready to meet our family?”

“Your family,” Danny corrected mulishly, unbuckling his seat belt. 

“Our family,” Dick said again, smiling. “They’re good people, and they’re going to be here for you.”

“Sure.” Sliding out of his seat and out of the car, Danny stayed slightly behind Dick as they walked up the steps and to the front door. Before Dick could knock or find the doorbell, the doors opened to reveal an old stereotypical butler. He even had a British accent! “Master Grayson,” he addressed Dick coolly, but when he looked at Danny, his expression softened. “And Young Master Daniel. It is good to finally meet you, and welcome to Wayne Manor. I am the family butler, Alfred Pennyworth.”

Danny ducked away. “Danny’s fine,” came his muttered response. 

Alfred smiled. “Young Master Danny, then. Come along; Master Bruce is waiting for you both in the foyer.” 

Dick grimaced. Did that mean something bad? What was a foyer, a fancy word for office? Was Dick going to get scolded?

They followed Alfred into the house (although, calling it a house felt like an understatement). It was even fancier inside, with marble floors and a glistening chandelier overhead. Danny felt significantly out of place in his jeans and ratty coat he’d pulled out of the trash.

There was a man pacing in the room (was this the foyer?). He was dressed in a fancy suit and built like a brick house, but looked similar enough to Dick in a weird funhouse-mirror way. The moment he saw them, his face smoothed into a banal smile and Danny immediately didn’t like him. “Dick! You’re home.” Striding up to them, the man immediately hugged Dick, who stiffly returned it. “Welcome back, chum. And who’s this?”

Dick’s smile was strained. “This is my foster son, Danny. Danny, this is Bruce; I was his ward until I turned 18.” Ouch. Not even a foster son, but a ward? That sounded like a significant step down from fostering. Danny glared at Bruce, who seemed taken aback by his hostility. Dick laughed nervously. “Sorry about him, he’s shy.” Now Danny glared at Dick. 

Bruce’s smiled evened out as he crouched down, like that would hide his fucking massive body. “It’s nice to meet you, Danny,” he said. “I’m very happy you're here. Hopefully it’ll be a lot more peaceful now that you’re staying with us.”

Danny scowled. “Suck a cock, douchebag.”

Bruce’s smile dropped as Dick smothered a laugh. “Watch your mouth,” Dick scolded without any heat behind it. Danny smirked. 

“It’s okay, Dick,” Bruce said, straightening up. “I’m sure Danny’s just shaken up from the sudden change. I’m feel the same, since you didn’t tell any of your friends or family that you were taking in a child.”

“Oh, so you can adopt a child without telling anyone, but when I do it—”

Alfred stepped in. “If you both could contain yourselves a minute longer, I can get the Young Masters settled in. I’ve already arranged a room for you in the family ward, Young Master Danny, if you’d like to rest? It is still rather early in the morning.”

“It might be better to give him a tour of the manor before anything else,” Dick said, eyeing Danny warrily. 

“I’m not going to get lost.”

“Mhmm.” Dick didn’t believe him. 

“I’m not!”

“Just like how you didn’t get lost at the precinct? Or at the morgue? Or at—”

“I never got lost on the streets!” Danny thought that was rather impressive. Besides, it’s not his fault the morgue was just empty hallways that all looked the same!

“The streets are labeled. Besides, you’ll never know where the in-house theater is without a tour.” Dick winked, like that was a big selling point. 

Bruce interrupted them. “Why don't you give him a tour after we talk, Dick? It’s been a long time since we last spoke and I was hoping to ask you about your… recent life change.”

Dick pinched the bridge of nose. “Of course you want to start the interrogation right away,” he muttered, eyebrows furrowed. “Alright, but I don’t want Danny to hear this. Alfie, could you– Tim!” Following Dick’s glance, Danny found a teenager in his fancy pajamas standing on the stairs leading to the second floor. The teen, who looked enough like Dick to be his brother and Bruce’s son, rubbed his eyes like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Tim can take you on the tour! Come on, Danny.” 

Dick ushered Danny up the stairs to Tim. “Will you be okay without me?” Danny asked, not wanting to leave Dick alone with Bruce.

He got a bright smile in return. Danny didn’t trust it. “Of course I will, kiddo. Don’t worry about me, just focus on having fun with Timmy.”

Tim looked blearily between them. “What is going on?”

“You’re taking Danny on a tour so he doesn’t hear me and Bruce fight,” Dick told him plainly. “Danny, this is my brother and Bruce’s foster son, Tim. Tim, this is my foster son, Danny. You two have fun!”

Ignoring Tim’s protests that he hadn’t had breakfast yet, Dick pushed them up the stairs and into the immediate hallway, closing the door behind him. They stared at each other for a moment before Danny pressed his ear against the crack in the door. “When did Dick get a kid?” Tim asked.

“Like, three weeks ago, keep up.” Tim tried to say something again, but Danny shushed him. After a moment, Tim joined him in eavesdropping by the door. 

Dick spoke. “I’ll start. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you both I was fostering a kid. I was planning to inform you after the two month mark and Danny had settled in a bit more, but obviously that plan is out the window.”

“I accept your apology, Master Dick,” Alfred said, and there was a sigh of relief. “However, I would still like to know how this happened in the first place.”

“I’m more interested in knowing how you managed to foster him without us being interviewed as character references.”

“...I may have used my boss’ influence to make sure that only my co-workers were interviewed?” Dick admitted.

“Master Richard.”

“I’m sorry, Alfie, but he’s a flight risk! Do you know how many times I managed to get him to come home with me only for him to disappear in the middle of the night!? Fourteen times! Danny’s admitted that he ran away from his previous home, he still hasn’t told me his real last name, and he’s paranoid enough to give Bruce a run for his money! I’ve just barely managed to gain his trust. I didn’t need Bruce being Bruce to ruin it for us—”

“If you had asked me to stay away, I would have—”

“No you wouldn’t, Bruce! You’d pick and prod and try to uncover his every little secret because you don’t trust me to figure it out myself! If Danny had suspected that someone was looking into his past, he would have bolted, B. And I would have lost him forever.”

Danny nodded. He would have. Not that Bruce would have found anything about his past–the perks of getting stuck in an alternate dimension–but some rich asshole poking his nose in his business? Danny would have snuck onto the next bus out of the city.

“You can barely take care of yourself, Dick!” Bruce insisted. “If it was such a dire situation, then you could have contacted me and I would have–”

“–Lost him immediately because he has a strange hatred for billionaires?” Dick scoffed. “He wouldn’t let you get within six feet of him if you tried to take custody.”

“I–”

“He bites too.”

“Dick–”

“Hard.”

“Richard–”

“And it’s pretty bold of you to say I can’t take care of myself. Have you looked in the mirror recently? Because the word hypocrite is written across your forehead in crayon.”

“But I’m not the one who struggles to make rent each month.” Danny flinched. He’d known that Dick didn’t get paid that much, but was it really that bad? Didn’t Dick get a pay increase when he was made detective? Or was Danny taking so much money that it negated the pay increase— “Nevertheless, I’m not trying to take custody away from you, Dick. I’m just… trying to figure out how we got to this point.”

“We got to this point by not trusting each other,” Dick said tiredly. “And I still don’t trust you, not after what you did.”

Dick, I–”

“No, Bruce. This is my life. Besides you were only a few years older than me when my parents died and you decided to raise me on your own. It’s hypocritical for you to complain that I’m doing the same. Look, I’ve known Danny for over a year–”

“You mean you’ve hid this from me for over a year?”

“Bruce–”

“I knew I should have been suspicious when you got that foster license. You’ve been planning this for months–”

“Bruce!” Dick snapped, and Danny had never heard Dick that mad before, not even the first time they met. “Obviously I’ve been planning this for months! I’ve been planning this since the first week I met Danny! The only reason I got that damn license was for him!” He felt… warm. Danny knew that foster licenses were hard to get, but Dick had really wanted him since the week they met. Danny had been so… feral back then, he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting him, not even Jazz. Dick continued, voice barely audible through the door. “He’s a good kid. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

A sigh. “I just… don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret, that’s all.”

“Are you saying you regret adopting me?” The angry voice was back. “Adopting Jason?”

“That’s not what I meant—!”

Tim pulled him away from the door. “We shouldn’t be listening to this. Come on, let’s start that tour you need.”

Danny tried to pull away, but Tim was deceptively strong for his thin frame. Despite his struggles, he was halfway down the hall before he knew it. “Let me go, cocksleeve!”

“You don’t need to hear that,” Tim said. “Trust me, things always get… heated between them, when Jason is brought up. That’s not something you need to witness.”

Jason, huh? That must be the linchpin in this entire investigation. Dick had never mentioned a Jason before, but he was clearly important if the entire family got bent out of shape for him. Did Dick cut contact with Bruce because of this Jason? Did Jason force Dick to do it? Dick would never abandon his family like that, Danny knew this had to be true because of his determination in trying to take Danny home, but if he was forced to stay away… Maybe Jason is an associate of Bruce that Dick hates?

Danny finally managed to jerk his arm away. His entire hand ached. “You don’t have to drag me!”

Shock crossed Tim’s face, like he’d finally realized what he was doing, before it fell. “I’m sorry, Danny. I shouldn’t have pulled you. It’s just… Jason isn’t something you should hear about, at your age. I would appreciate it if you didn’t bring him up, especially around Bruce. Okay?”

Studying the boy, Danny agreed. Sounds like Jason’s some sort of criminal contact, so it was best to behave carefully. Danny kicked at the ground, scraping dirt off onto the carpet that ran in the center of the hall. “So, what do you guys do for fun around here?” He asked. “I don’t need a tour, I’m not a baby.”

Tim rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I just spent the night in the library, working on a case? If you want to lend a hand with that?”

Danny narrowed his eyes. “I thought you just woke up?”

“...Just because I was in the library doesn’t mean I was awake the entire time.”

Ah, a fellow insomniac. His eyes narrowed further. “I only like interesting cases. What kind are we talking about? Fraud? Robbery? Some dinky school kid project?”

“Multiple homicides. If that’s interesting enough for you?”

“...Carry on.”

A/N: Anyway, I’m using @/jedipirateking’s age chart for the ages of Batman characters. Since we’re right before Under the Red Hood, that makes Dick 24. Danny is roughly a year younger than Damian, but was originally 17 before he was deaged. 

Dick: Yes, this is my feral street child. Danny: *foaming at the mouth, swearing*

Tim, internally: Oh! Dick must have already informed Danny about our identities! They work on cases together too, maybe we can work on one to bond? Danny, internally: Wow, rich people have weird ass hobbies

Danny: *so close, yet so far from figuring out the Jason thing* Red Hood: Did someone just walk over my fucking grave again?

Yes, some things are being kept vague on purpose. That’s for a better reveal in the future.

@starlightcat04 @maeashryver @widderwise @darkstarsapocalypse @sisma @luminanightfall @storm-fire98 @amyheart19 @collectingthegoods @redhoneysugarorange @lordfirecat2004 @screechingnoises @meira-3919 @dannyphannypack @satisfactionbroughtmeback @rowanaway-fromthisbs @i-always-say-yea @avelnfear @some-rotten-nest @ark12 @heirxofxtime @akikkobara @blep-23 @skulld3mort-1fan @markus209 @stargirl1331 @onlyhereforthechaos @inth3world @awkwardmaiden @fantasticbluebirdfan @currant-owo @alice-hazelwood @screamingtofillthevoid @crystalqueertea @gaelicholiday @gmkelz11 @mattybook1987-blog @bytheoldwillowtree @apointlessbox @chemical-pepis @ghostface3100 @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @bathildaburp @boo-ghosties @bubblemixer @halfalix @lyra689 @dragon-dancer16 @lunadoll36 @mimilikey @hellomygay @frogs-are-pretty-awesom @overtherose @cyrwrites @your-emo-nightmare @lexdamo @roman4517 @a-slytherinish-gryffindor @raginblastocyst @thegatorsgoose @fisticuffsatapplebees @olivethetreebitch @vixen-uchiha @ae-vixrose @joseph557 @kisatamao @gin2212 @thewondersoflebanon @d4ydr34min9 @malice-of-the-sunrise @tiblii @that-awkward-fae-nerd @aph-mable @dolfay @ghostreblogging @wackyattack @writer-extraordinaire @boo-ghosties @coruscateselene @emergentpanda-blog

[lucifers-rubber-duck]

oh my god! I just read the modern time one and it gave me an idea!! hazbin crew with a modern reader that is just so chaotic. but like not even a dangerous chaotic and they could probably be killed by any demon but they just have no regard for their safety at all. if a demon makes them mad, the yell at the random demon (even if it's like Alastor or something, they just don't care) calling it something stupid. or if they so much as encounter a slight inconvenience they act like their dying all over again and then within a few seconds goes back to normal like nothing happened. but is overall just entertaining to have around the hotel

Characters: Charlie, Vaggie, Alastor, Husker, Angel, Niffty, Sir Pentious & Lucifer.

Warnings: None.

A/N: We need more Chaotic!Reader in fics, let Reader be a drama monarch and be extra! Thanks for the ask!

𖤓Charlie

• She lost the count of how many times she apologized in your name to random demons on the streets and stores every time you two go out together, you simply have no filter.

• If a demon annoys you you'll scream at them, if they look at you in a way you didn't like you'll flip them off, you just don't care about your own safety and the fact that you're being rude for no reason and that kills her.

• Every week you'll have a behavior exercise where she'll make you be nice to a member of the hotel or simply do good deeds around hell, she even made you apologize to a demon that you fought in a clothe store once, that's your last favorite part of living in the hotel and you make that clear.

• But your behavior does come in handy sometimes, like when some random thought it would be nice to mess with Charlie and shit-talk her hotel, you threw your hot coffee on them making them run away with an angry grin. She didn't scold you that time but didn't say it was acceptable.

• “There are better ways to… resolve those types of situations, but I'm thankful that you stood up for me, that's another good attitude to have!”; “Whatever you say princess, you can thank me by buying me a new coffee.”

𖤓Vaggie

• Sometimes your way of acting annoys her, a lot, you're just so headstrong and so she is so you two just clash with each other a lot, and neither will give up so easily.

• You would make things that annoy her, like poking her or just making a few rude comments, and that would work because she would always have to hold herself to not put her spear on your throat and silence you herself.

• I imagine Charlie putting you two in one of those “get along” shirts, that didn't end up very well and you two almost threw punches with each other.

• The only moments you two middly get along is when a random attack happens at the hotel, what for some reason actually happens at least once a week, and both of you team up to beat the shit out of the demons, you two would he too tried to fight after.

• “You weren't so bad this time Vagina.”; “Don't make me add another one to my kill count.”; “To your what?”

𖤓Alastor

• You not being scared or intimidated by his presence annoys him like nothing else, he doesn't enjoy not being in control, he likes when people fear him and plead for their lives so your lack of care for his power makes his smile be a little more forced everytime.

• He dislikes your attitude towards him, but mostly dislikes how modern you are, you have no respect for him or the older demons, you're always using slangs he doesn't understand and is always so full of modern technology, he especially doesn't like the VoxTek phone you always carries with you.

• He's pretty verbal on how much he dislikes you, just how you are about him, he wouldn't be as aggressive like Vaggie when showing his dislike, he's more the type to give sarcastic comments than throw punches. There was only one occasion where he used his magic to make your phone get all glitchy with his presence.

• I also think he would like to try and correct you on things just out of spite. Sitting with your legs crossed? He'll tell you to sit properly. Bad posture? He touches your back with his staff making you fix it. Even when you're literally just doing your duties at the hotel, he'll tell you that you're doing it incorrectly to make you mad.

• “That's not how my mom taught me how to do it, you should try another way dear, maybe like that you'll actually be useful for something.”; “Oh, kiss my ass old man, come and do it yourself if you're so bothered by it.”

𖤓Husker

• Hates your guts 90% of the time, he hates the way you're just so careless like you aren't literally in Hell, he wonders how you didn't get yourself killed or had a beef with the wrong people already, you look like the type that would face against a Overlord.

• But he does like having you around the bar sometimes, he won't admit it of course, but he always offer you a drink after he sees you do something that annoys Alastor in the slightest.

• He also saved your ass a few times. When Charlie gives the hotel staff permission to have a night for themselves and go to a club, he just knows you'll enter a fight, doesn't matter how well the night is going, you always manages to get in trouble so he had to keep and eye on you all the time.

• After that fight at the club happened, just Like he tough it would, he has to carry your slightly bruised and heavily drunk body, putting one of your arms around his shoulders and holding you to make sure you don't fall while you state how annoyed you are that he got involved on your stuff again.

• “I could take that motherfucker, get my ass back there so I can show them.”; “And I wish I could take a break from you but we can't always have what we want, can we?”

𖤓Angel

• Do I even have to say he's the one that mostly enjoys your presence? He likes your attitude, your way of dressing, your personality, it matches his and you two can be just the most annoying pricks together.

• Your favorite activity when going out to do whatever is to silently judge sinners on the way, you and him would point at a random sinner while talking about their looks and shit-talking them just because you two can.

• If a sinner ever gets annoyed at you two Angel just knows that you're not going to stay quiet about it and will most likely try to fight them, and as the good friend he is, he's always there to help you out in a fight with some fire power.

• He makes sure to not talk about his boss though, he knows that if you learn about how horrible he's treated by him you'll want to go there and have a conversation with him yourself. He will make sure that you're far away from Valentino with your careless attitude.

• “You know what toots? You should meet my friend Cherri, you two were made for each other.”; “If she's anything like me then I know she's no good influence, when can I meet her?”

𖤓Niffty

• She enjoys your attitude, probably thinks it's attractive and will call you a Bad Boy (in a gender neutral way).

• She's probably giggling every time you're creating chaos or getting into a beef with another demon, you're just her type to be honest and she'll for sure start flirting with you in her own weird way.

• The only way I see her not liking your attitude is if you're openly getting things dirty, like not cleaning the dishes when it's your turn or not bothering to throw the trash in the trash can, the only thing that she likes more than people with bad attitudes e keeping things clean so that's the only way you can really annoy her with your way of act.

• “Hey bad boy, I made you a gift, hehehhehe~”; “How… peculiar… What are those?”; “The mother bugs I killed on front of their children and turned into a necklace.”; “.... Riggghtt…”

𖤓Sir Pentious

• The first time he interacted with you was when he attacked the hotel trying to fight Alastor and you commented on how noisy and weak he looked so let's say he was not very pleased with you at first.

• He's still very annoyed with you at first when he started living at the hotel and would give you the silent treatment, or at least try, he's not very good at just ignoring your rude comments, especially if it is about his looks, you just find his hat funny.

• After you two, forced by Charlie and her exercises probably, started to know each other he would start to like you, you two would just be so extra together, he's a theater kid and you're chaotic neutral energy what could possibly go wrong?

• Definitely tries to act a little bit like you after you two start hanging out, be it by trying to act a little more rude and confident or by trying to use more modern slangs and expressions. You can appreciate the effort.

• “So, wasn't I simply the coolessst ever?”; “If you use the word ‘cringe’ again I'm hitting you on the head with a brick.”

𖤓Lucifer

•If his first impression of your headstrong and somewhat cocky attitude is when you're being rude to Alastor or just your simple existence making the Radio Demon annoyed, he'll already like you.

• He would be surprised at first while interacting with you on how much you just didn't care, you would talk to him like he was a long-term friend instead of the king of Hell that you just met a while ago, are all people on earth like that?

• You would have to be a little patience with him, because he would ask you tips on how to act around people, you're younger and came from a newer generation, he can learn one thing or two with you, especially about the right ways to say insults, you don't need him saying “I'm going to fuck you” again.

• You remind him of Charlie's emo phase, he will chuckle every time you do something that reminds of her smug attitude in that period of her life. Don't be offended if he calls you emo, that's the only word he knows to describe your personality.

• “You remind me of my daughter you know, there was a time she acted just like you, I kinda miss that time if I'm being honest.”; “Are you… complimenting me or insulting your daughter?”

[goingmerryfics]

Affection & PDA w/ Smoker, Corazon, & Robin

Content: Gender neutral reader as always. Lots of fluff here! 

Notes* I NEVER POSTED THIS??? I WROTE THIS IN THE BEGINNING WEEK OF MY BLOG??

Smoker

Smoker loves to be affectionate with you. He’s most comfortable when he’s able to touch you in one way or another, and he most definitely will keep you trapped in his arms for as long as he can get once you’re there

He’s not shy in telling people you’re his person, but he also isn’t very comfortable being too lovey in public

He’s got an image to maintain as a Marine soldier, and he’d rather not have you shadowing him on the job both for his own focus and for your safety

The exception is if you crossed paths while he’s on his patrol around town, of course. He’ll light up when he sees you and ask what you’re doing out, and after a quick conversation he’d be just fine kissing you good-bye and promising to see you later. Tashigi makes a comment at how his cheeks have a tint to them, and he’ll grumble something under his breath along the lines of ‘stop talking’

If you’re in public and he’s off the job, he’s got no problem holding your hand as you walk together, kissing your cheek or sitting close together to share a drink

All that to say moderate PDA is fine

Smoker’s favorite way to show affection is to lie on the couch with you with you on top, head on his chest while he plays with your hair or rubs your back- whatever you’re more comfortable with

Of course he also loves to kiss you anywhere and everywhere he can get. Cheeks, especially

He peppering you with kisses and watching you laugh and try to squirm away from him

He’ll get super embarrassed if you two get caught, though

Corazon

Cora is also someone who is very affectionate with his partner, so much so that they are usually covered in lipstick smudges

His favorite spots to kiss are your nose, lips and neck and they are usually stained with his signature colour

He has definitely taken you down with him a few times while trying to give you kisses

Neither of you is really sure how you two ended up toppling over while you weren’t even moving

He’s not shy to show you off to people, either. Unlike Smoker, he doesn’t care who knows about your relationship

But years of living with a certain someone’s attitude has made him wary

Cora pours his heart and soul into the people he loves, and he doesn’t like to share

He knows all too well the manipulation tactics his brother could impose on you to make you feel bad, or worse- to sway you into his arms instead

I fully believe Doffy would steal Cora’s partners. I haven’t seen Cora’s episodes yet so who knows how accurate this is but I’m sticking to it

Cora is extremely possessive over you. So being publicly affectionate with you only comforts him in knowing that everyone believes you’re his

His favorite thing to do is to pick you up, your legs wrapped around his torso, pressing kisses all over you

It doesn’t happen often with how many times he’s dropped you or himself, though

Corazon would love surprise kisses

When you’re alone, he’ll ramble on and on about how he feels about you, all sorts of sweet things

Robin

Robin is not shy about giving you affection, but she is classy with it

With her Devil Fruit powers, she can reach you anywhere to hold your hand or give you some sweet touches

Her preferred method of showing you love, in her motherly fashion, is to gently caress your cheek with the back of her hand

She’ll also keep an arm around your waist or shoulders, knowing how the feeling of being held is comforting to you

She’s comfortable giving you quick kisses and loving words in front of the crew, but in a public setting- especially when you’re all new to the area, she’ll go as far as holding your hand and that’s about it

The best time to give her affection is while you’re out on the sea

Lazy days in the sun, just sitting together while she reads, your head in her lap while she swipes her thumb over your cheek in soft, slow motions

It would be very easy to fall asleep there if it weren’t for the chaos of the rest of the crew

Robin will welcome affection anytime, too. No matter what she’s doing on the ship, as long as she’s in a good mood, if you sneak up behind her and wrap your arms around her or lean down to kiss her cheek in passing, she’ll always end up smiling to herself 

Robin isn’t used to being treated kindly- at least in a physical sense. It took her forever to learn to trust the crew to that point, and a little longer with you because of how intimate your relationship was. So having gotten to this point where you two are happily able to share these precious moments is very important to her

[zvezdacito]

A Different Perspective on the Levan -> Crowley theories, who to trust and a way of tying it to the themes of the story

Preface: This isn't really gonna be a super serious compilation of solid proof, symbolism or anything, more like just me yapping abt something I happened to randomly think of yesterday and thought "it would actually be kinda interesting from a writing standpoint if this is the thing they go for instead of what everyone was expecting". Kind of long but I promise it will be at least interesting AU material if anything so just bear with me lmao

Ok so basically so far the general trajectory of theories is something bad happened to Levan while he was missing that made him into Crowley who is doing some kind of evil scheming that will disregard the safety of his family and students sooner or later. Generally Levan is the good self while Crowley is the fucked up self, and it would probably be better if Levan was here instead of him

But what if it's actually more like the other way around. That Levan is the one we should be looking out for, and Crowley is the trustworthy version of him this entire time?

What if everything Levan went through made it inevitable for him to snap and be vengeful and do evil shit so Crowley is basically his sane self's last ditch effort to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone and ruin people's lives, basically using the goofy Crowley personality to suppress and forget the vengeful Levan personality

Like the "Levan's soul got fractured and split into pieces and the pieces that remember his past are sealed away" theories, but instead of usual reasons it's him who sealed them away ironically to remain as true to his original self as possible, than if it remained and he turned into someone violent and hateful against his own principles.

I feel like it would be even more of a twist since they keep emphasizing how kind and peaceful Levan is so I don't think neither Meleanor, Lilia nor the audience would expect the OG Levan described that way to actually turn out cruel and untrustworthy who the seemingly suspicious and cowardly Crowley was actually trying to manage the whole time

Also it would kind of be more straightforward as to why he would choose to forget Lilia and Malleus than if Crowley was fucked up Levan and forgot them even though his goal would be to revive Meleanor and his old life with them anyway

It's hard to tell right now but Crowley despite his goofiness doesn't really seem to harbor any malice against anyone, nor would he be the type to seriously blood sacrifice any of his students, even if he does abandon them sometimes. In this new context maybe it would even make sense if he abandons them so the subconcious Levan doesn't try to find opportunity to break out/cause trouble through blot and magic related situations?

So yeah it would be cool if it turned out Crowley was the "good" version of Levan all along, and Levan overtly and subtextually is just trying to gaslight the audience into distrusting Crowley so they can set a chain reaction of events going to unseal him so he can do whatever he wants to

Also Crowley probably knows he has to keep Levan locked away no matter what but also doesn't dare try to remember what Levan remembers because that would go against the whole point of keeping Levan locked away in the first place. His memory of his past is just puzzle pieces w/o the bigger picture. He has to be atleast partially aware that he has to not give in to the voice in the back of his mind for the sake of others

Like he knows he had to leave behind a family behind and forget them so he would not hurt them, but he doesn't exactly remember who anymore which is why he isn't really flinching or anything when around Malleus and Lilia at NRC

Though I feel like him suppressing Levan lowkey also took a toll on his mental state. So they actual conclusion would for him to basically symbolically stop suppressing his trauma in an attempt to be a perfect victim because it's not working either way and the only way for Levan to rest in peace is if he finds closure. Whatever that may be.

Maybe if Yuu and co. find out they encourage him to do this to his surprise basically saying "Don't worry headmage we'll beat the shit out of evil Levan for you if he goes out of control (you are so annoying so we've always wanted to do this)"

The reveal and Crowley needing to stop supressing Levan in his subconcious to let him process what he should have would make sense, since it would also tie in to the overarching theme around the overblots:

That even though they're ugly and hurtful manifestations of trauma they need to play out so the OBer can finally grow as a person instead of bottling it all up and being in denial

And also so they can finally come to terms with something that happened to them even if they can't change it

^ Accidentally sort of also combined this with the "Crowley's mask is hiding the fact that he's in a paused state of overblot that he just managed to sorta control" theory. Maybe overblot is what he had to stop Levan from devolving into in the first place

↑ This ties back to my HC for Levan's personality being a natural coward and not as battle-oriented but tries to be strong as he sees Meleanor and Lilia to be as well as making the most out of the skills the does have (using cowardice and sensitivity to be a master diplomat and educator instead) so he can feel like he has the right to continue to stand by their side. Maybe he didn't even care much for being considered kind until that's what Mel and Lilia saw his actions as instead of weak or foolish, that being what made him want to work on that newly defining trait of his now

Lilia at one point mentions that even tho Levan tries to perform honor student he could be as picky of an eater as Meleanor was and Lilia would have to eat his spare food too

Adding to the possibility Levan was always the type to make twice an effort to be 'kind' and strong to compensate for his nature that he sees as inherently lacking. This is also probably why he'd be super harsh on himself as Crowley

Oomf also suggested that this may add a layer to why his catchphrase ended up being "For I'm so gracious". As if to remind himself to keep up the effort to be such because he fears his natural state is one that isn't, as well as him encouraging himself to always be forgiving so Levan doesn't gain the upper hand from his subconcious

↑ Ok so I don't have the brainpower to paraphrase this too so I'll just copy paste what I talked to another oomf about here because it's also interesting

That's pretty much it, hope the general idea and effect was conveyed properly🔥🔥🔥 I don't think the exact details need to be followed since it probably has a bunch of holes itself, but the general gist of Crowley being the more positive side of Levan instead of the expected inverse all along + it making more sense as to why Levan would be motivated to forget + tying into the themes of overblotting and trauma would be interesting I think. Kind of a clever misdirection. All of this is not super substantiated though since even now we barely know anything about either Levan or Crowley, so really only time will tell. Personally kinda got attached to this direction for Crowley's character so I hope they go with something adjacent to the heart fo it at least

The other option is he's not Levan at all and we're racking our brains over this for no reason lmao

[penny00dreadful]

Brain worm! 🪱 Just a lil silly somethin written in a daze.

Eddie had to wrench the wheel back so he didn't run the fucking van into a tree.

Did he seriously, seriously just see what he thought he just saw?

As soon as there was a gap in the road Eddie swung the van around and pulled into the gas station he had just passed, trying to keep as low a profile as possible.

Which was no mean feat considering the state of his catalytic converter but once he'd pulled up into a dark corner, a glance in the wing mirror told him he hadn't been spotted.

It also told him that, yes. He'd been correct on his initial passing glance. He was actually seeing this shit.

Eddie glanced down at his clothes. Ripped up jeans, his 'Hell Awaits' Slayer t-shirt depicting a giant inverted pentagram, demons and hellfire, chains, rings, leather jacket, battle vest, boots.

Yeah, he looked sufficiently scary.

Night was starting to fall around him so he still went unnoticed as he slid carefully out of the van and made his way over to the two lone figures just barely lit up by the harsh artificial exterior lights.

He planted himself just behind, what looked like, some middle class dad type who was standing just a little too close for comfort.

Eddie crossed his arms and spoke to the second figure barking out in the lowest tone of voice he could muster.

"Just what the fuck do you think you're doing, young man?"

The middle class dad whipped around. The second his eyes landed on Eddie he had a look on his face like the devil himself had just manifested behind him.

Without a second of wasted time he scampered away, tail between his legs, leaving Mike Wheeler standing there, wide eyed, pale faced and terrified.

Good.

"Edd-" Mike swallowed, slowly backing away as Eddie advanced. "What are you doing here?"

Mike's back hit the wall and Eddie took one more step forward, looming over him. "You don't get to ask questions, Wheeler. You get to answer them. Now I'm only going to ask this one more time: Just what THE FUCK are you doing out here?"

"N-nothing! We were... I was just-"

There was a clatter and some hushed expletives before the rest of The Party appeared around the corner.

"He's not here alone!" Dustin shouted, apparently under the impression that that was going to calm Eddie down in any way at all.

"And you think that makes this better, does it?"

"Yes! Safety in numbers!"

"There is no safety in whatever the hell I just witnessed!" Eddie exploded. "There is no safety in being at a remote gas station on the outskirts of town at night and talking to strange men for whatever reason!"

The kids all looked to be in various stages of shock, clearly not expecting Eddie to lay into them so fiercely but he didn't care. He refused to feel bad for them.

"Tell me, oh braniacs, what would have happened if someone had come along and snatched Little Wheeler up, huh? Would you have chased after the car on your bikes?" He sneered. "How would you have contacted anyone? How long would it take someone to get here? What if one of you had been attacked? Or robbed? Or murdered? What would you have done then?! How could you all be so stupid?"

"It's not stupid! We weren't being stupid!" Dustin shouted back. "We have our walkies-!"

Eddie laughed, cold and mean and so, so angry but Dustin continued to dig his own grave.

"You all never let us try anything! You never give us a sip of beer or a smoke or any of your weed which we know you still have-"

"Watch it, Henderson." His voice was low and dangerous.

"So we were just trying to get someone to buy something for us, that's all!"

"Oh that's all? That's all, is it? And you have money to pay for this purchase?"

Dustin scoffed. "Of course."

"So tell me, what would have happened if someone went in there and bought you your beer but then decided that wasn't payment enough? What would you have done if he started asking or demanding something else?"

"Like what?"

"Oh I don't know, what could a grown man possibly want with a fifteen year old little boy?" Eddie shook his head. "You know what, I'm not having this conversation out here. Get in the van."

"But... our bikes-"

"GET IN THE FUCKING VAN, HENDERSON!"

Eddie observed in stony silence, his face thunderous as the kids all loaded their bikes into the back of the van before they scuttled in themselves, quiet and cowed.

He slammed the drivers side door closed before turning his key in the ignition and pulling out of the gas station, the silence in the car suffocating, bouncing off the walls.

"Um..." They were nearly halfway back to Hawkins by the time Will's small voice cut through the air. "You're not going to tell our parents, are you?"

Eddie looked back at him in the rear view mirror. The kids were all watching his reaction with worry and Eddie refused to drop his anger in the face of Baby Byers. Not this time. Not for this. He had to stay angry because if he stopped being angry he might just lose himself in what if's.

"No. I'm not going to tell your parents."

The kids all sighed in relief, somehow still believing they were being let off the hook.

"But I am going to tell Steve."

The explosion nearly shook the van. The kids were all screaming, begging, nearly crying not to tell him.

"No! No, Eddie, please!"

"You can't tell him, he'll kill us!"

"Yeah, then he'll bring us back from the dead just to kill us again!"

"You can't do this to us!"

"You know what he's like, Eddie! You can't sell us out to him like that!"

"I can and I will!"

"Can you... can you- shit. Can you please tell him, like, gently? So he doesn't freak the fuck out? He's your boyfriend, he'll listen to you!"

"You all are in no position to be asking for favours right now." Eddie brought the car to a stop in the Harrington driveway. "So here's how it's going to go. We are going to go inside. You are going to tell Steve exactly what just happened. Then the two of us are going to explain to you exactly why what you all just pulled was so monumentally dangerous. Whatever he decides to do with you all after that is up to him. He is your babysitter. You all bestowed that title on him. I am just the babysitter's boyfriend. It's out of my hands."

"Oh, but... you could be our babysitter too?" Dustin tried, a clear and pathetic attempt to make the incoming shitstorm go smoother.

"Not a chance, Henderson." Eddie hopped out and made his way around, throwing open the back doors of the van and gesturing to the now open front door where an extremely distinctive swoopy haired silhouette stood. "Go and face your fate."

[syn4k]

i take people at their word when they state their identity even if they're acting in a way that's seemingly contradicting that because 1. they know themself better than i do 2. i dont know the deets of whats going on in their life 3. good for them honestly and 4. im not a cop.

This applies to non queers as well. If I meet a guy who says he's straight but says some super sus stuff sometimes then whatever. if he really is gay but hasnt figured it out yet? he'll do it on his own time. if he's saying he's straight for safety reasons or because he doesn't know me yet? completely understandable, i've done the same myself and i won't press it. if he's straight and is just Like This? w honestly.

this also makes it funnier if anything Does end up happening because if they trust u enough to eventually tell you something along the lines of "hey man i'm gay" you get the opportunity to just nod and go "ah. thought so. congrats! i'm really proud of you! if you ever want to talk about it, i'm open" and watch them just kind of Process that.

[theyhavetakenovermylife]

Anger: Leonardo’s Ending (18+)

2007!Leonardo x reader

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Raphael’s Ending

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A/N: This is Leonardo’s ending of Anger, with the focus mainly on him, for those of you who want to stay with Leo. Raphael’s ending will be posted soon💙❤️

---------

All characters are aged up.

Warnings: Spelling, emotions, oral - male receiving, face fucking, dirty talk, name calling, rough unprotected sex.

---------

Days went by, after that night on the roof with Raphael and Leonardo, and yet, the sadness and confusion did not settle. Slowly the days turned into a week. Then they turned into two. You sat in your apartment throughout those two weeks, with your head heavy with thought. Your school and work had taken its toll and was put on the back burner, while you stared into the air, thinking with the same questions running through your mind, over and over again. What were you going to do? Who were you going to choose?

You could just say no to both of them. They had done you wrong. You started biting your nail as you thought it through once more. A bad habit you had picked up over these last two weeks, which you had caught yourself in several times. There was no hiding that this was stressing you. And with every stressing thought, you found yourself dreaming of comfort. The comfort at Leonardo’s arms used to bring you. Raphael had brought you comfort for these past two years, but there was just something about Leo’s arms you found yourself missing.

During these two weeks, you had found yourself dreaming, day and night, about waking up in Leo’s arms, and learned that all of this was a dream. He laughed at you telling him about his travels to South America and called you silly, before telling you he would never do such a thing and leave you like that… But he did… In all of two years… Leaving you alone and fearful for his life and safety, with only his brother as a form of security in that unsure time.

It was everytime you reminded yourself that Leo did in fact leave you, you felt your heart break all over again. You had to look the truth in the eyes, and stare into its fiery pupils - Leo left you once. He could easily leave you again. And as much as you missed Leo and his strong, warm arms, it was this thought that held you back. Could you bear going back to him, if he then decided to go back to South America? Was it worth the possible pain it could bring you? Well, that was the questions you had spent two weeks contemplating.

During those two weeks, Leo had been taking his room back, ever so slowly. Airing it out, spending time in there, trying his hardest to ignore the smell of you and his brother, as he brought back every memory of you and him. The first night you stayed over in his room, cuddling all night in his bed and talking about whatever was on your mind. The way you had softly whispered to him, as you ever so slowly fell asleep in his arms. The first time he ate you out, keeping you close to the edge, until you came undone onto his face. Or the time he watched you try to get off on his thigh, only for him to stop you right before your peaking, once again, keeping you close to the edge. Leo missed it. He missed you.

By the end of the two weeks, Leo finally found himself being able to relax on his own bed in his own room. The smell Raph had brought upon his room was now so faint, that he could easily push it out. Yet his thoughts did not move from you. He thought of your beautiful face, along with your sparkling eyes and pretty smile. Leo knew he shouldn’t be thinking about you like that while waiting for you to choose - he was only going to hurt himself if you decided to go for him. Yet Leo just couldn’t help but think of you.

It did not feel right to be home without you. Nothing felt right without you. If Leo had thought that two years in the jungle with nothing but the thought of you as company was hard, then knowing that you were nearby, unable to touch or talk to you was torture. But maybe that was just was Leo should get used to it. Maybe you didn’t want either Leo or Raph. Maybe you had enough of them, feeling like you couldn’t trust any of them. Leo did not blame you. Leo had left you and Raph had taken advantage of you. Why would you want to be with any of them?

As the night was nearing closer, Leo cast a glance towards his bedroom door. Everyday for the past two weeks, he had been looking at it, hoping you would walk through it. Whenever his door knob would wiggle, he would sit up, his heart beating fast, thinking it was you. But instead it would be Master Splinter or one of his brothers, telling him they were ready for training or that the dinner table was set. So when the doorknob started wiggling once again under his gaze, he thought that it might be Michelangelo, asking him if he wanted to play some video games with him.

“I’ve already told you, Mikey”, Leo sighed, turning his gaze back towards the ceiling, before covering his face with his hands. “I’m not in the mood for video games today. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Well, in that case”, a familiar and slightly playful voice said, making Leo gasp and his eyes widen in realization. “I’ll be back tomorrow”.

“No! (Y/N)! Wait!”, Leo said, jumping from the bed. The sight of you made him stall, his heart beating fast and his throat knot up. You looked tired, yet you were as beautiful as ever, dressed in a hoodie and joggers, your hair sat up loosely. Oh how Leo had missed that look on you. How you usually would dress when you came to see him, knowing you would spend most of your time together in bed.

You walked into his room and closed the door behind you, leaning your back against it with a small smile. “Hey”.

Leo did not greet you. Instead he ran to you, wrapping his arms around you so he could pull you close, his head dipping into the crook of your neck, feeling your arms wrap tightly around him. The feeling of being back in each other’s arms was almost enough to make both of you cry. You could not help the small tear that fell down your cheek, as you pressed your face against Leo’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry”, you mumbled against his skin.

“No, I’m the one that’s sorry”, Leo said, holding you even closer against him. “I was the one that left in the first place. I was the one that stopped writing. I’m the reason that all this happened, and I’m sorry, (Y/N)”.

“But I still shouldn’t have done it”, you whimpered against him. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry, Leo”.

“It’s okay”, Leo said, absentmindedly placing a tender kiss against your neck. “It’s not your fault. You have done nothing wrong”.

The feeling of Leo’s against your neck, made you breathe in, pressing your chest closer to Leo’s plastron. The small sound that came from you as you did so, was one that Leo hadn’t heard in a long time. It sounded like sweet music to his ears. A sound he had missed for so long.

Leonardo pulled his face from your neck, taking in your face before him. Your lips slightly parted and your eyes glossed over, yet you were still as beautiful as the day he first met you. Leo placed a hand on your cheek, stroking your face with his thumb, watching as you leaned into the touch, a glint of satisfaction and happiness opening in your eyes, the corners of your mouth moving up a little. Leo leaned his face closer to yours, watching for any reaction that told him not to do so. But all he was met by, was your sparkling eyes, begging him to come closer. Finally his lips met yours in a tender sweet kiss. The delight he felt when you kissed him back just as tenderly made his stomach erupt in erratic butterflies.

Pulling from the kiss, he leaned his forehead against yours, his thumb still stroking your face, feeling relief and joy wash over him. “I missed you, (Y/N)”.

“I missed you too, Leo”.

The two of you moved to Leo’s bed, where you moved under the cover. You laid facing each other, your hands and eyes moving each other’s faces, feeling and seeing what you had been missing for so long. Then you moved forward, hiding your face under his chin, pressing yourself as close to his plastron as possible. In reaction Leo wrapped his arms around you and held you close, moving his snout so it rested on top of your head, taking in your scent.

But it was there, while holding you close, that Leo once again remembered Raph’s words. That frustrating smell of his brother somehow seemed to be making its way back into his room, making insecurity show its ugly face inside of Leo’s head. He just had to know if what Raph said was right. He just had to know.

“There’s still one thing I would like to know”, Leo said softly, trying to hide the feelings that were messing with him. You in turn looked up at him, your pretty eyes telling him you were listening. “Was Raph better than me?”

This question stunned you for a moment, unsure of what to say. You could feel Leo’s eyes on you, patiently waiting for an answer. “He wasn’t better”, you finally said. “He was just… different”.

Leo once again felt that feeling grow inside of him. Anger. A need for revenge. Maybe it was his animalistic urges, but he suddenly felt a strong need for taking. Taking what was his.

“Different?”, Leo asked, letting a hand slide down your back, until it rested on your ass. “Like different in a good way?”

You were not sure of what to make of Leo’s questioning. You guess that Raph was different in a good way, but you wouldn’t say that he was better than Leo. They were two different people with two different personalities, and two different ways of having sex. It would be like comparing apples to pears. Or cucumbers to bananas. Both a good size and length but with two different flavors.

Leo moved his lips to your neck once more, where he slowly and carefully traced them around, his lips and tongue showering your skin with small kisses that made you breath heavily.

“I- I don’t know, Leo”, you whispered, arching your body to get closer to him.

“Was it good?”, Leo asked, as he slowly pushed you onto your back, moving on top of you so he could continue your soft kisses on your neck. You closed your eyes at the feeling, enjoying the familiar feeling of his soft lips against you. You bit your lip as you felt one his hands moving under your hoodie and top, softly stroking the side of your waist, sending goosebumps over your skin. “You can tell me yes or no, (Y/N)”, he breathed against your skin.

“Yes”, you finally whimpered under him. “It was different. Not bad. Not better. Good”.

“How did Raph do it?”, Leo asked, as he continued to kiss and nibble around your neck.

“What?”, you asked in confusion. Did you hear him right? Did he really just ask that? You expected him to be mad at you for admitting you enjoyed what Raph had done to you.

“How did Raph do it?”, Leo asked even more firmly, pushing himself further up so he could look you in the eyes, seriousness painted in his irises. He wanted to know.

“Rough”, you answered, slightly out of breath from Leo’s kisses. “Hard”.

You could see the gears turn in Leo’s head as he thought, his eyes moving over you; your face and your body. Then suddenly he grabbed you and turned you over, so that you were pressed down onto your stomach. You would turn to ask Leo was he was doing, but he took your arms and held them down over your head, and held your thighs open and spread with his knees, all while grinding his groin against your ass. You gasped at this, trying to turn your head towards him, catching the sight of him out of the corner of your eye. Leo leaned his head down to your ear, his breath hitting the edge making you shiver.

“Like this?”

“Yes”, you whimpered.

“What else did he do?”, Leo asked, grinding harder against you, causing you to moan under him.

“He didn’t ask”, you breathed out. “He just did”.

“Like this?”, Leo asked, janking your joggers down in a swift move, leaving you in your hoodie and underwear, before giving your left cheek a hard smack, causing you to moan out instead of answering. “I can smell you, (Y/N)”, Leo growled into your ear. “You enjoy this, don’t you?”

“Y- yes”, you whimpered, arching your ass against Leo’s grinding hips.

Leo sat up and pulled you up with him. Without a word he pulled your hoodie off, followed by your top, your exposed nipples getting hard in the cold air of Leo’s room. He placed a hand around your throat before pulling you in for a hungry kiss, his other hands grabbing your breasts. You moaned against Leo’s lips, causing him to retract his hand from your chest, moving it to his cloaca, letting himself drop into his hand.

Leo pulled back from the kiss, taking a look at your face to make sure that you were okay. Your face along with your strong smell almost assaulted him. Your arousal so strong, it could knock him out.

Using the hand around your throat, Leo moved your head down towards his aching penis. The sight almost made your mouth water. “Suck it”, Leo breathed, using his other hand to point it towards your face. “Suck it like you have never sucked it before”. You hesitated for a moment, feeling how Leo’s words shot straight to your core. Leo had never been big on blowjobs, always finding it more satisfying to go down on you. But you could not deny how erotic you found it, having your face forced down to Leo’s aching member, ordering you to take it in your mouth. And so you did. Wrapping your hands around his base, licking from the bottom to the top, catching the pre-cum that was leaking from the opening, before taking him into your mouth, hollowing out your cheeks.

“Fuck”, Leo moaned, moving his hand from your throat to your hair, as you moved your head up and down his shaft. “Such a good girl. Taking me so good”, he breathed out, his fists taking a hold of your hair. You felt yourself clenching around empty air at his words. It was a rarity to hear Leo curse, even during sex. This different side to Leo had you excited in a whole new way. You moaned against his cock, making Leo buckle his hips against your mouth, forcing himself further down your throat making you gag lightly. “You can do better than that”, Leo purred. “Such a dirty girl like you can take more than that”. He took a hold of your head, moving your face up and down on him. You gagged, causing Leo to raise his hips before thrusting into your mouth, your gurgling noises spurring him on.

Before Leo could reach his peak he pulled out of your mouth, pushing you back onto the bed. Out of breath you watched him as he positioned himself between your legs, pulling your underwear down before opening your legs open, revealing your aching core to him.

“I’ve waited two years for this”, Leo growled, taking in the scent of your arousal as he lined himself up with your entrance, making you moan at his words. “I’m going to fuck you so good, (Y/N). No one will ever fuck you as good as I will tonight”.

“Leo”, you whimpered, feeling his head rest against your entrance. Normally this would be the time where Leo would tease you, make you beg, before he finally would slide in. But not this time. Leo pushed into you with no warning, thrusting hard and fast into you, causing you to throw your head back in surprise and pleasure. He cursed at the feeling of your warm tightness around him, forcing your leg out to the side, making it possible for him to go deeper.

Leo placed his hand back on your throat, turning your face towards him as he spoke. “Who would have thought you would be such a slut”, he said, his other hand finding your clit, rubbing against it as he continually thrusted into you. “Loving to get used like that. In that case, I will use you and fuck you over and over, like the good slut you are”.

“Please don’t stop, Leo!”, you moaned out, using everything in you to talk, your body feeling overwhelmed with pleasure. The familiar feeling in your lower stomach building up, surprising you with its sudden appearance. “I’m close!”

“I’ll never stop”, Leo growled. “Be a good girl and cum. Be my good slut and cum for me”. Leo’s lips once again found your neck, biting onto your skin like a hungry animal, pushing you closer and closer to your peak, making you a shaking and moaning mess underneath him.

Your peak washed over you with a moan like scream, that surely all of the lair could hear. You clung onto Leo as he fucked you through your high, never letting down the momentum. Just as you started to relax, thinking you had time to breathe, Leo pulled out of you and threw you onto your stomach, forcing your ass up in the air, before once again rentaring your sensitive cunt. You yelled out in confusion and pleasure, asking Leo what he was doing.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I had been waiting for two years”, Leo growled, holding onto your hips as his pistoned against you, the sound of skin smacking together echoing through the room. “We have two whole years of fucking to make up for”. He finished that sentence with a slap against your right cheek.

It didn’t take long before Leo had taken his room back, replacing the smell of you and Raph with you and him, just like it used to be.

[idyat]

An idea

Hank x reader angst/fluff

Like reader getting Hurt and Hank going insanelly mad/protective over them 👀👀

Hank x reader

Insert Title

Summary: You almost die lmao

WARNINGS: Pretty hefty description of gore, blood and an almost dead body, reader gets shot lol

--------------------------------------------------

The alarm screamed as you ran through the halls, emptied out gun in one hand, the other trying its best to reach for your tablet and balance the files you were told to steal at the same time.

When you got it, you checked to make sure you were going the right direction. North West, drive-through storage room, perfect.

On your way there you smashed the alarm disabler off once you passed by it, for good measure. You winced from the glass shards but at least that damn noise was finally off. Picking up a gun from a dead agent, you ran down the building to where you needed to go as fast as possible before any reinforcements come and rough you up even more than you already were.

Eventually reaching the room you were supposed to exit through, you see a strange contraption on the door. You slowed down to check it out, make sure it's not a bomb, and it's...got S.Q inscripted on it? What the fuck?

A weird machine-looking thing with S.Q's logo or whatever tapped on it, stuck on th-

You hear a click and a beeping noise.

As you turn around, you barely have time to see yellow before a shot echoes in the room.

Fuck. You forgot how clever those engineer bastards could be.

* * *

"Hank? Do you hear me?"

Hank brought his bloody hand up to his earpiece.

"Loud and clear. What do you want Doc?"

2BDamned was lucky he only interrupted Hank after he was done killing all the agents in the room, otherwise he would have gotten a way ruder response, if any at all.

Hank wasn't eager on actually listening to anything that was about to be said to him, until the name of his lover was brought up.

"They were supposed to have left the base with the documents by now, but their tracker has been backing away from the exit? I think something happened to them. North-west, 1st floor storage room."

2B didn't need to tell Hank what to do, the latter dropped the corpse he was holding and rushed out like a raging ghost, ready to mow down whatever came across his path.

* * *

The engineer dragged his last victim's body along the floor as he communicated what he found on them.

"Yup, they were the one with the files. Gotta say, I'm surprised at how easy it was to trick them, I might as well have wiggled a cardboard cutout of Nick and they would've fallen for it!"

The radio-like voice laughed before quieting down when something was said in the intercom.

"Make sure to check if they're dead. Stay wary of your surroundings too, last time we checked the rest of 'em were still here."

"Yeah yeah. I'm using a big caliber, I'm sure it'll be good."

The ATP brought the body up to his eyes. There were indeed multiple gaping holes in their body, slowly gushing out blood and leaving a red trail behind him.

"Your optimism will be your downfall engineer, be careful."

"If you say so. Hey, now that we've mentioned Nick, tell him to buy me some smokes when he lea-"

The engineer suddenly whipped his body around, gun pulled up.

"...I heard something. Over."

It's funny how serious he just got, pointing his flashlight and weapon at every corner of the room, slowly advancing, dragging your body with much more care than before.

He begins going down the hall just a little bit faster. Both out of safety, and maybe because of a tiny prick of fear.

While he power walks, he looks back behind him one last time, just to check. The next thing he knew, he bumped against a tall bloody mass.

Just like you, the last thing he saw before blacking out was the splashing of his own blood.

But despite the burning rage, the want to hear this asshole scream until its lungs were fried, the killing machine threw the two halves of the body to the wall and fell to his knees, hands shaking in a frenzy to find out how to make rudimentory treatments before his dearest bled out.

All he could do at the moment was rip up tissues to stuff into the bullet holes and wrap a bandage around the wounds. He would have just torn off hunks of his own flesh to replace yours, but he wasn't yet sure if not only that would lead to an infection or not, or if that would even work any better than cloth.

Even when unconscious, your hands twitched at his first-aid attempts. It hurt. He knew it hurt. But he couldn't do anything about it. And on fucking god if that didn't break his heart. That and the dread of watching the life essence still slowly flow out of you as he called up to Doc.

"Emergency. NOW."

He held you up and ran to the car. No one could see it, but he was praying to any deity that may be left up there for you to be okay.

Protecting you was the best thing he knew to do. Even more than murder. And failing even this once would be a fate worse than an eternity of hell.

* * *

Pain. That was all you felt as the medbay light made you tear up slightly.

You closed your eyes, trying to sleep just a bit more, and potentially numb the horrible pain in your chest, but your attention is now also caught by the muffled voices in the room.

It takes a few minutes and what feels like a few injections for you to finally fully regain consciousness. When your sight unblurs, arm on the forehead to block out the brightness and pain, you see two red circles staring down at you.

"...Hi sweetie."

Hank almost jumps in happiness to his partner speaking up, his cold and calloused hands rubbing over your arm and sides, careful not to touch your many injuries.

"Excited, big guy...?" You tiredly say as you wrapped your arm around his and kissed his wrist. Your voice was weak, but you were smiling and alive and that's all that mattered to him at that moment. "Anything...what happened...?"

"You got shot."

Your eyes widen a bit, you didn't notice 2BDamned in the room until he spoke up while analyzing you a little more.

"Well...yeah, I figured. Anything else?"

"Hank over here finally understood how to not use food wrappings as bandages."

You let out a raspy chuckle. Hank definitely didn't care though, he was too focused on making sure you wouldn't faint and die at any moment.

It took a few minutes before Doc left the room. A few minutes of desperately trying to get to you for further examination without Hank giving him a death glare and pulling his partner away, closer to him.

When 2B finally left the room, he suddenly wrapped his arms around you as gently as possible and pulled you in, resting his head in the crook of your neck and relishing in the feeling of your living skin against his.

"Hanky? You alright?"

"No."

You softly hug him back with a sympathetic look on your face. He was breathing heavily, maybe even shaking a little. He hadn't let you go ever since you woke up, in fact his grip only got tighter and tighter, as if you would fade back away the moment he stopped.

"Hey, it's okay. It was just another little shot, nothing new."

You smile and rub his back, completely unaware of the hours spent to heal you back, of how many times you've flatlined during it, of all the empty blood packets sitting in the trash bin, of how they've genuinely considered just letting you die so they can bring you back later, of all the injections, bandages, tissues, spare organs, and most impirtantly, of how fucking scared Hank was.

Could he have been there to hold your hand while you agonised under 2BDamned, god damn he would have. He would have held it tighter and with more love than any gun he's ever handled. Maybe that's why he seemed so angry at Doc. As reasonable as it was, not being able to get any closer than 10 feet from the love of his life while they were nearly dead was torture.

But it was over now. He could hold you close without your blood staining his clothes. You gotta admit, it was quite pleasant to have basically a living ice pack against you when your entire body felt like you were going through a blender.

You two kept quiet for a bit, appreciating the contact with your lover, before he whispered.

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I should've been there."

"You couldn't have known. I should have been more careful if anything."

Hank lifted his head up from your neck before grabbing your cheeks and digging his eyes into yours.

"Don't say that. You got me?"

Your smile widened a bit.

"Sure."

His head fell back onto you after that. How adorable was it to see a ruthless genocidal maniac cuddling up to you like a cat.

--------------------------------------------------

"..."

"Did you save the intel?"

"Fuck if I know. Ask Doc."

"Later. I prefer cuddles right now."

I got lazy with the end sorry

[wordbunch]

You’re in the Fellowship and the Hobbits have a crush on you...

a/n: lol there’s no explanation for this, just a cutesy idea that came to me. yes I know I’m still not finished with my Legolas story 😅 no warnings here, just fluff and chaos 💛 (the reader here is human/elf/dwarf/anything but a hobbit for extra fascination 😆) lemme know how you liked it! 😘

+ tagging @starlady66 as requested

For starters let's just (re)establish one thing: being subtle and lowkey is not something any of them vibe with (except sometimes Frodo)

If you're an Elf, Sam would be infatuated with you beyond words. You would just be talking about something and he'd stare with the biggest heart eyes, and then blush furiously either when one of his friends point it out, or when you make eye contact with him - he'd be so red in the face

Oftentimes he would ask you lots of questions with genuine curiosity, and you would be more than happy to answer, whether it's about historical events, songs and stories, customs of your own race, your travels... Anything, and he wants to know it all

Whenever he cooks for the fellowship, you (after Frodo, of course) get the most delicious piece of whatever he made, you caught on it fairly quickly

Many times the Hobbits will talk about you (only the best, of course), but they would be unaware of how loud they're being, and you would hear so many adorable comments and try not to giggle

"Did you see how [y/n] fought off that orc?!"

Frodo would enjoy engaging with you in meaningful, deep conversations, and you think he's wonderful to talk to, yet the spark in his eyes gives him away. And sometimes he has a little smile on his face, no matter what you talk about, he just enjoys talking to you and having your full attention 🥺

wait hold up, Sam would give you random flowers he found along the way, or he would just show you and teach you about many different plants

Like I said, Frodo would be the most lowkey of all of them, but you picked up easily on his mannerisms and you can now read him like a book

You have a great knowledge of Middle-earth and he often wants to consult with you when trying to make a decision where to go next

You yourself are very protective of the four Hobbits and just have a soft spot for all of them, you like to ruffle their curly hair and sometimes tell them a legend or sing an ancient song as they go to sleep

They all love to stay close to you when you're walking over long distances, especially Frodo and Pippin

Firstly, they feel safe with you, secondly, they enjoy your company

You try to always reassure them in little ways

You always always always have a snack or a piece of candy in your pocket for any of them 🤫

You practice sword fighting with Frodo a lot, you're very concerned for his safety, of course

Sometimes that would make the other 3 just a tiny bit jealous, and then of course you'd have to do it with everyone

Gandalf had known you for a while and trusts you, therefore, all four Hobbits trust you completely

Merry is super loud and boisterous around you, shamelessly trying to get your attention, and then keep it for as long as possible

He likes to act all brave and tough when you get attacked by orcs, but more times than not you ended up saving him

Merry is definitely the boldest when it comes to openly complimenting you, and he's very dramatic about it also

In comparison to him, Sam can sometimes feel extra shy and inadequate, but you make sure to let him know you appreciate him and what he does and says

He's just as important!!!!

Sam would tell Frodo that he's crushing on you (not like it's hard to tell...) and when Frodo says he's having the same feelings, Sam immediately wants to back out but Frodo is like "you really think [y/n] would end up with either of us?"

Merry and Pippin enjoy telling you stories of their mischievous adventures so much, and they exaggerate stuff so much in order to make themselves seem cooler

You think they're unbelievably fun either way

So, Pippin is canonically the smallest and youngest and you have an EXTRA soft spot for him, and also he's the most painfully obvious about his crush

He's always sooo embarrassed when Gandalf is strict with him because you can also hear the wizard's reprimands of the young Hobbit

He blushes furiously and he gives you a sad baby look and you always reassure him that "accidents can happen to anyone" and "Gandalf can just be grumpy like that, it's not your fault"

More than once he instinctively hid behind you in a dangerous situation

Sometimes for safety he likes to hold the hem of your cloak and fiddle with it as you walk - helps him get his mind off of all the impending dangers

The other 3 Hobbits would relentlessly make fun of him for being so obvious but he doesn't care in the slightest

Many times when you were alone on the night watch, one of the Hobbits just happened to be unable to sleep and would keep you company instead

Once during the night watch Merry was hanging out with you and laughed so loudly at something you said that half of the fellowship woke up and wanted to strangle him

Especially in those late hours Frodo likes to confide in you and even talk about his dreams and visions that you try to interpret together

You teach Sam about the stars and constellations and phases of the moon

Almost every time Pippin joins you on the night watch, he ends up falling asleep like hugging you around your legs as you stand alert or something (i diagnose him with BABY)

He very much loves to give you cool rocks that he gathers on the way

If any of the Hobbits has an unpleasant dream that wakes them up, they come to you, you just have the calming protective energy (and candy in your pockets, when you think about that...)

If only one of them had a crush on you, it would be a lot to handle, let alone FOUR

But they're so cute that you just can't dismiss them or ignore them ever

And maybe all that lovely chaos is a good distraction from everything bad happening around you

[undiscovered-horizon]

Agnus Dei - Kaz Brekker x Grisha!Reader

[vulgar language, unresolved grief]

SUMMARY: When one of his Crows is revealed to be a Grisha on the run from the Black General, Kaz needs to make a decision: their lives or hers?

WORDCOUNT: ~ 3.2k

[PART 2 RIGHT HERE]

>>Grishaverse-inspired playlist&lt;<

Everything is going according to plan: the guards didn’t change their routes, the vault was where it was supposed to be, the lock combination Inej acquired worked, the necklace and documents were inside. And yet, you can’t help but feel that something is off as though you have forgotten a pair of socks when packing for a trip - a detail small and unimportant, while capable of making a substantial difference. Like an itch you can’t quite scratch.

A tremor shakes the manor down to its foundations. Dust and pebbles fall off the ceiling in an ominous cloud. Overhead crystal chandelier rings as the small gems clatter against one another.

Blyat.

There it is. 

“What was that?” Jesper asks an octave higher than he normally would have.

“The dynamite must have compromised the stability of the building,” Kaz says as his eyes trail the cracks forming along one of the walls. “We need to leave.”

“Are you saying-”

“Crushed to death, Jes,” you cut him off.

“Why can’t you ever give me a nice surprise? It’s always death and injury.”

You cross your arms on your chest. “Do I look like Ded Moroz?”

Jesper gives you a childish, playful smile. “I wish you did.”

“Come on,” Inej impatiently rushes the two of you. “You can biker when we’re out.”

Everyone follows Kaz, who weaves and turns through the palace corridors as though he knows them like the back of his hand. Considering how much time he had spent staring at the blueprints, it might well be true.

The tremors only grow in strength and frequency. The low hum of crumbling foundations is interrupted by the heavy, rushed footsteps of the guards. You are yet to run into them but considering they thunder somewhere above your heads, it’s only a matter of time before you look down the barrels of their muskets.

You jump to the side when a boulder falls next to you, a mere inch from crushing you. The muskets have to wait.

It’s hard to walk straight when the ground is shaking so much. Pieces of the ceiling and upper floors have you weaving and running into whatever hasn’t fallen yet.

“We won’t make it out in time!” you yell over the noise of crushing foundations and an avalanche of rubble coming your way.

“We will!” Kaz yells back. You’re unsure who he’s trying to convince more: himself, you or the decaying building. “Just go!”

“The entire ceiling’s coming down!” Another block of stone falls in your vicinity, throwing dust and ground bricks into the air. The flecks claw at your throat as you cough. Your eyes burn. “We need to find cover!”

Brekker stops. He lifts his head to look at the cracked bricks above the four of you. In the cloud of dust and refracted, dim light, you notice his face losing colour. 

“Hide!” he interposes. Jesper and Inej waste no time curling up underneath tables and fallen shelves.

You’re almost under a desk, sheltered from the rubble about to fall on your head but something stops you from seeking safety - sudden confusion at your own actions. The realization creeps up on you, making you surprised that at some point you really have forgotten that you don’t have to hide from overgrown pebbles and crushed chandeliers; at some point, you have truly believed the lie you’ve been telling everyone for so many years.

Time seems to slow down as you stare at the crumbling ceiling. You don’t breathe, your heart doesn’t beat. Just the rubble above you and the ringing in your ears. Something tingles in your fingertips when you absentmindedly rub them together.

Do it.

Your thoughts float towards the three Crows. Sure, they’re criminals but do they deserve to die for that? Should they perish, so you can take your secret to the grave? Casualties of war they didn’t wage?

Do it.

Perhaps this day was always coming.

Jesper pushes his head further between his knees, awaiting the final blow. But it doesn’t come. Hyperventilating and confused more than ever, he opens his eyes. The floor is covered with dust and pieces of bricks. Maybe he’s already suffered brain damage or maybe those pebbles and shards really were floating an inch above the ground.

“What in-” he whispers to himself.

The dust collecting in his lungs throws him into a coughing fit. He manages to get on his knees and stand up holding the desk he’d been sitting under. Jesper’s eyes meet Kaz and Inej, who appear just as confused at the fact that they’re still alive. Even more - not a stone threatened their well-being.

Inej suddenly gasps, vaguely pointing away from the three of them. The men’s gazes follow her hand right to the tip of her finger and that’s when they see it:

You’re standing a few meters away from their hiding spots, hands lifted over your head as though you were lifting something. Boulders and falling furniture hang mid-air, stopped by a mysterious violet flame pushing them away from the floor. With a small hop to the side, you swing your hands, making the rubble fly across the already-ruined hall. The remnants crush against the wall, breaking into smaller pieces before settling on the ground. Not a wrinkle, not even a bead of sweat runs down your skin when you turn around to look at them with guilt and apology painted all over your face.

Jesper is the first to break the silence of flabbergast:

“What was that?”

Inej stares at you with wide eyes, her lips slightly agape. "You're Kosomova.” It’s a statement, not a question. She seems to still be deciding between awe and disbelief. “The Lost Dynasty of Sankt Mikhail."

"What's dormant is not lost, Inej,” you say while awkwardly rubbing your hand. There’s no point in lying anymore. “It's just hidden."

You feel his stare boring into you but you don’t dare meet his eye. Just like this beautiful manor, the foundation of his trust has crumbled. It’s hard to estimate the damage and the prospect of whether it is possible to raise the palace once more. Perhaps he’s silent for now but you know this knot must be untied; a cast-aside viper always slithers back to bite.

The boulders and furniture you threw at the wall have breached it in a rather impressive manner. You can leave and disappear in the crowd before the guards even get to this part of the building. There is something positive to barely escaping death, after all.

"Mikhail?” Jesper repeats, his eyebrows furrowed. Walking through a gaping hole in the wall, he squints his eyes when daylight hits his face. “As in Mikhail the Unbowed? Didn't the Black General issue a bounty on his whole bloodline?"

"And it keeps growing every year or so,” you say indifferently while dusting the flecks of bricks and stone off your dark clothes. “Honestly, I'm kind of flattered he thinks I'm worth seven figures in Kruge."

People of Ketterdam stop by, look at the palace and then at you, only to shrug and carry on with their daily lives. Something about the malice residing in the air of this city makes everyone aloof to the plight of others. Most of the time you think of this tendency as wretched and heartless but today you can’t be grateful enough. Soon, all four of you are part of the uninterested, grey crowd flooding the cobbled streets. 

“But why?" Jesper coaxes, "What did you do?”

“I control gravity, making me a catalyst for any summoner,” you answer quietly in case someone can hear your conversation.

“Make or break the Fold,” Inej interjects.

“Probably, yeah.”

But his curiosity is not satiated just yet: “He already has the Sun Summoner. What does he want with you?”

Suddenly, you stop walking and Jesper almost runs into you. You look at your friend with a morbid seriousness he has never seen from you before.  “A man as ambitious as him will not stop at the Fold. He could turn the whole world into his own empire with me and the Sun Summoner at his service. Mountains will bow before him, oceans will separate so he can pass. No one should have that power.” Your gaze lowers, too ashamed to meet any of the faces staring hard at you. “Make arrangements to flee Ketterdam,” you interpose before taking a few steps backwards. A turn, a rushed step, a rounded corner and suddenly you’re gone as though you were never there.

The stairs creak under someone’s weight. Irregular footsteps grow steadily louder until you hear a soft whine of the hinges as the guest pushes your door open. 

"You're leaving."

Hearing Kaz’s voice makes you stop in your tracks for a second, hands filled with clothes and trinkets hover right above the bag. A sting in your chest, that you wave away; you can’t get hung up on your feelings, not now. Not when they inevitably lead to tears.

"Once the news travels across the Fold, the Black General will be here in no time,” you say without looking at him. With a newfound will to get away as quickly as you can, you continue packing up a lot faster than you did before. “Promise me that you will do everything to survive that. Sell me out, I don't care. Just promise me you will be fine."

"When were you going to tell me, Kosomova?"

Surprised, you drop the utility belt you were about to toss on top of the heap of clothes already in the bag. The hint of angry disappointment, a bitter betrayal, in his voice makes your heart break.

You give him a quick glance, only to pick up the belt and resume packing as though you’re absolutely fine with this strange situation.

"Please, don't call me that, Kaz.” No matter how unbothered you want to seem, he’s a bit too observant not to notice the pleading tone hiding between words.

"It’s your name."

You let out a sigh. Standing up and straightening your back, you finally dare to divert most of your attention to him. Face-to-face, as befits something between companions and colleagues.

"I haven't been Kosomova in over a decade. The life I lead and the people I'm grateful to love, I've done all of this as Zavrazhny. So that is my name.” Your eyes escape his face for a moment when you feel embarrassed at your own naivety. “And I wasn't going to tell you. Ever.” Awkwardly rubbing your arm, you look at him once more. To your own horror, his expression doesn’t falter, stuck in this indifferent frown he wears most of the time. What is he thinking about? “It was stupid of me to think I could actually escape my ancestry but a girl can dream."

Too ashamed to look at his face any longer, your gaze falls to the floor. Maybe this day was always coming. 

You fasten the bag and throw it over your shoulder. It’s grown heavy since the last time, pulling you down with the weight of both your useless souvenirs and the memories they hold. Some of them you can probably sell for a nice price, earning you a night of rest on something better than a haystack.

When you’re about to walk past Kaz and out of your room, surely to disappear from Ketterdam and resurface on the other side of the world with a new name and backstory, he suddenly lifts his cane in front of you. Frustrated, you look at the symbolic blockade and only then at him.

Turning his head to the side to look at you, his gaze appears even angrier than before. "You are not going anywhere,” Kaz nearly grits through his teeth.

Why won’t he just let you go?

Your voice is equally low when you answer him. "This isn't the bloody time to play broody and bossy, Kaz. I'm endangering the entirety of Ketterdam with my presence, I'm-...” you stop yourself from finishing the sentence, wondering if you really want to float along this wave of honesty. He slightly lifts his eyebrows, egging you to continue. Your voice is suddenly very quiet, as though you’re afraid someone else might hear you too. “I'm putting you at risk. And I can't have that."

"Have you any idea how much I have invested in you?" The stress he puts on the word is odd as though there is a hidden meaning behind it - one he can’t quite make himself say outright. You feel your chest tighten at the realization. It’s not a monetary value he’s speaking of. No, it’s something he’s too afraid to name correctly even inside his own head. "You're staying here, even if I have to make you."

You shake your head. "I don't want everyone sticking out their necks for me. It's not worth dying for. I'm not worth dying for. Save yourself, Kaz. This is not your fight."

"If it’s you the Black General is after, it is my fight."

His intense gaze makes you break out a flustered smile. "You have a very strange way of saying you care about me, you know?"

Reprieving your decision to flee, you toss the bag back on your bed. Kaz follows your movements with a questioning look on his face as you drop onto the chair by your working table. He thinks the scattered papers on your desk and notes pinned to the wall are very befitting - mind working faster than a steam train, albeit slightly chaotic.

For a moment you’re not saying anything. Slouched and with a vacant look in your eyes, your whole persona just screams defeat. None of the three Crows has seen you like this before, making you realize that this unusual demeanour is going to change a lot on its own. Once shown vulnerability can never be taken back, for the better or worse.

"I’ve never told you how I got here in the first place, have I?" you ask. Kaz catches your gaze once more, only to realise something about it has changed. The fire that once resided inside you is nowhere to be found, its place taken by something chilling and haunting. "Around a decade ago, the Black General caught wind of my family. We knew he was coming. One day, my mother packed all of my belongings and told me to leave. I won't ever forget that look on her face - the anger, the shame, the guilt…” Unknowingly, you raise your eyebrows and shake your head slightly. As grief’s fangs gnaw at you, her face appears before your eyes like a mirage; someone’s reflection on the surface of disturbed waters. “She grabbed my shoulders and said 'Forget your pedigree. You have to go out there, see the world, live how you want and be who you want. This family has suffered enough.' So I did. I didn't hear from her ever again. When I was boarding a ship from Novokribirsk to Ketterdam, I overheard the sailors talking about a slaughtered village in the woods. And I knew…” You take in a ragged breath, feeling emotions flooding your head. Even after a decade, this wound hurts just the same. “I knew I couldn't go back. There was nothing to go back to, so I moved forward. It was the only direction left."

It’s too late. You can’t stop it. Tears sting your eyes and you look away from Kaz, grasping at the serious and professional demeanour you’re so desperate to keep. Alas, it has escaped your shaky hands.

A sob violently shakes your body. You have to cover your mouth with your hand to stop the sounds of agony from reaching his ears.

“She died alone, Kaz,” you whisper in a weak voice. Anguish clenches your throat, making you unable to breathe for a moment. Tears stream down your face, salty taste on your tongue. “Rotting in the middle of the woods because there was no one to bury her. Abandoned.”

“If you were there, you would have died, too.” His tone is strangely gentle but you don’t notice it at the moment.

He grips his cane tighter when you look at him with red, glossy eyes. “You can’t know that.”

“Then the Black General would kill your mother just to get to you.”

“Maybe he’d spare her if I agreed to go with him. Or I would have killed him.” You take in a deep although ragged breath, trying to calm yourself down. Kaz wishes he could do something. With the sleeve of your coat, you wipe your face. “She died because I ran, didn’t she? So, maybe if I stay… Maybe I have a chance at redemption.”

“Her death wasn’t your fault.”

Your eyes snap back to his face. They’re still red but not sad anymore. No, something strange clouds them, something Kaz sees only when he looks in the mirror. “But yours will be if I don’t get my shit together. I can’t just keep running. It’s not who I want to be.”

“If you kill General Kirigan you will be running for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll be doing it anyway. Might as well earn the right to the name Kosomova.”

Suddenly, you rummage through the plethora of pockets you have in your layers of clothing. Something gold glints between your fingers but it’s so quick he can’t even begin to guess what you’re holding in your palm when you offer it to him.

“Kaz, I want you to have something. Just in case anything happens to me.”

You open your hand to reveal an antique pocket watch. It looks worn out, a thin layer of verdigris discolouring the keepsake. Golden coating lost its shine and the decorative engravings are nearly completely smoothed out as though someone had been rubbing its surface. For good luck, perhaps. Although barely visible, three cursive letters on the front are still legible: K. M. V. 

Kosomov Mikhail Victorovich

Kaz takes the pocket watch, for a moment examining your face in detail. Do you not expect to survive the Black General? Or perhaps this is a token of your trust if not affection? 

He gently presses the button on top of the watch and the lid pops open. On the right side is the face of a clock but the hands aren’t moving. Judging by the engraving on the front, the watch has to be several centuries old, making it impossible to say when exactly the mechanism has given out. His gaze follows to the other side of the keepsake, where a message was crudely carved out with something sharp: Я ранен был, но не упал.

“I was wounded but didn’t fall,” you quote. “It’s a family motto.”

Kaz closes the watch with a loud clasp. His gaze returns to you and for a moment you think there’s a shadow of dread dancing across his irises. Then his face turns nearly into a scowl. What fine smithing it really is, to reforge affection into anger.

“Make sure you stick to it,” he orders while stuffing the keepsake in his pocket. “We need a plan.”

“How much time do you think we have?”

“A week at most.”

A half-smile crooks your lips. “Then let’s make it count.”

______

Yes, there will be part 2.

[extasiswings]

the more it heals, the worse it hurts

I’m not sorry, but I might be a little sorry.  Have some post-6x10 Eddie and Bobby in the hospital.

Bobby knows he should call Athena.  He’s dead on his feet, old ghosts circling around him and grief bearing down on his shoulders with the weight of the world.  He needs his wife.  It’s just that kind of night.    

He lasted longer than he expected though.  He’s kept the ghosts, the grief, the blood of long-scarred over wounds ripped open afresh at bay for hours, finding ways to keep busy.  Doing his job.  Calling the station to arrange coverage.  Speaking with doctors to explain what happened.  Taking care of his people—when Chim brought Maddie in, Bobby was the one to pass along the updates he’d been given from the medical staff.  When Hen needed to call Karen, Bobby found her a phone.  And Eddie—

Well.

Honestly, Bobby isn’t sure he’s done much for Eddie at all.  Not since that initial moment, pulling Eddie away, barking orders to drive the ambulance.  If he’s really honest with himself, he’s been avoiding the other man since they arrived at the hospital.  Because there is something in Eddie right now, a brittle fragility, that Bobby has seen before, that he feels himself in a different way, and he doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to be what Eddie needs.  He doesn’t know if he can help without breaking himself.  At least, not without setting up a safety net first.  

He calls Athena.  

He closes his eyes.

He breathes.

He prays.

And then, he pushes himself off the wall of the stairwell he had ducked into and resolves to be Atlas for a little while longer.

He can take it.

Bobby finds Eddie at the furthest edge of the waiting room, a corner that’s a little more empty, a little more private.  He’s quite far from the Buckleys, Bobby notes absently.  

Eddie doesn’t react when Bobby settles into the chair next to him.  His gaze is fixed on the wall, but also distant, like he’s somewhere else completely, seeing something else completely.  Silence stretches between them for so long that at first Bobby almost wonders if he’s misjudged the situation, if Eddie really doesn’t want to talk after all.  But Bobby waits—patient, steady, calling on all the wealth of experience his life has brought him to keep himself composed.  And finally, Eddie cracks.

“He didn’t get to say goodbye,” Eddie says.  He doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t look at Bobby at all, but it’s something.

“What?”

Eddie’s throat works as he swallows.  His hand comes up to wipe at his mouth roughly like he’s clearing away some invisible stain.

“Christopher,” he clarifies.  “When Shannon—I was in the ambulance, I got to say goodbye, but she was gone as soon as we got to the hospital and there was nothing—”  He shakes his head, his eyes growing even more distant.  “I just had to go home and tell him she was gone.  And I’ve always felt like that was unfair, but at the same time part of me is grateful that he didn’t have to see her like that, that his last memory of her doesn’t involve a tube in her throat.”

Bobby opens his mouth, then closes it.  Waits a moment more.  Because he can see the cracks in the man in front of him, see the fraying, fraying threads, and while he’s willing to pick up the pieces, he doesn’t want to be the reason Eddie shatters.  So he waits, and lets Eddie wind his way to whatever he needs to get out.

“But…he didn’t get to say goodbye,” Eddie repeats, his voice cracking.  He squeezes his eyes shut.

Bobby’s chest aches when he draws in his next breath.  The weight on his shoulders tips precariously, threatening to crush him.  But he resets, rebalances.  

He does what he has to do.  

When he sets a hand to Eddie’s shoulder, Eddie flinches but ultimately leans into it.  After a moment, he lifts his head and finally meets Bobby’s eyes.  The look in them steals the air from Bobby’s lungs—it’s raw, agonized, wild…and familiar.  Bobby’s seen that look before, in his own eyes.  In his mirror.  For years after he lost his first wife and his children, he saw it reflected back at him every morning.  And now he’s seeing it in Eddie’s, far deeper and sharper than the last time they had been in this situation, because this time Eddie’s allowing himself to really feel everything.

For better or worse.

“I don’t know how to go home,” Eddie confesses.  “Because when I get there, I have to wake him up and tell him and bring him here.  And I can’t do that—I can’t put him through that.  But I also can’t not do it either, because if Buck—”  Another crack.  Another pause.  Another swallow.

Bobby squeezes Eddie’s shoulder.  And his heart bleeds.  

“He didn’t get to say goodbye last time.”  A whisper.  And yet somehow also a plea.  To God?  The universe?  “He deserves the chance to do that.  He deserves the option.”

“Yes, he does,” Bobby replies quietly.

“It’s not fair,” Eddie snaps, his hands coming up to rake through his hair in frustration.  “He finally moved on, he built something new, he got attached to someone else, and now—it’s not fair.”

And there it is.  The flare in Eddie’s eyes, the hitch of his voice that tells Bobby everything Eddie is trying not to say outright, provides final confirmation of the truth of all the stray thoughts Bobby has had over the years, questions that he’s kept locked away and elected not to fixate on because they weren’t his business.

Because before, they really were talking about Christopher.  But Bobby knows better than to think that’s still all they’re doing now.  

“I don’t know how to do this,” Eddie admits, and Bobby knows he’s referring to more than just going home.  “I don’t know how to do this if he doesn’t wake up.”  

And that right there is why Bobby had been avoiding this.  Because he’s not sure he knows either.  

He’s not prepared to lose another son.  

At the end of the hall, the entrance doors open.  Athena walks through.  And suddenly, the weight on Bobby’s shoulders eases.  

“You don’t have to have the answers yet,” he replies, pushing himself up from the chair.  “You just have to start somewhere.  And you don’t have to do any of it alone.”

“Come on,” he adds with his hand still firmly fixed around Eddie’s shoulder.  He nods in Athena’s direction.  “We’ll take you home.  And bring you back if you want.”

And with a heavy sigh and one last pause, Eddie allows Bobby to help him to his feet.  

This, he can do.  The rest…they can work all of that out later.      

[tossawary]

Everything surrounding Orihime's kidnapping in the Hueco Mundo arc of "Bleach" feels... weird and underwhelming to me. Like, I'm not fully certain what happened there. Did Ulquiorra hold those two random soul reaper escorts hostage until Orihime returned from saying her invisible goodbye, or was he just threatening her friends generally...?

The invisible goodbye thing has some interesting elements, but... I don't want to call Orihime a pushover for being threatened by genuinely scary people when she's feeling especially isolated, but it does seem to immediately and directly prove Urahara and others right when they said that Orihime is probably unsuited for the battlefield. Even medical / support people have to triage and improvise under fire and work within a greater structure! She (fairly!) does not like weighing lives!

(Though I do think that Urahara and others were very wrong to just tell Orihime to go away. She has no family! All she has left are her friends! And she's too self-sacrificing to ever willingly leave for her own sake! It would have been far better to keep her close and let her train for a medical / support position, so that she wouldn't get kidnapped like this (and would have had the confidence to work out some way to get around Aizen's weird mind games), when Ichigo is fucking notorious now for going apeshit if anything happens to even distant friends.)

When Ulquiorra first appeared in that space between worlds for an ambush, I was like, "OH SHIT, THAT'S COOL." This place is famously dangerous and if she and her escort disappear without a trace here, no one will know what happened. Perhaps Ulquiorra can destabilize whatever safety technology exists here and make it look like some mechanical failure. It's clever! (It also made me imagine Ulquiorra as some kind of deep sea leviathan, cleverly feeding on the plus souls and hollows passing over this trench, where the soul reapers don't think to look. Ulquiorra potentially first meeting Aizen by attempting to ambush him and swallow him whole in this inbetween place would be a great first encounter.)

And then Ulquiorra lets Orihime go to say a weird invisible goodbye? As part of Aizen's mind games to make the Gotei 13 think she left on her own and her feel like this kidnapping was partially her own choice? Unless Ulquiorra was holding those soul reapers hostage at this point in time, I'm really not sure why Orihime went along with this instead of trying to get help (besides her obvious feelings of isolation / depression + plot requires she be the damsel in distress to kick-start the Hueco Mundo arc). (There's REASONING, I'm just not fully persuaded by it.) It feels a little overcomplicated for me on Aizen's end, especially when I haven't yet seen it be paired with any other charisma or compelling persuasion from Aizen, this supposed master manipulator, when Orihime has plenty of buttons to press besides fear.

"Soul Society is broken and doesn't care for the poor people on the outside." "The Gotei 13 are corrupt and will ungratefully turn on people like Ichigo and Rukia as soon as they're no longer useful." "Hollows are people too, aren't they? And the soul reapers don't bother trying to help the people who need them most." "The Soul King is a threat to us all and I'm the only one who can stop him." There are so many lies and half-truths that Aizen could tell! This could be a point in time to showcase how he got so many people to follow him besides spiritual strength, and him being apparently nice to a vulnerable Orihime would be genuinely eerie given what we saw / know happened to Momo.

And this "making the Gotei 13 think that Orihime left of her own choice" story decision could work if Aizen had done more to frame her! But the fact that the Captain Commander immediately makes this assumption with so little evidence makes him look incompetent, when there are so many people who could immediately vouch for her and for the fact that it's way more likely she's been forced into something bad. Of course, maybe the story's point is to make the Captain Commander look bad at reading situations! Rather than simply ruthless for dismissing Orihime as lost and irrelevant. That gets a slight pass, I guess, but it's really such a wild and insulting and unnecessary assumption.

I think what I would have preferred to happen is OPTION 1) Aizen or underling kidnaps Tatsuki first and uses Tatsuki to get to Orihime.

This would bring Tatsuki fully into this arc instead of sidelining her again. It would be a nice culmination to the secrecy straining her friendships with both Ichigo and Orihime, and a nice bop to Ichigo's nose for trying to protect everyone on his own and his utter failure communicating danger to his friends and family. We could have a lot of fun stuff with Orihime and Tatsuki trying to survive together in this place. It would give Orihime some fucking motivation that isn't just "trying to help Ichigo". It would allow Orihime to find her strength by protecting the friend she has always viewed as being tougher and more confident. I need more women in this show who aren't made of relentless boob jokes.

OPTION 2) I would have preferred it if Aizen had found some way to locate Orihime's brother, Sora, and kidnapped him from Soul Society to use against her.

Aizen is supposedly a genius. It would track with the rest of the story if he could invent this technology. It would make the Gotei 13 look really bad if they have a way of helping families reconnect in the afterlife and just don't bother; and it would look really bad for them if Soul Society had utterly failed to be a safe place for Orihime's loved one. If Aizen is interested in Orihime's powers, he would probably be interested in seeing if her brother has any similar potential.

Option 2a is that Sora could be a regular plus soul and remembers Orihime. Aizen could have been experimenting on him and could be threatening to continue experimenting on Sora. Maybe being a regular plus soul in Hueco Mundo without the protection of a soul reaper's cultivation energy is dangerous. The air is toxic to him. He'll undergo hollowficafion again without special medicine from Aizen / Aizen's experiments keeping him as a normal plus soul, and he's terrified of becoming that monster again. Aizen coaxes Orihime to help him by claiming he's trying to find a way to cure hollowfication forever, so that Sora will be safe.

Option 2b is that Sora has no memories of Orihime or they've been suppressed, and Aizen has turned Sora into an Arrancar. Aizen claims that Sora was left vulnerable and starving on the outskirts of the Soul Society, abandoned to become a hollow again, or attacked by a hollow and transformed. Aizen has now used the Hogyoku to take Sora back to a mostly human state and given him Arrancar powers to "protect himself". Sora is grateful to Aizen for having saved him and as loyal as Ulquiorra. Aizen asks Orihime if she's prepared to fight her own brother. Doesn't she want to help him help Sora?

Honestly, I dig Ulquiorra so far and I'd like to keep him (he and Sora could have a weird not-twins thing going on), but you could totally replace his role in the story with Arrancar Sora and then put Orihime through the ringer torn between Ichigo and Sora. It feels so, SO weird to me that Orihime's dead brother never comes up again in this show about dead people and the story barely treats it as relevant.

OPTION 3) is that you bring both Tatsuki and Sora into it! Why not? Have amnesiac Arrancar Sora kidnap Tatsuki while Ulquiorra ambushes Orihime! Have Aizen threatening to turn both Tatsuki and plus soul Sora into hollows if Orihime doesn't cooperate!

I am feeling desperate for Orihime to have anything in her life again that is not her love for Ichigo. They don't have chemistry! The story is not taking the time to develop chemistry and bonding and partnership between them! Ichigo barely seems to remember she exists half the time.

Side note: I can barely fucking believe that Ichigo went off to train with the Visored without telling his family that he was leaving or where he would be. That's not a great sign for good mental health or healthy relationships! Which is probably (hopefully) the point! He could be dead in any alleyway for all his baby sisters know. That's not good big brother behavior! Ichigo has a real problem with not trusting anyone else to protect everyone (not without reason!), including not trusting his loved ones to protect themselves, and I'm not certain yet whether or not the story actually thinks this is a real problem and intends to have Ichigo fix his communication bullshit.

There is so much good, bloody material here if the story was genuinely willing to dig into the mess and make it hurt good. Instead, I'm watching Nel and her little hollow buddies do their fairly repetitive hijinks and Ichigo fight random nobodies who will not be meaningful to the story later. When Rukia finally ran into Aaroneiro pretending to be Kaien, I was like, "Oh, thank fuck, something with SOME emotional weight and compelling psychological turmoil again."